The Doorway and the Deep (41 page)

“Feel that?” said Starkling, his skeletal fingers ripping
into her coat. “Can you
feel
it? It's the heat of Dim. The heat of my world, coming up for air. I'll be here to witness it in all its glory. But you
won't
.”

Lottie knew. This was the moment. Now came the final shove. Now came the fall.

The agonizing pain she felt for Eliot, for all her friends—the fear of what would happen to them—caught up her remaining breaths. Lottie raised her bloodied hands. Weak though they were, she wrapped them around Starkling's arms. She closed her eyes, concentrating. She gathered all her clamoring feelings and focused on Starkling alone. Strength returned to her fingers, and she dug them into his wet, peeling skin.

Starkling picked Lottie up by the lapels of her periwinkle coat. Her feet left the ground. She was aware of someone somewhere screaming her name.

The tightening sensation began, as it always did, in the very center of her chest. It squeezed on her ribs, the pain compact, like a spring pressed under a weight of iron. Lottie fought for breath.

“No,” she choked out. “
No
.”

Her hands had not left Starkling's arms. She clenched them into the oily scales. She closed her eyes. The bad spell swelled within her, then shot through her arms with more force than it ever had before. It seeped out her fingers and into Starkling's arms.

He screamed.

It was a scream of agony, of pain beyond what even Lottie was experiencing.

Starkling released his grip on Lottie. She fell. Her back hit the ground—the blessed, sandy ground. The world gorge had not yet reached them. She was safe.

Then she looked up.

Starkling had fallen to his knees. His skin bubbled like boiling water. Scales sagged from his arms and dropped into the sand like melted wax. Lottie scrambled away in horror, out of reach of the expanding gorge. Still, she could not take her eyes off the Southerly King. His jaw had turned loose like taffy. His eyes bulged crimson in their sockets. What remained of his once blond hair now dropped to the sand in clumps.

No words came from his mouth, only the screams. And then there were no screams, only a melting face with no mouth. Then no nose. Then no eyes. All turned to dark, bubbling liquid. King Starkling had disintegrated before her eyes.

Lottie had never seen a sight so horrible, and yet she could not turn her face away.

For she had done this.

She had used her keen.

Only this time, Lottie had not healed.

She had destroyed.

All that remained of the Southerly King was a simmering puddle being fast absorbed into the sand.

Lottie scrambled to her feet. She blinked again and again, trying to understand what had just occurred. But no amount of blinking or head shaking removed the sight of the puddle at her feet. Slowly, she looked up, beyond it. Iolanthe stood nearby. Her face was painted in shock, her eyes wide with disbelief. At her side stood Southerly soldiers, lost in a similar trance. Eliot sat at their feet, looking ashen. Farther off, the three soldiers guarding Adelaide, Oliver, and Fife, looked equally stunned. Everyone was staring at Lottie. Everyone was silent. The quiet closed in on her from all sides, heavy with its sheer
un-noise
.

Lottie turned to Iolanthe.

“Do you see what I can do?” she called, hiding her trembling, bloody hands behind her back. “Let my friends go. Let them go
now
.”

At that, Iolanthe's glazed eyes snapped into focus with purpose.

“Guards,” she said. “Release the children.”

The Southerly soldiers fumbled to undo the bonds of their prisoners. Iolanthe strode toward Lottie, arms outstretched, though not in a menacing way at all, but rather like she meant to embrace her. Lottie didn't dare step back, for to do so would mean stepping in the stained sand that had once been King Starkling.

“What a change of events,” said Iolanthe. She stopped her approach and lowered her hands. “I went to all that trouble to get ahold of your addersfork, yet you were capable of destroying him all along. And to think, I nearly cut your head clean off, when you were capable of accomplishing the thing I most desired.”

Lottie struggled to make sense of what she was hearing. “You
wanted
Starkling dead?”

“Same as you and yours,” said Iolanthe. “There's no need to threaten me, Lottie. You and I are on the same team. I was going to use the addersfork to kill Starkling. But on my own terms, you understand. In my own way.”

Lottie opened her mouth. She looked around. She understood. These sprites were no soldiers of the Southerly King. They had been loyal to Iolanthe all along. Now finished with their task of setting their prisoners free, they gathered around Iolanthe in reverent postures.

“My queen,” said one, kneeling before her. “We are at your command.” Then he cast a glance at Lottie, and the look in his eyes turned her blood cold. He looked horrified. He looked disgusted. He was horrified and disgusted by
her
. “Do you wish us to subdue the girl?”

Iolanthe shook her head. “That won't be necessary. She and I are reaching an understanding, aren't we, Lottie?” She took another step closer. “You see, Starkling had his own ideas about what to do with the world gorge.
My plan is better. And if you and your friends are willing to go along with it, I'm sure I could make good use of your talents in my court. I could elevate you all to respectable positions. Your rainbow-eyed friend would prove an especially valuable asset.”

“But you've been hunting us! You tried to kill me. And you tried to kill . . . 
Dorian
.” Lottie whipped toward the others, who were just getting to their feet. “Dorian. He's been hurt. He could be dying.”

Fife, now free of his gag and bonds, floated forward. “Where?” he asked.

Lottie pointed down the coast. “By the water's edge. Oh, please, Fife.
Hurry
.”

Fife sped away, zipping over the heads of the soldiers.

“Attacking Dorian was necessary,” said Iolanthe, watching Fife's departure. “There was no getting around it.”

“I guess not,” said Lottie. “Just like there was no getting around killing innocent wisps. Or destroying their only silver-boughed tree. Or invading the Northerly Court. I guess there was no getting around murdering
me
in the Revered House of Fiske. Is that what you mean?”

Iolanthe smiled thinly. “I was under orders. Even rebels must obey orders when the circumstances demand it.”

Lottie did not voice the reply jumping on her tongue. She couldn't say everything that came to her head right now. She had to think. Iolanthe was smart. She was now the most
powerful Southerly sprite in all of Albion Isle, and she was offering Lottie and her friends protection.

Or she could still be planning to kill them.

A magnificent groaning sound interrupted Lottie's thoughts. She turned to find that the world gorge was still growing—slower now than before, but growing just the same. Sand continued to pour down its walls, and little by little the distance between Lottie and the ravine's edge grew shorter.

“How—how do we stop it?” she asked.

“Why would I want to stop it?” said Iolanthe, looking shocked. “Though I can promise you, if you and your friends are willing to lend me your keens, I can protect you from what's to come.”

Lottie's mind was ablaze with half-formed plans. She'd already written out several in her mind's eye, then discarded them, one after the other. And then a plan stuck.

Lottie sank her hands into her pockets. In one, she felt the absence of Trouble, and for a moment her worries caught on the panic of where he could possibly be. Then her attention shifted to the item resting in her other pocket: her mother's ring.

She had to be careful. She had to remove the ring from her pocket, still in its silk covering, and once it was uncovered, she could not cut her own hand.

I'm sorry, Mother
, she thought.

Tears stung her eyes as she pulled out the handkerchief, then cautiously but quickly unwrapped and discarded it from the delicate circle of lapis lazuli.

“What do you have there?” asked Iolanthe, eyes narrowing at the ring Lottie held pinched between her thumb and forefinger.

Lottie did not hesitate. She lunged forward, plunging the sharp diamond edge of the ring into Iolanthe's arm and dragging it down her skin, leaving a wet, crimson cut in its wake. Then she pulled away, bloodied ring in hand, and ran.

She heard Iolanthe's enraged shrieks and the sound of heavy footsteps behind her. Still, she ran. She ran in spite of pain, in spite of fear, in spite of deafening thoughts. She ran to the water, into the crashing waves, and threw the ring with all her might. It soared through the air in a high arc, glinted once in the burning sun, and then disappeared into the sea.

Lottie's heart hammered.

“Please work,” she whispered to the water. “
Please
.”

When Lottie turned, she found herself face-to-face with Iolanthe. She stood shin-deep in the water. Her expression was livid.

“What have you done?” she demanded.

She made a grab at Lottie, who flung herself toward the shore. She tripped, but recovered fast enough to avoid
Iolanthe's grasp. When she reached dry sand, she tripped again and landed on her battered hands. She felt so weak. She felt she couldn't move again. She closed her eyes against the wet sand and waited for Iolanthe to reach her.

But she never did. With difficulty, Lottie rolled onto her back and saw Iolanthe standing at the water's edge. Her forehead was creased in concentration, her arms outstretched, fingers splayed. But she could move no farther. It was as though an invisible wall had been constructed on the edge of the tide, blocking her in.

It had worked, just as the riddle promised. Lottie had thrown Iolanthe's blood into the water, and now Iolanthe was bound to the sea.

Lottie laughed. It was the worst possible time for a laugh, and yet clunky giggles emerged from her throat. Iolanthe had finally realized what was happening. She beat her hands against the air.

“Soldiers!” she screamed. “Help me!”

Four red-cloaked sprites hurtled into the waves. Two took Iolanthe by the arms, two by the waist, attempting to hoist her forward. But it was of no use. Though the soldiers could set foot on dry land, Iolanthe could not.

“Stop it!” she shouted. “Stop it, you idiots! You'll pull my arms straight from their sockets. Try it this way. You, take me by my legs . . .”

Lottie did not stay to watch. She had to get to the others.
She lumbered up the bank to where Adelaide, Oliver, and Eliot stood, as fixated on the sight of Iolanthe's predicament as the remaining soldiers.

“Lottie!” Eliot cried, pulling her into his arms. “What did you
do
? What happened?”

“She used the riddle,” said Oliver. “She bound Iolanthe to the waters, the same as the nix.”

Eliot backed away, face turned down. “No, I don't mean that,” he said. “I mean . . .”

He trailed off, but there was no question as to what Eliot meant. Lottie had not let herself think of it until now. She still didn't want to. She looked to the sand where King Starkling had once stood, but even the stain had disappeared, swallowed up by the growing world gorge.

Oliver's eyes were a troubled yellow. “So wrap up care in a cobweb,” he said, “and drop it down the well, into that world inverted where—”

Oliver stopped quoting. An awful sound had ripped through the air like thunder, turning them all silent and wide-eyed. Then the ground shook beneath their feet, and Lottie saw the source of the terrible noise: the world gorge was still expanding. It was splitting down the coast. A crack, wide across as a river, drove through the sand, opening wide and speeding straight toward—

“Oliver!”

His eyes met Lottie's. They were a bright shade of gold that Lottie had never seen before. Then the chasm was beneath him, and Lottie stared in numb horror as Oliver lost his footing, wavered once, and fell.

“Oliver!” Lottie screamed again, running toward the newly formed fissure.

He had fallen in, but with one hand, he'd grabbed hold of a silvery edge jutting from the ravine wall.

Lottie dropped to her knees beside the chasm, where Oliver struggled to regain his grip. He tried swinging his free hand to the surface, but his fingers merely slipped through the sifting sand. He could not pull himself out.

“Stand back!” Lottie shouted to Adelaide and Eliot. “Grab my legs, both of you!”

She saw the fear in Adelaide's face; she knew what Lottie was going to do. Still, Adelaide nodded. Lottie steeled herself. Adelaide grabbed her by one ankle, Eliot by the other. Then Lottie stretched out flat on her stomach and reached her arms over the edge.

“Grab hold of me!” she shouted to Oliver.

He looked up with black eyes. He shook his head.