CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
At daybreak, I head to the archives, fighting off the need to collapse in my bed.
The last few hours have been brutal, calming the ghosts, depositing the unconscious axe-less axeman to Calliope for safeguarding, and coming to terms with the understanding that I am solely responsible for the collapse of the entire space-time continuum.
I turn away everyone who comes to check on me – Beam, Ender, Geneva.
I don’t even answer when Everest comes knocking.
I don’t trust myself enough to lie to him.
You’re radiating anxiety, child, Quill says when I barge into the archives, slamming a hand on her. It is almost as if you were the one so rudely taken from your tent and used as a bludgeon.
She sounds mildly alarmed, which means I must look worse than I think. The light in the tent dims, the shelves pause their dance. The thrum of knowledge, of what I’ve done, is claustrophobic in here.
“I fucked up,” I admit.
Quill falls unnervingly silent as I tell her about Phoebe and the button.
The velvet box filled with trinkets comes flying down, its lid snapping open as it lands on the table. Each item that catches the light is another devastating reprimand that slices my soul.
Are you certain about this? Quill asks. I don’t have to rummage far through the pile to find my most recent pilfer.
I hold it in my palm, seeing the little golden button through a whole new lens. The intricate lines on its surface are unremarkable at first, but I’m certain right away that it’s a match to the one on Phoebe’s shirt, in a different color.
They could have manufactured many of these, Quill reasons. What are the odds that it’s the same one?
“The carousel led me there.” I close my hand around the button.
It burns cold in my palm, and the dents of its swirls press into my skin, branding me as the liar, the egotistical fool that I am.
“There is no such thing as coincidence when it comes to the carousel and its keepers. What else could it be, Quill? I’ve been taking from it all these years. ”
You think this rot is because of you, Quill says, contemplative. She doesn’t sound accusatory, at least not yet. It would make sense. We’ve been thinking that Valentin is the source of the rot, that a particularly bad snag pulled her into the fair, but there’s another common denominator.
“Me.”
It’s so painfully obvious now, I’m not sure how no one else has pointed it out.
Maybe they’ve thought it, but they haven’t said it, and I’m not sure what’s worse.
I’ve grown so used to being keeper, to playing with the threads of time at will.
The safety of the last centuries where my actions have gone unpunished have left me with a false sense of security.
I’ve told myself that my escapades are as insubstantial as the ghosts; after all, the person who winds time around her hands can’t possibly be subject to the same rules as others, can she?
I’ve behaved like Everest, like the river streams from me and winds into ropes between my legs. In reality, I’m nothing more than a caretaker, someone entrusted to prune and shape the dimensions into order.
I’ve violated the most sacred rules of the universe, and the world is going to pay for it in my stead.
You take far too much on yourself, Quill chides. I’ve been selfish as well. I should have told you to stop, but I’ve spent so long here, not seeing what else is out there. I was tempted, as were you, by a power that was never ours to hold.
“I’m the one who made the call,” I say morosely, feeling more and more foolish by the moment. The archive lights flicker ominously, and the brown of my skin takes on a bluish hue in its tint. “I’m the one who has to fix this.”
I can summon Keshav here, Quill says. He can gather everyone else. We can tell them together, show them the box, and–
“No!” My mind is moving a mile a minute, imagining the look of betrayal on Everest’s face, the disappointment on Geneva’s.
Beam would never forgive me for taking anything behind her back.
And Ender…he wouldn’t tell me “I told you so,” but his reproachful expression would do so much worse.
I repeatedly broke our sacred rule of no interference.
I’m a hypocrite, and I can see it already, when the veil drops in front of them and I’m exposed as the rotten human I am.
Geneva was right all along. I’ve been gluttonous, indulging in the worst kind of self-pity, all while disregarding humility and making a mockery of the carousel.
My self-flagellation has blinded me to the present, and now that I’m finally seeing it for what it is – the family I’ve earned, the life I’ve created – it’s all slipping through my fingers.
“I have to fix this myself.” I start collecting the trinkets. They cling together in the bottomless depths of the bag I brought from my room. A fool’s treasure. Cursed. I wipe at the stray tear running down my cheek.
Quill inhales sharply, rustling in demand for me to put my palm on her. As soon as I do, her voice fills my head, loud and assertive.
You cannot do this on your own. I insist that you tell someone – anyone – about this. You cannot go in there yourself, especially not when the rot is this extensive.
“That’s exactly why I need to go alone,” I tell her.
“I can’t pull anyone else into this; it’s far too dangerous.
I can feel it these last two trips, the strings are growing increasingly fragile.
I can’t risk anyone else getting stuck in a destination.
Not for my mistakes.” Not to mention the watchful eyes that have been pinned to my back.
You should at least rest before you go, Quill warns. I can feel your fatigue; it’s heavy. For you to go like this–
“I can’t afford to sleep for a week,” I insist. “The carousel bent us back in time just the other day. I don’t know if we have a week left.”
The truth settles in like a rock at the bottom of the lake. I’ve felt it all along, the dwindling of opportunity. The more I think about it, the more certain I am that Everest senses it too. It’s what’s been eating him up inside.
You owe him the truth, Quill says.
“I know,” I whisper. But I can’t give it to him. Not like this. “If I don’t come back…”
Cillian wanders out from behind a few shelves that swirl closer to the ground. For the first time, he doesn’t press up to my legs, only sits there and stares at me. It’s like he too can feel the sticky miasma left on everything I touch.
I’ll tell him, Quill says.
We silently begin preparations.
Are you certain you don’t want to ask someone to go with you?
I’m standing in front of the carousel, sunlit against a lavender dawn.
It groans with each sedate turn, as though its existence causes it pain.
The rot blooms across its body. Quill is rustling anxiously in my hands.
She doesn’t normally like to leave the archives during the day (sun-bleaching concerns), but she’s made an exception for my foolhardy quest.
“I don’t want to risk anyone else on an experiment,” I say stubbornly.
You do not have faith in me, Quill accuses, growing heavier in my hands.
I squat and lay out a clean blanket, placing her on top of it. “I trust you to get me there.”
But I don’t know if I’ll be able to come back.
For an eternity, no one has ever been able to visit the same place in time twice.
The carousel has its rules, and while we’ve skirted plenty, this one feels more monumental.
The slowly passing horse watches me with its jade-green eyes, and I shiver, pulling my sweater over me tighter.
In my pocket is a screw that I took from Churchill, Canada in the 1930s, and I’ve dressed for the icy winter that I’ll be walking into if things go right.
I can practically feel the bite of the Hudson bay, see the crystallized snow blanketing the winter barks and tundra landscape.
Very well, Quill sighs. Blood, please.
And here it is, our venture into what may work.
The final instrument it took to see Valentin’s home was a drop of her blood, acting like the scalpel that cut through the skin of time.
As the wraith who moves through dimensions, we can only hope that mine will do the same.
I pull out a pin from my pouch and prick my finger, holding it over the patch of grass next to Quill.
A small bead of blood emerges from the tip, then drops to the ground.
Per her instructions, I place the screw on top of it, then wait.
Quill mumbles something under her breath, but I pull away, gaze intent on the carousel. The shimmering threads look unchanged for a long, excruciating moment, and just when I think that this isn’t going to work, a long black string snaps from the skein and lashes out at me.
I yelp, falling to the side, scrambling for Quill.
No, this is correct! she says. Take hold of the string.
The black string winds towards me like a vengeful snake.
“I better be right, trusting a book,” I mutter out loud. Then, slipping the screw back into my pocket, I grab the rot and get sucked into the carousel.
I can tell within seconds that something about this trip is different.
Normally, the string around my hand feels like dry ice, crackling with power as it snaps into position next to the line we’re entering.
This time, my skin warms, as if set on Calliope’s scales.
This trip feels like a hearth, and a tingle of familiarity envelops me in the seconds before I’m tossed onto a wooden floor.
I’ve been here before.