Immortal Architects

by Paige Orwin

  He pulled his pillow over his head.

  Dammit.

  Dammit.

  I’m sorry, Istvan.

  I made a mistake, Istvan.

  I’ll be going to Barrio Libertad today, Istvan, I promise, and I was wondering if you’d like to come along.

  What can I do to make this up to you?

  It’s been a while since we played chess, Istvan…

  Three days to Tuesday.

  Edmund had managed to patrol every night but one. He had gone to the Twelfth Hour two days out of four. He had managed to take one walk. He had fed Beldam every day and counted that a victory.

  Still no visit to Barrio Libertad.

  The place hated wizards. The place could negate his magic at will. The place scared the hell out of him. Nothing but a verbal agreement held Diego in check, and, according to Grace, this was a being whose thoughts flowed so quickly that every pause between words in conversation lasted a relative eternity: a being whose existence was an abyss of perpetual boredom, his stilted communication the result of a gulf so vast it was a wonder he bothered to speak with anyone at all. He could see the worlds within atoms, she said, the past and the future. He had a plan, and the curiously ramshackle design of Barrio Libertad was the result of a vast and benign intelligence deliberately presenting itself as less frightening than it was.

  Diego could see magic, she said, and that was how he could negate it. What wizards did wasn’t really magic at all, she said, but a branch of science so complex that the merely human mind couldn’t grasp its most fundamental truths.

  There was no way to know. Nothing human could see magic – nothing that wasn’t crushing and mad and incomprehensible, beyond the world, like gods – and Edmund knew better than to pry too closely. Everything Grace had said about Diego sounded like religion, even if she laughed to Edmund’s face when he said so.

  She would be mad at him, too. Everyone was mad at him.

  He didn’t want to go by himself.

  Everyone expected him to know what he was doing and he never felt like he did. Just like during the Wizard War. Just like when he was made Magister because everyone else thought it was a good idea. Just like when he finally broke, completely, and vanished from the public eye.

  He’d barely been able to get out of his house. He’d been useless for over a year.

  He pulled his sheets up, telling himself he was only cold and not hiding.

  What if it happened again?

  The silvery disc was back. It had browsed through every book in the Symbolic Astronomy section, the ravens informed him, and then had selected a pile of them and transferred itself to a corner, where it remained even now, flipping pages with slender tendrils and blinking its lights to itself.

  It still wasn’t hurting anything. It was fine.

  Edmund waved the ravens away so he could pace the shelves in peace. The crowd outside wanted access to the high-security vault, but the library was already open; he had vetted each volume himself to make sure that nothing on display could be used to cause too much trouble. He still liked to make sure everything was in order.

  He knew that Mercedes would never agree to open the vault to the public. Some things were better kept unknown.

  He knew he was stalling.

  He straightened the books jostled by the disc’s selection, focusing on the weight of his hat on his head, his cape on his shoulders. He was the Hour Thief. The Hour Thief had been to Barrio Libertad before and would manage just fine going there again.

  As soon as he finished with this shelf…

  A buzzer sounded.

  He frowned. That was the door alarm. Had someone tried something?

  A return to the entrance revealed an uncertain door guard – he’d set off the alarm, he wasn’t sure what else to do – and Grace Wu.

  She was outside, of course. She stood before the door, one hand pressed against the glass, peering through it blindly and shouting, her voice silenced by the wards. The crowd that had gathered that morning milled behind her, also silent.

  “She hit the door,” the guard explained. “And look at her badge.”

  Edmund didn’t need to look. “I know who it is,” he said, waving off the curious that had begun to gather on their own side, “I’ll handle it.”

  He steeled himself. He knew what was coming. He opened the door.

  “…bassadors like this?” shouted Grace. She blinked. She stepped backwards, peering around him at the suddenly visible Twelfth Hour library stacks revealed through the open entrance, then crossed her arms. “You don’t even have a doorbell,” she said.

  Edmund pulled the door closed behind him. It latched. “I’m sorry.”

  The crowd buzzed.

  “Hey,” called someone. “About time we got some answers!”

  Edmund didn’t look at them. Not his job. “So. Grace. What can I do for you?”

  “How many are out there?” shouted the crowd. “How many victims?”

  “You helped take it down, they said! Why didn’t the Magister say anything?”

  “I heard she was responsible for it!”

  Grace stepped aside, waving at the packed road. “Planning to deal with this?”

  “Hey,” came more shouts, “hey, why didn’t anyone tell us that the Susurration was out there?”

  “Is the Magister ever going to let anyone else learn magic?”

  “We need to be able to defend ourselves!”

  Edmund swallowed. “Uh,” he said.

  “When will you be up for re-election?”

  “–Twelfth Hour doesn’t do elections!”

  “–a dictatorship–”

  “Wizard duel!”

  Grace stood there and watched him, inscrutable. She was still mad at him. She had to still be mad at him. This crowd was probably her fault. Who else would have distributed those fliers? Mercedes had never said a word about the Susurration to anyone, not even after she had helped defeat it. She’d said nothing about the Shattered, either.

  Barrio Libertad. All they ever did was make things harder.

  These people had no idea what a wizard duel was like.

  “Go on,” said Grace.

  He could run. He could go back inside, right now.

  Edmund took a breath. He held up a hand.

  The crowd quieted, instantly, and his stomach twisted. He was a hero now, sure. That kind of thing only lasted until you lived long enough to make a mistake.

  “I stand by the Magister’s decisions,” he said. “I won’t speak for her.”

  The crowd rumbled.

  “I’m sorry. I can’t tell you anything else.” He took Grace’s arm. “Excuse us, please.”

  He snapped his watch.

  He and Grace reappeared on the roof.

  “Bravo,” said Grace. She tugged her arm out of his grip and clapped. Once, twice. “You’re about as good a politician as I am.”

  “Thanks.” Edmund put his watch away. “What can I do for you this time?”

  “An apology would be–”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She searched him. “Right.”

  “I am,” he said, wishing he hadn’t answered so quickly. “Getting rid of you like that was a petty thing to do, and I shouldn’t have done it.”

  “Like you shouldn’t have taken the kid?”

  He wanted to turn away. He shrugged. “I’ve made better decisions.”

  “Where is he, Eddie?”

  He tried to tell her. He did.

  It caught in his throat.

  He turned away. They were twelve stories up, too high to make out voices from below, but what sound did filter up seemed displeased. Rightly so.

  He wasn’t taking her to the Demon’s Chamber. Never mind the question of whether or not Istvan would even let them in.

  Edmund crossed his arms on the low stone wall that ran around the roof’s edge, ignoring the exuberant scenes of dancing girls and other things carved into its surface.

  “Eddie,” Grace s
aid.

  “He’s here,” Edmund answered. “We have him in a safe place.”

  Grace leaned on the wall beside him. Close, but not too close. Not close enough. “I tried to get the People’s Council to demand custody,” she said. “I asked them to bring down you have no idea what kind of justice on this place, so we could get him somewhere actually safe.”

  Edmund hunched his shoulders, reflexively. “You don’t want to attack the Twelfth Hour, Grace. You really don’t.”

  “Yeah, well, they turned me down, so you don’t have to worry about that.”

  “Oh, good.”

  Grace snorted. “Didn’t want to deal with it. Didn’t want to worry about anything else. ‘Let the wizards inflict on themselves whatever they want,’ and so on. It’s not like the kid’s a person or anything and it’s not like there might be more like him.”

  “You’re sounding exactly like Istvan,” Edmund told her.

  She paused.

  She started to say something else, then stopped.

  Edmund stared out at New Haven, trying not to think about a Barrio Libertad-Twelfth Hour war. That was the last thing anyone needed.

  “I’m nothing like spook Dracula,” Grace said, finally. She pushed away from the wall. “He’s helping you keep the kid here, isn’t he? Probably assigned to make sure he doesn’t up and die from mistreatment.”

  Edmund gritted his teeth. “Grace, what do you want?”

  “Keep him just on the edge, yeah? He’d have a lot of experience with that.”

  “Grace–”

  “What’s it like, having your own personal Meng–”

  Edmund whirled. “Grace, stop it!”

  “What, going to get rid of me again?” She dropped into a fighting stance, gauntlets snapping with static. “Good luck.”

  Edmund backed up. He knew the kind of voltage she could put out, given a chance.

  Istvan wasn’t like that. Edmund wouldn’t associate with anyone like that. Yes, the ghost had fought with the Nazis. He was Hungarian. Hungary had been with the Axis. That was the only reason.

  It was all a long time ago.

  “I’m here to help,” Grace said. “Is that so hard? I’m here to make sure your prisoner is treated decently and that you find somewhere for him that isn’t a cell. I’m here to hunt down any others like him, and do the same for them.”

  Edmund stared at her.

  “What?” she asked.

  “That’s… different,” he said.

  She jerked a thumb at her breastplate. “I’m the only other Conduit in the area, Eddie – and I’m an engineer. I figured out my own powers years ago. I can help that kid better than anyone else. Don’t act all surprised.”

  Well. Well, then.

  Edmund wouldn’t have pegged Grace for the mothering type. If she’d seemed that way during the Wizard War, he would have tried harder to keep his distance. Never mind that he should have done that to begin with. Would have made everything easier. Fling and forget, like all the others.

  Too late, now.

  He shook his head. No, this was Grace. This sounded like an excuse for a science experiment. Cut the kid open, just like she’d done to herself. Her and Diego. She insisted that they weren’t an item, that Diego couldn’t care any less and that she didn’t love science that much, but Edmund couldn’t help but harbor his bitter suspicions.

  He stuck to the safe question. “What about the People’s Council?”

  “They don’t know what they’re doing,” she said. “They don’t care, they won’t listen to me, and Diego refuses to do anything outside the fortress without their go-ahead.” She snarled to herself. “You have no idea how long I argued with them. With him.”

  Edmund plastered a pleasant smile on his face. He didn’t want any more information on that front, thanks. “I see.”

  “So are you going to take me to the kid, or what?”

  His smile faded.

  The blade almost took his ear off.

  Edmund slammed the door shut. “Now isn’t a good time.”

  “Were those flowers?” asked Grace.

  Istvan’s trench knife skidded across the stone, clattered against the base of the stairwell, and then vanished.

  “I don’t know,” said Edmund, “and I’m not asking.”

  He locked the door again. The key, heavy brass, went back in his pocket.

  “Give me that,” said Grace.

  “No.”

  She approached him. “If you’re too scared to–”

  “Grace, he does not want company right now and if he doesn’t want company, no one is going in there.” Edmund shoved past her, hoping he looked less shaky than he felt. “You of all people should remember what he is and what he can do.”

  He started up the stairs.

  Grace, after a moment, followed him.

  * * *

  Istvan waited for them both to leave.

  Edmund. Grace Wu. Conspiring.

  Just as it had been.

  At the start of the Wizard War, on Edmund’s order, the Twelfth Hour had loosened Istvan’s chains. Then-Magister Templeton had spilled his own blood – calmly, willingly – as part of the ritual, replacing links of iron with links of Contractual parchment. They’d done it so Istvan could fight. So he could helm what was left of the infirmary. So he could help turn the tide.

  Just in time for Edmund to ignore him utterly. To spend every quiet moment with her.

  Not that it mattered. They had wanted Istvan to fight, and he had, gladly, and he remembered so very, very little of it.

  He waited for the two to leave – vanishing, together, to who knew where – and then he returned to work. Let them do as they liked.

  Hours slid into one another. Presences came and went and gradually most trickled away, one by one, leaving only that thin watch that stood vigil over the night. Perhaps a few dozen souls, some he thought he almost recognized. He’d worked through enough dark shifts to know.

  He’d waited for enough nights.

  Istvan crouched beside Kyra, the boy still transfixed in iron shackles. Clear tubing, removed and coiled, lay beside him on the stone. Bandaging wound about Kyra’s arms, covering injection sites. The life-support machine sat silently, disconnected. Kyra breathed on his own for the first time in four days.

  Across his knees lay a spread of stitched wildflowers.

  One IV left.

  Gently. Gently, now.

  Istvan slid the needle free. Still Kyra slept, dreamlessly, painlessly, but that would change soon.

  “Hello,” Istvan said to himself. “Hello. I know that you’re frightened, but…”

  No. No, not a good start.

  “Please, don’t worry,” he tried. He thought of Dracula. “Please, don’t worry,” he repeated, struggling to bend the vowels into their proper shapes, “I’m Doctor Czernin. I’m… I’ve… I know what this sounds like.”

  Again, he thought of perhaps leaving a note instead. Coming in later, to space out the shocks. A knock at the door – a friendly sort of knock – and then the introduction.

  Again, he worried that Kyra might remember their first meeting, and resent it, and resent him for it. It could have gone so much better.

  “Hello, Mr Kyra,” Istvan muttered, putting the needle and tubing away. “I’m Doctor Czernin. You recognized me in Tornado Alley. I’m sorry for the facilities, but we’ll have you out of here soon.”

  He cleaned and bandaged Kyra’s arm, then stepped back and checked to make certain that the “decorations” Edmund had brought in were arranged well within the boy’s view. The pillows. The lamp. After a moment, Istvan removed the flower-stitched fabric from Kyra’s knees and draped it over the stool.

  Then he retreated behind them, still within view, and sat down, drawing his knees up nervously. Back against the wall, as far away as he could be.

  He glanced at a hand, then brushed at his face. Not skeletal. He turned to the side to better hide the scarring. Barbed wire coiled around the stool le
gs despite himself.

  The taste of the air changed. Confusion, diluted and uncertain.

  Kyra shifted.

  Istvan checked his hand again. Still not skeletal.

  Kyra’s eyelids fluttered, then closed again. His mouth worked, probably trying to recover lost moisture. His fingers twitched. One wrist tugged against its shackles, rattling one length of chain against another.

  He froze. He opened his eyes again. He seemed to be having trouble focusing, and trouble moving his head, but he managed to get a look at the offending chain.

  The sound he made was somewhere between a sob and a whimper.

  Istvan wished he could risk being any closer. “Er–”

  Kyra’s head snapped towards him. Too quickly – he reeled, brought up short by the chains – a shriek cut off by the band around his neck–

  Istvan held up his hands, edging so far away he could feel his back scraping through the wall. “Hello! Hello, and I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to–”

  Kyra slammed his head back against the pillar, fortunately where Roberts had placed some padding. Arabic calligraphy flashed in the fire-orange light. The clank and slither of metal on metal echoed horribly in Istvan’s ears.

  “Please, I’m Doctor Czernin. I–”

  Kyra screamed.

  Salt grains whipped from the grooves in the floor, bouncing and then drawn aloft, whirled into a sudden wind. The chains clattered sideways, straining at their moorings.

  Istvan covered his face.

  The stool fell over. The floor cracked. There was a trembling to the walls, dust shaking from the mortar between stones and added to the wind. The embroidery he’d spent so many hours finishing tore away, whipped in circles, hurtling like a bat.

  He’d tried.

  He’d tried so hard.

  The boy threw himself against the pillar again and again in futile struggle, terror warring with shock and further terror, raw sweetness compounded by verdant disbelief and incomprehension, a mélange that tore through the air with the wind and rose as it did. He didn’t understand what was happening. He didn’t know where he was, or why he was chained, or what he was doing.

  Had he no memory of his own power at all? Had Edmund, or Grace, done something to lift that multitudinous fog from his being, to bring him back to himself with a shock, still burdened with what he shouldn’t remember?