He set the phone down on the coffee table and stared at it. “Well?” I said.
Without looking at me, Malcolm said, “The Labyrinth is destroyed. Des’s teams arrived in time to save perhaps a quarter of its population. Fortunately, the Labyrinth’s concealed location means the disaster won’t appear on the evening news. But—” He rubbed his face with both hands, a gesture of such exhaustion it made me want to yawn. “Des said, with the Labyrinth’s node destroyed, the Labyrinth immediately began to decay. It already looks—you’ve never seen it, but it used to look as new as when it was first built. Now it looks a hundred very hard-lived years old. She estimates it will disappear entirely in a matter of hours. Protection for the Wardens, so no mundane entity can discover it and draw the right conclusions, but it means there will be no reclaiming it.”
“I’m so sad. I understand the need, but it still feels like a loss.” I leaned against his shoulder. “Did she say…were they able to recover Amarion’s body?”
Malcolm stiffened. “I’m not sure you want to know.”
“Now I’ll imagine the worst. Please, just tell me.”
He put his arm around me. “Amarion was devoured,” he said. “Des didn’t know how that allowed the node to be destroyed. Her people are looking into it.”
I shuddered. “Poor Amarion. It’s so awful. He said they weren’t done fixing the invader alarms—that’s how they got in. I hope Claude and Samudra will take—oh, damn, I need to call them. Or text them.”
I ran upstairs for my phone and decided a group text was faster than a phone call to each man separately. I quickly sent off the message—Amarion dead, the node destroyed—and then sent a second message begging them to be careful. When I finished, I looked up at Malcolm. “Is the house safe? I can’t sleep if there’s a chance one of those invaders could get in.”
“The house is as safe as Campbell Security can make it,” Malcolm said, “but…I hesitate to point this out, but if the pattern holds true, the invaders will only attack you if you’re on the premises of Abernathy’s.”
It was a horrible, pragmatic thing to say, and it made me feel instantly better. “I think I can sleep now,” I said. “If you hold me.”
“You never have to ask,” Malcolm said.
We cuddled in the darkness of our bedroom, listening to the night noises outside our window. The chirruping hum of a million insects made a nice background to the night birds that lived in the fir that rubbed against the corner window. I’d never learned what birds they were, but they let out low coos like unusually deep-voiced pigeons. Malcolm’s breathing was a steady counterpoint to the other sounds. “Is it weak to say I’m afraid to return to the store?” I whispered. “Especially since I now have a good idea what kind of end the oracle saw?”
“Not weak to feel fear,” Malcolm said. “Weak to let it control your actions, possibly.”
“I’ll go back. I have to. It’s like Lucia told me—if we shut down the named Neutralities, we might as well have lost them to the invaders. And if we’re going to defeat them, we’ll need the help only the oracle can provide.”
“I’m afraid I’m not as strong as you. I’m tempted to lock you safely in the house until we’ve worked out the invaders’ plan.”
I laughed quietly. “I love that you want to protect me, even though you know what I have to do.”
“It’s true. I can’t bear the thought of losing you.”
I snuggled closer. “It won’t happen. I’m not going to let them get to me.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” Malcolm said.
When I woke the following morning, Malcolm was gone, and his side of the bed was cold. A half-sheet of lined paper on his pillow read Had to go to node to consult with Lucia. Might be a while. Sorry. Love you.
I suppressed feelings of disappointment and squinted at the alarm clock. 9:43. I hadn’t slept that late in months. I rolled out of bed and stretched. We might still be able to salvage our peaceful afternoon.
My phone rang while I was in the middle of breakfast. It wasn’t Malcolm; it was Viv. “Hey,” I said. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”
“I’ve been busy at the Gunther Node. What do you know about what happened at the Labyrinth? Have you heard anything?”
Memories of Amarion’s screaming filled my mind. “Yes. But I’d rather not talk about it. It was awful.”
“You say that like you were there. Hel, don’t hold out on me.”
“I was in a video call with the other named Neutrality custodians when the invaders attacked. I heard Amarion die. It was awful, Viv.”
Viv whistled. “Are you all right?”
“It’s not like I was attacked or injured, so—” I remembered what Sydney had said, and went on, “I mean, I can’t stop remembering how it felt. I was so scared.”
“Well, yeah, of course you were! Look, I don’t want to bring up painful memories. There’s just a lot of rumor running around and I was wondering if you knew the truth. Did the Labyrinth really disappear?”
I’d finished most of my cereal, but my appetite had disappeared. I rose to clear my bowl. “Malcolm said it did. Or was in the process of disappearing. I guess by now it’s entirely gone. He said it was to prevent mundane authorities from seeing it and getting excited. So that’s three named Neutralities left.”
“You’re not going back to work, are you?”
“On Monday? Of course I am. If we’re going to defeat the invaders, we need all the resources we can muster, and that includes the oracle.” I watched the colorful bits of cereal circle the drain and disappear. I sounded like someone who had no fears. Too bad actually getting rid of my fears wasn’t as easy as making bold statements.
Viv clearly wasn’t fooled by my boldness. “Helena, that’s so dangerous! Nobody knows how the invaders keep getting past the wards. They need to seal up Abernathy’s until all the intelligent invaders are destroyed.”
I stopped with my bowl held under a stream of water to rinse it. “Is that what people are saying?”
“I guess, but mostly it’s my opinion. Better to lose the benefits of the oracle for a few weeks or months than to have it destroyed entirely.” Viv sounded less emphatic now, but I could tell when she felt strongly about something.
“They’re altering the wards so the invaders can’t warp them at Abernathy’s. Everything will be fine. And suppose it takes much longer than weeks or months to hunt all of them down? This is the best course of action.” I still didn’t feel as certain as I sounded, not with Amarion’s screams still ringing in my memory. But I had faith in Malcolm’s assertion that the wards would be secure and that the invaders couldn’t try that stunt with the door again, and that was enough to carry me through my insecurities.
Viv sighed. “All right, but I’m scared for you.”
“I’m scared for me, too, but I know what I have to do.”
“That’s what bravery is. Hel, do you think this war will ever be over?”