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CHAPTER 72
ELLIE
Falling is a rather unpleasant experience.
I’ve fallen before, back at the arena when Evander and I faced our first Trial.
Except that time, Evander was there to catch me.
Well, he’d technically been the one to drop me too, so I suppose I can’t give him too much credit.
That’s what I’m thinking as my body slams into the back of a gargoyle.
Its horns jam into my torso, but thankfully the artist opted for more flattened horns. I decide I’ll have to seek them out in the art district and thank them later.
I’m fairly sure this is what undiluted panic feels like. Or perhaps delirium. Or maybe a combination. I don’t think I’m in the mental state to make medical diagnoses at the moment.
A giggle escapes my lips, I suppose because I’m high from the fall, or maybe it’s because I can still hear Cecilia’s cries in my ears. (Are those real, or just in my imagination, and will the Other hear them too?)
Perhaps I shouldn’t have jumped out the window. Perhaps I should have left myself in the room as bait, so that the Other wouldn’t hear my baby’s screams and try to burst through the shaft to get to her.
Then again, the Other probably couldn’t fit.
I should probably breathe, I tell myself. I do, but then I make the mistake of looking down, thinking perhaps I can jump to another gargoyle, and then the deranged giggles begin again.
Evander never quite let go of teasing me about my fear of heights and how I clung to him like a sloth to a tree during the entirety of our first Trial.
Well, if he doesn’t come provide a muscled arm for me to grab onto soon, I decide I’ll never let him hear the end of that.
Breathe, I remind myself, looking down again.
I keep one eye closed, as if that will shield me from the truth of the height.
It doesn’t.
Still, there’s another gargoyle jutting from the story below. There’s even another ledge to a window, but it’s to the side of the gargoyle, and far enough away that I probably couldn’t reach it.
So I have two options. Jump to the next gargoyle, still several stories above the ground, with few other handholds in sight. Meaning I’ll have to wait up here for someone to get me.
Or I can go for the window ledge, which unfortunately has a grand total of zero gargoyles underneath it to act as a backup plan.
Above me, the Other roars with irritation. A moment later, debris litters my hair as it shoves its hideous maw through the window, its nostrils sniffing above me.
Waiting on the side of the palace for someone to find me has been withdrawn as an option.
I peer down at the ledge, which only seems to be about a handsbreadth in width. That’s going to be problematic, as I’m fairly sure if I attempt to grab onto it with my hands as I fall, the result will be an Ellie splattered against the pavement below.
Not ideal.
Above me, the Other roars, stretching its apparently extendable neck to crane its head down and look directly at me.
Its moonlit eyes send a shiver through my bones, and I just have to pray it won’t want to spray me with its melting venom when clearly I have nowhere else to go, and no weapon with which to fight back.
I’ve been keeping my sword in the training room. Not exactly helpful at the moment.
I wince as I rip the top layer of my skirt, then the second and third in succession. My hands tremble, but somehow I knot the pieces together into a rope that at least looks somewhat secure. I suppose I’ll be finding out shortly.
It takes more balance than I naturally possess, but the Fates are smiling down upon me, because I manage to take the rope by both ends, looping it around the bottom of the gargoyle, then tying it in a knot at the top, leaving a long piece dangling off.
