Chapter 24
Chapter 24
Thamton calls out to me as I race by in the mist, but I can’t make out his words, and I don’t stop to ask. I race to Salki’s home, thinking that with all this running, I’m going to need to up my food rations. I pound heavily when I reach the door. “Salki! Wake up! It’s Pell!”
Another round of rapping, and Casnia opens the door with a frown. Her short black hair is plastered to one side of her head.
“Pell,” she says simply, and doesn’t resist when I push my way in.
Salki sits up on her cot, rubbing her eyes. “Has something happened?”
“I need your brooch.” She isn’t wearing it.
She blinks at me. “My brooch? Why?”
“I ...” I try to think of a good reason, but my ability to lie can only stretch so far. “This is going to sound insane, but there’s a door inside the old tower with a notch shaped exactly like that brooch.”
Salki stares at me. “Wh-What? You ... you got into the old tower?”
I sit on the cot beside her. “Don’t tell anyone, okay? I have good reasons, and I can explain them later, but I’d love to get back there and test my theory before the mist lifts.” I have no idea what connection Salki’s brooch has to the tower, but that’s a mystery I can figure out later. She most likely discovered it while tending crops, like the sundial. Like I have with all my Ancient artifacts, pre-tower.
Casnia starts moaning, either because I woke her up or because she’s hungry. Likely both.
Salki grabs my arm. “What’s in there? Can I see?”
“Uh, maybe. Listen, I can’t promise anything, but I need that brooch. I’ll bring it right back.”
Salki glances over to the little table between her cot and Casnia’s. “That’s where all the scraps are coming from.”
“Yes. You’ll keep it a secret, right?”
She nods absently. “What door?”
“Salki.” I grasp her shoulders. “I will spill my guts to you later. But the mists. I have to return before they lift.”
Rising, she moves to the table and pulls out its little drawer, picking the tin brooch from it. Holds it tightly in her hand. “You’re not going to bend it or melt it down, right?”
I leap to my feet. “I promise.”
Somewhat reluctantly, she hands it to me. Its shape really is peculiar: one edge of it licks up then drops into a right triangle. The body is mostly square, with a tuck at the base like the stomach of a dog. The other “corners” are rounded, with a cutout between them like half a keyhole. The whole thing measures about two-thirds the size of my palm.
“Where did you get this?” I ask.
“Entisa had it made for me.” A hint of sorrow tilts the words, but she shakes it off. “I hate waiting for stories,” she mourns, ignoring Casnia’s muted whining.
“Oh, I have a story for you. An insane story.” Even before, I never told her what I was doing. I wasn’t able to.
Cold hands on the sides of my head—
Stifling a shudder, I embrace Salki briefly and head for the door. “I’ll be back, I promise. See ya, Cas.”
Casnia doesn’t respond, and I zip back into the mists.
Both tower keepers are waiting for me when I return. At first I think to avoid Moseus’s gaze, but then I fear that’s too obvious, so I meet it with what I hope is a look of triumph. And it is. The sooner I get this tower working, the sooner I’ll be done with him.
What will become of me and Heartwood, once his people are free? That concern hadn’t surfaced before. I didn’t get this close to finishing, before.
The intense expression of hope on Heartwood’s face hurts. I want to reach for him, but I stop myself and approach the door, spinning the brooch in my hand so it will fit in the divot.
And it does. Perfectly.
Yet nothing happens.
I hold it there a moment longer, then, chewing my lip, pull it away and brush it off. Try again. Reverse it so the pin side lays against the stone, even though the edges won’t align, but that likewise does nothing. “I don’t understand. It’s a perfect fit. Heartwood?”
He crouches beside me. I press the brooch into its matching imprint, hard, and he shoves into the wall as he did before. The stone doesn’t budge. There are no whistles or tones, no shifting, no reveals.
My gut sinks into my hips. I was so sure. This brooch and this impression can’t be a coincidence!
“Let me see it.” Moseus holds out his hand.
I pass it to him, purposefully avoiding any contact with his skin.
Lips downturned, he turns the brooch over in his long fingers. Taps his fingernail against it, even bites it. Hums deep in his throat before pressing it to the indentation, just as I had. Heartwood and I both push, but the door doesn’t yield.
Defeated, I sink to my backside. “I was so sure.”
“I will trace this and create another,” Moseus says. “Perhaps the alloy is wrong.”
He walks off with the brooch. Heartwood slumps, defeated. I take his hand in mine and squeeze, trying to reassure him. Then I follow after Moseus; I promised I’d return that brooch, and I don’t want the “peacekeeper” to insist on keeping it.
Fortunately, he doesn’t. He traces it with a graphite pencil, right onto the stone on the far wall, multiple times and at various angles, before handing it back to me. “Don’t lose that.”
“I won’t.” The mist starts to clear. “I’m going to try something else. I’ll be back.”
I have nothing else to try, but I don’t want to stay in the tower if my presence isn’t necessary, even if Heartwood is here. Especially if Heartwood is here. I’ll slip, somehow.
I’m still so afraid.
Pocketing the brooch, I head down the stairs and through the dim first floor. Out the door I didn’t close behind me. I’ve only taken a few steps across the dry soil outside when Heartwood’s voice sounds quietly behind me.
“Nophe.”
My chest constricts as I turn around. He pushes the tower door shut. Between that and the lightening mist, we have a semblance of privacy. So I encircle his waist with my arms and press my forehead into his chest.
“I’m sorry. I know you miss her. I thought this would work.”
“We’ll figure it out.” He tilts my head up, forcing me to look at him. “Are you all right?”
I press my lips together. Release him, but don’t step back. In as hushed a whisper as I can manage, I say, “Don’t leave me alone with him.”
He glances to the tower. “Moseus isn’t—”
“I know,” I interrupt. “I have no real reason. He’s been your companion for so long. He’s probably comforted you during—”
“Moseus is no comfort to me.” He speaks without animosity.
I pause, waiting for an explanation.
He exhales slowly. “His abilities have no effect on me. Either because of this planet or because of my making”—his godhood, he means—“he is no comfort.”
He might as well have reached down my throat and seized my heart. This whole time, alone without Ether and without me, and he had no balm?
“Comfort doesn’t have to be magic,” I protest.
Heartwood’s lip ticks. “I wouldn’t call it magic.” The smile vanishes. “But yes, you are right.”
“Let me be right a little longer,” I plead, clutching his shirt in my hands. “Don’t leave me alone with him. Not yet.”
Somber, he nods.
“I wrote it all down,” I continue. Heartwood leans forward to catch the words. “After I left the garden. I wrote down every single thing I can remember, in case it happens again. I won’t forget you twice, I swear it.”
Something is missing.I wince at that spot of emptiness in my soul. But what else is left? What am I not seeing?
Heartwood cups the side of my face. Runs a thumb over my brow. The mist fades.
Standing on my toes, I kiss him, relishing his scent and his warmth for as long as I dare. “I’ll be back.” Regretfully, I pull away. Turn toward Emgarden with the sinking feeling that I will always be here.
But Heartwood will not.
I turn the brooch over and over in my hands as I walk, barely noticing the kilometers go by, as though I might discover something new about it. But it remains only a worthless piece of artistic tin.
When I enter Emgarden, I steel myself with a deep breath, trying to keep my helplessness at bay. That dream still limns my thoughts. It doesn’t fade, like dreams do. I wish it would.
To my relief, Salki hasn’t left her home, though she’s dressed for farmwork. Casnia holds a small parasol, ready to accompany her.
My expression must give me away. “Didn’t work?” Salki asks as she accepts the brooch from my outstretched hand. She pins it to her shirt.
I shake my head. Lean against the doorway. “I was so sure. I don’t know what else to do.”
She glances at Casnia, then motions me inside. Shuts the door behind us.
I fold my arms and press my back into the wall. “You’ll be late.”
“They can wait a few minutes,” she insists. “Tell me more about this tower. Is that where you were, before?”
I meet her eyes, remembering Amlynn’s claim of my comings and goings. “Before?”
“A little over a year ago, you were busy with something. Said you were working on your tinkering. Didn’t see you very much. Like now.”
“Yeah, that’s where I was.” It’s such a long story, and there’s so little time. Still so few answers. “And I figured out some things. I’m fixing that tower, Salki. But there’s a piece missing. And there’s this door, nearly invisible, in the stone. No hinges or latches, only seams and what looks like a natural indentation that just happens to match that exactly.” I gesture to the brooch. “It fits perfectly. Same size, same shape. I thought it was a key. But the door won’t move. I can’t be doing it wrong ... there’s only so many ways a door can open.” I throw up my hands. There’s so much more I need to tell her. I stretch my hand to relieve the soreness from all the writing I did. “You should go.”
“There is ...,” Salki begins, thumbing her brooch, “my mother’s necklace.”
A shiver shoots down my spine. “What?”
“Don’t you remember?” She studies my face intently. Casnia sits on her cot, twirling her parasol, seemingly unaware of us. “Arthen made this for me. He modeled it after my mother’s necklace.”
I move toward her. How could I have forgotten? “She wore one just like this,” I murmur. The same shape and everything, on a long chain around her neck. She never took it off.
Salki wrings her hands. “She never told me where she got it. I don’t think she knew, honestly. Family heirloom? But ... maybe that would work.”
“It has to!” I grab her shoulders. “Salki, it’s a perfect fit. I knew it couldn’t be a coincidence! Where is it?” My enthusiasm falters as Salki’s face crumples. Slow, careful, I repeat, “Salki ... where is it?”
She sighs. Pats one of my hands. “Pell, you buried her with it.”