Текст книги "The Ask and the Answer"

Автор книги: Patrick Ness

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

My heart jumps and my Noise raises.

"Oh, he don't like that, Pa," Davy says.

"Hush," the Mayor says. "Todd, is there anything you'd like to tell me that might make my visit with her go more quickly, more pleasantly for everyone?"

I swallow.

And the Mayor's just staring at me, staring into my Noise, and words form in my brain, PLEASE DON'T HURT HER said in my voice and his voice all twisted together, pressing down on the things I think, the things I know and it's different from the Noise slap, this voice pokes around where I don't want him, trying to open locked doors and turn over stones and shine lights where they shouldn't never be shone and all the while saying PLEASE DON'T HURT HER and I can feel myself starting to want to tell (ocean), starting to want to unlock those doors (the ocean), starting to want to do just exactly what he says, cuz he's right, he's right about everything and who am I to resist–

"She don't know nothing," I say, my voice wobbly, almost gasping.

He arches an eyebrow. "You seem distressed, Todd." He angles Morpeth to approach. Submit , Morpeth says. Davy watches the Mayor's attenshuns on me and even from here I can hear him getting jealous. "Whenever my passions need calming, Todd, there's something I like to do."

He looks into my eyes.

I am the Circle and the Circle is me.

Hatched right in the middle of my brain, like a worm in an apple.

"Reminds me who I am," the Mayor says. "Reminds me of how I can control myself."

"What does?" Davy says and I realize he's not hearing it.

I am the Circle and the Circle is me.

Again, right on the inside of me.

"What does it mean?" I almost gasp cuz it's sitting so heavy in my brain I'm finding it hard to speak. And then we hear it.

A whining in the air, a buzzing that ain't Noise, a buzz more like a fat purple bee coming in to sting you. "What the-?" Davy says.

And then we're all turning, looking at the far end of the monastery, looking up over the heads of the soldiers along the top of the wall.

Buzzzz –

It's in the sky, a shape making an arc, high and sharp, coming up thru some trees behind the monastery, trailing smoke behind it, but the buzzing is getting louder and the smoke is starting to thicken into black.

And then the Mayor pulls Viola's binocs out of his shirt pocket to get a closer look.

I stare at them, my Noise churning, slopping out with asking marks that he ignores.

Davy musta brought them back down the hill, too.

I clench my fists.

"Whatever it is," Davy says, "it's coming this way." I look back round. The thing has reached the high point of its arc and is heading back down to earth.

Down toward the monastery where we're all standing.

Buzzzz–

"I'd get out of the way if I were you," the Mayor says.

"That's a bomb."

Davy runs so fast back to the gate he drops the whip. The soldiers on the wall start jumping off to the outside. The Mayor readies his horse but he don't move yet, waiting to see where the bomb's gonna land.

"Tracer," he's saying, his voice full of interest. "Antiquated, practically useless. We used them in the Spackle War."

The buzzzzzz is getting louder. The bomb's still falling, but picking up speed. "Mayor Prentiss?"

"President," he corrects but he's still looking thru the binocs almost like he's hypnotized. "The sound and the smoke," he says. "Far too obvious for covert use."

"Mayor Prentiss!" My Noise is getting higher with nerves.

"The city's all been bush bombs, so why-"

"RUN!" I yell.

Morpeth starts and the Mayor looks at me. But I ain't talking to him.

"RUN!" I'm yelling and waving my hands and the shovel at the Spackle nearest me, the Spackle in my field. The field the bomb is heading right for.

Buzzzzz–

They don't understand. Most of 'em are just watching the bomb coming right for them. "RUN!" I keep shouting and I'm sending explozhuns out in my Noise, showing 'em what'll happen when that bomb lands, imagining blood and guts and the BOOMthat's on its way. "RUN, GODDAMMIT!"

It finally gets thru and some start to scatter, maybe just to get away from me screaming and waving my shovel, but they run and I chase them farther up the field. I look back. The Mayor's moved to the entrance of the monastery, ready to ride farther if necessary.

But he's watching me.

"RUN!" I keep yelling, getting the Spackle to move up and away, fleeing from the center of this field. The last few hop over the nearest internal wall and I hop over with 'em, gasping for breath and turning round again to watch it land–

And I see 1017, still there in the middle of the field, just staring up at the sky.

At the bomb that's gonna kill him where he stands.

I'm jumping back over the internal wall before I even know it-

My feet pounding over the grass-Leaping over the trenches we've dug-Running so hard there ain't nothing in my Noise-Just the BUZZ of the bomb-Getting louder and lower-

And 1017 raising up his hand to shield his eyes from the sun – Why ain't he running?

And -pound pound go my feet–

And I'm chanting "Damn you, damn you" –

BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ-

And 1017 don't see me coming-

I slam into him hard enough to lift him off his feet, feeling the air punched from his lungs as we fly across the grass, as we hit the ground rolling, as we go end over end across the dirt and into a shallow trench, as one titanic–

BOOM

eats the entire planet in a single bite of sound

blasting away every thought and bit of Noise

picking up yer brain and shattering it into pieces and every bit of air is sucked up and blown past us and dirt and grass hits us in hard, heavy clods and smoke fills our lungs

And then there's silence.

Loud silence.

***

"Are you hurt?" I hear the Mayor shout, as if he's miles and miles away and deep underwater.

I sit back up in the trench, see the huge smoking crater in the middle of the field, smoke already thinning cuz there's nothing to burn, row upon row of Spackle watching huddled from the far fields.

I'm breathing but I can't hear it.

I turn back to 1017, still mostly under me in the trench, scrabbling to get up, and I'm opening my mouth to ask him if he's all right even tho there's no way for him to answer–

And he hits me in a hard slap that leaves a rake of scratches across my face.

"Hey!" I shout, tho I can barely hear myself–

He's twisting out from under me and I reach out a hand to hold him there-

And he bites it hard with his rows of little sharp teeth-

And I pull it back, already bleeding–

And I'm ready to punch him, ready to -pound him–

And he's out from under me, running away across the crater, back toward the other Spackle-

"Hey!" I shout again, my Noise rising into red.

He's just running and staring back and the rows of Spackle are all looking back at me, too, their stupid silent faces with less expresshun than the dumbest sheep I ever had back on the farm and my hand is bleeding and my ears are ringing and my face is stinging from the scratches and I saved his stupid life and this is the thanks I get?

Animals, I think. Stupid, worthless, effing animals.

***

"Todd?" says the Mayor again, riding over to me. "Are you hurt?"

I turn my face up toward him, not even sure if I'm calm enough to answer, but when I open my mouth– The ground heaves.

My hearing's still gone so I feel it more than hear it, feel the rumble thru the dirt, feel the air pulse with three hard vibrayshuns, one right after the other, and I see the Mayor turn his head suddenly back toward town, see Davy and all the Spackle do the same.

More bombs.

In the distance, toward the city, the biggest bombs that've ever exploded in the history of this world.

18 TO LIVE IS TO FIGHT

***

(Viola)

I'M SO STUPIDLY UNDONE after the Mayor and his soldiers take Todd away that Corinne finally has to give me something for it, though I feel the prick of the needle in my arm as little as I feel her hand on my back, not moving, not caressing, not doing anything to make it feel better, Just holding me there, keeping me to earth. I'm sorry to say, I'm not grateful.

When I wake in my bed, it's only just dawn, the sun so low it's not quite over the horizon yet, everything else in morning shadow.

Corinne is in the chair next to me.

"As much as it would do you good to sleep longer," she says, "I'm afraid you can't."

I lean forward in the bed until I'm almost bent in half. There's a weight in my chest so heavy, it's like I'm being pulled into the ground. "I know," I whisper. "I know."

I don't even know why he collapsed. He was dazed, nearly unconscious, foam coming from his mouth, and then the soldiers lifted him to his feet and dragged him away.

"They'll come for me," I say, having to swallow away the tightness in my throat. "After they're done with Todd."

"Yes, I expect they will," Corinne says simply, looking at her hands, at the cream – colored calluses raised on her fingertips, at the ash – colored skin that flakes off the top of her hands because of so much time under hot water.

The morning is cold, surprisingly, harshly so. Even with my window closed, I can feel a shiver coming. I wrap my arms around my middle.

He's gone.

And I don't know what'll happen now.

"I grew up in a settlement called the Kentish Gate," Corinne suddenly says, keeping her eyes off mine, "on the edge of a great forest."

I look up. "Corinne?"

"My father died in the Spackle War," she presses on, "but my mother was a survivor. From the time I could stand, I worked with her in our orchards, picking apples and crested pine and roisin fruit."

I stare at her, wondering why now, why this story now?

"My reward for all that hard work," she continues, "was a camping trip every year after final harvest, just me and my mother, as deep in the forest as we dared to go." She looks out into the dark dawn. "There's so much life here, Viola. So much, in every corner of every forest and stream and river and mountain. This planet just hums with it."

She runs a fingertip over her calluses. "The last time we went, I was eight. We walked south for three whole days, a present for how grown – up I was getting. God only knows how many miles away we were, but we were alone, just me and her and that was all that mattered."

She lets a long pause go by. I don't break it.

"She was bitten by a Banded Red, on her heel, as she cooled her feet in a stream." She's rubbing her hands again. "It's fatal, red snake venom, but slow."

"Oh, Corinne," I say, under my breath.

She stands suddenly, as if my sympathy is almost rude. She walks over to my window. "It took her seventeen hours to die," she says, still not looking at me. "And they were awful and painful and when she went blind, she grabbed onto me and begged me to save her, begged me over and over to save her life."

I remain silent.

"What we know now, what the healers have discovered, is that I could have saved her life just by boiling up some Xanthus root." She crosses her arms. "Which was all around us. In abundance."

The ROAR of New Prentisstown is only just starting to rise with the sun. Light shoots in from the far horizon, but we stay silent for a moment longer.

"I'm sorry, Corinne," I finally say. "But why-?"

"Everyone here is someone's daughter," she says quietly. "Every soldier out there is someone's son. The only crime, the only crime is to take a life. There is nothing else."

"And that's why you don't fight," I say.

She turns to me sharply. "To live is to fight," she snaps. "To preserve life is to fight everything that man stands for." She takes an angry huff of air. "And now her, too, with all the bombs. I fight them every time I bandage the blackened eye of a woman, every time I remove shrapnel from a bomb victim."

Her voice has risen but she lowers it again. "That's my war," she says. "That's the war I'm fighting."

She walks back to her chair and picks up a bundle of cloth next to it. "And to that end," she says, "I need you to put these on."

She doesn't give me time to argue or even ask about her plan. She takes my apprentice robes and my own few much – washed clothes and has me put on poorer rags, a long – sleeved blouse, a long skirt, and a headscarf that completely covers my hair.

"Corinne," I say, tying up the scarf.

"Shut up and hurry."

When I'm dressed, she takes me down to the end of the long hallway leading out to the riverside by the house of healing. There's a heavy canvas bag of medicines and bandages loaded up by the door. She hands it to me and says, "Wait for the sound. You'll know it when you hear it."

"Corinne-"

"Your chances aren't very good, you have to know that." She's looking me in the eye now. "But if you get to wherever they're hiding, you put these supplies to use as a healer, do you hear me? You've got it in you whether you know it or not."

My breathing is heavy, nervous, but I look at her and I say, "Yes, Mistress."

"Mistress is right," she says and looks out of the window in the door. We can see a single bored soldier at the corner of the building, picking his nose. Corinne turns to me. "Now. Strike me, please."

I blink. "What?"

"Strike me," she says again. "I'll need a bloody nose or a split lip at least."

"Corinne-"

"Quickly or the streets will grow too crowded with soldiers."

"I'm not going to hit you!"

She grabs me by the arm, so fiercely I flinch back. "If the President comes for you, do you honestly think you'll return? He's tried to get the truth from you by asking and then by trapping your friend. Do you honestly think the patience of a man like that lasts forever?"

"Corinne-"

"He will eventually hurt you," she says. "If you refuse to help him, he will kill you."

"But I don't know-"

"He doesn't care what you don't know!" she hisses through her teeth. "If I can prevent the taking of a life, I will do so, even one as irritating as yours."

"You're hurting me," I say quietly, as her fingers dig into my arm.

"Good," she says. "Get angry enough to strike me."

"But why-"

"Just do it!" she shouts.

I take in a breath, then another, then I hit her across the face as hard as I can.

***

I wait, crouched by the window in the door, watching the soldier. Corinne's footsteps fade down the corridor as she runs to the reception room. I wait some more. The soldier is one of the many now who have had the cure taken from them and in the relative quiet of the morning I can hear what he thinks. Thoughts of boredom, thoughts of the village he lived in before the army invaded, thoughts of the army he was forced to join.

Thoughts of a girl he knew who died.

And then I hear the faint shout of Corinne coming from the front. She'll be screaming that the Answer snuck in during the night, beat her senseless, and kidnapped me under their very noses but that she saw us all flee in the opposite direction I'm going to be running.

It's a poor story; there's no way it's going to work. How could anyone sneak in with guards everywhere?

But I know what she's counting on. A legend that's been rising, a legend about the Answer.

How can the bombs be planted with no one seeing?

With no one being caught?

If the Answer can do that, could they sneak past armed guards?

Are they invisible?

I hear thoughts just like this as soon as I see the soldier's head snap up when he hears the ruckus. It grows louder in his Noise as he runs around the corner and out of view.

And as fast as that, it's time.

I hoist the bag of medicines up onto my shoulder. I open the door. I run.

I run toward a line of trees and down to the river. There's a path along the riverbank but I stick to the trees beside it and as the bag bashes my shoulders and back with heavy corners, I can't help but think of me and Todd running down this same river, this same riverbank, running from the army, running and running and running. I have to get to the ocean.

As much as I want to save Todd, my only chance is to find her first.

And then I'll come back for him.

I will.

I ain't never leaving you, Todd Hewitt.

My heart aches as I remember saying it.

As I break my promise,

(you hold on, Todd)

(you stay alive)

I run.

I make my way downriver, avoiding patrols, cutting across back gardens, running behind back fences, staying as far clear of houses and housing blocks as I can.

The valley is narrowing again. The hills approach the road and the houses begin to thin out. Once, I hear marching and I have to dive deep into the undergrowth as soldiers pass, holding my breath, crouching as low to the ground as I can. I wait until there's only birdcall (Where's my safety?) and the now distant ROAR of the town, wait for a breath or two more, then I raise my head and look down the road.

The river bends in the distance and the road is lost from view behind farther rolling hills and forests. Across the road here, this far from town, there are mostly farms and farmhouses, working their way up sloping hillsides, back toward more forest. Directly across, there's a small drive leading to a farmhouse with a little stand of trees in the front garden. The farming fields spread out to the right, but above and beyond the farmhouse, thicker forest begins again. If I can get up the drive, that'll be the safest place for me. If I have to, I'll hide until nightfall and make my way in the dark.

I look up and down the road again and once more. I listen for marching, for stray Noise, for the rattle of a cart.

I take in a breath.

And I bolt across the road.

I keep my eyes on the farmhouse, the bag banging into my back, my arms pumping the air, my lungs gasping as I run faster and faster and faster-Up the drive-Nearly to the trees-Nearly there-

And a farmer steps out from behind them.

I skid to a stop, sliding in the dirt and nearly falling. He jumps back, obviously surprised to see me appearing suddenly in front of him. We stare at each other.

His Noise is quiet, disciplined, almost gentlemanly, which is why I didn't hear it from a distance. He's holding a basket under one arm and a red pear in his free hand.

He looks me up and down, sees the bag on my back, sees me alone out on the road in a break of the law, sees from the heaviness of my breath that I've obviously been running.

And it comes in his Noise, fast and clear as morning.

The Answer, he thinks.

"No," I say. "I'm not-"

But he holds a finger up to his lips.

He cocks his head in the direction of the road.

And I hear the distant sound of soldiers marching down it.

"That way," the farmer whispers. He points up a narrow path, a small entrance to the woods above that would be easy to miss if you didn't know it was there. "Quickly now."

I look at him again, trying to see a trap, trying to tell but there's no time. There's no time.

"Thank you," I say and I take off running.

The path leads almost immediately into thicker woods, all uphill. It's narrow and I have to push back vines and branches to make my way. The trees swallow me and I can only go forward and forward, hoping that I'm not being led into a trap. I get to the top of the hill only to find a small slope down and then another hill to climb. I run up that, too. I'm still heading east but I can't see enough over anything to tell where the road is or the river or which way I'm-I nearly stumble out into a clearing. Where there's a soldier not ten yards from me.

His back is to me (thank god, thank god) and it's not until my heart has leaped out of my chest and I've caught myself and fallen back into the bushes that I see what he's guarding.

There it is.

In the middle of a clearing cresting the hill, stretching up on three metal legs almost fifty yards into the sky. The trees around it have been felled, and across the clearing underneath it I can see a small building and a road that leads back down the other side of the hill to the river.

I've found the communications tower.

It's here.

And there aren't that many soldiers around it. I count five, no, six.

Just six. With big gaps. My heart rises. And rises. I've found it.

And a BOOM! echoes in the distance beyond the tower.

I flinch, along with the soldiers. Another bomb. Another statement from the Answer. Another-The soldiers are leaving.

They're running, running toward the sound of the explosion, running away from me and down the other side of the hill, toward where I can already see a white pillar of smoke rising. The tower stands in front of me.

All of a sudden, it's completely unguarded.

I don't even wait to think how stupid I'm being-I'm just running-Running toward the tower-If this is my chance to save us then-I don't know-I'm just running-Across the open ground-Toward the tower-Toward the building underneath-I can save us-

Somehow I can save all of us-

And out of the corner of my eye, I see someone else break cover from the trees to my left–

Someone running straight toward me-

Someone-

Someone saying my name-

"Viola!" I hear. "Get back!"

"Viola, NO!" Mistress Coyle is screaming at me.

I don't stop-Neither does she-

"GET BACK!" she's yelling-And she's crossing the clearing in front of me-Running and running and running-And then I realize-Like a blow to the stomach-The reason why she's yelling-No-

Even as I'm skidding to a stop-No, I think-No, you can't-

And Mistress Coyle reaches me– You CAN'T-

And pushes us both to the ground– NO!

And the legs of the tower explode in three blinding flashes of light.

PART IV NIGHT FALLING

15 WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW

***

(Viola)

"Get off me!"

She slaps her hand over my mouth, holding it there, holding me there with the weight of her body as clouds of dust billow around us from the rubble of the communications tower. "Quit shouting," she hisses.

I bite her hand.

She makes a pained face, fierce and angry, but she doesn't let go, just takes the bite and doesn't move.

"You can scream and shout all you want later, my girl," she says, "but in two seconds, this place is going to be swarming with soldiers and do you honestly think they're going to believe you just happened by?"

She waits to see my reaction. I glare at her but finally nod. She takes away her hand.

"Don't you call me my girl," I say, keeping my voice low but just as fierce as hers. "Don't you call me that ever again."

***

I follow her down a steep slope, heading back toward the road, sliding on fallen leaves and gathered dew but always down and down. I hop over logs and roots, the canvas bag like a stone around my shoulders.

I have no choice but to go with her.

I'd be captured and God knows what else if I went back to town.

And she took my other choice away.

She reaches a stand of bushes at the bottom of a steepening in the slope. She ducks fast under them and beckons for me to follow. I slide down next to her, my breath almost gone, and she says, "Whatever you do, don't scream."

Before I can even open my mouth, she's jumped out through the bushes. They close up behind her and I have to fight my way through leaves and branches to follow. I'm still pushing them back when I practically tumble out the other side.

Onto the road.

Where two soldiers stand by a man with a cart, all of them looking straight at me and Mistress Coyle.

The soldiers look more astonished than angry, but they have no Noise, so there's no way to know.

But they're carrying rifles.

And they're raising them at us.

"And who the hell is this?" one barks, a middle – aged man with a shaved head and a scar down his jaw line.

"Don't shoot!" Mistress Coyle says, hands out and up.

"We heard the explosion," says the other soldier, a younger one, not much older than me, with blond, shoulder – length hair.

Then the older soldier says something else, something unexpected. "You're late."

"That's enough, Magnus," Mistress Coyle says, lowering her hands and stepping forward to the cart. "And put your rifles down. She's with me."

"What?" I say, still frozen to my spot.

"The tracer malfunctioned completely," the younger soldier says to her. "We're not even sure where it came down."

"I told you they were too old," Magnus says.

"It did its job," Mistress Coyle says, bustling around the cart, "wherever it landed."

"Hey!" I say. "What's going on?"

And then I hear, "Hildy?"

Mistress Coyle stops in her tracks. The two soldiers do, too, and stare at the man driving the cart.

"Iss you, ain it?" he says. "Hildy hoo's also called Viola."

My mind's been racing so fast, so completely focused on the soldiers, that I barely took in the man driving the cart, the nearly expressionless face, the clothes, the hat, the voice, the Noise flat and calm as the far horizon.

The man that once drove me and Todd across a sea of things.

"Wilf," I gasp.

Now everyone looks at me, Mistress Coyle's eyebrows so high it's like they're trying to crawl into her hair. "Hey," Wilf says, in greeting.

"Hey," I say back, too stunned to say any more.

He touches two fingers to the brim of his hat. "Ah'm glad to see yoo mayde it."

Mistress Coyle's mouth is moving but no sound comes out for a second or two. "There'll be time for that later," she finally says. "We have to go now."

"Will there be room for two?" the younger soldier asks.

"There'll have to be." She ducks down under the cart and removes a panel from the underside. She motions to me. "Get in."

"In where?" I bend down and see a compartment hidden like a trick of the eye in the width of the cart, narrow and thin as a cot above the rear axle.

"Pack won't fit," Wilf says, pointing at the bag on my back. "Ah'll take it."

I slip it off and hand it to him. "Thank you, Wilf."

"Now, Viola," Mistress Coyle says.

I give Wilf a last nod, duck under the cart and crawl in, forcing my way across the compartment until my head's nearly touching the far side. Mistress Coyle doesn't wait and forces herself in after me. The younger soldier was right. There isn't enough room. She's pressed right up against me, face – to – face, her knees digging into my thighs, our noses less than an inch apart. She's barely drawn her feet inside when the panel is replaced, plunging us into almost complete darkness.

"Where are we-" I start to say but she shushes me harshly.

And outside I hear soldiers marching fast up the road, led by the clopping of horse's hooves.

***

"Report!" one of them shouts as they stop by the cart. His voice-It's up high and I hear the horse whinnying beneath it-But his voice-

"Heard the explosion, sir," the older of our soldiers replies. "This man says he saw women heading past him down the river road about an hour ago."

We hear the real soldier spit. "Bitches."

I recognize his voice-It's Sergeant Hammar.

"Whose unit you two in?" he says.

"First, sir," says our younger soldier, after the briefest of pauses. "Captain O'Hare."

"That pansy?" Sergeant Hammar spits. "You wanna do some real soldiering, transfer to the Fourth. I'll show you what's what."

"Yes, sir," says our older soldier, sounding more nervous than I'd want him to.

I can hear the Noise of the soldiers in Sergeant Hammar's unit. They're thinking of the cart. They're thinking of the explosions. They're thinking about shooting women.

But there's no Noise coming from Sergeant Hammar.

"Arrest this man," Sergeant Hammar finally says, meaning Wilf.

"We were just doing that, sir."

"Bitches," Sergeant Hammar says again, and we hear him spur his horse ( yield , it thinks) and he and his men march off at full speed. I let out the breath I didn't realize I was holding. "He wasn't even punished," I whisper, more to myself than to Mistress Coyle.

"Later," she whispers back.

I hear Wilf snap the reins and we rock as the cart plods slowly forward.

So the Mayor was a liar. All along. Of course he was, you idiot.

And Maddy's killer walks free to kill again, his cure still in place.

And I'm bumping and shaking against the woman who destroyed the only hope of contacting the ships that might save us.

And Todd is out there. Somewhere. Being left behind. I've never felt so lonely in my life.

The compartment is hellishly small. We share too much of each other's air, elbows and shoulders bruising away as we ride along, the heat soaking our clothes. We don't speak.

Time passes. And then more. And more after that. I fall into a kind of doze, the close warmth sucking the life right out of me. The rocking of the cart eventually flattens all my worries and I close my eyes against it.

I'm awakened by the older soldier knocking on the wood and I think we're going to finally get out, but he just says, "We're at the rough bit. Hold on."

"To what?" I say, but I don't say any more as the cart feels like it drops off a cliff. Mistress Coyle's forehead smacks into my nose and I smell blood almost at once. I hear her gasp and choke as my stray hand is shoved into her neck and still the cart tumbles and bumps and I wait for the moment where we topple end over end.

And then Mistress Coyle is working both arms around me, pulling me close to her and bracing us in the compartment with one hand and one foot pressed against the opposite side. I resist her, resist the implied comfort, but there's wisdom in it as almost immediately we stop knocking each other about, even though the cart lurches and stutters.

And so it's in Mistress Coyle's arms that the last bit of my journey is taken. And it's in Mistress Coyle's arms that I enter the camp of the Answer.

Finally the cart stops and the panel is removed almost immediately.

"We're here," says the younger soldier, the blond one. "Everyone okay?"

"Why wouldn't we be?" Mistress Coyle says sourly. She lets go of me and scoots her way out of the compartment, extending a hand to help me out, too. I ignore it, getting myself out and looking at my surroundings.

We've come down a steep rocky path that's barely fit for a cart and into what looks like a gash of rocks in the middle of a forest. Trees press in on every side, a row of them on the level ground in front of us.

The ocean must be beyond them. Either I dozed off for longer than I thought or she lied and it's closer than she said. Which wouldn't surprise me.

The blond soldier whistles when he sees our faces, and I can feel caked blood under my nose. "I can get you something for that," he says.

"She's a healer," Mistress Coyle says. "She can do it herself."

"I'm Lee," he says to me, a grin on his face. For a brief second, I'm completely aware of how terrible I must look with my bloody nose and this ridiculous outfit. "I'm Viola," I say to the ground.