Page 23

“Of course,” I said. “It will be our secret. What should I not tell her, though?”

“It worked.” He closed his eyes, shoulders shaking. I could not say for certain, but I thought he was weeping. I had never seen him cry. Not even when his mother died. Not even when he thought I was going to die. Victor did not cry; he raged. Or, worse, he did not react at all. What could make him cry? “It worked. And it was terrible.”

He settled back into unconsciousness. The only noise was the insistent tap of water dripping on the ceiling, like the knocking of a stranger demanding to be let in.

I looked up. What had worked?

Leaving Victor, I went back to the entry and pondered the ladder. I put out a hand to touch the rough wood. My fingers trembled, then curled in on themselves, away from the rung. I had always considered myself brave. There were not many things that made me squeamish or that I was afraid to face. But my flesh recoiled at the thought of climbing up that ladder. It knew why before my mind fully processed it.

Then I realized:

The smell.

There was nothing down here to account for that lingering scent of old blood and rotting meat. Which meant it could only be coming from whatever was above this ladder.

And I had to discover it before anyone else did.

EACH RUNG LASTED AN eternity. I lingered longer than I should have. I knew I had to see what was beyond the trapdoor, but part of me desperately hoped it would be locked.

I reached it and pushed tentatively.

It was not locked.

I shoved it open and rushed up the last few rungs, pulling myself into a space that was dim but still brighter than the windowless entry.

The sound of rain hitting an ever-deepening puddle competed with the wild pounding of my heart to make music of discord and chaos. In place of a symphony to accompany me, there was a stench.

A stench of things rotten.

A stench of things dead.

And above and around it all, burning fumes that made me cough and gag.

I pulled out a handkerchief and covered my nose and mouth, wishing I could cover my stinging eyes, as well. But I needed them.

The dripping noises were different up here, though. Now that I was in the room, they had a faint metallic quality, hitting something other than the warped and blackened wood floors. In the center of the room, illuminated by the cloud-choked day, a pool of water rippled and shifted, gathering in the center of a table before dripping off the sides to meet with the water on the floor. The table was situated directly beneath the open roof panels.

I stepped closer. Broken glass crunched beneath my boots. The table had held my attention, but now that I looked down, I saw that the entire room was littered with shattered glass containers. Someone had gone to a tremendous amount of trouble to break everything in here.

Most of the larger glass pieces were sticky and wet with whatever had been held inside. It smelled to me like some death-tainted form of vinegar. Chemicals that preserve yet corrupt in equal measure.

Some of the glass remains bore…other substances. Gelatinous mounds on the floor. Poor, sad pieces of—

I pulled my gaze away. Something about the nearest spill made my eyes refuse to focus on it. It had no recognizable form, and yet I knew—I knew—I did not want to look at it.

My boots crunched and scraped as shards of glass embedded in their soles. I crept toward the table. Whether because it was the center of the room or because it was the best-illuminated feature, I was drawn toward it, pulled on a current.

The table itself was metal, as large as a family dining table. Around it were various apparatuses I did not know the meaning or use of. They looked complicated, all gears and wires and delicate tubing. And every one, like the glass containers, had been smashed beyond repair.

A pole, also metal, wrapped in some sort of copper wiring, extended from the head of the table to the wind

ows in the roof. But it, too, had been warped. It was bent, the wires dislodged and hanging from it like hair ripped from a doll’s head.

The water pooling on the table was thicker and darker along the edges, as if rust had been pushed outward. It smelled sharp and metallic, but with something organic beneath it all. Something like—

I pulled my finger back from where I was about to touch the near-black stains.

It smelled almost like blood. But whether the water dilution or the chemicals in the room had affected it, I did not know. Because I knew the scent of blood. And this was so close, and yet different in a way that repulsed me more than anything else here.