The floor is cold and hard, and the first thing I realize when I wake up is that I can’t stop shaking. Did I hit my head? Am I hurt? Is this some sort of shock like I’ve never known before?
Then a new fear washes over me: Maybe I’m in the hospital again.
Or worse. Maybe I never left.
Instantly, I am certain that the last few months — or even years — have simply been a dream, a very sad illusion. I miss Rosie and Megan and Noah. Alexei. I wish my friends were real and not some figment of my messed-up mind.
I might lie here forever, wallowing in that fear, except the smell is wrong. There is no strong scent of antiseptic. The air that fills the room is not so clean that it almost hurts to breathe. No. The air around me is salty and clear, and that is why I open my eyes. That is when I know that everything has been real.
Everything.
Slowly, I try to sit upright, and I notice the heavy packing tape that binds my hands, pressing my wrists together so that my pulse beats in stereo at the place where skin meets skin.
Suddenly, I’m back in the hospital. Rocking. My hands shake no matter how desperately I try to hold them still. Even though I’m free to stand, to walk, to roam, I am bound. A cry rises in my throat, and I cannot hold it back. I wouldn’t even if I could.
I am thirteen years old again. Cold and confused, knowing that the world is over. There is no place safe for me to go.
I bite at the tape now, teeth gnawing against flesh until blood runs down my wrists, but I only feel its warmth. Finally, my teeth pierce the tape and I rip at it, tearing it from my skin, but I don’t feel the pain, only the sense of being alive as my wrists break free and I start to think again.
I am still alive.
Terror fades and, slowly, I push myself upright and crawl toward one of the four windows that look out, due north, south, east, and west. The windows are long and narrow, made for archers and lookouts, perfect for a city under siege. But as I look down at the city below me, there are no rival armies. Whatever enemies await us are now inside the walls.
The Scarred Man. Ms. Chancellor. They didn’t kill me, and I should be grateful for that, but I can’t help but wonder why. Perhaps they didn’t have time. Maybe I’m locked away in this ancient tower as some kind of bargaining chip, a hostage. I can think of a dozen reasons why they’ve left me alive, and none of them are good.
There’s no glass in the windows. A few candles burn in sconces, their light flickering and dancing in the gentle breeze and fading sun. In so many ways, I am no longer in the twenty-first century. There’s no phone in my pocket. Megan and her nifty earbuds are far, far away. I have spent the past two days trying to get my friends to let me stay locked up in my tower, and now I want to cry at the irony — the knowledge that absolutely no one will miss me.
I stand on my tiptoes and look out the window as far as I can. The sun is almost down. Only a thin ray of light bounces off the sea, and soon the sky will be a dark, inky blue. Already the crowds are gathering outside. I can see them from my place in the sky. There atop the highest hill in the city, inside the highest tower, I can see everything. I can even see the future.
The G-20 summit is going to conclude tonight, and the Scarred Man will have access to even the most secure parts of the gathering. All the world leaders will assemble there. The prime ministers of England and Adria, the monarchs of the Middle East. The presidents of the United States and Russia.
This conspiracy is far from over, and it’s almost time for all the players to take the stage.
And I won’t be there to stop him. Not this time. I will be stuck in a tower like Rapunzel, cursing my choice of really short hair.
“Help!” I yell out the narrow window to the east. Down below, people are filing out into the streets. They carry brightly colored banners and balloons. Adria has always liked a show. They adore their ceremonies and traditions, and tonight all the world will be watching. They will want to make the moment last.
“Up here!” I yell again. “Help! Help! Look up here!”
But no one does. Mine is just another voice in the city, another set of cries. Already the darkness is descending. I see the streetlights growing brighter, and I doubt that anyone will even be able to see this far up in the dark.
So no one will see me. No one will hear me. I will die in this tower alone, never being able to tell the world that I’m not crazy.
I sink to the ground. Broken. Defeated. And then I do what I always do. I lash out, kicking and screaming. I’m almost glad that no one can hear me. No one is going to tell me I’m behaving like a child. I kick so hard that my feet hurt. I stand and hurl myself at the window, banging against the stones.
But then the strangest thing happens:
One of the stones moves.
There is an upside, evidently, to being locked in a thousand-year-old tower, I realize as I examine the wall, the small sliver of fleeting sunlight that shines through the place where the mortar is cracked and split. The stone actually shifts when I touch it, so I push harder and harder until it falls free of the wall and tumbles into the sky, but I never hear the crash. There is nothing below to catch it — to catch me — but I push again and again. Stone by stone the hole in the side of the tower grows larger until, finally, I can stick my head out to see the stretch of grass beneath me. I’m in one of the touristy parts of the palace, but there are no tourists now. Everyone is on their way to the celebration. There is absolutely no one to see me, hear me, catch me if I fall.
Down below, there are no stairs, no landing. There’s nothing but a sheer wall. And me.
I want to yell again, but my voice fails me. In the distance, the music has started. In an hour, there will be speeches and photo ops and fireworks. And at some point during it all, I know, someone is going to die.
I spot a cable embedded in the stone above me and slightly to the right. I run my gaze along it until the cable disappears into the twilight. Maybe it goes all the way to the ground? Perhaps it runs between the tower and the other buildings of the palace? I’m not sure. I only know that it is barely within my reach and it is my only way out.
I take off my sweater, place my hands into the arms, and roll the sleeves over and over until my hands look like very puffy paws.
Carefully, I climb onto the ledge of the small hole that I’ve made in the side of the tower.
I don’t look down.
I don’t think about what will happen if I miss.
I focus instead on all the reasons I have to make it.
“I’m not crazy,” I say aloud, and then I leap as high as I can, stretching, reaching.
My hands latch onto the cable.
And I begin to slide.