The Dark Vault

by Victoria Schwab

  “The Archive is a prison,” he says calmly.

  He comes toward me, and I scramble to my feet and back away until I’m pressed up against the stone bodies. Their limbs jerk to life and shoot forward, grabbing my arms and legs, snaking around my waist. Every time I struggle the limbs tighten, my bones cracking under their grip. I bite back a scream.

  “But don’t worry.” Owen runs a hand over my head before tangling his fingers in my hair. “I will set you free.”

  He draws the flat side of the knife down my body, bringing the tip to rest between my ribs. He puts just enough weight on the blade to slice through my shirt and nick my skin, and I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to get away, trying to wake up, but the hand tangled in my hair tightens.

  “Open your eyes,” he warns.

  I drag them open and find his face inches from mine. “Why?” I growl. “So I can see the truth?”

  His smile sharpens. “No,” he says. “So I can watch the life go out of them.”

  And then he drives the knife forward into my chest.

  I sit up in the dark, one hand clutching at my shirt, the other pressed over my mouth to stifle the cry that’s already escaped. I know it’s a dream, but it is so terrifyingly real. My whole body aches from the fall and the gargoyles’ grip, and the place on my chest where the knife drove in burns with phantom pain.

  My face is damp, and I can’t tell if it’s from sweat or tears or both. The clock says twelve forty-five, and I draw up my knees and rest my head against them, taking a few slow, steadying breaths.

  A moment later, there is a knock on my door.

  “Mackenzie,” comes my father’s quiet voice. I look up as the door opens and I can see his outline in the light spilling from my parents’ bedroom into the hall behind him. He comes to sit on the edge of my bed, and I’m grateful to the dark for hiding whatever is written across my face right now.

  “What’s going on, hon?” he whispers.

  “Nothing,” I say. “Sorry if I woke you guys up. Just had a bad dream.”

  “Again?” he asks gently. We both know it’s been happening too often.

  “It’s no big deal,” I say, trying to keep my voice light.

  Dad tugs his glasses from his face and cleans them on his T-shirt. “You know what your Da used to tell me about bad dreams?”

  I know what Da used to tell me, but I doubt it’s the same thing he told my father, so I shake my head.

  “He used to tell me there were no bad dreams. Just dreams. That when we call them good or bad, we give importance to them. I know that doesn’t make it better, Mac. I know it’s easy to talk like that when you’re awake. But the fact is, dreams catch us with our armor off.”

  Not trusting myself to speak, I nod.

  “Do you want to…talk to someone about it?” He doesn’t mean talk to him or talk to Mom. He means a therapist. Like Colleen. But I’ve got more than enough people trying to get inside my head right now.

  “No. Really, I’m fine.”

  “You’re sure?”

  I nod again. “Trust me.”

  My heart sinks, because I can see in my father’s eyes that he wants to, but doesn’t. Da used to say that lies were easy, but trust was hard. Trust is like faith: it can turn people into believers, but every time it’s lost, trust becomes harder and harder to win back. I’ve spent the last four and a half years—since I became a Keeper—trying to cling to my parents’ trust, watching doubt replace it little by little. And doubt, Da warned, is like a current you have to swim against, one that saps your strength.

  “Well, if you change your mind…” he says, sliding to his feet.

  “I’ll let you know,” I say, watching him go.

  He’s right. I should talk to someone. But not Colleen.

  I listen to the sound of his receding steps after he’s closed the door, and to the murmur of my mother’s voice when he returns to their room. I let the whole apartment go quiet and dark, and only when I’m sure that they’re asleep do I get up, get dressed, and sneak out.

  I step into the Archive, and I shiver.

  My sleep hasn’t been the only thing affected by Owen and Carmen’s recent attack. The Archive has changed, too. It has always been marked by quiet, but where the lack of noise used to feel peaceful, now it feels coiled and tense. The silence is heavier, enforced by hushed voices and warning looks. The massive doors behind the antechamber’s desk have been pinned back like butterfly wings, held open to make sure that the newly installed sentinels have full visibility and immediate access to the atrium and the network of halls beyond. The two figures are the most striking addition—and the most loathsome. Dressed in solemn black, they flank the entrance to the Archive. The sentinels are Histories, like everyone else who works within the Archive walls; but unlike the Librarians, they wear no gold keys and do not seem fully awake.

  Roland told me that they’ve been implemented in every branch in his jurisdiction, though he himself had no say in the matter of their presence. The order for increased security came from over his head. I’m guessing that means it came from Agatha.

  Agatha, the assessor, who I haven’t seen again since the interrogation, but whose presence seems to haunt this place the way Owen’s haunts me.

  Roland wasn’t happy about it. As far as I can tell, no one was. The Librarians are not used to feeling watched. Agatha can claim the sentinels are there in case of another Owen; the fact is, they’re also there in case of another Carmen. It’s one thing to be betrayed by a known traitor. It’s another to be betrayed by someone you thought was a loyal servant.

  The sentinels’ eyes follow me as I step through into the antechamber.

  I force myself not to look at them. I don’t want them to see that they give me the creeps. Instead I focus on the desk and how relieved I am to see Lisa sitting there behind it with her black bob and her green horn-rimmed glasses. Lately it feels like a gamble every time I step through. Will I be met by Roland’s calm gray eyes or Lisa’s cautious smile, or will I be confronted with Patrick’s disapproving glare? Or will Agatha herself be waiting?

  But tonight, I’m lucky enough to have Lisa. Her head is bent forward over the Archive’s ledger, and I can’t help but wonder who she’s writing to. The book that always sits on the desk holds a page for every Keeper and every Crew in the branch, the partner to the paper in my pocket, and its thickness is a strange reminder that even though I often feel alone, I’m not. I’m only one page in a thick old book.

  Lisa stops writing and looks up long enough to see my tired eyes. The strain of the past few weeks shows in her eyes, too, the way they flick to the figures behind me before coming back to me. She gives me a nod and says only, “He’s in the atrium, toward the back.”

  Bless her for not making me stand there and state my business in front of the sentinels, who may look like statues, but no doubt hear and see everything that happens here and feed it all back to Agatha.

  I mouth the words thank you and round the desk, passing through the archway and into the atrium. The central room is still as grand as ever, the high, arching ceilings and stained glass of a church, broken by aisles of shelves instead of pews, ten halls branching off like spokes.

  I cross the vast hall in silence and find Roland tucked in between two aisles, his red Chucks a spot of color on the pale floors. His back is to me, head bowed as he looks over a folder. There’s tension in his shoulders, and I can tell from his stillness that he’s stopped scanning the page and is now staring past it, lost in thought.

  I’ve had four and a half years to study Roland’s postures and moods, ever since Da offered me into his care and he accepted. The constancy of him—his tall, thin, unchanging form—has always been a comfort, but now it’s also a reminder of what he is. The Archive tells us that Librarians don’t change as long as they’re here, their suspended age a trade for their time, their service. And up until a few weeks ago, I bought it. And then Carmen told me the truth: that Roland, along with every other Libraria
n who staffs the Archive, comes not from the Outer, but from the shelves here. That they are all Histories, those of past Keepers and Crew woken from their sleep to serve again. It’s still so hard for me to believe that he’s dead.

  “Miss Bishop?” he says without looking up. “You should be in bed.” His voice is soft, but even at a whisper I can hear the lilt in it. He closes the folder before turning toward me. His gray eyes travel over my face, and his brow furrows.

  “Still not sleeping?”

  I shrug. “Maybe I just wanted to tell you about my first day of school.”

  He hugs the folder to his chest. “How was it? Learn anything useful?”

  “I learned that Wesley Ayers goes there, too.”

  A raised brow. “I assumed you already knew that.”

  “Yeah, well…” I say, trailing off into a yawn.

  “How long has it been, Mackenzie?”

  “Since what?”

  “Since you slept,” he says, looking at me hard. “Really slept.”

  I run a hand through my hair and tally up the time since the rogue History of a deceased Crew member tricked me into trusting him, stole my key, threw me into a Returns room, stabbed Wesley, tried to kill me, and nearly succeeded (with a Librarian’s help) in tearing the entire branch of the Archive down. “Three weeks, two days, and six hours.”

  “Since Owen,” says Roland.

  I nod and echo, “Since Owen.”

  “It’s showing.”

  I cringe. I’m trying so hard, but I know he’s right. And if he can see it, Agatha could, too.

  My head starts to hurt.

  Roland cranes his neck, looking up at the stained glass that interrupts the highest part of the walls and trails like smoke onto the ceiling. The Archive is always bright, lit by some unseen source, but the shifting light beyond the windows is an illusion, a way to suggest change in a static world. Right now, the windows are dark, and I wonder if Roland sees something in them I don’t, because when his eyes sink back to mine he says, “We have some time.”

  “For what?” I ask, but he’s already walking away.

  “Follow me.”

  EIGHT

  I’M THIRTEEN, COVERED IN blood, and sitting cross-legged on a table in a sterile room. I’ve been a Keeper for less than six months, and this isn’t the first time I’ve landed in the medical wing of the Archive. Roland stands out of the way, arms crossed over his chest while Patrick prepares a cold pack.

  “He was twice my size,” I say, clutching a bloody cloth to my nose.

  “Isn’t everyone?” asks Patrick. He’s only been at the branch a couple weeks. He doesn’t like me very much.

  “You’re not helping,” says Roland.

  “I thought that’s exactly what I was doing,” snaps Patrick. “Helping. You called in a favor, and here I am, patching up your little pet project off the books.”

  I murmur something unkind behind the cloth, one of the many phrases I picked up from Da. Patrick doesn’t hear it, but Roland must, because he raises a brow.

  “Miss Bishop,” he says, addressing Patrick, “is one of our most promising Keepers. She wouldn’t be here if the council had not voted her through.”

  Patrick gives Roland a weighted look. “Did they vote her through, or did you?”

  Roland’s gray eyes narrow a fraction. “I would remind you who you’re speaking to.”

  Patrick lets off a short sigh like steam and turns his attention back to me, pulling the cloth from my grip to examine the damage over his glasses. It hurts like hell, but I try not to let it show as he presses the cold pack against my face and repositions my hand over it.

  “You’re lucky it’s not broken,” he says, peeling off a pair of plastic gloves.

  Roland winks. “Our girl, she’s made of steel.”

  I smile a little behind the cold pack. I like the idea of that. Being a girl of steel.

  “Hardheaded,” says Patrick. “Keep it iced and try not to get punched in the face again.”

  “I’ll do my best,” I say, the words muffled by the cold pack. “But it’s so much fun.”

  Roland chuckles. Patrick packs up his things and leaves, muttering something that sounds like useless under his breath. I watch him go.

  “You threw your arms up when the History took a swing at you,” says Roland casually. “Is that what happened?”

  I look down and nod. I should have known better. Da taught me better, but it was like two different lessons, in practice and in truth, and I wasn’t ready. Da said the right moves have to be like reflex, not just learned but known, and now I see why. There was no time to think, only act. React. My arms came up and the History’s fist hit them and they hit me. Heat spreads across my cheeks, even under the cold pack.

  “Hop down,” he says, uncrossing his arms. “And show me what you did.”

  I get off the table and set the cold pack aside. Roland throws a punch, slow as syrup, and I bring my arms up, crossed at the wrists. His fist comes to rest lightly against them, and he considers me over my raised hands.

  “There is no right pose to strike, no position to take. The worst thing you can do in a fight is stop moving. When someone attacks, they create force, movement, momentum, but you’ll be okay as long as you can see and feel the direction of that force and travel with it.” He puts some weight behind his fist, shifting to one side as he leans forward. I let myself shift to the same side and back, and his fist slides away. He nods. “There we go. Now, better get that ice back on your face.”

  Steps echo in the hall beyond the room, and Roland’s gray eyes flick to the door.

  “I should go,” I say, taking the cold pack with me. But when I get to the door, I hesitate. “Do you regret it?” I ask. “Voting me through?”

  Roland folds his arms across his chest. “Not at all,” he says with a smile. “You make things infinitely more interesting.”

  “Where are we going?” I ask under my breath. Roland doesn’t answer, only leads me out of the aisle and down the sixth hall that branches off the atrium. The Archive is a network of mismatched spaces, branching and intersecting in a system only the Librarians seem able to comprehend. Every time I follow someone through the maze, I struggle to keep hold of my bearings as I count the turns. But tonight, instead of guiding me on a winding path across landings, down corridors, through rooms, Roland goes straight, straight to the very end of the very long hall and through a smaller set of doors set into the end.

  We end up in another hallway, one much shorter, narrower, and dimly lit. He hesitates, glancing around to see and hear if we’re alone.

  “Where are we?” I ask when it’s clear that we are.

  “Librarians’ quarters,” he answers before setting off again. Halfway down the hall, he reaches a simple dark-paneled door and stops. “Here we go.”

  The door opens into a cozy room with pale striped walls, sparsely furnished with a daybed, a low-backed leather chair, and a table. Classical music whispers from a device on the wall, and Roland moves through the small space with the comfort of someone who knows every inch of it.

  He crosses to the table and absently drops the folder he’s been carrying into a drawer before pulling something shiny from his pocket. He runs his thumb over the surface once before setting it on top of the table. The gesture is at once worn and gentle, reverent. When he pulls his hand away, I see that the object is a silver pocket watch. It’s old, and I can’t keep my pulse from quickening when my eyes settle on it. The only objects that come into the Archive arrive on the bodies of Histories. Either he snagged the watch from a body or it came in with his.

  “It doesn’t work anymore,” says Roland, sensing my interest. “Not here.” He gestures to the daybed. “Sit.”

  I sink onto the soft cushion and run a hand over a black blanket folded on the bed beside me. “I didn’t think you needed sleep,” I say, feeling awkward. It’s still so hard to process the idea that he’s…not alive.

  “Need is a strange thing,” he say
s, methodically rolling up his sleeves. “Physical needs make you feel human. The lack of them can make you feel less so. I don’t sleep, no, but I rest. I go through the motions. It provides a psychological relief rather than a physical one. Now try to get some rest.”

  I shake my head, even as my body begs me to lie down. “I can’t,” I say quietly.

  Roland sits down in the low-backed leather chair opposite, his gold Archive key gleaming against the front of his shirt. Keeper keys unlock doors to the Narrows; Crew keys unlock shortcuts in the Outer; Archive keys unlock Histories, turning them on and off like appliances, not people. I wonder what it would feel like to turn a life off with a single twist of metal. I remember Carmen holding hers out to me, remember the pins-and-needles numbness that shot up my hand when I tried to wrap my fingers around it.

  “Miss Bishop,” says Roland, his voice drawing my attention up. “You have to try.”

  “I don’t believe in ghosts, Roland. But it’s like he’s haunting me. Every time I close my eyes, he’s there.”

  “He’s gone,” says Roland simply.

  “Are you sure?” I whisper, thinking of the fear and the pain that follow me out of my nightmares. “It’s like there’s a part of him that dug its nails into my head and held on. I see him when I close my eyes, and he feels so real….I feel like I’m going to wake up and he’ll still be there.”

  “Well,” says Roland, “you sleep, and I’ll keep an eye out for him.”

  I laugh sadly, but don’t lie down. I need to tell him about the blackouts. It would be so much easier not to tell him—he’s already worried, and it will only make things worse—but I need to know if I’m losing it, and since I’m the one shot through with nightmares and missing moments, I don’t think I’m the best judge.

  “Something happened today,” I say quietly. “In the Narrows.”