The ground trembled, distant and soft, like a train passing too close. It couldn’t be an actual train—we’d have heard one passing sooner. The mini quake silenced itself after only a few seconds. Maybe a truck, or an airplane flying too low.
“That was odd,” Wyatt said.
Odd repeated itself a moment later. The second tremor was closer, stronger. The floor vibrated like an electric wire. Whatever it was, it seemed to be moving toward us. Sideways, upward, backward, I couldn’t tell. Through the cement floor.
The unfinished cement floor.
I whooped, pumping one fist into the air. Wyatt stared. “What, Evy?”
“The cavalry is here.”
The cell floor hummed and shimmied. The tightly packed particles began to thrum with kinetic energy. They pulled apart and shifted, like quicksand. I backed to the corner, careful to not get sucked into the maelstrom. A hand formed, the size of my leg. It braced on the unmoving section of the floor and pulled a second hand out of the liquid cement. A familiar face coalesced. Basketball-sized eyes blinked at me, but did not see. Only sensed.
“Smedge,” I said.
“How did you find us?”
“But why?” Wyatt asked. “What are you doing here?”
Smedge grumbled, a familiar sound of dislike.
“By whom?”
The bridge troll grumbled again, but did not reply.
“Who sent you to save us, Smedge?” I asked. I didn’t dare hope it was true, that we were on the verge of getting out of there. Hope was a dangerous thing. Like gargoyles, the trolls had always presented themselves as a neutral race. Stories about trolls hiding under bridges and eating children are highly exaggerated.
Smedge curled his stony lips in some attempt at a smile.
“Amalie?” I repeated. The sprite Queen was sending trolls to find us? I recalled yesterday’s conversation with Smedge about Amalie. He said she was consolidating her power in preparation for choosing sides. Had she seen this coming, or was she working with Tovin? Sprites and elves were distant cousins after all.
“Smedge, do you trust her?” I asked.
Save world? Gee, no pressure.
“Can you get us out of here?” Wyatt asked.
“We trust you,” I said.
Smedge’s head lowered back toward the floor, flattening out until it appeared to be little more than an anthill. His eyes disappeared as his mouth opened and expanded. Wider until it was a three-foot hole in the floor, outlined by cement hands. I peered over the edge. It descended into complete darkness. Into the heart of the earth and the world that trolls inhabited.
I looked at Wyatt. He seemed dubious, but shrugged, leaving the choice up to me.
“I’ve always wanted to see how the other side lived,” I quipped.
“Just don’t forget to come over here for me.”
“Never. See you down there.”
I inhaled and held it, summoning up the courage it took to leap off a cliff with no sign of the bottom. I closed my eyes, stepped off the edge of Smedge’s lip, and plummeted into his belly.
Chapter 20
25:12
Free-falling into utter darkness turned into a sensation of floating. At some point, I stopped moving. Pitch surrounded me. I tried to move, but couldn’t. I opened my mouth to scream, only to realize that I couldn’t breathe. Something filled my mouth, thick like gel, but with no taste or actual consistency. It was in my ears and nose.
I tried to spit out the offending substance. It was like forcing air out of my mouth without actually exhaling. My lungs ached. I tried to move, claw, fight, anything but hover there. Alone.
My chest spasmed. Lungs burning, I prepared to open up and suck in that fluid and just end it all. Then floating turned to actual movement. Free-falling again, this time headfirst, toward light. I held on, fighting against the need to inhale.
I hit something hard. My left shoulder burned and I cried out, which forced an intake. I coughed on the fluid and something else—air. I inhaled greedily, alternately spitting out the mucus, which was foul-smelling and gluelike now that I was … somewhere else.
Rubbing the mess out of my eyes with equally messy hands, I tried to get a look at my surroundings. I felt dirt beneath my knees and caked on my skin. Mixed in with the stink of the goop was the heavy odor of earth. Dark shapes coalesced in the gloom.
Something slammed into my back. I fell over again, this time with Wyatt tangled up in my arms. Dirt scraped my elbows and face. I grunted. He wasn’t coughing. I rolled him onto his back. He was slathered in the same clear goo from head to foot, but his eyes were shut. He was perfectly still, and not breathing.
“Shit!”
I wiped off his face as best I could and tilted back his chin. With muddy fingers, I scooped some of the gel out of his mouth. CPR training was years ago, lost along with most of those first few, intense weeks of training at Boot Camp. I did what I remembered, hoping it was accurate. I pinched his nose and blew twice. One hand over the other, five compressions. Two more breaths. Five compressions. Each motion performed with careful precision. No panic, no haste, just absolute faith that he would—
Wyatt coughed. I rolled him onto his left side, so he could vomit onto the floor. His entire body shook as he expelled the offending goo. He coughed for a long time, and I held his head, content just to have him breathing again.
We were in a tunnel of some sort, probably an abandoned construction shaft, part of last year’s attempt at creating a city subway system. There were dirt floors and walls, with a hand light strung every ten feet or so. It was cold and quiet. I listened for the sounds of traffic or running water, anything to identify our location.
Wyatt rolled onto his back, still coughing. His grimace melted into a smile when he saw me. I cupped my hands on either side of his cheeks. “Do not scare me like that,” I said.
“Sorry.” He cleared his throat and spat to the side. “I tried, but I guess I didn’t take a deep enough breath.”
“Well, Smedge could have warned us.”
His voice, less than a foot to my right, scared the shit out of me. He had emerged in the wall, features more pronounced in the softer earth. I considered arguing with him, but failed to see the point. Trolls were very literal, and he was right. We didn’t ask what to expect before leaping into his mouth.
“We aren’t there yet?” I asked.
