Page 94 of Thornlight

The path just behind Ari collapsed, leaving a huge gap between Ari and Quicksilver on one side, and Noro and Bartos on the other.

Noro called over his shoulder, “Hold on, girls!”

Thorn did, ducking low over Noro’s neck as he leaped nimbly over the gap to land safely on the other side.

“Jump over!” Quicksilver called back to Bartos, as she and Ari held out their arms. “We’ll catch you!”

The cliffs swayed and rumbled. Below, the Break boomed and groaned. Clouds of black dust choked the air. Thorn coughed, searching wildly through the rubble. Zaf’s frizzy white hair tickled her nose.

Then she saw Bartos—with ten, maybe twelve feet between him and safety. Thorn’s stomach dropped. That gap might as well have been the Break itself.

She watched Zaf blow Bartos a kiss, saw Bartos smile and back up to get a running start.

“Come on!” Quicksilver beckoned to Bartos. “We’re ready! We won’t let you fall!”

Bartos squared his shoulders, nodded sharply, then tugged straight his tattered uniform. Thorn watched, her heart pounding in her fingers. Bartos seemed suddenly far younger than he’d been when they left the Vale.

“Hurry, Bartos!” Thorn cried.

He backed up a few paces more, eyed the gap, and ran for it.

And then the loudest boom yet shook the Westlin cliffs.

Quicksilver grabbed on to Ari to keep steady. Thorn swayed in her seat, losing her grip on Zaf, who fell into Ari’s arms, light as a feather. Even Noro staggered back.

A howl from the distant Gulgot shook the cage of Thorn’s ribs.

Bartos’s path collapsed under his feet.

With a sharp, choked cry, he fell.

Thorn screamed.

She jumped off Noro, hurried to the gap’s edge, looked down the crumbling cliffs—but there was no sign of Bartos, only swirling dust and shadows.

Noro pulled her back to safety. Zaf was sobbing in Ari’s arms, her pointy, pale face streaked with dirt.

“We have to go!” Quicksilver called out, beckoning toward the path Bartos had showed them. Her eyes glinted with tears. “Now!”

She waved them on, through the hidden cut of rock and onto a steep set of stairs. Past that stretched a narrow path between sheer stone walls, and then, thin and tall, the mouth of a cave. Ari and Zaf went first, followed by Thorn, Quicksilver, and Noro.

Thorn climbed the stairs on her hands and knees, her body shaking so hard she could hardly keep moving. Bartos’s final scream echoed through her body like a bell struck again and again, scraping against her teeth.

Her head spun. She stopped, pressed her cheek against the gritty stone step, felt the rock shudder underneath her. She didn’t think it would be so terrible if she stayed there forever.

Noro pressed his nose against her back, pushed her gently on.

Thorn climbed, her vision a soupy fog. The part of her brain that was still working wondered why she wasn’t crying. Maybe it was the numb gray feeling rocking through her body, from her toes to her skull. It blocked out the web in her belly and the world beyond too—the quaking cliffs, Zaf’s whimpering cries, the distant howls of the Gulgot.

The cave path grew narrow. When they reached the fork, they took the left one, as Bartos had instructed, and Thorn missed him so suddenly, and so terribly, that it felt like her chestwas tightening around her lungs, and suddenly the numb feeling inside her popped like a bubble.

The walls shook around them, and the ceiling shook above them, and the floor shook beneath them, and a scream built in Thorn’s throat, because she could not remember a time when the world had been still. Her scream rose up, and up, and she feared she wouldn’t be able to keep it from erupting.

They emerged into a cavernous room. The ceiling was a tangle of hissing copper and metal pipes, the floor a wet sheet of rock. Stone stairs built against the walls led to high doors, and on the walls themselves were intricate carvings. The same carving, again and again, inlaid with pale jewels, and obviously a work that had taken years to achieve—a tessellation of towers ringed by flying long-tailed birds.

“The Hightower family crest,” Noro murmured. “The queen’s crest.”

“We made it, then,” said Ari. Zaf was limp in his arms, her eyes closed. “This must be the basement.”