CHAPTER TEN
Everest leaves my tent in the middle of the night, and Beam, sufficiently entertained, heads off to play with Cillian.
I stay up a while longer, pondering the events of the evening before finally drifting into a fitful sleep.
I’m awoken by a displeased Geneva, towering over my bed like one of the bloody ladies who committed atrocious crimes in Beam’s favorite ghastly tales.
She doesn’t understand why I’m not able to speak for the first few minutes of her summoning, but eventually, we make it to the archives where several ghosts and Valentin are already gathered.
“Good, you’re finally here,” Keshav says, snapping his fingers.
Beam and Ender lounge near various floating shelves, one more clearly involved in research than the other.
There’s a fresh pot of tea sitting on the farther table, and Cillian is sniffing a little too close to the snout for Quill’s comfort.
Ender is met with a resounding yowl as he moves the cat off the table, but the tome’s pages flatten in a sigh of relief.
“Don’t mind me; I just watched my life flash before my eyes when Geneva shook me awake,” I mutter as Cillian rubs against my legs, tea already forgotten.
Keshav looks apologetic. “I would have had Valentin come get you, but Geneva volunteered. Insistently.” He gives the terrorizing woman in question a look so longing I’d gag over if it wasn’t kind of sweet.
“If I didn’t do it, we’d never get to work,” Geneva says, bored. She floats down from an upper level, a book tucked beneath her arm. “While you’ve been arguing with Everest, we’ve been trying to find answers for this one’s presence.”
“‘This one’ has a name,” Valentin says. I like her.
Geneva gives her a side-eye she normally reserves for me. “I’m not convinced your name is worth remembering.”
I step in before the situation escalates. “Actually, I was supposed to come in here and speak to Quill about this as well. Contrary to popular belief–” I glare at Geneva “–Everest and I have been looking into the problem at hand, so now’s a good opportunity to put together what we’ve found.”
Keshav takes my cue, bless his soul. “Please, take a seat,” he says, herding us towards the chairs that have magically emerged from the endless folds of the archive tent. The teapot fills two empty porcelain cups, which are forced into our hands.
Valentin looks bewildered. “I don’t drink–”
“Don’t fight it,” I murmur. “Keshav requires that everyone here is in a state of utmost comfort before he begins his lecture.”
I learned a long time back to not resist Keshav’s mothering urges.
The librarian himself seems unperturbed by the running commentary behind him.
Beam and Ender settle on the ground by my feet, Cillian curled between them, while Geneva sweeps the trail of her gown behind her and perches on the edge of the table like an indomitable hawk.
Keshav adjusts his glasses. “Quill and I have been putting together notes on all that has occurred thus far. We know that the carousel endured a deep poisoning unlike anything we have seen before on the day you returned from the trip to Troy.”
“Troy?” Valentin asks, eyes bugging out. “Like the–”
“Yes, the Siege of Troy,” Keshav says, a little miffed. “This will take a very long time if you’re already interrupting, so I’d suggest we all withhold questions until the end.”
Valentin mimes zipping her lips shut.
“You then fell out of the carousel, with no memory and no known intention of coming here to take over as keeper,” Keshav says, impervious to how everyone in the room, including myself, stiffens.
“This is followed by a failed trip, in which not only was the source of the slippage not fixed, but it appears that the carousel has also changed the rules of the game on us.”
As if to punctuate Keshav’s conclusions, the fair sends a gust of cold wind into the archives, causing Cillian to yowl and the rest of us to squirm in discomfort. A+ for communication, I suppose.
“The string leading to a human, putting you in a position where it became necessary to interfere with the timeline to fix it, is unprecedented,” Keshav continues. “It doesn’t take a scholar to connect the dots and see that they are all related.”
“That’s what Everest and I uncovered as well,” I say, describing his orb demonstration.
“I would have preferred Everest was here to show us himself,” Geneva remarks, studying her nails. “Otherwise, this all feels…what did you they call it in your timeline? Woo-woo.”
She looks pointedly at Valentin, who recoils at the attention. Unlike our new guest, however, I am familiar with how Geneva’s default setting is to doubt.
“We don’t have Everest, but we have me,” I remind her haughtily. And I’ve given it extensive thought. “Could I get my model from last night, please?”
This last question was directed to the fair at large, and I’m relieved when it immediately fulfills my request. Would’ve been embarrassing, otherwise.
Beam yelps as a cream mannequin appears at the center of the archives.
Other ghosts screech as though they’ve never seen such a ghastly sight, and poor Cillian bolts for his favorite floating shelf.
All I can see are his whiskers poking out from behind our notable selection of regency romance novels.
I crack my knuckles, let myself bask in their – specifically, Geneva’s – shock for a moment, and then jump into an explanation, speaking in my language:
“Think about this rot like a cancer,” I start, holding out a pointer stick that the fair has so kindly provided.
“This is dark,” Ender says.
“That it is,” I agree. “But it’s appropriate. The culprit knot is like a tumor, and its effect is felt all over the body, i.e. the carousel at large. The mother of all butterfly effects. We go in, extract the tumor, and voila. Healing ensues.”
I whack the mannequin with the stick with more force than is probably needed.
The ghosts start whispering to each other, but Geneva squints at me.
At least she isn’t staring at her nails.
“And what if the cancer metastasizes? Even if one issue is the root cause, as you call it, how do you know that fixing it will solve everything? Time isn’t neat – just because things are connected one way now doesn’t mean relationships haven’t changed. ”
“I don’t understand this conversation,” Beam complains, and Ender pats her back. Only Valentin looks truly engaged, but that’s okay.
“You can still treat cancer that’s spread,” I answer. “You have to combine treatments: surgery plus chemotherapy, or immunotherapy. Get every bit of it. But we start with the source of the problem and iterate after.”
I wait with bated breath for Geneva’s response. Despite our sometimes-tumultuous mentor-mentee relationship, I trust her judgment and value her opinion. And right now, I need her vote of confidence.
“We start with returning the girl,” Geneva declares.
All eyes turn towards Valentin.
She fidgets in her seat. “Uhh…”
“Valentin needs to join Ryka on trips,” Keshav adds. “And we need to trust that the carousel will take her home.”
“Now, hold on one minute,” Valentin protests. “How can we…I don’t understand. I can’t travel through time!”
Multiple ghosts start shouting over one another.
“You must!”
“The fate of the universe depends on it!”
“You don’t belong here!”
“Ouch,” I say on her behalf, gesturing at all of them to take it down a notch.
Valentin looks quite green and, honestly, I can’t blame the poor girl.
I’ve been exactly where she was, and I’m intimately familiar with the disbelief she’s contending with.
I’d tried to come up with a solution that wouldn’t involve her, but unfortunately, she’s an item that needs to be returned, and the carousel has always wanted to be restored.
It’s a fundamental law that governs this place.
“You don’t need to do anything, and we won’t even take you with us right away,” I assure her. “Everyone, including the fair, is invested in your wellbeing. And if it helps, we’ve been doing this a very long time.”
“Thousands of years,” Beam says. She’s over with Cillian, trying to coax him out. He really does not like this mannequin.
Valentin looks unconvinced, but she also doesn’t argue while she considers the proposal. I can imagine what she’s thinking: the alternative is to remain here, memory lost, aching to go home. It’s not a plight anyone would choose.
“But what if we end up in the wrong place?” she asks after a long while. “I can’t just waltz into any era.”
I know what she means, as does Geneva, whose face has taken on a somber expression that she often wears when she recalls her servitude.
Being keeper doesn’t make you invisible, and there are certain people, like Everest, who can seamlessly blend into most settings and eras without concern.
He even found a place in a South Asian court.
But Geneva, Valentin, and I need to be more careful.
“That’s why I take the ghosts with me,” I assure her. “We stay out of sight for a reason. It would be helpful to know where you’re from, though, so we know what to look for. Otherwise, how are we supposed to know if the timeline we slip into is yours?”
Valentin waves her hand helplessly. “Would I recognize it when I’m there?”
It’s the closest we’re going to get to her accepting our plan. “I sure hope so.”
“Is that a risk you’re willing to take?” Geneva intercedes, the devil’s fondest advocate. So much for her support. “What if we leave you in the middle of the French revolution? The bubonic plague? Most periods are worse for people like us.”
The rest of us shudder. Valentin looks like she’s going to throw up again.
“Everest has an idea to jog your memory,” I tell her. “But he won’t be back until tomorrow.”
Quill shuffles on her stand. I get to my feet and head over to place a palm on her open pages.
There is another option, she says into my mind. The eclipse is in two weeks. With the veil between dimensions thinned, it would be the optimal opportunity to scry.