Page 90 of The Black Key

Stubborn, Lucien’s voice whispers.

Just like me, I think.

“All right,” I say. I won’t argue with them. They need to make their own choices now.

“Be safe,” Sienna says.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Sil adds. “It’s still dangerous out there. There’s fighting in the lower circles.”

“I wouldn’t worry about us, Sil,” Garnet says cheerfully, clapping her on the back. “Don’t you know we’ve got the most powerful Paladin in recent history as our guide?”

“Second most powerful,” Sil grumbles, and we all laugh.

We leave through the ruined south part of the wall, the one by the Auction House. It takes us the better part of the day to make it across the Bank, which has surrendered rather quickly to the fall of the royalty, though there’s a hefty amount of destruction all around us. Many stores have been looted or burned.

When we reach the wall, Garnet glances at me. “Can you get us through?” he asks.

“Of course she can,” Ash says, and I grin.

I join with Earth and welcome the thick, mighty sense of being rooted in something deep and ancient. I feel the stones of these walls, greeting them like old friends, and when they begin to break apart, I fill up with a blissful power. This one isn’t nearly as thick as the wall that surrounded the Jewel. I make only a narrow fissure, just wide enough for us to climb through.

The scene that meets our eyes is one of widespread devastation. Maybe because there were more things to explode in the Smoke. Factories have been leveled. There are bodies in the streets and constant outbreaks of fighting.

I’m grateful when we reach the wall to the Farm. At first, this circle seems untouched by the violence. Until we come across the first burned-out farmhouse, the fields surrounding it dead and blackened. It takes several days to cross the Farm.

We reach the wall to the Marsh late at night. My feet are sore and my back aches, but when I draw on Earth, my strength returns. The wall is black against the night sky, but I don’t need to see it to break it. It is too dark to continue into the Marsh so we camp in the shadow of the wall.

I wake at dawn. The air is chilly, drops of dew forming on my hair like crystals. I stare at the pearlescent strip of gray in the distance that grows lighter. Then a streak of orange appears, underscored with slashes of pink and gold. Slowly, a symphony of color plays out in the sky, nature welcoming the beginning of a new day.

I have always loved sunrises. There is something hopeful about them.

After a quick breakfast, we set off again. Raven and I agree to visit our families on our way back—I fear if I see my mother now, I may never leave her.

At first, the Marsh appears to be deserted. But then I realize that most of the laborers must have been in the other circles. We see the elderly, and children with young mothers, or children with no mothers at all. The Great Wall looms in the distance, but it never seems to come any closer.

Until suddenly, the mud-brick houses end and we stand at the edge of a vast expanse of dry, cracked earth. The Wall rises up before us. It is larger than I imagined, larger by far than any of the other walls in this city, and I know I would never be able to take it down on my own.

It grows more massive the closer we get to it. The wind blows sharply across the empty plain, whipping specks of dirt and dust up around us. We walk and walk and the Wall looms higher and higher. By the time we reach it, it hurts my neck to look up to the top.

I turn to my companions. “I can’t break this one down.”

Garnet’s eyes are wide.

Ash looks slightly stunned. “It’s . . . so . . .”

“Big,” Raven finishes. Big doesn’t seem like enough. The stones are gray and murky brown. Some are covered with lichens or moss. She reaches out and runs her hand over its rough surface, then gasps.

“Follow me,” she says, taking off at a jog. Garnet rushes to catch up to her and Ash and I take up the rear.

Whatever Raven’s looking for, she doesn’t find it for nearly half an hour. “There!” she cries triumphantly, pointing at what appears to be just more wall.

But then I see the contrast, the shadows, the place where steps have been carved into the stony surface.

Up, up, up they go, to a dizzying height that sets my head spinning. But I have to see.

At first, the stairs are wide and smooth, but the higher we go, the narrower they become. By the time we are halfway up, my thighs are in agony and there’s a painful stitch in my side. The drop below me is terrifying, worse than in the sewers when we had to climb that rusty ladder to get into the Bank, worse than the top of the golden spire in the Auction House where Sienna and I sent up the flare. Three-quarters of the way up and everything below has turned miniature—minuscule houses, baby trees. I can see straight across the Marsh, to the wall of the Farm.

“How long . . . do you think . . . it took to build this?” Ash pants.