Ayaz.
My feet moved of their own accord, dragging me up the stairs, across the dorms, over the skybridge into the classroom wing. I knew exactly where I was going – some invisible force pulled me to him like a magnet. Like a moth to a flame.
The boys followed me, and the rats scritch-scritch-scritched overhead, no longer confining themselves to the lower floors. Our footsteps echoed along empty corridors that bore the scars from the production – torn costumes strewn across the floor, blood smeared along the lockers from where students had been injured trying to get away from the pillar. A ring of soot from the fire burned through the wall. I suppressed a shudder as I noticed the bullet holes in the plaster. From somewhere in the building, I caught the faintest sound of voices. A conversation? No. It was too regular, too rhythmic.
Chanting.
“Where are the teachers?” Quinn scanned the empty halls, his eyes widening as he took in the blood.
I stopped at the top of the staircase leading down to the gym. It was obvious where they were. Murmured voices rose from below, chanting in their strange tongue. One piercing wail soared over all of them.
“Oh, Great Old God, who came to our young world from the sky on a trail of devoured stars,” Ms. West’s voice floated up the stairs. “We have seen your beautiful pillar, and we humbly inquire as to what you wish for us to do next. We know you must be hungry, for you have not consumed for some time. We come bearing this gift.”
“Shit.” Trey started down the stairs. “She’s going to sacrifice someone.”
“Wait.” I threw my hand out in front of him. “Listen.”
“What if it’s Andre or Greg or—”
“I know.” I gritted my teeth. “But barging in there isn’t going to save their life. Just listen. I got this.”
The chanting rose, and a woman’s scream pierced the air. It sounded like Zehra. My stomach plunged. Please, please let the god stay true to his word.
The scream faded into a yell of triumph and some commotion. Lots of voices shouting. Over it all, the god’s voice rushed my ears. I am a truth-teller. I will not consume until your friends are free.
“Does she not please you?” Ms. West’s voice wobbled. “Why do you refuse our gift? Please, star-devourer, please tell us how we can appease you—”
Quinn looked at me, the horror and surprise evident on his face. Trey’s look was more searching, suspicious. “Hazy, what did you do?” he demanded.
A slow smile slid across my face. The god was obeying our agreement. He wasn’t taking sacrifices. He refused to give Ms. West a thing – not his power, not even answers to her questions.
And although I was desperate to see Ayaz, I recalled Loretta’s scrawled message. He was being cared for. If I could bring him answers about the pillar, about how I could help him get his real life back, then maybe I could… I could…
Maybe I could make him remember me.
Maybe I shouldn’t want him to remember.
I balled my hands into fists and turned away before Quinn’s eyes made me break things. “We need to see that pillar.”
“What do you suppose it is?” Trey circled the pillar, his eyes widening as he took in the sigil. I knew he couldn’t see the flames tearing along the lines, but even without them, the obelisk was impressive. It dominated the ruined auditorium, its strange hum vibrating in my bones.
Around us, the auditorium bore the scars of my rage. My fire had blown massive holes in the wood of the stage. The curtains no longer existed, save for thin ribbons of torn fabric dangling from the rings. The orchestra pit was just a gaping hole exposing bare rock beneath. There didn’t seem to be a single seat in the audience that wasn’t mangled or broken or torn from its brackets.
“That’s why we need Ataturk. He knows all about ancient wossits. He’d figure this out.” Quinn pulled a bag of weed from his pocket and proceeded to roll a joint. I glared at him.
“What?” Quinn looked down at his joint. “No one’s gonna notice. This whole place reeks of smoke.”
He wasn’t wrong. The scent of fire scratched the back of my throat. Hot air clung to my skin as if somewhere in the room, the flames still burned. Unlike the fire that gutted my old apartment building, there was no damp furniture or buckled floors from the water sprayed in by firefighters. No firefighters had been called. The fire had burned itself out… somehow.
Stop calling it the fire as if it is somehow an accident. It wasn’t the fire. It’s my fire.
And it didn’t burn out. I poured it into that pillar. I sucked the flames and the heat from the room and gave it to that strange obelisk. And I’ve got no fucking idea why.
I picked my way across the ruined stage, staring up at the pillar. Is it my imagination, or has it grown since we fled the auditorium? Fresh cracks latticed themselves across the ceiling, and the top of the sigil had disappeared into the roof above.
I jumped down from the stage, picking my way around mangled chairs and singed carpet. The pillar called to me, drawing me into its dark depths. The rest of the room receded as I leaned close, studying the polished surface of the stone.
Quinn called out to me, but I ignored him. I pressed my fingers to the stone.
Something inside pressed back.
The god tugged inside my head, his cry without form or meaning. For the first time since I’d stared into the void, I had a sense of him as he was, right now – not as he liked to show me in his visions. He slumbered in his prison, teetering on the brink of death, but could a god made of the stars even die? He’d collapsed in upon himself in his prison – a black hole of cruel energy growing denser and more dangerous as he faded. In his dreams, he called to me, the same way I called to him…
A thread of darkness poured through the pillar, coiling around my fingers. It stretched down, down, down, to the slumbering god at the other end. The pillar connected us somehow, but I didn’t understand. Weren’t we already connected by our dreams?
Scritch-scritch. Scritch-scritch.
That wasn’t the god speaking. I tore my eyes from the depths of the stone to glance over my shoulder. The familiar scrabbling of tiny rodent feet called me back from the hum. Trey and Quinn dived for cover as rats leaped over the chairs, tumbling down the aisle and catapulting from the stage. They circled the pillar, their noses turned toward me – twitching, expectant.
Scritch-scritch-scritch-scritch-scritttttttttch.
I hadn’t seen them since the day we found Greg and Zehra, when they let me to my friends and showed me the names they’d scrawled in the wall. But they followed us across the school to the auditorium, and there had to be a reason for that. The rats always looked after me. They urged me forward when I was on the right track, and forced me back when I was about to do something stupid. Why are they here? What do they know about the pillar?
They circled the pillar, spinning in alternate circles before breaking in half. They formed up two jagged lines, rearing up on their hind paws before running and crashing into each other, forming a mass of indistinguishable bodies. They separated along the same jagged line, creating a gap down the middle like a lightning strike. As I watched in amazement, they ran at each other again and again, their bodies fitting together into one big mass before separating once more.