But I’m wrong. The spark is holding her up as it is drained. And it’s not until she is empty, and pale, and lifeless that she finally crumples like a used-up piece of paper and slams face first onto the floor.
I know the girls are screaming. Hell, even Ceela is screaming now.
But then the girl stirs. Her cheek is bloody when she finally lifts up her head and her nose might be broken, but she’s alive.
And I can almost hear the sigh of relief in all the Little Sisters out there.
Something terrible is happening to them.
Something evil and gross.
But they’re not going to die.
Not like us.
And so they form up in a line. Waiting their turn to feed the new god.
No one is coming to save me.
That is what I say in my head, over and over, as the seconds, and minutes, and hours tick off as each girl gives her spark in the name of Donal Oslin.
No one is coming to save me.
It takes a little while before I snap out of the hopeless stupor. But eventually, when the line of Little Sisters is half as long as it was when we started, I finally understand what they’re doing.
They’re not opening a Looking Glass.
Whatever they needed the one up in the Extraction Tower for, that’s over now. And anyway, it’s been rigged to blow up by Aldo. They couldn’t use it even if they wanted to.
This room is also some kind of Looking Glass, but it’s more than that.
That’s when I finally get the answer I was seeking.
This is adoor.
This is a door that leads to… wherever it is that Spark Maidens go when they walk into the tower.
They are going to destroy Tau City by draining it of all its spark and then they are going to leave. They are gonna walk through the tower doors and leave tau City to die.
Does Donal know?
Or does he really think they’re trying to turn him into a god?
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Alow hum reverberatesthrough my body, waking me from a dreamless sleep. My eyes open, but everything is blurry. For a moment I can’t remember who I am, or where I am, or what that noise is.
The first thing that comes back is Clara. It’s a happy memory of us in my bed while the Choosing festival goes on in the city down below.
It’s a comfortable feeling. Like sitting in front of a fire on a frigid night.
But then all the other things that have happened since that day come flooding back.
Father’s dead. Mother’s in a cult. Clara…oh, Clara. My eyes are closed but I squeeze them tighter, trying to make it all go away. I don’t want to wake up. I don’t want to feel the loss. I don’t want this to be real.
But it doesn’t end with Clara. The Looking Glass, the secret stairwells, the message from my father.
And Jasina.
