Nim winces, leaning into her injured leg. I kneel by her side and split the seam of my dress, ripping free a length of the hem and tying it around the knife wound. “Can you walk?” I ask.
Nim tries to lift herself up, gasps in agony, and falls back to the floor. “No,” she says. “The pain is too much.”
I come to sit beside her, staring at the only full basin in the room. My universe floats above it, the swirling galaxies within projecting onto the walls around us. “She’ll get inside eventually, and who knows how she’ll bide her time until then.”
“You need to go warn Noah. Tell him of the threat against his life. The Key must be protected.”
“And what about you? I’m not leaving you here to be slaughtered.”
Nim tries to laugh but the sound comes out as a grumble instead. “I’ll be fine, dear.”
“No. You’re just as important to me as Noah is.”
“Amara; listen to me. Even if Elli kills every last one of us—even if she murders all the Leaders and Aiders and Watchers and Seers—you must survive. You must rebuild The House. It’s up to you now.”
Tears spill from my eyes. “But it’s all my fault. I should’ve just done what she asked. Gone to get Noah and brought him back to her.”
“And then what? Do you actually think she would’ve let us live?” Nim raises a hand to my cheek, leaving a print of silver on my skin as she cradles my head. “There is no right answer here. No obvious outcome. There is only her and you, and you must make sure she doesn’t take over The House. Evolution is unguided for a reason, Amara, just like some doors are locked. Universes aren’t meant to be ruled or conquered.”
“The Key will be brought into these walls by a Watcher, who will then unlock the mystical force that powers our institution. With this power she will either destroy universes or save them, but either way, The House will suffer a terrible end,” I repeat verbatim. “That’s what the prophecy says. I think it means The House will be destroyed either way.”
Nim purses her lips and draws her hand back. “Like I said, universes aren’t meant to be ruled or conquered. They are simply meant to be. We in The House are the lucky few who get to watch that happen, but nothing can last forever. We are not what’s important. It’s the life that matters; the universes stored within the orbs. Save those, and even if every last one of us is snuffed out, all will be right.”
I lean my head on her shoulder and sob. I cry until I think I have no tears left to spill, and then I pull away. “This is the end,” I say. “Whichever road I take, this is it.”
“Do you love this boy, Noah?” she asks.
I nod. “Yes. Yes; I think I do.”
“Then you have lived more than me. More than any of us.”
“I suppose I have.”
Nim manages a small grin. “Now go, Amara. Protect the Key. And don’t you dare come back. You can hide on Earth and gather your strength. Form a plan. And years from now, you can return and take back this place as your own.”
“You should come with me. You can help.”
Nim presses her fingers against the makeshift bandage knotted around her leg. “What if Elli comes in here and makes it to Earth after us? I can’t run with you. I can’t even stand. It’s a silly thing to even consider.”
“Two Watchers are better than one.”
“I’ve made my decision,” Nim says firmly. “There’s no changing my mind. Leave me here. If anything terrible happens while you’re gone—if Elli breaks in and tries to come for you—I will enter your universe and warn you with my dying breath.”
This is when I say goodbye. I wrap my arms around her, pulling her into an embrace, and whisper my thanks in her ear. She strokes my hair and ducks out of my grasp, dragging herself backward so that she leans against the door and adds more weight to the barricade. Then I come to stand before the basin, turn to smoke, and fly into the stars and blackness beyond.
I swim through galaxies and past planets, shooting through Earth’s atmosphere and landing next to the cabin in the mountaintop clearing. Night sets the whole place in shadows, the moonlight tinting the grass blue. Running to the window, I look inside.
There is no one there. No fire billows in the hearth; no body sleeps on the bed. Noah does not swim in the spring or lie on the grass.
He is gone, and I am alone, lost in a world I barely understand.
Chapter Twenty-Four
I run out of the clearing and into the forest, plunging into the darkness that permeates the trees. Branches whip at my skin, slicing into my flesh; I stumble over rocks and plants as I scream Noah’s name. There is no answer but for the chirping of crickets and my own ragged breaths.
Pushing through the thicket, I emerge from the opposite end of the woods. The plateau of jagged boulders greets me, the craggy structures jutting up toward the sky like misshapen daggers. Making my way over to the cliff’s edge, I dangle my toes over the precipice and watch as clumps of mud tumble down and shatter into dust against the ground below.
“Noah,” I say, but this time my voice is barely above a whisper. Left with no other option, I begin to transform, the tips of my fingers turning to mist until I’m up to my elbows in smoke—
“Who’s there?”
I turn abruptly from smoke back into solid as the words echo out into the night. Spinning around and squinting into the night, shadows flicker against a boulder in the distance. Noah appears from out of a crevice, his face streaked in dirt and his hands shaking as he makes his way over to me.
Rushing up to greet him, I throw my arms around his neck and pull him in close. He smells of sweat and earth, and his whole body quakes beneath my hands. His skin is cold from the chilled air of night.
“I thought you’d gone,” I say, the statement muffled as my mouth presses against the curve of his neck.
“I’ve been waiting for you to come back to me,” he replies. “I’d almost given up hope when I heard someone call my name. How’d you get away from Dante?”
“That’s not important right now. We’ve got to leave this place and hide you somewhere safe. Maybe I can find another planet where you can survive, many galaxies away from this one. A place she can never find us.”
“Who’s she?”
I tell him of Elli and her betrayal. The words rush out like river water surging around bedrock. When I’m done reliving the whole, sordid tale, I step back and wrap my arms around myself. Not until now did the full weight of Elli’s treachery hit me. The force of it quickens my pulse and sets my head spinning.
“There’s no right path to take,” I conclude. “She’s up there right now, tearing through The House. She’ll kill every last member whether I bring you there or not. The only chance we have to survive is to hide. The longer we keep the Key from her grasp, the longer it takes for her to destroy everything The House stands for.”
“So let me get this straight,” Noah says. “Option one is to stay on Earth—spend the rest of our lives running and hiding. Option two involves you taking me to The House and handing me over to Elli so she can unlock some mystical power and use it to create universes that she can rule over. And option three—”
“There is no option three. We stay here or we surrender. That’s it.”
Noah shakes his head. “We have another choice. You take me to The House and instead of giving me to Elli, we fight. We do everything in our power to keep her from achieving her goal.”
“No. I can’t bring you into harm’s way. I’ve already done enough to ruin your life,” I say.
Noah throws his arms up in exasperation. “Don’t you see that staying here is pointless? We’ll only be delaying the inevitable. Eventually she’ll get bored up there and decide to screw the prophecy. She’ll come to Earth and take me herself. If we take a stand now, at least we have a fighting chance. At least we’ll be doing more than waiting around for the end to come.”
I lean against a boulder and cradle my head in my hands. “So what do you suggest? We storm The House, find Elli, and—wh
at then? We kill her?” I lift my gaze to meet his, my eyes growing watery. “I don’t think I can do that, Noah. Even after all that she’s done, she was my friend once. She treated me better than anyone else in The House. I have to believe that person’s still in there somewhere. That it’s just the billions of years being stuck in the Archives Room that have driven her mad.”
Noah wraps his hands around mine, tugging me away from the boulder and into his embrace. “We can hope it won’t come to that. There has to be another way. Maybe we can hide the mystical energy the same way The House originally hid the Key. We’ll pick a universe and bury it so deep in the galaxies that Elli will never find it, no matter how many prophecies or books she reads.”
“What you’re suggesting requires us to unlock the Hall of Beginnings, which is exactly what Elli wants us to do in the first place. We’d be playing right into her hands.”
“Not if we get to the mystical energy source first. I’ll do whatever it takes, Amara. I believe that together, we can do anything. We can win.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Nim will hate this idea. As soon as we show up she’ll try to dissuade us. And she could very possibly be right. To get past Elli and her Harbingers—to reach the Hall of Beginnings, find the mystical power, and hide it before she can do to us what she did to Dante—it’s very unlikely we’ll succeed. We don’t even know how to fit the Key—you—into the lock.”
“Stop doubting yourself,” Noah says. “I’ve seen what you’re capable of. What we’re capable of. We’ll succeed because we have to. All the universes depend on it.”
I sigh and rest my head on his chest, listening to the steady thump of his heart. He strokes my hair with one hand, and his touch sends sparks of warmth through my veins. Despite my unease, I begin to believe what he said. Maybe there’s a chance we can undo Elli’s destruction after all. Perhaps it’s just a matter of standing up and playing the heroes. She’s one person weak, and we’re two people strong.
I feel foolish now for not listening to Noah from the beginning. In The House my predicament felt like one big gray area—any road I walked down would end up as a half win, half loss—but once Noah reasoned with me, everything turned black and white. The future is simple: we fight, or we don’t. We win, or we lose. Trying is better than doing nothing at all.
My cheeks warm to a rosy shade of scarlet as I realize how much Noah’s comfort means to me. “I love you,” I whisper, the words feeling foreign on my lips. “I’m in love with you. It terrifies me and excites me all at once.”
“I’m in love with you, too,” he says, and then he kisses me.
His mouth is soft against mine at first, but then it becomes more insistent. He presses into me, and I into him. My shoulder blades lean into the boulder behind us as I let him take me over. With him wrapped around me there is no House, no Elli, no life or death decision. There is only him and me, together forever.
I pull away, inhaling sharply and setting my hands gently against his chest. I have to wait several moments for my head to clear before I can speak again. “Not now,” I say. “After we defeat Elli. After we win. If I let you kiss me now, I’ll get lost in you, and by the time we’re done there will be no House left to save.”
Noah clears his throat and nods. “I’m ready, then. Let’s go.”
I step over to a clear patch of ground, tipping my head back to stare up at the stars. Noah joins me, slipping his hand into mine. He’s shaking again, but this time it isn’t from the cold but from anticipation. I can sense it rolling off him in waves.
“Are you ready to see the world for what it really is?” I ask him.
“Will it be anything like the pictures I see? The ones astronauts take from space?” he wonders aloud.
I smile. “It’ll be so much bigger. And brighter, too. It’s scary and extraordinary all at once.”
He takes a deep breath, stills his trembling limbs, and looks at me with a resolve I haven’t seen before. “I’m ready.”
I tighten my grip on his hand and focus on the transformation, letting my skin turn from solid into smoke. Noah’s blue mist weaves around my gray as we morph from the top of our heads to the tip of our toes into swirling clouds under the moonlit sky. Then I lead him up, up into the blackness of night, through the atmosphere and beyond.
Noah’s smoke form radiates with exhilaration as we rocket through galaxies and in between planets. We do loops around stars and curl around comets. I know we need to reach The House soon, but I can’t deny him the pleasure of exploring a universe he may never see again. If Elli proves victorious over us, it will all be turned to ash.
As I swirl around him, leading him through dazzling swaths of color streaked across solar systems and around the deep nothingness of black holes, I realize I’ve been taking the beauty of my universe for granted. I travel straight from The House to Earth and back every time, never really stopping to drink in the magnificence around me. This world we swim through came out of oblivion to make life. From its depths, Noah was born. My flight through this great expanse isn’t just a universe; it’s his origin story. For that, I owe the world reverence.
Regretfully, I push Noah away from the swirling planets below and think of home. When our smoke forms coalesce into solidity again, we stand in the Watch Room. Noah still clutches my hand in his, but when he sees Nim propped against the door he stumbles back and releases me.
“It’s just Nim,” I reassure him, though the sight of her frightens even me. Her skin has gone a sickly shade of green and the piece of fabric I wrapped around her leg is soaked in silver. Her head lolls against her shoulder and her eyes are shut. When I speak her lids flutter open, and her expression immediately turns outraged.
“I told you not to return,” she hisses at me. “And what is the boy doing with you?”
“We can’t run,” I reply. “Noah and I decided to come back and take a stand against Elli. The House is worth fighting for.”
“N—ni—nice to meet you,” Noah stammers, giving Nim a half wave. She narrows her eyes and opens her mouth to yell, but I cut her off.
“There’s nothing you can do to change my mind. Noah’s going to help me reach the Hall of Beginnings, and together we’ll find the mystical power source that runs The House. I’ll keep it away from Elli and hide it somewhere she can never find it.”
“Reckless,” Nim says, “but not stupid. Though I’d vastly prefer it if you were far from here.”
A stretch of silence envelops us, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. It’s the type of quiet that is too thick—almost as thick as the void—and it sets my ears ringing.
“What’s going on out there?” I ask my mentor. “Have you heard anything lately?”
Nim’s face darkens. “There were screams. Lots of them. They lasted for quite a while. Then they tapered out. I haven’t heard so much as a peep for a while. But there is this.” She leans a hand behind her, setting it in a pool of shadow leaking in from under the door. When she brings her palm up to show us, it’s soaked in silver blood.
I rush to Nim’s side and lean down to inspect the floor. The blood isn’t hers. It’s trickling in from underneath the crack, soaking the dress I stuffed there and creating a puddle behind Nim’s back. My skin prickles with fear from the sight. No person could survive that much blood loss, not even a member of The House.
“Who’s it coming from?” I ask.
“I don’t want to know,” Nim answers. “It could be more than one. You won’t find out until you go out there.”
I grab onto one side of the basin propped against the door and call to Noah. “Some help, please.”
He’s been gazing around the room, taking in the marble floors and the stars projecting onto the walls from my orb that rests in its clear bowl. When he hears me he snaps out of his reverie and comes to help, dragging the blockade away from the exit. Next we each duck under Nim’s arms and pull her out of the way. She gasps in pain when she tries to put weight on her injured leg.
&nb
sp; “I want to come with you,” she says. “You shouldn’t be alone.”
I grab onto Noah’s hand and give her my best reassuring smile. “I’m not. You stay here, where it’s safe. When we’re gone, crawl back over to the door and hold it shut again.”
Noah and I walk over to the exit. Placing my hand on the knob, I give him one last lingering glance. “Are you sure about this?” I ask him.
He sets his jaw, squeezes my hand, and nods.
“Be careful,” Nim says. “And Amara?”
“Yes, Nim?”
I’m expecting her to utter a trademark piece of wisdom, but instead her breath catches. Tears form in the corners of her eyes, and she struggles to keep them contained. “You’re everything I taught you to be and more.”
I blush, sensing the heat radiate over my ears and down my neck. There are no words to convey what I feel for her in the moment and so instead I just nod, avert my eyes, and pull open the door.
As Noah and I step across the threshold and into the hall, Nim’s stifled sobs follow me, not departing until I close the door behind me and focus on the perilous mission ahead.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The halls are bathed in silver blood. It streaks the walls and drips into puddles on the floor. A hill of bodies covers the ground, a tangle of arms and legs and blank stares. The dead are people I recognize—House members I used to pass every day in the halls. Some of them sport gouged wounds; others look sickly like Dena and Oman did as their universes fell to destruction.
With a chill that rocks my spine, I remember the illustration drawn on one of the ripped out pages shoved under my bedroom door. This scene matches it perfectly; the only aspect missing is the shadowy figure clutching the orb.
I turn into Noah’s chest and stifle a scream as I bury my face in the fabric of his sweater. He gulps hard, his legs shaking beneath him.
“Did Elli do all this?” he asks.
“She must have,” I reply. “Her and her Harbingers.”
“But why? Why would she murder them all in cold blood?”
Across the Universe Page 16
