The Library of the Unwritten - A. J_ Hackwith Page 0,41

slightly shorter and with a melted pool of wax around the wick. Leto had worried it wouldn’t be shiny enough to be acceptable, but the raven gave it a careful once-over, then snapped it up. Hard nails pinched momentarily into his skin as the raven launched itself into the air.

And then they were running. Leto was so concerned about keeping up that they’d passed through the rock face before he’d had a chance to anticipate the impact. The moment they were through, shadows swam up and engulfed him. The world narrowed to only the bobbing bird ahead of him, white candle clutched in its claws like an arrow pointing the way. Frost ticked up the back of his neck, but he kept his eyes locked straight ahead.

Not so bad, Leto thought.

Then the whispers started.

* * *

◆ ◆ ◆

“BOYS. STOP BEING LITTLE monkeys and smile for the picture.”

Leto stumbled. His stomach dropped as he spun in the direction of the voice. It echoed around him, as if the speaker was lost in the cavernous dark. He twisted around and barely caught sight of the black bird disappearing into the fog. He broke into a run again, but it felt slower, as if he was covering less ground than before.

“You got to check this out.”

“That’s crazy.” Leto’s lips moved around the response. It was his voice, and they were his lips that spoke it, and they felt like his words, but it was wrong, all wrong. As if he were watching himself from far away. His legs gave out beneath him, and it was a shorter fall to the ground than it should have been. His knees banged against a soft surface that was suddenly slippery and pliable. Leto smelled chlorine and sun-warmed rubber, an inner tube in a shady backyard pool. The laughter that cut up through his constricted throat felt like a foreign presence. “Did you see the one where he—”

“I know, right? We could totally start our own channel.”

The other voice was young and gleefully confident, just over his shoulder. Out of the corner of his eye, a figure swirled through the deep mist, and it took every inch of self-control not to twist to face it. He shoved to his feet, though he could feel his body changing. The bob of the ghostlight was a speck in the dark. He ran, even as his legs stretched and returned to something like normal.

“You never got time to chill anymore.” And now the voices sounded older.

“I’m just busy. You know.” The words were frosty with apathy. Leto tried not to say them, but they forced their way out anyhow.

“Yeah. I know.”

Everything felt familiar, like an echo. Leto clutched his fist over his chest, where an ache bloomed. The ground swayed, roiling with the mists, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to keep his feet. The raven didn’t care. He was swimming after the bird to—where, forward? Backward? Deeper in or farther out? Time dilated, a drip of fatigue in his veins. Like bleeding out. A lulling exhaustion, spiked with dread.

His lips parted again, and there was no fighting this painful script. “Stop, Darren. I don’t have time—”

No. Don’t, Leto thought.

“I just thought—”

Stop. Leto tried to bite his mouth closed to keep it in. You don’t know—it ruins everything. Don’t say it, don’t—

Pain blossomed over the horror, and Leto’s lips bled as they parted. “Well, don’t. Shit, Darren. Don’t bother thinking. Just don’t.”

The feather crumpled in his fist, and a new pain brought him back. The quill had pierced his fingertip. It wasn’t in the script. It was enough. He gasped and stumbled through the fog. The raven’s distant form abruptly swerved up. It took a panicked scramble before Leto found where the ground inclined, rising up toward liquid shadows that poured between a gap of nothing that seemed thicker, darker, somehow.

“Who? Darren? God, no. He just always hangs around. . . .”

Again his voice betrayed him, stealing his breath. This time it came with a chill of calculation. Hope. The primal adolescent instinct that pointing to someone weaker somehow makes you strong.

Acid burned up Leto’s throat and pooled on his tongue. It tasted bitter, like loathing. Leto hated that voice and hated himself. Maybe he deserved to be lost here. Maybe the others would fare better without him. They would, wouldn’t they? Leto twisted to find the voice but stumbled midstep. And then he was falling. Leto’s arms windmilled out for something, anything. An alien sound intruded, a digital ping