Maxon by Christina Bauer Page B

that now’s the perfect time to go berserk. Questions hit me rapid fire. How do I deal with Fisk? Is there any way to prove to the Water Valta that I won’t become another nutjob like Zephyr? What about my people? The dull ache in my chest flares up again. It’s the same pain I felt after I first took on my powers because water elementals are out there, suffering. I should be helping them.
    My mind keeps running through the same questions and worries until I think my skull will burst. At last, I decide that exhausted is no way to work through my issues. I’m safe and warm in Antrum. For now, the best thing I can do is rest so I have the thinking power to figure this stuff out.
    With that thought firmly in head, I finally drift off to sleep.

Lianna
    Calm down, Lianna. It’s only another nightmare.
    You’re not really thirteen. And you’re definitely not Silas’s prisoner anymore. You’re actually asleep in Maxon’s chambers, remember? Open your eyes. Everything will be fine.
    Just.
    Wake.
    Up.
    My internal pep talk doesn’t work, though. I stay fast asleep. Even worse, my dreams force me down into Silas’s underground lair. My conscious self knows the space is actually cold and cramped. But in my dream, it stretches out onto an impossibly large scale. Cages line the walls, each one packed to overflowing with mice and rats. Their frightened, chirping cries echo strangely in the chamber. Huge barrels of bloody goop dot the floor. And in the center of everything lies my old cage. My thirteen-year-old self lies curled in fetal position, a thin blanket clasped tightly around me.
    Just like in reality, the dream-me is trying to sleep. It’s not happening for either of us.
    â€œWhere’s my girl?” calls a wispy male voice. The way he says ‘my girl’ is possessive, hungry, and makes my teeth chatter with fear.
    Silas is calling for me.
    In the way of nightmares, Silas is suddenly there, looming over my cage. I’d guess back in Victorian London, Silas would’ve been an average-looking middle-aged bloke. He’s balding with a bit of a belly and a handlebar moustache. His brown suit perfectly matches his bowler hat. Sometimes he wears white gloves, only they quickly get soaked with blood.
    Silas kicks the side of the cage. “Wake up, my girl. There’s work to be done.”
    The thirteen-year-old me looks up from under my torn blanket. My blonde hair is a tangle; my face is lined with dirt and grease. The little thrax gown my parents made me wear is now a shredded rag. My dirt-encrusted hands grip the filthy blanket closer to my throat.
    â€œWhat do you want?” I ask.
    Silas leans over the cage, his brown irises flaring red with demon-light. “Bring me a mouse. You know the kind I like.”
    I nod, my jaw clenching with impotent rage. If I bring anything living to Silas, he kills it, using the creature’s life energy to power his black magic. It’s never easy to give an animal to Silas, but the ones that he wants are especially hard to hand over. He likes animals at the very peak of their life force—just past childhood. It’s why he agreed not to kill me until I turned sixteen.
    I picture pulling handing another mouse to him and shiver.
    Silas pulls my cage door open. The nightmare-version of this sound rattles through my soul. I crawl outside and search through the maze of cages lining the walls. It takes forever to find the right mouse. What in reality was a small basement becomes a complex labyrinth in my dreams. My heart beats faster. If I don’t find what he wants quickly enough, Silas will beat me. Maybe he’ll figure out how to kill me before my sixteenth birthday, despite the magical deal he made with my parents. They didn’t fight back when he murdered them. In return, I have three more years before I join them in death.
    At last, I find the perfect mouse. It’s gray with a pink nose and based on