Across The Universe Part 16

"Are you ready to see the world for what it really is?" I ask him.

"Will it be anything like the pictures I see? The ones astronauts take from s.p.a.ce?" he wonders aloud.

I smile. "It'll be so much bigger. And brighter, too. It's scary and extraordinary all at once."

He takes a deep breath, stills his trembling limbs, and looks at me with a resolve I haven't seen before. "I'm ready."

I tighten my grip on his hand and focus on the transformation, letting my skin turn from solid into smoke. Noah's blue mist weaves around my gray as we morph from the top of our heads to the tip of our toes into swirling clouds under the moonlit sky. Then I lead him up, up into the blackness of night, through the atmosphere and beyond.

Noah's smoke form radiates with exhilaration as we rocket through galaxies and in between planets. We do loops around stars and curl around comets. I know we need to reach The House soon, but I can't deny him the pleasure of exploring a universe he may never see again. If Elli proves victorious over us, it will all be turned to ash.

As I swirl around him, leading him through dazzling swaths of color streaked across solar systems and around the deep nothingness of black holes, I realize I've been taking the beauty of my universe for granted. I travel straight from The House to Earth and back every time, never really stopping to drink in the magnificence around me. This world we swim through came out of oblivion to make life. From its depths, Noah was born. My flight through this great expanse isn't just a universe; it's his origin story. For that, I owe the world reverence.

Regretfully, I push Noah away from the swirling planets below and think of home. When our smoke forms coalesce into solidity again, we stand in the Watch Room. Noah still clutches my hand in his, but when he sees Nim propped against the door he stumbles back and releases me.

"It's just Nim," I rea.s.sure him, though the sight of her frightens even me. Her skin has gone a sickly shade of green and the piece of fabric I wrapped around her leg is soaked in silver. Her head lolls against her shoulder and her eyes are shut. When I speak her lids flutter open, and her expression immediately turns outraged.

"I told you not to return," she hisses at me. "And what is the boy doing with you?"

"We can't run," I reply. "Noah and I decided to come back and take a stand against Elli. The House is worth fighting for."

"N-ni-nice to meet you," Noah stammers, giving Nim a half wave. She narrows her eyes and opens her mouth to yell, but I cut her off.

"There's nothing you can do to change my mind. Noah's going to help me reach the Hall of Beginnings, and together we'll find the mystical power source that runs The House. I'll keep it away from Elli and hide it somewhere she can never find it."

"Reckless," Nim says, "but not stupid. Though I'd vastly prefer it if you were far from here."

A stretch of silence envelops us, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. It's the type of quiet that is too thick-almost as thick as the void-and it sets my ears ringing.

"What's going on out there?" I ask my mentor. "Have you heard anything lately?"

Nim's face darkens. "There were screams. Lots of them. They lasted for quite a while. Then they tapered out. I haven't heard so much as a peep for a while. But there is this." She leans a hand behind her, setting it in a pool of shadow leaking in from under the door. When she brings her palm up to show us, it's soaked in silver blood.

I rush to Nim's side and lean down to inspect the floor. The blood isn't hers. It's trickling in from underneath the crack, soaking the dress I stuffed there and creating a puddle behind Nim's back. My skin p.r.i.c.kles with fear from the sight. No person could survive that much blood loss, not even a member of The House.

"Who's it coming from?" I ask.

"I don't want to know," Nim answers. "It could be more than one. You won't find out until you go out there."

I grab onto one side of the basin propped against the door and call to Noah. "Some help, please."

He's been gazing around the room, taking in the marble floors and the stars projecting onto the walls from my orb that rests in its clear bowl. When he hears me he snaps out of his reverie and comes to help, dragging the blockade away from the exit. Next we each duck under Nim's arms and pull her out of the way. She gasps in pain when she tries to put weight on her injured leg.

"I want to come with you," she says. "You shouldn't be alone."

I grab onto Noah's hand and give her my best rea.s.suring smile. "I'm not. You stay here, where it's safe. When we're gone, crawl back over to the door and hold it shut again."

Noah and I walk over to the exit. Placing my hand on the k.n.o.b, I give him one last lingering glance. "Are you sure about this?" I ask him.

He sets his jaw, squeezes my hand, and nods.

"Be careful," Nim says. "And Amara?"

"Yes, Nim?"

I'm expecting her to utter a trademark piece of wisdom, but instead her breath catches. Tears form in the corners of her eyes, and she struggles to keep them contained. "You're everything I taught you to be and more."

I blush, sensing the heat radiate over my ears and down my neck. There are no words to convey what I feel for her in the moment and so instead I just nod, avert my eyes, and pull open the door.

As Noah and I step across the threshold and into the hall, Nim's stifled sobs follow me, not departing until I close the door behind me and focus on the perilous mission ahead.

Chapter Twenty-Five.

The halls are bathed in silver blood. It streaks the walls and drips into puddles on the floor. A hill of bodies covers the ground, a tangle of arms and legs and blank stares. The dead are people I recognize-House members I used to pa.s.s every day in the halls. Some of them sport gouged wounds; others look sickly like Dena and Oman did as their universes fell to destruction.

With a chill that rocks my spine, I remember the ill.u.s.tration drawn on one of the ripped out pages shoved under my bedroom door. This scene matches it perfectly; the only aspect missing is the shadowy figure clutching the orb.

I turn into Noah's chest and stifle a scream as I bury my face in the fabric of his sweater. He gulps hard, his legs shaking beneath him.

"Did Elli do all this?" he asks.

"She must have," I reply. "Her and her Harbingers."

"But why? Why would she murder them all in cold blood?"

"Because I didn't do as she asked. Because she wants to rule over The House alone, with no one to question her authority. Because she's an evil, conniving bi-"

"I wonder where she is now. She knows you have to come out of the Watch Room eventually, so she should be waiting here for us, but she's not."

I stare out at the empty eyes and twisted bodies of the dead. "We have to get to the universes. If we can save them before the Harbingers can destroy them, then any surviving Watchers connected to them will be spared."

"Look in front of you, Amara. Listen to how quiet it is. There's no one left alive but us and Nim."

"We have to try," I say.

There's only one way to the Storage Room from here, and that's over the mountain of bodies. Walking over to the pile of corpses, I grab the topmost one under the arms and try to disentangle it from the mob. My breath comes in wet, staggered gasps as I bite back tears. Noah approaches me and sets a hand on my shoulder.

"This won't do any good. We need to focus on the reason we came here," he says.

I ignore him, tugging at arms and legs until the corpse falls free and lands with a thud in front of me. I drag it backward, over to the side of the hall. Every step I take is slow and labored under the shock that starts to take over my body.

Noah stops me, grabbing my shoulders and spinning me to face him. He shakes me hard until I look him in the eyes. "There's no one left, Amara. They're all dead. I'm sorry."

I steady my gaze on him, watching the molten silver of my irises harden in the reflection cast in his pupils. "We have to try," I repeat, my voice no louder than a whisper.

"Okay," Noah gives in. "Okay. I'll help you."

We go to work untangling the hill of dead House members. Each one we wrench free is dragged to the right side of the hall to lie next to another. Noah chokes back vomit as we reach the bottom of the crowd, the stench of flesh growing strong in our nostrils. Once we're done we step across the corridor and make our way to the Storage Room.

We move forth on quiet feet, hugging the walls and sneaking glances around corners before turning. I feel like a rat caught in an endless maze, waiting to come upon a trap. None appears. Instead more bodies meet us, strewn out in patches along the halls.

Finally we reach the room with the drawers. With a shaking hand I turn the k.n.o.b. Noah stands to the side, tensing his muscles in preparation to pounce. When the door falls open, however, we find the chamber empty.

Drawers hang open at odd angles. Their marble faces are cracked and crumbling. Orbs are scattered across the floor, rolling into one another with hollow clacking noises. The edge of the door hits one of the crystal b.a.l.l.s and sends it spinning along the ground; it doesn't stop until it meets the edge of a silver puddle. I follow the blood trail with my eyes and come to meet the blank gaze of a dead Watcher, propped against the wall with his mouth open in a silent scream. A long gash is cut into his flesh, right above his heart, and I cover my mouth to keep from crying out.

Bending down, I pick up one of the orbs. The universe inside casts a red glow on my palm as the world within implodes. A tear slips down my cheek.

"Are they supposed to look like this?" Noah asks, picking up another crystal ball and rotating it in his hand.

"No," I say. "They're being destroyed. The Harbingers already got to them. Soon they'll be obliterated and a new universe will be born inside the orb in the old one's place."

Noah casts his wary eyes across the plethora of gla.s.s b.a.l.l.s that cover the floor of the chamber. "I don't see any surviving worlds."

Carefully, I step over the debris littering the ground and approach the drawers. Only one drawer in the far right corner remains sealed. It's hard to notice; the face rests at the edge of the very top row and is cloaked in shadows.

"Nim's drawer hasn't been opened," I say. "My key won't unlock it, though. We'll have to leave it and hope the Harbingers don't come back."

"What about your universe? The one that holds Earth?"

"It's back in the Watch Room, safe-at least for now. But the rest of the Watchers-the ones that cared for these universes-they're all dead."

"What happens to the new universes? The ones that replace the old worlds?"

"I don't know," I answer honestly. "Before all this, it meant a new member of The House would come into being and take over the duties as Watcher. But now ... I'm not sure what happens now. Elli's undone the balance of things. For all I know, another House member may never come into existence again."

Noah grits his jaw and clenches his hands into fists. "We've got to stop her."

A rustling interrupts our conversation. The sound comes from the direction of the door and we both spin, our eyes coming to rest on a black-cloaked Harbinger. The ent.i.ty glides through the door, the wake it makes causing the orbs beneath it to jostle into each other with the sound of clinking gla.s.s.

I step in front of Noah instinctively, using one arm to push him back against the drawers. His weight knocks loose one of the crumbling faces and it shatters across the ground, leaving shards at my feet. I bend down, pick one up, and rush the Harbinger with a war cry.

The depths of the figure's hood glow red as it lifts a skeletal finger to point at me. I push through the wave of crippling fatigue that hits me and plunge the makeshift weapon into the cloak. A guttural howl fills the room as the fragment of marble slices into the Harbinger's sinew. When I pull away a large tear in the fabric reveals a patch of oily black skin mixed with slippery red muscle. Black ooze seeps from a large wound in its abdomen.

The red glow emanating from under the hood flickers and dies, but the Harbinger still glides toward me. Its movement is weak and stilted, and I make the mistake of dropping my defenses in light of its injury. The ent.i.ty uses the window to attack, clawing at me with its gnarled fingers. I fall to the ground with the Harbinger atop me, black ooze dripping onto my face and neck as I struggle against the a.s.sault.

Noah bends down and picks up one of the drawer faces, bringing it down so that the flat side smashes the Harbinger's head. The figure rolls off of me and falls motionless to the ground as Noah brings the marble slab down again and again, cracking its skull and soaking its hood through with blood and brain matter. He doesn't stop until I reach out and stay his hand.

"It's dead," I tell him, trying to keep my tone soothing as I stagger back to my feet.

Noah looks at me with wild eyes and then drops the drawer face to the ground. His cheeks are spattered with black goo and his expression is full of rage. I want to draw him into me-comfort him-but shadows flickering across the doorway interrupt me. Three more Harbingers block our path out into the halls.

I grab Noah's hand and turn us into smoke. We swirl around one another and shoot over the gap above the Harbingers' heads, clinging to the ceiling and rushing down the corridor. We round corners and pa.s.s doors, all the while evading the plumes of black smoke that shoot up behind us. The Harbingers give chase all the way to our destination: the locked door across from the Archives Room.

We turn the last corner and I flatten Noah's cloud form against the marble wall when I see who stands there. Elli waits in the center of the corridor, blocking the entrance to the Hall of Beginnings. I try to filter our smoke up and out of sight but it's too late; Elli catches sight of me and sneers with a malevolence that flips my gut over.

The Harbingers close in behind us. There is nowhere to go but down, underneath the crack in the Archives Room door. Our cloud forms swirl into the chamber on the other side, flying over the desk stacked with parchment and into one of the tunnels beyond. The sound of a door slamming open after us causes me to lose focus and we tumble out of the air, hitting the ground as solid bodies.

"Run," I tell Noah as I jump to my feet and offer him a helping hand. He uses my arm as leverage to leap up, dashing down the hall after me as I lead us into the depths of the tunnel. Shelves full of books are blurs of timeworn colors as we sprint past.

"I know you're in here," Elli's voice echoes out in a singsong tone. "You can't escape me that easily."

"Down here," I command Noah, darting around a corner into a familiar corridor. I'm halfway past the rows of volumes within before I remember why I recognize the path: it's the same one Elli took me down to find the secret room full of hidden books containing information on the Key.

"You're running from nothing," Elli shouts, though she's still not close enough for me to put a face to the words. "Eventually I'll find you. That's what billions of years in a place like this results in. I know The House better than anyone else here. Not that I left more than you and Nim alive, that is."

Noah drags behind me, his breath coming in panting gasps. I know he can't run much farther, so I grab onto the collar of his shirt and yank him around one more corner. My fingers fumble across the spines of books as I search for the one I'm looking for.

"You came back here, just like the prophecy said you would," Elli continues. "Now I'll take the Key from you and use it to unlock the ultimate power. There's nothing you can do to stop me."

There. I find the dusty crimson volume and yank it diagonally from the shelf. The wall slides to the side in response. Instead of darting inside I skirt around it, and Noah follows me around the opposite corner. Peeking around the turn in the tunnel and holding my breath, I watch as Elli enters the pa.s.sageway. Her hair is wild and her skin is stained with silver. There's nothing left in her appearance of the friend I once knew. She sees the opening in the wall and smirks.

"I know you're in there," she says, and turns into the secret room.

I dart around the corner and reach for the shelf, slamming the crimson bound book back into place. The wall slides closed behind Elli, and the last thing I see is her crazy glare as the shelf slips back into place.

"Come on," I order Noah. "I bought us a few seconds, but she'll get out soon."

Noah sprints over to me and we run down the tunnel. As we go I clench my hand around his and we are smoke again, darting past a cloud of Harbingers as we careen back out of the pa.s.sageway and under the door of the Archives Room. We don't solidify until we're in the halls of The House, coming to stand in front of the locked door across the hall.

"This is our only chance," I say. "We have to unlock the door now, or they'll be here before we can get away."

"I don't know how," Noah whines. His brow is covered in sweat and he strains to focus on the door in front of us. Setting a comforting hand on his forearm, I answer him in the calmest tone I'm capable of.

"Focus on the lock. Will it to open. Maybe it'll work. Just keep trying."

The hall falls silent as Noah stares at the keyhole below the k.n.o.b. Several beats go by and I am convinced all is lost-that we were fools to try to open what we don't understand-but then a click reverberates through the air and the hinges creak open.

I stare up at Noah in wonder. His skin glows faintly with the same colored lights that filter out from underneath the door in front of us. I grab his hand, giving him a look of conviction, and pull him across the threshold into the unknown.

Chapter Twenty-Six.

The hall that stretches out before us is straight and narrow and endless. The walls, floor, and ceiling are made of hemat.i.te, so polished that my reflection glints off every surface. In the distance the path tapers off into shadows.

Alabaster doors line the corridor in uniform rows, but as soon as I focus on one they shift places, whirring off the walls and reordering themselves in a blur of pale color. There are thousands of them; they stretch on as far as the hall does, receding into the darkness at the edge of my vision. The multicolored lights that originally streamed out from under the entrance haunt the edge of my vision, coming from nowhere and everywhere all at once.

Noah stares openmouthed as the doors maneuver out of place again, the breeze they kick up rustling his hair. "One of these must lead to the power source," he says.