"Throw the vials, and try not to miss." She patted Arin's shoulder. It was not comforting. "Survive, and I'll teach you how to make these."
Arin swallowed hard once, then again. Her mouth felt so dry that she couldn't remember ever having saliva. Her heart was thumping so fast and hard that she felt it throughout her body. She clutched the vials in her sweaty hands.
Throw the vials, she told herself. Just throw them and turn the crank. And that's it.
Stepping forward, she walked down the final steps into the kitchen. At the bottom, she froze, staring at the spirits and the bodies and the blood and . . .
A tree spirit saw her. It shrieked and flew toward her.
Throw!
A half second later, her arm obeyed, and she flung a vial.
Her aim was off. It hit a table, shattered, and the liquid oozed out, sizzling the stone. The tree spirit opened its jaws and reached, and Arin threw a second vial.
It hit the tree spirit in the teeth.
The glass shattered, and the liquid sprayed into the spirit's mouth. The spirit jerked backward as if she'd stabbed it. And then all the spirits were coming for her, and she was throwing vials in every direction, one after another.
The air was filled with inhuman screams, and she was screaming too.
And then suddenly, the air was empty. The spirits were all alive, screaming and writhing on the floor, but they weren't attacking. Arin ran toward the crank. She slipped in a puddle of blood, fell, and then scrambled to her feet.
At the crank, she turned it. Harder and harder, faster and faster.
Behind her, she heard the spirits growing louder. She risked a glance back. They were beginning to shake off the effects of the vials. She reached for her belt. She had more.
As the earth spirit raised its head, she threw another vial. As the tree spirit crawled toward her, another. She turned the crank more, pausing to throw vials.
And then she was out of vials.
The lift was not at the top.
"Run, girl!" Master Garnah shouted as she flung a powder into the kitchen.
Arin ran through the powder toward the stairs. A tree spirit clawed at her leg. She felt its thorns rip her skin, but she didn't stop. She raced past them and to the stairs.
Master Garnah grabbed her arm, and together they ran up, away from the kitchen.
Arin hoped she'd done enough, that the children were high enough, that they could make it the rest of the way on their own, that they weren't already dead, that her sister wasn't already gone.
The spirits in the kitchen howled, and there was no more time to worry. There was only time to run.
It was quiet inside the shaft. The only sounds were the squeak of the rope and the grunt of their breaths as they pulled, pulled, and pulled. It jerked up at first and then it began to rise more smoothly as they fell into a pattern.
"It's a good thing I'm not scared of the dark," Llor said.
"Yes, it is," Erian agreed. She wasn't crazy about the dark. She tried not to imagine spirits coming into the shaft with them. They wouldn't be able to run. They'd only be able to fall. Very, very far. She found herself listening extra hard.
"I'm not scared of anything."
"Then you don't have a very good imagination," Erian said.
Llor thought about that for a few minutes. She could almost hear his brain chewing over that idea. "I am a little scared of fire spirits. If they set the rope on fire, we'd fall down. And I'm a little scared of tree spirits. If they grew the walls in, we'd be squeezed. And ice spirits-"
"Llor, please shut up."
He shut up.
Erian's arms began to ache. She didn't know if she could pull much longer. She wondered if Arin had made it to the kitchen. She could have encountered spirits. She could be dead.
Don't think that, she told herself.
Leaning against the rope, she panted. "I have to rest." She hooked the rope so it wouldn't fall farther. Her arm muscles felt as if they'd been twisted and stretched like taffy.
Llor curled beside her. "What do we do?"
"We wait. Arin will turn the crank. She just needs to get to the kitchen." If she could. If there weren't too many spirits in the way. If she wasn't already dead.
They waited together, in the darkness.
Minutes stretched.
When she felt like she could, Erian pulled on the rope again. This time, she only managed a few pulls before her arms felt like they were on fire. She had to rest again. I can't do it. I'm not strong enough.
The top of the tower was so impossibly high above them. Inconceivably high. Erian's eyes felt hot, and she dashed away tears with the back of her hand.
"Are you crying?" Llor asked in the dark.
"No."
"Yes, you are."
"Am not." Then she added, "I don't want to."