The House of Cards

Nine Circles

Nine Circles

I am jolted awake to the sound of the bedroom door slamming shut.

"Get up," Daniel orders, flicking the lights on. I grunt and shut my eyes. Too bright. "Now. We need to leave."

"Wassgoinon?" Gwin mutters. I blink a few times, my eyes watering in the light. The other girl sits up and rubs sleep from her eyes, yawning. "I'm so tired."

"You can sleep when you're dead," Daniel replies, rushing around the room and shoving items into our backpacks. He pauses. "You will be dead soon if you don't get out of bed."

I slide my feet to the floor, standing up. I am mostly dressed, wearing the cotton pants Saroya had given us and one of my cleaner t-shirts.

"What happened, Daniel?" I ask, sensing his urgency. I begin to pull my hair back into a messy bun, no time to brush it. "What is it?"

"She found us," he says, throwing a set of clothes at Gwin. "The Nine of Pentacles, Artaith. The House of Pentacles is here."

Before he even finishes the sentence, Gwin scrambles out of bed, hastily throwing the clothes on. I snatch Asitr from the bedside table, snapping the dagger onto my weapons belt. Daniel tosses me my bag, and I slide my shoulders through the straps.

"How are we getting out of here?" I say. "We can't fight them all off."

"I know," Daniel replies, pulling a gun out of one of his many holsters and tossing it to me. "The Reapers are holding them off, but we need to go now."

He leads us out into the hall, where Marius and Jack wait at the end. The Wonderlander keeps one eye on Daniel's brother, the other surveying the hall.

"No one is there," Marius reports, his lime eyes wider than usual. "But we need to go now."

"Where's Solomon?" Gwin asks, still rubbing sleep from her eyes. Her hair is a wild mess, and her dark circles seem blacker than normal.

Daniel heads to the front of the group, motioning for me to bring up the rear. I stick Gwin in front of me, a good place to watch her.

"He went to the Thin Place already," Daniel explains, voice low. "Maeve, shoot anything that moves. And don't hesitate."

I nod my assent, and flick the safety off on the gun.

Daniel leads us through the twists and turns of the Library, everyone on high alert. Gwin flexes her fingers and water dances between them, while Marius pulls off his metal top hat, twisting it to form two flat, razor sharp disks. Soon, sounds of fighting become audible, and Daniel's steps become more cautious.

The hallway opens up into the massive main cavern and into a war zone. Flashes of Red and black flash across the pale blue light, locked in a dance of death. The desks are in ruins, paperwork swirls in the air, and the souls of the dead have vanished.

Daniel curses, and then pushes us along faster. "Hurry," he mutters. "Stick to the outside of the cave, out of the light. Don't let them see you."

We follow his orders, sticking to the darkness as we inch our way around the cavern towards the faintly glowing hallway. In the fray, I can make out white-haired Ankh, the flash of Lailah's braid as she throws daggers. The red diamond of the House of Pentacles stands out in stark contrast to the black of their enemies' uniforms, an easy target.

We duck into the glowing hallway and scurry down it, bathed in a silver light. Cries and shouts follow us down, echoing off stone. My stomach knots