A Binding of Echoes

by Kalyn Crowe

  Odion and Tilly followed him like lieutenants.

  Eda peeked out of the cellar.

  Leyla hurried over.

  Kat and Rhys came out and ran for Gunnar.

  I walked over and stood beside Conrad and my creature-filled family.

  "I already know no one followed you." He wrapped his thumbs in his belt. "Wish we had some dumplings now, though."

  "Me too." I leaned on Odion's neck as he sniffed my coat. "No people or birds seemed to notice us. That was a good distraction."

  Conrad chuckled. "I can't say I know what you're referring to; I didn't fraudulently light any beacon."

  "Of course not."

  Tilly picked a piece of dirt from my pants.

  Conrad straightened his coat. "Rhys's idea. The lad would make a good hunter. He's clever and quite quick."

  "He'd be happy to hear you say so."

  Tilly walked over and stood by Rhys.

  Kat said, "Why didn't you tell them how shaken you were by the attack? Why not get some grounds for no Spiritist involvement? Apex, I'm so glad you're all right." She latched on to Gunnar again.

  He held her tight.

  Rhys looked over his shoulder at me and sighed. He knelt beside Tilly and pushed his forehead to hers. "Told you they'd make it."

  She warbled.

  Eda and Leyla didn't speak. They only hugged.

  My mind went to Ansgar and Sybil. It seemed like they should be here, too.

  Conrad said, "What is it?"

  "Well, Gunnar pointed out where Ansgar disappeared. There's a sewer entry, just like where the last attack happened."

  "I see."

  "I have to find Ansgar, and the Counterbalance before Sybil does."

  He stepped into the cellar. "Let's get to work then."

  I followed him down.

  Candles, the size of my forearm, lit a dusty but welcoming room. Sheets covered various shapes of furniture, a couple of chairs, a table, a few bunk beds.

  The small stove in the corner looked retrofitted, and the chimney vented into the ceiling. "Won't the smoke be visible?"

  "Only in the warehouse." Conrad began to pull off the sheets.

  Kat sat Gunnar down and began to treat his wounds. Beside her, the blackbird from Eda nestled in a little box filled with straw.

  Rhys approached Conrad and me. "Think we should set up something for Tilly and Odion?"

  Conrad hefted an empty wood box off to the side. "Can you use this?"

  "I'll set it by the cistern over there. Tilly loves water." Rhys carried it across the room.

  I said, "I'll get some blankets set up for Odion's nest."

  Leyla jumped in after helping Eda set up a makeshift study. She straightened out a set of shelves and a chest of drawers with pickles and jams of all kinds — even pickled eggs. Eda looked long at that jar and then set it in the very back.

  With everyone settled inside, Conrad slid three sturdy beams into place over the door.

  Odion laid down with his legs tucked under him.

  Kepi took the same posture on his shoulders.

  "They used to do that when Philomena was still around." Conrad patted my shoulder. "You've done well today."

  "I've done what I must."

  He scrunched his brows together.

  I said, "How did you get away from Bora?"

  He chuckled and smoothed his beard. "She threw me out. Luckily, I returned to the stable before her unit got there. I found the place picked clean of anything useful." He gestured to Eda and then past her. "Your things are there."

  "I took the liberty of packing some clothes for you," said Eda.

  I picked up my bag and looked inside. It held fresh clothes and the journal and feather. "Thank you again."

  She smiled. "Of course."

  "Speaking of clothes, I have something for you." Conrad pulled one last sheet from a large chest.

  Beautiful deep red leather-covered it along with brass bindings and keyhole.

  Kepi leaped from Odion and sniffed the chest. She cocked her head up at Conrad.

  He said to me, "You will undoubtedly need another disguise, but perhaps this time as yourself."

  24 - Where Souls Are

  Conrad opened the chest and sorted through. He took out a white jacket free of colored trim. A puff adorned the shoulders, and ribbed seams decorated the body. The ankle-length hem flared from the waist in elegant pleats.

  I had seen this coat before. "It looks like an older style invoker coat, but there's no trim?"

  "The Weaver color is white." He turned it around. The five Silver Rays sparkled across the back. "Even if this symbol omits Abyss, it and the other Anima colors combine into pure white. Like the Sleigh." He winked and held it forward. "Consider yourself graduated."

  I took it from him as if it was glass. "Meredith is dead, remember?"

  "I watched the old one die." He smiled.

  I sniffed and blinked. "Was this hers?"

  He held his mouth tight with an envious amount of emotional control.

  Kepi cooed, high and excited. She stood up and used my leg to hold her balance as she sniffed the coat.

  I wiped under my eyes and laughed a little.

  Conrad helped me slip off Eda's coat, and I wrapped myself in my mother's.

  Kepi crawled up to my shoulder.

  Conrad cleared his throat, walked away, and sat next to Eda at the table. "Now then. Gunnar, what exactly did you tell Bora?"

  He stretched a little and came over. "What we discussed." The purple around his eye had faded. His lip was whole once more, thanks to Kat and her collection of Conduction imbuements.

  Conrad folded Eda's coat and placed it with my other things. "Is that right?"

  "Look, we wouldn't be in this mess if I knew from the start." Gunnar crossed his arms and looked at Conrad, then Kat, and finally Rhys.

  He paled.

  Gunnar scowled. "I'm surprised you sent the girls after me."

  Conrad looked down at the floor. "It was not my intention for them to rescue you."

  "It wasn't?" said Kat.

  "Not until I spotted them at the High Hall. Bora would have a field day in paperwork trying to arrest me if I made a scene, it would have bought time."

  "For what?" Gunnar sat back down in his chair, arms crossed.

  "For you to keep your skin. I hadn't thought beyond that."

  Gunnar frowned at his feet and huffed. "Have you thought beyond this cellar?"

  "We'll find the Counterbalance," said Conrad.

  Gunnar chuckled.

  I glared.

  Conrad said, "We will learn who has Ansgar and set the record of who is at fault here straight once we retrieve him."

  "This is idiotic." Gunnar leaned on the table. "Face it, old man. You failed, you backed us into a corner because you didn't want help."

  Kat tensed and stood up. "How can you say that? I hurt you, I get that, but Conrad has done everything he could. Did you want to feel more important in all this?"

  He looked away from her and stood with his arms tight across his chest.

  "You expect people to trust you, but you won't trust us." Kat kept her steely gaze locked on him. "Do you expect us, me, to believe all this research into the Chimeras was out of curiosity? That you would risk Rhys and use Eda for no reason? You knew something was wrong there and never spoke to me about it."

  Rhys looked over at Tilly.

  She cocked her head at him and then lowered it under her wing.

  Gunnar didn't flinch. "Isn't that what you and Conrad are doing? Using someone?" He looked at me.

  Without a sound, Eda stood. "This is enough. It is what we all are doing. It is what people do. We may each be an individual piece of life's puzzle, but in that, it is all right to rely on one another to become more. Evil people hurt and use others to do this on purpose, even ones they love. Each of you here is sad for their misgivings against one another." She examined us. "Is that not right?"

  We all agreed in a gener
al murmur.

  "That is better. Gunnar, please answer the question."

  He opened his mouth.

  She turned her head away but kept her eyes on him. "Do not ask me which. Your gruff demeanor is misleading of your well-disguised intelligence and good nature."

  He flushed and relaxed his arms. "I wasn't sure what to say to Bora at the High Hall after I saw the Spiritist. So, I told them I heard shouting and followed it through the street." He looked at Tilly and sighed. "I said I heard a girl shouting, scared, and that I followed her voice." He paused.

  "What is it?" said Rhys.

  Gunnar shook his head. "It surprised me that wasn't what set the Spiritist off. I didn't hear Meredith, only Tilly screeching. It was when I said I arrived on horseback, alone, that the Spiritist said I was lying."

  Conrad smoothed his beard. "The 'alone' part? You showed up with Tilly."

  Gunnar sighed. "Aye, but I made sure they knew you and Rhys weren't there." He looked down. "I also told them Rhys became insubordinate. I recommended his transfer to another master."

  "You said what?" Rhys walked toward him. "The Spiritist said it was a lie, didn't they?"

  "No. I knew you hid Meredith from me, and I also feel you'd be better off with someone else." He walked over and sat on one of the bunk beds near Tilly and Rhys.

  Rhys stared at him. "Kat, can you help Gunnar?"

  She frowned. "What?"

  "Imbue some sanity back in this guy. I love working at the stable, Gunnar, how do you not know that? If putting up with your weird moods and going on misadventures with girls is my punishment, then so be it." He raised the back of his hand to his forehead. "I accept my fate."

  I couldn't help but laugh.

  Kat and Leyla joined me in their ways.

  Rhys beamed. "This does mean I'm off the hook with the Order for now. Does that get us anywhere, Conrad?"

  "It's possible." His voice gave away his amusement.

  Kat sat beside Gunnar and put her hand on his leg.

  He sighed and picked it up in his.

  I pressed close to Kepi. Mother's coat smelt of faint dust and the staleness of storage. This moment was so long in the making. "Eda?"

  "Yes?"

  I sat next to her and Leyla at the table.

  The others went on in their conversation across the room.

  "I need to study the scroll to see if there is a way to draw a soul, or part of one, from a phylactery disk."

  She indicated the lead case on the floor. "Of course, but tell me, how would retrieving a soul help you?"

  Kepi laid down on the table by the pillar candles.

  "You remember what I said about your family helping her make a pendant?" I reached out and picked up the charm.

  Eda hummed and waited.

  "I, well, to keep a secret, even from yourself, we have to forget."

  She folded a hand around her wrist. "We must be willing to lose part of ourselves if we wish to forget." Her expression sharpened from forlorn to quizzical. "A willing donor, just as how an Apex imbues. The charm?"

  "I think it holds a shard of my mother, not her magic, her memory."

  Conrad joined us.

  I said, "Her voice says, 'remember' when I touch it."

  He raised one eyebrow. "So then, Sybil was wrong. It isn't the key to the office. It's the key to the Counterbalance." He laughed. "Right under her nose."

  "Philomena hid all this to protect her," I said. "Sybil can't get to the Counterbalance first."

  He grew stern and whispered, "I know you know of Meredith's family, Eda."

  "I do." She turned to me. "The thirteenth, she's at the Counterbalance."

  "And she isn't there to greet people." I pulled out my mother's journal and showed them the long, night sky feather.

  He leaned forward on the table. "The council likely doesn't know the danger they sent Sybil into."

  Eda said, "Perhaps at least one of them does. I worry the timing of Ansgar's abduction coming as both Sybil and Travere are out of the city is no coincidence."

  "My sister will know who's orchestrating everything," I said. "And, well, I think there is something else at the Counterbalance, too."

  "What would this be?" said Eda.

  "After I saw the Maw and its Capstone seal, I realized the Apex sphere worked as a counterbalance for the cone and pillars."

  Conrad narrowed his eyes. "So the Grand Counterbalance is there for another reason? Philomena's notes confirm it is real, correct?"

  "She hid my sister there. I'm sure it is a real place."

  "Real enough." Eda rotated one of her monocles. "It could not be only to hide her."

  "To balance the Maw?" Leyla said.

  Eda and Conrad's faces became blank, speechless.

  I said, "The Apex sphere is static because of the balance with the Abyss cone and pillars. In theory, the Maw is massively Abyss charged. There's only one way to balance it."

  "Apex." Eda pressed her hands on the table. "Philomena opened a path there twice, but we only saw it once, when Odion came, not when Kepi arrived."

  Conrad ever so slightly shook his head. "Given that, she made the Counterbalance before both the Maw and the Capstone seal."

  Kepi hopped onto the tabletop and cooed.

  We all looked at her for a little while.

  Eda said, "Philomena knew you would need not only the skill but determination and the knowledge to retrieve this memory. Why else ensure Kepi does not guide you? And I mean not only to the Counterbalance but through this whole journey?"

  Kepi sighed and cooed as if she said, "Finally."

  Conrad nodded, but his eyes went to Thirteen's feather. "But why and how did Philomena ensure the Maw stayed, to secure the Counterbalance to protect this Thirteen? Who are you two?" He glanced over his shoulder at Tilly. "You three."

  Eda appeared surprised for the first time. She searched her necklace for the proper monocle and set it over her left eye. "Please, let us read over our family's notes and the scroll. We shall learn how to find your sister."

  Conrad looked at the bars on the door.

  It wouldn't be long before the Order found us.

  25 - Rediscovered

  Wax pooled around each candle in the middle of our table.

  The creak from my chair broke the quiet in the room. The only noise was the heavy, slow breaths from Kat and Gunnar asleep in a bunk.

  Rhys slept leaned against Odion with Tilly's head on his lap.

  Leyla, Eda, and I continued to study as Conrad went over some of his last reports from his hunters. We went over Leyla's father's project journal as well. Note slips placed by Eda long ago marked pages of interest.

  I compared those and my mother's journal against information on the phylactery scroll.

  The candlelight played on my sister's feather as I twirled it.

  Eda hovered her fingers over my mother's writing. She turned back a few pages and never lifted her eyes.

  I marked where Lord Voclain spoke of my mother, of her necklace, the Apexials, the Chimeras, and, of course, of Leyla.

  His words led me to believe he would have never hurt her for his gain, even indirectly. He seemed to think of ways to avoid any negative impact on their baby from every angle before he acted.

  Lady Voclain's notes went to her family in the East. I wished we had them.

  I examined the scroll again. Whoever wrote this designed the phylactery as a prison for an eternal sentence. Apexists could not pull the souls. Nor could an Abyssist drain them. The disk protected, no, insulated the soul from direct detection or manipulation like a steel scroll case with no lid. Once the Apexist jailer drew the soul from the condemned via the guidance of a Spiritist, that was it.

  So that made sense for the Voclains and the postformation process.

  My mother only forged the bodies, the phylacteries they called Chimeras.

  I knew I missed something, but as was the nature of something unknown, I couldn't find it.

  I went back to Conr
ad's question: who we were. First, was Tilly large enough to house a complete human soul?

  I scratched away at a piece of parchment.

  So furiously, Eda said, "Have you found something?"

  "This passage speaks about the proper size of the vessel. This formula here." I pointed with the back of my pen. "The circumference of the disk and density of the metal used both matters." I pushed my hair back and stood over the scroll. "So, a soul has volume requirements." I looked at Tilly. "Even though she is the smallest, her blood is more complex than the others; this might be its own kind of density."

  "For a more complex soul." Eda took off her monocle. "I believe we know the moment our families began to question their work."

  I licked my teeth and took a sip of tea. "I don't know. Then, whomever we're up against, learned to move a soul without a Spiritist. They wouldn't have framed your family otherwise."

  "Perhaps this other person had no alternative?" She set the journal down. "Yet no, this same person helped make Thirteen, so why not the others?"

  I glanced at Leyla, who only listened.

  Eda folded her hands.

  I sat down, the cup still in hand. "The scroll says no one can retrieve the souls within the phylacteries. Maybe it's why someone wanted a living vessel. You kill us. You free the soul."

  "There was no need to make a human form then." Eda frowned at the ceiling.

  "You said your sister transferred the chicken souls as they killed them. The scroll says a Spiritist has to guide the process. I haven't found why, or what they do."

  "My brother must have helped locate the soul before it left this world and coalesced it as a donating invoker concentrates the Anima for an Apexist to imbue. If a soul has volume, it must be collected. As water runs with no container, or the wind blows."

  I set my cup down.

  Kepi scratched and jiggled the poms on her necklace and the charm.

  I said, "What else could catch a soul?"

  Conrad put his paper down. "A web."

  "Metal is a liquid as water is to wind," said Eda.

  We all looked sidelong at Eda, but I understood. Everything was permeable to a Weaver. "A Spiritist can sense a soul's location, find it for the Apexist. The primary Anima of a soul must be Spirit."