#penultimate chapter!!

“And look for coal!” calls False from the stern. Jimmy acknowledges with a wave of his hand, then heaves himself over the railing and onto the rolled-out ladder.

The mites are swarming around below, but they watch as Jimmy draws his pistol and fires an echoing shot below him, scattering the ones directly below him. For a moment, wind catches the ladder and it sways—Jimmy’s one-handed hold is looking pretty loose—but before any of them can shout for him, Jimmy jumps the rest of the way down, landing hard on the ground and firing off another shot.

It’s Scott’s turn next, and he can’t afford to take a moment to feel nervous about it. Jimmy’s down there, howling at the top of his lungs, trying to keep hordes of plaguelings away. He needs help, and Scott just so happens to have a magical eye that repulses evil.

The wind is roaring in his ears and terrifying as he clambers down the rope ladder, it swinging and curling below him while his shovel knocks against his leg. But Scott bites his lip and holds on tight, taking it one shaky step at a time as he climbs.

Eventually, his feet hit solid ground (his knees shake and he nearly falls, but he finds his footing after a precarious moment), and he pulls his shovel from his belt and starts beating at the dirt before he even has a chance to get his legs steady. The mites scurry away from the force, or go still and slowly move away under his gaze, and he casts his eyes around, trying to keep them spooked long enough to stay a good meter away (and hitting with his shovel when they get too close). Jimmy’s still yelling and stomping his feet, and Katherine swings down and joins in.

Once Shelby joins them, Jimmy (still shouting nonsense) leads the way in, shoving at the looming, sealed stone doors until one of them starts to give. Katherine joins him, and with their combined strength, they force one of the doors to scrape open wide enough for them to squeeze through.

It’s a tight fit—and Scott doesn’t like that there are mites on the doors, that could drop down on him as he’s going in, so he pulls up his coat above his head and shimmies through—but it works well enough, and soon all four of them are within the catacombs.

The air within is like a cool breeze washing over them, out of the sun, yet stuffy—but Scott hardly notices it while his eyes adjust to the dark. The crack of the door casts little light within the hollowed out hall, and they all stand there for several long moments (Scott keeps an eye on the door, glaring at any mites that dare shuffle around the corner) while Jimmy strikes a match and lights the torch that he’d strapped to his hip.

Scott lets his coat slide back down from his head to settle on his shoulders again. He’s already starting to have second thoughts, something about the darkness unsettling his stomach. He swallows a couple of times, making sure that he isn’t going to throw up.

It’s tough to see the roughly-hewn stone, even with Jimmy’s torch. The light barely reaches the walls, and Scott can just make out the lumpy shapes of sconces at fixed intervals to light up the place the way Pix always had it. It would’ve been nice if they’d been able to bring as many torches as could fill those—then maybe it would feel less spooky, less . . . off.

In addition to the disconcerting darkness, it feels like they’re in a holy place, and no one speaks while they pass between pillars to reach the main staircase. 

Scott’s been in plenty of holy places, and in each one, there’s a certain quality to the air—maybe the way the dust hangs in unnatural stillness, or the stale scent that brings to mind churches and private places of worship. Something that feels as if it would be unwise to disturb it, whether because of the god that watches over it, or because of whatever lies within.

In this case, it could be either, he observes, as Jimmy’s torchlight passes over a painting of a goddess.

Peril, the plaque beneath it reads. Scott only catches a glimpse of the painting as he passes, but she seems stern, stone-like, forbidding.

She seems like an omen.

With every dark hallway and tomb they pass, Scott’s heart sinks lower and lower. If Pix were here, surely he’d have lit the place up, shown some sign of life. 

There’s nothing, though. No lit torches, dust settled on the few seats they pass and layered thick on the ground. And the further in they get, the lower the chances are that Pix is somehow still here.

Jimmy’s growing antsy, too. Every room he shines his torch into, he sighs louder, his steps sounding more and more like stomps.

Scott doesn’t dare suggest they turn back, even as the tombs go on and on. He’s not sure how Jimmy’s navigating them, or if he’s navigating at all, so he looks up at him after a moment to see that he has chalk, and is marking each turn they take.

Scott turns his eyes back to the floor, scanning each cranny they pass for any mites that could be hiding in the darkness. The silence feels heavy, weighing down on his shoulders, and he’s assaulted with the image of Martina in the inn, her limp llama form already being torn apart by the mites.

If Pix is down here, what condition will they find him in? Will he be partially decayed, mites crawling around him? Will there be anything left?

Scott shakes himself. There aren’t any mites in here. Well, now there may be, now that they’ve opened the door, but if Pix is here, there can’t be mites. They haven’t encountered any yet, have they? If they were already in here, they would’ve seen one.

Right?

And then, almost before he notices, they’re in the main (and final) chamber.

It’s dark. It’s silent. The torchlight doesn’t fill the entire room, leaving the edges of the room in darkness. The can’t see the walls, they can’t see the ceiling. They can’t see any signs of life.

What they can see is some crypts, inscribed with weathered words in a language Scott doesn’t recognize. A couple of barrels here and there, mostly empty, one or two with shovels or similar excavation tools. A sheet here, a bucket there.

No Pix. This is clearly where he’d been working before everything went down, but he isn’t here.

With a couple of gestures, Jimmy directs them all to various corners of the room to search, despite the futility of it. Scott heads off to his left, feeling along one of the crypts, his fingers digging into the dusty grooves of the lettering.

There’s nothing in his corner. It’s bare, but for a cobweb and more dust. He kicks at the dust, watches idly as it puffs up in a little cloud.

There’s a short shriek behind him, a clattering sound—Scott whips around—Katherine’s leapt back from her corner and knocked over a barrel, her axe raised, eyes focused on a spot on the floor.

“There’s a mite here,” she calls to them when everyone looks to her. “I don’t know if it was already here or if it followed us in. We should go.”

Jimmy nods sharply, heads to the door. Scott falls into line behind him, trying to keep his heart from beating out of his chest. If the mites are already in here—

Jimmy leaves without waiting for Katherine and Shelby to join them, and Scott can’t hang back because Jimmy’s going forward and Scott has to watch out for mites in his path. They aren’t far behind, so he’s confident that they’ll be able to catch up. After all, they can handle themselves for a couple of seconds.

If they’d waited, maybe things would’ve been different. Maybe Scott would have noticed something was off, because he caught sight of some movement on the ceiling but assumed it was just the torchlight flickering as Jimmy hurried down the hallway and up the first flight of stairs.

But now, in an attempt to not let Jimmy get too far ahead, he ignores whatever he’d seen on the ceiling. And when the girls shout behind him, he knows instantly that he should’ve looked closer.

Scott whips around to see his worst nightmare.

It’s Shelby, and there’s a mite on her cheek.

And a mite on her hat.

And a mite on her hand.

And she’s yelling and trying to shake off the mites, and Katherine’s screaming and circling her to try and fend off any others, and the sick feeling that’s been growing in Scott’s stomach this whole time rises to his throat and he nearly vomits.

It’s certain death. There’s no way to survive this plague, and Shelby’s covered in those things and there’s no way to help her and she’s going to die, she’s going to die, she’s going to die—

“Just run!” Jimmy roars, and Scott can’t stay. There’s more of them, the plague dripping from the ceiling and spreading across the walls and Shelby’s going to die and there’s nothing he can do.

Scott pulls the collar of his coat up over his head and runs for it.

The mites scatter from their feet, and all Scott can hear is the pounding of his blood in his ears and all he can feel is his feet slamming against stone, but he keeps pushing, up flights of stairs and down hallways, his eyes on the ground to try and keep it clear. He doesn’t know if Shelby and Katherine are following. He doesn’t know if Jimmy’s still in front of him. He just knows he has to get out.

Something light bounces off his coat over his head and Scott swears in a voice that comes out as more of a shriek than a mutter, as intended. He doesn’t stop running, though, even as each breath tears from his lungs and his legs start to feel like jelly.

And finally, blessedly, he hits the door.

There’s more mites than he’s ever seen in his life swarming around the door, piled up upon each other as they scramble to explore this new place. Scott screams at them, wordless and random, stomping and glaring and swinging with his shovel, until their piles fall apart and scatter and he has a path through.

He can hear other screams, somebody beating something metal against the wall with a repeated, deafening clanging noise that sends Scott’s head spinning and his ears ringing. He squeezes his way out the door, doing his best to shove the door open a bit wider in the process, and finally is free in the open air.

Jimmy’s right there, and the sound is him slamming his pistol against the outer wall as he shouts, making a small clearing in the sea of blackness that surrounds them. Scott spins around, too fast, he’s dizzy he’s going to be sick, casting his eyes on every mite he can to incite them to pull away.

The ladder drops in front of him and Jimmy, still yelling, shoves his pistol into his waistband and starts climbing.

Scott tells himself, frantically, that he’s going to wait for Katherine and Shelby as long as he can. He and Jimmy left them back there, they didn’t wait, and because they didn’t wait they lost one of their number.

Luckily, he doesn’t have to wait long. Within the minute, Shelby exits the catacombs, bereft of her witch hat and her face red with tears. Katherine’s right behind her, and she helps Shelby onto the rope ladder before climbing up herself.

Scott waits until they’re both fully onto the airship, then steels himself. His legs already feel so terribly weak; he isn’t sure that he can make it all the way up.

Well. It’s either make it, or die here.

Scott starts climbing.

His determination is strong, but even so, his legs nearly give out before he reaches the top. When that happens, he just wraps his arms all the way around the ladder and moves slower, shimmying himself up.

He rolls over the railing, onto the deck and out of the way, ready for Katherine to pull the ladder up. Scott shrugs out of his coat, the sun beating down on his back and head.

His ears are still ringing, his head aching, his limbs trembling. He still feels like one wrong move could cause him to lose his breakfast. He still feels like he just wants to sit down and sob.

Scott doesn’t have time for that, though.

He shakes out his coat to find nothing, twists around to check his back just in case. It doesn’t look like he made any skin contact with a mite. He needs to invest in a pair of gloves, though—he’d been hit by the horrifying thought halfway up the ladder that there could be a mite sitting on his shoulder, and he’d have no way to get it off without infecting himself.

There’s a conversation going on around him, he realizes as his ears abruptly stop ringing, yelled over the sound of the airship.

“—okay, we’re right here with you,” Jimmy’s shouting, and Scott turns to see him holding Shelby’s hands as she shudders with barely-contained sobs.

Shelby says something Scott can’t hear, and Jimmy’s face twists. He pulls her close to his chest, wraps her in a hug.

That’s his friend. Shelby is Scott’s friend, and she’s hurting, and she’s going to die soon.

Scott takes a few shaky steps over to her, waiting for her to open her eyes and notice him—and when she does, she reaches out with one of her arms, pulling him into the hug with Jimmy.

“I’m sorry,” Shelby croaks into his ear, and Scott just hugs her tighter.

-

The ride back is quiet. Shelby sits on the deck, back up against the railing, chin on her knees as she stares at nothing. Katherine paces, back and forth from the stern to the bow, casting anxious glances toward Shelby and Scott.

Jimmy disappears belowdecks, after giving each of them a hug—nothing huge, just a quick slap on the back. Scott leans on the railing at the bow, gazing out over the land.

The worst part is, Jimmy was right.

He was right. Scott had just begun to assume that of course Pix would be there. Of course they would be able to rescue him. And he’d thought, at the time, that even if Pix wasn’t there, it would be worth it just to try (and yet, he was so certain that Pix would be there that it didn’t even matter).

And here they are, with a light pink mark on Shelby’s face and another on her hand, denoting exactly where death had marked her.

Jimmy was right, and he isn’t even doing anything about it.

He’s changed since the apocalypse, Scott thinks. In the past, he imagines Jimmy would be glaring at them all, muttering “I told you so”s and just generally being obnoxious about being right.

In fact, Scott would honestly find it easier to deal with than this silence. He can handle Jimmy being a bit stuck-up and full of himself. He knows that side of Jimmy, he knows what to expect.

No Pix, Scott remembers suddenly with a pang. No sign of him whatsoever. The catacombs had been sealed well enough that until they got there, there’d only been one or two mites in the place total. Had Pix sealed it from the outside, trying to preserve the history within? That sounds like something stupid and self-sacrificing the man would do in the name of history.

And there wasn’t any coal either, Scott realizes with a start. They’d gone in there to save Pix and collect coal, and they hadn’t completed either objective.

The sick feeling he’s had since they entered the catacombs increases just slightly. This was a terrible idea. They’ve lost—they’ve lost another trip in the flying machine, wasted on nothing. False had said that the coal they found in Stratos was enough for a handful of flights, and now one of those limited flights has been used up on nothing.

And Shelby, a pointless sacrifice that he had foolishly thought worth it.

Scott slides down to sit on the deck, burying his face in his knees. His eyes are burning at the corners, and he thinks it isn’t exactly because of the wind.

It’s his fault. He riled everyone up, he fought with Jimmy, he insisted that they look for Pix. It’s all his fault that Shelby is dying.

For a moment, with frightening clarity that bubbles up in his chest like a sob, Scott wonders if this is how Jimmy feels.

In a greater sense, this whole thing is Jimmy’s fault. It was Jimmy’s rash actions and anger that had caused the apocalypse, killed thousands of people, ended the world.

And maybe it’s just because Scott doesn’t have time to process anything, he hasn’t had time, he’s never going to have time, but he’s not all that mad at Jimmy right now. If they can work out an impossible escape, and somehow find peace and time to process and heal, then he’d be mad.

But at this point, Scott’s not sure that he would call for punishment. He doesn’t think that he could ever be friends with Jimmy again, but. . . .

He’d really rather forget everything that happened here. Move on.

He’d rather everyone forget about his own terrible decision.

Scott sits there, wind pulling his hair every which way, face tucked into his knees, until they arrive. He tries not to think. He tries not to let his heart break over and over again. He just sits there and breathes and ignores the smarting of his eyes.

-

Somehow, Scott’s the only one who thinks to tell Sausage that they’re back, and the only one to tell him of Shelby’s condition.

Everyone else tells fWhip and Gem, then heads off in their separate directions—to bed, to patrol, to find a quiet place to cry—whatever it is they do.

Sausage doesn’t take it well, exactly, but where fWhip had cried and Gem had hugged Shelby, Sausage’s face hardens with determination and he starts . . . something.

He opens up a compartment in the back of the altar, draws from it a line of beads—pearls, probably—from which a moon hangs. He sets that on the altar, then pulls out the next thing—a well-preserved sunflower head. Last of all, a tiny little cylindrical container, gleaming gold, that he lays beside the other two items.

“Tell Shelby to come in here. And to bring whatever she uses for her magic,” Sausage instructs, stricter than Scott’s ever heard. And Scott, of course, obeys, turning on his heel and marching right out of the chapel.

fWhip insists on coming too, and then Gem, and then Katherine, so they all follow Scott and Shelby into the chapel, where Sausage is now piling as many pillows as he can onto a table behind the altar.

“Sausage, what’s going on?” Shelby asks wearily, leaning against the altar. “It’s—I’m—I’m d-dead, all right? Don’t try to save me, focus your energy on everyone else.”

“I think I can do something, though,” Sausage declares, and he pats the makeshift bed he’s made on the table. “See, my magic has been keeping the darkness away. And your magic kind of works to keep you safe, right? So I’ve been thinking—just in case, I didn’t plan for anyone to get hurt or anything—that we could try and combine our magic and see what happens!”

That sounds like a terrible idea, from Scott’s point of view. What happens if their magics hate each other? What happens if the combination ends up exploding in ways both literal and not?

But Shelby stills, tilts her head, considering. She scratches absently (not that Scott knows it’s absent scratching, if it were him he’d be overly aware) at the tiny pink splotch on her cheek.

“We can try,” she says slowly. “I mean, I’m already gone. We might as well, right? And it could be kind of fun.”

“Wait, could this actually work?” Gem asks, pushing past Scott to stand directly in front of Sausage. “Could you—if you and Shelby worked together, could you save other people, too?”

As opposed to the moment before, Sausage looks rather unsure of himself, rocking back on his heels and chewing on the inside of his cheek. “Um, maybe! And it can’t hurt to try, mostly. Otherwise I wouldn’t even suggest it, if it could hurt someone.”

He’s sure Sausage didn’t mean to address that statement toward anyone, but Scott feels a pang in his chest at those words. He’d fought to go look for Pix, knowing full well that someone could get hurt. And someone did.

“Then by all means, let’s do it!” fWhip declares, bouncing in place, and Scott can’t stand it.

He doesn’t want hope. He doesn’t want to get excited about the possibility of his friend being okay, because if it doesn’t work then it’ll be like she’s dying all over again.

Scott knows they need to try. He knows that this is a possible fix, not just for Shelby, but for everyone. He knows that there’s hope here.

But there are already far too many bottled-up emotions shoved into the deepest corner of his chest, and the lid is barely staying on the bottle. Opening it up to add hope would send all those other nasty, grieving feelings flying into everything.

So, instead of joining the excited chatter and helping Shelby get comfortable on the table there (where she’ll apparently be spending a lot of time), Scott quietly slips out.

That night, he stays in his room in the inn, instead of heading for the pew where he normally sleeps in the chapel.