I jerk to a stop.
Kai slams into my back, and I hold up a hand to silence her. The door to Lyon’s old office hangs open. Instinct makes me draw a breath, desperate for any clue to what might wait for us inside. But all I smell is plaster dust and my own sweat.
I creep closer. Kai’s bow no longer rattles, and I glance back to see she has her weapon already drawn. Hugging the wall, I peer inside. The hinges whine as I nudge the door open wider.
Kai lowers her bow. My breath punches out of me as the red light of the hall washes over the room.
I step into the smell of chalk dust and the faint remnants of Lyon’s cologne. The orb and its bronze pedestal are gone. His desk lies on its side, the drawers emptied and their contents strewn. The spines of his favorite books are splayed wide, their pages torn, tossed in piles on the floor.
I turn his chair upright. Broken glass crackles under my feet. The shards are curved and thick, and I sink down into the chair with my head in my hands, staring at the remains of the shattered orb.
My smaze is gone.
How much had Doug seen in Lyon’s and Gaia’s eyes before he killed them? Did Doug break the orb while they were ransacking the room searching for something else, or did he know the smaze in the orb was mine? I rock back in the chair, my throat thick, as I imagine all the things Doug could have done with it.
“We should go,” Kai says gently, her tone less urgent than before, as if she knows how close I am to breaking. As if she understands a piece of me died the minute I walked into this room. “We can go back and hide in the catacombs until we figure out what to do.” She touches my shoulder.
I lift my head, giving myself one last look at the room. A reflection above Lyon’s desk catches my eye, the wink of light on glass over the faded poster of Cuernavaca that always reminded me of Fleur. I spent countless hours sitting in this chair staring at it over the past three decades. It’s always hung in the same spot, the adhesive so old, it may as well have been cemented to the wall. Strange that Lyon suddenly decided to frame it.
The leather groans as I rise to my feet, remnants of the orb crunching beneath them as I cross the room and pluck the frame from the wall. I hold it in both hands, my eyes tracing its edges. Kai gasps as I smash it against the wall.
Glass rains over my shoes. Shaking the loose shards from the frame, I lay it facedown across the arms of the chair, peeling back the edges of the poster inside. A folded piece of paper is taped to the matting. I set the frame on the floor, unfolding Lyon’s letter as I drop into his chair.
Jack,
If you’re reading this, then the worst has come to pass. I’ve always tried not to put too much stake in fate. I had hoped things might work out differently, and yet if you’re here, it seems my efforts to shift the tide were unsuccessful, making this moment inevitable. My only regret was not having the chance to see you one last time, to tell you how much you’ve come to mean to me. There are so many things I wish I could have explained. Letting you go hasn’t been easy. I can only hope, in the end, it was the right thing to do.
Do not mourn Gaia or me. Remember, we are only matter in a closed system, incapable of being created or destroyed. We are simply changed, from one form to another. Believe me when I tell you I am still here, in every lesson and every conversation we’ve ever shared. Hold fast to those talks, as I have while I sit before the empty chair you occupied on so many occasions, your energy so very much alive in this room as I write this final farewell to you.
Not long ago, I made you an oath. I swore I would protect you. That I would keep you safe should you ever feel a need to return here and find yourself. I’ve done all I can to honor that promise.
A piece of each of us lives on here in the Observatory, Jack.
Go back to your beginnings for the answers you seek. Find those missing pieces. Breathe deeply and remember the lion that you are, but be mindful: broken teeth can be sharper than we realize. Take care not to harm those closest to you.
With gratitude for all you’ve given me and hope for all I’ve seen in you,
Professor Daniel Lyon
“Jack, the Guards could patrol this hall any minute. We have to go.” Kai peers through a crack in the door, bouncing on her heels, but I can’t stop staring at Lyon’s note.
The note. The travel vouchers. The request he made of Kai . . .
Lyon knew. He knew this exact moment might happen. Had known long enough that he had tried to change it, all the while making contingency plans in case he failed. He knew that I would come here. That I would sit in this very chair, ankle deep in broken glass, mourning his loss, searching for Fleur while Doug ransacks the Observatory, taking lives and stealing souls, probably wearing my smaze like a goddamn trophy.
Lyon knew, and he planned, and he never told me.
I read the note again, my brow crumpling over his words.
Breathe deeply, he tells me, and remember the lion that you are. But I’ve never felt more powerless than I do right now.
I swore I would protect you. That I would keep you safe . . . I’ve done all I can to honor that promise.
How the hell has he honored that? How could he possibly think it was safe to leave a piece of my soul vulnerable in this room? I crumple the note and pitch it at his toppled desk. He knew the havoc Doug would wreak on this place. So why did he leave the orb here, my soul and magic trapped and exposed, where Doug was sure to find it? Why not hide my smaze, too?
I bury my head in my hands, elbows on my knees, staring at the chaos on the floor. The room looks like a tornado rolled through it.
I lift my head.
Bending to retrieve a curved shard, I hold the piece of the orb in front of me.
Letting you go hasn’t been easy. I can only hope, in the end, it was the right thing to do.
Ignoring the sting, I drop to my knees in the glass and sift through the debris.
“Jack,” Kai whispers, “what are you doing?”
I turn over books and papers, shove aside a fallen lamp. “It’s not here.” Hope swells inside me as Lyon’s message begins to make sense.
“Whatever you’re looking for, Doug probably destroyed it. And if any of his Guards find us in here, we’re definitely going to be next!”
I push aside empty drawers and Lyon’s scattered files. “Not the orb. The pedestal. The pedestal is missing.” The bronze stand that held up my orb . . . I don’t see it anywhere. If Doug had shattered the orb, the stand would be here.
With an impatient huff, Kai peels herself from the doorframe and gets down on her knees a few feet away from me. Glass tinkles and papers shuffle. “Please tell me why we’re risking our lives searching for a glorified cake stand.”
“Because I don’t think it’s here.”
Kai stops rummaging. She crouches on the other side of the desk, gaping at me as she brushes her sweaty hair back with her sleeve. “And this makes sense how?”
“I don’t think Doug shattered the orb. I think Lyon did.” Even if Lyon couldn’t see beyond his own death in the staff, he had to know the Observatory would crumble under Doug—that the entire place would fall into chaos. It’s easy to conceal something in a mess. “I think he shattered the orb and set my smaze free, then hid the stand so Doug wouldn’t know what he was looking at when he got around to searching in here. If my smaze is free, I can still find it.”
And once I do, I’ll be strong enough to get Fleur and Chill out of here.
Kai disappears behind the desk. A soft creak is followed by a hollow thud. “Whoa,” she whispers.
“What is it?” I round the desk. Kai’s bent over a square cut into the floor, the hinged wooden panel resting open beside her.
“A hidden passage.” She turns on her flashlight and shines it into the hole. “This must connect to Gaia’s suite.”
“Why would you think that?”
She stills, her mouth opening and closing again as she shrugs. “Just . . . you know . . . rumors. After Gaia and Lyon fled the Observ
atory during the rebellion, people talked. If they really were secretly in love, plotting to be together for years, they must have had a way to be together without Michael knowing, right? I bet this was it.” She turns back to the passage too quickly, as if she’s uncomfortable meeting my eyes. She leans down into the hole, one hand braced on the lip, the other holding her light. Her hand slips off the edge, and I grab the back of her jeans before she goes tumbling through the opening. Papers crunch under my fist as I haul her upright.
“What’s this?” I ask, catching the thick stack of folded sheets as they slip from her back pocket.
“Nothing.” She reaches around me, desperate to get it back. But she’s too short and my arms are too long, and in a second, I have the folded papers peeled open. At first, I can’t make sense of the sketch—a cross cuts through the middle of the page, each cardinal point snaking off the edge of the paper. The perfectly straight lines bisect a labyrinth of softer curving, forking ones. Tunnels. Dozens of them. Swirled with narrow sets of hidden circular stairs, all labeled in Lyon’s handwriting.
“This is a map of the catacombs.” My eyes dart over Lyon’s neatly printed markings. The paper is thin, the ink faded with age and the creases worn. “Where did you get this?”
“It’s mine,” she says, still reaching for it. “Lyon gave it to me.”
“When?”
“A long time ago. Give it back!”
I hold it higher, out of her reach, the light from the hallway shining through the paper, revealing other faint markings. A second piece of paper clings to its folds, and I peel the pages apart. This second map is familiar, full of landmarks I recognize. The Crux at its center, the Control Room below the east wing. The Hall of Records below the west. And to the north and northeast, two expansive apartments, one labeled “Chronos’s Suite” and the other “Gaia’s.”
A thin dotted line connects Gaia’s apartment to a space below the Winter wing, close to where we’re standing. I hold the two maps together against the light, overlapping their creases until they’re perfectly aligned. Four lines disappear off each end of the page, one in each wing, marked “emergency escape routes.”
“This is how you found your way out when you ran from Doug,” I say, tracing the exits. These were the tunnels I spent years searching for—the ones Lyon caught me looking for and knew I was desperate to find. “Why didn’t you tell me you had a map?” For that matter, why hadn’t Lyon?
I tip the page, angling it to read Lyon’s markings and notations. Directly under the Control Room, a stairwell opens into a corridor flanked with nearly a dozen small square rooms. Holding cells.
I turn to face her, keenly aware of the bow at her back. “You told me you had no idea where Doug was keeping Fleur. Why would you keep this from me?”
She eases away from me, one hand poised to reach for her quiver. Her eyes are wide, her cheeks streaked with cavern filth. Lyon trusted Kai. Trusted her enough to give her a map he hadn’t even shared with me. Why? What else were they hiding from me?
“Who were you to him?”
“Someone who could help you.”
“Before or after you shot me?” She flinches as I back her into a corner. “Who were you to him when he gave you this map?”
Her heel connects with the wall. “I was lost, like you! I was alone and scared, and I just wanted to be with my sister. Lyon gave me the map, and I thought he could help us, but I was wrong.”
Her admission feels thin, like she’s hiding something. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing.” Her sigh is shaky, like she’s trying not to cry. “I screwed up. Lyon gave me this map because he trusted me. I broke that trust when I joined the Guard. And now I’m trying to fix it. I’m trying to help you. That’s all.”
“If you were trying to help me, why didn’t you tell me about the map?”
“Because I didn’t trust you not to take it and ditch me. And I need you to help me find my sister.”
She didn’t tell me about the holding cells because she wanted me to take her to Boreas, so she could find her sister first. Her sister, who tried to murder my friends for a bounty. “Good luck with that.” I fold the map into my pocket and turn for the door. Lyon kept things from me. Kai kept things from me. The only person I trust right now is myself.
“Wait,” she cries, rushing after me. “You still need me. I can still help you.”
“Thanks, but I think I can navigate this place on my own.”
“You’re a fool if you think you can take Doug down by yourself.”
“Believe me, you’re the last person I want watching my back.”
“Because you don’t need a spotter, right?”
“Right.”
“That’s bullshit. If you really believed all that, you’d be forced to admit that Fleur doesn’t need you.” I jolt to a stop as those words slide deep under my skin. “Everyone needs someone to look out for them, Jack. Even you. I can help you find her. And if your magic is down here, I can help you find that, too.”
My fists flex at my sides. Maybe it’s this room. The smell of it. Maybe it’s that hole in the floor or his damn leather chair. Maybe it’s his letter in my pocket, all those carefully chosen words so fresh in my mind. But I can practically feel Lyon’s presence here. I know exactly what he would say. He’d tell me to take help where I can find it, to take others’ strength when it’s offered. That there’s a reason he gave her this map all those years ago and never gave it to me. That there’s a reason he never told Kai what happened to Névé. I just haven’t figured it out yet.
Glancing up at the empty space on the wall where Lyon’s poster used to hang, I whisper, “You’d better be right about this,” hoping a part of him is still here. That a part of me is still here. And that somehow, we’ll be able to find it in time.
35
Trusting Feathers and Inward Fire
FLEUR
I dress quickly, zipping on a fresh jumpsuit and dragging one of Gaia’s wool sweaters over my head, uncertain how much time I have left alone. I remove the key card from the pocket of the bathrobe without looking at it and tuck it inside my sock, concealing it against the sole of my foot. I slipped it from Doug’s coat pocket as he knelt beside me in the shower. All I have to do is find a way out of his suite and come up with a plan.
Doug’s mastered the basics—feeling his way past boundaries, stretching his mind inside a plant as deeply as it will go until the connection to the host is deep and stable. Like sliding his fingers into a snug leather driving glove, any movement the hand makes, the glove is sure to follow.
I didn’t think he’d learn so fast. I thought I’d have more time. Now that he’s had a chance to practice, it won’t be long before he tries to take Gaia’s magic again. If he fails like he did before, he’s likely to bring the entire Observatory down on our heads. And if he succeeds? Assuming the magic doesn’t tear him apart first, the next thing he’ll do is go after Jack. I can’t let that happen.
A door slams in the living room. I pause, hand braced on the foot of the bed, the other sock pulled halfway over my foot, listening for voices outside. I drag up the sock, cracking open the door to find the living room empty. Doug’s jacket is gone from the arm of the couch.
I nearly trip in my hurry to fish the key card from my sock as I race to the door. I wave it over the sensor, but the light doesn’t turn green. I swipe again. Not even a blink. I tear through the apartment, searching drawers and cabinets, behind picture frames and TV monitors, unsure what I’m looking for. How would Jack get out?
I stand on a chair and rattle a vent on the wall, but even if I could get it open, it’s too small to fit through.
A shiver crawls over the back of my neck. Another creeps up my pant leg.
I yelp as I whirl around. A smaze hovers in the air right in front of me.
“You,” I whisper. “What are you doing here?”
The little dark cloud twists and rolls, spinning in circles as if it’s trying to g
et my attention. It flies past me into the living room, then doubles back, only to zip away again, as if it wants me to follow.
It hovers beside the credenza.
“What? I don’t understand.”
The smaze stretches itself thin, diving behind the cabinet and popping out again. It lingers there, watching me. Then it slides back between the cabinet and the wall until it feels like we’re playing a game of charades.
“Look, I don’t have time for hide-and-go . . .” Seek.
It wants me to find something.
I lean over the credenza, but it’s snug against the wall and I can’t see anything through the narrow space behind it. Grabbing one side, I heft it a few inches. A large metal grate is screwed to the wall—an intake vent, big enough to fit through. When I turn around, the smaze is gone.
Heart racing, I lean my shoulder against the cabinet and push. The plush carpet fights me, but I manage to shove it out far enough to wedge myself into the gap.
Screwdriver. I need a flathead screwdriver. Or a knife. Or a letter opener.
I run to the antique secretary in the bedroom, but it’s been emptied of anything sharp. I try the bathroom, flinging open cabinets and drawers, frantically unzipping a small leather grooming kit. The scissors are conspicuously gone, but the dull metal nail file might do the trick.
My hands shake as I fit the file into the groove in the head of one of the screws. The file slips and my knuckles graze the edge of the grate. I try again, managing to loosen all four screws until the grate slides away from the wall. The air inside the duct is musty and cold. I crawl in on hands and knees, wondering how I’ll navigate the ventilation system once I’m deeper inside, when the light trickling in from the apartment finally fades behind me. I’d give anything for a transmitter right now—to hear Jack’s voice in my ear, telling me where to go and how to find him.
My startled yelp echoes when I come face-to-face with a ghostly shadow.
The smaze darts ahead, waiting for me at the end of the first turn.
Seasons of Chaos Page 21
