François groans, sweat standing out on his forehead, and his palms are fucking peeling, like black decayed skin is shriveling off his hands.
“Can you do this?” I whisper. My hand hovers near his shoulder but I’m afraid to touch him. Every sense I have is screaming “Danger Toxic.”
He doesn’t reply, just keeps forcing his magic into the structure, swaying slightly on his feet. After another minute he lets out a hiss of pain, sweat slicking his forehead, then stumbles back. “Break it down.”
London launches forward with some kind of somersault that turns into a kick at the last moment. “By the power of Grayskull,” he screams as his foot hits. Instead of a metallic clang, the wall collapses with a hollow, dusty thud, almost as though it were now sandstone.
Instantly, more sirens start, louder than anything I’ve ever heard. The alarms scream from the towers.
A beat later, the dust settles to reveal a rough, three-foot hole. A portal inviting us to the dark, wet forest—and freedom.
Looking around, I see François unconscious on the ground.
???
“Go!” Tally croaks. He grabs the Frenchman by the collar, dragging him through the three-foot hole. London scoops up Imran, and we scramble through after them, hitting the dark, wet treeline.
Instantly, my chest fills with chaos, beautiful chaos. Like starlight strands twisting and turning inside me.
No time to consider what’s going on.
We drag François and Imran deep into the brush, the sirens fading into a dull roar behind us. Tally is panting, leaningagainst a birch tree, his face gray. “We have to… keep… moving,” he wheezes, then collapses to his knees.
Beside him, lying among the leaves and needles, Imran stirs.
The boy tilts his head back against the damp earth, looking up through the parting clouds at the vast, midnight sky. His sunken, hollow eyes seem to catch, hold, reflect the silver moonlight.
A strange, soft glow begins to leak from beneath his skin, warm and ethereal. It chases away the gray, translucent pallor of the leukemia, smoothing the deep lines of pain from his young face.
For the first time since I met him, Imran looks entirely at peace.
“Imran?” I whisper, dropping beside him. “Immy?”
He doesn’t answer me. He doesn’t look away from the stars. But his bruised fingers reach out to Tally’s shaking hand.
A faint, beautiful smile touches his lips. “It’s OK,” he whispers.
“Imran, no.”
Time seems to stretch, slowing down to a crawl.
The reality of our escape fades into the background, leaving nothing but the quiet rustle of the leaves. As Imran’s eyes close, his body begins to ripple, and a low clicking and ticking sounds beneath his skin.
The air around him blurs, and as I blink away the rain and the tears he seems to collapse inward, shrinking down and down until he’s almost nothing.
Almost gone.
But not quite.
White feathers, there’s a bundle of white feathers, they twist and turn until a small, snow-white owl emerges. The bird circles its head until the huge eyes land on Taliesin.
It lets out a cry that echoes through the trees like a silver bell—then snaps its wings open, taking flight.
Tally, London and I crane our necks to watch it circle our group, twenty feet up in the air, before it catches a gust of wind andsoars up and up. We watch the owl as it disappears into the moonlit sky.
Tears flow freely down my face, hot and stinging against the freezing rain.
He made it. He’s free.
