Below by Jason Chabot

Author:Jason Chabot [Chabot, Jason]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781443407816
Publisher: HarperCollins Canada
Published: 2014-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 28

Elia didn’t know how long she had been waiting. It felt like an hour. Neither Hokk nor Davim had emerged, though she could have missed them leaving from any other side of the burnt tower. She bit a dirty fingernail as she peered around the ramp’s barricade.

The rain had stopped and the street was empty. Cautiously stepping into the open, she kept her head down, and with a few quick strides and twice as many rapid heartbeats, she was back under the first-floor ceiling.

Hokk’s gazelk was gone. Some of the rope was still tied to the post where the animal had been tethered, but a knife had sliced through it. Elia imagined Hokk being chased down the stairs, desperate to cut the gazelk free so they could escape—likely without a second thought about Elia. He had abandoned her in this abandoned city.

She ran her hands through her hair. Where should she go now? She didn’t want to wander through the city attracting curious stares. She needed food, water—all the essential provisions. Perhaps Hokk had left something behind in his haste.

Elia climbed to the eleventh floor, but Hokk’s supplies and tent were gone. The grasses were trampled and the pillar had a shocking splash of blood on it. She stepped back into the stairwell and noticed for the first time drops of blood on the charred floor, trailing down the steps she had just taken.

A shuffling sound came from the stairs above.

Flattening herself against the wall, Elia expected to see Davim’s feet come rushing at her. Instead, she saw paws, and then the rest of Nym descended, warily stopping halfway down to stare at her.

Elia patted her thighs, coaxing the fox to come closer. “Come on. Come here.”

The fox was hesitant and kept glancing back up the staircase.

Elia understood: she was to follow. As Nym bounded ahead, he looked back frequently to make sure she was still behind. Elia was sweating by the time she reached the top floor. The staircase ended within a small enclosure, as blackened as the rest of the tower. It no longer had a door and opened directly onto the roof.

Stepping out, Elia was awed by the view. Most of the other scrapers were well below her, and the panoramic sky extended on all sides as it had on the grasslands. A massive expanse of rock, however, had emerged through the mist, looming above the City of Ago, impossibly weightless.

An island of Above.

Home.

Well, not quite her home, since only the one dagger pierced the clouds. But certainly more her home than where she was now. It seemed so close, as if Elia could just reach up and grab the island’s rocky tip.

Nym barked. He sat on his haunches, glancing from her to something behind the staircase enclosure.

As Elia approached, she noticed an object poking out from around the corner. Hokk’s tent. A few steps more and she saw a sack, then a second one. Elia came around the side and her heart surged. Hokk was

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