“What about Chantal?” I asked quietly. “Isn’t she out there?”
His hands, which had been so deftly working the clay, faltered and dropped to his side. “I don’t know where she is. Maybe she went to re-education in some other country. Maybe she killed herself rather than live a lie. Maybe she went on to some worse punishment. You think solitary confinement and monotonous art projects are the only weapons they have? There are worse things they can do to us. Worse things than purging and public ridicule. Being bold sounds great in theory, but it comes with a cost.”
“Chantal was bold, wasn’t she? And that’s why you’re afraid.” The grief on his face was so intense, I wanted to hug him . . . yet at the same time, I wanted to shake him for cowardice too. “You’re so afraid of acting! Of ending up like her!”
Swallowing, he returned to work on his bowl. “You don’t understand.”
“Then help me to.”
He stayed silent.
“Fine,” I snapped. “I’ll figure out the gas control system myself and won’t bother you anymore. I suppose you might as well go ahead and throw this away too.”
I knelt down as though I’d dropped something and swiftly transferred a capped syringe from my sock to his, neatly covering it with his pant leg before anyone saw. “What’s that?” he hissed.
“The last of my current stock of syringes with the ink-repelling solution in them. I’d saved this one for you, but you’ll probably be happier not using it. In fact, maybe you should just go ask them for an extra-strong re-inking so you don’t have to think for yourself anymore.”
Chimes signaled the end of class, and I turned to go, leaving him gaping. That evening, while getting ready for bed in the bathroom, I was able to charm a few more syringes that I smuggled back to my room. I also did the gum trick again, sticking it in place in the door to disable the lock after lights out. I might not know exactly where the main gas controls were, but based on the explorations I’d done, I could make some educated guesses. Emma noticed when I stuck the gum in the door’s side and said, her voice barely audible, “You’re serious about this?”
I gave her a sharp nod and settled into my bed with a book for our prescribed reading time. When the lights went out later, I again waited long enough for the Alchemists on guard to fall into their shifts before I sprang into action. I rearranged my bed and pillow, murmured the invisibility incantation, and then tucked my stolen ID into my shirt before quietly slipping through the unlocked door. In the corridor outside, I was faced with a scenario similar to yesterday’s: little activity and the same guard stationed in the hallway nexus.
I crept down to the elevator and stairs, swiping my ID over the door to the latter. Its security panel turned green, and I breathed a sigh of relief that I still had access. Although the stairwell door wasn’t perfectly silent, I was able to carefully open it and slip through much more quietly than when I used the elevator with its telltale ding. I just had to be cautious in opening it the minimum amount needed for me to fit through. Once in the stairwell, I noticed something I’d also observed in the elevator. There was no way up. The only way to go was down.
How do we get out of here? I wondered for the hundredth time. It was the question I’d been mulling over since getting here. We had to have gotten in somehow, and obviously, the Alchemists who worked here got in and out. Duncan had explained to me that they had their own quarters elsewhere and lived there for months-long shifts until staff rotations replaced them. How did that happen? It was a puzzle for later, however, and for now I focused on heading to the operations and purging floor. I checked every door I reasonably could and found nothing matching the kind of mechanical room I’d been hoping for. Conscious of the time, I returned to the stairwell and reinforced the invisibility spell, buying me an extra half hour. I wouldn’t be able to do it all night, not with the energy it required, but it would at least allow me to check out the next floor down.
I hadn’t been on this floor in almost three weeks, and for a moment, I stood frozen as I stepped out into the hallway. This was the floor my cell had been on, where they’d kept me in darkness for three months. I hadn’t thought much about it since joining the others, but now, as I stood and stared at the identical doors, it all came back to me. I shivered at the memory of how cold I’d been, how cramped my muscles had grown sleeping on that rough floor. The memory of that darkness was chilling, and I was kind of amazed at what a difference the crack of light from the pocket door in my current room made. It took a surge of willpower to shake off those old memories and walk down the hall, remembering my goal.
I hadn’t noticed this when released, but each door was marked with the letter R and a number. Was the R for reflection? There were twenty of them in total, but I had no indication if they were all occupied. I didn’t dare scan my ID card and try to open one. Some gut instinct told me only someone with high clearance could open them to begin with, and besides, if they were monitored, any crack of light would instantly show up on a surveillance screen. So, I simply walked past them all, despite feeling sick inside that others might be only a few feet from me, suffering as I had.
Once I cleared those rooms, I came to stand in front of a set of double doors labeled REFLECTION CONTROL. Many administrative and operations doors had glass windows, but this one offered no indication of what might lie behind it. I was wavering on whether I should try to scan my card and slip in when the doors suddenly swung open, and two Alchemists emerged from within. I quickly moved out of their line of vision, and thankfully, they headed the opposite direction from me at a brisk pace. The heavy doors swung shut too quickly for me to get in, but I managed a good look inside before they closed with a clang.