2: The Matil Took my Baby AwayEagle waited, and he watched. Doors in the aether, those that would lead to Elsewheres, zipped past him, invisible but present, real as smells. These were fixed in space and time and moving too quickly past to escape through as this thing he found himself in—on?—Cruised through whatever matter it cruised through. Some Doors moved along with him, which meant they were native to the vehicle, but those were almost certain to be unstable. Normally, he was okay with a little instability as he passed through new worlds. If Fox weren’t counting on him, he could afford the risks.

  Eagle looked over first one shoulder, then the other, expecting at any minute to be found out. He stood in a long, curved hallway, all white and arched overhead. It was creepy, and it was cold, and it would have been even without the kidnapping sons of bitches who lived here.

  There, by his foot, was a vent. As far as ways to see around the pce without being seen himself, vents were worse than two way gss but better than most. Eagle checked over each shoulder once more, then crouched. He used the ft bde of his knife as a screwdriver, then as a lever to pry the vent cover off the wall. Eagle was not rge by any stretch, but as he looked into the white-painted shaft, he knew it would be a tight fit.

  Even if he found Fox, there was no way the rger man would be able to follow. He had to find Fox before he could worry about how to get him out.

  Eagle shoved his shoulders into the shaft. A ragged piece of metal tore a long, stinging line up his bicep. He hissed a breath as he managed to extricate himself, but there was no way to tend to the wound now. Sticky blood dripped down his skin and was absorbed by his clothing. He hoped he wasn’t bleeding enough to leave a trail.

  He dragged himself along the inside of the vent by his elbows, one after the other after the other, sliding on his belly like a snake, pushing with his toes. The smell of dust was thick; he breathed shallowly through his mouth to prevent himself from sneezing. Faint white light showed along the edges where the shaft had been soldered shut. By these he could see that his path went straight for a hundred feet. He groaned internally. It would be slow going, and finding Fox would be damn near impossible without more vents to look through.

  Damn near. Not impossible. Eagle would keep trying, would always keep trying. Fox was all that mattered. Fox was the only thing he loved.

  A fairy darted past him, flying on slender wings that hummed together like two pieces of sheet metal sliding past one another. “Eagle-Eye,” it sang, “Eagle-Eye.” It was the color of the inside of the vent, metal painted white.

  “Ssh,” Eagle hissed, but the creature ignored him: on it sang, oblivious to the trouble it could cause him if anybody heard it. They never knew when to shut up. They were small, no bigger than his hand stretched out; how smart could they be? Eagle did his best to ignore it as it darted back and forth around him. If anybody heard it, he'd deal with that when the time came.

  It was a long, tight crawl, with only the sound of his rasping breath and the fairy’s silvery singing for company. After quite some time, he heard a noise up ahead–a whump whump whump noise of something pushing air too fast. A fan. What were ventition shafts for, if not moving air? Next time he came to a branch, he contorted his body into a 90 degree angle and went right.

  It was much the same as the first vent, if not tighter. Eagle sucked in his gut and blew the fairy away when it buzzed too close to his face. Distantly, up ahead, someone screamed.

  Eagle jumped, smacking the back of his head on the top of the vent. That sound wasn't Fox. It was a woman, and it wasn't a frightened cry. It was wounded, low and full of agonized pain.

  Eagle clenched his jaw down tight. These bastards, they had other hostages besides Fox, and they were torturing them. He had to find out more before Fox became their next victim.

  He crawled faster. When the fairy sang, it sounded smaller, unsure. He shushed it again. It fell silent. Small favors.

  Up ahead, light gleamed against the inside of the shaft, coming in from outside. Eagle's heart picked up speed. A vent, he hoped, and maybe more than one. When he squinted he saw a second pool of light, and a third.

  One more scream echoed through the metal shaft as if for good measure, and then the woman fell silent. Eagle gritted his teeth. Had someone killed her? It was impossible to know.

  He came to the first vent. It looked over a round, white room with rounded white furniture and a round white bed. There was nobody in it. Eagle kept going.

  Through the next vent, he saw something else.

  A young woman–a very young woman, almost a girl–with a mass of curly brown hair sat in the middle of another round white bed. She looked shaky, like sitting might be too much for her but she was stubborn enough to do it anyway. She held one of her hands off the bed and away from her body like it hurt.

  A group of people in bck jumpsuits like the ones who'd stolen Fox stood around her, saying something he was too far away to hear. The girl answered sharply.

  A smell struck him, strong and sweet: the smell of lics and dew on a cool morning. It smelled like the first few days of spring, right when he'd step outside and realize winter was finally over and he'd survived yet again. Her, he realized. The smell belonged to the girl. And though he'd never encountered this specific scent coming off a person, he knew what it meant from long experience.

  Magic. This girl, wounded, surrounded, wearing pain on every line of her body, was a Chosen. She'd been picked by some god or another, some deity, to do a job only she could do. Eagle had known enough Chosens to know what they smelled like, so many he knew them like he knew his name.

  He knew just as clearly this wasn't her fight, and she wasn't supposed to be here.

  One of the people in bck drew back an arm and spped her across the face, so hard he heard the stinging sound of the blow against her skin. The girl rocked backward. Eagle cringed in sympathy. If these people beat her to death, what would happen to her own story, the one she was really meant for? His eyes darted over the vents, hoping he could find screws on the inside that would allow him to get out this way, but who would screw a vent shut from the inside? Nobody, that was who.

  Instead of falling on the bed and cowering, the girl leaned back and spit a mouthful of blood straight at her captors. Eagle let himself grin even as one of the people in bck surged forward and was caught by her compatriots. The sounds of loud fury rumbled together. He paused, but he couldn’t be in two pces at once. He needed Fox as badly as Fox needed him.

  Besides, the girl had balls. She was going to be just fine.

  Eagle turned away, back toward the vent and his search for the man he loved. The white and silver fairy zipped around his head, singing “Eagle-Eye, Eagle-Eye.” He ignored it. There was only one concern in his mind.

  He would find Fox. And when he did, he would make every st one of these fuckers pay.