Music Box (The Dollhouse Books, #4) (14 page)

I stepped onto the dipping raft, ready to sail out.

My fingers froze as I reached to pull the rope from the pedestal. A figure limped from the passage into the cave. From here, I couldn’t see who it was. Zach, Emerson—maybe Parker. I wouldn’t allow any of them to stop me.

The sharp rays of the sun cast his body in silhouette as he moved closer, his white shirt billowing in the ocean breeze. He looked about the cave, staring upward at the immense hull of the ship. He stopped still as his gaze found me. “Cassie!”

Every muscle in my body tightened. It was a voice I could not have heard. I stared at the familiar, hard frame of his body, at the incline of his head. I was unable to trust in what I was seeing. He was a mirage.

“I couldn’t find you. But a girl—a ghost—pointed me this way.” His voice cracked. “She looked a lot like you. For a moment, I thought she
was
you.”

Waves lapped around his thighs as he waded toward me. I cried out, pain lashing me at the sight of him. I jumped from the raft and rushed through the water. I flung myself at him, my breaths rattling wildly in my chest. His arms moved across my back, crushing me to him.

His body was solid next to mine.

Reaching inside his shirt, he pulled out the music box. “You left this behind.”

The lid tipped open as he handed it to me. The tune echoed in hollow notes in the cave. He closed the box, placing his hands on top of mine.

The music remained.

And he remained.

My breath was thick in my throat. “How...?”

“I came looking for you, and found Balthazar’s chambers. He was sleeping, and you weren’t there. I left the box, so you’d know I was here. I’ve been searching the passages, trying to find you.”

My jaw trembled. “I thought you were gone. Forever.”

“No... Out in the woods. I made it into a refraction, just in time—but I was unconscious. I ended up so far away, so far from you. It took me all this time to make my way back.” His expression darkened. “And all the while, you’ve been here, with that monster.”

I didn’t need to know more. He was here. Alive. Electricity and fear charged through my body. “Balthazar will kill you if he sees you!”

“Nothing would have kept me away.” 

Ethan’s eyes were wet and anguished as he took two antique guns from inside his clothing. “I hoped I could offer you something better than this.”

My heart dropped through my chest. “No! You go back to the museum. I need you to stay alive. Please, Ethan... please....”

He shook his head slowly. “I wish I were stronger, but I’m not. I can’t suffer to live when you’re here, at the mercy of Balthazar. You can choose whether you wish to use the gun. Hide it somewhere safe, so that it’s there... if you need it.”

“You said once that the thought of me kept you fighting. Let it keep you fighting. And I need you, I need to know that you’re here in the world, fighting.”

He held my wrist. “I have no fight left. Not if you’re here with Balthazar. Not if I can’t get you away. I can’t fight anymore, Cassie.

“I would prefer death with you to life with Balthazar... a thousand times over.”

His jaw clenched as he handed me a gun, his eyes not leaving mine.

My fingers gripped the hard metal and wood of the antique weapon. “You once said there are lives in which we’re together. I’ll hold onto that, until my last second on this earth....”

Sweat dampened the lengths of the hair that fell across his eyes and gaunt cheekbones. “You and I will always be.”

Waves knocked the raft against the cave wall, the sound echoing dully.

“And in another lifetime, the boy who built this raft took his Etiennette far away from Balthazar, and they didn’t die....”

“How do you know who built the raft?”

“There’s a note, inside the tin.” I unclasped the tin’s lid and held out the note to Ethan.

He read it quickly, his head dipping as he understood who Reed was and who Etiennette was. His eyes were large as he looked up at me. “Etiennette’s children weren’t Balthazar’s... There’s no curse on the family line. They chose their own path. They chose to use others and murder them for their own gain.”

“Yes.”

“And you and me, we’re relatives.”

“Distant.”

“So I can still kiss you?” Not waiting for an answer, he pulled me close to him, his mouth moving on mine in a hard kiss that tasted of the ocean. “I could die like this, and die happy,” he murmured on my cheek.

I looked away, toward the hard glint of sunlight on the ocean. Prudence would never have the chance to take her own life. She would be kept forever spinning, forever in the service of the serpent.

Pushing the gun into the bodice of my dress, I searched the water below me. I selected the best sword I could find.

Ethan eyed me in confusion. “What are you doing? I won’t let you take yourself with that.” His eyes hardened. “You didn’t come down here to sail away on any raft, did you?” He posed it in a harsh statement.

I steadied my breathing, fixing my gaze at the swirling water. “No.”

“What did you come down here for?”

“Ethan, you have to let me go.”

“I will never let you go.”

“There’s something that I have to do. Something that I have to try to do.” All strength left my voice. “Even though I have no chance of succeeding.”

“They brought another body for Balthazar, didn’t they? Can he be killed now, in human form?”

I shook my head. “No, the body is just a shell. He will remain, as he has for the last five hundred years.”

“Then tell me who the sword is for.”

“This battle is mine.”

“The hell it is.”

He looked pointedly at the sword I’d dropped in the water. “What are you doing here, Cassie? Tell me what you were going to do.” Wheeling around, he stared at the raft that knocked against the stone pedestal. “You were going to sail off on that?”

He splashed through the water. His hands closed around the raft, struggling to lift it. He inspected the underside, then let the heavy craft crash down again. “The boards are half-rotted. It’s only going to break apart out there.”

I hung back, not speaking.

Realization edged into his eyes. “You didn’t expect to get far—did you?’ He grasped my arms, staring into my face. ”Did you?”

“No....”

“Tell me what you were planning to do.”

I watched the waves crash in. Time was running out—the spirits could not hold Balthazar and Voulo for long. “The serpent... she lives in a cave directly beneath here. I know if I sail out there... she’ll come.”

His expression darkened. “The serpent—the serpent of the dollhouse? Here? God, Cassie, you were going to try to kill her?”

His body straightened. “You can’t kill that thing with a sword. You know that. You have to know that.”

“Yes,” I replied. I touched my forehead. “I hoped to hurt her... here.”

“Why?” A frown etched itself between his eyebrows.

“So that she can no longer see.” I breathed deeply. “Ethan... do you remember that my father told me about something that happened when I was small? There was a car accident, and my mother lost her baby?”

“Yeah. I remember you telling me that. But what—”

“In another world, that accident didn’t happen. The baby lived. That baby... was Prudence.”

“Prudence?” He gazed at me open mouthed.

I told him about my sister—and all she had told me.”

“That’s
her
in the tower?” He exhaled hard. “How the hell does the serpent see through the crystal eye?”

I pointed to the pedestal that the raft was tied to. “There. Francoeur places the crystal on the pedestal and the serpent rises up and looks into it. There’s a depression—a soft place—in her forehead from which she looks into the crystal.”

“And you were hoping to do some damage to her, so she can no longer see.” He shook his head, incredulous at all I had just told him.

I stared towards the passage into the cave. “Ethan, Balthazar will be here soon. I won’t get the chance... to do what I came here to do. You’re able to leave here—please, go back to the museum. They need you.”

He turned to the raging ocean, a light leaping in his eyes. He grasped my shoulders. “The serpent’s cave—it exists outside of the castle—outside of this earth. The castle can’t stop you from leaving through there.”

My breaths strained through my chest. I could see the cave in my mind, dimly lit by pillars of crystalline rock. It was true—it was
outside of everything
.

“But she’ll be there... And underwater, I’ll lose any chance of attack.”

“Cassie, you can’t fight her.”

I clenched my teeth together. “I need to try. I can’t leave my sister like this. Every day is torture for her.”

“I promise you—we’ll figure out a way. I give my word. But not here. Not now. You can’t win this. And if you die trying to hurt the serpent, of what use are you to Prudence? We need a plan.”

I closed my eyes and nodded. “Okay, I’ll leave here. But what about Molly? She’s still here.”

“I’ll go back and get her. But right now, we need to get out of here.”

“You don’t need to come this way. I’ll go alone.”

His fists curled. “I’ll not let you go alone.” His voice was final, savage.

My limbs stiffened as I sensed Balthazar. I whipped around.

The monseigneur stood thigh-deep in the dark water behind us, his gaze locked in a dark rage. “Thy betrayal wilt cost thee, harlot.”

Ethan’s eyes were fierce as he grabbed my frozen body and pulled me to the edge. “Now!” he ordered.

Balthazar’s expression of shocked fury was the last thing I saw as I dropped into the chill of the ocean. Ethan tugged at me, urgently pulling me down into the black depths. I felt him crawling downwards—feeling his way along the submerged rock wall.

My heart rattling, I began kicking hard, forcing myself down. With burning lungs, I traveled far into the black watery night. He pulled me under a rock shelf. A barely discernable light glowed in the distance, somewhere above.

My head grew faint, hungry for oxygen. Ethan’s hands came under my arms, and he lifted me up. Above, more light shone through the water. I kicked frantically.

I broke the water’s surface first, gasping the cold air. Ethan shook the water from his head as he emerged.

We were in the serpent’s cave.

It was as I remembered it. Every pillar of shining crystal, the cascading waterfall, even the crisscrossing tree roots.

The serpent wasn’t here—I felt her absence.

Staring about, Ethan pointed at a vaguely shimmering mark in the air, in the middle of the dark cave. I gazed in awe at the almost invisible waves of light.

We swam across the glassy surface of the pool. Taking both my hands, Ethan thrust my arms and his straight upwards, toward the mark. I felt myself taken up, shifting.

The world around me swirled and disappeared.

––––––––

C
ASSIE

We stepped onto the ice beside the bay.  The world seemed so vast, so impossibly white. The glare blinded my eyes while the wind blew around my body with an intense, biting cold. It was beautiful.

“Is this real?” My voice wavered. It seemed everything around me could be snatched away—like a fake scene painted on a theater background, exposing the darkness of Balthazar’s tomb-like chambers.

Ethan nodded, blowing air from puffed-up cheeks. “We made it.”

My body began to tremble. I had to resist an urge to throw myself down and cover myself with snow, cleanse myself of the grime and dark despair of Balthazar’s cabinets—and his bed.

Sun streaked through the cloud cover above.

Goodbye, Etiennette. Be free.

Taking my hand, Ethan took me across the snow-covered ground to a serpent skin that had been shed.

We ran through the silvery tunnels. The museum lay ahead, even whiter than the snow. Ethan cradled me from behind, kissing my temple. “We need to wait and see if there’s rangers about.”

We were wet and chilled, but I had never felt warmer.

~.~

We stepped from the tunnel out into the broad whiteness. Ethan glanced over his shoulder. Two figures stood at the edge of the frozen bay, their long cloaks flying around them, hoods pulled over their shadowed faces.

I cried out. “They’re wearing the clothing of the castle.”

“Come on!” Taking my hand, he raced with me toward the museum.

Snow fell in cascades as the guards of the museum opened the planetarium.

Breathing sharply, we rushed inside.

Mr. Calhoun marched toward us, incredulity on his face. He stared open-mouthed at Ethan. “Back again after abandoning us all that time?”

Ethan’s expression hardened. “I didn’t abandon anyone.” He pointed back towards the entry. “We saw people out there. Heading this way. They weren’t rangers.”

Calhoun tilted his bristly chin at us. “We didn’t see anyone else.” He yelled out to the guards watching from higher levels. “Anyone out there?”

A chorus of negatives were returned.

“Can you check?” Ethan insisted. “They were dressed in cloaks and black boots, both slim, a little shorter than me maybe.”

“We told you there’s no one there.” Calhoun crossed his arms. “The council doesn’t let anyone through their barrier, and you know the rangers never come in twos.”

A thin-faced guard with a blonde goatee that I remembered as being named Derrick walked up, rifle over his shoulder. “I’ll put all the guards on high alert.”

“I didn’t authorize that!” Calhoun glared at Derrick.

“Well, if Ethan says he saw someone, doesn’t it make sense?” Derrick smiled broadly at Ethan. “Good to see you back. Man, I thought you got killed or something.”

Ethan grinned. “Me? No? Indestructible.” He shrugged. "Maybe those people we saw were just some randoms."

“Yeah. Better get back to my post.” Derrick made a face at the back of Calhoun’s head, winking at us before he left.

A suspicious glint entered Mr. Calhoun’s eyes. “I think maybe you two were making up a story about people being out there, trying to take attention away from yourselves and why you’re here. You’re both dripping wet—you been swimming out there in the bay? With the damned snakes no less?”