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  She heard Liannan’s voice in her head so clearly, it was as if the sylph were right in front of her. Nat, hurry! Hurry! Nat! The priests and soldiers had abandoned their posts, and tourists ran in all directions while the marked victims, unshackled and unrestrained, trained their power on their former captors, helping the fire grow, letting it burn.

  “They must have kept the sylphs in a special place,” Roark said, “since none of them were in the maze with us.”

  “Good idea,” Brendon said, huffing next to him.

  “Shakes! We need to go this way,” Roark said, motioning to stairs that led away from the prison cells. “These pens open up to the maze, and there were no sylphs on the killing floor.”

  Shakes nodded, his face pale and anxious. The fire was contained in the lower levels for now, but was beginning to lick at the walls and the stairway. “We need to hurry!”

  Roark had guessed correctly. The four of them arrived on the next landing, finding another hallway full of cells. When Nat used her power and forced the doors open, sylphs began to walk out of their prisons. Some were blind; others were fingerless, some limped. They were all bald, their beautiful hair shorn to the scalp, and Nat remembered the silver extensions the priests wore in their hair.

  Shakes gagged. “Motherfreeze it,” he whispered.

  “Liannan of the White Mountain?” Brendon asked. “Do you know where Liannan is?”

  One sylph shook her head, rubbing an eye that was no longer there, another scratched at the place where an ear had been cut from her head. When no one recognized Liannan’s name, Nat felt her heart drop. Then she heard it again.

  Liannan’s melodious voice. Clear as glass.

  Nat, come to me.

  Nat.

  Her friends made their way through the mob of sylphs, looking for Liannan, but Nat turned the other way.

  She heard her friends scream Liannan’s name. She heard them barge through a cell door, heard Shakes’s sob. She heard Liannan cry, “Vincent!” Liannan always called Shakes by his real name; she was the only one who did.

  No.

  That was wrong. She heard none of this.

  Liannan was still calling her. Drawing her to the other hallway, the one at the far side of the temple.

  “Nat, where are you going? Nat!” Shakes yelled from the other side of the room. “She’s in here! We found her! Nat!”

  But Shakes was wrong.

  Liannan was not in that cell; she was down this hallway.

  Nat didn’t look back. She knew where she was going, where she would find her friend.

  She opened the door and walked underneath the archway.

  SACRIFICE IS FREEDOM.

  Chapter 35

  “KEEP CHECKING!” WES SCREAMED AT Farouk, unable to accept that there was no record of Eliza anywhere in the system, anywhere in the marked program.

  It couldn’t be. Eliza Wesson was an RSA prisoner. She had been stolen from her family as a child, taken in a fire. That was what he had believed, that was what he wanted to believe, even if he knew the truth. As he had told Nat that night on the slave ship, the truth was, he had no idea what had happened to Eliza.

  Eliza could be scary sometimes.

  She wasn’t very nice.

  Eliza was a weaver. She made you believe things that weren’t true.

  Nine years had passed since he’d seen his sister. The girl he’d known then was a child, angry, confused, and often mischievous. He had made his share of mistakes, done stupid things, but Eliza had always been different. Even at seven, there was something wrong with her.

  For nine years he’d tried to forget that side of her. He wanted to remember the sister with awkward smiles who wore bright colors. Those memories were hazy—perhaps he had idealized Eliza. His only souvenir of their childhood was a photo, a picture of a little girl in a puffy snowsuit standing next to a snowman. He was in the picture, too, his chubby arm slung around his sister’s shoulders. She was happy, smiling.

  That was the sister he had come to save, his last remaining family in the world. His mother would never forgive him if he gave up on her. It was the reason he had left Nat at the Blue several months ago, the reason he had brought his entire team to follow him into danger and ruin.

  Because he had to find out what happened to her. They were twins, but Eliza had always been his little sister.

  “I’m telling you, boss, she’s not here,” said Farouk. “I’m sorry.”

  Wes banged his fist on the desk, making a huge dent in the middle. “LOOK AGAIN!” he roared. When he saw the fear in Farouk’s face, he apologized. “I’m sorry—but she has to be here. The system is wrong.”

  Wes shook his head. His hands were shaking, and his eyes were watering. His head hurt. He didn’t know what to do.

  There was a scream from across the hallway. Wes exchanged a glance with Farouk and they bolted out of the room.

  Shakes emerged from one of the cells, carrying Liannan in his arms. She was weak and pale, and her golden hair was knotted and tangled. The six-pointed star on her cheek was throbbing.

  Wes felt a flash of joy to find her alive, but Shakes—that scruffy beanpole of a boy with a crooked beard, who should have had a smile on his face as wide as the ocean—was visibly distraught when he saw Wes.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, even though he knew that everything was about to fall apart.

  That Shakes was about to confirm the dark, awful suspicion he had shoved to the back of his mind.

  “Wes,” Liannan said, her voice a whisper. She was the one who had screamed, he realized, and she hadn’t screamed in fear but, like him, had let out a roar of frustration. “Wes . . . you have to help Nat.”

  “Nat. Nat . . . what do you mean . . . why? What’s happened?” he asked, his heart thundering with fear.

  “Nat’s in danger—”

  “Where is she?” Wes asked, crazed. “What are you talking about?”

  “Wes, listen—she used me to call her here. I tried to deflect it, I sent the call somewhere else, I sent Nat to you, to find Roark and Brendon, hoping it would delay her while I tried to fight her. But it was no use. She’s so strong. She bled me, used my blood to mask the iron in a magic bomb that brought down Nat’s drakon. Because it’s Nat she wants. It’s Nat she’s wanted all along.”

  “Who wants her? What are you talking about?” asked Wes, even if he already knew exactly what Liannan would say before she said it.

  “Lady Algeana Penthos, High Priestess of the White. She’s your sister, Eliza Wesson.”

  Part the Fourth:

  CHILD OF VALLONIS

  The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.

  —JOSEPH CAMPBELL

  Chapter 36

  FOR A MOMENT NAT WONDERED WHY SHE was walking alone in an empty hallway. She had been following Shakes, Roark, and Brendon, and in her distant memory, she recalled them calling her name. Telling her to turn around, that she was making a mistake. But she did not hear them, or if she did, their words did not make sense.

  All around her, the temple was burning, the fire from the killing floor making its way upward, consuming everything in its path. She climbed up one set of stairs, then another. She heard the screams and the terror, but underneath the screams she heard something else.

  A voice calling for her.

  Liannan’s voice.

  Like a key fitting into a lock and opening something inside her, drawing her to this place. She forgot about her friends, she forgot everything. There was only this place, and the voice, and the call she must answer. Nat realized she had been here before. She had been in this place, had walked through its white marbled walls.

  She followed the voice to the top of the mountain.

  She found the door with the golden lettering and opened it.

  Faix stood in the room, his
mouth open in a silent scream. But Nat could hear neither his voice nor his thoughts in her head. All she heard was the voice, soothing her, saying her name again and again, blocking her from hearing or understanding anything else.

  “Why, Faix,” she said, “what are you doing here?” Her own voice was sleepy and slow as her mind struggled to make sense of her surroundings.

  Why was she alone?

  Why was Faix looking at her that way? Why didn’t he speak?

  As if she were awakening from sleep, suddenly she saw that something was terribly wrong here. His white armor was dirty and torn, and his nails were black with dirt. His silver eyes were gray and the necklace he wore around his neck was gone. He looked strangely bare without it, almost exposed. Nat shook her head, but the image remained.

  It’s not right. It’s like the broken bridge all over again.

  Faix shouldn’t look like that. This shouldn’t be happening.

  Nat tried to compose herself. “Faix, what happened? Faix?”

  But instead of answering her, Faix fell to the ground, his own long sword bursting through his chest as he was impaled from behind, and his sapphire blood spilling on the floor.

  Nat saw but she could not see, not really.

  Sapphire blood.

  She watched the sword push through her lost friend’s heart as a child watches a storm from the window.

  Bluer than tears, Nat thought. Bluer than the Blue.

  Faix fell to his knees, then pitched forward at her feet. The sapphire stain ran across the stone.

  Faix is dead.

  Faix.

  My Faix.

  She felt as if the air were leaving the room.

  She felt as if her own heart were pushing and pounding out of her chest.

  She felt as if she’d seen this all before.

  Because I have.

  It was then that Nat realized the room she was standing in was the same one she’d seen in her vision all this time. The chains on the wall, the blood pooling on the floor, a white-robed girl in the corner.

  She had seen this. She had thought the girl was Liannan, that Liannan was calling for help.

  But the girl was not Liannan, and Liannan had not been crying for help, not at all, but had been sending her a warning, garbled and suppressed by her captor, who had used her to draw in their prey.

  Nat! Don’t let them fool you! I need you to listen to me! Save yourself!

  The white-robed girl tossed away Faix’s sword and stepped over his body. Like the rest of the priests, she had white powder on her face and hands, and a third eye drawn on her forehead. She had thick brown hair and her eyes were as cerulean blue as the blood that she had spilled. She was beautiful and terrible, and she now wore Faix’s necklace around her pale neck.

  Nat wanted to rip it from her throat as she watched. This thing—this heartless beast—had stolen Faix’s heart, and it was all Nat could do not to repeat the trick.

  But it wasn’t just that.

  Something about her was familiar, the shape of her nose, her long, thin hands.

  “Do you know me, Anastasia?” the girl asked. She looked at Nat strangely, with interest, as if she’d only just noticed her in the room.

  “Eliza!” Nat gasped. “You’re Eliza Wesson.”

  “That was my name once,” she said, staring at Nat with contempt. “Before. When I was weak.”

  Nat said nothing.

  Before, she thought. When you did not need to steal hearts because you still had your own.

  The girl’s blue gaze was steady. Unnerving.

  “But not anymore. I am Lady Algeana Penthos, High Priestess of this temple.”

  Lady Algeana of the Dark. Eater of Souls. Destroyer of Worlds.

  Eliza bowed her head with a smile.

  “But that would mean . . . that . . .”

  “Yes,” she said, amused. “Poor Bradley thought he was recruiting me into the program when he found me. Thought he could make me into one of his little fire-eyed puppets. Silly man. I might as well have tied strings to his arms and made him dance.” Her smile broadened as she relished the thought. “Did you enjoy killing him? That was my gift to you when I had no more use of him. I told him to go into the maze, that he would surely find someone there he was looking for.”

  Nat backed up against the wall. There was something dreadful about Eliza, a gray darkness, a dank, seeping poison that swelled up from what should have been her soul. “You’re a murderer. You kill your own kind. I don’t understand. Why? What happened to you?”

  Eliza lifted her chin. “They have to die. It is their honor, to feed my power, when they die as innocents in the maze I capture the essence of their souls,” she said. “My priests sell these worthless tokens to the rest of the population, but what they don’t know is that each time a marked person dies, their power adds to my own. I claim it for myself, as only I can do.” Her eyes were blazing now. “I am more powerful now than I have ever been. The worlds I weave, my illusions, are no longer ephemeral; they have substance. I can weave fire that burns—ice that freezes. A good trick, yes? Turning nothing into something. A lesson I learned as a child.”

  Nat was paralyzed. She couldn’t move as Eliza took the rough chains and locked her hands in them. The chains that had never once been for Liannan, but were always for her.

  I’m such a fool.

  Eliza raised an eyebrow. “I saw you in the glass. The last drakonrydder of Vallonis. Anastasia Dekesthalias. The Resurrection of the Flame that will light the world,” she said. She tugged the chains tight, drawing blood from Nat’s wrists. “If only I had known you were already in the program. I ordered Bradley to bring you to me that night you left MacArthur, but you slipped away. So how was I to find you now? And how would I get you to come to me? But then we captured the sylph . . .”

  “Liannan. Her name is Liannan.” Nat couldn’t help herself. Her name is Liannan, she is not one of your toys, she is my friend.

  Eliza shrugged. ”And suddenly, it all fell into place. I would use her blood to mask the bomb, and her voice to call you here. She was so very handy. But I had no idea until we caught her that you knew someone . . . someone close to me.”

  “Wes,” Nat said miserably.

  “Yes, my sainted brother, Ryan, who refused a commission when Bradley first offered it. Bringing all those pilgrims to our temple could have at least proved his usefulness. But no. He was too good for that, he would never do such a thing.”

  Of course he wouldn’t, Nat thought.

  “Wes always needed to believe in himself as the hero.”

  Because he is one.

  Eliza sighed. “I heard he was back in New Vegas, so I put my name on a blacklist, made sure he saw it. It seemed to be the only way to get him closer. I wonder if he liked all those little touches. My ‘room.’ The bunny. I never had such a toy, but he wouldn’t remember, he’s much too sentimental.”

  “Kind.” The word is “kind.”

  “He had to believe I was their prisoner, even though he knew better. He had to think I was in danger. It was the only way to draw him out. He’s always been a gullible boy.”

  “Loyal.” The word is “loyal.”

  Eliza dismissed her brother with a flick of her pale wrist. “Then those silly children set fire to the dome. But we got Wes anyway,” she said, her lips parting, white teeth glistening. She motioned to Faix. “I thought he would bring you to me, too, if he had, maybe I would have let him live.”

  “You used them all to get to me. All my friends . . . ,” Nat said. Eliza had hunted them down, each one, had brought them all here to die.

  “What are friends for?” Eliza asked. She picked up Faix’s sword from the floor. “He was my teacher, too. Did he ever tell you about his favorite pupil? Did he start your lessons with the violin? You thought it was your idea, but it was a
lways his. Faix. Give the Queen my regards, tell her I got her message.” She laughed, kicking Faix’s body so it rolled into the blue blood.

  “I called him to me, felt his presence the moment you landed on the island. Told him I was ready to change. And of course he came. ‘There is still time to repent,’ he said. ‘The Queen still loves you. I still love you.’ I called them Mother and Father, did he tell you? How can one be more than a thousand years old and so stupid?”

  THE WEAVER AND THE QUEEN

  THROUGH THE FIRE, THROUGH THE SMOKE and flame, she saw the boy and the girl huddled in the corner. Twins. She hadn’t known there would be two children, as she had seen only one in her mirror. Which one? The boy looked afraid, but his sister stared back boldly. The girl had sapphire eyes and a swirl on her shoulder. A weaver.

  It was the girl.

  A decision was made.

  She was the one.

  The one they had come to steal.

  • • •

  In the century since the ice came upon the world, the people of Vallonis sent scouts into the gray lands to search for the source of the corruption, with no success.

  Then, sixteen years ago, the Queen beheld a vision. A vision of the one who would save them. A child of Vallonis born in the gray lands who would be able to unlock the tower that held the Archimedes Palimpsest. The child of the Queen, imbued with her spirit and power for a new age. The mirror showed them the child in the flames, and they stole her from her family when she was seven years of age.

  The Queen and her loyal consort, Faix Lazaved, brought the child to Apis to live with them. She became like a daughter, a child to replace the one she had sacrificed for Vallonis.

  They believed Eliza would be the one to recast the spell, to fix the frost and the darkness that had seeped into its making and set the world aright.

  Faix declared he had never had a more apt pupil. He was so proud of her. Eliza was a fast learner, and took easily to her daily lessons of magic. She learned to shape wondrous creations out of the ether. This stolen child was everything they’d hoped for. They called her their star child, delighting in her cleverness, her talent, her sorcery.