He looked at Zoe, and tried to fix her image in his mind a final time. Could you memorize a person like you could a letter or a song? Could you take in every bit of them forever? Where did you start? Zoe stood on the lawn, half her face lit by the bulb over the porch. Her loveliness undid him, as always.
What could he say in parting? Should he tell her how moved he’d been when she told Ripper that she loved her—how moved he was right this instant as Jonah and Ripper stood comparing the state of their fingernails, which both had vowed to leave in peace?
A warmth, like a light, seemed to surround everyone.
“I will find my parents,” he told Zoe, “but I have already found my family.”
He knelt in the street, and slammed his fist against the asphalt. A wide fissure opened before him.
He called to Ripper. She dove into the ground first. Her dress gleamed, and she was gone.
X couldn’t bring himself to look at Zoe again, but he heard her call out that she loved him as the earth pulled him down, swallowed him up—and took him back.
seven
The Lowlands river was so cold it stole his breath.
X plummeted to the bottom, and felt the rocks shifting beneath his boots before he could fight his way up. Now that he had returned, his fever was gone, but his powers were, too. Finally, he reached the surface. Ripper bobbed just ahead, the skirt of her dress spread on the water like a parachute. She turned to make sure X was all right. He was 20 years old, and still she watched over him as if his safety meant more than her own.
A rowdy crowd had assembled onshore to greet them. Guards and lords stood shoulder to shoulder, their clothes a riot of mismatched garments from across the centuries. Virtually everyone stole from the weak—Regent was the only exception that X knew of—and you could always identify the lords because they wore the grandest clothes. Of course, they had wide gold bands around their necks, too. No one claimed to have actually seen the Higher Power that ruled over even them, but it observed the lords from some remote place, and controlled them when necessary. The lords’ gold bands were not just symbols of power, but hands around their throats.
X scanned the banks for Regent, as he worked to stay afloat. The lord looked stern and regal in his royal blue robes. His chin was high, his dark, muscular arms strained against his sleeves. X looked for some sign that Regent remembered the promise he’d made to introduce him to the mysterious person who knew where his mother was being held. But Dervish stood too close to Regent for any understanding to pass between them.
No matter how often X saw Dervish, the lord was always more vile than he remembered. He had splotchy gray skin, tiny yellow teeth, and white whiskers that sprouted randomly on his chin like weeds in a field.
Ripper swam for shore, and tried to clamber out of the water. X followed. He knew that Ripper would be dealt with harshly, and wanted to help her if he could. Ripper had made a spectacle of herself in the Overworld. Even the fact that she’d acquired a new dress would be considered insolence—which, in truth, it was.
A flat-nosed Cockney guard kicked Ripper back into the water. X held her above the current until she recovered. They floated in the river, gripping each other’s arms, like they were dancing. Ripper looked small in the water. Her hair was in clumps, her shoulders curved against the cold.
“I fear for you,” X told her.
“Try not to,” she said. “There’s only one thing these animals could do that would break my heart.”
X waited for Ripper to name it. Instead, she gave him a searching look, as if she were trying to memorize him the way he had tried to memorize Zoe.
Suddenly, X had an intense, bodily memory of being ten years old. He remembered Regent bringing him to Ripper’s cell for his first bounty-hunting lesson. He remembered reaching out to Ripper, and waiting to see if she would take his hand. Eventually she did. She even gave his palm a squeeze. How reassuring that tiny bit of contact had been! Ripper had sunk to her knees so X wouldn’t be frightened. She’d peered into his eyes just as she was peering into them now. He didn’t know then that she was grieving over the loss of her children, but he remembered how kind she was. He even remembered the first words she directed to him: “I am in need of a stupendous friend. Are you in need of a friend—and are you stupendous?”
Dervish’s jagged voice cut into X’s memory.
“Take a last look at each other,” he called from the riverbank. “Your conspiracies are ended.”
Dervish shoved the Cockney into the water, and the guard pulled Ripper downriver. X saw no panic in her eyes, just resignation and grief. Being separated from him forever: this was the thing she had feared. The last thing Ripper shouted to him was, “Remember what you are worth, stupendous friend!”
Devastated and cold, and exhausted from treading water, X clutched a rock embedded in the riverbank. He looked to Regent again, but saw no sign that the lord remembered their conversation. Dervish drew even closer to Regent, not trusting either of them.
When X started climbing out of the river, Regent shook his head no. He called to the Russian guard, who stood nearby wearing a cherry-red tracksuit and sunglasses, and wielding a metal baseball bat.
“Take him to the hill,” he said. “You know the place. Take him nowhere else, no matter how he begs.”
The Russian sighed, wanting no part in X’s punishment. Still, he slid his sunglasses into a pocket, and dove into the water.
X was stunned.
“Have you forgotten, Regent?” he said. “Can it be?”
Dervish crouched, his eyes narrowing.
“Has he forgotten WHAT, exactly?” he said. “Enlighten me.”
Before X could answer, Regent lowered himself as well, his blue robe falling around him.
“I have done all I can for you,” he said. He met X’s eyes. “I have given you all I can.”
The Russian grabbed X by the collar of his coat, and muttered something in his native tongue. Spokushki, it sounded like.
He brought the bat down on X’s head, and the river took them away.
Just when X couldn’t bear the frigid water another minute, the Russian led him out of the river and into a confusing warren of tunnels. They dripped as they walked, leaving a trail of squiggles and dots. The Russian had had a limp as long as X had known him. He dragged his left foot—the edge of his sneaker had been ground down to almost nothing—but never seemed to tire. X was nauseated from the blow to his head. He struggled to keep up.
“There was no need to strike me,” he said. “I did not resist.”
“Was anger, if you want true fact,” said the Russian. “Because of you, I lose my Reeper! You know how I luff my Reeper. Now my heart is leaking sack, like bag of take-out food.”
“I’m sorry,” said X. “Truly.”
The Russian, who was two strides ahead, looked back at X to gauge whether he was sincere.
“I am accepting apology,” he said. “Again we are friends.”
X finally caught up to him. The tunnel was just wide enough for them to walk abreast.
“Regent spoke of ‘the hill,’ ” he said. “I do not know it.”
“Is new home for you,” said the guard. “Is fairyland palace full with pillows and clouds.”
“What if I asked you to release me right here and now so that I could search out my mother?” said X. “That is what Regent promised me—and you have just declared us friends.”
“We are friends,” said the Russian. “But we are not best friends.”
They came to a dank cavern. Like most of the Lowlands, it was hacked crudely out of black rock. Torches sat high on the walls, their flames sputtering but never going out. At the far end of the chamber, there was an immense, medieval-looking door crisscrossed with iron.
The Russian gave X bread from a pack on his belt. It was soaked from the river, and heavy as a sponge. X ate some so as not to appear ungrateful. Eating always reminded him that he wasn’t like anyone else in the Lowlands—that, as Zoe had said, he was needy and vulnerable. That he was alive.