The Dark Vault

by Victoria Schwab

  “Wes is the closest thing I have to a partner,” I say, running my fingers over his jacket until I find the collapsed bˉo staff. “And you’re killing him.”

  I drag myself to my feet, vision blurring as I stand. With a flick of my wrist, the staff expands. It gives me something to hold on to.

  “You can’t hurt me, Miss Bishop,” Carmen says with a withering look. “You think I’m here by choice? You think anyone would give up a life in the Outer for this place? They wouldn’t. They don’t.”

  And for the first time I notice the scratches on her arms, the cut on her cheek. Each mark is little more than a thin, bloodless line.

  “You’re dead.”

  “Histories are records of the dead,” she says. “But yes, we’re all Histories here.” She comes toward me, blocking my path to the doors and the rest of the Archive. “Appalling, isn’t it? Think about it: Patrick, Lisa—even your Roland. No one told you.”

  I ignore my lurching stomach. “When did you die?”

  “Right after Regina. Owen was so broken without his sister, and so angry at the Archive. I just wanted to see him smile again. I thought Regina would help. In the end, he made such a mess, I couldn’t save him.” And then her green eyes widen. “But I knew I could bring him back.”

  “Then why did you wait so long?”

  She closes in. “You think I wanted to? You think I didn’t miss him every day? I had to transfer branches, had to wait for them to forget, to lose track of me, and then”—her eyes narrow—“I had to wait for a Keeper to take over the Coronado. Someone young, impressionable. Someone Owen could use.”

  Use. The word crawls over my skin.

  The crashing of the Archive mounts behind her, and she glances back. “Amazing how easy it is to make a little noise.”

  In that moment, when she looks away, I make a run for the doors. I push as hard as I can before her hand grabs my arm and she wrenches me backward to the stone floor. The doors open, chaos and noise flooding in, but before I can get up, Carmen is straddling me, holding the staff across my throat.

  “Where. Is. Owen?” she asks.

  A few feet away, Wesley groans. I can’t reach him.

  “Please,” I gasp.

  “Don’t worry,” says Carmen. “It’ll be over soon, and then he’ll come back. The Archive doesn’t let you go. You serve until you die, and when you do, they wake you on your shelf and they give you a choice, a one-time offer. Either you get up and work, or they close the drawer on you forever. Not much of a choice, is it?” She presses down on the staff. “Can’t you see why Owen hates this place so much?”

  Over her shoulder and through the doors I can see people. I get my fingers between the pole and my throat, and shout for help before Carmen cuts me off.

  “Tell me what you’ve done with Owen,” she orders.

  People are coming through the doors, past the desk, but Carmen doesn’t see, because all of her fear and anger and attention is focused on me.

  “I sent him home,” I say. And then I manage to get my foot between us and kick, and Carmen stumbles back into Patrick and Roland.

  “What the hell?” growls Patrick as they wrestle her arms behind her back.

  “He’ll come back,” she shrieks as they force her to her knees. “He would never leave me here—” Her eyes go wide as the life goes out of them. The Librarians let go, and she crumples to the floor with the sickening sound of dead weight. Patrick’s key, gleaming and gold, is clutched in his grip.

  I cough, gasping for breath as the room fills with sound—not just the chaos of the Archive pouring in through the doors, but with people shouting.

  “Patrick! Hurry!”

  I turn to see Lisa and two other Librarians kneeling over Wesley. He’s not moving. I can’t look at his body, so I look through the doors at the Archive, at the people hurrying about, barricading doors, making so much noise.

  I hear Patrick ask, “Is there a pulse?”

  My hands won’t stop shaking.

  “It’s slowing. You have to hurry.”

  I feel like I should be breaking down, but there’s nothing left of me to break.

  “He’s lost so much blood.”

  “Get him up, quickly.”

  A Librarian I’ve never met takes me by the elbow, guides me to the front desk and a chair. I slip into it. She has a deep scratch on her collar. There’s no blood. I close my eyes. I know I’m hurt but I can’t feel it anymore.

  “Miss Bishop.” I blink and find Roland kneeling beside my chair.

  “Who are all those people?” I ask, focusing on the crumbling world beyond the antechamber.

  “They work for the Archive. Some are Librarians. Some are higher up. They’re trying to contain the disruption.”

  Another deafening crash.

  “Mackenzie…” Roland grips the arm of the chair. There’s blood on his hands. Wesley’s. “You have to tell me what happened.”

  I do. I tell him everything. And when I’m done, he says, “You should go home.”

  I look at the slick of red on the floor. Behind my eyes I see Wes collapsing on the roof, see him storming away, see him sitting on the floor outside Angelli’s, teaching me to float, hunting with me, read-ing to me, draped over a wrought iron chair, showing me the gardens, leaning in the hall in the middle of the night with his crooked smile.

  “I can’t lose Wes,” I whisper.

  “Patrick will do everything he can.”

  I look back at Wes’s body. It’s gone. Carmen’s body is gone. Patrick is gone. I look down at my hands. Dried blood is flaking from my palms. I blink, focus on Roland. His red Chucks and his gray eyes and that accent I could never place.

  “Is it true?” I ask.

  “Is what true?” asks Roland.

  “That all Librarians…that you’re dead?”

  Roland’s face sinks.

  “How long have you been…” I trail off. What word do I even want? Dead? We’re trained to think of a History as something other, something less than a person, but how could Roland ever be less?

  He smiles sadly. “I was about to retire.”

  “You mean, go back to being dead.” He nods. I shudder. “There’s an empty shelf here with your name and dates?”

  “There is. And it was beginning to sound nice. But then I got called in to this meeting. An induction ceremony. Some crazy old man and his granddaughter.” He stands, guides me up beside him. “And I don’t regret it. Now, go home.”

  Roland walks me toward the Archive door. A man I don’t know comes over and begins to speak to him in hushed, hurried tones.

  He tells him that the Archive is hemorrhaging, but more staff have been called in from other branches. Sections are still being sealed off to stem the flow. Almost half of the standard stacks had to be sealed. Red stacks and Special Collections were spared.

  Roland asks and confirms that Ben and Da are safe.

  The Crew appears, the cocky smiles from the trial replaced by grim, tired frowns. They report that the Coronado has been contained. No casualties. Two Histories made it out, but both are being pursued.

  I ask about Wesley.

  They tell me I’ll be summoned when they know.

  They tell me to go home.

  I ask again about Wesley.

  They tell me again to go home.

  THIRTY-TWO

  THE DAY YOU DIE, you tell me I have a gift.

  The day you die, you tell me I am a natural.

  The day you die, you tell me I am strong enough.

  The day you die, you tell me it will be okay.

  None of that is true.

  In the years and months and days before, you teach me everything I know. But the day you die, you don’t say anything.

  You flick away your cigarette, put your hollow cheek against my hair and keep it there until I began to think you’ve gone to sleep. Then you straighten and look me in the eye, and I know in that moment that you are going to be gone when I wake up.

 
There is a note on my desk the next morning, pinned beneath your key. But the note is blank, save for the mark of the Archive. Mom is in the kitchen, crying. Dad, for once, is home from the school and sitting by her. As I press my ear to my bedroom door, trying to hear over my pulse, I wish that you had said something. It would have been nice, to have words to cling to, like all those other times.

  I lie awake for years and re-imagine that good-bye, rewrite that note, and instead of the heavy quiet, or the three lines, you tell me exactly what I need to hear, what I need to know, in order to survive this.

  Every night I have the same bad dream.

  I’m on the roof, trapped in the circle of gargoyles, their claws and arms and broken wings holding me in a cage of stone. Then the air in front of me shivers, ripples, and the void door takes shape, spreading across the sky like blood until it’s there, solid and dark. It has a handle, and the handle turns, and the door opens, and Owen Chris Clarke stands there with his haunted eyes and his wicked knife. He steps down to the concrete roof, and the stone demons tighten their grip as he comes toward me.

  “I will set you free,” he says just before he buries the knife in my chest, and I wake up.

  Every night I have that dream, and every night I end up on the roof, checking the air in the circle of demons for signs of a door. There is almost no mark of the void I made; nothing but the faintest ripple, like a crack in the world; and when I close my eyes and press my hands against the space, they always go straight through.

  Every night I have that dream, and every day I check my list for signs of a summons. Both sides of the paper are blank, and have been since the incident, and by the third day I’m so scared that the list is broken that I dig out a pen and write a note, not caring who finds it.

  Please update.

  I watch the words dissolve into the page.

  No one answers.

  I ask again. And again. And again. And every time I’m met with silence and blank space. Panic chews through my battered body. As my bruises lighten, my fear gets worse. I should have heard by now. I should have heard.

  On the third morning, Dad asks about Wes, and my throat closes up. I can barely make it through a feeble lie. And so when, at the end of the third day, a summons finally writes itself across my paper…

  I drop everything and go.

  I tug my ring off and pull the Crew key from my pocket—Owen took my Keeper key with him into the void—and slide it into the lock on my bedroom door. A deep breath, a turn to the left, and I step through into the Archive.

  The branch is still recovering, most of the doors still closed; but the chaos has subsided, the noise diminished to a dull, steady din, like a cooling engine. I’m not even over the threshold when I open my mouth to ask about Wes. But then I look up, and the question catches in my throat.

  Roland and Patrick are standing behind the desk, and in front of it is a woman in an ivory coat. She is tall and slim, with red hair and creamy skin and a pleasant face. A sharp gold key hangs on a black ribbon around her throat, and she’s wearing a pair of black fitted gloves. There is something calm about her that clashes with the lingering noise of the damaged Archive.

  The woman takes a fluid step forward.

  “Miss Bishop,” she says with a warm smile, “my name is Agatha.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  AGATHA, THE ASSESSOR.

  Agatha, the one who decides if a Keeper is fit to serve, or if they should be dismissed. Erased. Her expression is utterly unreadable, but the stern look on Patrick’s face is clear, as is the fear in Roland’s eyes. I suddenly feel like the room is filled with broken glass and I’m supposed to walk across it.

  “Thank you for coming,” she says. “I know you’ve been through a lot recently, but we need to talk—”

  “Agatha,” says Roland. There is a pleading in his tone. “I really think we should leave this—”

  “Your parental sense is admirable.” Agatha gives a small, coaxing smile. “But if Mackenzie doesn’t mind…”

  “I don’t mind at all,” I say, mustering a calm I don’t feel.

  “Lovely,” says Agatha, turning her attention to Roland and Patrick. “You’re both excused. Surely you’ve got your hands full right now.”

  Patrick leaves without looking at me. Roland hesitates, and I beg him with a look for news of Wes, but it goes unanswered as he retreats into the Archive and closes the doors behind him.

  “You’ve had quite an exciting few days,” says Agatha. “Sit.”

  I do. She sits down behind the desk.

  “Before we begin, I believe you have a key you shouldn’t have. Please place it on the desk.”

  I stiffen. There’s only one way out of the Archive—the door at my back—and it requires a key. I force myself to take Da’s old Crew key from my pocket and set it on the desk between us. It takes all my strength to withdraw my hand and leave the key there.

  Agatha folds her hands and nods approvingly.

  “You don’t know anything about me, Miss Bishop,” she says, which isn’t true. “But I know about you. It’s my job. I know about you, and about Owen, and about Carmen. And I know you’ve discovered a lot about the Archive. Most of which we’d rather you’d learned in due course. You must have questions.”

  Of course I have questions. I have nothing but questions. And it feels like a trap to ask, but I have to know.

  “A friend of mine was wounded by one of the Histories involved in the recent attacks. Do you know what happened to him?”

  Agatha offers an indulgent smile. “Wesley Ayers is alive.”

  These are the four greatest words I’ve ever heard.

  “It was close,” she adds. “He’s still recovering. But your loyalty is touching.”

  I try to soothe my frayed nerves. “I’ve heard it’s an important quality in Crew.”

  “Loyal and ambitious,” she notes. “Anything else you want to ask?”

  The gold key glints on its black ribbon, and I hesitate.

  “For instance,” she prompts cheerfully, “I imagine you’re wondering why we keep the origin of the Librarians a secret. Why we keep so many things a secret.”

  Agatha has a dangerous ease about her. She’s the kind of person you want to like you. I don’t trust it at all, but I nod.

  “The Archive must be staffed,” she says. “There must always be Keepers in the Narrows. There must always be Crew in the Outer. And there must always be Librarians in the Archive. It is a choice, Mackenzie, do know that. It’s simply a matter of when the choice is given.”

  “You wait until they’re dead,” I say, straining to keep the contempt from my voice. “Wake them on their shelves when they can’t say no.”

  “Won’t, Mackenzie, is a very different thing from can’t.” She sits forward in her chair. “I’ll be honest with you. I think you deserve a bit of honesty. Keepers worry about being Keepers, and rest assured that they’ll learn about being Crew if and when the time comes. Crew worry about being Crew, and rest assured that they’ll learn about being Librarians if and when the time comes. We’ve found that the easiest way to keep people focused is to give them one thing to focus on. The question is, given the influx of distraction, will you be able to continue focusing?”

  She’s asking me, but I know my fate doesn’t lie in my decision. It lies in hers. I’m a loose thread. Owen is gone. Carmen is gone. But I’m here. And even after everything, or maybe because of everything, I need to remember. I don’t want to be erased. I don’t want to have the Archive cut out of my life. I don’t want to die. My hands start shaking, so I hold them beneath the edge of the table.

  “Mackenzie?” nudges Agatha.

  There’s only one thing I can do, and I’m not sure I can pull it off, but I don’t have a choice. I smile. “My mother says there’s nothing that a hot shower can’t fix.”

  Agatha laughs a soft, perfect laugh. “I can see why Roland fights for you.”

  She stands, circles the desk, one hand brushing its sur
face.

  “The Archive is a machine,” she says. “A machine whose purpose is to protect the past. To protect knowledge.”

  “Knowledge is power,” I say. “That’s the saying, right?”

  “Yes. But power in the wrong hands, in too many hands, leads to danger and dissent. You’ve seen the damage caused by two.”

  I resist the urge to look away. “My grandfather used to say that every strong storm starts with a breeze.”

  She crosses behind me, and I curl my fingers around the seat of the chair, pain screaming through my wounded wrist.

  “He sounds like a very wise man,” she says. One hand comes to rest on the back of the chair.

  “He was,” I say.

  And then I close my eyes because I know this is it. I picture the gold key plunging through the chair, the metal burying itself in my back. I wonder if it will hurt, having my life hollowed out. I swallow hard and wait. But nothing happens.

  “Miss Bishop,” says Agatha, “secrets are an unpleasant necessity, but they have a place and a purpose here. They protect us. And they protect those we care about.” The threat is subtle but clear.

  “Knowledge is power,” she finishes, and I open my eyes to find her rounding the chair, “but ignorance can be a blessing.”

  “I agree,” I say, and then I find her gaze and hold it. “But once you know, you can’t go back. Not really. You can carve out someone’s memories, but they won’t be who they were before. They’ll just be full of holes. Given the choice, I’d rather learn to live with what I know.”

  The room around us settles into silence until, at last, Agatha smiles. “Let’s hope you’re making the right choice.” She pulls something from the pocket of her ivory coat and places it in my palm, closing my fingers over it with her gloved hand.

  “Let’s hope I am, too,” she says, her hand over mine. When she pulls away, I look down to find a Keeper’s key nestled there, lighter than the one Da gave me, and too new, but still a handle and a stem and teeth and, most of all, the freedom to go home.