The Keepers (50 page)

“Fine.” But she wasn't fine, she knew.

The grulna was wearing off.

Chloe walked on. She could not feel her feet, but they seemed to be working. Her mind was going foggy, but she clung to names—
Horace, Dad, Gabriel
—letting them run grooves in her mind, holding her to the present. They descended some steps. The air grew cooler. They passed through a door. Others were here, moving figures, white skinned and lanky. Was this the nest? What was the nest? Sharp jabs of memory pricked her, like arrows out of darkness. A hole in the floor. Horace's jithandra, falling to the foot of the ladder. The room beneath the stage. Voices like wet traffic. Darkness and decay. The elevator shaft. This was the nest.

Dr. Jericho stopped. Another figure joined them: another Mordin. No, not one figure—two. But the second was much smaller. And blond.

Ingrid.

She and Chloe locked eyes, and even through her haze Chloe felt a fear that she had never felt before. The Riven were one thing—foreign, monstrous—but here was just a girl, perhaps five years older than Chloe herself. Chloe tried to imagine what could have driven her to this place, how she could have chosen these creatures as her allies. Had she lost someone too? Ingrid's gaze gave away nothing, steady and measuring and cold.

The new Mordin spoke to Dr. Jericho in their sliding,
hissing language. Dr. Jericho replied in English, apparently wanting Chloe to hear. “Really? Was he harmed? And his Tan'ji?” Chloe scraped at every word, desperate for understanding. Was he talking about Horace? After a minute or so, Dr. Jericho swung into motion again, dragging Chloe after him. Ingrid and the other Mordin followed. More corridors, more stairs, until at last they stopped in front of a door. Here at last, thank god . . . but no, this was not the boiler room.

The other Mordin passed something to Dr. Jericho, and Dr. Jericho slipped it onto his finger—a black ring with a misshapen scarlet stone. He opened the door and pushed Chloe through, telling the other two to wait outside. He stepped in beside Chloe and closed the door behind.

“Shall I show you something?” he asked politely.

“There's not much to see,” Chloe said, looking around. The room was high and narrow—tall walls of brick on either side, a knobby stone wall at the back. It was empty but for a table beside the door. And on that table was a long stick, gray with silver ends—

The Staff of Obro.

Chloe cringed as Dr. Jericho picked up the staff. “Have you seen this instrument before?” the Mordin said.

The truth. The truth unless you mustn't. “It belongs to one of the Wardens. He blinds people with it.”

“So I understand. A blind Warden who blinds others. A lovely irony, don't you think?”

“What did you do with him? Did you kill him?”

“Kill? What would be the use of that? No, he is here with us.” Dr. Jericho laid the staff down. He lifted the hand with the scarlet ring and spoke a word. At once the rear wall—stubbled and pitted, cobblestoned and gray—began to move. It shifted and rippled. Not a wall after all, no, but a living ocean of stone. The golem rumbled, spreading wide, opening a pit deep into itself. Where it opened up, a form began to emerge: a dark head, and now broad shoulders, a sagging torso. Gabriel, buried to the waist, both arms drawn painfully back, hands and hips and legs held thick in that crushing grip.

“The golem found him while I was away,” Dr. Jericho said. “We interrupt his first lesson now, a bit of conditioning. Imagine, to be so close to your instrument but to know that it is not yours unless we allow it. To know that you may hold it again—feel its
power
again—but only under our terms. Gabriel learns even now. Don't you, Gabriel?”

Gabriel lifted his head, his sightless eyes drifting over them both. Did Gabriel know she was here? Did she want him to know? And how did Dr. Jericho know Gabriel's name? Her throat and gut were a twisting ribbon of fire, but at last she found her voice. Gabriel's head cocked sharply as she spoke. “Is this your plan for Horace, too? And for me?”

“That depends upon you,” Dr. Jericho told her. “Like you say, you are considering your allegiances already, yes?” Gabriel's head lifted high with these words. Chloe could practically see the intensity of his attention. “As you know, we do not take these measures where they are not needed. But
of course, there is the matter of the dragonfly. We cannot . . . motivate you with what we do not yet possess.”

“I don't need motivation. And I told you, I can get it back.”

Gabriel spoke, his voice like brambles. “You won't get the dragonfly back, traitor,” he said. “We knew you would turn on us. I never trusted you.”

Chloe dodged the words like thrown knives. Surely Gabriel had caught the gist of her story and was feeding into it, helping her. Surely he didn't believe she was a traitor.

“You just keep telling yourself that,” she said, knowing she had to follow her plan through, no matter what Gabriel thought.

“Fascinating,” Dr. Jericho said, looking from one to the other. “But there's no need for this. Everything that needs to be said has been heard. Gabriel, you and I will speak more later.” Again he raised his hand, and the golem began to draw Gabriel's limp body back into itself—arms and belly first, then shoulders, swallowing him like quicksand. At the last moment Gabriel opened his lips as if to speak, but the golem poured into his mouth. The golem became a wall once more, a tomb with Gabriel inside, alive—his Tan'ji just feet from him. Chloe felt a distant fury raging, but she could do nothing. And she was fading fast.

Dr. Jericho removed the scarlet ring, leaving it on the table. He ushered her from the room, speaking briefly to Ingrid and the Mordin outside, this time in his own language. Chloe wondered if Ingrid could possibly understand that foul tongue. And
then Ingrid looked up at Dr. Jericho and said four quiet words: “Thank you. Good luck.” Dr. Jericho nodded and pushed Chloe onward. Chloe looked back at Ingrid and opened her mouth to speak, not even sure why she was doing it.

“I heard a rumor,” she said. “Apparently the old man still believes in you.”

Ingrid blinked at her, her face slack with surprise. Dr. Jericho grabbed Chloe roughly by the shoulder and dragged her away.

They walked through shadows and light, down a flight of stairs. Dr. Jericho chattered as they went—the Wardens, the ignorance of intruders, the obedience of the golem, the disarray of these upper levels, the patrol of the crucible. He said nothing about Ingrid. Chloe could hardly follow his long train of talk. She needed to stop, needed to sit, needed to nurse her cramping belly. She needed to forget, but she couldn't forget, because forgetting was . . . something. Gabriel. Horace. Dad. The dragonfly.

Water under her feet now, slapping and thin. Echoes and a tunnel, curving walls. “Here we are,” said Dr. Jericho. Pipes and grates. Coal and soot and iron. Ashes to ashes. The boiler room. Yes . . . Horace. They were here, almost here. What time was it?

Chloe let her eyes sweep around the room, let them drift across the boiler without stopping. “What are we doing here?” Could Horace hear her? Was he there, was he safe, was he real?

“This is our destination.” Dr. Jericho bowed and gestured toward the three coal cellars. “Shall I let you choose?”

This was the place. This was where she had to be. She mustn't let her relief or her hopes shine through even for a second. She moved toward the cells, stopping in front of the first one.

Dr. Jericho followed. “It seems you've chosen already.”

Chloe clung to a thin thread of memory. He was testing her—why? “I don't understand.” She let her confusion speak for the doubt he seemed to want to see in her. She swallowed hard, letting the dying fire of the grulna paint her scared, nervous, desperate. She stepped away from the first cell. The third cell—that's where she needed to be.

Dr. Jericho pulled a glinting brown oval from his jacket. For a moment Chloe could not place it. But of course—just what she should have expected: the Fel'Daera.

“Aren't you quite the collector?” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. “So where is he?”

“He is not here, as you can see. But perhaps you knew that already. One can learn much from the Fel'Daera, yes? One can watch, and learn, and—if one is of a mind to—
change
the future the box promises. Just as I am changing it now.”

“I don't understand.”

“Shall I share with you your mistakes?”

Mistakes?
“There's nothing to mistake. I'm not trying anything.”

“Come now. Did you imagine I would not recognize the
scent of the grulna? Even now I smell it, fading away inside you.”

The grulna, eating its own fire. Leaving her hollow. “What's a grulna?” she managed. Her panic was a distant, jeering crowd, but growing louder.

“And your dragonfly—taken from you, yes. Taken from you and sent
back
to you, through the Fel'Daera.”

Taken, yes. It was oh so gone, its absence rising in her, filling the space the grulna was leaving behind, pulling her down into despair. Dr. Jericho knew everything. He had Horace. He had her father. The box and the staff and Gabriel. He would have the dragonfly too.

“No. No, they stole it,” she insisted, but her words sounded weak. “Kept it for themselves. I can show you where.”

Dr. Jericho shook his head. “No, I think not. I saw dear Horace send the dragonfly with my own eyes last night, right here.” He pointed a long finger at the first dark cell. “Right where he expects you to be waiting for it, just over an hour from now.”

“No, he—” Something hitched inside Chloe, kicked her to life.
Right here. The first cell
. But that wasn't right—was this another trick? “Horace betrayed me,” she said, choking back a giddy hope and sticking instead to her lie. Was it a lie? But everyone lied—that was a promise. “He called me a liar and a spy and made them turn on me. He took my dragonfly to keep for himself. And that's . . . that's why I want to turn on
them
.”

“Such sweet words. But they fool no one. When your Tan'ji arrives, you will not be here.
I
will.” He stepped down to the third cell, pushing the door open wide. “You will be in here. You will feel the dragonfly's arrival, two doors down. So close. You will feel me take hold of it, just as Gabriel felt me a moment ago. Just as Horace feels me now.” He held the box in the air. “And afterward, perhaps, we shall talk. We all four shall have a nice talk, you and Horace and Gabriel and I.”

Chloe rubbed her burning throat. She could hardly dare to hope. He was so clever, so slick, a step ahead of her all night long. But not this time. He thought he knew where and when the dragonfly would arrive, but he was wrong. Somehow he'd gotten it wrong.
“Shall I share with you your mistakes?”

She dared not pretend to surrender. She stepped forward, pulling at his long sleeves. “You have to believe me. Horace is no friend of mine. And not Gabriel, either. You heard him. The dragonfly is with the Wardens.”

His eyes narrowed to slits. “Why do you persist?”

“Because it's true.”
True, true, true. True blue
. There was only one true thing, and it was coming to her here. You had to lie to get to the truth. “Don't lock me up, please,” she croaked.

Dr. Jericho laid one long forefinger sideways across her aching throat, almost casually, and shoved her back hard into the third cell. She fell, skinning the heel of her hand against the wall. She clutched at her throat, gagging. Ashes. Behind this door, this promise. She would turn to ashes and burn back to life.

“Perhaps you will believe me, Tinker, when I say I hope you will survive the next hour,” Dr. Jericho said. “There is much we might do for each other.” He swung the door closed. The heavy
snick
of a lock rang out.

She heard him leave. She dragged herself to her knees. She combed though the gritty dust on the floor. Ashes. She couldn't forget. What were the words? Ashes to ashes, behind this door. She scratched at the floor, her fingers trembling, digging so hard into the packed dirt and coal dust that she heard, but did not feel, her nails tearing like splintered wood. She wrote but could not read. Dark behind this door.

She couldn't find any air. Something was caught in her throat, something on fire and alive and wriggling, a bristling ball. She choked, retching, and the spines digging into the sides of her throat tore their way out, spilling out onto the ground. She was empty now, empty and beyond cold. She felt nothing but the dying motion of her own atoms, spinning down into stillness, and she was a falling star growing dim, collapsing on itself, shrinking into the smallest thing imaginable, and after that there was nothing.

H
ORACE WAS DEEP IN THE DARK OF SOME HORRID COUSIN OF
sleep. He was so deep that when he felt Dr. Jericho enter the room, the Fel'Daera with him, he barely stirred. He clung to a thin thread of hope. Too many things had gone wrong, too many threads had been torn from his hands. He thought he could hear the Mordin talking. He heard another voice, too, but could not make out words. He wondered briefly who it was but banished the thought. That was for the future to reveal. When the future became the present, all his uncertainties would fall away. There would be no wondering—only action.