Chapter Twenty-One #2
All about the walls were openings, or alcoves, arched at the top and flat at the bottom.
The bones in these alcoves were arranged in a more regular pattern than in the tunnels, like a mosaic, forming strange but oddly fluid designs.
They looked familiar. I stared at them for a while, finally recognizing shapes that resembled the “forbidden” Temple stitches I used in my embroidery—the Anchor, the Hands Raised in Prayer, the Sacred Knot—and wound through them all were the now-familiar symbols of magic—the knot of hair, the tooth, the spread hand.
The skull. Relics from a time when the practice of magic had been so interwoven in the lives of kings that it had been given a place in their halls of death.
Directly opposite the tunnel through which we had entered was a semicircular recess at floor level, like the apse in a temple building. Its end was in shadow from where I stood.
When I walked forward and cast the light of the glim towards it, it illuminated a ruined tomb, stones and bone fragments strewn around it as if someone had taken to it with a sledgehammer.
There were also spots of what looked like blood.
I stepped over them cautiously. On top of the tomb lay a single volume, bound in pale leather, set with mother-of-pearl, seawater pearls, and uncomfortably toothlike wedges of ivory.
Mother’s book.
After all this time.
With shaking hands, I lifted it. It thrummed with energy against my skin.
The leather felt warm and fleshlike. This close, the pearls had the milky shine of the whites of eyes.
I riffled through the pages that represented Mother’s life’s work.
The ink was wine red, almost purple; the illuminations picked out in gold paint that I remembered making for her with powder and gum.
I recognized Mother’s distinctive, forceful hand at once.
Now what? said Baldbeak.
“I’m not sure.” Part of me had still hoped that Mother would be here, although I knew it was unlikely. I still had no idea what had happened to her. Another part of me had hoped that simply holding the book would cause something to happen, but clearly that wasn’t the case either.
I set it back down in its place and opened it, hoping that by some alchemy, I would finally be able to read it …
But the symbols were as meaningless and as impossible to pin down as always.
I felt sick and clasped it to my chest. If I could get it out of here, at least, back up to the surface, perhaps I could find the Book Man again, and …
“Netta.”
I spun around, nearly dropping my light, but catching it just in time.
It swung in my hand, creating chaotic, ominous shadows.
A figure stepped out of them. Ban Morin, my panicked brain told me, then realized the figure was shorter and slighter than my would-have-been husband.
Baldbeak’s pleased squawk also gave him away.
“Netta. It’s me.”
Patrick. He was not dressed in the high lord’s garb he had worn at the party, but in the plainer black he had worn on the road, just without the many-colored coat over top. His face was drawn with exhaustion.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. I angled the glim to see behind him. “Have you come to drag me back to the king?”
“No.” He stood with his hands clasped in front of him, as if to reassure me that he wasn’t going to make any sudden movements.
“What’s happening with Ban Morin’s men?” An awful thought occurred to me. “Are they in the city?”
“No. The king’s men are keeping them at bay.” He took a cautious step forward. “I see you found the book.”
“Stay back,” I said. My Hair floated out around my head, a bright and angry halo.
“I came to help.”
“Just stop,” I said. “Stop talking. Stop lying. Just don’t say anything for once. I don’t want to hear a word you have to say.”
His jaw clenched, but he said nothing.
“Did Mieka tell you where I went?”
“She didn’t want to.”
“But she did,” I said bitterly.
“She talked to me. She told me I was wrong to keep my plans from you. I was able to convince her I had … rethought my position.”
“Yes. You’re good at that. And how did you get here?”
“I followed you. Through the shadows.”
“Of course,” I said flatly.
“I ran into a friend of yours as he was leaving and gave him safe passage to the palace. He told me that the Pontiff had imprisoned you. But you broke out.”
“The Pontiff has had the book all along,” I said. “It was his men that attacked the Tower. Mother did sell it to him—why, I don’t know.”
I explained quickly what the Pontiff had told me about the spellbook, and how he had wanted me to free Mother from it.
“So that’s why I am here. But why are you here?” I spoke with some venom.
Patrick flinched at my tone. “I know you are angry with me.”
I said nothing.
“I haven’t always been honest with you. I know that.”
I hated how my throat tightened, how part of me wanted to believe him. I gripped the book. “I don’t need your help,” I whispered.
“But you do. You can’t read the book, Netta. I can.”
He was right, of course. I hesitated, my pulse thundering in my ears. “Why would I trust you now? After everything?”
He spread his hands. “I honestly …”
I snorted.
“… honestly thought I was doing the best thing for the kingdom. I thought I could … just move you into place. I thought I could control everything—manipulate the board, move the pieces—but you’re not a piece. You never were.” He indicated the book. “You can’t do it alone.”
I did need someone to read for me. I hated him a little bit more for saying it out loud. The catacombs breathed around us; hollow eyes watching, listening.
His voice was low. “Netta. Let me help you with it.”
“Help me?” I snapped. “You mean control me.”
The dim light painted the lines of his face. I could almost imagine he looked remorseful. “No. You don’t know what you’re unleashing. Neither of us do.”
“I’d rather walk blind,” I whispered, “than put my trust in you again.”
His jaw tightened. For a moment, I thought he’d leave, but instead he came closer, close enough that the edge of his shadow brushed mine.
“Then don’t trust me. Trust instead that whatever else I have done, I don’t want to see you destroyed.” His voice was rough. “Whatever’s in there … you shouldn’t face it alone.”
The bones listened for my response.
“You always have an answer,” I spat, voice too loud in the hush of the catacombs. “Always so smooth, so certain.”
Something shifted in his expression—slightly, but enough to throw me off-balance.
“Maybe that’s true,” he said, voice quieter than I’d ever heard it. “I’ve … hidden things. Told half-truths …”
“Lies.”
“For good reasons, or so I told myself. But you—” He stopped, his hand half lifting as though he might reach for me, then falling back to his side. “You’re not …”
The words stumbled out, uneven. He looked away quickly.
It wasn’t like him to fumble. Not like him to look unsure of the ground beneath his feet.
“All I mean is, if you try to face this book alone, it could unmake you. And if it does … I—” He broke off again, then gave the smallest shrug, seemingly fascinated by the stone floor. “I wouldn’t like to see that.”
I stared at him.
“Not a piece on a board, you said earlier. Not to you. Then what am I, Patrick?”
His head snapped up.
“You—” His hand flexed at his side, restless. “You matter. More than the book. More than I expected you would.”
The admission came out rough, awkward, not like him at all. He looked away quickly, the set of his jaw daring me to mock him for it. I wanted to seize on those words, to demand he explain, to tear them open until they gave me the truth.
“More than you expected,” I said. “That sounds dangerous.”
His laugh was short, brittle. “Dangerous, yes. For both of us.”
I took a step towards him. “Say it plainly, Patrick. For once in your life, say what you mean. What is it you want from me?”
He blinked.
“I want—” He broke off. His eyes flicked away, then back to me. “I want you alive. I want you … not to hate me. I want you to let me stand at your side without having to trick my way there.”
The words tumbled out one over another, nothing like his usual careful speech. When he realized what he’d said, his mouth tightened, as though he wished he could spool them back. It unsettled me more than his lies ever had.
I thought of all the ways he had deceived me, turned my trust into another strand in his web. I thought, too, of the times he had been there when no one else was. And now this strange, awkward honesty, as if his mask had finally dropped to reveal … what?
My pulse thudded in my ears. To trust him might be foolish. To refuse him might be fatal.
His eyes searched mine, waiting—though whether he waited for my faith or my rejection, I couldn’t tell.
“What if I say no?” I said. “What if I tell you to leave?”
No clever answer, no smirk. For a heartbeat, he didn’t answer. Then his shoulders dropped, just slightly.
“If you tell me to leave,” he said at last, his voice low and steady, “I’ll go.”
The words startled me more than any argument would have. I’d expected persuasion, the usual knot of logic and charm, some clever trap. Not this.
My throat was tight. “Stay, then,” I said, the words rough. “But only because I can’t do this alone. Don’t mistake it for forgiveness. Not yet.”
For the first time, something eased in his face—not triumph, not even satisfaction, but a kind of quiet relief. He stepped forward, carefully, as though I might still push him away.
When he reached for the book, I didn’t move, and his fingers brushed mine. The brief touch made me catch my breath, but I loosened my grip, just slightly; just enough to let him share the weight.
And then Baldbeak’s voice brushed across my mind.
Humans and their endless mating rituals, he said.
Heat stung my face. “That’s not what this is!”
“What?” Patrick asked.
“Nothing,” I muttered. I prayed the shadows would swallow the flush in my cheeks.
Hopeless, muttered Baldbeak.
“Shut up,” I said under my breath.