“Maybe when the questions are impossible to answer, that’s because the answers themselves are impossible,” she whispered.
Friedle smiled.
“Let me ask you something,” she said. “When we first came up behind you on the sidewalk and you turned around, you said something about somebody finally coming for you. But you said ‘us.’ Who’s us?”
His smile faded. He looked around, as though despite all of the wild things he had told them, this was the one thing he did not want anyone else to overhear.
“Some of us—Borderkind—we don’t ever want to go back. We want to live here forever, in the ordinary world. We like it here. But whoever wanted the Bascombes has been sending Hunters into this world, killing my kind. After what happened in Maine, I came down here to stay with friends. All of us at Bullfinch’s, we’re Borderkind. I thought you were Hunters, come for us.”
Sara studied him. “So you have this other face; your real face.”
Friedle glanced away, perhaps ashamed of his true self. “Of course.”
“Can we see it, just for a moment? Just so we know what’s real?”
“Here?” he asked, glancing around.
Sara looked at Sheriff Norris. He seemed genuinely baffled, but he focused expectantly on Friedle.
“Here,” she confirmed.
The glamour dropped for a single eye blink, but that was enough. The waitress screamed, then looked embarrassed at the attention she had brought upon herself. Confused, she kept looking over at them, trying without luck to confirm that she hadn’t had a hallucination.
Sara looked at the sheriff, but Jackson only stared at the goblin sitting across from him.
“All right,” Sheriff Norris said. “What now?”
“What do you mean?” Robiquet asked.
“You made a promise. You screwed up. But as far as you know, Melisande’s children are still alive. We want to find them, and Julianna and Sara’s father, too. You said there were Doors.”
The human-faced goblin shook his head. “Oh, no. The Doors are always under guard.”
Sheriff Norris smiled thinly, a little bit of strain around his eyes. His understanding of the world had just been broken into pieces, so Sara didn’t blame him. She knew she must look much the same, but her own worldview had been shattered slowly, over the weeks since her father had vanished and she’d had to come to terms with the possibility he might never return and she might never know his fate.
Maybe that had changed.
“Under guard?”
Robiquet nodded.
The sheriff left forty dollars on the table to cover their lunch and stood up. He glanced at Sara, then at the goblin.
“That’s what guns are for.”
CHAPTER 13
They fought their way out of Palenque. Black pillars of smoke rose above the city—fires burning somewhere near the palace.
Cheval Bayard had forsaken her human form and now the kelpy galloped along the cobblestones. Hours had passed since Oliver and Julianna had escaped from the dungeon, and the word had spread.
A full-scale rebellion had erupted in the heart of the city. It would spread, just as the smoke and fire would spread. But here at the edges of Palenque, the spirit of revolution had yet to arrive. A single building disgorged a band of Encerrados—horrid twisted little creatures whose mouths were crusted with gore—and the monsters rushed through their human neighbors to get at the escaping Borderkind. Cheval crushed one of them under her hoof with a sound like the bursting of rotten melon. Li stepped forward, fire roaring up from his eyes, and held out both hands. The very air around the little cannibals exploded into flame, charring their flesh instantly.
Cheval Bayard sideswiped a huge serpent. It coiled around her legs and brought her hard to the ground. Blue Jay would have gone to her aid, but Leicester Grindylow arrived before him, swinging a stolen battle axe with ruthless abandon. Grin had once been a sweet, amiable fellow, but in these past weeks a darkness had come into his eyes. The water boggart hacked the serpent’s head off and helped Cheval to her feet. She neighed and tossed her head, and he took that as a signal, grabbing hold of her mane and throwing one leg over to sit astride her back. They charged together along the widening cobblestone street.
Blue Jay saw it all.
He lagged back, letting others take the lead, so he could keep close to Oliver and Julianna, who were still on horseback. A pair of soldiers—some kind of city guard—came from an alley toward the exodus. Blue Jay spun, dancing in a swift circle that lifted him from his feet. He whirled around, summoning mystic wings that blurred the air beneath his outspread arms. When the soldiers tried to attack him, his wings sliced through bone and meat and muscle, severing reaching hands. With a final twist, he swept his wings out and cut off their heads.
Savage, but swift, and right now quickness was the only thing that mattered. Though he was a trickster, Blue Jay did not have a callous heart. He grieved for these men, who likely had no idea they were following the commands of Atlantis, but this had become a war. In war, death decided the outcome.
Blue Jay stepped up into the air, riding the wind and transforming into a bird. Wings spread, the little bird rose higher and circled above the running melee below. As they’d stampeded through the labyrinthine streets, they had attracted both rebels and crown loyalists. Lost Ones fought one another in the ripple current of their passing. Blood splashed the cobblestones.
Jaguar-men and the vampiric, serpentine Pihuechenyi shoved and slithered and leaped through the crowds to reach the legends who dared to try to stanch the flow of the rebellion that carried Oliver and Julianna toward the city’s edge. Other Yucatazcan Borderkind had joined them. Back toward the center of the city, the blue bird saw the pillars of fire rising into the air, still pluming black smoke. The turmoil continued, and would spread. Suspicion had run rampant long before he and his comrades had arrived to foment rebellion. All they had done was set a match to the fuse. Their work here was done.
He soared higher, dipped a wing and wheeled around to see that they were only one curve in the road away from the outer limit of Palenque. Beyond the city’s edge there was a long stretch of grassland and—past that—nothing but jungle and mountains.
“Bastards!” Oliver shouted from the saddle, down below.
Blue Jay began to descend and spotted Oliver immediately. He had a sword of his own—no replacement for Hunyadi’s blade, which still hung in the palace—but it would do. A couple of human thugs grabbed hold of Julianna and began to pull her from her saddle. Lost Ones had formed a protective wedge around Oliver’s mount, just trying to get him out of the city. But he spurred the horse past them, and then jumped down into the crowd, sword in hand. On foot, now, he went after the thugs who were dragging Julianna into the midst of the fray.
Panic shot through Blue Jay. They’d gone through too much for Oliver to be killed now. Much as he hated to admit it, the symbolic victory Ty’Lis would achieve if the Legend-Born were killed was too much too allow. It didn’t matter that Collette still lived, somewhere. Blue Jay counted Oliver as a friend, but more than that was at stake.