Even though my understanding of Gregor’s prison was still limited, I didn’t doubt for a second the mountain was infused with dark and terrible magic. The rock would surely crumble beneath our boots or rise higher. After all, Remo’s grandfather loved nothing more than playing games.
“I fear the cage is our best option, Remo.”
His jaw was clenched as hard as his fists, and his skin tone had greened. “I’m not going back inside.”
“I’ll be with you this time. And we’ll keep the door open.”
He huffed. “What if I kill you again?”
“I won’t let you.”
He shook his head, his red hair spiking like a wildfire around his wan forehead. “That cage turned me into a psychopath.”
I wrapped my hand around his fist and dragged it away from his rigid thigh. Prying his fingers open, I said, “I know how to defeat thecupola.”
“No.”
I peered down again. “I suppose we could try to hang off of it . . .”
Remo’s gaze flicked to the pulley system. “We’ll climb down the rope.”
I eyed the rope, not trusting it. “I know!” I released his hand and pulled my dust out, shaping it into a parachute. I didn’t have enoughwitato make a harness, but I had fashioned four sturdy handles along the sides. We’d have to hold on and hope it would keep us afloat, or at the very least slow down our fall.
Although my resourcefulness didn’t magically reassure Remo, it did unstiffen his body. He picked up my creation and stared a long moment at it, and then he handed me one side and took the other. “Thank you.”
“How about you don’t thank me until we make it down?” The moss seemed much too far below us. Even thecalimborsseemed stunted andcalimborswere not small trees. “Ready?”
“When you are.”
Knuckles whitening on my handles, I inhaled a deep, deep breath before nodding.
Eyes locked together, we jumped. The fabric flapped, and then it tangled and our bodies smacked together. Remo stretched his arms apart, and yelled at me to do the same. Skies only knew how, I managed to drive my arms apart. The fabric snapped, and we were yanked up so violently, both my shoulders almost popped out of their sockets.
Gravity took ahold of our makeshift vessel, and we drifted like a dandelion floret over the neat row ofcalimbors, all devoid of windows and doors, except for the one housing the candy shop. When my boots bumped against solid ground, my knees bent, and I stumbled into Remo, who caught me.
His hand lingered on my body long after I’d regained my footing, doing all sorts of things to my already chaotic insides.
Lowering my gaze to the moss, I stepped aside and reeled in the parachute. “Do we head to the train?”
“I think we should rest the night here and board in the morning.”
I stared up at the white sky. “You think night’s about to fall?”
“I don’t know how time works here. All I know is that we both could do with a bath and a warm bed.”
The warm bed part reminded me of the one I’d wanted to crawl into earlier. It also reminded me that I’d seen only one. I didn’t bring it up. Not yet.
As we made our way down the aisle of tall trees, tendrils of mist rose from the moss and curled around our boots. Even though the ground hadn’t changed texture yet, in other words it hadn’t sprouted thorny, tubular bodies, I sang softly. Remo’s knuckles brushed against mine, sending bursts of heat up my arms. When the mist thickened, turning as dense as cotton, his fingers slid through mine.
We’d held hands before but never like this. Never with our palms flush and our fingers twined. My concentration was so focused on all the points of contact between our bodies that I almost walked right past the candy shop. Thankfully, Remo’s awareness hadn’t faltered, and he tugged me inside.
My pulse was so jumpy it impaired all of my senses. Besides touch. Touch was the one sense working entirely too well. So well that the minute the turquoise door clapped shut, I pulled my hand out of Remo’s and spent the next few minutes it took to reach the first floor of thecalimborrubbing my tingling fingers and palm on the leg of my black suit.
While Remo vanished into the bathroom, I searched the small apartment for a second bedroom but found only an empty closet. Water gushed, sounding a lot like my pressurized pulse.
“There’s no soap, and the water is cold,” he said.
I gazed up from the bed, biting down on my lip. “Better than no water.”
