The Keepers (44 page)

Chloe took the dragonfly in hand, rubbing her thumb along its back. It looked like a thoughtless gesture, but of course she was feeling its power, tapping into that connection. Watching her, and feeling now for the box in just the same way, Horace knew how much Chloe was going to hate his answer to the question she was about to ask. He waited in silence. Chloe looked down at the dragonfly and raised her eyebrows. “And so where will the dragonfly be?” she asked, light but wary, like a sword being loosened in the scabbard.

Horace took a deep breath. “Traveling,” he said.

C
HLOE STALKED AWAY
,
THROWING UP HER ARMS
. “O
H
, I
KNEW
it. No. No, no, no.” She kicked viciously at a clump of coal, sending it skittering.

“Chloe, wait. Listen.”

Chloe spun back, her face dark, her hands in fists again. “You want to put my dragonfly in that box? Send it traveling through who knows where? No. No way.” She stalked into the wall and out again.

“Chloe, be careful.” Horace glanced out toward the hallway. How long would it be before one of the Riven—or worse—came in? “Let me explain.”

Chloe stopped and swung her arm through one of the walls between the cells. She spun and did it again, but this time let her hand smack against the stone. “Fine. Explain,” she spat.

“Okay . . . you will be caught. You will
let
yourself be caught. You won't have the dragonfly with you, but because Dr. Jericho knows you're its Keeper, he'll bring you here and hold you prisoner in this cell. And that's what you want, because a little after three o'clock tomorrow morning, in this cell, the dragonfly will fall out of thin air and land in your lap.”

“And you're sure I'll be here.”

“You know how it works. You have to trust me.”

“Like I did with the message in the toolshed?”

Her words hit him like a jab to the gut. He tried not to show it. “That was different.”

Chloe rocked her head back. “I know. I'm sorry. But you're asking a lot. You're asking . . . everything. Remember my dad? When we sent the malkund? Remember the Nevren?”

Dread crept slowly over Horace. The way Chloe's father had collapsed when the malkund was sent through the box—the connection had been broken. For Chloe, sending the dragonfly would be like passing into the Nevren. A Nevren that would last a whole day.

She read the look on his face. “I'll be a zombie. How will I be able to do anything?”

“I don't know,” Horace said, refusing to let his thoughts cloud over. This was the path, he was sure of it. “But you do.”

“Maybe I just leave the dragonfly here. Hide it someplace safe.”

“Seriously?” Horace asked, incredulous. “Is that what you want to do?”

“I don't want to do
any
of this.”

“But you do.”

Chloe pursed her lips and lowered her head. Her chest rose and fell. She touched the dragonfly to her mouth. “Let me get this straight. We send the dragonfly now; tomorrow I get captured, get locked up, the dragonfly appears, I escape.” Horace nodded. “But before any of that happens, we escape from here tonight . . . so that tomorrow night I can return and escape
again
.” Her voice dripped with doubt.

Horace rubbed his temples. So hard to keep the path in sight—so many variables. There was something in what Chloe had just said—
“we escape from here tonight.”
But did they?

Did they all?

Cautiously he said, “Look, you're the one piece I really see. All the rest depends on you doing this—if you do it, everything makes sense. What it means is we don't rescue your dad tonight. That happens tomorrow. Why else would you let yourself be brought back?” And as soon as those words came out—
“Why else?”
—he knew.

Chloe held up the dragonfly. “I would return for this. I promise you
that
. Even if my dad was free.”

Horace couldn't reply. He knew exactly what kinds of things she would come back for: the dragonfly, her father.

Horace himself.

Chloe gave a deep, impatient sigh. “Check again.”

Horace checked again, trying to focus his reeling mind:
Chloe, slumped motionless, waiting; slouched forward, hands on
the floor—except
. . . “You're here, and . . . you've written something. There's a message in the dirt.” This was it. He squinted and got closer, knowing that the next answer was here. “It's blurry, though. ‘As poor'? No . . . ‘Ask floor'?”

“What does that mean?”

“I have no idea. I can't make it out; it's shifty. But you're not. You're still clear.”

Chloe chewed her lip thoughtfully. “If I decide to do this—and that's a big
if
—it won't be because the choice has already been made, or whatever. It'll be
my
choice, Horace. Okay?”

But Horace wasn't listening. He was looking still at the words Chloe would scratch in the packed black dirt of the third cell, trying to understand them. “Ask door”? But no—no, wait. He turned around, looking back at the massive face of the black boiler. Below the main door, where the coal was shoveled in, there was another door, smaller and square. It opened into a chamber where ashes from the coal above sifted down. And he knew this, knew what the door was called.

Ash door.

Horace hurried over to the boiler, his heart hammering. He knelt down and heaved the ash door open, revealing an opening the size of an oven that ran back into darkness. He took the box in his right hand, stretched out his arms and began to pull himself forward, into the opening, the cold stones pressing his ribs.

“What in god's name are you doing?” Chloe said.

Horace didn't answer. He wriggled forward, pushing the box into the darkness. The space inside was a coffin. It smelled of ancient ash and bitter dust, and even just here in the opening, his panic began to crush him like a giant foot. But all he needed was to get the box inside. All he needed was a glimpse.

He grounded himself again, focusing on the arc of decisions that had brought him here. With a flick of his thumb, he opened the box and looked through. His eyes adjusted to the darkness—
pitch black; black as death; nothing to see, nothing to breathe but darkness choking and crushing; a shape too big for this space, but all the same there was a shape, something there
. Horace groaned, a low, long keen pushing its way out of him.

Chloe knelt beside him. Her voice came to him, muffled by the chamber. “Is something in there?”

Not like this. Not this way. Horace strained to see.

A shoulder; a chest, barely rising; hair, shaggy and gritty—and there—a face, soot stained and staring, eyes empty empty empty—

Horace pushed himself out, tearing the box from the hole, heaving.

“What is it?” Chloe hissed. “What's in there?”

“Me.” Horace dropped the word like a slab of concrete. “Me.”

“Oh god. Oh god, Horace.” Chloe ran a hand through her hair. “Why? Are you hiding?”

He shook his head. “Captured.
He
puts me in there. He'll
take the Fel'Daera from me, I know it. I won't be able to stop him.”

Chloe looked confused. “I don't understand—how will he capture you? How do you know?”

“I think I've known it all along, I just . . .”

“But you aren't with me tomorrow night. When do you come back here?”

Horace summoned up the courage to say the words aloud. “I never leave.”

Chloe fell back on her haunches, her eyes going wide. “Oh, god. Okay, so now we know. They capture you. You'll be here, and I'll come back. I'll come back and I'll rescue you. That's why I let myself get taken.”

“Yes,” Horace said. “I knew something was wrong when I saw you surrender and get taken here. I knew I'd come into the nest, that I'd see something that would lead back to that moment, but . . .” He shook his head. “
Knew
isn't the right word. I don't
know
anything. It's more like I was willing to let it happen. I
am
willing. When I saw you in the cell, and you mentioned how we would escape here tonight, I started wondering. And then the message . . . ash door.” He looked back at the boiler and let out a sharp laugh. “From your house to here. Ashes to ashes.”

“Horace, it doesn't have to happen this way.”

“It does.”

“No. Let's leave and try again.”

“No. This is the path. But now that I see it more clearly I
just . . . I don't know how I'll survive it.”

“But you do,” said Chloe firmly. “If this really is the way, you will make it. You will make it and I will save you and we will escape. If this is really the way, we'll rescue my dad and maybe we'll destroy this terrible place, once and for all.”

“Don't say
if
,” he snapped. “This is the way.” But what a way. He pressed the Fel'Daera against his chest. The thought of losing it was as unbearable as anything he could imagine, even worse than the ash door.

Chloe moved closer to him, until their faces were a foot apart. “Okay,” she said gently. “This is the way.” She reached out and cupped one hand around the back of his neck. Her touch was cool, her fingers thin but strong. At her touch—skin on skin, a new sensation—everything that was jangling in him went still, like a rabbit caught on a lawn. “You are the keeper of the Box of Promises, and I trust you. I'll let you send the Alvalaithen through the box. I'm your friend, and I'm here with you. I—” She stumbled here, dropping her head for a moment, but then lifted her eyes back to his. “I have a power too, and I mean to use it. You and me, Horace—together we can outdo any dark thing. We're the good guys. Okay?” She squeezed his neck.

She was ready to send her dragonfly through the box on his word alone. She was ready to walk this terrible path. He thought of how he'd seen her, waiting boldly for Dr. Jericho in the wreckage of her home, knowing she would end up in this horrible place again. “Okay,” he said. “But remember where
I'll be. Don't forget me.”

“Never.” Chloe pulled her hand away. She closed the ash door. She brushed the ash from Horace's chest and arms. She continued to meet his gaze, unembarrassed. “When Mr. Meister told me not to be so brave that I risked not getting out again, I guess he was talking to the wrong person.”

Horace laughed a shallow laugh. “Hey,” he said, “we're all brave as hell, right?”

“Yes. And now's the time to show it.” Chloe reached for the dragonfly. A brief flutter, and it was loose. She rose and waited for Horace to find his feet. Together they returned to the back of the room, to the third cell down.

Chloe looked up at him. “Where will you take me? After we . . . afterward.”

“Back to the ladder. You can escape out the side door. I'll go by there first, and if there are any Riven there, I'll lure them away, deeper into the nest. Then you get out.”

“When they capture me tomorrow, they'll ask questions. What am I supposed to say?”

“Tell them the truth whenever you can. Stick to the path. And listen: with all this stuff I've been doing with the box just now—and especially with what we're about to do—Dr. Jericho is bound to feel it, twenty-four hours from now. He may come down here tomorrow night to investigate. After the Alvalaithen comes through, sit tight for a few minutes. Play dead. Wait him out. Okay?”

Chloe nodded and glanced at the box, gleaming in
Horace's hands. “Even with what I'm about to do, I sure wouldn't trade you for that thing.”

“I don't blame you,” Horace said, though of course he wouldn't trade the Fel'Daera for the world, even now.

“You lie.” She pushed a hand forward through her short hair. She pointed the dragonfly at him. “Promise me.”

“Promise
me
.”

She nodded. She laid the dragonfly carefully inside the box. It barely fit, its wingtips grazing the sides.

Horace leaned into the third cell, looking through the box to gauge his aim. The words on the floor were clear now—“ash door.” So that the dragonfly wouldn't fall, he laid the box on the floor right atop them, in front of tomorrow Chloe's dark lap. She hadn't moved. “It's three thirteen,” Horace said. “Remember the time.”

Chloe bit her bottom lip. She gazed down at the Alvalaithen nestled in the box. “Three thirteen. Do it, then.”

Horace slid the lid closed. A heavy tingle—the strongest yet, almost painful—coursed up his arms. Chloe let out a soft
unh
, as though she'd been punched. She wrapped her arms around herself and squeezed her shoulders. She sank to the floor. Horace dropped to her side, holstering the box. “It's gone,” she moaned. “It's totally gone. I can't feel it. I'm so . . . heavy.”