The Unwilling

by KELLY BRAFFET

  But grief already boiled inside Gavin, thick and sludgy and hot. Judah couldn’t move any more than he could. She felt sick and sad and all the worse for the knowledge that it would have hurt more to lose Theron when he was himself. “Were you the one who poisoned him?” she said.

  The magus shook his head emphatically. “No. No. That was Arkady and the Seneschal.” He tapped his chest. Behind his spectacles his eyes were wide and luminous. “I was the one who saved him. I gave you the antidote.”

  Judah felt like a clenched fist. “Why, if you were only going to kill him?”

  “For you,” the magus said. “I saved him for you.”

  When she spoke, she could barely hear herself. “To make me trust you.”

  “Take the knife.” The magus moaned. “Can’t you hear them? All the voices of all the people who’ve poured their power into you?”

  The horror was that she could. She could feel them in her mind, whispering soft words. Beckoning her. Holding invisible arms out to her, like the tower had: come, lost one. Come, lonely. Come, you are ours. She hated how strong it was, the urge to slip into those arms, back into the slow sleepy dullness of all those weeks in the tower. Theron had talked about the voices, about feeling tangled. Was this what it had been like for him all those months? Poor Theron. He hadn’t wanted to die. He had never wanted to die. “Get out of me,” she said. “Get them out of me.”

  “Put the knife in his throat and they’ll go.” Eagerness in the magus’s voice.

  “Get them out of me!” she screamed.

  “Kill him!”

  Kill me, Gavin suddenly said. My brother is dead and my kingdom is gone. Kill me and we can both be free.

  The black desire inside him was so strong. Judah’s eyes went to the knife. The magus raised it hopefully toward her. “If you both come down out of this tower alive,” he said, “the Seneschal will use you. The bond. He wants to do it to other people. Children. A whole guild of them. The Communicators.”

  She wanted to tear herself out of her own skin.

  “Your life,” the magus said, “lived over and over. All the pain of it.”

  No. No, Gavin said, instantly. Kill me. Kill me now. The Seneschal won’t care about you if I’m dead.

  Judah knew Gavin’s face as well as she knew her own. In her head he didn’t have this deathly pallor, this faint sheen of sweat darkening the hair at his forehead. In her head his eyes weren’t red-rimmed, filled with tears. One spilled over, ran over his fine cheekbone to cling helplessly to the ridge of his jaw. She wiped it away. It felt cold and clean. “Then he’ll have no reason to keep me alive,” she said to him.

  But the magus was shaking his head. “The tower won’t let you die.”

  She took her hand from Gavin, and looked at the magus. “Because the tower needs me?”

  He nodded. Again, the eagerness.

  “Like the Seneschal needs me.”

  The magus blinked, confused. “No.”

  “Yes.” All at once the skin-tearing feeling was gone. In its place was something as cold and clean as the tear she’d wiped from Gavin’s skin. Her body still hurt. The fingers still grabbed. Theron was still dead. To Gavin, she said, “What about Elly?”

  She no longer needed to touch him to hear his response. Seneschal will send her back to Tiernan. Nothing to gain by killing her.

  “Take the knife.” The magus sounded oddly kind. “It’s your path. You were made for this.”

  The voices in her head screamed, grabbed. She leaned down and kissed Gavin’s unmoving lips. I’m sorry, she told him. Tell Elly I love her. Then she stood up.

  “I’ll pass,” she said, and took a step backward, toward the gap in the tower.

  Gavin made a strangled noise. The magus stared at him for an uncomprehending moment and then went pale. “No,” he said. “Judah. No.”

  “You can’t stop me,” she said.

  She felt his control over Gavin snap, like the air breaking in half, and suddenly Gavin was on his feet hurtling toward her. The magus was, too. Both of them. Reaching to grab her, just like the voices inside her head grabbed her. To restrain her, just like she had always been restrained. She took a giant step back, a mighty leap. And for a moment she felt held in kind hands, suspended in the air like she belonged there. The empty sky stretching wide and open above her, around her, inside her. The Wall a toy, to be stepped over and left behind. Cold. Terror. Exhilaration. All things: possible.

  Then she fell.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Nathaniel Clare woke into a world that smelled of leather and smoke. His face hurt, as did his chest and gut and legs, in a dozen different places. His eyes were difficult to open and when he licked his lips with a dry tongue he found them crusted with blood. These sensations were all so familiar as to be almost comforting and his first conscious thought was that Derie had beaten him.

  His second conscious thought was that Derie was dead. When Judah jumped, he’d felt his old teacher ripped away from life like a climbing vine from a tree, and though there were torn, painful places in him where her tendrils had worked their way in, it was a clean pain, a relief-pain; both a she-will-never-beat-me-again pain and a loss pain, because he’d loved Derie, in his way. He’d had no choice but to love her, since so much of his life hinged on her approval. The contradiction didn’t trouble him. Humans were complicated and pain was complicated and love was the most complicated thing of all, and also any rawness left in him by Derie’s abrupt removal paled in comparison to the searing horror of losing Caterina.

  He had felt her go, too. Not a vine on a tree, but a piece of whole cloth, brutally sundered; not raw places left by invading tendrils but great swaths of what Nate thought of as himself. An agonizing emptiness. His mother was gone. His mother was no more. There was no place where his mother was. He was Caterina-less, void of Caterina. The fabric of his world was a pile of tatters on a dirty floor and it was unbearable, he could not live inside himself. He forced his eyes open.

  That hurt, too. He found himself in front of a fire: not a roaring fire, just an ordinary flickering fire in a fireplace. A figure sat on a chair across from him. As the world around him came into focus he came to the dull realization that the figure in the chair was the Seneschal, holding a glass of wine.

  Judah had jumped. The boy had lived. Nate had failed. Derie was supposed to kill him now, but Derie herself was dead.

  But the Seneschal said, “Hello, Nathaniel Clare,” and Nate had spent too long at the beck and call of Derie’s cruelty not to hear the threat in his voice. Like a dog called by its master, he came the rest of the way awake. Painfully, he pushed himself up to sitting.

  “You’re in Elban’s study,” the Seneschal said. “They had you in Eleanor’s room. I was always told never to move an unconscious man, but I took the risk of having you brought here, anyway. I think Gavin was determined to beat you to death, a little at a time.”

  Yes. He remembered that: sudden bursts of pain in the dark, exploding like skyrockets before fading into nothing. He wished the boy had succeeded.

  Something white hung off the side of the Seneschal’s neck: a bandage, soft and clumsy. The Seneschal traced his gaze, and touched it. “The Tiernan set fire to the passage. Three of my men died. I didn’t. Old Cavellus in Archertown patched me up. He’s not half the healer you are.”

  Apparently Nate was supposed to say something, but his mind was blank. He had failed. He had offered her the knife. She had refused to take it.

  “The fire melted the locks and hinges on the inner door,” the Seneschal said. “Took us a few days to get back through. I’m sorry about that. You’d be in better shape if we’d been able to get in sooner. Cavellus gave you a tonic to wake you up. He’s outside, if you’d like to see him.” The gray man held out a glass of wine. “Here. Drink this. You’ll feel better.”

  The musty smell of the
wine nauseated him.

  “Magus,” the Seneschal said, and there was no softening the command in his voice now, “what happened in that tower?”

  He’d failed. Judah had refused the knife. His mother had died. Derie had died. They had been with him, in the Work, and Judah had jumped and the tower had burned them like candles to save her. His fault. He was nothing. Why hadn’t he died, too?

  The Seneschal continued. “Gavin says Judah jumped, but if she were dead he wouldn’t be alive to tell me about it, and there’s no body in the light well. She’s hiding somewhere and we can’t find her. We can’t find Theron, either. The Tiernan’s playing dumb. You’re all I have.” He sat forward, his eyes intense. “What happened in the tower?”

  Nate made his tongue move inside his dry mouth. Ran it over his blood-crusted lips. “My mother,” he said. The consonants sounded blunted.

  The Seneschal frowned. “Your mother?”

  “Dead,” Nate said.

  The Seneschal glanced toward the massive desk that had once been Elban’s, considering. Then he drew his hand back and hit Nate, open-handed. The force of the blow knocked Nate off the sofa and he landed facedown on a thick rug printed with scarlet flowers. Fresh blood filled his mouth and a drop of brighter scarlet appeared on one of the flowers, then another. They were absorbed instantly.

  The Seneschal’s strong hand gripped his collar, pulled him up, and dropped him back onto the sofa. Nate felt like a broken doll tossed around a room.

  “I’m sorry about that,” the Seneschal said. “But I need you thinking clearly. I have men literally tearing apart walls looking for that stupid girl. If you’re sad about your mother, I’ll buy you a whore and you can tell her all about it, but right now, I need to know where Judah is.” The big man pulled at the sleeves of his coat to straighten them. “I need you with me, Nathaniel Magus. Are you with me?”

  Nate was not Nathaniel Magus. Nate was nothing. Feeling blood run down his chin, he said, “She’s gone.”

  “Who is? Judah, or your mother?”

  “Judah.”

  “Where?”

  Where? He couldn’t feel her. But the Judah-places in his head were not torn, did not hurt. So she was still alive. “Somewhere,” he said, and then, “Nowhere.”

  “You need to start being forthcoming with me, magus.” The Seneschal’s voice was dangerous. “I like you, but I can’t afford to be sentimental. Where is she?”

  “Somewhere. Nowhere.”

  This time the hand on his collar lifted him up entirely. A different hand hit him again. It didn’t seem like either hand could have anything to do with the Seneschal, whose voice spoke so calmly. “Where is she?”

  There was only one answer, only one truth. “Somewhere. Nowhere.”

  The collar-hand dropped him to his knees. Pain exploded in his side as a boot kicked him. “Magus, please,” the Seneschal said, sounding sorry. As if causing pain hurt him, too. “Where’s Judah?”

  “Somewhere. Nowhere.” He’d been beaten before. He was used to being beaten. Being beaten was, in some ways, his natural state. There were no choices to be made during a beating. There was nothing to do at all.

  The boot fell again. Something gave in his chest and when he tried to speak again his voice came out in gasps, it was hard to catch his breath. Still: “Somewhere. Nowhere,” the nothing-that-was-Nate heard himself say as the boot continued to come, over and over. “Somewhere. Nowhere.” As he receded into darkness:

  Somewhere. Nowhere.

  * * *

  When the Seneschal returned to the parlor, the knuckles of his right hand were split and bleeding. “I see why the magus looks the way he does,” he said to Gavin, who sat on the sofa, his own knuckles neatly bandaged. “He really can be an infuriating little man.”

  Eleanor sat next to Gavin without touching him. Before the Seneschal’s men had taken him, the magus had lain unconscious in her bed for days. During all that time, she hadn’t heard him say a word, infuriating or otherwise. “What did he say?” she said now.

  “Nothing worth hearing,” the Seneschal said, as pleasant as always. “Nonsense, mostly. Eleanor, will you be so good as to fetch some water and clean up this mess he made of my hand?” He lifted the hand as if he had no idea how it had become so battered. As if all of this were merely a chain of unconnected events, out of all control and most certainly not in his.

  “No,” Eleanor said. “I don’t believe I will.”

  Gavin’s mouth twitched at that, which was the closest he’d come to a smile in days. The Seneschal, though, merely blinked at her with faint surprise, said, “Very well,” and sat down.

  In Judah’s chair. Eleanor felt a shivering wave of resentment crawl over her to see him sitting where he did not belong. Thinking of Judah brought her the same agonizing stab of disbelief as always, pain as blinding as the sun. If she went anywhere near that pain, she would not be able to keep herself from screaming, so she pushed it down and away. She was very good at pushing things down and away. She was also very tired of it.

  “I’ve had him taken to Highfall Prison,” the Seneschal said. “I think perhaps it will clarify his memory of what happened in the tower. Perhaps it would jog yours, as well, Gavin.” Merely a suggestion, the Seneschal’s tone said; just trying to be helpful. Eleanor bit hard on the inside of her cheek.

  Next to her, she heard Gavin take a long, steady breath. Then he said, “While having the deposed heir imprisoned would be a comforting nod to tradition, there’s nothing to jog. I remember everything. We were in the tower. Judah jumped.”

  “If that were true, you’d be dead.”

  With the same cool, blank face he’d worn for days, Gavin lifted one shoulder slightly, then let it drop. “Ask the infuriating little man. Before you cut his tongue out, ideally. He’s not what he claimed to be.” Gavin paused. Then, “He killed my brother.” For the first time, his voice was strained and tight.

  The Seneschal’s watery gray eyes shifted to Elly. Who wanted to scream again, but who contented herself with the smallest shake of her head. She had seen Theron after the magus was in the tower. She had spoken with him. She didn’t know where Theron was, but he was somewhere in the House, and she didn’t know why Gavin believed the man who’d lied to them for so long in so many ways, instead of her.

  With no emotion, the Seneschal said, “If I begin cutting parts of you off, do you think Judah will emerge from wherever she’s hidden herself?”

  If he’d been hoping for a reaction, he didn’t get it. “I doubt it,” Gavin said. His bandaged hands slightly clumsy, he pushed up his sleeves. Eleanor gasped: his forearms were covered, front and back, with the same scratched symbol, over and over. Some of the scratches were bloody, some only pink. She didn’t know what the mark meant, but she could guess.

  Where. Where. Where.

  “So she’s ignoring you,” the Seneschal said.

  “No,” Gavin said, steady as a clock. “She’s not here. She’s not dead, but she’s not here. I know it doesn’t make sense, but it’s true.”

  It didn’t make sense. The world was desolate and lonely and Eleanor didn’t understand what was happening, but she would not let herself collapse in a heap the way she wanted. With great effort, she kept her attention on the Seneschal. Whatever simmered behind that impassive face, she could feel the heat of it.

  “You understand,” he finally said, “that I’ll tear this House down to the ground to find her, if I have to.”

  “If you think that’ll work, go ahead. Give me a pickaxe. I’ll help,” Gavin said.

  The Seneschal sat back. His expression was patient, even tolerant. “Do you realize the favor I’ve done you? You would have been a terrible ruler. Not just because you’re vain and selfish; because you’re weak. Power would have made you stupid. Some pretty little schemer would have led you into a vial and you never would have found your wa
y out.” His eyes flicked toward Eleanor. “Honestly, you both would have been miserable, and I would have ended up in charge, anyway.”

  She felt her cheeks burn with anger, but she said nothing.

  “Now,” the Seneschal went on, “I’m guessing that the infuriating little man told you about my plan for the guild, and I’m further guessing that Judah didn’t like it. She’s hidden herself away to keep it from happening. And unlike you, she has the strength to stay hidden no matter what. As long as she’s getting your little messages—” he nodded at Gavin’s arms “—she’ll know you’re alive, and that’ll be enough.” He stood up. “So you’re not going to send any more messages. You’re not going to be in pain; you’re not going to be hungry; you’re not going to be cold. No matter where she looks, she won’t find you. I think that will drive her mad, don’t you?”

  Gavin said nothing. The Seneschal called out and the magus he’d brought in from the city entered, accompanied by a guard. Eleanor couldn’t remember the magus’s name; he was thick around the middle, with thinning hair. He cowered, embarrassed, before the Seneschal. “Bind his hands,” the Seneschal said to him. “I want them utterly useless.”

  The magus did as he was asked, wrapping each of Gavin’s fingers individually and then tying them against his palms in loose fists, until each hand was nothing but a useless stump at the end of his arms. Gavin closed his eyes briefly but otherwise didn’t react, and Eleanor—watching—told herself that it could be worse; that in fact, it might be, still.

  When the magus stepped back, the Seneschal surveyed his work and nodded. “It’ll do for now. We’ll figure out a more elegant solution at the guildhall.”

  “What guildhall?” Elly said sharply.

  “The guildhall for which you’ll be departing at sundown,” the Seneschal said. “Secretly, of course. The managers want the House, and I want Judah. As long as she thinks you’re here, she won’t go far. You may bring what you can carry—within reason, of course. I don’t recommend unwrapping his hands, Eleanor. You’ll find consequences of that extremely unpleasant.” His face was steady. At the last state dinner, when the Wilmerians were there, he had taken Eleanor’s arm to help her onto the dais, and told her she looked lovely. It was hard to believe there had ever been kindness in him.