The black tunnel stretched ahead, illuminated by a dim light that seemed to come from everywhere at once.
“Did it work?” I asked. “Will it take us back to the city?”
“I’m not sure,” said Sylvester, comfortingly.
“And how will we know when we’re past the mist?” I pressed.
“Distance doesn’t have the same meaning here,” replied Sylvester.
“So, we won’t know?”
“I don’t think so.” He placed one white palm against the wall of the tunnel. It seemed to move slightly under his hand. “Follow me.”
Sylvester led the way, and Cornelius and I trailed behind him, hoping that the House wouldn’t dare swallow up its own master. I let one hand fall into the pocket where I kept the little seal and turned it over in my fingers, for comfort. I imagined that it had an odd, acidic tingle against my skin—but that could just have been my fancy. Cornelius growled softly in my ear.
“I know, I don’t like it either,” I said.
The House creaked and groaned around us. I imagined it as a beleaguered boat on a rough sea, the sea being the strange other space that it occupied, outside of what we thought of as distance and time. It felt like the House’s boundaries were putting up a fight against whatever was outside, and that they might be losing, but Sylvester continued to stride ahead with the appearance of confidence, and so we followed.
“What will happen to us if the House collapses?” I tried to make it sound as if I was just idly curious.
“I don’t know,” said Sylvester over his shoulder.
“Would we be trapped in the House, or what’s left of it? Or would we end up outside in whatever’s out there?”
“I told you, I don’t know,” said Sylvester.
Either way sounded horrendous. Or what if it spat us out right into the mist? I tried to slow my thoughts. It was so dark; that was the problem. There was nothing to distract me but blackness and more blackness. I tried to concentrate on the sorcerer’s lean silhouette ahead.
“Is it just me,” I muttered to Cornelius so that only he could hear me, “or is the tunnel narrowing?”
I felt the flicker of his tail against my nape. “It’s not just you,” he said. “It’s definitely getting tighter.”
“That can’t be good,” I said.
“Keep going,” said Sylvester—and was I imagining it, or was there a thread of anxiety in his voice?
My ears made a popping sound, and I felt pressure inside my skull. The blackness around us grew heavy and foreboding, like big-bellied storm clouds gathering before a downpour. I imagined I could feel the substance of the House pressing back against it, but something Outside was trying to push its way in. I pictured it slicing into the House somehow from the outside, cutting through its layers of heart magic to find us, pink and vulnerable as baby rabbits in a burrow when the plough comes.
Sylvester started walking faster, and I struggled to keep up with him. The pressure in my head was painful, and it was starting to affect my vision as well. The walls pressed in.
“Not much further,” said Sylvester, in a voice that was probably meant to be comforting.
A sudden, blinding flash, something like lightning, tore open the dark—and it stayed open, hanging like cut cloth, opening to a sharply painful white nothingness that reminded me of teeth. More and more of the blackness behind us was shredded. The floor pulsed underfoot, forcing us forward faster and faster.
Sylvester reached back and grabbed my hand, and we ran, keeping just in front of the terrible light and tearing. The House shuddered and bumped us along, keeping us always just far enough ahead.
I felt sorry for all the times I had been impatient or irritated with it, because without the House’s help, we could never have run fast enough to escape.
I tried to keep pace with Sylvester, but I was holding him back. I released his hand, and, reaching up to where Cornelius had coiled around my neck, I hurled him at Sylvester. He hooked his claws into the sorcerer’s cape, more from surprise than any sense of self-preservation.
“What are you doing?” demanded Sylvester, turning.
“I can’t keep up with you,” I panted. “You and Cornelius need to run ahead.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Sylvester, grabbing my hand again. I tried to wrest it from him, but his grip was too firm. “We areallgoing to reach the city.”
We stumbled along, far slower than I would have liked, while the House fell piece by piece into the void behind us. The tunnel became narrower and narrower, until we could no longer stand straight, but had to stoop, almost bent in half, in order to fit.
