Lumière (The Illumination Paradox) (41 page)

Come on, Eyelet...Come on, please…

She sputters, then coughs. Her eyelids flutter.

“Come on, Eyelet!”
I breathe.

Slowly, mercifully, color seeps in, pinking her cheeks. Her eyes roll before finally popping open, looking glazed and groggy, but alive.

I suck in a breath as she scans the room, her gaze finally settling on my face.

“There you are,” she says. I smile and she smiles back. The most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen. I take her hand in mine, squeezing the warmth back into her fingers. Slowly they turn from grey to pink.

“What’s this about you not being able to go on without me?” She grins. The warm toffee centers of her eyes sparkle in the room’s flickering aether light.

“Oh, Eyelet.” I fall forward, crushing her to my chest, lost in her scent, our hearts beating wildly. “Promise me.” I breathe at her neck. “Promise you’ll never ever leave me—”

“Never,” she whispers, her lips grazing the side of my raised purpled cheek. “Promise you’ll never leave me, either?”

I pull back, taking her face in my hands. “Oh, I promise,” I gasp.

She reaches up, pulls me closer, her lips hovering over mine. Her warm, cinnamon breath wakes a part of my soul I never knew existed. Every cell in my body illuminates, as though she were the light I’ve yearned for all these years. Surging forward, I drop my lips over hers, engulfing her in a kiss so deep, and so long, it’s electrifying.

Her hands caress my hair, my face, my chest. Lacing her fingers behind my neck, she urges me to lower myself over her on the bed. The heat between us burns hot as white coals.

“Are you sure?” I whisper, our lips tightly pressed.

“Aren’t you?” She breaks away, looking forlorn.

“Of course I am,” I breathe into her mouth.
God knows I am.
“I just want you to be—”

“I’ve never been more.” She lurches forward, peppering me in savage kisses, kneading my arms, my shoulders, my chest. Slowly, she unbuttons my shirt, yanking its tails from the top of my britches, and peels it back—exposing my bare chest.

I sink into the moment, her mouth on my mouth, her hand on my hand, guiding it beneath her skirts. The touch of her thighs, so soft and warm—then all at once she pulls back.

She’s changed her mind. Thought better of me...

My heart falters in my chest. “What is it? What’s the matter?”

“Shhhhh!” She scowls, pressing a finger to my lips. “Don’t you hear it?” Her head cranks around.

“Hear what?”

“That sound. In the wall. What is it?” She clings to me, frightened, as the sound of churning gears increases.

“I don’t know,” I shake my head. “I’ve not heard it before.”

“It’s getting louder.” She looks panicked.

“You stay here.” I push up onto my arms over top of her. “I’ll go find out what it is.” I launch myself off the bed, about to leave.

“No.” She grabs my arm and hauls me back. “I’m coming with you.”

“Eyelet, I don’t think—”

“You just promised never to leave me, remember?” She sits up, her lips quivering.

“Very well then,” I say, and she breaks into a smile in that precious way she does. “We’ll go find out together.” I collect her in my arms and start down the hallway, the sound getting louder. It leads us to a massive set of black iron doors at the far end of the Core. The doors fill the wall from side to side and floor to ceiling. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. A jagged saw-toothed joint runs through its middle, vertically. That must be how they open.

“Where do you suppose
that
leads?” Eyelet whispers, over the chug of gears that roll inside. Her eyes are wide and fearful.

“I don’t know.” I drop her feet to the floor. “You all right to stand?”

“I think so,” she nods, though she’s still a bit wobbly. I reach over, threading my fingers through hers. She steadies almost immediately.

“I thought you said you’ve been here before.” She turns to me.

“I have. Once. I’ve just never been inside.”

Slowly, I drag my hand down the saw-toothed joint that runs the length of the middle of the doors, laying my ear to the jagged crack. The churn of gears inside grows stronger. Eyelet steps forward, placing her ear at the door as well.

“Look,” I say. Her necklace is levitating.

Eyelet’s eyes are wide, shocked by the sight of it—the chain standing horizontally, the vial at its end pointing toward the crack in the door.

“What on earth?” She turns to me. “Why is it doing that?”

“If you have no idea, I surely don’t.” I reach out for the necklace and it hovers away, tracing the crack between the doors.

She tries to pull it to her chest but it just floats back up, as if it has a mind of its own.

“Has this ever happened before?”

“No. And it’s never flashed as brilliantly either.” She loops the chain from her neck and lets the vial go. It dances mysteriously up and down the crack in the door. Emerald bolts of lightning streak like rays between the vial and the jagged opening, bursting into a searing flash of light when the vial finally reaches the floor. It releases and rolls to her feet.

A buzzer sounds and the door wafts open, engulfing the hallway in a violent gust of steam. We jump back, coughing as it fountains up from the floor and clouds the hallway.

The doors shimmy, then roll slowly open, disappearing into hidden wall pockets on either side of the doorway.

“Where did you get that?” I gasp, swooping to pick up the necklace.

“From my mother.” She takes it from me, looping it again ’round her neck. “It was my father’s. He asked my mother to keep it for him the day he left for the Follies and never returned.”

“And you never knew what it was? You had no idea it could do this?”

“No.” She shakes her head. “My mother told me it was the key to the future. Mine and everyone else’s. But I never understood what she meant.”

“The key to the future.” I scowl, coughing, waving off the smoke that lingers in the hall. “Well, shall we go see?”

Eyelet takes my hand, and we step across the threshold through a warm veil of steam, her hand trembling inside my own. Buzzers sound. Sirens scream. The floors vibrate, shaking the walls.

“Perhaps we’d better go back,” she gasps, squeezing my hand.

“There’s no going back now,” I say.

We carry on, into the center of the dark room, following the low pumping churn of the gears.

“Look!” Eyelet’s head pops up. She sucks in a sharp breath.

I follow her gaze to the ceiling.

The walls of the room stretch up much higher than they did in the hall. They must extend thirty, maybe forty meters. A solid stained glass dome of windows crowns the top, featuring scenes of gods and their worshippers from the ancient book.

In the middle of the room, the floor sinks into a circular well, which I’m certain adds to the height. Inside the sunken circle sits an array of extendable telescopes, high-powered eyes, and looking glasses used to explore the planets.

“It must be some kind of underground Observatory,” Eyelet whispers, creeping away from me.

“More like a planetarium,” I say.

“Strange, don’t you think?” She turns. “To keep such things underground.”

“Very.” My head twists, taking in more details, my eyes locking on several large rectangular windows cut into the sides of the glass dome, apparently designed to roll open, allowing the nozzles of the great ocular guns to project through.

“Good merciful heavens,” Eyelet gasps, clutching her heart. She turns. Her face is the color of ash.

“What is it?” I race over, tracing her gaze.

“The Illuminator,” she stammers. “It’s grown.”

F
orty seven

Eyelet

“It’s as big as the entire room.” I let out a breath, albeit a very shaky one.

“It is indeed.” Urlick bursts forward, delighted.

In the center of the room, on a raised platform—now exposed through the dissipating cloud of steam—sits a giant replica of the Illuminator, several times the size of the original.

I gasp and stumble backward. How can he see this as anything good? It’s a monster. A monster-sized machine. “This is terrible.” I shake my head.

“What are you talking about,
terrible?”
Urlick jerks around. “This is wonderful! Look at the size of that thing!” He throws his hands in the air.

Turning, he trundles up a metal staircase on the side of the platform that leads to the base of the great machine. A starter throttle protrudes up through a hole in the grates. Urlick takes hold of it and I shiver.

“Just imagine its power! Imagine its ability!”

“I am. That’s why I’m worried.” I swallow.

“What are you talking about?” He turns, almost laughing.

“That’s a giant cathode-ray lens looming above your head. You do realize that, don’t you?”

“What of it?” He frowns, furrowing his brow.

“What
of
it? Are you
kidding
me?”

“Don’t you think you’re being just a little bit silly?” He holds his fingers up as if he’s about to pinch salt. “I mean, we wanted to find the machine, and now,
well…”
He turns, looking dreamily up at the massive Crookes tube perched high above the machine in a giant copper stand. “…We certainly have.” He smiles at me. “Don’t you see? With a machine this size we could affect far more things than we
ever
thought possible.”

“That’s just the problem.” I bite my lip. “I think it might have already done just that.”

He scowls. “What are you saying?”

I have to tell him.

I have to tell him everything.

About the journals. The letter. His father.

Everything I know.

I lower my head and suck in a shaky breath.

“Go on, tell me.” He nods his head.

I hesitate, suck on my lip, then blurt it out. “In my father’s journals, back at the Academy, I found some information I don’t think you’re going to like.”

He looks offended and yet I’ve barely started.

“There was a letter tucked in the middle of the journal you passed to me. It was penned by my father’s hand. Inside it, my father wrote of your father and your father’s connection to the machine, and how he feared what might happen to the world at large if his Illuminator was left to your father’s sole discretion. In short, he didn’t trust him.”

Urlick’s demeanor grows cold, but I must continue. He has to know the truth.

“According to the letter, your father was obsessed with interplanetary research. In particular, he had a lifelong desire to confirm the existence of an alternate universe beyond our own—where the dead still live. He sought to find it in order to join your dead mother there. He was ill, Urlick. Your father was ill.”

“Stop!” Urlick raises his hand. “You’re making this up!”

“I wish I were, Urlick. I truly wish I were.” I swallow, rolling my hands inside each other. “But it appears the death of your mother sent your father over a brink...from which he never returned—”

“Enough. I will not listen to this.”

“I’m sorry, Urlick, but you have to know. You deserve to know the truth. My father tried to warn your father about the machine—of its dangerous side he’d only just found out about—but your father refused to listen to reason. Obsessed with finding this alternate world, he pushed on with his plans to manipulate the power and scope of the Illuminator and use it to search the heavens.”

“What are you saying?” Urlick scowls. “Be clear.”

“I’m saying my father feared your father’s plan so much, he came out here the last day of his life to try and stop him.”

“Are you implying my father’s responsible for your father’s death?”

“Look up, Urlick. Look at the Crookes tube.” I lift my eyes. “It’s pointed toward the heavens.”

Urlick’s gaze swings between the Crookes tube and me. “No.” He shakes his head. “It’s a lie. You
lie.
It can’t be true. My father may have been a lot of things, but he was
not
a murderer!”

“Think about it. It all makes sense. The letter. The claims. What’s happened here. Look around you, Urlick. Don’t you see? Together our fathers created something that ended our world, as we knew it. Or, at least, changed it forever—”

“Are you saying they were responsible for the
flash,
the Night of the Great Illumination
?”

“Look at it, Urlick. Look where we are. What other explanation could there be?”

“You have no proof this machine was ever detonated.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.” I produce the notebook journal labeled
Lumière
from my boot and hand it over to him. “Hold it out with the spine away from yourself.” Urlick turns the thin notebook until the pages face him. “Now fan the pages just slightly.” He does. “What do you see?”