Aria whirled around. “What is that?” The night had a new noise. A faraway hum.
“Bells,” Roar said, glaring at the woods.
She remembered Harris’s words. “To drive away dark spirits,” she said.
“To drive me mad.” Roar took something from his bag. A black hat that he pulled over his head. Heavy flaps came down to cover his ears. “They disorient me.”
Perry turned. He lifted his head slightly, his eyes scanning as he drew a breath through his nose in a natural, wild gesture. This was him. The Scire. The Seer. He met Roar’s gaze, a silent message passing between them.
“We have to run,” Roar said.
Terror shot through her. She looked at Cinder, hanging at Perry’s side. “How are you going to run with him?”
He was moving before she’d finished asking the question. Aria reached into her pockets and scooped out the rocks she’d collected. She let them scatter on the ground.
Minutes after they started running, her muscles cramped. Nausea rose up in her, which she didn’t understand, as she hadn’t eaten in a day. She pushed on. Her boots caught on every small stone. Every step stabbed the bottoms of her feet. Trees loomed up ahead, shadowed shapes on the hillside. The trees would hide them. She ran and ran and still they seemed no closer.
“They’re running too,” Perry said after another stretch. An hour? A minute? All the color had drained from his face. She could see that even in the dark.
She didn’t notice when dawn came, gray and misty. Or when they’d made it to the incline where the trees began. She appeared beneath the pines suddenly, like she’d fractioned into a Realm.
“Move, Cinder. Run,” Perry told him.
Cinder’s feet dragged. He was barely supporting his own weight anymore.
Aria bit her lip, searching desperately into the woods for the Croven. The bells were loud now, disorienting like Roar said. “Let me take him, Perry.”
Perry slowed. His hair was slick and darkened with sweat. His soaked shirt sucked to his frame. He nodded, letting her take Cinder. Cinder was freezing to the touch. His eyes had rolled to the back of his head. Roar appeared at his other side. Together, they dug in, pushing, carrying Cinder between them as the slope grew steeper and the bells rang louder.
Roar stopped. “Straight uphill. Can you manage without me?”
“Yes.” She turned and her heart seized. “Where’s Perry?”
“Slowing the Croven down.”
He’d left? He’d gone back?
Roar drew his knife. “Keep moving. Get to Marron’s. Get us help.”
He tore down the slope, his black clothes fading into the shadows. Aria firmed her grip around Cinder’s bony ribs and pressed on, her every step weighted by terror. She couldn’t push back the thought . . . What if she never saw them again? What if that was the last time she’d see Perry? She wouldn’t let it be.
“Help me, Cinder.”
“I can’t.” The words were softer than a whisper at her side.
She was close when she noticed the stone wall. It was so unexpected, rising amid the evergreens. It soared to high above, many times her height. Aria hobbled up with Cinder, flattening her free hand on the rough surface. She had to feel it to be sure it was real. She followed it, keeping close enough that her shoulder dragged against the wall, until she came upon a heavy wooden gate. A screen was embedded in the mortar to the side. She gasped, seeing a device from her world here on the outside.
She swiped her hand across the dusty screen. “I need help! I need Marron!” Her breath came in ragged sobs. She tipped her head up to a tower high above her.
“Help!”
Someone peered down, a dark figure against the bright morning sky. She heard distant shouts. A few moments later, the inset screen flickered on. A man appeared, his face plump and fair and blue-eyed. His damp, butter-blond hair showed the traces of a thorough combing.
A disbelieving smile broke over his face. “A Dweller?”
The gate opened with a rumble that clattered in her kneecaps.
Aria wobbled into a broad grass courtyard, her shoulders screaming with the effort of keeping Cinder on his feet. Cobbled streets linked stone cottages and garden plots. In the distance, still within the wall, she saw pens with goats and sheep. Smoke drifted skyward from several chimneys. A few people glanced at her, more curious than surprised. It looked like a keep in a Medieval Realm, except the enormous structure at the center resembled a gray box, not a castle.
Ivy grew along its walls but did nothing to soften the cement structure. There was only one entry, heavy steel doors that slid open smoothly as she watched. The round-faced man from the screen emerged. He was short and portly but graceful as he hurried toward her. A young man followed close at his side. She’d been standing there long enough that the gate behind her began to close.
“No!” she said. “There are two more people coming! Peregrine and Roar. I was told to find Marron.”
“I’m Marron.” He turned his blue gaze toward the door. “Perry is out there?” By then, shouts of “Croven” rained down from the wall. Marron gave quick orders to the lanky young man at his side, directing people to take posts on the wall, others to head downhill to help Perry and Roar.
Two men came forward and took Cinder from her side. Cinder’s head fell back limply as they picked him up.
“Have him taken to medical,” Marron told them. When he looked back to her, his expression softened. He pressed his hands together beneath his soft chin, a smile lighting in his eyes. “Blessed, blessed day. Look at you.”