within hearing distance and giving him a chance to get up the steps to confront whomever he had missed. It was a long shot at best, one he did not much care to take. But sitting in his cell and waiting for the inevitable was madness. He hated putting Rue at risk, but he knew that she would want him to if it meant giving them a chance, however slim, of reaching Pen.
He decided to try for one more look, using the next feeding as a trial run for determining exactly where he should stand to get through the door to the guards. He waited patiently, using his time to run repeated rehearsals of what he would do, working and reworking his timing, his movements, everything that would be required of him.
When the door finally opened, he was standing just to the open side, watching the movements of the Gnome Hunter as he knelt to slide the food tray inside, counting the seconds from the time the door opened until it closed again. It took twelve seconds. He would have to act quickly. He would have to summon the wishsong and hold it within himself until the locks were thrown. Then he would have to sprint through the door, directing the magic down the hallway as he emerged, a quick and certain strike.
He sat in the darkness and thought about how little chance he had of making this plan work. Wasn't there a better one? Wasn't there something else he could do?
He was just finishing his meal when a piece of paper was slid under the door. He stared at it for a moment, then reached down to retrieve it. Bent close to the bottom of the door, where the thin light gave just enough illumination to allow him to make out the words, he read:
HELP IS COMING.
Bek recognized the writing immediately. It was the same hand that had penned the note he and Rue had received on their arrival at Paranor, the one that had warned them not to trust anyone. He had never discovered the identity of the writer, and in truth, he had forgotten all about the note until that moment.
Lying on the floor next to the crack beneath the cell door, he read it again. Could he believe it? Could he trust that the writer would be able to find a way to free him? How long could he afford to wait to find out?
He stared blindly into the darkness of his prison, searching for the answers.
Twenty–six
He heard the voices first, soft and insistent, joined as one, humming and then singing, the words indecipherable, but their sound sharp and clear and compelling. — Penderrin–she whispered from out of the confluence. — I've come back–But it wasn't her voice, and he knew that when he looked, it wouldn't be her. It wouldn't be anybody at all.
-I said I would come back. I promised, didn't I— He lay where he had fallen asleep near dawn, exhausted from searching for her after realizing where she might be and what she might have done. Frantic with worry, he had torn through the ancient forest like a madman, plunging through the dark trunks and layered shadows, calling her name until he was too tired to continue. Then, heartsick and drained of hope, he had collapsed. It couldn't be true, he kept telling himself. His suspicions were unfounded and fueled by his weariness and the shock of losing his fingers. It was all a lie of the mind, born of his misinterpretation of the tanequil's words, of the fears raised by the tree's dark reminder that its gift of the dark–wand required a like gift from him. Of the body. Of the heart. — Penderrin, wake up. Open your eyes
But he kept his eyes closed, wrapped in the comforting darkness that not seeing her afforded, unwilling to let that last shred of hope fall away. He moved his damaged hand beneath him, feeling with his good fingers for the ones that were missing, finding the stumps healed over and the pain gone. It wasn't so bad, he supposed, losing parts of two fingers. Not for what he had been given in turn. Not for what it meant to his efforts at finding his aunt. Not for what it meant to the future of the Four Lands. It wasn't so bad.
But losing Cinnaminson was.
«Why did you do it?» he asked finally, his voice so soft that he could barely hear his own words.
Silence greeted his query, a long and empty sweep of time in which the voices grew quiet and the sounds of the forest slowly filled the void their departure created.
«Why, Cinnaminson?»
Still no answer. Suddenly fearful that he had lost her completely, he lifted his head and looked around. He was alone, sprawled on the grassy patch on which he had fallen asleep the night before, the darkwand resting on the ground beside him, its glossy length shimmering, its carved runes dark and mysterious.
«Cinnaminson?» he called.
-It was a chance for me to be something I couldn't otherwise be–She spoke to him from out of the air. — I am free from my body, Pen. Free from my blindness. Free in a way I could never be otherwise. I can fly everywhere. I can see what I could never see before. Not in the way I do now. I am not alone anymore. I have found a family. I have sisters. I have a mother and father–He didn't know what to say. She sounded so happy, but her happiness made him feel miserable. He hated himself for his reaction, but he couldn't find a way to change it.
«It was your choice to do this?» he demanded, his words sounding woeful and plaintive, even to him.
-Of course, Penderrin. Did you think I was forced to become one of them? It was my choice to shed my body
«But you knew I wouldn't be given the tanequil's branch any other way, didn't you?»
-I knew it was the right thing to do. Just as you did, when you agreed to come here to find the tree and to seek help in freeing your aunt—
«But you knew,' he persisted, desperate to wring from her one small concession. «You knew that becoming an aeriad would help me. You knew that giving yourself to the tanequil was what it would take for the tanequil to give me its limb.»
Her hesitation was momentary. — I knew
She was moving all around him, a part of the ether, a disembodied voice buttressed by the soft singing and humming of her sister aeriads, her new family, her new life. He tried to see her in the sound of her voice, but he could not quite manage it. His memory of her was strong, but his efforts to form a picture from her voice alone were insufficient. He didn't want her back in still life, — he wanted her back as a living, breathing human being, and the images he managed to conjure failed to capture her that way.
He sank back wearily. «When did you decide to do this?» His voice broke as despair threatened to overwhelm him. «Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you talk to me about it?»
The singing rose and fell like a wave of emotion born on a shift in the wind. — What would I have said to you? That I love you so much that I cannot imagine life without you, but that I am old enough to
understand that loving someone that much isn't always the only measuring stick for making a life with them? That choosing love should never be selfish
«If you loved me that much …»
-I love you that much, Penderrin. Nothing has changed. I love you still. But you were sent here for another reason, one too important to sacrifice for anything—even for me. I know this. I knew it from the moment that I heard the aeriads speaking to me. They were telling me what was needed—not directly, not in so many words, but in the way they sang to me, in the sound of their voices. I knew
He shook his head. «I don't think I can do this without you. I can't even think straight. I can barely move.»
Matched by the voices of her sisters, soothing as a breeze on a hot summer day, her voice trilled with soft laughter. — Oh, Pen, it will pass! You will go on to do what you were sent to do! You will find your aunt and bring her home again. I am already a memory, already fading away
He stared into space, into the place from where she spoke to him, trying to make himself accept what she was telling him, and failing.
The voices sighed and hummed and sighed some more. — Do not be sad, Penderrin–she whispered. — I am not sad. I am happy. You can hear it in my voice, can't you? I made a choice. The aeriads asked me to join them, to help you and myself. While you slept, I went with them from the surface of the earth to the Downbelow. From the sunlight and air world of Father Tanequil to the darkness and earth world of Mother Tanequil. She roots deep, Pen, to provide for her children, to give them life, to allow them the freedom she can never have. I saw the truth of what
