Rule had the impression the former demon was at least twice his age. But as an ensouled being . . . yes, in that sense Gan was very young. “The children? She found them?”
“The cells were empty.”
All the air left the world. For long, terrible seconds Rule was pinned in a dark, airless void. Then his chest remembered its job and lifted, letting in air and sending pain ribboning through his gut.
“This does not mean they are dead,” Madame informed him sternly. “You are not to think so. It is very likely they were taken through a gate. Drink again.”
He let her lift his head again—hell, he probably couldn’t have stopped her. But he wanted answers, not water. “Why likely?”
“There was a gate, although it was closed when we arrived. I perceived this. So did Gan. To her, gates feel like a wind that bubbles instead of blowing. This has little meaning to me, but she is very firm about it. Drink,” she repeated, and this time gave him no choice but to swallow or let her dribble water over his closed mouth. She had pity on him, though, and continued talking as she administered measured sips. “Gan found this closed gate when she came out into the audience hall. She could tell what realm the gate opened onto. It was, she says, very bubbly. To her, this indicated it had been used very recently.” She moved the canteen away slightly, letting him pause in gulping down the water. “She thinks this means the children were brought here through the gate. I think this, also.”
His heart thudded sharply. “They’re here?”
“Not yet. Drink. I will explain.” She held the canteen to his lips again. “When Gan discovered the gate, she believed we would all be killed. I do not know that she was wrong; matters were not going well. Lily had told her she was not to cross until Benedict told her to, but Benedict was unconscious. She believed this made it her decision.
“She wished to live. She wished also for her friends to live. Cynna was closest, so first she brought Cynna here. She returned to the audience hall and grabbed Lily and crossed with her—dragging you along, as I said, to this realm, although not to the same part of it. When Gan came back the last time, she grabbed me. I do not believe she considers me a friend, but I was closest. She could not bring the others because she cannot return to the audience hall at any of the critical moments. She is already in all the other times she might cross to from here.”
He took a last swallow and turned his head so he could speak. “That makes no sense.”
“Obviously there cannot be two of her in Dis at the same instant. You have drunk it all? Good.” She took the canteen away.
“How could there be two of her at the same time?”
Grandmother gave that disapproving tch again. “I have just said that could not be. You are not thinking well.”
“Tired.”
“Too much talking. Rest. I will get more water.” She stood.
Madame looked even more naked when standing, though her dignity was unimpaired by the lack of clothing, just as her spine was unaffected by the tiredness he could see in her face.
“Wait. You said . . . the children are not here yet.”
“Ah. Yes. Do you remember that many realms do not match with each other in time, even when they touch in place? Time is crooked between Dis and this place. This let Gan choose, a little, what time she crossed to. She is not sure what times she brought everyone to, but she is sure we all arrived here well before we left Dis.”
He was too exhausted and hurting to make much sense of that, but he thought he got the important part. The children weren’t here yet. They had some time. “How long?”
“How long until they arrive? One or two weeks. She is not sure. They will not arrive where we are, however.”
“How . . . d’you know?”
“Gan says the gate the children were taken through did not lead to this location. She thinks she delivered Cynna near that gate, and that she brought Lily somewhere near Cynna. But not us. This is her area of expertise. I accept her opinion.”
A gate. That stirred another memory. “Reno. Where is Reno?”
“The question is when, not where. Reno left for this realm, but he made a gate from the construct to do so. Gates are not like crossing the way Gan does. They synchronize the time between realms. Reno will arrive here at the same time he left Dis.”
It was too much to get his tired mind around. His eyes were trying to close. “Not . . . now. He will arrive . . . later. And the children. Later.” Rule was a week or two in the past. Toby hadn’t been kidnapped yet. A terrible tension eased. For now, Toby was okay.
“Yes. I will get water now. This will take ten or twenty minutes. There is a seep. It is not far, but it is necessary to be cautious here when crossing open ground.”
“Why?” he asked. Then, more sensibly—for there were many reasons the open might be dangerous—he asked once more, “Where are we?”
“Lóng Jia.” Her black eyes were remote, as if she looked out on some private vista, one that held great meaning. Then her gaze sharpened and flicked to him. “In English, you would call it Dragonhome.”
THREE
“IT’S what?” Lily stared at her friend, incredulous.
“The place dragons come from. Their home realm.” Cynna leaned her head against the wall behind her and closed her eyes. “That’s what they tell me anyway. The ones who speak English, that is, which is a really small group. Two, I think. Though the guards know a couple words—‘come’ and ‘stay.’”
Alice Báitóu, aka Alice Whitehead, had been right. The cell was primitive. Not some horrible, slimy dungeon, however. They were on the second floor of one of the stone buildings she’d seen—the one called the Justice Court. They even had a window slit in the stone exterior wall to let in air and light, though that light was dimming now. It was late in the day, edging into evening.
But the cell was small for one person, seriously cramped for two, and unfurnished save for two buckets—one with a lid that she bet was their toilet; one with a tin cup for drinking.
In addition to the buckets, there were three paperback books—A Tale of Two Cities, Huckleberry Finn, and The Norton Anthology of Poetry. There was also a sleeping mat. Cynna was sitting on it. She was barefoot and wore dull black pants a lot like those the short warriors had worn. They were too short for her. Her mud brown top, on the other hand, was too large, but a tie at the neck kept it from slipping off her shoulders.
Her face was pale beneath the ink. She seemed thinner, as if she’d lost weight in the time they’d spent in Dis. Her right arm was in a sling. It had been splinted.
She had not been happy to see Lily, judging by her reaction when the guards delivered Lily to the small cell. “Oh, shit” wasn’t her usual greeting. Lily had said something about Cynna not being very glad to see her here, wherever “here” was. And at last got an answer to that question.