Dawn and Darkness
The next morning she woke before he did, stirring from dreams of frenzied reporters and rifles. His warm body was stretched out beside her. When she opened her eyes, the first thing she noticed was that the dawn was very bright. She raised a hand to her eyes, wondering if the stained-glass window had given up entirely and the sun was beaming down on them through the empty frame. But then she realized that it wasn’t the summer sun glowing so brightly. It was Stanton, sleeping peacefully as a cherub.
He glowed as if lit from within. She sat up abruptly, staring down at him with astonishment. The clothes that had hung off him limply the night before now fit with perfect detail. He looked as if he had just gotten back from a month at a celestial spa drinking tonics made of starlight. Emily looked around the office. The wreckage of the night had vanished completely. The stained-glass window was whole and unbroken, colors streaming through it like individual elements of an extravagant promise. Every bit of plaster was in its accustomed place, gilt glittered madly, and it even seemed that a phantom cleaning crew of renewed power had taken a duster to the shelves and a broom to the carpet.
Beside her, Stanton sat up with the swiftness of a man waking from a nightmare. He looked around, blinked three times, and then looked at Emily.
“Am I dead?” he asked.
“I don’t think so,” she said. “I don’t think heaven is this garish.”
Grinning, he took her face in his hands and kissed her—a bright celebratory kiss. After having been apart so long, Emily found herself moving in ways that ensured celebration would quickly give way to something far more intimate. Before it could, however, the office door flew open with a bang.
“Mr. Stanton!” Rose burst in, waving a sheaf of newspapers. Breathing hard, Emily hastily climbed off Stanton’s lap, glaring at Rose. “Miss Emily, thank goodness you’re safe! Mr. Stanton rescued you from the clutches of those evildoers! I knew he could do it! Hooray for Mr. Stanton!”
“Yes,” Emily muttered, pulling up the neck of her dress. “Hooray for Mr. Stanton.”
“Good morning, Rose.” Stanton had stood, and was brushing dust from his coat, even though there was no dust to be brushed. Rose, staring at him, dropped the bundle of papers she was carrying. Then she reddened and hastened to pick them up.
“Oh, me and my butterfingers! We can’t have a mess, not when everything looks so … so wonderful now!” Rose looked up, eyes beaming around the office. “It’s even more beautiful in here than it ever was!”
Stanton reached down to help Emily to her feet, his thumb stroking her palm suggestively. The touch sent a shiver up her arm.
“Rose, run along and fetch us some coffee and a big breakfast. I’m famished. Are those the morning papers?”
Mute, Rose offered the papers to him with trembling hands, then hurried out. He took them to his desk and spread them out. Emily looked at them over his shoulder, bringing up her good hand to twine her fingers in his hair. How had she never noticed how soft it was?
“Dreadnought Stanton’s Fiancée Refutes Scandalous Allegations,” read the first headline. It was accompanied by an above-the-fold engraving of her, posed in a modest and demure posture she couldn’t remember having assumed. “Dreadnought Stanton Rescues Fiancée from Foreign Attack at Fifth Avenue Hotel,” read another. “Dreadnought Stanton Defies All Odds to Rescue His Love from Clutches of Bloodthirsty Slavs.”
They all carried some variation on this theme; the headlines were all on the front pages, and they all carried pictures of engravings of Emily in idealized detail. Stanton’s eyes quickly scanned each of them, but it was a paper at the bottom of the pile—a sober, serious paper with only a few very small illustrations—that he lingered over. It was The New York Times.
“Rex Fortissimus Implicated in Embezzling Scandal, Ignoble Plot to Discredit Dreadnought Stanton Revealed,” its headline read. It was smaller than the others, but seemed to command respect. Stanton read the article, then stared at the author’s name.
“Horace Armatrout.” He looked up at Emily. “Horace Armatrout!”
“He’s a very nice man,” Emily said.
Stanton grinned at her. “You really are full of surprises,” he said, and the praise made her glow in a way it never had before. But he had no time to offer more, no matter how dearly Emily suddenly desired it, for there was a sound at the door. A pair of magisters peered inside, looking around the office, their faces astonished. Stanton waved them in.
“Professor McAllister. Professor Dyer. It seems the worst has passed.”
“Indeed, Mr. Stanton,” the one named McAllister said, shaking his head as he took a seat. He looked at Stanton, respectfully inclined his head. “Sophos Stanton.”
Stanton inclined a head back at him, the reciprocation just one shade more remote.
“Fortissimus is already here, hat in hand, to negotiate a settlement of hostilities.” McAllister’s voice bore a great deal of satisfaction. “I made him wait in one of the classrooms. He’s fuming, but he’s not going anywhere. He knows when he’s licked.”
“Delightful.” Stanton smiled wolfishly. “Let him wait a little while longer. I’ll talk to him after I’ve had my coffee.”
At that precise moment, Rose bustled in, bearing a huge silver platter loaded with steaming coffee and frosted pastries of all sorts. He grabbed for a thick hunk of something moist and sugary, downing it in three swift bites before grabbing another. Emily took up the pot of coffee and poured him a cup, then a cup for herself. Then, remembering, she looked at the magisters. They lowered their eyes and lifted their hands in respectful negatives.
Stanton, however, did not look up at her as he opened the sugar dish and spooned half of its contents into his cup. The small space that remained he filled with thick cream. He fixed McAllister and Dyer with a firm green gaze.
“Make it known that I’ll be happy to speak with anyone who defected from the Institute during the recent hostilities. I will hear everyone out, of course. But I will not promise that they’ll be reinstated at anything like their former positions.”
McAllister and Dyer nodded obediently, hurrying from the office to see that the wishes of the Sophos were executed swiftly and completely. When they were gone, Stanton leaned back in his chair, coffee in hand, grinning up at her. She smiled back, raising her coffee cup from its saucer in an ironic salute.
“Now, this is more like it,” he said, bringing his cup to his lips.
“Mr. Stanton.” The quiet moment was scattered to the winds as Rose hurried back in, a note between her fingers. “This just came for you.”
Stanton put his coffee on the desk and picked up a sharp silver opener. He slid it along the top of the envelope, unfolded its contents.
“It’s from the bloodthirsty Slavs,” he said. “They want a meeting so they can return Miss Jesczenka.” He looked up at Emily. “Should we invite them in for coffee?”
“They prefer tea,” Emily said. She found Stanton’s eyes, held them. “You understand they didn’t really try to kill me, don’t you? They were helping me.”
Stanton looked at her, his eyes scrutinizing, but he said nothing. Instead he turned to Rose.
“Go and tell the Sini Mira to come in,” he said. “And see if you can’t find them some tea.”
A moment later, Rose led in Perun and Dmitri, and a very pleased-looking Miss Jesczenka, who had the self-satisfied air of the cat who had swallowed the New York press. Emily went to her side, gave her arm a fond squeeze.
“Did you see the papers?” Miss Jesczenka whispered.
Emily nodded. “Horace Armatrout,” she said.
“Horace Armatrout,” Miss Jesczenka echoed, letting out a sigh of satisfaction.
“Gentlemen, make yourselves comfortable,” Stanton invited. Lowering himself into the very same chair he had sat in the night before the Investment, Perun pulled his cigarette case from inside his coat and hung a cigarette from his lips. Seeing the action, Stanton reached into a humidor on his desk, withdrawing a cigar. After fussing with it for a moment, he lit it with a finger-snapped tongue of flame. He did not, however, move to offer the flickering werelight to Perun. The white-blond man smiled slightly, reaching into his own pocket for a match.
“Thank you for bringing my magister back to me,” Stanton said, eyes moving from Perun to Miss Jesczenka. “You are unharmed, I trust?”
“Entirely,” Miss Jesczenka said.
“Excellent,” Stanton said. There was a long silence. Stanton smoked his cigar contemplatively, watching Perun. Perun smoked his cigarette down between brown-stained fingers, watching Stanton. After five minutes of this, Emily stomped over to the window and cracked it open.
“Honestly,” she muttered.
“I am rather busy,” Stanton said finally. “Do we have further business?”
“We do,” Perun said softly. “We most certainly do.”
And then, in low even tones, Perun explained everything. About the hair sticks, about Aleksei Morozovich, about Volos’ Anodyne. Stanton watched Perun give the recitation, his eyes hard and glinting.
“Miss Jesczenka’s execution of the Talleyrand Maneuver restored the power of the Institute to you,” Perun concluded. “We allowed her to do so in exchange for her solemn oath that the Institute—that you, Sophos Stanton—would help us.”
“Miss Jesczenka is a valued member of my staff,” Stanton said, “but she does not have the power to make promises for the Institute. Or for me.”
Dmitri snorted, a dark scornful sound. “I told you so, Perun,” he said.
“I see you have been reading the papers.” Perun gestured to the pile of newsprint on Stanton’s desk. “Tell me … have you noticed that temamauhti has begun, or have you been too busy with your own clippings?”
Stanton looked at Perun, not moving. Perun reached forward, began pulling paper after paper off the pile on Stanton’s desk.
“America’s Pacific Coast …” He lifted a paper. “Arkansas and Tennessee and Kentucky …” He lifted another. “Japan and China and Java and the good Lord knows how many other unfortunate places by now.” He threw the papers to the floor, his face seizing with fury. “And all of those are just from the Black Glass Goddess gathering the Exunge she needs. It is beginning, Mr. Stanton. And we have to stop it—one way or another.”
Stanton watched him closely, but did not speak.
“If you do not believe me, ask your fiancée.” Perun looked at Emily. “She has seen it all, through her unprecedented connection to the Mantic Anastomosis—the consciousness she calls Ososolyeh.”
Stanton looked at her. “What is he talking about?”
“Ever since the Symposium—” Emily began, then stopped. “No, since before that, actually. I can’t even remember when it started. It seems like forever. Ososolyeh speaks to me. It shows me things. Awful things.”
“What does it show you?” Stanton asked softly.
“The Black Glass Goddess, her fingers sharp as knives,” Emily whispered, eyes turning inward as remembered images danced before them. “I have seen her cutting twelve men to pieces, leaving nothing but a mound of flesh, like some kind of monstrous … organ.”
Her eyes stared forward, fixed and unfocused.
“A priest in gold and feathers and jade. The world remade in blackness and frost.” Emily’s mouth was moving, but she didn’t feel in conscious control of what was coming out of it. Words poured forth like humming, like roots growing. “Blood running down the sides of stepped pyramids. The air ringing with the screams of the innocent. The end of the world.”
She did not know how long she was lost in the terrible memories; she only knew that when she came back to herself, Stanton was standing before her, a warm hand laid on her cheek.
“We have to get the hair sticks back,” Emily said softly. “We have to find a way.”
“This isn’t about the hair sticks anymore, Miss Edwards,” Perun said. “I’m afraid it stopped being about the hair sticks when we lost them to the Temple.”
Emily looked at the Russian, astonished.
“Even if I had the hair sticks in my hands right now,” Perun continued, “there would be no time to implement the poison. Tomorrow is June 30. By the Aztec calendar, it is the first day of Cuetzpalin, the thirteen days the Goddess rules. It is the day of her greatest potency. It is when she will strike.”
“Then why—”
“I had to give you hope,” Perun said. “Without it, you and Miss Jesczenka could never have accomplished the near-impossible and returned the power of the Institute to Mr. Stanton.”
“But if there’s no time to implement the poison, what does it matter if the power of the Institute is restored?”
Perun chuckled grimly.
“Do you not remember, Miss Edwards? Even in the coldest darkness of winter, hope remains.” Perun paused, looking at Stanton. “And indeed, there is one last hope. It is one that only Mr. Stanton can deploy. The desperatus.”
Emily turned her gaze back to Stanton. “What is he talking about?”
But Stanton did not speak, only continued to look at her face, as if trying to commit it to memory.
“For a decade now,” Perun answered for him, “the credomancers have sought to perfect their own answer to the threat of temamauhti. Working together in greatest secrecy, Mirabilis and Zeno crafted a magical weapon called a desperatus. It will block the larger apocalypse by unleashing a smaller one. Fire to fight fire, as it were.” Speaking of fire apparently made Perun crave one of his never-ending string of cigarettes; he took out his cigarette case. “We all hoped that it would never have to be used, for if it is deployed, it will be only slightly less destructive than temamauhti itself. Now, however, it seems we have no other choice.”
As Perun spoke, Emily watched Stanton’s face. She watched the emotions passing over it; frustration, then fear, regret, then resignation.
“Mr. Stanton, the desperatus is yours to deploy. The power of the Institute has been returned to you so that you can do so.” Perun paused. “The time has come, Sophos.”
Stanton turned, leaned on the desk, faced Perun squarely.
“You know as well as I do that no one has ever been able to ascertain the precise location of the Temple.” The words were clipped, and there was a determined note in his voice, the sound of a man suddenly and swiftly convinced. “We must get to the Temple to deploy the desperatus. How do you propose we find it?”
“You have Fortissimus, do you not?” Perun drew a cigarette from his case, tapped it. Stanton jerked his head in a nod.
“It seems clear that he planted the Nikifuryevich Ladder that was used to kidnap Zeno, and your magister agrees with me.” Perun looked at Miss Jesczenka. “If he is in league with the Temple, as I believe he is, then he is our only hope for finding it.”
“I have promised him pardon,” Stanton said. But it was a comment, not a protest.
“A little thing, compared to the end of the world,” Perun said. Stanton nodded, then straightened.
“Rose!” he bellowed.
Rose hurried into the office, blond hair wisping about her face.
“Have Fortissimus brought here immediately,” he said.
If Fortissimus strode into the office of the Sophos looking very sure of himself, clearly expecting that he would meet with Stanton alone, he was quickly disabused of that notion. The robust, dismissive bonhomie with which he had been intending to greet Stanton—as one would congratulate a colleague who’d just won a round of golf—mutated to cold suspicion as his gaze traveled over the faces of those who waited for him. Dmitri and Perun, Emily and Miss Jesczenka, and, finally, Stanton. Emily felt certain the man would have turned and fled had not Rose closed the door quietly behind him.
“Good morning, Mr. Stanton,” he said, licking his lips.
“Good morning, Flannigan,” Stanton said. Emily saw the man wince as Stanton used his real name. “Rose, take his hat and coat.”
“No … I’d like to keep them …” Fortissimus began.
But Rose already had them and was leaving with them through the office door.
“Please sit down,” Stanton said.
“I’d really rather—”
“I asked you to sit down,” Stanton said without raising his voice. Fortissimus dropped into a sturdy chair like a stone from an uncurled fist. Sudden sour fear bloomed from Fortissimus’ pores. It made Emily’s heart thud like a baneful elixir. At her side, she could feel Miss Jesczenka’s body tense with anticipation.
“Perhaps you should leave, Miss Edwards,” Miss Jesczenka murmured to Emily, but the woman did not take her eyes off Fortissimus. There was dark desire in those eyes, hunger and anticipation, and a smile played at the corners of her lips. Emily looked quickly away, foreboding chilling her.
Stanton stood over Fortissimus, looking down at him for a long time, his hands clasped behind his back.
“You’re afraid, Flannigan.” Stanton’s tone was merely observational, but it set Fortissimus to trembling. His eyes darted from face to face.
“I came here on good faith,” he said. “This is an outrage!”
“You planted the Nikifuryevich Ladder,” Stanton said. “Under the direction of the Temple of Itztlacoliuhqui.”
Fortissimus’ eyes snapped up.
“How dare you suggest such an … obscenity,” he spat, rage overmastering terror. “How dare you! I have worked all my life to hone my skills, improve my practice, build my Agency to prominence … and you have the audacity to suggest that I would toss it aside so stupidly? To such little benefit? I am a credomancer, Stanton. If you’re interested in finding a sangrimancer, go look in a goddamn mirror.”
Stanton merely had to twitch a finger, and Fortissimus’ mouth snapped shut with such abruptness that blood trickled from the side of his mouth. As if proving some kind of point, he leaned his head down to wipe the blood off on his shoulder. Stanton took a deep breath.
“Tell me how to find the Black Glass Goddess,” he said.
“I don’t know! I don’t—”
“Tell me how to find the Black Glass Goddess,” Stanton repeated. “Stop lying and tell me the truth.”
“How would you know the difference?” Fortissimus snarled. He looked over at Emily, his eyes gleaming insinuation. “For example, how much of what I printed in that book was a lie? And how much of it was just … enhanced actuality?”
“Do not change the subject,” Perun barked, smoke trickling from between his lips. “You invited the Blotgates to the Investment. General Blotgate advocated a military alliance with the Temple, and his wife is known to recruit for them. You planted the device for them, admit it!”
“I planted nothing!” Fortissimus screamed. “Yes, I invited the Blotgates. I invited them to remind people what he has done. What he is!” Fortissimus glared at Stanton, eyes dancing with hatred. “To pay him back for making an utter travesty of everything I have ever accomplished! I wanted to destroy him, not the Institute.”
Stanton crouched down before Fortissimus, looking into the older man’s face. When he spoke, his voice was strangely kind. “Tell me how to find the Black Glass Goddess. This is your third chance, and you know that’s all you get. You know that there are harsher methods.”
Fortissimus moved his tongue around his mouth. Leaning forward, he spat blood into Stanton’s face. Stanton stood, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, and wiped the blood away.
“Miss Jesczenka,” Stanton said, tucking the handkerchief back into his pocket. “Please fetch the needle.”
Miss Jesczenka returned with a black leather case. She unzipped it carefully as she moved, and the small sound seemed to echo through the office. Fortissimus watched her movements; they were sinuous with malice. Miss Jesczenka removed a large crystal syringe and a small glowing bottle. She plunged the syringe through the bottle’s rubber top and filled the crystal chamber with the glowing liquid.
Stanton and Perun watched her actions with a kind of terrible calmness. Only Dmitri’s face was pale and slack with horror. He looked at Perun, shook his head, began to speak—but Perun stilled the words in his mouth with a curt gesture of his hand.
Miss Jesczenka knelt silently before Fortissimus and stretched his arm out. She unbuttoned his sleeve and rolled it back delicately. She touched the smooth flesh on the inside of his elbow, and then slid the needle into it. She depressed the plunger slowly.
Within a moment, Fortissimus’ face contracted sourly, as if he’d just bitten into a lemon. Before she stood, however, Miss Jesczenka leaned forward and placed her mouth close to Fortissimus’ ear. Fortissimus listened, then stared at Miss Jesczenka’s face. He stared at it for a long time.
“You,” he whispered. “I ruined you!”
Miss Jesczenka smiled at him gently. “And yet, at the end of the day, I am the one holding the needle, aren’t I?” she said. She replaced the syringe in the case, and laid it carefully at Fortissimus’ feet. Then she stood, brought her hand back, and slapped him across the face. The crack echoed through the office as Fortissimus’ head snapped to the side.
Stanton leaned back against his desk, crossing his arms. “Let us begin.”
“No!” The word burst from Dmitri. “Not this way! Perun, I beg you.”
“This is what the Temple Warlocks did to my father!” Dmitri’s eyes went from Perun’s face to Stanton’s. But Stanton did not look at Dmitri; his dark gaze was fixed on Fortissimus.
“Tell me,” Stanton said.
Fortissimus tensed, hissing agony.
“The harder you resist, the worse the interrogation acid will burn in your blood.” Stanton’s voice was soft and calm. “You think the pain is unbearable now, but it will get worse. Submit, Flannigan. Tell me and the pain will stop.”
“Dreadnought,” Emily whispered. “No.”
“Tell me how to find the Black Glass Goddess,” Stanton repeated, his voice perfectly level, as if striving to make each word balance precisely with the next.
Fortissimus threw his head back and cackled—something halfway between a laugh and a shriek. Tears streamed down the sides of his face, mingling with the sweat that ran in rivulets down from his forehead.
“I don’t know!” he screamed. “I swear it, I don’t know anything!”
“Tell me how to find her!” Stanton said, his voice rising.
“Dreadnought, no!” Emily seized his shirt in her good hand, shook him, made him look at her. “I did not help you regain the power of the Institute so that you could do this!” Her eyes searched Stanton’s face frantically. “I told him the truth! I told him you were decent! And I told myself …”
“Emily …” Stanton looked down at her.
“Don’t make it a lie,” Emily whispered, her voice tiny and desperate. “Oh please. Please don’t make it a lie.”
She saw the flicker of anguish behind his eyes. His face softened for a moment, but it hardened again almost as quickly, like wax cooling. He put a hand on each of her arms. “It’s the end of the world, Emily.”
No sooner were the words out of his mouth than a vision knifed through her like a cold glass blade slid between her ribs. The agony of it drove her almost to her knees.
The Black Glass Goddess, thrusting a knife of obsidian deep into Stanton’s side …
“Xiuhunel!” she cried, tearing herself away from his grasp, throwing herself away from him, running out into the beautiful, strong, powerful hallways of the Institute.
She ran until she came to the Veneficus Flame, and when she reached it, she collapsed beneath it, pressing her hot cheek against the cool marble pedestal. She pressed a hand over her mouth, her stomach heaving.
There were swift footsteps, and a warm hand was laid on her shoulder. A figure crouched down beside her. Dmitri. His eyes were wide with betrayal and anguish.
“Goddamn him,” he growled. “Goddamn them both.”
She stood quickly, intending to run, but he caught her arm and jerked her close. It was as if he needed to be comforted as much as he desired to comfort. He wrapped his arms around her, pulled her to his chest.
“A torturer. A sangrimancer. I told you so!” Dmitri said again, clinging to her. “And Perun … How could he let it happen?”
Emily pressed her face into Dmitri’s shoulder, stared at the weave of his jacket. She didn’t want to think. She wanted to lose herself in the calm, orderly arrangements of threads. Hot tears stung her eyes, flowing into the fabric of Dmitri’s jacket. Then she was sobbing without restraint, jerking and shuddering.
“I will take you away from here,” Dmitri said firmly. He sounded as if it was the only thing he could do that would make the world right. “Away from all of them.”
She looked up at him, shaking her head, and in that instant Dmitri’s mouth came down over hers roughly. She pushed against his chest, but he clung to her, embracing her with the desperation of a man seeking to replace a shattered illusion with a new one.
It was the sound of a betrayed gasp that finally made him release her.
Rose stood staring at them, her mouth open. Her eyes were wells of anguish. She brought up a hand, put it over her heart as if it hurt her terribly.
“Shame,” Rose whispered. “Shame on you!”
Sobbing, she spun on her heel and ran toward the Sophos’ office. Pushing herself away from Dmitri violently, Emily ran, too—in the opposite direction.
Emily went back to her room on the fourth floor, where she could almost make herself believe that the beautiful summer day she saw out of her window did not contain torture, pain, and betrayal. She felt numb and old, so very old. She felt as if her body were made of poured lead, her limbs stiff and slow, her core hot and vitreous. She found a chair to sit in. She stared out the window at the tops of the trees, waving mutely in the warm afternoon breeze.
Not honest. Not forthright. Not decent.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she implored Ososolyeh. “How could you let me fall in love with him?”
Stanton came to her an hour later, the doors of the room flying open without his having to touch them. They closed behind him silently. She struggled not to look up, to keep her eyes fixed on the tops of the stirring trees, but just as she had been unable to ignore Mirabilis in his own Institute, just as she had been unable to ignore Zeno, she could not ignore Stanton. The Institute was his now; it belonged to him and he belonged to it. She glared at him, despising the intrusion.
He stared down at her silently. She could see that despite his mastery of the Institute, he did not know what to say.
Good, she thought, bitterly. As long as she could unsettle him, discomfit him, she’d never be totally under his sway. It was a horrible way to think about a fiancé, but it was a perfectly logical way to think about an ex-fiancé. She thought about taking the diamond ring from her finger and throwing it at him, but the action was unnecessary; the diamond itself spoke more loudly than even the most desperate of gestures. It sat on her finger as dead and flat and lusterless as a piece of glass.
“Fortissimus wouldn’t tell us,” Stanton said, looking down at her. “Pushing him any further would have killed him.”
“Well, why didn’t you just kill him, then?” Emily spat. “That’s what sangrimancers do, isn’t it?”
There was a long silence. He stared down at her as if expecting her to speak, but she held her lips together tightly.
“Rose saw you,” he broke the silence, finally. “She told me.”
Emily stared into his eyes, putting all her strength into the gaze. She pressed her lips together until they ached, until she tasted blood behind her lips from where her teeth cut into them. Stanton wanted her to apologize, to beg for his forgiveness, to say that the Russian meant nothing to her. And he didn’t. But no one would force her to say the words. Not ever. Not with all the glowing needles in the world.
“Do you love him?” Stanton’s voice was acid.
“I don’t think I love anyone,” Emily said. They were the words she wanted to say, not the words Stanton wanted to hear, and she said them with great relish.
“Perhaps you are not capable of love,” Stanton said. “Perhaps you are only capable of making men desire you. With underhanded powders and potions and—”
“Stop it.”
“Perhaps it’s all a matter of convenience with you,” Stanton continued, his voice low and brutal. “Perhaps that’s what men are to you. Convenient harbors for the dingy little boat of your life. Creatures you can manipulate into loving you—”
“I said stop it!” Emily screamed.
“No,” he said. “I won’t stop. Not in my own—” Even though he checked himself, Emily knew perfectly well what he’d been about to say.
“… in your own Institute.” She completed the sentence for him, fury whipping her. “The Institute that you stole with blood magic … that I lied to get back for you!”
“Lower your voice,” Stanton said through gritted teeth. “I’ve had enough of your shrieking.”
Emily stared at him, breathing hard, her heart thudding. She wanted to fly at him, tear him into bloody strips. But with great effort, she calmed herself. She took a deep breath. When she spoke again, her voice was low and resonant—so low as to be almost inaudible.
“It’s all right,” she said finally. “You won’t have to listen to it much longer. I’m leaving.”
“You can’t leave,” he said.
“Can,” she spat. “Will.”
He seized her as she tried to dart past him, wrapped her in strong arms that had the force of iron bands. She struggled against him, but he held her fast. Finally she subsided, breathing heavily, staring down at his chest. She held her body stiffly. Her hand was a fist.
“Let me go,” she breathed, the words growling in her throat.
“No,” he said. “I won’t.”
They stood like that, locked in anger and fear, for a long time. Finally, without slackening his grip, Stanton murmured something by her ear.
“It will be terrible, Emily. More terrible than Perun described. More terrible than any of your visions.”
“How do you know?”
“I just know that it will be terrible,” he said.
“No, you know more than that,” she said. “For God’s sake, stop lying!”
“It will be terrible!” he shouted, the force of the words shaking her, rattling her bones. She couldn’t stand under the force of those words; only his arms, wrapped tightly around her, kept her from sinking to the floor.
“You’ve seen it all, too,” Emily said, awareness dawning on her. “How?”
Stanton’s eyes were closed, his face was painted with terrible remorse.
“Alcmene Blotgate,” he said finally.
“Did you love her?” Emily searched for an explanation, any explanation.
“Sangrimancers don’t fall in love.” Stanton’s eyes remained closed. “They use each other for mutual benefit.”
“Then how—”
“She took me to the Temple to be initiated into the Goddess’ service,” Stanton said, the words tumbling out in a rush. “When I was a cadet. I failed the initiation. The Goddess released my neologism, showed me the world remade. Showed me temamauhti. I couldn’t bear it. I ran away.”
“You knew?”
“That’s why Alcmene Blotgate tried to kill me—because I was a traitor. Because I was a failure and a coward. I don’t know why she didn’t finish the job. I was ready to finish it for her when Mirabilis found me. He made me see that there were better choices—”
“You knew?” Emily cried. “You knew it was coming? You knew ten years ago, and you did nothing? When men like Morozovich, or my father—my father!—were dying, trying to save the world? How could you? How could you?”
Stanton opened his mouth to speak, and it was clear the intended retort was scalding. But in the end, he didn’t say anything. He just shook his head and released her from his arms, as if finally realizing that it was futile to hold on to her any longer.
“You’re right,” he said. “About everything. Hate me. It will make things easier for both of us.”
Taking a step back, she slapped him across the face, hard.
“Go to hell, Dreadnought Stanton.”
He nodded, rubbing his face tiredly.
“I will,” he said. “It was only you who ever made me think I could go anyplace else.”
And as he left the room, the doors slammed behind him with a force that made the whole Institute rumble.
After he left, Emily sank to the floor, as if he’d taken all her strength with him. That was that, then.
At length, Emily got up. She took off the peach-blush dress, let it fall to the floor, laboriously removed her corset and chemise and everything soft and lacy, and stood savoring her nakedness for a long time.
Then she put on old things. She would have put on the clothes she’d brought from Lost Pine, if there’d been anything left of them. But there wasn’t. So she put on the simplest gray dress she could find, dragging it down over her head and buttoning it slowly, her ivory hand tinking against the buttons.
Then she sat down wearily on the window seat to wait for the end of the world.
She watched the leaves of the trees swaying in the early evening wind. This time, she saw them moving a special way, a way she knew. This time, she already knew there would be a message for her in them. But she didn’t want to see it. She tried to look away. She was tired of messages, tired of the responsibility they brought. But, still, she looked.
Zeno is in the Dragon’s Eye.
Emily contemplated this with black amusement.
Ososolyeh, beloved earth-mother, Emily said to it, trying to send her reply down through the treacherous stone floors of the Institute. I’ve had just about enough of you.
She knew what the Dragon’s Eye was, of course. It was the brown and green orchid, Zeno’s favorite plant in the Institute’s conservatory. In her vision, Zeno’s last words had been soft and simple, spoken in the language of wind and water and wood: I am coming home.
Komé had transferred her spirit into an acorn; Zeno had sent the last drop of himself singing along a root. But that place, the place he’d died … it had seemed so immeasurably far away. How could he have made it all the way back here, to New York, to the Dragon’s Eye orchid he loved?
Sighing, rising wearily, she thought about not going. She thought about ignoring the message, but she knew she could not. She went to open the door and found, completely unsurprisingly, that it was locked.