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Liam stood rooted in place. Lily grabbed one of his arms, I grabbed the other, and we pulled him with us. Lily was muttering, eyes wide, keeping herself from total panic with visible effort.
Before, the mist’s landscape matched the real one. I’d tumbled in through a reflection and escaped—how? I didn’t have time to stop and ponder.
“Follow me,” I said. “Stay close.” Anywhere was better than staying put.
Liam moved to follow without prompting, blinking as if coming awake, but Lily kept close to him just the same. I set out for the beach where we’d left the boat. The ground shifted, the grass thinning as we came toward the rockier shore. I followed the slope and the sound of the water, and tried not to think about what might be chasing us. I reached the edge of the shore and there, as if waiting for us, was a boat. A skiff. Larger than theKatydid, though not by much. I couldn’t read the name on the side; black mold covered it, swallowing half the hull, the seats, and wrappingacross the lettering so only a hint of anRwas visible.
“That’s not our boat,” Liam said, voice full of confusion. It was the first time he’d spoken since we left the bunker.
Lily looked at him, then back at me. “So should we take it? Sophia?”
I heard her, but the words didn’t register as my pulse thudded in my ears. I tasted salt on the back of my tongue.
“Sophia? What’s wrong?”
I wasn’t sure. I only knew that the sight of that boat shattered the calm I’d constructed. My throat constricted around my breath. “We can’t,” I said. “We can’t I can’t don’t—don’t—” I stuttered over the word, not knowing what I meant to say, what Iwassaying. There was a roaring in my ears like the rush of water.
A hand in mine, the hillside falling away before us, the shore waiting
The wood beneath me, splintering, worn gray
Water sloshing in the bottom of the boat
Screaming, shouting voices
Hands on me, tangling in my hair, shoving me pulling me forcing me deep
Water in my mouth, water in my eyes, the harsh salt sting of it
“Sophia.” Lily was holding my arms, looking into my face. “Listen to me. Listen to my voice. You’re having a panic attack.”
I wasn’t having a panic attack. I didn’t panic. When I was afraid, I sent my fear away, and this was something else—this was dying. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t think, I felt like I was collapsing inward, like my heart would beat so hard it would burst.
“Focus on breathing slowly. You’re okay.” Lily gripped myhands, and I focused on those two points of pressure. Her hands were warm and callused and strong.
Breathing. I could do that. I could breathe. Breathe air, not water. Focus on the ground beneath me, not the heaving of a boat or the endless dark of the ocean.
“You’re here. Now. With us,” Lily said. “And I need you to tell us what to do, so I need you tobehere. Understand?”
I did. I nodded. The fist around my throat hadn’t released, but it eased, and whatever flood of memories had dragged me under was a formless trickle now.
“Good. Good?”
“I’m good,” I confirmed, only somewhat untruthfully, and Lily gave a wry sort of chuckle. She let go of my hands with one final squeeze and stepped back a bit.
“I was worried I was going to have to drag both of you around, and I’m not feeling exactly with it myself,” she said, and then paused. “I don’t think anything followed us from the bunker. We don’t have to rush down to the shore. We can take our time and be—”
A mass of darkness hurtled from the mist and slammed into her.
At first my mind could only process it in pieces. The dark sweep of wings. The emptiness at the core of it. The fingers, too long and with too many joints, wrapped around Lily’s neck as it held her up. She thrashed, legs kicking, clawing at the hand that gripped her throat. It lifted her close to its face, and her eyes grew dark with its reflection.
And then—a crack. Her head twisted to the side. It cast heraway like a bit of trash, whatever it was searching for not found.
I reached out, as if I could still do something. As if there were anything left of Lily to save but bones and blood. Liam made a sound, the start of a scream, and the creature turned toward us, eyeless, featureless, yet somehow staring directly at us. And there was that sound. The hum, the vibration in my bones. And there was the song—wordless and yet full of words, many voices and one voice all at once, and I could also hear how the thrum in my bones matched the song. And how the song matched the crying of the birds who flocked this island. Who vanished without a trace.
Ravens, I thought, are excellent mimics. And Moriarty had slipped into the echo world and back to save me. Had he mimicked the terns? Is that how he’d slipped from one world to the next? Echoes were sound, after all, and this place was a kind of echo.
Hardcastle and Kapoor were studying the birds’ cries. That’s what all of that fancy audio equipment was for. Crafting sounds to match the songs of the birds. The song of the Six-Wing. Maybe they were searching for a certain sound, a certain song, that could carry them between the worlds.
