Scum creatures wanting to chew on her vital organs. This made studying for semester finals seem like a vacation.
Plastic and cloth rustled as Stewart sat next to her. She glanced at him. He didn’t look as silly without his newspaper jacket and plastic bowler hat, but he didn’t exactly boost her confidence, either. Maybe if he had one of those trash golems around …
“I don’t suppose you’ve got some whizmajig spell that can transport us back to your dump, huh?”
He tugged an ear. “Lass, if’n I did, you think I’d still be here, waitin’ for you to come pop me free?”
“Good point.”
“What’s you doin’ here, anyhoo? Thought you’d be far and away by now.”
She explained what had happened after they escaped the dump. She added everything Ben had told her about the hybrid Petty being born, plus Destin removing her and Ben so he could go after it himself. As she started in on the prison break, Stewart cut her off with a tongue-click of disapproval.
“What?” she asked.
He tilted his head to where Sydney stood, craning his neck to try and admire himself in the new jacket. “Now, lass, I’s not one to be judgin’ your pick o’ beaus, but—”
Dani tossed a used wipe back onto the cart. “I tell you all that and you’re worried about me hooking up with an overgrown brat?”
The floor shuddered. Stewart’s spine stiffened.
“Oh dear,” he said.
“What?” She snatched up a squeegee. “What’s wrong?”
Sydney hurried over. He and the trash mage exchanged a look, and the entropy mage grimaced.
“I don’t think Ben expected them to go this far. Nothing we can do to stop it now. Do you have any protective measures in that bag of tricks?”
Stewart plunged a hand into the trash bag, concentration etched on his face.
“What’s happening?” Dani asked.
“Consider it a dead man’s switch in case a portion of HQ is compromised,” Sydney said. “Or, say, if a janitor decides to start freeing Corrupt prisoners.”
Stewart held up a ball of crumpled bubble wrap.
Sydney nodded. “That’ll do.”
The trash mage bent over the plastic clump and began muttering as he traced sigils around it. Dani jabbed the squeegee at Sydney’s chest.
“Tell me—”
He tapped the edge, and the tool crumbled into nothingness. “They’re going to collapse this portion of HQ.”
The blood drained from her face. “Collapse?”
“The entirety of the Recycling Center will implode, purging everything and everyone it contains. The option remains for us to break out into the Gutters. I suggest we take it.”
“But you said—”
“When presented with the complete certainty of a horrible death and the mere possibility of a horrible death, which would you choose?” He pointed to Ben. “You and Stewart carry the old man. I’ll need both hands to open the way. Unless you wish to leave him behind.”
Dani tried to stare him down. Even with Carl still threatening to decapitate him, how could she trust what he said? For all she knew, he could take them back to the Cleansers, or deliver them to the urmoch to be eaten alive.
His gaze didn’t waver, and finally she huffed and waved for Stewart to join her by Ben.
“I got his arms,” she said. “You get his feet.”
They hauled the janitor up between them. Sweat beaded Dani’s forehead as they trudged over to Sydney, who had moved to the wall where the portal had been. He rapped on it as if testing for studs behind the stone.
Another tremor shook the chamber. Stewart squawked and almost dropped Ben’s feet. As Dani struggled to compensate, she looked to Sydney, wondering why he hadn’t opened the way out yet. Then she noticed the thin line of his mouth, the twitch of a cheek, and the slightest tremble to his hands.
He was frightened. And for someone who could erase objects and people from existence with a touch, realizing he feared what waited in the Gutters unsettled Dani more than anything.
Then he placed his hands on the wall and closed his eyes. The wall disintegrated into a square hole. Wind howled into their faces, bringing with it scents of mulch, ice, and another sharp smell that, oddly, made Dani remember visiting elephants at a zoo as a child.
Darkness waited beyond.
Sydney’s smile wavered, then firmed as he turned to her and extended a hand. “Trust me.”
She stepped up beside him, Ben a heavy weight on her shoulders. A horrendous metallic shrieking started behind them, along with an eruption of heat that struck her back.
Sydney shouted, “Jump!”
They leapt through. The moment she crossed the threshold, Ben’s weight vanished. An