“No, you’re not listening. That was why I first moved in here, but I’m not gonna do it. These guys are still gonna want it, though, so I gotta grab it and take it to Mr. Belamy. Is the statue his soul tether?”
“I…” Petre’s eyes were wrinkled in concern. “He never told me what his tether was, and I never asked. But the statue he used to keep on the mantle upstairs is a likeness of Alphetta. He may have made that his tether.”
Skate nodded and reached into the drawer. “That’s it, then. We gotta get outta here.” Without another word, she dropped Petre back into her pocket and put the statue in another pocket. She returned to the almost-blocked doorway and tested the webbing; it did not stick to her skin. It was like touching stone or very sturdy polished wood. It seemed able to support her weight, so she began climbing it, using the intersections of webwork as foot- and handholds. There was just enough space at the top of the webbing for her to slip through.
The alchemical reaction had created a network of holes through which the magical lights could shine, sending spots of light throughout the room that was suddenly much smaller. She had to crawl toward the staircase over what used to be the lab.
Skate looked down and saw the thieves, her would-be gaolers, trapped in the webbing. The scar-faced one was unconscious; his heavy breaths lifted his head, which dangled limply from his body suspended against the wall, with each fresh intake of air. The pimply thief was very much awake. His wild eyes were darting around the room. His were the cries she’d heard in the other room. The webbing had hardened right across his mouth. His nose was free, and his breaths were not the deep breaths of unconsciousness, but the frantic breathing of terror. She stopped her crawling and pulled Petre back out.
“Are they gonna be all right?”
Petre’s eyes roved over the damage. “They should be as long as someone eventually gets down here to cut them out. If it takes a few days, they may starve. It looks like the web managed to break some of the containers, but it hardened around them instantly. They shouldn’t have to worry about any poisoning.”
At the mention of poison, the pimply thief redoubled his efforts to be heard. Satisfied, Skate slipped Petre back into her pocket. “He said you’ll be fine,” she said to the muffled man, and continued her uncomfortable crawl to the stairway.
“What’s going on down there?”
Skate recognized the voice as that of one of the thieves who had followed her upstairs earlier. “Ungor Egeiro!” she shouted up at him.
“What? What was—” His words were drowned out by his yelp of surprise and pain. There were other voices yelling, but their sense was lost as they echoed down the stairs.
A mighty croak reverberated down to Skate as she reached the base of the stairs and slithered through the small opening left to her. She took the stairs two at a time and found a bizarre scene unfolding.
The talkative thief was sprawled on the floor, his blade out but neglected in his limp hand. He wasn’t moving, and one of his legs had an angry red splash where his pants had been torn. The silent thief was engaged in a tug-of-war with a rope wrapped around his throat—no, not a rope, she realized, but a tongue. Ungor the statue had become Ungor the Giant Toad, a great bloated monstrosity the size of a sofa, with red blotches scattered all over its bumpy skin. It was trying to pull the thief into its gullet. Kite, meanwhile, was hacking at the tongue to no avail. His blades might as well have been trying to cut solid stone.
He saw Skate and pointed at the toad. “Help us, you little slug! It’s trying to eat him.”
Instead of answering, Skate spoke the Dwarvish words to revert the fireplace to its natural color. “Gerunk haktha.” The room was now awash with red-and-orange light. The change in color created a dizzying effect, and Kite looked around in a clear panic.
“You’re a witch?” He looked from the toad to his companions. With a whimper, he bolted wide-eyed out the door into the cold, his panting nearly becoming a scream with each vaulting step. Skate ran and shut the door as soon as he left, and then turned around in time to see Ungor take a step toward the remaining thief, who had been brought to his knees by the might of the beast.
“Stop!” she said, knowing it was useless; the mouth was already shadowing the doomed man’s head. To her surprise, the toad turned her way and stepped back, still holding its tongue around the neck of the struggling, silent thief. Stunned into silence that yelling had actually worked, Skate took a few seconds before saying, more calmly but just as forcefully, “Let him go.” Again, inexplicably, the monstrous toad obeyed, sending a wave through its tongue that slackened the grip around the man’s neck until it came loose. Ungor then snapped the impossibly long tongue back into its wide mouth and unleashed another reverberating croak. Looking at her expectantly, it sat back on its huge haunches—knocking over an entire bookcase as it did so and scattering leather-bound tomes over its own head.
Skate walked over to the thief on the ground. He had several large scratches that were seeping red onto the floor and the rags of his pants. She looked at Ungor and saw a telltale red tinge on his left webbed claw.
Skate ran over to the shelf where Belamy’s healing decanter sat undisturbed. She ran back over to the injured man but was stopped by an inarticulate grunt from the other thief. He was standing and massaging his throat, but he had his long knife pointed at Skate. Seeing his mouth open, Skate suddenly understood why he did not speak: he had no tongue.
Skate looked on, incredulous. “You’re threatening me? Seriously?” As if to accentuate her point, Ungor croaked again. The thief winced but did not lower his blade. Instead he pointed from the decanter in her hand to the man lying on the floor and shook his head. He said something incomprehensible.
“It’s going to help him,” Skate said, moving over to the man despite the weapon pointed her way. “Don’t be stupid.” She knelt and poured the liquid—not all of it, as she remembered Belamy’s warning that it must always contain some of the liquid within or be ruined forever—over the man’s injured leg. The wounds sizzled and smoked as they began to close immediately. The unconscious man sighed as his breathing got easier and heavier.
“Now,” Skate said, walking back to the shelf from which she’d taken the decanter, “go down those stairs and start hacking away at the mess. Your two friends are down there, and one of them is still awake. If you want them to live, go get to work.”
He wavered, the blade in his hand shaking. After looking at the healed man on the floor, he darted toward the open bookcase. The sounds of heavy snapping began to echo up the corridor.
Skate pulled Rattle out of the net. It clicked its legs in thanks. When its attention turned to the man on the floor, the clicking intensified in agitated pops. It waved a spindly leg at the gigantic toad, as if there were nothing out of the ordinary about its presence.
Skate retrieved Petre from her pocket. “Ungor listens to me.”
“Of course. You’re the one who called him out of his sleep.” The awoken toad croaked again, shifting the toppled bookcase and sending even more books sprawling. “He’s a great guardian, the last one that Barrison kept after the war. Other than Rattle, of course.” Skate dragged the unconscious man near the door and tried to pile up the disheveled books.