Trust me. I’ve been here long enough to understand a thing or two about your grandfather’s prison.”
“How will killing me help?” I whispered, the point of her spear digging into my neck.
“You’ll heal, then be able to fight. Instead of being a burden, you’ll become an asset.” Under her breath, she added, “Hopefully. Unless you’re too pampered to do any heavy-lifting.”
The ache throbbing in my waist reminded me I had little choice. “Can you die an indefinite amount of times here?”
“Yeah. Unless you bite the—”
“Kiera,” Kingston wheezed. “Smoke . . . Gone.”
She flicked her gaze to the dregs of smoke puffing out of existence in the white sky. “Follow the river to the waterfall.”
“Don’t kill her,” Remo growled.
“Sorry, Carrot-top, but it’s survival of the fittest around here. I’m not dying again, because you don’t have the balls to trim the fat. Besides, you’ll see your girlfriend soon enough.”
“Girlfriend?” Kingston rasped.
Really? That was the part that gave him pause?
Branches snapped. I expected to hear a litany of growls, but instead I heard a new voice. A man with a thick beard but no hair raced from the forest. Like Kiera and Kingston, he wore a tattered and stained undershirt and shorts with a hem so frayed and uneven they must’ve been pants at some point.
“I got the weapons.” He brandished a handful of hand-whittled spears.
Remo pivoted toward the newcomer, lifting Kingston right off the ground. “How many of you are there?”
“Four.” To me, she said, “Oh, and, princess, when you get up there”—she tipped her head to the plateau—“don’t wake the vamp beetles.”
Vamp beetles? The tip of her spear scraped my thrumming carotid.
“Don’t!” Remo tossed away Kingston, who smacked down on the sand so hard, an oompf escaped from his lips.
“Now,” I breathed.
Kiera’s biceps tensed, and then the pain was gone, and so was I.
30
The Beetles
I awoke to a distant babble and cool stickiness. Before opening my eyes to face the white sky, I swallowed a steadying breath and took quick inventory of my body, relieved to note the absence of pain. This world was still despicable, but I was thankful for the strange loophole.
I flattened my palms and pressed my fingers into the squishy mud. Even though my body didn’t ache, I rose to my feet slowly, my clothes soaked in mud.
I stared at the hem of Remo’s tunic that skimmed the top of my thighs, sheltering my upper body like a poncho. I’d abandoned him shirtless down below. Our clothing wasn’t armor, but it beat bare skin. I hoisted the shirt up to dig my fingers into the tight knot of the belt he’d fastened around my waist to staunch the blood oozing from my wound. Once I got it loose, I slid it off my waist and hooked it around my neck. The tinny smell clinging to the soiled black fabric made my nostrils flare.
I was about to pull my arms through the sleeves of my jumpsuit when I remembered Remo had cut one off. Although not stifling, the air was warm in this cell, so I made scissors out of my dust, clipped off the remaining sleeve, then magicked my nifty tool out of existence and hoisted my suit back on. After threading the belt Remo had made me through the newly-felled sleeve, I retied a knot and looped it around my neck, then fit my arms through his tunic sleeves, rolled the cuffs twice to free my hands, and eased one arm through the stretchy necklace of sleeves to secure it across my chest.
Calling on my wita again, I fashioned a rapier. I wasn’t sure whether I would encounter the cats Kiera had mentioned up here, but I thought it prudent to be prepared. After a meaningful glare in the portal’s direction, I raced toward the watery expanse sparkling behind another tropical forest. There were no panem trees up here, just tall palms with ruddy bark coated in bulbs the color and size of gladeberries. As I slalomed around them, I finally computed what I’d seen down in the valley.
Kiera.
And Kingston.
Alive and untouched by age.
I couldn’t believe Joshua had been right.
I couldn’t believe Iba had been right.
I couldn’t believe Gregor had created a prison no one had any inkling about.
Except for Joshua’s source. Who the hell was Joshua’s source?
Soon the sound of flowing water superseded the swish of my needle-thin blade and the crunch of coarse sand beneath my stomping boots. Should I swim or run along the riverbank? As I contemplated both options, wishing I’d