Page 22 of Fifth
“Is this the part where we find out if your mathematics of cruelty includes mercy?” Hannah asked.
“There is no mercy in this design,” he said. “Only thresholds.”
“What is on the other side?”
He didn’t lie. “Predators, according to the slavers.”
Her heart kicked once in her chest, ahard punch. The aftershocks of the pit still lived in her ligaments and in the deep layers of her muscles. She wanted to sit and drink water and let her hands stop shaking. She wanted to stop wanting him. She wanted to step through that circle and find sunlight. She wanted a door to her kitchen athome.
“Tell me the truth about one thing,” shesaid.
He turned and faced her. “Speak.”
“You think the only way here is through. Do you think the only way there is through too.”
“Affirmative.” His answer was immediate. “Through.”
She nodded once. “Then we go.”
He turned his head finally and looked at her as if he were taking a new measure. Whatever he saw seemed to settle something behind his eyes.
“Stay close,” he said.
She almost smiled. “You would notice if I didn’t.”
“Affirmative.” The word held more influence than it should. “I would.”
He took her hand and led her toward the circle. The surface looked like a waterfall, yet there was no ripple when the heat from his skin reached it. The hairs on her forearm lifted. Afaint hum threaded the air, no louder than a swallowednote.
They stopped with their toes at theedge.
A shadow moved on the other side of the circle.
Hannah stiffened. The shape wasn’t clear, only the impression of mass. Another shape slid behind it, larger, the angles wrong for a human body. The humming changed pitch. It had language in it now, not words, but intent. Something there had been sleeping and was now awake.
“Back,” Locus said.
The surface of the gate flared white.
Something hit the circle from the far side hard enough to bow the skin outward. Claws raked across the divide and threw sparks where they struck the plate. The smell of scorched metal filled her mouth. The frame screamed like a train wheel.
Hannah stumbled and would have gone down if Locus had not yanked her clear and swung her behind him. The thing on the other side pressed harder. The gate flexed. Cracks spidered through the hammered letters of the frame.
“Locus,” she said. The word was small, inadequate. “He hasn’t give us the time he promised.”
“He has not.” His voice was calm and terrible. “I will hold it.”
“How?”
He didn’t answer. He stepped forward and set both hands on the frame, pressing hard. Heat poured off him in sheets. His skin brightened with a faint inner glow, the amethyst in his eyes deepening until it looked like night lit from within.
The thing on the other side hit again.
The gate buckled, shrieking like tortured steel. The sound drowned her breath, ahigh, splitting scream that rattled her bones and made her teeth ache. Sparks spit across the arch as cracks webbed deeper into the frame, glowing hot at the edges.
Something on the far side slammed again, harder, until the arch bowed outward as if it would vomit the beast straight into her lap. Hannah’s heart seized in terror. The threshold wasn’t just preparing to break.
The second trial clawed to get through and it was about to unleash hell itself.
