“We have decided,” he announced, his voice scraping through the room. “That if the Experimentals can repair the Hall of Records, then they will be allowed to live.”
The declaration shot through Keira. It swept out her fear, dragged away her tangled thoughts. For a moment, she felt utterly empty. Her terror had left a vacuum that joy had yet to fill.
And then she felt Walker’s fingers, squeezing hers. A thousand thoughts and feelings and questions poured into her at once. It was like being buried alive.
“You may live,” the Tribunal member amended, “but you will remain in our custody. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes.” Walker sounded like the Reformers might as well have condemned them.
Keira blinked. The Reformers were going to keep them Darkside? Forever?
“No,” she said.
The guards stepped forward in unison, their staffs pointed at Keira.
“You do not understand?” the smallest Reformer asked.
“I understand,” Keira said, locking her knees to keep them from shaking. “But I can’t stay here. I’m not a Darkling.”
“This is not a matter in which you have a say, Experimental.” The voice of the Reformer ripped through the room.
“I think it is,” Keira said firmly. “Because I won’t play—I won’t fix the Hall of Records—unless you agree to let Walker and me go once it’s repaired.”
The Tribunal members all reacted at once, their gasps and oaths filling the room with a static so loud Keira could feel it in her fingertips. The guard nearest to her hefted his staff, ready to attack her.
The Reformer in the center raised a hand, stopping the guard. “Our decision is final. Disobeying the Tribunal’s decision will result in both of your deaths. We are not negotiating.”
“I think we are,” Keira said quietly. She glanced down at the weapon that quivered in the guard’s hand. “You could kill us. But then you’d never get the information that’s trapped in the Hall. There’s no one else who can repair the damage for you.” She looked up at the hooded figures of the Tribunal. “You let us go home, or you lose all those records. Which do you prefer?”
The Tribunal bent their heads together without responding. Keira couldn’t tell if it was a good sign or a bad sign that they hadn’t bothered to leave the room to discuss their response, but what was done was done.
When they’d settled themselves on the bench again, the center Tribunal member nodded at Keira.
“Though we are not pleased by your impertinence, we concede that the Hall of Records is too valuable to lose. We will allow you to return home—if, and only if, you are able to repair the fabric of Darkside near the Hall.”
The Tribunal head turned to Pike. “Dr. Sendson, your life will also be spared, but not your punishment. You will remain here, imprisoned, for the rest of your natural days.” He motioned to the guard behind Pike, who seized him.
Pike struggled against the guard’s grasp. “No! You can’t! They’ll need my guidance! I’m the only one who understands it.”
The terror in his voice made the air itself quiver. For a moment, Pike seemed completely sane. It was as if the glowing, charismatic man her mother had always described was still in there somewhere. Now he’d be doubly imprisoned, once by the Reformers and once by his own mind. The idea crawled up Keira’s spine, raising goose bumps on her skin.
“Wait!” she called out. “You can’t take him! Pike—tell them how you can help us!”
But Pike didn’t even glance at her. His silence was absolute, as though he’d decided he agreed with the sentence the Tribunal had given him. How could she save him if he wouldn’t defend himself?
As they dragged him away, Keira wanted nothing more than to bury her face in Walker’s chest. Instead, she squared her shoulders and watched him go. When the heavy door swung shut behind him, she slumped down. She wondered if Smith was somewhere in the Reformers’ compound too. If he was, would he be in one of the cells, like Pike, or would he be walking the halls with the guards? She’d saved herself and Walker, but the feeling that she’d failed Pike and Smith made the moment bittersweet.
The walls pressed in on her, as if the ocean that waited in her world was weighing on them.
She looked up at the Reformers.
“How are we supposed to get to the Hall?” she asked.
The startled jolt that ran through the Tribunal was so uniform that she wondered if anyone had ever dared to ask them for something so directly. She waited.
The Reformers needed her. They needed her badly enough that she could ask them for things in return for her help. She had every intention of reminding them of that. They could make her pay for her life, but they didn’t own her.
The centermost Tribunal member answered. “We will transport you back to the Hall of Records. You will repair the damage, restabilizing the Hall. And then you may cross back into your world, no closer than three hundred rescaps to the Hall.”
“Rescaps?” Keira asked.
“It’s a distance,” Walker whispered. “Like meters.”