Dead Boys (38 page)

“I’m pretty sure we’re all going to the same place in the long run, Jake,” said Remington, his skeleton beginning to dissipate. “But I don’t really know what that means. I guess we’ll all find out together.”

“Farewell, my friend.” As Jacob stared at the swirling bones of his ward, he began to drift into a state that blurred the edges of all the figures around him.

“Bye, Jake!”

“Are you ready, Siham?” slurred Jacob, his joints beginning to loosen.

“Died ready.” She caught him as his body slumped, scooping him up in her arms as the threshold rose around them, causing their substance to waver like a curtain in a breeze. She took a single step forward and the veil cinched up behind her, sending a wave of dust roiling back into the laboratory. It swirled around Etienne’s skull, rebounding from solid bone, but passed right through Remington, meeting no resistance.

Adam and Eve stood staring at the empty room through Etienne’s sockets for a long while, then turned to Remington and bowed. Remington watched them go, then waited for the white-feathered crow to flap slowly down, landing in its old nest to preen.

The change was gradual, imperceptible. The crow was sitting in Remington’s skull, and then its ivory talons were settling on the floor. It squawked three times, then launched itself into the air, swooping high over White City in a widening spiral, searching for Remington, finding only wisps. The cloud that had been a boy was sweeping through the nooks and crannies of White City, crackling through its mutable buildings, whispering through its halls. The Seekers whose skulls it filtered through were startled by ineffable sureties, strange visions, snatches of poetry and song. “All roads lead to dust,” they murmured, suddenly seeing the truth in the Poet’s syllables as they followed dusty tendrils through the maze-like streets, toward the open archway of Poet’s Gate, where a bird with brilliant wings flapped and cawed goodbye. As the cloud’s last wisps wafted beyond the city’s borders, the bird turned and dove, its mass rippling out into a broad teardrop as it plunged, merging with the cloud that drifted, broad as a cathedral, toward the foothills of White Mountain.

It wasn’t long before the boy took his own shape again, with the crow’s white head peering through the back of his skull. Maybe it was just a habit, but there was something Remington liked about the feeling of his feet on the path.