The Minor Fall

CHAPTER 54 Mise En Abyme

CHAPTER 54

Mise En Abyme

T he hot air of his chuckle warmed my neck. “Yeah, that’s right, kid. Ya stabbed me straight through the ribs. That was a nice little surprise when I returned to the Gate.”

Back in a cave in Drachaut, back when I’d thought maybe I’d been the Tether, or at least Willow had. And Tye had the nerve to accuse Bryn of lying about who he was in the Gate.

That’s why Tye was never with us, because he was never in Ruhaven, he was in Drachaut waiting for his Tether to find him. For me to find him.

I wrangled my nerves together, so much that if they’d been Tye’s herd of sheep, they would have lined up and walked in a straight line to the fields. “I never took you for someone with scales,” I said to hide my fear.

“No, suppose ya preferred the golden feathered boys, huh?” Tye shoved abruptly away and swiped his beer. The jacket strained as he paced in rapid circles, boots clacking on the tiled floor. “You were right about the Drachaut coming through the Gate, Roe. Ain’t nobody else figured it out. I talked James out of it years ago when he got a hair up his ass that some might actually survive.”

Then he’d stood right there in the kitchen and lied to me over a plate of spaghetti that night. More, he’d lied to James, lied to Kazie, lied to every Ruhaven who had ever lived at Naruka.

“Willow, was she—”

Tye rounded on me. “Hell no. She wasn’t no Drachaut, and neither are you. Of course, the only time ya even think of us is when ya think your sister’s involved. But you go on and look at me every day and don’t see what’s right in front of ya.” He wiggled fingers over his ruddy face.

He was right. I’d only seen the man I’d been infatuated with—the easy-going charm, the slow accent. Not the Drachaut living with us, pretending to be one of us.

“You’re Drachaut,” I repeated, as if the words could sink through my ears and register with my brain. “But you’re in the Ledger . The Drachaut are supposed to be sacrificed to create Ruhavens.”

“Oh no, she’s right. They’re tossing Ruhavens through the Gate on purpose to create Inquitate.”

They? “Who’s they?”

“The Inquitate. Keep up, Roe.” He stabbed the sandwich at me. “But it’s Ruhaven they send through, ‘cause they need their Drachaut to get sacrificed to make the crossin’. Ya get me? One goes in, the other gets killed. There’s always a cost, Roe. Life’s full of them.”

Then wouldn’t Tye have been sacrificed?

“You’re saying that when Nereida went through the Gate, she pulled her Drachaut with her.” Because they were bound, like a teeter-totter, as Kazie had explained once. “How are you here, then? Shouldn’t you be an Inquitate if you’re my Tether?”

My Tether .

“Ain’t you forgettin’ somethin’? You didn’t come here alone, did ya? Triplets, darlin’. Hell, you were the one who figured out that pattern. I thought for sure you’d see right through me. When ya didn’t, well, once Bryn found those letters from Carmen, I was just waitin’ for one of ya to look at me and wonder. Guess ya were too caught up in whatever romantic games Bryn likes to play.”

His name had the thread fluttering in my chest. “What is it about the triplets that means you—a Drachaut—came through the Gate, and were written in the Ledger , instead of becoming an Inquitate?”

Tye rummaged through the bread and pulled out four slices. “I’ll explain it like this. There’s a place where we can make the crossin’. I don’t know how we get there or why we do it, but the Inquitate want us to. So Stornoway—O’Sahnazekiel—he’s this slice of bread here, okay?” Tye dragged off the top slice. “He steps into the Gate, makes the crossin’ first.” He tossed the bread at my feet. “Two things happen next, but the order matters. The first thing is his own Tether gets pulled into the Gate. Their bond is immediate.” He lifted the next slice of bread. “So his Drachaut gets forced into the Gate at the same time, and what happens to that Drachaut?”

“They get sacrificed for the crossing,” I answered hollowly. “Turned into Inquitate.”

Tye crushed the slice in his hand. “I’d like somethin’ more dramatic than stale bread,” he said conversationally. “But there ya are, ya get the point. This one’s dead.” He rubbed his fingers together, crumbling it into bits that dusted the floor. “And its soul now powers the Gate.”

“If the soul powers the Gate, why does it become an Inquitate?”

“Because energy is always conserved. That’s the rule. Nothin’ lost. And nothin’ gained. Then…” He carefully slid off the third slice, dangled it between us. “Who do ya suppose this is?”

He waited.

“Your mate,” he said when I remained silent. “For Ruhavens, it’s as strong as a Tether, and when Stornoway went through, he pulled ya with him seconds later.” The third slice landed at my feet on top of the first. “That’s your fine ass—the bread, I mean,” Tye added, then weighed the last in his palm. “Now, who do ya think this guy is?”

“You,” I answered hollowly. “I pulled you.”

“You got it. You pulled your own Tether, which was me, but the Gate was already open so I didn’t need to die and become Inquitate too.”

I repeated his explanation. “You’re saying for every triplet, four went through originally. One died and became Inquitate, two Ruhavens made the crossing, and one Drachaut came with them. But—but it’s not just you. I mean, you’re in the Ledger . You’re Drachaut, but there are other triplets. Are each of them…is there one Drachaut in each triplet?”

“Give the little lady a prize,” Tye said, tossing everything into the garbage with a clang . “It sure wasn’t easy for Carmen to figure all this out and now I’m just givin’ it to ya for free.”

“How did she…” I broke off at the sound of clicking heels.

They echoed on the floorboards like marbles, sharp, painful. Hairs rose on the back of my neck as Tye looked into the other room, his face blank.

Something pinched my lungs, and I stumbled back a step, flattened my palm over the light buzzing between my breasts.

Carmen stepped into the kitchen.

Her perfume was a sharp tang, spicy apple, floral death. She was as sophisticated as Abby in a crimson suit with matching pinprick heels and black stockings. But where Abby was soft and curvy, this woman was all edges, from the harsh slice of her cheekbones, to the starched blazer collar, to the ironed pencil skirt. Eyes of crystal-blue glass took my measure. Her lips drew back into a deflated slit of unimpressed power beneath a bony nose.

She eyed me with some amusement. “How nice to meet you again, Nereida .”

I stepped toward the door.

And knew, without the clock to warn me, without the bleating in my chest, that I was standing before someone more powerful than Bryn. Someone who didn’t need protection for their Mark to be activated. Someone who radiated the curse of the Inquitate with each breath.

Now she was here, in L’Ardoise, in Tye’s little farmhouse.

A triplet, like him, like me, which would make her…

“A Drachaut.” Carmen answered my thought with a razor smile.

Could she read my mind? Or was the internal grinding of my brain that clear? She’d warned Maggie of what became of the Drachaut because she was them. And now she was here, watching me—why? Why?

The gnawing under my heart rose to a fervor. I panted against the pressure of it, against the fear curdling my blood that might have been mine or Bryn’s.

But I couldn’t afford to feel any of that, not if Ruhaven had asked me to make the Fall for Willow. Was that why the Drachaut were here? Because they didn’t want Willow to come back?

Then one word rang through. Not in my own voice, my own thoughts…but Bryn’s.

Run.

I didn’t hesitate this time, not with the power pulsing off Carmen as palpable as claws down my skin.

I twisted toward the door.

Slow. Too slow.

Knees weak, I slapped off the corner wall, tripped over the shoe rack. My feet skidded in the snow that had melted to mushy puddles of salt and water since I’d entered. I needed a damn Mark , something that would allow me to escape them long enough to make it back to Ruhaven.

Tye bellowed my name while Carmen remained silent, which was somehow worse.

The frozen doorknob, a complex mystery I couldn’t figure out, slipped in my sweaty hand as boots pounded behind me.

I twisted. Pulled.

The old door banged into the wall and icy, sweet air froze the sweat on my temples as I lunged outside.

“Roe, stop. STOP! ”

Tye’s hoarse yelling followed me as I plunged over the stairs, skidded on a patch of black ice, and burst into a cold sprint. Without my jacket, the cold burned the sweat under my armpits into icy awareness of my own panic. What did they want? Why was I here? Why were they here, in a cabin in the backwoods of my hometown? Did they want control of the Gate? Or did they want to stop Willow from returning?

The landscape spread for miles, a blank canvas for barren trees to grow. A five-foot snowbank all but smothered what was left of the rotted fence around the property.

I’d get out of there, find a telephone, call—what the hell was Naruka’s number? And could the Drachaut find me anywhere?

And those were all useless thoughts. I needed to escape— now.

Skidding in the snow, I threw open the door of Willow’s blue pickup. I’d burn this thing out of here and wouldn’t stop until I was at the airport, where even the Drachaut wouldn’t kill me in public. But the Inquitate? How did I stop them? Just don’t fall for any illusions of your sister. That was easy, but—

I stared at the ignition

The keys. The fucking keys .

On the counter, on the…

Voices hollered, boots crunched snow, and someone burst out of the house. I leapt away from the truck.

Rowan, the farm next door.

That was a mile away, across a field as barren as the rest of this town. I’d never outrun Tye, maybe I should turn and face them when—

Now, Rowan!

Bryn’s voice rang out with all the power of his anchor’s call.

Arms pumping, I took off down the laneway, leaving the clear, shoveled path and tearing into calf-deep snow. The forest enveloped me, the empty branches letting in sparse light that glittered on snow brighter than the sky. It was nearly as blinding as the mirrors in Drachaut, except the shadows of trees scraped stark blue shadows on what should have been white.

My stinging breaths turned into panicked mist as I dove through the stubby forest like Willow and I had when we were kids. A mile away, far across the river, a red barn jutted out of the landscape.

I angled toward it, crunching through layers of hard snow that held for a second before breaking. Each step was a cracking strike in woods that had been silent. Branches frozen together by ice broke, pine cones crinkled, even the hardened leaves cracked.

Then a second set of footsteps joined mine.

Tye?

Not wanting to slow down and check, I jumped a log, snapping sticks and plunging into ever deeper mounds of congealed snow. My thighs ached with the effort of plowing through, of suddenly finding myself knee-deep, and I could only hope it was as hard for the person behind me.

The trees began to thin, bowing out to the stretch of serene, flat snow whose only disturbance was a single track of deer prints.

The river.

I knew I’d left the safety of the woods when my boots smacked into hard, unyielding ice. Each step sent a shock up my heel and into my thighs. The frigid wind burned an icy path across my cheeks.

Only the snow kept my boots from slipping as I bolted for the farmer’s cottage on the opposite side. And then what, Bryn?

Bang on his door with Tye on my heels? And what if it was empty?

Rowan, do not stop. Not for anything.

There was something in his voice, even through the thread, that made me want to turn around and look. Something that would have me giving up the race to the farmhouse for what was behind.

But I didn’t stop. I sprinted across the river, taking the largest strides as I could without slipping on the ice.

The labored breathing behind me grew closer and closer, but it didn’t sound like Tye. The feet were too light, too quick, too quiet. Was it Carmen? An Inquitate?

An audience of twisted, dead trees watched me struggle to outrun them.

“Nereida!”

Ignore him.

Ignore who? No, don’t look, keep going.

I was halfway across the river now, the farmhouse looming like a red savior, the chimney puffing a hot breath that dissolved into the sky. An overturned canoe sat with a mound of snow on their beach. Could they see me, whoever was home?

“Don’t you want…” a winded voice huffed, far enough away that I might yet outrun them. “Want to know what I showed her?” A man’s voice. Not Tye’s.

Showed who? Showed what?

Keep moving. Please.

Okay, Bryn, okay.

I pumped my arms, pushed forward. A tire swung from a creaking branch on the waterfront property. The rope was knotted, probably something kids climbed every summer.

So close. I could feel the heat of the fireplace that would scorch my face when I banged straight through the door. Imagined the shocked looks on the family huddled around their hearth.

“Your sister, Rowan,” the man panted behind me. “Don’t you want to know what I showed Willow?”

Willow ?

I tripped, stumbled, but caught myself before I careened into the ice. What did he mean? Show what to her? How did he know Willow? And who was he?

The questions pounded at me as loud as my heart rate.

“When I was—in…”

Do not listen to him. You will make it, Rowan. I am coming for you now. I am…

“…and I saw her…”

Bryn was trying to shout over him, to block out whatever the man behind me was trying to say. The wind nearly gobbled up the words.

“I knew what she was,” the man shouted. “ Ruhaven .”

Yes, she was, and she was the best of both of us.

The thread flared in my chest, light blinking bright enough that it reflected off the snow. Bryn trying to get my attention, to distract me.

“I ended it. Ended her.”

My legs slowed before I registered the action. There was a pounding in my head, pressing my skull together. My breath died in my throat, my blood cooled to ice.

It was him.

No, Rowan, do not turn around, do not—

He was dead .

Skidding to a stop, I whirled on the ice. One of us would end here, now. I didn’t care if he was Inquitate or Drachaut or another damn Ruhaven.

But when I saw what— who —he was, I froze.

For a second, I could only stare at the tanned skin, the narrowed eyes, the lips no more than a thin slice under a hooked nose. A fur collar fell back in the wind, the bulky jacket hindering him more than my thin sweater. Snowflakes clung to the gnarled end of his beard and wet the tips of his black, shoulder-length hair. His jeans were soaked to the knees from tracking me through the woods.

I’d been looking for him for months, reading his diary for months.

Levi .

He slammed into me with the force of a charging car as Bryn screamed my name. I careened onto the river’s surface, smashing into it and sliding ten feet. The clouds passed in a blur that was only broken up by a triangle of geese soaring across. My palms burned from the cold pain, my knees ached with the impact of hitting something harder than concrete.

Then Levi loomed over me, blocking the geese and the sky. A faint mustache sprinkled his upper lip and glistened with the snot that ran from his crooked nose and into his mouth. He sniffed loudly, then grabbed my sweater by the scruff.

I gripped his wrists.

“I thought that might stop you,” he hissed.

Him. Here. Because he hadn’t been in L’Ardoise to warn Willow, but to kill her. And I’d been reading the diary of my sister’s killer for months. But why was he claiming to have done it when it was the Inquitate?

“Why are you—”

My words ended on a hard slap across the face.

Salty blood slid from my burst lip, but I welcomed it, needed it to focus, needed the numbing pain in my left cheek to remind me why I’d stayed at Naruka in the first place.

To find why they’d targeted Willow, to find this man.

Between us, the glow of the thread lit up Levi’s neck and chin like a flashlight. But that was all my bond with Bryn could do. I didn’t have a Mark, had nothing but my fists and the skills I’d learned through muscle memory in the Gate.

“That was my Inquitate,” he shouted, rapping my head against the ice. He ground his knuckles deeper into my skin, using Kazie’s sweater to burn a line across my neck in warning. “We control them, you know? Yes.”

Controlled them? How? All of them? No. No, my Inquitate —that’s what he’d said.

I brought up my knee, tried to buck him off, but my boots slipped on the ice.

“She was supposed to be you,” Levi said in my ear. “Stupid James. We waited for years for him to locate you so we could prevent you from returning to Ruhaven, from making the Fall. So I waited, yes?”

I leaned away from his hot breath, the mouth that nearly kissed my neck.

“And we find it’s this Willow girl. So I move to L’Ardoise, and I find her one evening. Alone, because it’s easier.”

I swallowed the bile in the back of my throat, firmed my jaw. And when I finally spoke, my voice didn’t tremble. Didn’t crack with the grief digging rivers in my throat. Didn’t so much as hint at the roiling monster burning in my gut. “Tell me what you showed her.”

He sighed against my throat, eased back. “I show her—”

I swung out.

This time, I didn’t miss. Because I’d been listening in Ruhaven, memorizing every blow Nereida landed, the weaving dance she did when she fought, the arc of her blades.

Fists flying, I caught him square across the jaw. My knuckles sang—a sweet, biting song—with the blow that sent him lurching off me. I’d kill him now. Inquitate. Drachaut. It didn’t matter, and I could feel something stirring under my skin at the thought of hurting him. Of what he’d done to Willow.

I trapped his ankle with mine and bucked, swung again. My palm collided with his jaw. Not enough to injure, but it had him off balance. That was all I needed.

I swung my right leg up and over, rolling him to the side as I scrambled on top. Not with the same finesse as Nereida, but it was enough.

Bryn’s voice was only a dull roar in my ears now.

My first blow crunched into his jaw, snapping it shut.

He looked stunned, as if I’d actually hurt him.

Why had he killed Willow? She had nothing to do with this, and he’d taken everything from her. Everything she’d wanted to be, everything she was.

The second blow sent his head snapping back. Silver sparkled in the corners of my eyes, nearly blinding my vision.

Every joke she’d told, every friend she’d made, the hours and days and years she’d spent at the piano. All that she’d loved was stuffed into a hole in the ground.

He’d killed my twin.

But I’d bring Willow home, and neither Levi, nor Tye, nor Bryn would stop me.

Then the silver wasn’t just in my eyes, but sparking around me, a shimmering smoke that was at once nothing and everything. Not the bond between Bryn and I, but something else.

Didn’t matter. Not now.

I slammed Levi’s head into the ice as I screamed at him. I was crying, begging, cursing. He lifted his elbows to block the attack but my blows landed—elbows, fists, one after the other in a deadly dance like Nereida. His skull cracked into the ice, rebounding off it with each hit. Blood dribbled down his chin.

I’d never felt like this—powerful, strong, my pulse singing for the fight I shouldn’t be winning. My hands moved inhumanly fast, nearly disconnected from my body. My left punch disappeared mid-throw, reappeared a foot to the right like space had eaten it up and spat it out.

Chaotic, random, impossible .

I stopped when I saw what was wrapped around my fist—a silver smoke, like the liquified remnants of a million tiny stars.

It is your Mark, Rowan.

But I didn’t have one—a spirit. Nereida hadn’t gone through the rite.

Then my fist whipped down, nearly driven by its own rage, and blood gushed from Levi’s nose, spilling into a red puddle on the ice. It stained my knuckles, then his neck when I ground them into him.

I choked off his air, gritted my teeth. “Why did you want to kill Nereida?”

“You’re a Ruhaven. A triplet. And you’ll kill us if you go back.”

What? Kill us? Kill who?

I shook him when he tried to elbow me off. “What do you mean? Tell me. Tell me!”

But before he could answer, something golden grew in the distance—a light that was so familiar, I eased my grip, lifted my head, and squinted at the unmistakable glow spreading over the snow like spilled honey.

I went completely still.

He was massive—as tall as the barren maple trees, with lilac-gray feathers dusting the snow. They stretched the width of the river when he unfurled them in one sweeping arc. The ice cracked under his footsteps, louder than thunder.

I couldn’t look away.

His hair was pure threaded gold, too painful to look at with human eyes, and brighter than the ball of sun setting behind him. Each gear tattoo rotated slowly until his bare chest and arms were a moving machine.

Sahn .

I stared in awe, in horror, in shock, as the god from Ruhaven strode across L’Ardoise’s barren river.

Before my world went black.