“Close in the name of Leah of the Gallien.”
Slowly—far too slowly for my taste—the derrick’s boom began to lower the hatch. The tautness came out of the cable and at last the hook swung free. I let out my breath.
Leah threw herself into my arms, hugging for all she was worth. The blood from her newly opened mouth was warm on my neck. Something thudded into me from behind. It was Radar, rear paws on the floor, front ones propped on my ass, tail wagging like mad.
“How did you know?” Leah asked in her broken voice.
“A story my mother told me,” I said. Which was, in a way, true. She had told me now by dying then. “We have to go, Leah, or we’re going to have to find our way in the dark. And you need to stop talking. I can see how much it hurts.”
“Yes, but the hurt is wonderful.”
Leah pointed to the palanquin. “They must have brought at least one lantern. Do you still have matches?”
For a wonder, I did. We walked hand in hand to the abandoned palanquin, Radar between us. Leah bent down once along the way, but I hardly noticed. I was concentrating on getting something to light our way before the light from the shattered moons faded entirely.
I brushed back one of the palanquin’s curtains, and there, cringing against its far side, was the one member of Elden’s party I’d forgotten about. Flight Killer, Percival had said. Four others. And the bitch. Or maybe he’d said the witch.
Petra’s hair had come loose from the crisscross strings of pearls that had bound it. Her white makeup had cracked and run. She stared at me with horror and loathing. “You ruined everything, you hateful brat!”
Brat made me smile. “Nah, nah, sweetheart. Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”
Hanging from a little brass hook at the front of the palanquin was just what I was hoping for—one of those torpedo-shaped lanterns.
“I was his consort, do you hear? His chosen one! I let him touch me with those loathsome snakes that used to be his arms! I licked his drool! He didn’t have long to live, any fool could see that, and I would have ruled!”
Not worthy of a response, in my humble opinion.
“I would have been Queen of Empis!”
I reached for the lantern. Her lips peeled back from teeth that had been filed to points, like Hana’s. Perhaps that had been the coming fashion in the Flight Killer’s hellish court. She lunged forward and buried those fangs in my arm. The pain was immediate and excruciating. Blood seeped out from her clamped lips. Her eyes bulged from their sockets. I tried to pull free. My flesh tore but her teeth stayed clamped.
“Petra,” Leah said. Her voice was down to a hoarse growl. “Have this, you stinking crone.”
The roar of Mr. Bowditch’s .45, which Leah had stooped to pick up, was deafening. A hole appeared in the caked white makeup just above Petra’s right eye. Her head fell back, and before she crashed to the floor of the palanquin I saw something I could have done without: a doorknob-sized gobbet of my forearm hanging from those filed teeth.
Leah didn’t hesitate. She tore down one of the palanquin’s hanging side-drapes, ripped a long piece from the bottom, and tied it around the wound. Now it was almost completely dark. I reached into the gloom with my good arm to get the lantern （the idea that Petra might come to life and batten on that one, too, was ridiculous but strong）。 I almost dropped it. Prince or no prince, I was shaking with shock. My arm felt as if Petra hadn’t just bitten it but poured gasoline into the wound and set it on fire.
“You light it,” I said. “The matches are in the holster.”
I felt her fumble at my hip, then heard her scratch one of the sulphur matches on the side of the palanquin. I tipped back the lantern’s glass chimney. She turned a little knob on the side to advance the wick and lit it. Then she took it from me, which was good. I would have dropped it.
I started for the spiral staircase （I thought I’d be happy never to see another of those）， but she held me back and pulled me down. I felt her tattered mouth move against my ear as she whispered.
“She was my great-aunt.”
She was far too young to be your great anything, I thought. Then I remembered Mr. Bowditch, who had gone on a trip and come back as his own son.
“Let’s get out of here and never come back,” I said.
10
We climbed out of the pit very slowly. I had to stop and rest every fifty steps or so. My arm was throbbing with each beat of my heart, and I could feel the makeshift bandage Leah had put on soaking with blood. I kept seeing Petra as she fell back dead with a chunk of my flesh in her mouth.