“I won’t tell you what I was doing ten years ago, because I was seriously underage,” I said.
He laughed and stroked my hair. “I like to think,” he said, “that it took me just long enough to grow up that I could fall in love with you when you were the perfect age.”
“Mmm. I like the sound of that.”
His arms tightened on me. “Ah, love, what would I do without you?”
“I believe the consensus is that you would be miserable and lonely.”
“Very true.” He kissed me, and for a few minutes I forgot about the movie. Then Cyrus leaped up to investigate what Malcolm was doing that wasn’t petting him, and we settled back in to watch.
It was about twenty ‘til midnight when the final credits rolled—or didn’t roll; those old movies just had static screens listing the cast. We disentangled ourselves, and I kissed Malcolm goodnight and got my laptop set up on the kitchen table. I felt more at peace than I had in weeks.
A flash of memory struck me, of my first sight of Malcolm, standing by the cash register in Abernathy’s with a look of surprise at seeing me, a stranger, instead of Mr. Briggs. I’d thought he was gorgeous, of course, but had no idea what the future held for us. Married. How far we’d come.
I settled in at the computer and gestured to Xerxes to sit on my lap. He ignored me, as was his habit. He liked to pretend lap-sitting was all his own idea. I propped my elbows on the table and waited. I wasn’t sure what news I had for my fellow custodians, given that they’d all probably heard the report on Berryton and what had come of the attack on Kalgoorlie, but the idea of sharing information with people whose concerns were mostly like mine made me feel even more at peace.
The computer chimed, and I hit the button. “Good day—and good evening,” Samudra said. “I trust everyone is well? Helena, you are unharmed? We all heard about the attempt to destroy Abernathy’s.”
“I’m fine, thanks. It was incredible good luck, though.”
“I’m surprised the oracle didn’t warn you itself,” Amarion said.
“I—yeah, it doesn’t seem to see threats the way we do. Probably it knew Victor would be there, and that was all the warning it took.”
“Or warned Victor itself,” Claude said. “We do not know the mechanism by which his magical talent operates. The Mercy’s oracle tapped into the same mystical space as Abernathy’s, so perhaps the other precognitives do the same.”
“I never thought of that.” It was an intriguing idea, though one I didn’t know how to investigate. A thought for another time.
“So our theory about the wards proved true,” Samudra said. “Though no one yet knows how they are doing it.”
“And the situation at Abernathy’s tells us how they were getting past the wards,” Amarion said. “That was daring, trying to smash through like that.”
“I wanted to ask whether all of you have similar alarms set up on your Neutralities,” I said. “Now that we know they’re willing to take such drastic action, those alarms aren’t enough.”
“We do not have the alarm on the Sanctuary itself, but on the walls surrounding it and the gates leading to the…you might call it an enclosure,” Samudra said. “A stretch of empty land between those gates and the Sanctuary’s buildings. Though the invaders would find it difficult to drive a car into the walls, shattering them. The Sanctuary lies atop a sheer cliff, accessible only by foot. But we will not be foolhardy. My people are even now assessing the possibilities and preparing for an assault, possibly by air.”
I immediately pictured invaders in parachutes dropping into the Sanctuary complex. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
Samudra smiled. “It would be extremely hazardous. The wind blows constantly around the precipice. But even that slim chance should not be overlooked.”
“The Wardens have been doing construction around the Labyrinth all day,” Amarion said. “They tell me they’ll have an improved alarm system in by tomorrow morning. I’m looking forward to having them out of here, honestly. Not that I don’t appreciate their efforts, but the noise makes it hard for people to concentrate on their journey.”
“The Athenaeum’s heart is impregnable,” Claude said. “Because access to it is distributed around the world, it is those places that must be accessible, not the node itself. We weaken the wards once a year for me to enter and maintain my charge, but at all other times the wards are as strong as possible. And that time is another four months off. The invaders may try some other approach, but I believe even killing me will not gain them what they want.”
It made me uncomfortable, how he spoke so casually of being killed, so to cover my discomfort I said, “I haven’t been back to the store since the attack. I feel bad that I’m not more worried about it. It gets wearying, hearing over and over that we’re both going to die, or end, or whatever.”
“It makes sense,” Claude said. “Is there anything we can do?”
That cheered me. “I don’t know,” I said. “It’s so nice of you to offer. If I think of anything, I’ll let you know.”
“I would urge you to tell us anything the oracle says,” Samudra said. “Perhaps we will see something you have not.”
“Right. And there’s always the possibility that whatever’s going to happen to the oracle might affect us as well,” Amarion said. “We’ve already seen it’s possible for named Neutralities to be destroyed. It’s not such a stretch to imagine them ending for some other reason.”
His words triggered a memory from earlier that evening. “I was thinking,” I said, “about how Abernathy’s was moved from one node to another, and how maybe that means the named Neutralities are independent of their nodes.”
“This is true,” Claude said. “The Athenaeum was moved from Germany to Switzerland during the First World War. It was not such a production as moving Abernathy’s,” he said to my surprised gasp, “and I understand it was a matter of one woman packing its core into a suitcase and taking it by train. But the principle was the same.”
“So maybe the other two Neutralities the invaders went after were attacked for qualities other than their nodes.”
Amarion was nodding. “That makes sense. More sense than trying to figure out what the nodes had in common, which is nothing.”
I was about to say something about what Ariadne had said about the size of the named Neutralities’ nodes when Samudra said, “Unless it means something entirely different.”
“What do you mean?” Claude asked.
“I am not certain,” Samudra said, “but I feel, deep within me, as if this puzzle is far from being solved.”
I nodded, and the other two did the same. Then my computer let out a low moan, like an animal in pain, and I jumped in surprise. “Did you hear that?”
“I did,” Claude said. He leaned forward and appeared to fiddle with something on his monitor, maybe the volume control. The sound came again, deeper and more painful. “It is not I.”
“Wait a moment,” Amarion said. He pushed back his chair and disappeared from view. I messed with my own volume control, but the sound didn’t happen again. No one spoke. I realized Xerxes had been on my lap for a while now, and I’d been petting him without being aware.