She paused for a moment to assess the impact of her words on her audience, but that was no easy task: everyone around her had frozen in astonishment. Even Archibald, who had been rubbing his hands with excitement, had finally stopped, mid-movement.
“I have put you all in danger just by speaking to you of this,” continued Ophelia. “I don’t know what your plans are exactly, but be extremely careful. The Guardians are the eyes and ears of God, across all the arks. It’s impossible to determine with any certainty who is in his service, and who isn’t. I’m telling you this because you are the people whom I trust the most.”
It was Aunt Rosaline who was first to break the general paralysis. She crossed the room in a few energetic strides, long enough to calm herself down, her heels clicking on the mosaic and resonating right up to the cupola. Then she rubbed her forehead, sighing. “That’s you all over, that is. When it comes to getting yourself into a fix, there are no half-measures.”
Ophelia clenched her jaws. Her godmother didn’t know how right she was. If God had told the truth, he wasn’t the one to be most feared in the situation. There was the Other. That unidentifiable entity she’d freed from the mirror. That angel of the apocalypse who apparently broke up the world, and who, still according to God, was preparing to complete his work.
“Sooner or later, whether you want to or not, you will lead me to him.”
Had a link really been created between Ophelia and this Other? The only memory she retained—a distant, confused memory—was that of her own reflection in the mirror of her childhood bedroom, on the night of her first passage through a mirror. Since then, contrary to what God had predicted, no ark had disintegrated. Sure, sections of earth sometimes went crashing into the void, but that could just as easily have been due to natural erosion. No, truly, the more Ophelia thought about it, the less she saw the point of panicking everyone with a story as nebulous as that of the Other.
She suddenly realized, from the way he was waiting, head tilted to one side, that Archibald had asked her a question. “Sorry? You were saying to me?”
“That it was rather strange. On the one hand, you assert to us that God created the family spirits. On the other, you assert that he covets their family powers. To me, something doesn’t feel quite right.”
“There are many things that I don’t understand myself,” admitted Ophelia. “Why, for example, did God formerly say to the family spirits that they were free to make their own choices, only to make them his puppets today? For one reason or another, his plans have changed.”
Archibald merely nodded with his chin. Sitting on the itinerary table, legs crossed and hands clasping knee, one might have thought he was just chatting about the weather. “And when he doesn’t adopt the appearance of a mortal, what is God’s face like then?”
“I’ve not seen it,” replied Ophelia. “I don’t even know if he’s got one. What I do know, on the other hand, is that he has no reflection. And that he has a tendency to make slips of the tongue,” she added, cautiously, “but I don’t know to what extent that’s a reliable distinguishing feature.”
Archibald jumped off the table and exchanged a knowing wink with Gail and Fox, before returning to Ophelia. “Would you like to search for LandmArk with us?”
“LandmArk?”
“Old Hildegarde’s native ark.”
“I know that, but why LandmArk?”
“Because if Hildegarde knew about God, the odds are that her family does, too. You see, the Arkadians hold Compass Roses on every ark. They’ve been observing all that takes place across the world for generations. I believe they’re extremely well-informed. The problem is that all the Arkadians have deserted the Compass Roses; we’ve not yet encountered a single one of them.” With an eloquent flourish, Archibald opened a drawer at random and took out all manner of printed material—cards, stamps, passports, certificates—as if, now, they all belonged to him. “No problem, we’ll go and look for them all the way to their home, if need be!”
“And you were waiting for me for that?” Ophelia asked with surprise.
Archibald shook his head, in a flurry of blond hair. “We didn’t wait for you at all. In fact, we’ve been looking for them for a while. No, for the moment, we’re feeling our way, experimenting, roaming. That’s how we ended up finding the way to Anima. For technical explanations, it’s your turn.” Archibald bowed to Gail, who simply pushed him aside and banged the itinerary table with the flat of her hand.
“For weeks, now, we’ve been studying these coordinates! A whole load of blasted doors leading to twenty major arks, a hundred and eighty minor arks, and the myriad little islands floating around them. But not a single one that leads to LandmArk,” she railed, glowering at the table. “On every occasion, the Arkadians have kept this itinerary secret. And it’s impossible to get there by air.”
Ophelia sympathized. LandmArk didn’t feature on any maps. It was even said that the entire ark was concealed in a fold within space.
“There has to be some access to it,” Gail continued, hammering the table with her index finger, “but we’re going to need lots of time and application to find it. The Compass Roses are conceived like railway networks on a grand scale: there are direct lines, and hundreds of connecting lines. We must find the correct branch line.”
“But haven’t you already been to LandmArk several times?” Ophelia interrupted her. “I remember that you even brought back some oranges from there.”
“That particular shortcut has disappeared,” Archibald replied for Gail. “I can unlock a closed-down transit, but I can’t reconstruct what has been destroyed.”
Ophelia contemplated the round table, with its chaos of numbers, its maze of lines and symbols, for a long time. “Why?” she murmured. “Why go to all this trouble?”
Archibald’s smile became more pronounced and the glimmer in his eyes intensified. Never had Ophelia seen him so determined. “It’s pretty obvious. Hildegarde was a stubborn old mule who was forever causing me problems, but she was under my protection. If God is responsible for her death, then God will have to explain himself personally to me.”
Gail spat on the ground as a sign of approval, and Fox automatically took out a handkerchief to wipe her mouth. “I wasn’t particularly fond of the old bag,” he sighed, “but what’s important to my boss is important to me.”
“I must now take this young lady back to her mother,” Archibald declared, stroking Victoria’s white hair. She had ended up falling asleep on the counter, still clutching her pencil. “You’re in a Compass Rose, it’s up to you to choose your destination, Madame Thorn! Would you like to stay on Anima with your family? Would you like to return to the Pole with your goddaughter? Or would you like to look for LandmArk with us?”