-Chapter Ten-

There was blood under her nails when she woke, though someone had cleaned off the worst of the gore from the rest of her hands. She lay, blinking through the sunlight, in an actual bed. Not a nice one, she was pretty sure the poking-itchy nature of the mattress meant it was more of a straw tick than a true mattress, but a bed nonetheless. And not a rat to be seen or heard; that in and of itself was a bliss.

Karlene let her hands fall back to the thin sheet that covered her. She was still fully dressed except for her shoes, another thing to be thankful for, and she was alive. And whole. And it was day, strong morning sunlight shining through an open window.

Without even bothering to raise her hands to bury her face in them, Karlene began to cry. They started out as the small, quiet inhalations that took tears with them when they became exhalations, then grew into great heaving sobs that took a bit of her strength each time she let one loose.

She had tried to kill herself.

And not just the once- she’d come awake before Diom had been done with them, and each time Diom had turned his gaze on her and twitched his fingers she’d tried to reach that window. She’d been desperate to reach that unseen ledge, pitting every shred of her broken will on the need to leap down to her death. Because, she knew, death would better, oh so sweetly better, than the nothingness Diom had wielded.

A weight settled onto the bed at her hip, making her whole body dip slightly to the side. Someone took her hands, and pulled her up into a warm embrace that trembled as much as she did.

Karlene wrapped her arms around Axion. She sobbed into his chest, and her hands felt his shoulders shudder with his own struggles. She pulled him into her as much as he was pulling her into him; he’d felt it, too. The horrible emptiness, the ceasing of self. She’d watched him come awake with his own blood on his hands and the knowledge that there was something that would make him beg for death. They’d seen each other keen and wail, seen each other torn apart and put back together at a gesture.

Once she felt she could pull away without falling to pieces again, she tentatively let her arms loosen their hold. Feeling the lessening pressure, Axion leaned back. They sat silently, but not awkwardly, breathing in deep breaths.

“I had nothing to get the blood out from under your nails,” he said, reaching for one of her hands to examine his handyjob almost perfunctually. “When we get out of here, I will have my manicurist take care of it.”

Of all the things she’d expected to be said post-sob-it-out-fest, a promise of a mani-pedi had not even been considered. How silly of her. She gave a choked laugh, despite herself. It wasn’t much of a laugh, hardly more than a wet sniffle, but it was something. He grinned, and some of the pained tension around his mouth and at the corner of his eyes eased.

“Dropling or not,” he said quietly. “You did not deserve that. I am sorry you were involved.”

“You still owe me an explanation,” she replied, just as quietly. “What’s a dropling?” Honestly, she hardly cared about the answer anymore, except as something to focus on.

He raised that damn eyebrow again. “Still with that, are you? You honestly cannot expect me to-”

“After what I’ve been through, I can expect whatever I damn well please,” she said, cutting him off, her voice quiet but intent. “I have no idea where I am, what’s going on, how people can fly or why some steroid freak with a cosplayer’s wetdream do-it-yourself wings wants with a magic chemist.” She’d turned her hand in his, seizing his wrist. “Where I come from, people with wings are legends at best, something out of a fairytale to most. Buildings don’t float, bracelets don’t size themselves, and that…that thing he did to us? That doesn’t exist. That doesn’t happen. Can’t happen. It’s beyond the realm of reasonable scientific comprehension.”

He looked down to where she’d grabbed him, that eyebrow arching again. She wanted to shave it off, even if it would ruin an otherwise unfairly gorgeous set of eyes. She realized her nails, still rimmed with red, were digging into his forearm. She let go.

“Just…pretend,” she said slowly, trying to keep her voice down. She couldn’t believe she was about to say this. “For a moment. Just pretend that...that I’m from another world.” Recalling the heavy gravity world with three suns she added, “A populated world, one that doesn’t have...droplings.”

Axion leaned back, suddenly regarding her with a look that was distinctly void of manipulated brows. It was, she thought, probably his ‘you’re kidding’ face. She huffed a sigh, prepared to tell him to nevermind, but then… Then he nodded.

“I suppose it makes sense,” he said. “It’s been theorized for some time that ours was not the only plane that was inhabited. We just never...well, not we, but I for one never thought to presume that such a race would look so much like us, if we ever crossed paths.” He leaned forward, peering at her eyes. “Extraordinary, really…” He tilted his head, expression growing fascinated. “Tell me, how often do you need to eat? Does our food bother you at all? What about the temperature, the pressure, the-”

Of its own accord, one of Karlene’s hand shot up, palm out, and planted itself over his mouth. His eyebrows shot up in sheer astonishment, then the corners crinkled and she knew he was silently laughing at her. Great.

He was either mocking her, or he thought she was an alien. And the best part? Technically, if she really was on, or in, another world...then she sort of was an alien. At least to him. She removed her hand from his mouth and tried to rub away the sensation of his lips pressed against his palm on her clothed thigh.

“What do you call yourselves?” She asked, gesturing to him. “The race of people who look like you? Ordinary, no wings, no...magic traveling blood.”

He crossed his arms. “Who says I’m ordinary?”

“The fact you haven’t ashed your way out of here yet.” She crossed her own, mirroring him.

“Ashed?”

“You know, the whole pentacle of doom meets blood equals pillar of ash and smoke and the handy side effect of taking you somewhere else?”

“Ah, Keyholes and Gates.” He nodded, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “The circles, those are Keyholes. The ‘pillar of ash’ would be the Gate.” Of course they had nice sounding terms. She preferred hers.

“All right, the fact you haven’t keyholed your way out of here says you’re not...whatever I am. The lack of wings sort of explains away the only other option I’ve seen.”

His relaxed, fascinated posture evaporated. “So you can do it. But you’re not from here? That’s...” His face became shuttered. “Rather unbelievable, frankly.”

Karlene pressed her lips together hard enough that they tingled from sudden lack of circulation. She shoved the blanket away from her, and wiggled out of bed.

“I don’t need you to believe me,” she said, harsher than she’d intended. Their pleasant moment had passed. “I just need you to-”

The door slammed open, and both she and Axion stiffened. He stood and moved away from the door to stand beside her, and for some reason, perhaps in light of their brewing argument, the motion solidified something. She wasn’t sure what. The fact they were on the same side? She wouldn’t have thought that needed solidifying after their meeting with Diom.

Sid entered, his hands full of a tray, which was why he’d needed to kick the door open

“Sorry,” he said, and crossed the room to set the tray on the bed. He nodded to the tray. “No forks, Diom’s orders, sorry.” He seemed about to say something else, then turned to leave.

“You’re saying ‘sorry’ an awful lot for a kidnapper.”

Sid froze, then reached for the door. She thought her opportunity had passed, but then he shut the door with him still in the room, and turned back to her. For a moment, he was again the almost pitiable, gangly young man she’d given what she’d thought was his first job.

“Because I am sorry, Karlene,” he blurted. “I really, really am. I’m the one that spotted you, guessed what you were. I didn’t think it would work, we didn’t think it was possible to find someone like you on your world. If I’d known what Diom would do, I never would have told the others about you, I swear. I would have stayed stuck on your dead world rather than...than that.”

“So that’s your moral limit? You thought the worst that would happen would be, what? You steal someone from one world, strand them on yours, without so much as a ‘hey, by the way, in our world your kind are used as wormhole battery slaves and we lost ours?’” Her hands went to her hips, staring into Sid’s guilty eyes. “That’s what happened, isn’t it? Mynda? She was your last, what do you keep calling me? Dropling? You lost her, or she died, so you grabbed me.”

“We’ve always taken care of our droplings,” he said, some of his confidence returning. “Better than any of them!” He jerked his chin towards Axion. “Mynda was an accident. We miscalculated. We thought she had one more in her.”

Axion snorted. “And you say you treat them better. You’d have used up this Mynda’s Als’canil to get home and left her a drudge like the rest. I’ve seen your kitchen staff. How quick do you burn through them, halfwing?”

Dropling, Als’canil, drudges, halfwing. Terms that she knew were connected, and she was starting to construct the web of ‘how’ in her mind, but there was still so much unexplained. So much about her, so much that was responsible for her being there, being so very afraid, and she was abruptly done.

“Sid,” she said quietly. “If you’re really sorry, then help me. Send me home.”

He looked pained. “I can’t, Karlene. We need you. Most droplings are bound to noble houses, or to Waystations like the ones you saw in Pyroxis. Even with all the money in the world, you can’t buy one without the right paperwork. You’re undocumented, Karlene, and we need-”

“Fine,” she cut him off with a sharp wave of her hand. “Then help me another way.”

She’d never expected him to actually help her escape, but the lesser evil of this request might be easier for him to accept.

“You know I’m not from here. Please, Sid, please tell me what’s going on. How did you know I was different? How can you do what you do with...with my…” She gestured to the still healing scab at her wrist.

Beside her, Axion still looked unconvinced. Fine, she didn’t need to convince him, not if she could guilt Sid into giving her the answers she needed. She couldn’t help but feel that if she just knew more, she might be able to get home on her own.

Sid came around the bed and sat on the edge. He gestured to the tray, and Axion went to it, selected two of the least moldy slices of dark bread, picked off the green bits, and handed one to her. Despite herself, her stomach rolled over itself and she took it.

“This world is called Enoi,” he said. “Like you call yours Earth. Most of us are just like the people who live in your world. We’re not another planet, though, we’re… I don’t know what you’d call it, if you even have a name for it.”

“Dimension, I think,” she said. “Another plane of existence.”

“Close enough,” Sid shrugged. He reached for a piece of bread, ignoring the bits of mold. “Each world, each ‘dimension,’ goes through time and space slightly faster or slower than others. Some go way faster or slower than others.

“When we want to travel to a different place in Enoi, someplace far, we travel to another world that’s going faster, or slower, in either time or space as we need it to. Then we jump back. It takes a lot of people who are a lot smarter than me to calculate where to jump for how long, but once we know, it’s easy.”

“And you do this using the ash pillars,” she said. “Keyholes.”

“Keyholes are the ring of runes,” Sid said around a mouthful of moldy bread. “Once we pair a keyhole with a key -Dropling blood- a Gate is opened.” She tried to ignore the sight of him open-mouthed chewing the greenish bread and focus on his explanation. During the slight pause while he swallowed, Karlene caught Axion staring at her. Watching her take in the information. Looking for what?

“Fullblood Enochians -the ones with wings you saw flying around Pyroxis?- they don’t need keyholes to do it,” Sid went on, oblivious to the intensity with which Axion was watching Karlene. “But the rest of us need the essence of droplings, people like you. Catch is, you only have so much in you. Each time we use one of you to open a Gate, it drains a little bit of that essence that makes dropling blood do what it does.”

“Does it...replenish? Like blood does?” Karlene asked.

“No,” Axion answered for Sid. “It doesn’t replenish.”

Sid seemed to have finally clued in to the way Axion was observing their conversation. He brushed crumbs from his lap with a nervous flick of his fingers, then picked up where Axion left off, speaking now with somewhat more respect than he had a moment before.

“When it’s all gone, something happens to droplings. Something to make ‘em...I dunno, less. They’re not stupid, just slow, and….” he shrugged. “Well, you saw.”

“Saw what?” She pressed. “Where?”

“The kitchen staff,” Axion said quietly. “They were all droplings, once. Like you. They were used to open keyholes down to their Last Drop, their Als’canil.”

Karlene felt a chill, thinking of their utter lack of interest in the world around them. Then she remembered something else, from her first conversation with Axion.

“Als’canil,” she whispered. She looked at Axion. “That’s what you meant by negotiating to let me keep… And you said it like you’d be doing me some sort of favor!” She dropped the remnants of the bread in her hand, glaring at him. “What kind of sick place is this? You bleed people dry until they’re soulless husks, so you can travel around quicker?”

“It would be a favor,” Sid cut in. “Droplings have no rights here, Karlene. You all belong at birth to either the King or to members of the Council, and at their pleasure droplings are loaned to the members of the court, or to the public transport system. Droplings under the King’s protection want for nothin’, and if they make their masters happy, then they get to keep the last bit of their Als’canil. Sometimes they’re even given a writ of citizenship, and move somewhere no one ever knew they were born a Dropling.”

“And how often does that happen?” She snapped. “Nevermind, even if it were every time, it’s not right. Their ‘last drop’ is not yours to let them keep! Neither is anything else about them!”

“Your,” Axion corrected quietly. Karlene turned the full force of her furious stare on him. He didn’t so much as flinch. “Not ‘their,’ not ‘them.’ You. You’re a Dropling, Karlene, whatever else you may have thought you were.”

Breathing hard, though she was doing nothing but standing still, Karlene turned her stare back on Sid. “Get out,” she hissed. “Get out!”

Sid stood, looking startled. She’d dwell later on what it must be like for him, apologizing and explaining things to what was, to him, a barely-human civic asset. In this world, she apparently amounted to the same worth as a goddamn public bus.

He left, and she heard the fall of tumblers in a lock after the door was shut.

She turned and leaned against the open window, hands clenching the sill. She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry some more. She’d done enough of both, she thought. She rounded on Axion.

“You mentioned a rescue,” she said. “Start talking.”