I opened my bag for Pepper to get in, then maneuvered myself to finger grip the edge of the last solid stair. I hung for all of thirty seconds before my arms wobbled. Before I could talk myself out of letting go, my fingers slipped, and I free-fell.
Several things happened at once. I hit the ground in a crouch. I heard a loudpop. My ankle throbbed. My satchel swung up and smacked me in the chin. Pepper, still in it, let out a loud squeak of consternation. But we were fine . . . We were fine.
My stomach swooped unpleasantly as my body got used to the injuries. My right ankle had taken the brunt of the hit, and it was swelling, probably sprained, but I could put a little pressure on itand keep going, even if I had to hobble.
The mental magic chamber only made my head ring, another pain I was accustomed to, thanks to the phantom flu, Farrah, and Helen. All I had to do was squint my eyes and plow forward. Before I knew it, the pain was gone, and Pepper was leading the way to the quantum chamber.
There was a profound, preternatural stillness to that chamber, where the shoot of falling water was frozen in time like an aquamarine glacier. Would it feel like shards of ice if I put my hand through the shoot? Or would it feel like the water upstairs? Wet and cold?
I forgot about my sprained ankle as the frozen column of water pulsed like a portal. Yet its power was even greater, ten times that of a portstop’s. It radiated like the entrance to another world.
Blood rushing to my ears, I stuck my hand out, wondering if it was the gate to where I came from, to home, to the human realm. Mesmerized, I stared at the faint blue glow the portal cast upon my hand as my fingers inched toward it.
At the last second, I snatched back my hand. The compulsion to find out where the portal led was strong, but I resisted it. Leland needed me in Everden, and because there was only one level left to know for sure if he wasn’t in here, I followed Pepper down the last set of stairs.
There was no obstacle in the final chamber, no scent of magic as far as I could tell. It was only an empty, stone room, a left turn, and a large, adjoining chamber about the size of the Creation Academy’s cafeteria. A vast open space, with all the water from the six levels above releasing in the corner, where the waterfall ended in a deep, black well.
I held on to the stone wall for balance, taking some of the weight off my right foot as I slowly made my way toward the well.
Peering into the basin of water, I didn’t see much. The water was too dark and murky to make out even my reflection.
Pepper sniffed curiously at it from where she sat on the stone ledge. She was mesmerized, as mesmerized by the black water as I’d been in the quantum chamber. But the thin ledge, narrower than the width of her small feet, was slippery with wet droplets and humid mist. It occurred to me that with one wrong move, Pepper might slip.
I was about to lift her and place her back in my satchel when someone entered.
“Step back from the well!” yelled a voice. Strong and male.
Startling Pepper.
I didn’t believe the splash even as I watched it happen, the well’s black depths rippling around where she’d fallen in. Bending, I reached a hand in the water and frantically searched. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
I pitched over the ledge to search deeper, making waves in the black water as I combed it with my fingers and panic blared through my ears.
“Pepper?” I yelled.
“Take her away,” said a sharp-edged female tongue.
And at the sound of that voice, so callously directing what they wanted done with me, all the strength was stripped from my body.
This time, I couldn’t overcome it the way I had when I stood before her office. All this work, all this effort I’d put into confronting her, and all she had to say about it wasTake her away. Get her out. How was I supposed to fight someone who wouldn’t even face me? I couldn’t.
The Echelon Dashell Eldridge lunged for me while Helen reached for the necklace inside her blouse. She pulled it out by its chain, and I swallowed, recognizing the Ring of Greatest Fear’s sapphire pendant. Helen’s fingers roamed to the pendantand began making the clockwise rotations required to induce delusions.
It was exactly as the Illusion had said.What was I doing here?I was a liability, destructive. I made everything worse for everyone.
Everyone who was taken was taken because of me.
Leland was missing.
And now, becauseI’dput her in danger, Pepper was gone.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-THREE
LELAND
Alchemia was a dead end. No one knew how to end the Witch’s Limit, and the longer I stayed trying to find someone who did, the more it ate at me how I left Ember. I threw her out of her dream, hurting her head after I promised her I’d be gentle. I’m the reason for the look on her face when I said she’d caused what she saw.
