Chapter 23
Chapter 23
I wake gulping moist air. Despite the settled mist, heat swarms my body.
Sitting up, I pant, trying to suck in enough air. Blink and orient myself. Push hair off my forehead. Garden, Heartwood. He’s asleep beside me, curled in the fairy wisps with one arm bent under his head, the other across my lap. I haven’t slept so heavily in a long time—
That dream.It felt very real. Almost like a vision. And if it was ...
Moseus did it.Every hair on my body stands on end. Moseus took my memories away.
But ... no. Wait. This was a dream. Every memory I’ve had since starting my work on the tower ... the second time ... I had while fully alert. I was definitely not fully alert this time. Yet my heart thunders in my chest, and my hands are just as cold and moist as they were before.
It’s only the mist.But the thought offers little comfort. I swallow hard. Turn to Heartwood and lift a hand to stir him, then pause.
If I tell Heartwood what I “saw”—that Moseus somehow kindled up enough god-power to wipe my mind, and I’m wrong—what will that do to him? To Moseus, to the tower? To me?
You betrayed us.
Think, Nophe,I plead, rubbing fingers into my forehead. I’m shaking. Gods’ damnation, I’m shaking, and I can’t breathe. I’m in this beautiful haven with this beautiful man, and I’m utterly terrified.
What was I going to tell Heartwood? In that dream, I was waiting for him. I was going to tell him something. What?
Did I ... did I really betray them?
A new thought chills me to my core. What if I forget again?
Very carefully, I lift Heartwood’s arm and set it beside him. Find my feet. Pace, grateful I’d had the forethought to dress before passing out. I should just tell him. Maybe he would know something about it ... but if he did, he wouldn’t be so chummy with Moseus. And what if he told Moseus?
He won’t if you ask him not to.But that reasoning does nothing to calm me. Something is missing. Serpent save me, I’m still missing something.
I can’t forget again.
Crouching down, I think to rouse Heartwood, to explain I need to go, to record this, but I stop before touching him. What if it’s real? What if Heartwood confronts Moseus, and Moseus does the exact same thing to him?
What if Heartwood forgets me?
Deep breath in, long breath out. I can’t let that happen. I won’t. I’ll find out the truth one way or another, but I will not let Heartwood suffer for it.
“I love you,” I whisper. “I’ll be back, I promise.”
Wiping mist from my eyes, I sneak from the garden, grateful for the cover of the fog, as though Moseus might jump out at me with his cold hands at any moment. Just a dream just a dream just a dream.
Not a dream?
The mist lifts by the time I get home. After locking the door behind me, I pull out my notes and every spare piece of parchment I can find. Grab a charcoal pencil and start, in very tight handwriting, from the beginning.
Pelnophe, you’ve been asked to work on the tower before. The first time Heartwood came for you, the second time, Moseus. Heartwood is your ally. He is your everything. If you’re reading this, you’ve forgotten, but I (you) foresaw this, so I wrote everything down. Listen carefully.
I put my maker’s mark—the rhombus with three lines—at the end of the sentence, then follow it with a few facts only I could possibly know. So future me will believe present me.
And then I write everything, every action and thought and theory, until my hand cramps and seizes, and I hide it away in that cubby in the floor, where no one but Salki could possibly find it. Or me.
I massage my hand as I stare out my window at the Brume Mountains, waiting for the mists to fall. Stress squeezes my stomach too hard for me to coax any food into it, and nothing on Tampere could possibly distract me from the issue at hand. The earth shakes once, then twice, while I wait, as though my nerves have found a way deep into the soil, disrupting the entire desert.
I’ve walked to the tower in the sun a couple of times before, but Moseus prefers the mist. I don’t want to draw his ire, just in case. Please be wrong, I think as I push on my thumb to stretch out my cramped writing muscles. I need to be wrong. But I also need to see Heartwood and explain. He’ll wonder where I went. Perhaps I should have woken him with a sort of explanation, but my mind wasn’t in a good space. It still isn’t. I’m clueless as to what words could bridge this uncertainty, but I have to bridge something. I have to learn the truth, one way or another.
I feel the slightest chill on the breeze before the mists foam over the peaks like the head on a drink. I dance restlessly, waiting for the fog to stretch its hand over Emgarden. The moment the air gets the slightest fuzzy edge, I’m off to the tower, too nervous to walk, too afraid to run. If my dream held any meaning, I can’t let Moseus suspect anything is wrong. Not one word, movement, or hair can be out of place.
It’s the same mindset I had in the dream, and it didn’t help me then.
The shadow of the tower pierces the mist, growing in clarity with every step. I still have no idea how to power the machines, but I’ve got to work it out, or at least put on the air of working it out. My goal is Heartwood. I pray he hasn’t said anything to Moseus about the state of my mental retentiveness.
The first floor, shadowed save for where blue-tinged light slips down the stairs in its center, stretches quiet as a grave. The silence makes me nervous. I push the door shut behind me, loud and steady, as I always do. I glance toward Moseus’s room. The door is ajar.
I take the stairs up. The tower’s tool bag sits at the top of it; I grab it and carry it with me, scanning the floor. The hairs on the back of my neck rise. Heartwood’s door is shut. I head straight for it, grateful again for its oiled hinges—
He’s not here.
My nerves double over and twist in complex knots. He wouldn’t still be in the garden, would he? Perhaps higher in the tower?
I see the room anew. I’ve sat in the alcove of that window. I brought the pink quartz on the top of the cairn in the corner. I found it while turning new land for the crops. Heartwood doesn’t sleep well in here; the bed is nearly as hard as the stone floor. He prefers being outdoors.
“Are you looking for something?”
Moseus’s voice behind me screams like a giant bell, with me hanging from the clapper as it rings. I turn around, forcing myself to relax. He looks better than usual. Less tired, and that sets me on edge.
I need to get good at lying right now.
“I was hoping Heartwood could help me out with the machines.” I mentally scramble for details, because I know Moseus will ask.
He stands at the top of the stairs, his narrow face tilted slightly to the right, his arms folded. The pale fingers of one long hand rest atop his sleeve.
Cold hands grab the sides of my head—
“For what, precisely?” he asks.
I turn toward Machine Two, taking half a second to glance over it, quietly rejoicing when something valid comes to mind. “To move the door,” I say. I’d nearly forgotten about the seams in the wall; I’d been so distracted at the discovery of the lift, and subsequently the fourth and fifth floors, that I hadn’t revisited it. I realize it probably masks the mechanics for the lift itself, but it’s something I haven’t fully explored. “I want to know what’s behind there, and I thought he might be strong enough to move it.” I search my memories, careful not to recall anything I shouldn’t know. “No offense; you don’t really strike me as one who enjoys physical labor.”
Moseus cocks an eyebrow at me but doesn’t dispute it. His dark green eyes shift toward Machine Two. “I’ve tried. We both have. It’s immovable.”
Grateful for a reason to move away, I approach Machine Two, set down the tools, and trigger the mechanism to shift it away from the wall. “Maybe if I study it a little longer I can figure it out.” I clear my throat; my voice pitches too high. Go away, go away. “It’s got to be this or Machine Five—”
I hear steps on the stairs, and Heartwood emerges. Moseus shifts aside to give him room. Heartwood’s gaze immediately locks on me, and a mix of confusion and relief pulls at his features. “Nophe, where—”
“Here,” I interrupt, gesturing to the hidden door behind the machine. “This is where I need you, but Moseus said you already tried.” Need a reason, a good reason ... “I want to see if I can wedge a turnscrew in here, and if not, maybe file one down to get between the slabs of stone. Look, I’ll show you.”
I emphasize the last words as subtly as I can, jerking my head in the direction of the door. Play along, Heartwood, please.
I don’t wait for him to follow, just crouch down like I’m getting to work, praying to any gods outside this tower that Moseus will leave. He doesn’t. But Heartwood approaches and crouches down beside me just as I pull my narrowest turnscrew from the tool bag.
I don’t look at him. “Say nothing while he’s here,” I whisper. Plead. I hand him the turnscrew and point out the seams. “Hmm,” I say a little louder, “They really are tight. We can’t break through like you did with the ceiling?”
“We were able to find a weak spot in that floor’s integrity,” Moseus answers. “There are no others. I’ve spent years searching.”
Exactly how long have you been here?I want to ask, but I can’t figure out if that’s something memory-wiped Pell would say or not. I’m overthinking this, I know I am.
“Well.” I stand. Refuse to look at either of them and plant my fists on my hips. “Give it a good push anyway.”
Heartwood, bless him, pulls his concerned gaze from me and gives it a valiant effort. I direct him to try pushing against different corners of the wall, then pushing more up, more down, and so on. Thank the Serpent, Moseus gets bored and leaves, stepping into the lift and letting it suck him up toward the top of the tower.
My strength leaves me in one great breath. I drop to the floor.
Heartwood crouches with one hand on the door. “What happened? Why did you leave?”
“Where were you?” I press my palms to my eyes. “I came back here to find you, and—”
“I went to Emgarden. To find you.”
I drop my hands. Of course he did. And he had to wait for the mist. He probably took a roundabout way to stay off the road. We passed right by each other.
I search for words. “I’m sorry. I ... I had a disturbing dream, and I had to leave and document everything.”
Brow furrowed, Heartwood pushes off the wall and shifts closer to me. “Dream? About me?”
“No, about Moseus.” I pause. “You said I lost my memories at Machine Three, right? What happened, exactly?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know. I wasn’t there. You ...” He pauses to swallow, to mask the emotion. He masks emotion about as well as I lie, though that last one seemed to fool Moseus. “You started screaming. I came as quickly as I could.”
I roll my lips together. “Tell me everything you remember.”
He frowns but situates himself more comfortably, leaning close. “I came up the ladder; you were backed into the machine, and Moseus was trying to calm you. Trying to explain where you were. You didn’t know. You remembered your name, your work in Emgarden, but not the tower, the machines, nor ... us.”
“He got there before you?”
“He was handing you tools as you worked on the machine’s core. I rushed to your side, trying to comprehend what was happening ... I admit, it took me longer than it should have to understand. I kept asking what was wrong, and why you didn’t know my name.” The softest flush crosses his nose. “I panicked. Got a little physical with you.”
“Physical?”
“I grabbed your arm. I didn’t hurt you,” he rushes to add. Swallows. “And you pulled that knife on me.” He gestures to my pocket. “Moseus stepped between us, managed to settle you. At your request, he took you back to Emgarden.”
“And you didn’t?”
He glances up at me through pale eyelashes. “I wanted to. Desperately. But you were so frightened. I’ve ... never seen you like that, Nophe. Not then, and not now. Moseus thought it best that he take you. And when he returned ... he withheld information about you on my behalf, not wanting to ... disappoint me.”
“Information,” I repeat, “of my so-called betrayal.”
He presses his lips together.
“I showed you everything I have, Heartwood—”
“You haven’t remembered everything yet, Nophe,” he counters, and the truth of it deflates me. “You don’t remember pulling the knife. You said we were strangers to you, when we called upon you again.”
“Heartwood.” Pushing myself onto my knees, I touch the side of his face. “You said you and Moseus ... your power has dwindled, being on Tampere. You do ... plant stuff. You’re still strong. Does Moseus ... have any special abilities?”
“He calms,” Heartwood explains. “He is a peacemaker.”
I frown. “Calming someone doesn’t feel like a godly gift.”
“I think we’ve established that your idea of gods is slightly amiss.”
Worrying my lip, I stand up, eyeing the lift, and pace a moment.
Heartwood follows. “Nophe—”
“Don’t tell him.” I’m whispering again, though the thick stone of these walls should mask anything I say. “Don’t tell him I remember, Heartwood. Or have you already?”
“I haven’t had the chance.” His eyes narrow, but he takes my hand. I squeeze his in return. “Nophe, what’s wrong?”
“My dream ... I dreamed that Moseus was there, at Machine Three, when I forgot. Like ... he was the one who did it.” The way his countenance falls, I immediately regret the words. “But that’s the thing, Heartwood. It was a dream. Every memory I’ve reclaimed ... I’ve had them fully awake. They press into my mind like I’m reliving them all over again. I’ve never had any come to me while I was sleeping. So I don’t know if it’s a dream, or—”
“Or not,” he finishes for me. Jaw set, he contemplates. “I have known Moseus a while. Several years. He doesn’t possess anything that—”
The lift hums. I release Heartwood and return to the door, crouching before it just as Moseus steps out. Cool and solid as the marble. I am this wall.
“Nothing I do will allow us to pass the shield,” Moseus says to Heartwood, referring to the mirrorlike substance surrounding Machine Five. “It must be up there, perhaps in the enclosed piece projecting from the tower. Pell, I need you to construct something to allow us passage past the silver. Perhaps I will understand something you do not.”
I nod, running my hands over the door seams so I won’t have to turn around. So my face won’t give me away, the way Heartwood’s does him. In truth, all I want to do is bury myself in Heartwood’s arms and hide my face from the world, but this fear ties me down like the jaws of an animal trap, and—
My hand runs over that divot in the stone near the top of the door. It’s shallow and looks like a natural formation of the stone. And yet now, as I stare at it, it seems familiar to me. I’ve looked at it before, in the time I’m not supposed to remember. I trace it now as I did then.
I look at it from a few different angles, then stand and take a step back. Gasp.
I know this shape. It’s not random—I’ve seen it before. It’s the exact same cut, the exact same size, as the brooch Salki wears.
“Pell?” Heartwood asks, and behind my excitement, I thank him for withholding his preferred nickname for me.
Straightening, I turn toward the tower keepers. “I think I know how to open this door.”