I drag my leg away from him and stomp off a few paces. Ishould have known escaping Hell couldn’t have been that easy. “Now what are we supposed to do?” I grumble.
“You’re so loud. You’re giving me a headache.”
I spin around and snarl at him. “What did you just say?”
Sonam blinks at me in confusion. “I said nothing, Fox.”
Something behind us cackles, concealed by the seemingly endless expanse of shadow. I can hear skittering feet. Ghostly whispers. I even feel the faintest brush of something cold against my cheek. Sonam and I are being watched, but by what exactly? I hold perfectly still, caught between fight and flight, when I lock onto a pair of empty black eyes staring at us from the darkness.
“Who’s there?” I yell. “Come out where I can see you, coward.”
“Who’re you calling a coward?”
A figure steps out into the dim green glow of the Jade Palace. A little girl, her skin so pale it appears translucent. She has abnormally sharp teeth sticking out from beneath her bottom lip like tusks. Her wild brown hair is matted on one side and windswept on the other, nothing but a thin gray sack draped over her body like a shirt. She’s barefoot, her soles and toenails stained black. It’s her stench that overwhelms me. Like sweat, manure, earth, and something distinctly not human.
Most notable of all, however, is the mask she wears. A mask just like mine, only it’s half broken and sits on one side of her face, a fraction of its illusionary magic at work.
My heart skips a beat.
I take a single step toward her, alarmed. “Where did you get that?” I ask. There’s a slim chance she might have found it on her own, though I’m not sure how that’s possible. Last I knew, the Maskmaker was hiding somewhere on the mortal plane. How did one of his masks end up down here?
If she can lead me to the Maskmaker…
“Do you know the man who gave—”
“You made the Sleeping City angry,” she says, ignoring me.
“Sleeping City?” I echo. “Is that what that…thingis called?”
“Mm-hmm.” The girl picks at her overgrown fingernails. They’re long and curling, yellowed with time and improper care. “No one’s allowed to leave. Not without their permission.”
“Who?” Sonam asks.
“The star gods, the star gods,” the little girl chants. “Everyone knows. Death made them the key.”
Her nonsensical rambling makes my head spin. There’s a good chance that she’s lost her mind, trapped down here in Hell for gods know how long, but a tiny voice in the back of my head wonders if there’s an inkling of truth in her babbling. After all, we can’tlie.
“You mean to say that there’s a way out?” I ask.
“Oh, yes. Everyone knows,” she repeats. “But I’m not telling you any more, human. You smell as bad as the ones we caught today.”
“There are other humans here?” Sonam asks.
The child crosses her arms and snorts at him. She sounds like a boar. “Filthy, stinky humans. We’re going to eat them soon. We just need to find the right spices.”
“?‘We’?” I press on. “Who’s—”
“Not telling, not telling!” she says, turning to run away.
I’m quick to crouch down and pull off my mask. Not entirely, just lifting a corner to expose my true face. “You can trust me,” I say hastily.
She gasps softly. “The Maskmaker gave you one, too?”
I hold my breath. Sheknowsof him, which means that bastard must be somewhere down here in Hell. No wonder I was having such a hard time tracking him down.
“That’s right,” I say, swallowing the swell of triumph in mychest. This is the first major lead I’ve had in ages. “We’re the same, you and me. What’s your name, little one?”
“Lin.” She glances nervously at Sonam behind me, who looms like a sentry. I can sense her mistrust, and I don’t blame her. The captain is a miserable sack to look at. “The ones we caught,” she says. “They look just like him. One with an ugly face and the other without her tongue.”
