“Just in time,” Olivia said. “Come on, Sal. I’ll go easy on you, I promise.”
“Speak for yourself,” I said, pulling my gloves on.
“That’s what I like to hear!” Olivia said. “Come on! Give it all you got! Asa, watch Rosa for me!”
“Of course!” said Asa. “?Rosalita! ?Ven conmigo!”
And we dove into the ring, not caring who won, the lightness of adrenaline and fun and being young breaking the surface of our gloom, our troubles momentarily forgotten.
Lucy Arbor left the hospital after midnight, her shoulders sagging, her heart sinking. Three more Dust Sickness deaths. Three more bodies to be added to the wall, despite the closing of the Dowsing Well.
Above her, there was a sound, and darting into the shadows, Lucy watched as Mother Morevna opened the rose window, pushing it outward.
That thing can open? Lucy thought, pressing herself against the wall of the jail.
Mother Morevna leaned out of her window, her tattooed hands full of something Lucy couldn’t see. Pebbles? Marbles? Mother Morevna looked up at the sky. The moon was full and round and reddish. She stared at it for a moment, then put the handful of whatever it was to her chest and closed her eyes. Her lips were moving as though she were praying, but Lucy couldn’t hear her words. The tattoos on her hands began to glow in the darkness like lines of flame, brighter and brighter until suddenly they stopped. Then Mother Morevna laid the small things in a row, one by one, on the windowsill and turned back inside. Down on the ground, Lucy just kept looking up at the window, trying to still the beating of her heart, trying to tell herself that the feeling growing in her chest wasn’t what she knew it was. Dread.
CHAPTER 25
3 DAYS
REMAIN.
Every day we saw the world around us change. We felt the ground pitch beneath us, roaring like the great stomach of a hungry titan whose bonds were ever loosening. The sky took on the permanent darkness of a thunderstorm, swirling angrily overhead, promising nothing but divine wrath.
Our every moment was consumed by training. We came home from the barn, dusty and burned and exhausted, smelling of smoke and sulfur and magic. I rarely saw Lucy, as the hospital kept her busy day and night. But when I did, our conversations were grim, and her beautiful face was more sunken and ill than ever. Gradually, it became more and more real to us: We were really going to have to do this. We were really going to lead a war for our survival.
Three days before Judgment Day, the horses were ready to be brought to life, and we headed to the barn, walking slowly as the ground writhed beneath us. We split off into our respective groups: fighters, sharpshooters, inventors, and witches. Up in the hayloft, Asa was waiting, and he gave us a somber nod as we returned to the row of rifles and shotguns and cases of homemade magical bullets sitting on the floor, glowing softly with enchantments. We passed through the barn and out the back, into the lot behind it. There, ten rows of metal horses were waiting, still and frightening, a silent mechanical army. The guards were there as well, standing quietly, their eyes on Susanah, awaiting instruction.
“So what do we do?” Cassandra asked.
“Sal had the idea of creating a kind of spell that would allow us to power all of them up at once,” said Susanah. She pulled small five white stones from her pocket and handed one each to Cassandra, Olivia, Mowse, Asa, and me.
“These stones are connected to the others around the horses,” Susanah explained. “It’s a trapdoor spell, basically, or so Sal said. So what you do, theoretically, is just… uh… Sal, could you explain this?”
“You just will all the spells you’ve learned into your stone,” I said. I reached into my pocket and pulled out another stone that was almost identical, but a bit larger. “This is the Master Stone,” I said. “It channels all the magic from each of you… hopefully. I’m going to give it to Asa, and after you all… do your thing… Asa should be able to power up the horses.”
I put the stone in Asa’s hand, and he held it like a boy about to skip a rock over a pond.
“What do I do?” Olivia said.
“Copy Sal’s magic, if you can,” Susanah said. “Maybe we can get a double dose of it.”