“Was that an insult to them or to me?” Griffin shook his head, feigning offense, then checked my cheek, his fingers lingering longer than necessary, but I didn’t mind in the slightest.
“I’m fine.” My cheeks burned, and not from the moon. I looked down, trying to hide my face.
Griffin and I walked on swiftly. He kept a firm grip on his dagger as we continued on, changing sides with me so he passed closer to any dim spots.
Not long after, we came to what I thought was a dead end, but it was actually the beginning of a long thin set of stairs, descending between the buildings. I couldn’t see where it went. It was so dark I couldn’t see anything beyond the first step. My palm tingled. I wondered if I could draw down a beam to light our way, not that I would. My magic was Xavier’s, I told myself, although I was starting to hate the sound of that.
“Ten more of these and we’ll come out beside the base of the arena.”
“Lead the way, Sir Griffin.”
About halfway down, I heard crowd noises coming from open windows. A girl not much older than me stumbled drunk out of a basement door. She stepped under the glow of a torch. I could see her dress was slit up the sides, the bodice cut low, revealing too much. As she turned her head, catching my stare, I saw bruises on her cheek and scratches on her neck. She quickly turned away, embarrassed or frightened. A soldier spilled out after her, adjusting his trousers. He sneered at Griffin, then started walking toward us, using the stone facade to prop himself up.
“Over here, my lady. Got a pretty coin, just inside.” He patted his crotch.
“And I’m sure a rash as well.”
Griffin wrapped his arm around my shoulders, pulling me down the stairs.
“As much as you seem to like to goad everyone you meet, please remember we’re not supposed to be here!”
“Sorry.” The draignoch’s voice carried on the cold breeze, raising goose bumps on my arms. She was close. “We should hurry too. Let’s move faster.”
The stairs, going both west and south, descended into the lowest part of the Bottom, where the putrid odor from the ducts nearly knocked me off my feet. It permeated everything.
My legs ached as I stepped out into full moonlight. But my heart leaped. To the left was the base of the arena. The structure towered over us. The bridges from the Top and the Middle were visible far above our heads, showing how far we had traveled tonight. The Bottom was at the very bottom of everything in the Walled City. To the right an enormous square tower connected to a long wall, stretching some forty feet high. I couldn’t see where it ended. A prison built to hold dangerous creatures.
The draignoch must have felt my arrival. Her calls rose to a fevered pitch.
“I’m coming!”
Griffin skidded to a stop, shushing me. “Who are you yelling at?”
“The draignoch.”
“You hear her?” He sounded skeptical.
“You don’t? Did you get hit in the ear in a match?”
“No . . .”
I cupped my ears, realizing all at once that it did nothing. Her clammers still banged inside my head. It was altogether incredible, yet irritating.
We crossed the grass to the wall and paced for at least fifty feet before finally finding a wooden door. The latch wouldn’t budge.
“It’s locked,” I whispered.
“Of course it is.” Griffin pulled a small knife from his boot and used it to lift the pins from the hinges. The door jerked open a foot.
“You really aren’t the tosspot I thought you were.”
“Probably the nicest thing you’ve to me said all night.” Griffin dropped the torch, rolling it until the fire doused. He took the lead into the rectangular compound. It was huge, twice the size of the arena floor. We walked by penned cows, pigs, chickens, lambs.
“Food for the beasts,” Griffin whispered.
Then by several empty cells. Then several with draignochs. All huddled pressed against the back walls, far from the reach of the bars. My heart ached at how many times guards must have stabbed spears through their cages, like Moldark had done to her, to instill such behavior. None came to greet us. People were feared.
For such large creatures, the draignochs were very quiet. She had gone quiet too.
Someone exited the tower, carrying a torch. Griffin and I hid behind a hay wagon. The light flickered closer. I held my breath and crawled under with Griffin. It felt like an eternity until the person left and we heard the tower door close and lock.
Griffin hurried out.
I heard her again, and caught his arm. “My turn to go first.”
We passed another draignoch cell. The poor yellow beast Malcolm had fought moaned. Its neck and side still bloody, a sticky sap held the wounded flesh together. At the sight of me, it lifted its head and let out a strangled cry.
Worried the guards would come out to see what was wrong, I ran. Griffin followed and a minute later we stood in front of a very different kind of cell. Larger than the others, the top and sides had stone exteriors, but the front of the cell and the insides were lined with glistening bars.
“Phantombronze,” Griffin whispered in awe. “I didn’t know this much existed in all of the Walled City.”
She scraped her claws in the dirt, and I knew she wanted me to come inside, but the cell was locked and the bars too close together for me to fit through. She lowered her head, straining against the chains digging into her neck. I could see her pale blue eyes glinting in the moonlight.
Griffin squinted, looking from her to me, seeing what I was, that our eyes matched in color and shape. He paced to the end of the cell and back again, trying to get a good look at her, but the space was too cramped and dim.
Griffin settled beside me and whispered, “It’s enormous. And the wings are much larger, that much I can see.”
“Her wings . . . ,” I corrected.
She shifted, chains clanking, to show me her side was peppered with stab wounds from the soldiers’ spears. “She needs me, Griffin.”
“Needs you? For what?” he growled.
I stretched my arms as far as I could into the cell. If I could touch her, perhaps I could heal her wounds.
“Maggie, have you lost your senses?” He grabbed my waist, preventing me from reaching her. His face winced at the pain he must have felt in his injured hand by latching on to me, but it wasn’t nearly as much pain as he was going to feel if he didn’t let me go!
“She won’t hurt me.” I struggled, but his grip remained clasped like irons. “Please . . .” I was begging. But it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except her.
“Maggie!” He yanked.
“I said let go!” I grabbed his hand, putting intense pressure on it, feeling the broken bone shift. He cursed.
His hold loosened enough for me to reach far enough inside. Her head brushed my hand. My palm flattened until I was well and truly touching her. Then, all at once, blinding light forced my eyes shut.
When I opened them, I was no longer in the draignoch’s compound. No longer in the Bottom, or in the Walled City at all. Or even in the Hinterlands. I was someplace else. Flying above treetops, soaring through night beneath the blazing full moon, like a bird in flight.
A beam struck the earth. A loud crack deep in the heart of a dense forest caught my attention. The moon left a path from the heavens for me to follow.