She leaned against the cage, wrapping her arms around it. “It’s a lovely fish, Milo.”
The cage dissolved.
She stood back and stared at it, at the empty space where the clear walls had been.
What had just happened? Dissolved. Just as John had said, the cage completely evaporated until the child stood free in front of her on a small ledge.
The boy swayed where he stood, blinking slowly, the way a person looked when they had been asleep for a very long time and the world was not quite real yet. He glanced around at his surroundings, fear building in his gaze. His breathing changed from even and rhythmic to an uneven pace, hitching once he locked on John and the warrior across from him. “Mama!”
She reached up and took his hand in his, diverting his gaze back to her. “Milo?” How she prayed it was Edan’s nephew.
He looked down at her and said, “Mama. Where Mama?” His gaze scanned the area again, his body trembling in fear at a place he didn’t recognize. “Da?” His hand reached out to her, still shaking more than the leaves on a tree on a windy day.
She calmed her voice the best she could. “I’ll take you to your da and Uncle Edan.”
“Aye.” He lifted his arms and she caught him up, then he burrowed against her shoulder with the boneless certainty of a child who decided he was safe.
She turned to look for Heilyn, scanning the row in both directions.Red hair. Blue nightgown.None of the nearby cages held a lass that young.
“John, I have Milo.”
“Nay!” The lad pointed to the warriors.
“I won’t let them hurt you. We’re going up the stairs to your da.”
She looked over at her brother, and the sight stopped her cold.
The first one had appeared back in his cage. The one warrior John now fought had become three. As she watched, a fourth stepped free of his cage, and then a fifth, and the air in the clearing shifted, taking on a charge she felt in her back teeth. There was an endless row of a score or more warriors down the length of the underworld.
Countless warriors. A sea of fighters appeared in front of them.
“Ailith, run! They’re all unlocking. I can’t fight them all off myself. We’ll need help to come back. Head up the stairs and I’ll be right behind you!”
She ran. Milo’s arms locked around her neck, and she held him tight against her chest as the path through the purple trees opened ahead. The strange branches swayed faster now, reaching lower than before, and she ducked and pushed through without slowing. The crackling sound from the trees had grown louder, higher, as if something within them was waking.
“John, are you behind me yet? Hurry!”
The staircase appeared at the end of the path, and she took it as fast as she dared, one hand on the cold railing, Milo clinging and crying softly against her ear. “Mama.”
“I know, sweetheart. I know. Hold on.”
“I’m here. Go and don’t slow for anything.” John’s close presence calmed her more than she’d admit.
The sapphire sword lit the way from behind her, its blue light bouncing off the wet stone walls, though she could hear him fighting at the base of the stairs, the impact of steel, agrunt, the sound of something heavy hitting the wall. When she reached the halfway point, she turned and saw him swing twice in rapid succession, then whirl and take the stairs two at a time.
“I said don’t slow, Ailith.”
Miraculously, the warriors didn’t follow John up the stairs. She glanced back, surprised to see a shimmer across the bottom step of the staircase, like a gate they couldn’t cross.
“Get him out of here!” he shouted up at her.
She hurried the best she could on the uneven steps.
The world below them erupted. Cackles and screaming and something low and rhythmic that was worse than both, rising up the staircase behind them like a tide. Milo pressed his face against her neck and wept, his grip so tight that she said a quick prayer to get the lad home. She didn’t look back.
John was at her heels when she hit the door. She threw herself through it and he came after her, knocking into her hard, and they both stumbled and nearly fell before the light of the real world swallowed them. The door disappeared the moment John cleared it. The hill shrank behind them like a held breath released, and their friends all rushed forward, ready to help.
Edan was there before she’d fully stopped.
