“It looks so normal,” Reva murmurs. “Tired and forgotten, but like a regular little town.”
“What were you expecting? Signs warning people about the insane laboratories below ground?”
“I mean, I did see a sign on the beach, warning about undisclosed mineshafts.”
“That’s because they didn’t want people traipsing about the place. It’s a place no one would want to stay.”
Reva snorts. “It doesn’t look too different from Ambleby, where Frannie and I were living, just a little more dusty.”
She’s right that the street is covered with a layer of grey sand, and the road is covered in holes. All the buildings all have boards over their windows, their signs faded with sunlight and neglect.
“Do you know where we’re going?” Reva asks, holding out the spectacles to me. I hesitate to take them, my stomach contracting as I take in the magic that extends from Reva’s chest along the road before disappearing.
“Straight on ahead,”I tell her.
Somewhere behind us, there’s another earth-shaking crash, and we pick up the pace.
“Is he trying to draw attention to them?” Reva asks, and Jack grins.
“I doubt he’s thinking things through in that state, pretty sure the kraken remembers this place, and he holds a grudge. But Cap’s idea was to try and lure the sorceress out. A distraction so we can swoop in and find Kit.”
When Reva stumbles, I dart toward her, assuming she’s stepped into one of the many holes or cracks littering the road. But when I wrap my arm around her, she’s clutching her chest.
“Can you hear that?”
At my clueless expression, her face falls. “It’s Kit. I can hear his heartbeat in the air.”
Chapter 31
Reva
Thump, thump.
Thump, thump.
My feet follow the sound of Kit’s heartbeat as though it’s a siren’s song, so engrossed in stumbling along after it, my foot slips and I wrench my ankle as I try to prevent myself from going sprawling.
Aster wraps an arm around my waist as a gust of wind sends more dust-coloured sand straight into my eyes and hair, and I hear Jack cursing up a storm beside us. The heartbeat feels like it’s getting louder, so it seems like we’re going in the right direction.
“Turn right here,”Aster says.
We turn onto an identical desolate street.
No, not quite identical.
“What is that?” Jack murmurs.
There are two shapes midway along the street, outside what looks like it used to be a shop. My eyes are still smarting with the dust, so it takes a moment to realise what they are.
People.
“There shouldn’t be people here, right?”
The thump, thump, thump grows louder with every step closer until it rattles my teeth.
“They’re not people,” Jack mutters. “When you think this place couldn’t get any creepier, two doll people appear.”
“Is that what they are?”
