Chapter 37

Cora and Theo ran, stumbling toward the entrance.

Ren was a step slower, but her senses had been unnerved since they arrived. It was easy to be drawn in by Cora's instincts, even if she didn't know what had forced their sudden flight. Muted shouts chased them down the front porch steps. She saw that Cora had already snatched their satchel.

"Hey! What's happening?…"

Ren's question was swallowed by the odd pull of time. She saw an outhouse directly ahead. Memories came to her in flickering, colorless glimpses. The stars in the sky above. The little girl—Ren somehow knew that her name was Talia—framed by moonlight. A slender man watching her from the very same porch they'd just run down. An entire roomful of people that she'd never met, staring at her as Cora and Theo slept on their handkerchiefs, frighteningly motionless.

Her senses snapped back to the present as they sprinted around the corner of the building. There were figures in her periphery. She glanced over and saw a small circle of them near one of the cabins, deep in discussion until they finally heard Della's shouts. They were the same people Ren had just seen in that flickering memory. A bolt of magic seared overhead, barely missing.

Cora aimed for the eastern fence. All three of them were sprinting as fast as they could, Ren just a step behind. The field hands were in pursuit. She heard a sharp whistle. In the far corner of the pasture, the hound shot to his feet. He sprinted at an angle to cut off their escape. Whatever friendship had been born in that first meeting was lost now. He let out a menacing growl as he closed in on them.

"Over the fence!"

Cora started pulling herself over. Theo jumped before turning to help Ren. Another spell bent back the fence post on their left. A second later and they were over, vaulting recklessly down an overgrown embankment. Luckily, it ran right into some kind of service path. Cora looked both ways before darting downhill. A sharp pain was digging into Ren's side. She didn't know how long they could outrun their pursuers. Especially on a property they didn't know nearly as well.

The path curled downhill for about three hundred paces. Ren saw hatches built diagonally into the sides of the stone shelf on their left. Far too advanced for a simple farm. It confirmed a truth that had been festering in her mind since they arrived. She knew exactly what kind of place this was. "I'm pretty sure we're… this is a…"

A figure appeared at the bottom of the path. Ren's breathing was ragged as they all pulled up short. It wasn't one of the field hands. Not Holt or Della. The waiting figure was one all of them knew on sight. A dark whisper filled the air, tugging at the edges of Ren's mind. He was too far away for the magic to fully drag them under.

"It's Clyde."

Voices trailed them. The field hands would arrive at any moment. On their right, the drop was about seventy vertical paces. They could try to jump. Let the upper branches of trees break their fall? As they hesitated, the distant revenant raised both hands. A wave of shadows came roiling up the hillside toward them. This was new magic. Something else entirely. Cora seized Ren by the scarf.

"Come on! This way!"

She'd thrown open the nearest hatch. Great gusts of colored smoke were starting to pour out in waves. Ren's eyes widened. "Cora. I'm pretty sure that's—"

"I know what it is. Move. Now."

They ducked inside the dimly lit chamber before Clyde's magic could reach them. Wisps of colored smoke pooled and eddied in tight curls. There were masks and gloves hanging on the nearest wall. Theo slammed the door shut behind them. She saw him performing a spell that she hoped would actually buy them time. There was no way of gauging how proficient Della's crew was in magic.

Cora wasn't waiting to find out. She snatched the masks from the wall and shoved one into each of their chests. "Tighten the straps. Completely cover your mouth and nose. Cover as much of your skin as you can too. Ren, use your scarf to cover your hair."

"Can someone tell me what the hell is going on?" Theo asked. "What is this place?"

"We're about to run through the burial chamber of a dead dragon," Cora explained calmly. "We're on a drug farm. These are breath harvesters. I should have known. I was distracted by everything. There aren't nearly enough cows in that pasture. Not enough crops to sustain themselves way out here. None if it adds up for a real farm. It's my fault. I should have spotted those inconsistencies sooner. I wanted to believe we'd finally had some good luck."

Ren shook herself. Those other memories were edging in from the corners of her mind. None of what she was seeing in her mind made any sense. How could she be here and there?

"They drugged us at the dinner table," Cora announced. "The first time. We sat down to eat dinner with them, and they drugged all three of us. When we woke up, they came for Ren and tortured her to get answers. Della thought we'd been sent here to spy on their operations by someone. It was pretty clear that they were going to kill all three of us, so I used a devorium and reset everything by an hour. This is our only chance to escape. If we don't keep moving, we're as good as dead. Do you understand?"

There were raised voices outside. Ren's mind spun as it tried to set those revelations in their rightful places. The idea that Cora had a devorium was unthinkable. Where would she even get one? But something slammed into the hatch, and her mind shut out those smaller concerns. She hoped the two parties hunting them would slow each other down. She had no idea what would happen if Clyde actually attacked a group of that size. All she knew was they needed to move. Now.

Cora crossed over to the inner door and briefed them.

"This chamber is one of the most toxic places you will ever set foot. Do not expose yourself for any reason. Keep moving. Do not touch the dragon's corpse. No matter what it tells you. Try your best to not even look directly at it. There should be an exhaust pipe somewhere on the opposite end of the chamber. That's where we're heading. Ready?"

"Should we cast wards first?" Theo asked.

Cora and Ren both shook their heads. She was starting to think boys didn't read their textbooks. "Dragons—even dead dragons—feast on magic. It'd be like covering yourself in honey."

Ren knew hospitals and mortuaries ran a yearly census regarding cause of death. Dragons still ranked in the top ten causes every year, even though they'd been extinct for decades. Whatever was waiting in that chamber would be very dangerous to them. A loud thud sounded outside. Something powerful slammed against the locked hatch again and again. They could see the frame starting to bend inward. Ren nodded to them. They had no choice.

"Cora. Lead the way."

The other girl took confidence from that. Ren watched as she unbolted the antechamber door and led them inside. At first there was nothing but smoke. And in the smoke, whispers. Ren heard a distant voice. A lovely baritone broken by scattershot laughter. It was like walking through the dark passages of another entity's mind. She kept tight to Cora. Theo was right on her heels. It was difficult to breathe while wearing the thickly woven mask. All three of them moved in lockstep until their tunnel reached the main chamber.

A prickling sensation ran down her spine. No amount of research could have prepared Ren for what she saw. The dragon was nearly the same size as the barn outside. A putrid green light backlit its empty eye sockets and broken jawline. That arcane fire was the source of all the fumes. The creature's diamond-shaped head lay slack on the stones. A half-rotted neck ran in a sinuous line back to the larger body. Ren saw it was missing a wing, most of its ribs. All the claws had been removed. Likely they'd cut them off and sold them for a great deal of money.

The dragon was well below them, nestled in the heart of a large stone pit. Scaffolds were set up in different locations, half leaning against the dragon's flanks to allow workers a method for climbing up and around the creature. Bright slits glowed wherever they'd cut openings, allowing more of those precious fumes to fill the cavernous space. Installed funnels along the ceiling drew everything into separate chambers overhead. Ren knew that was where they filtered the substance for consumption. Everything in the room felt like violation, like dying.

"Keep moving," Cora said. "Stop looking at it."

Ren realized she and Theo were still on the top platform. Cora was halfway down the ladders but had turned back. Her voice brought Ren back to herself. She followed quickly, pausing only when the makeshift ramps wobbled beneath her feet. The closer they got to the corpse, the more incessant the whispers became. Ren had thought them unintelligible. Dragons spoke a different dialect than humans, according to all that she'd read. But when she glanced back toward the sprawled corpse, a presence broke through the barriers around her mind.

I can help you. Give you all. You want the boy? You want the Broods? I can bend them to your will. Look.

Theo let out a clipped shout. Ren turned to see that he was on his knees, chest heaving. He'd been made to bow by the creature's magic. She saw him gritting his teeth in obvious pain.

See? Doesn't it taste delicious? His obeisance? I could allow you to drink from this cup every day, every night. All that he claims would be yours. Come to me, little one. Set a hand on my scales. Taste the power of—

Cora slapped her across the face. Ren cried out as the whispers faded.

"Keep. Moving. Don't. Look."

Theo was back on his feet. The two of them struggled forward, following Cora beneath the outstretched wing. The whispers were back, but unintelligible once again. It felt like it took them an hour to walk around the whole corpse. Ren knew that was impossible. It wasn't that large. But there was something strange and fractious and temporary about this place. She couldn't have felt any more relieved when they put that glowing corpse behind them.

"This way," Cora whispered.

As she'd predicted, there was a narrow pipe at the back of the chamber. It was barely big enough for them to crawl through. Ren had no idea how Cora had known it would be there, but she supposed farms and medicine and bodies were her expertise.

"Great work, Cora."

"Don't celebrate yet," she replied. "The drop is likely to be severe."

All three of them crawled forward on hands and knees. Ren did her best to avoid touching the puddled condensation that had gathered at the bottom of the pipe. It didn't behave like any normal liquid she'd ever seen. The less contact she could make, the better. She had no doubt that it was as toxic as the air around them.

The whispers finally faded as they rounded a final corner. The mouth of the pipe widened. There was a natural landing of stone, eight paces or so, then a drop.

"I told you," Cora said, walking forward. She glanced over the edge. "Oh. Not too bad, actually. It's just a short jump."

Forest awaited them. The distant branches were bent, so that Cora looked like she was standing beneath the arch of some great cathedral. Cora and Theo descended first, turning back long enough to help Ren down. There were about fifty paces between them and the cover of the forest. They started across, keeping as low as they could, when Ren saw two figures emerge from the trees directly ahead of them, their crossbows already raised.

One was her torturer from the dead memories. The other was the thin man from the porch. Lev, she remembered. Both of them took aim at different targets. Theo and Cora were a few steps ahead of her. Neither one had slowed. Neither one had noticed that the hunters were in front of them, not behind. Ren had less than a breath to decide who she'd save.

Magic thundered from her fingertips.