“Tonight would have been better.”
“Want me to go after him now?”
“Yeah.” Antigone exhaled and began to yawn. “You do that. Fix everything. In the dark. With spiders.”
She was relaxing. Her breathing evened out, blending with Nolan’s.
“Night, Tigs.”
“Night, Cy. Russell.”
“Tigger.”
He waited for the counter, but it didn’t come. Antigone groaned softly. The crippled clock counted off five minutes, and then ten. Cyrus listened to its beat mingle with Nolan’s painful moanings and his sister’s muddled whispers. He listened to the click of spider whips and distant echoes through the stone. He slept. And he woke. And he slept again. He turned and he rolled and he tangled his feet in his blankets.
Dan was gone. Gone. And he, Cyrus, was doing nothing.
He sat up, swinging his bare feet down to the tassels of a Turkish rug.
In the dim orange light, he could see that Antigone was still. Nolan was stirring. Cyrus held his breath and waited. The boy’s red welts had almost disappeared, replaced with empty blisters of scaly skin. Cyrus unwound Patricia from his wrist, and she looked at him with bright emerald eyes. In the low light, her silver body actually glowed. He stroked her head with his thumb, and she slid forward, rubbing her whole body against it.
He eased the key ring down to her tail. Solomon Keys dropped into his hand.
twelve. BURIAL
CYRUS DUCKED OUT of the door. Inching along the shadowy planks, he stopped at the showers. The faint glow from Nolan’s lantern barely reached his feet, giving him just enough light to see what he was doing. Gripping the three charms and the key ring tight, he stuck the shafts of the two keys into the nearest falling stream of water. He could see nothing in the splashing, but his arm grew suddenly heavy. Breathing hard, he slid back from the edge and looked at the keys in his hand.
Greeves hadn’t lied.
One gold, one silver, but shaped like no keys he had ever seen, and heavier than they had any right to be. The gold one had a hollow triangle at its head, a square in its center, and a circle at its end. Smooth teeth lined its shaft on every side. The silver one was thin and bent like an elongated and slightly corkscrewing crescent moon. Some kind of writing, shaped like Arabic, had been etched into its surface, but Cyrus wasn’t going back to the light for a closer look.
Dropping the heavy keys into his pocket, he made his way into the deep blackness of the Polygon.
Once Cyrus had managed to open the door and hop barefoot over the flooded threshold, he had enough nervous energy to rush the stairs, skipping slippery steps as he went. The hallway above was dimly lit, and he found his way quickly back into the big blue-glowing room beneath the water maze. From there, rather than trying to retrace Mrs. Eldridge’s route, he headed for the iron spiral stairs he’d seen earlier, cobwebbed into a dark corner. His bare feet scuffed through heavy dust on the cold stone floor and found the metal stairs. The treads were rough with rust blisters, and Cyrus climbed slowly, his heart pounding against his molars.
He wound his way above the thick glass ceiling and into a tall shaft. Two of the walls were glass, with views into the maze, and the higher Cyrus climbed, the more terrifying the maze became. It was as tall as it had been wide — a full cube — with underwater tunnels tangled in an impossible three-dimensional knot of drowning potential.
Cyrus reached the top and stepped out into a high-ceilinged room with a single dangling light in its center, glowing like the moon. The floor was tiled around the edges, but the entire center was glass, sealing the water maze in all but two small open hatches in opposite corners — an entrance and an exit, with a whole lot of wet death in between.
Cyrus moved toward the closer one, trying to imagine what it would be like to drop in and swim into total confusion. The water rippled slightly at his feet, and his chest tightened. What would it feel like to have panicked lungs fill with water? His father knew.
Something moved beneath the glass. A quick shadow. And then water erupted at Cyrus’s feet, and arms slapped at the tiled edge. Cyrus yelled, jumped backward, slipped, and sat down. Puddles raced toward him, and he scrambled up onto his feet.
Gasping, Diana Boone pulled herself up out of the maze and rolled onto her back. She was wearing a black suit with leggings that reached her ankles, but her tan arms and freckled shoulders were bare. The stitches were gone from the gash at the base of her neck. Spitting to the side, she reached up and pulled her hair loose from its ponytail.
“You okay?” Cyrus asked.
Startled, Diana twisted around, and then sat up. Still panting, she smiled and nodded. “What are you doing here?”
Cyrus shrugged. “Just looking around.”
Diana stood up and began wringing her hair out over her shoulder. “Well, be careful. Rupe has beefed up security. Acolytes are supposed to be in quarters, but especially you.”
“What? Why?”
Diana’s eyes widened. “You have to know. Rupe called a big meeting, Keepers and Explorers together.” She paused, and her voice softened. “He said that Phoenix is after you and that he already has your older brother. I’m really sorry.”
Cyrus swallowed and then nodded. He wasn’t sure what to say.
Diana stepped toward him. “Rupe even tried to put us on gun-ready — sidearms at all times. He thinks Maxi might try to drop in. Cecil put a stop to that, but a lot of people will still be carrying. I would if I were you. And not just because of Maxi. Some of the Keepers are possum-scared and some are hornet-mad. They’d throw anyone overboard if it kept Phoenix away.”
She rubbed her wound, thinking. “Keep a special eye on the guardsmen and groundskeepers. They’re all working off demotions or debts — by far the surliest.” She looked at Cyrus’s bare feet in the puddle she’d made, and then back up at his face. “I need to go, and so should you. I’m in on a few flights tonight.”
Cyrus watched Diana collect a small bundle of clothes along with a large, holstered revolver. She looked back at him when she reached a swinging locker room door.
“You’re not heading back to your room, are you?”
Cyrus shook his head.
Diana laughed. “You really are a Smith. You know, my dad knew yours. I’ve heard the stories.”
The door swung, and Diana Boone was gone.
Cyrus looked around. The room held what looked like another locker room door and then two big wooden doors set into arches on opposite ends. He hurried for the closer one and tugged it open on quiet hinges. Stone stairs led straight up, and he jogged them quickly while the door closed behind him. At the top, he followed a hallway around two corners and then paused. He’d reached a covered stone sky bridge lined with windows on both sides. Out one side, he could see the great lawn, the lit fountain, and a small group of men moving around with rifles. Out the other side, a half-moon hung between jutting statues on the high roofline of the main building, a chewed pearl stuck in some monstrous jaw.
Cyrus hurried across the bridge and banged into a locked door hidden in shadow.
“Darn it.” He turned around. Back to the water maze? The heavy keys were pressing against his hip. Digging them out quickly, he faced the door.
“Don’t worry,” Cyrus said quietly. Antigone was asleep and nowhere near, but he could still hear her worry in his head. “I’m not going to steal anything.”
Behind Cyrus, moonlight sprayed through the windows, but in front of him the door was in total shadow. He felt for a keyhole, but he couldn’t even find a knob.
