Lissie felt a heavy weight crash into her. It rattled her injury, and she cried out. She lost the group. Distance. When they stopped touching her, she felt alone. She dropped to a crouch and began feeling around with her good right arm. Her hand landed on a bare foot.
No one is barefoot but Niko.
She was not frozen, but the foot was cold. She squeezed it.
“I think I hurt that leg.” Niko’s voice was so soft.
She moved her hand and followed his leg up his body, blindly. “How can I touch you?” Lissie asked.
“I do not know.” Nikolai continued, “I have never been injured from a fall before.”
Lissie found his arm. “Take my hand. Can you stand?”
She felt his fingers on hers. They were icy, and large. But they did not freeze her. Lissie helped Niko to his feet as best she could.
“Is that Niko? Did he die?” Alexander’s voice was cracking.
“I live yet.” Niko moved, and she felt him stand. He held her lightly, but his fingers trembled at her every movement.
Grasping hands in the darkness on her hood, in her hair. She felt the huddle reform around them.
Cora spoke up. “The first thing we need to do is establish a way to find this spot again. The easiest thing to do would be to leave one of us to wait here.”
Alexander screamed, “Nope!”
Ruskin howled his agreement.
“If one of us waited here,” Cora continued, “With rope, we could make sure we didn’t lose the entrance.”
Riley’s voice quavered. “We don’t know how deep this place is. It’s time for Lissie to Ride.”
Lissie could see none of them, but she could feel their eyes on her. She closed her eyes and opened them, and looked for the fire inside of them. It was there. Faint, but it was there. Yellow. Even within Niko.
“I can see you!” Lissie struggled to explain what she saw when she looked at them. She hadn’t wanted to tell her friends that she could see their feelings. It seemed too personal.
Maybe that’s why the Dust Women live alone.
“It’s faint,” she continued.
Riley’s glow flared a little brighter and she spoke. “So you can do it? You’re riding?”
Lissie’s heart clenched. “No. I’m just seeing a little piece of you. Your spirit? I don’t really know.”
Cora reached out her hand for her, it wavered golden in the blackness. “This is what you did in Farvue. That was how you found Alex.”
Lissie didn’t want to let go of Niko. She reached out with her cast and placed it in Cora’s hand. Her friend gasped.
“Your magic is unaffected.” Nikolai sounded relieved. “I have never felt weaker.”
His shoulders slumped under Lissie’s outstretched hand. Cora jostled into her shoulder and her hand clutched deeply into Niko’s arm. It felt bony.
Alexander was rambling. “We can’t get out! Niko! If you can’t jump we will never escape!”
Lissie kept feeling hands on her face and on her body. Every time they would pull away, the light from inside Alexander was flashed and flared. The yellow burst in her vision, blinding her to the others.
“Ruskin!” He was turning in circles stamping his feet as he spoke. He would reach out and grab at the others, brushing faces and recoil back as if burnt. “We’re going to die, this is it, it’s because of what we did!” His fire was brighter now, and the yellow was undulating with pink making it an awful shade of orange.
“Alex, Alex calm down, breathe. In through the nose, out through the mouth.” Cora’s voice was hoarse from screaming over Alexander.
“There’s probably another way out.” Riley was staring at Lissie, the yellow was almost entirely gone from her, the red core was wrapped with green again. Lissie smiled to herself imagining Riley’s smile.
And then the flames went out. And there was only darkness again.
“What?” Lissie said before she could stop herself. Alexander started hyperventilating again, and she said, “It’s just, the light went out. I can’t see anymore.”
No one spoke. Everyone was holding each other, and Lissie had never felt more alone. Until she felt Niko stroke his thumb on hers.
A skittering sound in the distance. Like claws on stone. Alexander dropped to the ground, pulling everyone down with him.
Lissie could hear the faintest sound of him rummaging in his packs. Then the sound of liquid sloshing in a glass bottle. “I have already been damned.” His voice was punctuated by a guzzling of liquid.
Liquid courage, just what we need. A less stable bard, Lissie thought.
Niko was extracting himself and standing up. Lissie held on, and stood with him.
Cora’s hair whipped Lissie in the face. “Alexander Zarnovsky Endrindel MacKintosh the third! So-called bard and tinkerer of the Ellium Company. Your back is against the wall and you have got to stand!”
“I shouldn’t even be here! I should be in Gallia drinking wine on a beach!” Alexander punctuated his words by glugging sounds until the sound of a slap and glass shattering.
Lissie smiled.
Riley’s voice sounded like a military commander. “You stand up. I don’t care where you’re supposed to be, soldier! You are under my command, your life is mine right now.” Another skittering sound made Lissie jump, but Riley continued unfazed. “I will cut you down where you sit and throw your body to whatever is making that noise. I will carry your little dog out of here, since he’s worth ten times what you are to this group if you don’t get on your feet right now.”
Lissie’s eyes had still been closed, she opened them while Riley yelled. Her friend was visible again, a core of red, starting small, and growing brighter as she spoke.
Silence fell and Alexander’s boots scuffed as he got to his feet. The red flare in Riley faded quickly.
Cora’s voice was sweet. “Alex, you’re a tinkerer of the Ellium, surely if we work together, we can map this room. But I can’t do it without you. We will all feel better with a map.”
“I’m sorry, I just, I got thrown in a dark cell before. For a long time.” His voice was hollow and distant.