GET OFF, she screamed inside her head, afraid to open her mouth. But the moth stayed fast. It tiptoed down over her upper lip, dragging something small and light. Maren caught a whiff of oil and metal and rot. A nightmare. She dropped her face to her shoulder, trying to smash it off.

Her elbows slid out from under her, and she fell.

Twenty-Six

Maren hit the ground with a painful thump. She’d landed on a dirt floor in a long, empty room. On the opposite wall a battery-powered light glowed, casting everything in eerie shadows. Behind Maren, a set of metal rungs ran up the wall to the hole she’d fallen through. If she’d just reached back a little farther with her legs, she might have caught them. But it didn’t matter—she’d made it down and nothing was broken, though her ankles and wrists ached from the impact.

In the center of the dirt floor lay a big metal shovel, perfect for digging a grave. Maren’s teeth began to chatter as she pulled the battery-powered light off the wall. Easing a tarnished door open, she found a dark hall. It took her a moment to recognize it; she’d come down the other end with Obscura the day before. She checked to make sure nobody was there, then crept to a door on the left.

“Gran-Gran?” Maren tried the handle, but it held firm. She racked her brain for some way to smash the door open, then remembered Lishta’s hairpin in her pocket. The old lock yielded to her hairpin-rummaging in a couple of minutes. Maren threw open the door and ran to her grandmother’s bedside.

“Gran-Gran, wake up!” she called, over and over, shaking Lishta, but the sleeping woman’s mouth hung open as she snored. Obscura must have given her another dose of sleeping medicine. Maren tried to console herself with the fact that Obscura had used Lishta’s breath on the dreamsalt, so she was still useful to keep alive.

“Gran-Gran!” she yelled once more.

“Maren?” A sleepy voice came from the room next door. Then a clank and a thump.

Maren dashed to Amos’s door. His lock took longer to pick, but eventually the door opened. Amos sat on the floor, rumpled and filthy. As she stepped into the room, he scrambled backward, hitting his head on the corner of the bed.

“Are you okay?” said Maren.

A pause.

“Why do you even want to know?” mumbled Amos.

Maren stopped. “Why wouldn’t I want to know if you’re all right? Are you?”

Amos squinted at her and scoffed.

“What’s the matter with you?” said Maren.

“I don’t get it.” The heaviness disappeared from his voice, replaced by biting anger. “I said I was sorry for all that Curtis stuff. I thought you were okay with it. I thought we were friends again.”

“We are,” said Maren. “What are you talking about?”