Chapter 31
I had the sensation of a great bell ringing above my head, profound and bone-quaking. But the vault was silent; I heard nothing except the rush of my own breath and the shift of Lewis’s feet.
I approached the table slowly, almost reverently. The stone, I discovered upon closer inspection, was not precisely an orb. It had twelve sides, each adorned with a symbol like those on the box.
“Have I gone mad, or do you feel that, too?” I whispered, trying not to shatter the weighty stillness.
“I feel something,” he mused, leaning down to consider the sides of the artifact. He matched my tone.
I bent to consider the other side of the artifact—a dodecahedron, my memory now supplied. Twelve sides. Twelve surfaces of stone, and upon them, memories and secrets that might unravel not only this entire sordid affair, but the balance of power between humans and Entwined.
Only eleven sides had singular symbols. The final side contained a section of text in neat, tight lines, though their edges ended abruptly. Was this part of the Stele Maddeson had mentioned, the valuable stone carved into this shape at a later time?
I drew a bracing breath and caught Lewis’s gaze again, seeking courage in his eyes. He seemed to understand, and gave a small nod.
I laid a hand on the artifact. It fit neatly into my palm, smooth and cool, the ridges of its many sides smoothed with time.
Memories assaulted me, as strong and vivid as they would have been in the heart of twilight. I inhaled sharply, taken aback, but I did not retreat.
“Are you well?” Lewis asked.
“The stone is acting like twilight. Did you touch it?”
“Not since Sarre, and I noticed nothing at the time.”
I fell quiet again, overtaken by a maelstrom of disordered, anachronistic images. There was no order to them, no structure. Just a tempest of power and recollection.
I glimpsed Dr. Maddeson, setting the artifact reverently down.
Detective Supford, examining it. Lewis carefully wrapping it in canvas, back in The Sarre.
The darkness of its box. Seaussen rebels, their faces covered in brightly colored cloths, bore it through a smoky forest. Then I saw a lavish house, perhaps Lord Stillwell’s former residence in Sarre Grand, with pale painted plaster, gauzy curtains, and crashing waves.
Last of all, I saw Mr. Stoke. My sorcery flared and I snatched at the vision like a rider at a runaway horse. The image slowed, broadening and clarifying until I stood in a hotel room. Mr. Stoke cupped the orb in his palms and considered it, speaking to someone I could not see.
“The only thing I can,” Stoke said, frowning at the piece. He looked harried and battered, bruises clear on his face. “If what the professor has told me is correct, I cannot put her at risk, nor any other Entwined. Until I know more, I will ensure this does not fall into the wrong hands.”
Someone must have spoken, out of contact with Mr. Stoke and the stone, and thus inaudible.
The detective replied, “Thank you, Jon.”
Jon. I delved further into the stone’s memories, searching for any clue as to who that was.
The last memory the stone possessed of Mr. Stoke was him tucking it behind a wall panel in what I surmised was his hotel room. Then there was darkness, a tremor of feet here and there. A new light, a hand, a face. A police constable with the name J. Hopgood on his breast pocket.
I reeled back into the present. Lewis stood beside me now, one hand resting on my back and his expression writ with concern.
“Ottilie? What is it?”
For a few heartbeats I could not speak, overcome with emotion at the sound of Mr. Stoke’s voice and the implications of his words.
“He knew. Mr. Stoke knew what I am. He hid this”—I raised the artifact, voice thick with gratitude and grief—“to protect the Entwined.”
“He was a detective,” Lewis pointed out, but not unkindly. His brows furrowed. “He could still have warned you about Wake.”
I shook my head, shrugging as if the physical movement could detach the pain of my agreement. “He looked injured,” I admitted. “Perhaps the situation simply escalated too quickly.”
Lewis made a noncommittal sound.
I charged on: “A constable who works with Supford, I saw him, too. He recovered this, the orb, from Mr. Stoke’s hotel room. I cannot see precisely when… but the memory is quite recent. Perhaps even today?”
“That would seem reasonable.” Lewis nodded vaguely towards the ceiling. His hand was still on my back. “Considering a detective is here now.”
I nodded, trying to corral my emotions and focus on the facts. But my eyes burned and I felt, in that moment, sapped of strength.
I had the artifact. I had it, and with it, hope of reclaiming Lewis’s and my future. But Mr. Stoke was still dead, killed for his good intentions, for his attempt to maintain peace and protect me.
He clearly had not believed the artifact would be safe from Baffin in Stillwell’s hands. Perhaps he was right, perhaps he was wrong, but my excuses had begun to feel both flimsy and selfish.
I clenched my eyes shut, trying to block out my emotions, to steel myself. We would have to find another buyer, one with no connection to Baffin. Pretoria could do that, though it would complicate matters.
Lewis’s hand slipped up, cupping my shoulder and allowing me to bury my cheek in his neck. His other hand, however, remained on the table—a statement, a lingering separation, which I could not help but interpret.
Heart aching all the more fiercely, I straightened and put the stone into the pocket of my coat. It sat heavy, but secure.
“We ought to find Pretoria,” I said.
A deep, long creak echoed through the vault.
We both snapped our heads around. In the same movement I stepped towards one of the other tables and took up a saber.
Lewis drew his pistol.
No sound came towards us. No lantern parted the gloom of the vault.
“Either we have just been locked in,” Lewis murmured. “Or whoever that is needs no light.”
“Mr. Wake.”
“Or Moran.”
“I dislike both options.”
Lewis took my hand and tugged me in the opposite direction of the door. I did not protest, the artifact heavy in my pocket as we stepped behind the huge, veiled frames.
As one we crouched, he on one end of the frame and I the other. He nosed the veil aside with the mouth of his pistol and I held my blade low, peering through a narrow gap between a fraying tapestry and the wooden structure.
Before long, a shadow moved at the edge of the lanternlight. A figure, prowling. Surveying the tables, but not committing themselves to the light.
I blinked. From one moment to the next the figure was gone, as if the shadows themselves had consumed him.
A hand seized the back of my neck. I screamed, throwing my elbow back and twisting.
Fingernails dug into my flesh as an awful, bone-aching sensation overtook me—familiar and dreadful. My vision sparked and I felt a nerve, somewhere at the base of my skull, begin to spasm.
“I will kill you,” Mr. Wake said. “Where is the artifact?”
“Look for it yourself,” I managed.
He tightened his grip and shook me, then looked at Lewis. The Bronze was poised, a predatory calm in his eyes.
“Where is it?” Wake repeated.
“How am I supposed to know?” Lewis growled. “Let her go.”
Grey washed over me. My saber barely dangled from my fingers, and one nudge from Wake sent it clattering to the floor. He reached then, patting my pockets. Looking for the artifact.
My focus narrowed. Wake’s one hand, moving towards my pocket. His other, on my neck, warm and crushing. Flesh to flesh.
Flesh to flesh.
I shoved one hand into my pocket and grabbed the stone.
Ethereal power roared through Wake’s and my connection. I saw a mother’s face, soft with love, then cold with death. I saw an angry boy in the shadows, one with bloody knuckles and a mouth full of curses. I saw Moran. He was dressed in hunting leathers, with the boy at his side.
The boy was Wake. He kept pace with Moran with a rifle at his hip and his face angled away. Still in the vision, the muscles of his neck strained as if my power were a physical force, forcing him to face me.
In this world of vision and memory, Wake was fighting back.
We broke apart. I snatched up my saber with all the grace of a drunkard and rounded on him.
“What is Moran to you?” I bit out.
Wake stepped backwards into a shadow and wholly disappeared.
“Where—” I cut myself off. Time for memories and connections to Moran later. Clearly Wake was no simple Silver. Moving through shadows was a Moonless ability—or should have been.
As this realization and its ramifications careened through my head, a gun cracked. I felt the bullet rush past, punching through a hanging right where Wake had been and was no longer. Beyond, there was a sound of exploding pottery.
“He is Moonless—watch the shadows!” I warned Lewis. I retreated towards him, the hangings around us no longer a shelter but a trap.
We reunited.
“We need Pretoria,” I panted.
“Agreed.”
On the other side of the tapestry something shattered and the lantern went out. My Eventide eyes took a moment to adjust, every desperate second taut with tension, then I seized Lewis’s hand and ran.
Through the shelves we sprinted, he blindly following my lead. I expected Wake to unfold from any direction, and my dread mounted as we sprinted alone, uninterrupted.
Wake, of course, waited for us at the door of the vault. He stood calmly, head tilted slightly to one side, revolver in hand.
I anticipated a threat, a demand. But instead, he simply opened fire.
Two muzzle flashes, directly after one another. I threw myself backwards into Lewis at the same time as he fired back, discharging his weapon right beside my ear.
Lewis and I hit the stone floor. I was briefly aware of his body beneath me, a tangle of limbs, then a horrific ringing over whelmed my senses. I rolled, struggling to gain my feet.
Something struck the back of my head.
I came to in fits and starts. There was light now, distant but expanding, and a cloying scent of smoke.