by Sara Beaman
I take a sip of my wine, stalling for time. It’s too sweet. I don’t care for it.
“The Chicago Wardens? The ones who just raided my building?”
“Of course not.”
“Are you loyal to your blood, then? Your family? The House of Mnemosyne?”
“Loyal is a strong word,” I say.
“Right. They force you to do things,” she says.
I have a vague memory of telling her something along those lines.
“But I always thought you were a double agent, loyal to Desmond,” she continues. “So if that’s not the case, where do your loyalties lie?”
“I don’t know how to answer that question,” I say. “I’m suspicious of all of the factions.”
“You’re lying,” she says.
I laugh. “No, I’m really not.”
“Then why would you be willing to submit to someone else’s Compulsion?”
My throat tightens. How does she know about that?
“You submitted willingly to a Compulsion just days ago,” she continues. “Whose was it?”
I’d try to deny that it ever happened, but she seems completely certain about it, so I reach for a different kind of lie and give her the first name I can think of. “Richard Stone.”
She blinks, taken aback. “What? Why?”
“Why do you think?” I bring the rim of my glass to my mouth to hide my expression as I scramble to think of a reason.
“Honestly, Adam, I haven’t the slightest.”
The only thing I can come up with is so stupid, so utterly unbelievable, that it verges on comedy. But I just can’t tell her the truth—I can’t let her know about Kate. And so, fighting with myself to keep a straight face, I tell Mirabel: “We’re… well, we’re lovers.”
“You. And Richard.”
I feign sheepishness.
“You and Richard Stone are lovers.”
She doesn’t believe me.
“Well, Adam, you never fail to surprise me,” she says, sounding genuinely angry.
Does she believe me?
Oh, fuck. I’m an idiot. She and Richard were together until three days ago! How did I manage to forget that? Now I need to try and do damage control, which will likely be next to impossible. I take another sip of wine and a deep breath.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I know this can’t be easy for you to hear.”
Mirabel shakes her head, refusing to make eye contact. I act contrite and embarrassed, gnawing my lower lip, all the while thinking that there is a bright side to all of this: unless she’s an incredible actress, she must not be a telepath after all.
The wine roils in my stomach; my body suddenly fights to reject it. I have just enough warning to clamp a hand over my mouth, stand up, and rush to the corner before vomiting.
“So,” Mirabel says when I’m done retching, “which part of that was a lie?”
I wipe my mouth and keep quiet.
She pushes her chair out from under the table and stands up. “Richard didn’t give you the Compulsion, did he?”
I say nothing.
“Did he, Adam?”
She’s winding up to give me a command. I can hear it in her tone. I have only one line of defense from that kind of attack, and while I hate to use it in a situation like this, I have no choice. She opens her mouth to speak, but I don’t hear the words. I turn my attention inward, towards the base of my skull, and I force myself to fall asleep standing up.
And then I am in Mirabel’s theater, standing in the orchestra section among a crowd of featureless onlookers dressed in browns and greys.
Mirabel’s theater? Where is my Haunt? Where is the suite? What did she—
I wake up as Mirabel slaps me across the face.
I shake my head, dazed. “What did you do to me?”
“Tell me whose compulsion you’re under!”
“What did you do to my Haunt?”
Tell me, she demands silently. Now.
“Kate Avery,” I hear myself say.
“Katherine Avery? My ex-employee? Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
Tell me!
“With Julian. At his estate. Please—“
“So you’re in love with her?”
I shake my head no.
Don’t lie to me.
“Yes.”
She starts to laugh. I want to vomit again, and it has nothing to do with the wine.
“What’s wrong?” she asks.
I don’t answer.
“Did you think I would be jealous?” she asks.
I don’t know what to say, so I say nothing.
She narrows her eyes. “Do you honestly think I’m fond of you?” she asks. “You?”
Words come tumbling out of my mouth unbidden. “What I saw in your memories…”
“What?” she says. “What memories?”
“Of the theater,” I say, unable to stop myself. “I’ve taken Lucien’s place in the audience—“
“Shut up,” she hisses, baring teeth. For a moment she looks like she might cry.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “It was a stupid mistake.”
Her face hardens. “Something you’re adept at.”
I swallow hard.
She sneers, points to the table, to the bottle. I shake my head no, cover my ears, close my eyes, but before I can reach for sleep I hear her silent command:
Start drinking. We’ll see what else you can tell me.
Labyrinth
{Kate}
Julian and I walk down the stone staircase and into Mnemosyne’s labyrinth. It’s not bright down here, but it’s not dark, either. A flat light fills the whole space, casting only shallow shadows. Corridors branch off from the main hallway, but I don’t take any turns. I keep walking forward. Towards what, I’m not sure.
“She looks like Mirabel now,” I mention to Julian. “Just, you know, eff why eye.”
Julian gives me a sideways look.
“So. You’ve done this before, right?” I ask.
“What do you mean?”
“Come down here to find her.”
“Well, no, not here,” he says, “but I did in Romania, yes.”
“So is there, uh, some sort of protocol we should follow?”
He gives me that sidelong look again.
“I guess what I’m asking is, how do we find her?”
“Are you really asking me to help you with that?”
I give him a contrite grin and scratch the back of my head.
“You’re awfully chipper about your lack of sensitivity,” he says.
I hear the click of high heels on stone. Moments later, Mirabel rounds a corner and strides into view just a few yards down the main hallway. Of course, it’s just Mirabel’s body we’re seeing—and not even her real body, but that of a double. Still, Mnemosyne has kept the look consistent, wearing a crisp grey skirt suit, black eyeliner, and painful-looking snakeskin pumps. The effect is so convincing, my stomach clenches with a mix of fear and rage at the sight of her.
“I’m glad to see it passes your standards, Katherine,” Mnemosyne says in her own gravelly, nail-scratch voice. “If things go as planned, you’ll need to learn to adopt her affect yourself.”
I frown. “Why?”
“We’ll discuss that in a moment.”
She turns to Julian. He refuses to make eye contact with her. For a long moment the two of them stand silent.
“Julian,” Mnemosyne says.
“Mother,” he grumbles.
“Thank you both for being so punctual,” she says. “Now follow me.”
After a few paces, Mnemosyne takes a hallway to our left. Julian and I follow her through a few more turns to a dead end—a sheer stone wall. Without hesitation, she walks right through it, passing through the rock as if it were thin as mist. We follow her through. I expect the transition to be painful or at least uncomfortable, but I feel nothing at all as I pass through the stone.
Beyond the wall is
a city street, narrow, dirty, and crammed with dull-looking row houses. Mnemosyne is already halfway up the stairs of one of the houses. I recognize it immediately: Markham’s brownstone. The years have left it in bad repair. The front steps are starting to crumble, and the windows are boarded up. One of the shutters is missing; another hangs askew on a single hinge.
Mnemosyne opens the front door and steps inside. Julian and I follow her into the dim sitting room, its walls still lined floor to ceiling with portraits of Aya. Mariah. Whomever. The striped wallpaper is peeling, and the corners are thick with cobwebs. The air feels almost fuzzy with dust, like no one has been inside for years.
“What are we doing here?” Julian asks.
“You could stand to familiarize yourselves with this place,” Mnemosyne says.
“I find it familiar enough already,” Julian says.
“I am sending you both to Chicago,” Mnemosyne continues, ignoring Julian. “It has become clear to me that this is where Markham is hiding. I want you to find him and bring him to me.”
This wasn’t the plan. I thought she just wanted the amulet. I almost protest, but I swallow my words.
“These are your orders,” Mnemosyne says, giving me a pointed look. “I want him alive.”
“Why?” Julian asks.
“He has something of mine,” Mnemosyne says. “He will return it to me. And then I will kill him.”
“What about Aya?” Julian asks. “Is she with him?”
Mnemosyne laughs. I look at Julian, bite my lower lip. He doesn’t know.
“Katherine understands,” Mnemosyne says. “Don’t you?”
“Katherine understands what?” Julian asks.
I wince.
“Why don’t you explain?” Mnemosyne commands me.
“Julian, Aya is Markham,” I blurt out. “He pretended to be her in order to hide from the Wardens.”
“That’s absurd,” Julian says. “How is that even possible?”
Mnemosyne is silent.
“The thing he stole from Mnemosyne?” I say. “It’s an amulet. It hides him from the Wardens’ surveillance power somehow. It must have made it so they couldn’t tell he was using an adopted identity.”
“Is this true?” Julian asks Mnemosyne.
She nods calmly.
“My God,” he says, breathless. “To think, all these years…”
I watch Julian as his gaze drifts across picture after picture of Mariah, Markham’s failed initiate, the girl whose identity he adopted. With every passing moment he looks closer to panic, to tears, or to an outburst of rage.
“Let’s get out of this room,” I suggest. “Let’s go somewhere without all these creepy pictures.”
“Very well,” says Mnemosyne.
We step through a door at the back of the room and into a library. Julian sits down in an armchair, cradling his head.
“This amulet Markham has,” he says after a minute.
“Yes?” Mnemosyne says.
“It’s allowing him to hide in plain sight in Chicago,” Julian says.
“Yes.”
“But we have nothing like that to help us,” Julian says. “How do you expect us to visit Chicago without the Wardens noticing?”
“What does it matter if they notice you?” she asks. “You are still in good standing with the Watchers of the Americas, are you not?”
“I am,” Julian says. “But what about Katherine?”
“We’ll dye my hair back to that awful fake red color and say I’m Mirabel, I guess,” I say.
“Precisely,” says Mnemosyne.
“But isn’t Mirabel missing at the moment?” Julian says.
Mnemosyne frowns. “How do you know that?”
Julian shrugs.
“Richard,” Mnemosyne says to herself, glowering.
“I’ll pretend to be one of her doubles, then,” I say. “Same difference.”
“But what about—“ Julian stops abruptly, catching himself.
“Miss and Miss Schuster?” Mnemosyne asks, smirking.
Julian says nothing.
“You may bring them with you, if you must. Just keep them out of sight. Perhaps in your van? It doesn’t matter. The Wardens won’t be able to sense them.”
“What about Adam?” Julian says.
“What about him?” Mnemosyne says.
Julian’s eyes meet mine for a moment. Mnemosyne looks at me, then at him, then back at me.
“Katherine?” she says.
“Yes?”
“You told Julian what happened.”
I shrug.
“You told Julian what happened!”
“So?” I say. “What’s the problem? Why shouldn’t he know?”
Mnemosyne takes a long breath. Then, in a movement so quick I can’t even flinch, she backhands me. Hard. Tears blur my vision; my mouth fills with blood.
“So Richard really left him for dead in Romania?” Julian asks.
“It isn’t your concern,” Mnemosyne says.
My rage flares white-hot. Before I can give it a second thought, I throw a punch at Mnemosyne. It connects. My fist hits her jaw, and she staggers back, reeling.
I just punched Mnemosyne in the face.
Insane triumph surges through my heart. That might have been the worst decision I’ve ever made, but it feels like the best. I make breathy, convulsive little giggles under my breath, smiling despite myself.
“Kate,” Julian says, “stop—“
Blindingly intense pain wracks my whole body. I grit my teeth, trying not to scream, but my voice betrays me. Every nerve is frying with a lethal jolt; every cell is on fire. It’s worse than dying. I can’t see or hear or think.
How long this lasts, I can’t say. It feels like days.
And then the pain subsides, just as abruptly as it began. I take in a huge gulp of air and start panting. There are red streaks on my arms—I must have been clawing at my own skin. Just when I finally manage to catch my breath, Mnemosyne gives me another sudden shock, this one even more intense than the first. I fall to my knees, then onto my side, curling up in the fetal position.
I pass out.
***
I’m back in Mirabel’s office.
I stagger over to one of the black leather couches and fall over, holding myself, shivering and crying. Why the hell did I do that? What did I think was going to happen? I should have known better. I’m lucky this is only the first time she’s lashed out at me like this.
I lie silently for a long time, wracked by fear, panic, self-pity. Gradually I start to calm down. I stop crying and shaking. Those reactionary emotions fade to a dull ache.
When my mind clears, all I have left is anger. I’m not lucky she hasn’t lashed out at me before. That’s a victim’s logic. I am not lucky at all. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to make it easy for her to leave Adam for dead while we run some stupid errands for her.
The phone rings.
I raise my head and look at the desk. Deciding to ignore it, I lie back down and stare at the ceiling.
The phone rings six more times before it stops.
My cell phone buzzes in the back pocket of my jeans. I pull it out.
It’s me. Pick up.
The phone rings again. I jump off the couch, falling over myself to grab the receiver. “Adam?”
The speaker clears his throat.
“Sorry,” Richard says. “Yeah, I see now how that could have been confusing. Guess I should have been more specific.”
I slam the phone down on its cradle.
A moment later my cell phone buzzes again.
Sorry. Really, Richard writes. Could you let me in?
I fumble with the number pad to send a reply.
What do you want? I ask.
I’ve got information, he says.
Now I’m curious.
Where are you? I ask.
Right outside, he says. In the stairwell.
I frown. Couldn’t he have knocked?
I nee
d you to remove the ward on the door so I can get in, he says.
I find myself walking towards the door, almost as if I’ve been—
I’ve been Compelled. I concentrate on the mental image of a falcon wheeling free in a stormy sky in order to break away from the manifestation’s grasp. I shake my head, shuddering. What the hell! Why would Richard do that to me? I look down at my cell phone with suspicion. I didn’t know it was possible for most revenants to send compulsions via text message. I thought Mirabel was the only one who could do things like that.
Oh sweet Mother of Christ. I’m not talking to Richard—I’m talking to Mirabel pretending to Richard. She’s right outside the office door, and I just about let her in.
It takes me a moment to figure out what I should do. Slowly, I type out my reply:
I look like shit. Can we talk on the phone instead?
I hesitate for a moment, then hit Send.
Her answer comes just a moment later:
Kate, I don’t care what you look like.
I roll my eyes. She’s not getting the character right.
All right, I type. I’ll let you in. Just promise not to make fun of me.
Great, she replies, followed by a smile emoticon.
I walk over to the door. The threshold is still smeared with my blood, a dark rust-brown smudge. I picture Mirabel standing just a foot or so away, wearing the illusion of Richard. Am I sure that it’s her? No. Not entirely.
But still.
I put every ounce of my anger behind a silent command: Tell me where Adam is.
“Romania,” she says in Richard's voice. “You know that.”
GPS coordinates. Give them to me.
“Forty-five degrees north, twenty-five degrees East,” Richard recites. “Kate, what’s this about?”
Now let him go.
I hear low, feminine laughter on the other side of the door.
“I admire your nerve,” Mirabel says. “Though, I have to say, it’s likely to get you killed in the end. Now let me—“
I clamp my hands over my ears. The falcon cannot hear the falconer.
“Get out of my building!” I shout.
I wait. Perhaps a minute later, I take my hands away from my ears. I can’t tell whether or not she complied. I won’t open the door to find out.
I lie back down on the couch and stare at the ceiling.
***
Cold water splashes against my face, and I wake up. I’m lying on my back on the filthy floor of the illusion of Markham’s library. Mirabel-Mnemosyne looms over me, backlit by candlelight.
