The Dark Vault

by Victoria Schwab

  “Did our lovely new doormen see your hands?”

  “The sentinels? No.” Patrick did, though. He didn’t say anything, just looked at me like I was that useless kid again. Bloody nose or bloody knuckles, can’t hold her own. If only he knew how the other guy looked.

  “Was it another tunnel moment?” asks Roland.

  I look down at my hands. “I remember what happened.”

  We walk the rest of the way to his room in silence. He lets me in, and I see him pull his watch from his pocket and run his thumb over the surface once before setting it on top of the table. Something tugs at me. It’s the same set of motions he did last night. The exact same set. It’s so hard to think of Roland as a History, but the repetition reminds me that his appearance isn’t the only static thing about him.

  He gestures to the daybed, and I sink gratefully onto the soft surface, my body begging for rest.

  “Sleep well,” he says, folding into his chair. I close my eyes and listen to the sound of him making notes, the scratch of letters on paper low and comforting, like rain. I feel myself sinking, and there’s a moment—one brief, terrifying moment—where I remember the nightmares that wait. But then the moment is gone and I’m drawn down into sleep.

  The next thing I feel is Roland shaking me awake.

  I sit up, stiff from the fight and from sleep. I study the fresh bruises that color my hands as Roland moves about the room. The relief at having slept is dampened by dread as I think of the slice of conversation I overheard beyond the door.

  It’s not a permanent solution.

  Roland’s right. I cannot keep doing this. I cannot come here every night. But it’s the only place the nightmares don’t follow me.

  “Roland,” I say softly. “If it keeps getting worse…if I keep getting worse…will Agatha…?”

  “As long as you keep doing your job,” he says, “she can’t hurt you.”

  “I want to believe you.”

  “Miss Bishop, Agatha’s job is to assess members of the Archive. Her greatest concern is making sure that things run smoothly, that everyone is doing his job. She is not the bogeyman. She cannot just sweep down and snatch you up and take your mind away. Even though she’d like you to think that.”

  “But last time—”

  “Last time you confessed to involvement in a crime, so yes, your future was left to her discretion. This is different. She cannot even look inside your mind without permission, let alone take your memories.”

  “Consent. How forward-thinking.” But something eats at me. “Did Wesley give permission?”

  Roland’s brow crinkles. “What?”

  “That day…” We both know which day I’m talking about. “He doesn’t remember it. Any of it.” Did he want to forget? Or was he made to? “Did he give the Archive permission to take those memories?”

  Roland seems surprised to hear this. “Mr. Ayers was in very bad shape,” he says. “I doubt he was conscious.”

  “So he couldn’t give permission.”

  “That would have broken protocol.” Roland hesitates. “Maybe it wasn’t the Archive’s doing, Miss Bishop. You know more than most what trauma does to the mind. Maybe he does remember. Or maybe he’s chosen to forget.”

  I cringe. “Maybe.”

  “Mackenzie, the Archive has rules, and they are followed.”

  “So as long as I don’t grant Agatha permission, I’m supposedly safe? My mind is my own?”

  “For the most part,” says Roland, perching on the edge of his chair. “As with any system, there are ways around and through. You’re not the only one who can grant permission. If you denied Agatha access to your mind and she had good reason to believe it harbored guilt, she could petition the board of directors. She wouldn’t do it, not unless she had a strong case—evidence that you had committed a crime or that you could no longer perform your job or be trusted with the things you know—but if she had one…” He trails off.

  “If she had a strong case…” I prompt.

  “We mustn’t let it come to that,” says Roland. “Every time the board has granted her access to someone’s mind, they’ve been found unfit and been removed from service. Her record means she won’t make the request lightly, but it also means the board will never deny her if she does. And once she has access to your mind—through your permission or theirs—anything she finds there can be used against you. If she found you unfit, you would be sentenced to alteration.”

  “Execution.”

  Roland cringes, but doesn’t contradict me. “I would challenge the ruling, and there would be a trial, but if the board stands behind her, there is nothing I can do. It is very literally in the directors’ hands. You see, only they are authorized to carry out alterations.”

  Da only told me one thing about the board of directors, and that’s that you never want to meet one of them. Now I understand why.

  Roland frowns, deep in thought. “But it will not come to that,” he adds. “Agatha is the one who pardoned you in the first place. I doubt she’s looking for reasons to reverse that decision.”

  I think of Eric following me. Someone told him to. “Maybe Agatha’s not,” I say, “but what if someone else is? Someone who disagreed with her ruling? Like Patrick. Would he go this far? And if someone handed her a case, would she overlook it?”

  “Miss Bishop,” says Roland. “These are not the thoughts to be filling your head with right now. Don’t give her a reason to question her ruling. Just do your job and stay out of trouble, and you’ll be okay.”

  His words are calm, but his voice is laced with cracks and his brow is furrowed.

  “Besides,” he adds softly, crossing to the side table to fetch his watch, “I promised your grandfather I would look after you.” He slides the silver watch into his pocket. “That’s a promise I intend to keep.”

  As I follow him out the door and through the twisting, turning halls, I can’t help but remember that he made a promise to the Archive, too, the day of my initiation.

  If we do this, and she proves herself unfit in any way, said a member of the panel, she will forfeit the position.

  And if she proves unfit, said another, you, Roland, will remove her yourself.

  THIRTEEN

  ROLAND LEAVES ME AT the mouth of the antechamber.

  I nod at the Librarian behind the desk—we’ve only met in passing—but she doesn’t even look up from the ledger, and again I find myself thinking that the book is very large and I am only one page. How many of those pages belong to Keepers? How many to Crew? And why have I never seen any of them in the Archive? I grew up here. Did no one else? Am I really so different? Is that why Patrick hates me?

  The eyes of the sentinels follow me out.

  On my way home, I dispatch a name on my list with little pretense. The boy takes one look at my battered knuckles and shrinks away, but doesn’t run, and I’d be lying if I didn’t say that, for once, the fear in his eyes felt gratifying. It is so much easier to handle him with intimidation than by spinning tales and earning trust.

  I roll the stiffness from my shoulders as I return home and shower. I’m out and pulling on my uniform when there’s a knock on my bedroom door, and Dad calls out, “You better hurry up or we’re going to be late.”

  I finish tugging on my shirt and nearly forget to tuck the key under my collar before opening the door. “What are you talking about?”

  Dad flashes his keys. “I’m driving you to school.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “I don’t mind,” he says.

  “I do.”

  He sighs and heads for the kitchen to fill his travel mug with coffee. “I thought you might be nervous about riding your bike.”

  “Well, I’m not.” I frown and follow. “And isn’t there a saying about horses and getting back on?”

  “Well, yes, but—”

  “I’ll be fine,” I say, swinging my bag over my shoulder. His eyes go to my knuckles.

  “And you’re sure the bike
’s in working shape?”

  “The bike is fine, too. But if you’re so worried, why don’t you come check it out?”

  That seems to pacify him a little, and we head downstairs. I duck into the café and grab a coffee and a muffin while he looks over Dante. Bishop’s is busy in the morning, and Mom doesn’t even see me come or go. Berk passes me a to-go cup and a paper bag and shoos me away.

  “Well, it looks all right,” says Dad, brushing off his hands as I join him on the curb. “You sure you don’t want a lift?”

  “Positive,” I say, swinging my leg easily up over the bike to show him how comfortable I feel. “See? Just like a horse.”

  Dad frowns. “Where’s your helmet?”

  “My what?” Dad’s look turns positively icy, and I’m opening my mouth to say I don’t need it when I realize that that’s probably a bad line after last night; instead I tell him where it’s been since the day he bought it for me. “Under my desk.”

  “Don’t. Move.” Dad vanishes back through the doors and I sigh and stand there, straddling the bike with my coffee balanced on the handlebars. I give the street a quick scan, but there’s no sign of Eric. I don’t know whether that makes me feel better or worse, now that I know he’s real. I still don’t know why he’s been following me. Maybe it’s standard procedure. A checkup. Or maybe he’s looking for evidence. Cracks.

  Dad reappears and tosses me the helmet. I pluck it out of the air and snap it on. At least it’s not pink or covered in flowers or anything.

  “Happy now?” I ask. Dad nods, and I pedal off before he can decide the coffee on my handlebars is a safety hazard.

  The morning’s cool, and I breathe deeply and try to shake off Roland’s worry and Dad’s distrust as the world blurs past. I’m halfway to school when I round the corner and hop onto a stretch of sidewalk that lines a park, stretching ahead a couple of blocks to form a straight and empty path. In a moment of weakness—or cockiness, or fatigue, maybe—I let myself close my eyes. It’s nothing more than a long blink, a second, two tops, but when I open them there’s just enough time to see the runner cut out of the park and into my way, and not enough time to swerve.

  The collision is a tangle of handles and wheels and limbs, and we both go down hard on the concrete. My head bounces off the sidewalk. The helmet absorbs the worst of it—I’m sure Dad would be thrilled—and I manage to free my leg from under the bike and get to my feet, pain burning through my sleeve and sweatpants. I decide not to look at the damage.

  A few feet away, the runner is slower to recover. He gets to his hands and knees and pauses, checking himself before he stands all the way up. I hurry over and offer my hand since I’m the one who technically hit him, even though he’s the one who came out of nowhere.

  “Are you all right?” I ask. “Anything broken?”

  “Nah, I’m okay,” he says, getting to his feet. He’s not very old—maybe twenty—and he’s a little scuffed, but looks otherwise unscathed. Except for the fact that he’s covered in my coffee.

  He looks down and notices it for the first time.

  “Huh,” he says. “I smell better than I did before.”

  I groan. “I’m really sorry.”

  “I think it was my fault,” he says, rolling his neck.

  “I know it was,” I say. “But I’m still sorry I hit you. You came out of nowhere.”

  He rubs his head. “I guess I got a little lost in the music,” he says, gesturing to the earbuds hanging around his neck. He smiles, but seems a little unsteady on his feet.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  He nods cautiously. “Yeah, yeah, I think so….”

  “Do you know your name?”

  His brow crinkles. “Jason. Do you know your name?”

  “I didn’t hit my head.”

  “Well, can I know your name?” he asks. I think he might be flirting with me.

  “Mackenzie. Mackenzie Bishop.” I hold up four fingers. “How many fingers do you see?”

  “Seven.” I’m about to tell him he needs a doctor when he says, “Kidding. Kidding. What happened to your hands, Mackenzie?”

  “A bike accident,” I say without thinking. “You shouldn’t joke when people are trying to determine if you’re okay.”

  “Wow, how many bike accidents have you been in this week?”

  “Bad week,” I tell him, righting Dante. The bike’s a little bruised, but it’ll work; I’m relieved, because if I’d broken it, I don’t know what I would have told my parents. Not the truth. Even though it is the truth this time.

  “You’re pretty.”

  “You hit your head.”

  “That is true. But you’re probably still pretty.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “Mackenzie Bishop,” he says, sounding out every syllable. “Pretty name.”

  “Yeah.” I drag my phone from my pocket to check the time. If I don’t go, I’m going to be late. “Look, Jason, are you going to be okay?”

  “I’m okay. But I feel like we should trade insurance info or something. Do they have that, for bike-body collisions? Do you have bike insurance? If you’re getting into this many accidents maybe you should—”

  “Do you have a phone?”

  He looks at me like he doesn’t know what that is. Or why I’m asking.

  “A phone,” I say again, “so I can give you my number. So you can text me when you get home. So I know you’re okay.”

  He pats his pockets. “I don’t run with it.”

  I shuffle through my backpack and dig out a Sharpie and a scrap of paper and write my number on it. “Here. Take it. Text me,” I say, trying to make it as clear as possible that this is a here’s-my-number-civic-duty and not a here’s-my-number-call-me-hotstuff kind of situation.

  Jason takes the piece of paper, and I’m about to get back on the bike when he plucks my phone from my hand and starts typing away. When he passes it back, I see he’s programmed his number in with the title Jason the runner you ran over.

  “Just to be safe,” he says.

  “Yeah, okay, sure,” I reply, and before the moment can get any more awkward, I climb back on Dante—horses, falling off, getting back on, etc.—and pedal off. (I wish Eric could have witnessed my stellar Samaritan behavior and reported that back to the Archive, but of course now he’s nowhere to be seen.) I look back once at the corner to make sure Jason is still standing (he is), and then I head to school.

  By the time I get there, the lot is filling up and Wesley is leaning back against the bike rack. Another girl—a silver-striped one this time—is hanging off his shoulder, whispering in his ear. Whatever she’s saying, it must be good; he’s looking down, chewing his lip, and smiling. My chest constricts, even though it shouldn’t because I shouldn’t care. He can flirt if he wants to. I hop down from the bike and walk it over. His eyes drift lazily up to find mine, and he straightens.

  The girl on his shoulder nearly falls off.

  I can’t help but grin. He says something, and her flirty little smile fades. By the time I reach the bike rack, she’s vanished through the gates—but not before shooting a dark look my way.

  “Hey, you,” he says cheerfully.

  “Hey,” I say; then, because I can’t help myself, I look around and add, “Where’s Cash?”

  The blow sticks, and Wesley’s good humor thins. Then his eyes wander down to my hands, and it dissolves entirely. “What happened?”

  I almost lie. I open my mouth to feed him the same line I’ve fed everyone else, but I stop. I have a rule about lying to Wesley. I don’t do it anymore. I can justify evasions and omissions, but I won’t lie outright—not after what happened this summer. But I’m also not going to relive last night here on the steps of Hyde, so I say, “It’s a funny story. I’ll tell you later.”

  “I’ll hold you to it,” he says, and then he looks past me. “There you are. Mackenzie here was beginning to worry.”

  I turn to find Cash striding up the curb, a set of car keys in one ha
nd and a paper bag in the other.

  “Morning, lovelies,” he says, opening the bag and producing three coffees in a to-go tray. Wesley’s eyes light up at the sight of the third drink. He reaches for it, but before his fingers touch the paper cup, Cash pulls it out of reach.

  “You can’t say I never do nice things for you.”

  “Statement retracted.”

  Cash offers me one of the coffees, and I take a long, savoring swallow, since I only got a taste of this morning’s cup before I spilled it all over Jason the runner.

  “Sorry for the delay,” says Cash. “They kept getting the order wrong.”

  “How hard is it to make three black coffees?” asks Wes.

  “Not hard at all,” says Cash. “But the order was for two black coffees”—he takes the second coffee—“and a soy hot chocolate caramel whip.” He turns the tray in his hand, offering Wesley the last, fancy drink.

  Wes scowls.

  Cash continues to hold out the tray. “If you’re going to be a girl about these things, you’re going to get a girly drink. Now be gracious.”

  “My hero,” grumbles Wesley, reaching for the cup.

  “And don’t pretend you don’t like it,” adds Cash. “I distinctly remember you ordering it last winter.”

  “Lies.”

  Cash taps his temple. “Photographic memory.”

  Wesley mumbles something unkind into his soy hot chocolate.

  The three of us linger at the gates of Hyde, sipping our drinks and watching the flow of students, enjoying the time before the bell rings. And then Cash breaks the peace with one small question, lobbed at Wes.

  “Did you hear about Bethany?”

  The coffee freezes in my throat. “The blond senior? What about her?”

  Cash looks surprised by the fact I know who she is. “Her mom said she never came home yesterday. They haven’t been able to find her anywhere.” He looks at Wes. “You think she finally ran away?”

  “I guess it’s possible,” he says. He looks upset.

  “You okay?” asks Cash. “I know you two—”