Page 71 of Between Smoke and Shadow
We stand in silence for far too long. I keep waiting for Vale, or maybe even me, to snap. To charge the nearest shelf and shove at the towering metal until one structure collapses into the next, into the next, and so on. Until all the bottled magic hasbeen released into the air. If it had somewhere to go, I might do it. If I could send all of this hoarded magic into Savoa, toward people who need it, I would.
If I do it now, it will sit in this room, impossible for anyone but magic casters to absorb. Still, I step toward one of the shelves anyway. I place my hand, my shaking cold fingers, on the lowest shelf. I don’t touch any of the black bottles. I wonder if it would burn me. I wonder if I could hide it in my coverall and smuggle it into the Tower.
“What do you think it’s for?” I ask. The awe is still there, clinging to my words like foolish hope. The things we could do with this…
“We need to go,” Vale says. His voice is unexpectedly steady, and when I look back at him, he’s already walking for the lift.
“What are you talking about?” I demand. I grab his arm, forcing him to turn. “Look at what we’ve found. We can’tleave.”
“We have to,” he snaps. His words bristle against my skin. “What do you propose we do instead? Break the bottles? Steal them? Try to use them?”
I run my tongue over the inside of my teeth, dropping my eyes to the floor. I hate that he’s correctly assumed my thoughts, and I hate more that he’s right. There’s nothing we can do about this now.
“We’ll come back,” Vale says. He steps farther into the room, head shifting as he takes in the endless rows of greed. “Knowing it’s here, knowing they’rechoosingfor their people, their land to suffer…We don’t know what we’re up against. We need to make a plan before we do anything drastic.”
Another shiver rolls through me, my thoughts returning to Harrick. His entire family should pay for this, but I don’t want to imagine it. I don’t want to think of him suffering.
Maybe he doesn’t know.
I don’t realize I’ve spoken the words out loud until Vale leans in front of me.
“Who?” he asks.
“Berg,” I say. My cheeks flush at the pathetic lie. It doesn’t make any sense, and I’m not sure what I’m going to say if he questions me.
Luckily, he only starts walking toward the lift again. This time, I am quick to follow.
“We’re going to die,”I say. It’s a bizarre realization, one I am having not for the first time in the past few days. The first time, I was right, so I have no reason to think I’mnotright now.
We’ve been sitting in this lift for an hour, staring at each other and the ceiling and out at the glowing magic. It’s taunting us, as if to say,you knew it couldn’t be this easy.
Without magic, the lift might go down, but it doesn’t go up.
“Just let me think,” Vale says, which is approximately the fifteenth time he’s said it.
I sigh and get to my feet. I pace the floor in front of the lift, counting the steps it takes to get from one side to the other. This area is even bigger than I originally thought. Fifty paces to the left, eighty to the right. With all this time, I’m tempted to count every single bottle of magic. Just how much have they stolen from Savoa? And what exactly do they plan to do with it?
Hoarding magic to decimate Savoa’s population and resources doesn’t make sense, even if the crown is evil. There has to be something more, something bigger at play.
“Maybe I need to enter the code backward,” Vale says when I pass him next. As he once again crouches in front of the gray numbers, I continue to the right.
It doesn’t matter if the crown has a sinister plan. I’m going to be a rotting corpse by the time it happens. I wonder what will kill me first: the thirst, the hunger, or the guards that eventually find us.
“Dammit!” Vale screams as I reach the end of my pace.
I hesitate at the wall, craning my neck toward the ceiling. This room, unlike the low servant levels, has a distant, vaulted ceiling to accommodate all its shelves. There’s nothing to indicate a way out. No bits of light or openings that could be an escape.
I walk down one of the elongated rows, letting Vale’s muttered curses fade behind me. My eyes have been burning since we first realized the lift was stuck, but only now do the tears start to fall. The acrid taste of salt drips into my mouth and I press my hand over it to keep from sobbing.
Harrick gave me a second chance at life, andthisis what I’ve done with it. I wonder what he would think of me now. I roughly swipe at my face, smearing tears over my cheeks. I don’t deserve to cry.
“Ah, fuck!” Vale shouts, followed by the distinct sound of glass breaking.
I run up the nearest aisle, skittering to a stop in front of Vale and a pile of shattered black glass. Red mist swirls around broken fragments, magic floating with nowhere to go. It bobs slowly, easy to avoid in such a small quantity. Vale clutches his hand, the edges already welting.
“What were you thinking?” I hiss. I dodge around the magic, careful not to let it touch me.
“I don’t know,” he groans. He holds his palm to his chest, teeth clenched as he speaks. “We’re running out of options here! I thought,maybe, the black bottles kept the magic fully contained. I was just going to pour it…And now I’ve left a nice fucking mess for someone to find.”
