“If it leads nowhere,” I ask, “then what’s the harm?”
“A door that leads nowhere and a door that leads to nowhere are totally different things, Kenzie. A door that leads to nowhere is dangerous. A door to nowhere is a door into nothing,” you say, taking the key back and slipping the cord over your head. “A void.”
I look down at the Crew key, mesmerized. “Can it do anything else?”
“Sure can.”
“Like what?”
You give a tilted smile. “Make it to Crew and you’ll find out.”
I chew my lip. “Hey, Da?”
“Yes, Kenzie?”
“If Crew keys are so powerful, won’t the Archive notice it’s gone?”
You sit back and shrug. “Things get misplaced. Things get lost. Nobody’s going to miss it.”
“Da gave you his key?” I ask. I’d always wondered what happened to it.
“Do I get a Crew key, too?” asks Wes, bouncing slightly.
“You’ll have to share,” says Roland. “The Archive keeps track of these. It notices when they go missing. The only reason they won’t notice this key is gone is because—”
“It stayed lost,” I say.
Roland almost smiles. “Antony held on to it as long as he could, and then he gave it back to me. I never turned it in, so the Archive still considers the key lost.”
“Why are you giving this to me now?” I ask.
Roland rubs his eyes. “The disruption is spreading. Rapidly. As more Histories wake, and more escape, you need to be prepared.”
I look down at the key, the weight of the memory pulling at my fingers. “These keys go to and from the Archive, but Da said they did other things. If I’m going to have it and play Crew, I want to know what he meant.”
“That key is not a promotion, Miss Bishop. It’s to be used only in case of emergency, and even then, only to go to and from the Archive.”
“Where else would I go?”
“Oh, oh, like shortcuts?” asks Wes. “My aunt Joan told me about them. There are these doors, only they don’t go to the Narrows or the Archive. They’re just in the Outer. Like holes punched in space.”
Roland gives us both a withering look and sighs. “Shortcuts are used by Crew to move expediently through the Outer. Some let you skip a few blocks, others let you cross an entire city.”
Wes nods, but I frown. “Why haven’t I ever seen one? Not even with my ring off.”
“I’m sure you have and didn’t know it. Shortcuts are unnatural—holes in space. They don’t look like doors, just a wrongness in the air, so your eyes slide off. Crew learn to look for the places their eyes don’t want to go. But it takes time and practice. Neither of which you have. And it takes Crew years to memorize which doors lead where, which is only one of a dozen reasons why you do not have permission to use that key on one if you find it. Do you understand?”
I fold the kerchief over the key and nod, sliding it into my pocket. Roland is obviously nervous, and no wonder. If shortcuts barely register as more than thin air, and Da told me what happens when you use a Crew key on thin air, then the potential for ripping open a void in the Outer is pretty high.
“Stick together, no playing with the key, no looking for shortcuts.” Wes ticks off the rules on his fingers.
We both turn to go.
“Miss Bishop,” says Roland. “A word alone.”
Wesley leaves, and I linger, waiting for my punishment, my sentence. Roland is silent until the door closes on Wes.
“Miss Bishop,” he says, without looking at me, “Mr. Ayers has been made aware of the disruption. He has not been told of its suspected cause. You will keep that, and the rest of our investigation, to yourself.”
I nod. “Is that all, Roland?”
“No,” he says, his voice going low. “In opening Benjamin’s drawer, you broke Archival law, and you broke my trust. Your actions are being overlooked once and only once, but if you ever, ever do that again, you will forfeit your position, and I will remove you myself.” His gray eyes level on mine. “That is all.”
I bow my head, eyes trained on the floor so they can’t betray the pain I feel. I take a steadying breath, manage a last nod, and leave.
Wesley is waiting for me by the Archive door. Elliot is at the desk, scribbling furiously. He doesn’t look up when I come in, even though the sight of two Keepers has to be unusual.
Wes, meanwhile, seems giddy.
“Look,” he says cheerfully, holding out his list for me to inspect. There’s one name on it, a kid. “That’s mine…” He flips the paper over to show six names on the other side. “And those are yours. Sharing is caring.”
“Wesley, you were listening, weren’t you? This isn’t a game.”
“That doesn’t mean we won’t have fun. And look!” He taps the center of my list, where a name stands out against the sea of black.
Dina Blunt. 33.
I cringe at the prospect of another adult, a Keeper-Killer, the last one still vivid in my mind; but Wesley looks oddly delighted.
“Come, Miss Bishop,” he says, holding out his hand. “Let’s go hunting.”
TWENTY-FOUR
WESLEY AYERS is being too nice.
“So then this wicked-looking six-year-old tries to take me out at the knees…”
Too chatty.
“…but he’s two feet shorter so he just ends kicking the crap out of my shins.…”
Too peppy.
“I mean, he was six, and wearing soccer cleats—”
Which means…
“He told you,” I say.
Wesley’s brow crinkles, but he manages to keep smiling. “What are you talking about?”
“Roland told you, didn’t he? That I lost my brother.”
His smile flickers, fades. At last he nods.
“I already knew,” he says. “I saw him when your dad touched my shoulder. I saw him when you shoved me in the Narrows. I haven’t seen inside your mother’s mind, but it’s in her face, it’s in her step. I didn’t mean to look, Mac, but he’s right at the surface. He’s written all over your family.”
I don’t know what to say. The two of us stand there in the Narrows, and all the falseness falls away.
“Roland said there’d been an incident. Said he didn’t want you to be alone. I don’t know what happened. But I want you to know, you’re not alone.”
My eyes burn, and I clench my jaw and look away.
“Are you holding up?” he asks.
The lie comes to my lips, automatic. I bite it back. “No.”
Wes looks down. “You know, I used to think that when you died, you lost everything.” He starts down the hall, talking as he goes, so I’m forced to follow. “That’s what made me so sad about death, even more than the fact that you couldn’t live anymore; it was that you lost all the things you’d spent your life collecting, all the memories and knowledge. But when my aunt Joan taught me about Histories and the Archive, it changed everything.” He pauses at a corner. “The Archive means that the past is never gone. Never lost. Knowing that, it’s freeing. It gave me permission to always look forward. After all, we have our own Histories to write.”