Page 121 of Flickerstate

The room spins, ghosted with phosphorescent afterimages.

Beasts fill the room’s upper air like smoke, writhing, whispering, clawing, biting one another on necks, shoulders, limbs, and faces. One, pallid white as a deepwater eel, so like the one that marked me this past spring, spirals toward my face.

I stare, transfixed.

Vik yanks me, and I come back to myself. We falter away from Dr. Langmore, scrabbling at the Cruciform’s sparking guts, andacross the room beneath the growing thundercloud of beasts.

“Wait!” Dr. Langmore cries. “We have to save the Cruciform! We have to change Tully’s mind!”

Beasts are gnawing at the machine’s inmost parts. It sparks more, sputters more.

Good.

I stumble doggedly toward the door, Vik supporting my unsteady weight.

He yells to Dr. Langmore, “You need to get out of here. Call the nearest nav department and—”

“Stupid boy!” she yowls.

He doesn’t try again.

Behind us, she starts screaming.

The beasts have her.

Candace and Mirabel, deep in flickerstate, must have seen our escape approaching. As soon as Vik and I shuffle past them into the tunnel, they follow us, covering our retreat.

When the dark tunnel swallows us, my vision goes wild: green and red and platinum phantoms everywhere, strobing with my labored heartbeat. Sheer dread strikes. I fear reality is disintegrating. I check for Vik. There he is, beside me, jaw knotted. I glance behind me. Candace and Mirabel trudge at my heels. Every few seconds, they scan the tunnel behind us for beasts. Mirabel’s scans are workmanlike—no regret, no desire to return and help. Candace’s linger. Each time she faces forward, turning her back on the deep room where Dr. Langmore is screaming, her frown is deeper and grimmer.

But she stays with us.

When, somehow, we reach the top of the steep stairs, we stand—Vik, Candace, Mirabel, and I—and pant, mindless with shock.

“The beasts,” I say. “The beasts are…”

Vik touches my back. “Norah.”

“Mirabel first,” I croak. “Me last.”

Mirabel climbs onto the skinny landing, and Vik and I give her our arms. She hoists herself onto the shelf, her grip on my forearm hard and impersonal. After she’s ducked and knelt up on the middle shelf, she nods to me. Then she shuffles through.

Candace next. “Bree!” she calls into the Archive. “Bree!”

When it’s just Vik and me, he searches the dark stairs behind us for beasts. Once he’s found it empty, he climbs through.

It’s Vik who helps me into the regular Archive—doors thrown open, people crowding in with loud voices and wild eyes, Bree pitched sideways in a chair with Candace bending over her. When the room dims and my legs fold, it’s Vik who catches me.

Chapter Thirty-One

I wake up in a hospital room: mint walls, industrial light, beeping machines. A woman sits in the blue plastic chair across from mybed. She’s in her thirties or forties, with short natural hair and steady eyes. She’s wearing a U.S. Department of Navigation uniform.

She’s watching me.

“Good morning,” she says. “Are you up to answering questions?”

“Uh,” I say stupidly. “Water?”

She points to a Styrofoam cup on the table beside my bed. I look inside. Ice chips. I slide one between my dry lips.