Before I can respond, she flickers out of sight, and I’m alone in the labyrinth.
Imogen’s words weave through my thoughts. She’s right. I’ve been so worried about making Cathal believe me. Wanting Ravod to believe me. I never tried believing in myself.
I recall everything that happened—everything I witnessed. I repeat the story of Ma’s death inside my head, and I look at it unflinchingly—the way the constable lied and changed his story, how he patronized me and made me fear others blaming me. The look on Fiona’s face, even as she handed me my bag—her fear that what I was saying was true.
Mads too. He told me to stop fighting, to stop looking for answers. It wasn’t because he thought I was crazy. He was afraid of what I’d find.
It’s not enough to send myself back. I must know. I think of the others who have been sent here to wander aimlessly until they lost their minds. Scrambling to stand, I press my palms against the walls. I close my eyes and channel my breath.
“Truth.”
The fabric of reality responds with a series of weak pulses, warping through the heat in my fingers. Something below the surface seems surprised by the word, as if it was never asked for such a thing.
But I’m not asking, I’m Telling.
I plant my feet more firmly on the ground, bracing against the current that binds me on the spectral plane, pushing against all my senses and locking myself in place. I take a deep breath, allowing the current to wash over me.
I anchor my Telling in reality as Ravod taught me, summoning the memory of my mother’s murder, the event that set me on the path to find answers. It gives me clarity. My anger at the injustice of her death pulls the threads of my intent together. I weave in all the pain and hardship I’ve endured along the way, creating a bulwark against the waves pushing against me.
“I won’t be moved.” My Telling is a scream against the rising tide. “I want the truth.”
The current swells to what feels like a breaking point … and abruptly stops. A passage manifests in the wall in front of me, crumbling the stone. It’s not another spectral door. There is no shimmer of illusion around it, no flickering. This one is real.
A shudder courses through the air. An electric current. A crack running through the fabric of the labyrinth. I close my eyes.
When I open them, I’m standing in the same place, but no longer in the in-between plane of existence.
Before me is the door to the Book of Days. At last.
27
I expected a bit more fanfare for the room where the entire record of reality is kept. Instead, I’m in a small stone room, set below an oculus that streams moonlight onto a simple podium at the top of a short flight of stairs.
Motes of white dust float through the light, disturbed for the first time in what must be ages. Three statues of robed men, each holding a book, stand vigil on the perimeter. They are cut from the same greenish stone as the rest of the room. One statue is holding up the domed ceiling. The simplicity is startling.
Something about this room feels final. Like High House has finally let down its barriers.
My legs shake with every step I take up toward the podium. I swallow the trepidation in my throat.
I reach the top and look down at the podium.
The Book of Days …
… is not there?
The podium is empty.
I stare blankly at the podium. A couple of torn pages lay scattered on it. I lean forward, steadying myself on the podium, but wanting to scream.
Someone else got here first. How could that be?
I touch the papers, turning them over. I blink when I see my name written in a rushed hand …
Shae,
Forgive me. It was necessary.
—R.
The leaden disappointment in my chest shifts uncomfortably. I am too exhausted to even realize what it means for a moment.
Ravod found the labyrinth first. He solved it. He stole the Book of Days.
My finger moves back and forth over his words as I read them over and over.
Forgive him? It was necessary? Is this a joke?
The second ripped page has symbols on it that are almost too faded to see … until it moves.
I pick it up, studying it a little closer in the bright shaft of moonlight.
The lines are shifting over the page like water, forming symbols I don’t recognize. The longer I look at it, the stranger it seems. The images drift from side to side like they are swimming in a pond. Slowly they form a glyph that takes the shape of an ox. Letters appear beside it.
Gondal.
Is this fragment of paper from the Book of Days?
Footsteps sound behind me.
I shove the note and book fragment into my breast pocket and whirl around.
“Hello, Shae.”
Cathal.
He steps into the light. Half a dozen armed guards and another four Bards crowd in around him.
“Cathal.” I’m not sure how to begin to explain. Or if I should.
“You have been an immense help. I will take it from here,” he says, marching up the steps toward me. A wolfish grin of anticipation overcomes his face. He strides to the podium, pushing me aside.
He looks at the empty surface and back to me. Confusion etches across his face.
“The Book is gone,” I say.
He grabs me roughly by the collar. “Where is it?” he hisses. His face is rigid, with no trace of any of the amity he has shown me before.
I can only stand in shock at his iron grip. This can’t be Cathal. He is my ally. My mentor. Cathal was the first person at High House, in the whole world, who believed me when no one else would. It seems utterly impossible that this man glaring down at me is the same person who encouraged me, had faith in me, helped me …
Used me.
My insides plummet and writhe sickeningly inside me.
This is the real Cathal. The man who leaves Montane to suffer while he dines lavishly in his castle, throwing balls for dignitaries to mask the truth. Who sends his Bards to instill fear and desperation in his subjects while bleeding them of their resources. And when the Bards break free of his control, he imprisons and conducts tests on them in the sanitarium.
This is the man who sends countless Bards to die in search of the Book of Days. Including me.
We were never allies. I was another cog in his machine. Another tool for him to use and discard.
I was a fool.
My anger blazes inside me, red hot. Perhaps I made a mistake by trusting him, but his mistake is underestimating me.
I’m still alive, and I can fight to make things right. I hold his gaze. Something deep inside makes me brave.
“Somewhere that you can’t kill innocent people for it,” I lie. Then I spit in his face.
Cathal recoils, jerking his arm to throw me roughly down the steps. I land on my hip, wincing. He takes a handkerchief from his coat and wipes his face, stepping down after me, his cool demeanor restored.
“I have many means of encouragement at my disposal to persuade the truth from you,” he says. “I will use force if necessary.”
Cathal’s guards descend on me, grabbing me tightly by my upper arms and hauling me to my feet.
“I’ll tell you nothing,” I snarl.
He regards me with distant eyes, all warmth and familiarity gone. I feel like knives have buried themselves all over my body, piercing deeper into me than any wound. Seeing him like this, a cold, calculating despot, is even more painful when it’s being leveled against me.