The Dark Remains - Mark Anthony [250]
Durge cleared his throat. “Then let us all work to envision the Etherion and be sure we are not distracted with idle thoughts of our childhood homes or some such fancy. I would rather our bodies not be divided between multiple locations.”
“How do I make it work?” Travis said. The spider-shaped scarab moved gently back and forth on his palm.
“Hold it over the artifact and squeeze it,” Sareth said. “But gently. Let only a single drop flow forth.”
“Will one be enough?” Lirith said.
Sareth met her eyes. “A sea of Scirathi blood would not equal one drop from the veins of the god-king Orú. Even the blood of the fairy would be like water compared to it.”
Travis drew in a breath. “You know, this is something I really never imagined having to do in my life.”
“Now, Travis.”
He squeezed the scarab, firmly but not roughly. Dark red fluid welled forth, forming a single glistening drop. For a moment the drop hung there, suspended, then Travis tapped the scarab, and the drop fell into the stone vessel below. Gently, he slipped the scarab into his pocket.
“You stay there,” he said to the living jewel.
Sareth gazed at each of them in turn. “Ready?”
They nodded. The Mournish man lifted the triangular prism and set it atop the artifact. Instantly the gate sprang into being, blue fire mingling with gold around its edges.
“Remember,” Durge rumbled, “the Etherion.”
“The Etherion,” the others repeated.
Together they stepped through the gate.
82.
Grace stood in her nightgown at the foot of the stairs, thirteen again.
All around her the orphanage was quiet. Too quiet. There was no trace of Mrs. Broud, the donkey-faced warder of the second floor, and Lisbeth Carter must have been stifling her sobs with a pillow because Grace could no longer hear them behind her. Even the owls had fallen silent.
But a few minutes ago Grace had heard something. She had listened to Mrs. Fulch’s grunts and groans drifting down into the girls’ dormitory as the red-faced cook made her way back from the bathroom. Then had come a crash, followed by a dragging sound. Something had happened up there. But what?
You’ve got to find out, Grace. That’s why you’re here again. It has to be.
Grace gazed up the dark shaft of the staircase to the third floor and shivered; she had long ago outgrown the thin nightgown, and her bony legs stuck out from it like white sticks. The night pressed against her. Only it wasn’t just darkness that filled the hallway.
It’s the shadow, Grace. Your shadow—the blot attached to your life thread. This is it, this is its very heart. It’s inside you. And you’re inside it.
She wanted to turn, to dash down that stairs, to run outside beneath the cold mountain stars. Instead, gripping the banister, she placed her foot on the first step.
Silver light burst into being, pouring down the staircase like livid mist. Now she could hear it, vibrating on the air and in the wood beneath her feet. A heat rose within her.
No, it’s too soon for the flames. That was after you came down, after you saw something upstairs. You’ve got to go up there, you’ve got to remember.…
The heat receded. Her hand slid up the smooth wood of the banister, and her feet ascended another step, and another. The silver light coiled around her bare ankles, its touch cool.
Her eyes drew level with the floor above, and the light grew brighter. She hesitated, but there was no alarm, no sound of Mrs. Broud’s braying at catching her in the act of violating the Rules. Grace drew in a breath, then in five quick steps vaulted the rest of the way up the stairs.
She stood at one end of a long corridor that ran the length of the orphanage’s third floor. Pale light flowed without a whisper over the worn floorboards. It poured from beneath a door at the far end of the hallway.
That was where she had to go.
The humming was louder; her jaw ached with it. Her bare feet making no noise, she moved past shut doors, toward the one with the white-hot line beneath. When she was halfway