The quiet builds like a wave, drowning anger and pain.
“I’m sorry, Mackenzie.”
I stiffen, but as his lips press against my skin, the silence flares in my head, blotting something out. Heat ripples through my body, pricking my senses as the quiet deadens my thoughts. He kisses my throat, my jaw. Each time his lips brush my skin, the heat and silence blossom side by side and spread, drowning a little bit of the pain and anger and guilt, leaving only warmth and want and quiet in their place. His lips brush my cheek, and then he pulls back, his pale eyes leveled cautiously on mine, his mouth barely a breath from mine. When he touches me, there is nothing but touch. There is no thought of wrong and no thought of loss and no thought of anything, because thoughts can’t get through the static.
“I’m sorry, M.”
M. That drags me under. That one little word he can’t possibly understand. M. Not Mackenzie. Not Mac. Not Bishop. Not Keeper.
I want that. I need that. I cannot be the girl who broke the rules and woke her dead brother and ruined everything.…
I close the gap. Pull Owen’s body flush with mine.
His mouth is soft but strong, and when he deepens the kiss, the quiet spreads, filling every space in my mind, washing over me. Drowning me.
And then his mouth is gone, and his hands let go of mine. Everything comes back, too loud. I pull his body against mine, feel the impossibly careful crush of his mouth as it steals the air from my lungs, steals the thoughts from my head.
Owen steps forward, urging my body against the wall, pushing me with his kisses and the quiet that comes with his touch. I am letting it all wash over me, letting it wash away the questions and doubts, the Histories and the key and the ring and everything else, until I am just M against his lips, his body. M reflected in the pale blue of his eyes until he closes them and kisses me deeper, and then I am nothing.
TWENTY-THREE
I CANNOT STAY HERE forever, buried under Owen’s touch.
At last I push away, break the surface of the quiet, and before I lose my will, before I cave, I leave. I can’t hunt, so I spend what’s left of the night searching the Coronado, moving numbly from floor to floor, trying to read the walls for any clues, anything the Archive—or whoever in it tried to cover things up—might have missed, but that year is shot full of holes. I run through the time lines, scour the memories for leads, and find only dull impressions and stretches of too-flat black. Elling’s old apartment is locked, but I read the south stairs, where Eileen supposedly fell, and even brave the elevators in search of Lionel’s stabbing, only to find the unnatural nothing of excavated pasts. Whatever happened here, someone went out of their way to bury it, even from people like me.
A dull ache has formed behind my eyes, and I’ve lost hope of finding any useful memory intact, but I keep searching. I have to. Because every time I stop moving, the thought of losing Ben—really losing him—catches up, the pain catches up, the thought of kissing Owen—of using a History for his touch—catches up. So I keep moving.
I start searching for more of Regina’s story. I put my ring on, hoping to dull the headache, and search the old-fashioned way, thankful for the distraction. I check table drawers and shelves, even though sixty years have passed, and the chances of finding anything are slim. I search for hidden compartments in the study, and take down half the books to check behind them. I remember Owen saying something about garden cracks. I know paper would never last out here, but I still search the mossy stones by feel in the dark, grateful for the quiet predawn air.
The sun is rising as I look behind the counters and around the old equipment in the coffee shop, careful not to touch the half-painted walls. And just as I’m about to abandon the search, my eyes drift to the sheeting thrown over the rose pattern in the floor to keep it safe. In garden cracks and under tiles, Owen said. It’s a long shot, but I kneel and pull aside the plastic tarp. The rose beneath is as wide as my arm span, each inlaid marble petal piece the size of my palm. I brush my hand back and forth across the rust-colored pattern. Near the center, I feel the subtle shift of stones beneath my touch. One of the petals is loose.
My heart skips as I get my fingers under the lip of the petal. It lifts. The hiding place is little more than a hole, the walls of which are lined with white cloth. And there, folded and weighted down by a narrow metal bar, is another piece of Regina’s story.
The paper is yellowing but intact, protected by the hidden chamber, and I lift it to the morning light.
The red stones shifted and became steps, a great flight of stairs that led the hero up and up. And the hero climbed.
The pieces are out of order. The last fragment spoke of facing gods and monsters at the top of something. This one clearly goes before. But what comes after?
My attention shifts to the small bar that had held the note in place. It’s roughly the size of a pencil but half the length, one end tapering just like a graphite point. A groove has been cut from the blunt end down, and it’s made of the same metal as the ring that held the first note.
For one horrible, bitter moment, I consider putting the pieces back, leaving them buried. It seems so unfair that Owen should have pieces of Regina when I can have none of Ben.
But as cruel as it is that Ben slipped when Owen didn’t, it isn’t Owen’s fault. He’s the History, and I’m the Keeper. He couldn’t have known what would happen, and I’m the one who chose to wake my brother.
The sun is up now. The morning of my trial. I slip both the paper and the bar into my pocket and make my way upstairs.
Dad is already up, and I tell him I went running. I don’t know if he believes me. He says I look tired, and I admit that I am. I shower numbly and stumble through the early hours, trying not to think of the trial, of being deemed unfit, of losing everything. I help Mom settle on new paint chips and pack up half the oatmeal raisin cookies for Nix before I make a lame excuse to leave. Mom is so distracted by the paint dilemma—it’s still not right, not quite right, has to be right—that she simply nods. I pause in the doorway, watching her work, listening to Dad on a call in the other room. I try to memorize this before, not knowing what after will be.
And then I go.
I cut through the Narrows, and the memory of last night sweeps over me with the humid air and the far-off sounds. The memory of quiet. And as panic eats through me, I wish I could disappear again. I can’t. But there’s something I should do.
I find the alcove, and Owen in it, and press the note and the small iron bar into his hands, staying only long enough to steal a kiss and a moment of quiet. The peace dissolves into fear as I reach the Archive door and step through.
I don’t know what I expected—a row of Librarians waiting, ready to strip me of my key and my ring? Someone named Agatha waiting to judge me unfit, to carve my job right out of my life, taking my identity with it? A tribunal? A lynch mob?
I certainly don’t expect Lisa to look up from her desk, over her green horn-rimmed glasses, and ask me what I want.
“Is Roland here?” I ask unsteadily.
She goes back to her work. “He said you’d stop by.”
I shift my weight. “Is that all he said?”
“Said to send you in.” Lisa straightens. “Is everything all right, Miss Bishop?”