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The night wears on,scraping like old leather against tender skin, and somehow I don’t fall off the damn beast. It is a freaking miracle. Alindra leads the creature up into the mountains, following a narrow, rocky splash of water through shadowed canyons so deep the moonlight can’t penetrate. Exhaustion hammers the inside of my skull until I’m not sure if I’m actually here, in the Worlds Above, with my one arm clenched around the waist of a beautiful magician who hasn’t yet murdered me, or if I’m still trapped in our shack at the World’s End, delirious with fever as my brother tries desperately to patch my broken body back together.
There’s a clattering sound beneath me, and I snap back to full consciousness. Or at least as full as I can manage. The horse is climbing a steep, rocky slope. Tree branches grab at my cloak and tug in my hair. Someone grunts, and I’m not sure if it’s Alindra or the horse or maybe me.
Then the branches give way, and the horse enters a small clearing of rough stone and gravel that looks like it’s been vomited out of a dark hole in the mountain before us. A shiver pulls the skin on the back of my neck tight. I don’t like it, that circle of darkness in the mountain’s flank.
“This was a mine,” Alindra whispers. “The Golden Touch, I think it was called.”
Moonlight filtering down through the trees paints delicate striations across her full lips and high cheekbones.
“I thought we could… rest,” she continues, and the little pause in her words tugs at something deep in my chest.
Rest. Voids below, we have to rest. I can’t even remember the last time I slept, and Alindra’s been running since I crashed into her bedroom and tried to pull her through a portal that exploded in my face. Alindra slides off the horse’s back and then offers her hand to me.
I take it and half-slide, half-fall off the horse. I crash into her again, this time chest to chest, and for a horrifying moment, I think my legs might just refuse to carry me. But then my muscles snap into place, and I stagger backward, waving my hand in what hopefully looks like some kind of apology.
Alindra tugs the rope off the horse’s muzzle. The beast takes one look at the black mouth in the mountainside, makes a snort that sounds exactly like I feel, and steps backward.
Nope, the horse doesn’t like this place any more than I do. But maybe this abandoned mine will look and feel better in the sunlight. And besides, it’s not like we have a surplus of options at the moment. I swallow a yawn, then blink blearily at the dark opening to what may have once been the Golden Touch mine.
“Let’s rest out here,” I declare. “We can worry about the mine in the morning.”
Alindra nods, then pulls another dried apple slice from her bag and feeds it to the horse, muttering something under her breath as the horse smacks its lips around the slice of apple. I take a few steps, sink to my knees, wrap my cloak around my torso, and let sleep pull me under.
Chapter11
Alindra
THE GOLDEN TOUCH MINE
Iwake to a snort. My eyes jolt open, expecting the whitewashed ceiling of my bedroom. Instead, I find sunlight filtering through pine needles.
Sunlight? Pine needles?
Panic kicks my heart into a gallop. I sit up, gasping. Thick bands of sunlight fall through the interwoven branches high above me. Birds call to each other in that golden light, and somewhere I can hear the laughter of Pine Creek, the little blue squiggle on the map we’d followed all night.
I press my hand to my chest as if that could slow my frantic heart. My bag is beside me, my cloak spread out over the grass and tangled around my legs. There’s another snort from the woods behind me, and I turn to see the horse grazing contentedly on sparse mountain grass between the trees. She’s still here, then. Good. At least she didn’t try to rejoin her herd in the night.
But Phaedron?
Another jolt of panic squeezes a tight band around my chest as I stagger to my feet, my body creaking as a dozen different muscle groups voice their objections. It’s been a long time since I’ve ridden without a saddle, and my legs and back aren’t going to let me forget it.
Phaedron’s cloak is still spread across the grass. I narrow my eyes at the darkness of the abandoned mine shaft, which somehow manages to look even less welcoming in the sunlight. Would he have gone in there?
I bite my lip as I consider it. He did say we’d worry about the mine in the morning. And Phaedron did throw himself into the most unstable portal I’ve ever seen. And down a trash chute. And up a cliff.
Yeah, he’s probably in the mine. I creep forward, trying to ignore the way the hair on my arms stands on end as I approach the entrance. Dank, cold air swells out from the opening, carrying the scent of things long buried. I stop.
“Phaedron?” I whisper.
There’s no reply. I frown at the darkness. Would he have gone in there without a light?
No, I’m being an idiot. He’s got illusions, of course, and he’s probably just gone around a corner. Stars, I need to stop being such a baby. I take a deep breath, step into the darkness, and cup my hands around my mouth.
“Phaedron?” I call.
I was expecting the mineshaft to amplify my voice, but instead, it seems to make my words softer and fainter, like I’m yelling out of the bottom of a well. I also expected to be able to see something once I stepped into the mine shaft, like a flicker of light from whatever illusion Phaedron must have created. But no, it’s still darker than the underside of a gravestone in here. I shift uneasily on the rough stones.
“Phae—” I call again, but his name fades on my lips.
