Chapter 109: Why Fragments

Aurelia asked for the south solar that night, after supper. Just the family. And Loki.

That was the first strange thing. Loki doesn't get asked to things. He turns up at them. He's in a room before you come into it, backward on a chair with an apple, and nobody ever saw him arrive. Being asked seemed to unsettle him. He came in exactly on time, through the door, like an ordinary person, and sat down on an ordinary chair, the right way around, and folded his hands, and didn't eat anything.

"I don't like this," he said to me, under his breath, as I sat down beside him. "She invited me. Nobody invites me. Something's wrong."

* * *

The south solar is the warmest room in Greykeep after the little kitchen. It has a long low window over the river and a hearth big enough to stand in, and Grandpa's basket of wooden horses by the fire, and too many chairs, none of which match.

We were all there. My father by the fire, in his socks. My mother and Adriana on the long settle, close. Carol in the window seat with Ignatius on the arm beside her. Seraphina, with little Uriah asleep across her lap. Caitlin, who had slept for eight hours and looked better for it, with her blue book. Iselle and Roderic, side by side on two mismatched chairs. Mary at the writing table with her pen.

And Aurelia, standing in front of the hearth with her back to the fire and her hands folded, the way she stands when she's going to say something she's been thinking about for a long time.

* * *

"Caitlin asked why," she said. "This morning, in the map room. Why Blackstack. Why pieces. Why not just take whole gods, the way Kessavel takes names, or Malachar takes harbors." She looked at Caitlin. "It's a good question. I've been up all day with it. I think I have an answer. I don't like it."

Nobody said anything.

"Start with the pieces," said Aurelia. "Why fragments."

* * *

"A whole god," said Aurelia, "has a will. Even a held one. Even one Kessavel's taken the name from. Somewhere in it, there's a no. Ruan had one. He rang his bell at the Chained for three nights. Even after Kessavel took his name, he didn't take Meriel's voice where he was told; he sat in a cave and lit candles." She paused. "You can't build anything out of a whole god. It'll argue with you."

"But a piece," said Caitlin slowly.

"A piece has no no in it," said Aurelia. "Meriel's voice, torn out of her, doesn't want anything. It just names. Tessel's echo just answers. Corvel's call just calls. They're not gods. They're what gods are made of." She turned her hands over. "Like bricks. A brick doesn't care what you build with it."

* * *

"Then why the seams?" I said. "Why only the ones Carol and I mended? There are older gods. There are gods who were never taken at all. Why not tear pieces out of them?"

Aurelia looked at me for a long time.

"Because you can't," she said. "A god who's never been torn hasn't got a seam. There's nowhere to get your fingers in." She came across the room and stopped in front of me. "But that's not the only reason. Give me your hand."

I gave it to her.

She turned it over, palm up, the way she'd turned Iselle's over in the sea tower.

"When you were three," said Aurelia, "you and your sister sat on a hall floor and gave back everything Varrick stole. You put every god back together with these. And Carol's." She touched the center of my palm. "Every seam on every one of those two hundred and twelve gods has a little of your hands in it. A little of you. A little of Carol. That's what holds them shut. That's what a seam is."

I stared at her.

"So every piece torn along a seam," said Aurelia quietly, "comes away with a little of you still on it. Like a thread caught on a nail."

* * *

The room had gone very still.

"So whoever's building it," said my father slowly, "isn't just building a god out of pieces of other gods."

"No," said Aurelia. "They're building one out of pieces that have the twins on them. Every brick. Every one." She let go of my hand. "Naming, answering, calling. And all of it stitched with Garrick and Carol."

* * *

Carol, in the window seat, hadn't moved. But I felt her go cold, through the middle. Not her frost. The other kind.

"Why?" she said.

Aurelia didn't answer. She turned, instead, and looked at Loki.

And Loki, sitting on his ordinary chair the right way around with his hands folded, had gone white. Whiter than I'd ever seen him. He'd understood before any of us. Of course he had. He's the god of lies. He knows what a thing is shaped like before anyone else has seen it.

"Blackstack," said Loki.

* * *

I should explain about Blackstack. About what happened there, a season ago. I've written it in its place, but I'll say it again here, because I'd half forgotten it myself until Loki said the word in that voice.

When the three ships were sitting off Westmere, and Malachar's attention was searching the whole western sea for Carol, Loki had an idea. A lie. The best lie, he said, is nearly all true, with its shoes off.

So we made a false Carol.

I made the shape of it, out of a fold; a fold can be any shape, and I made it hers, a little shorter than me, weight on her left foot, shoulders back. Loki put his own power over it like a coat that hangs a little crooked, so that people see the coat and never look underneath. And Carol, because we asked her, and because she's Carol, opened her half of the seeds into it for one breath. One footprint in the snow. Enough that, from a long way off, it would feel like her.

And Jörmungandr carried us out to Blackstack on his back, and we left it there, on the loneliest rock in the western sea. Standing on the top. With no name. Never speaking.

And Malachar's attention found it. And went still. And listened. And leaned. Hungry. Believing.

And at one in the morning, Eleanor closed the mark, and we brought the fold home in my coat, and Carol's footprint melted home to her in three days, all of it, the way she'd been promised.

* * *

"It was only a footprint," said Loki. His voice was strange. "It melted. She got it back. All of it. She said so." He looked at Carol. "You said so."

"All of it," said Carol. "I said so."

"Then there's nothing left there," said Loki. "There's nothing on that rock."

"Rocks remember," said Aurelia quietly.

* * *

She turned to my father.

"Damar told us," she said. "When Mirelle first found it. It's young. Still warm in the middle. It'd like to be visited. Rocks that new always are." She looked back at Loki. "A young rock has never been anything but a rock. It doesn't know what it is yet. And then, one night, for a few hours, somebody stood on top of it who was shaped exactly like the Princess of Greykeep. With her footprint in it. And Malachar's whole attention, leaning down on it, wanting it to be her."

Nobody breathed.

"The footprint went home to Carol," said Aurelia. "Of course it did. It was hers. But the shape didn't. The shape was Garrick's fold, and Loki's coat, and a rock that had never been anything before, and the hungriest wanting I've ever felt from across a sea. And that kind of wanting leaves a mark." She folded her hands. "The stone remembers being fire. Serevan's phoenixes won't land there because of it. And now it remembers being her."

* * *

"So they're building on that," said Caitlin. Very quietly. Her blue book had slid off her lap and she hadn't noticed.

"They're building into that," said Aurelia. "A shape that was Carol for one night. And bricks with the twins' hands on them. Naming. Answering. Calling." She paused. "Every piece they bring will fit. Because every piece already has a little of her in it. And a little of Garrick, which she'd want beside her."

She looked at Carol.

"I think," said Aurelia, "they're building a Carol."

* * *

The fire cracked in the hearth.

That was the only sound. For a long time.

"Why?" said my mother, at last. Her voice was very thin.

It was Iselle who answered.

"Because she said no," said Iselle.

She was sitting very straight on her mismatched chair, with Roderic's hand over hers. Her hands were closed. I don't think she knew.

"He asked her," said Iselle. "In the iron room. Come and hold it with me. I'm so tired. Hold it for me so I can rest. And she said no." She swallowed. "And he wrote under her letter that he doesn't remember what he wants. And this morning I said: what if someone's remembering for him." She looked at Aurelia. "Somebody is. Somebody remembers exactly what he wanted. He wanted her. To stand beside him and hold the whole world still so he could put it down." Her voice cracked. "So somebody's making him one. Out of bits. One that can't say no. Because nobody's going to give it a no to say."

* * *

Carol stood up.

Ignatius stood up with her, without being asked. He always does.

She didn't say anything for a moment. She stood in front of the long low window, with the dark river behind her and the lamps of Havenreach below, and she looked at all of us. And I felt her, through the middle. Not frightened. I'd thought she'd be frightened. She wasn't.

She was furious.

Not loud. Carol's never loud. Cold. Very cold, and very still, the way the sea had been when our father froze it to the curve of the world.

"It'll have my shape," she said.

"Yes," said Aurelia.

"And my footprint. Where it melted. And bits of me, from every seam." Her voice didn't waver at all. "And Meriel's voice, if they'd got it. And Tessel's echo. And Corvel's call." She looked down at her own hands. "It'll name things, and answer things, and call across water. In my voice, probably. Shaped like me."

"Yes."

"And it'll say yes to him."

"Yes," said Aurelia. Very quietly. "I think that's what it's for."

* * *

Carol was quiet for a long moment.

Then she said, in the same cold, level voice:

"The Castellan wouldn't open the door to it."

We all looked at her.

"The night we made it," said Carol. "Before Jörmungandr took it out. You tested it, Garrick. Do you remember? You had the Castellan look at it." She lifted her chin. "And the Castellan said: That is not Carol Grey. Her name does not fit it. It is a coat on a hook."

I remembered. I am always looking for her name. That is what I am for.

"And Elenos," said Carol. "He listened to it. He said it sounded like ice ticking on a window. Like me. But there was no window behind it. There was no room." She looked around at all of us. "It can have my shape. It can have my voice. It can have every scrap of me they can tear off two hundred and twelve gods. It can say yes to him every day for the rest of the world."

She put her hand flat on the cold glass of the window.

"It still won't be anyone," she said. "It'll be a coat on a hook. And it'll know it. And one day, somebody will ask it its name, the way we ask everyone." Her voice dropped. "And it won't have one. And it'll have to say so."

* * *

Loki hadn't moved.

He was still sitting on his ordinary chair, the right way around, with his hands folded so tightly in his lap that the knuckles had gone white. He was looking at the floor.

"It was my idea," he said. Very low. "The false Carol. Mine. I said: the best lie is nearly all true. I said: he'll do all the work himself." He laughed. It was a horrible sound. "And he did. Didn't he. Or someone did. They took my lie and they're making it true."

Carol turned from the window.

She walked across the south solar, past my father, past the settle where our mothers sat, past Grandpa's basket of horses. She stopped in front of Loki's chair.

He didn't look up.

So she knelt down on the hearthrug in front of him, in Ignatius's old green coat, so that he had to see her.

"Loki," she said.

He looked at her.

"You asked me," said Carol. "That night. Before you did anything. You came to the north tower and knocked, and you said: I need a piece of you, and I won't lie to you about what for, and you can say no." She held his eyes. "That's the only time I've ever heard you say you can say no. And I said yes. And I'd say yes again." She put her hand over his white-knuckled ones. "You didn't make this. You made a lie, with my permission, to keep me safe, and it worked. It kept me safe. Somebody else is the one who picked it up off the floor and tried to make it walk."

Loki's hands, under hers, slowly came apart.

"I'd still like to break it," he said, after a long time. Hoarsely. "Whatever they're building. On that rock. I'd like to be there when it's broken. Since it's got my coat on."

"Then come," said Carol. "Ask my father. You can say no."

And Loki, god of lies, laughed again. A real one, this time. Short, and surprised, and only a little bit wet.

* * *

My father had been silent through all of it. Now he stood up, in his socks, with his back to the fire.

"Three days," he said.

Everyone turned.

"Not tonight. Not angry. Not alone. But three days." He looked around the room. "Whatever's on that rock has three pieces. It needs many more. And a name. It hasn't got either yet. Every day we wait, it might get another." He looked at Carol, kneeling on the hearthrug. "And every day we wait, it's standing out there on the loneliest rock in the sea, with your shape on, waiting for someone to tell it what it's called."

"Then we tell it first," said Carol.

My father looked at her.

"That's what I'll do," said Carol. "When we get there. Before anyone breaks anything." She stood up. "I'll ask it its name. And when it can't answer, I'll tell it what it is. A coat on a hook. Pieces of Tessel and Corvel that want to go home. A rock that wanted a visitor." Her chin came up. "And then I'll say mine. My whole name. To its face. In front of whoever built it."

* * *

"I'm coming," said Iselle.

"So am I," said Loki.

"And me," said Caitlin, surprising everyone. She had her blue book back in her lap. "Somebody has to count the pieces. To be sure they all get home. I'll know if one's missing."

"Not alone," said Seraphina, looking down at the baby asleep in her lap, and then at me. "I'm coming too. Next to you. Not in a doorway." She smoothed little Uriah's hair. "He'll stay with Helena and Selvane. They've been dying for an excuse."

My father looked at all of us for a long time.

"Halemar will want to carry the pieces home," he said. "Jörmungandr offered to be the road once. I'll ask him again." He turned back to the fire. "Three days. Get some sleep. All of you." He glanced at me. "Especially you."

* * *

Carol came and found me on the north tower stair at midnight. Halfway up. She'd been going up; I'd been going down to the kitchen for warm milk for the baby. We met on the ninetieth step and sat down on it, the way we used to when we were small and couldn't sleep.

"Garrick," she said. "If it talks. On the rock. In my voice."

"I know."

"If it says yes to him. In my voice. With my shape. Shoulders back and weight on my left foot." She put her chin on her knees. "What if somebody can't tell? What if he can't tell? What if it's enough for him?"

I thought about it for a long time.

"I could tell," I said. "Every time. With my eyes shut. Through the middle."

"How?"

"Because you're the one who says no," I said. "That's how I'd know. Anything that says yes to him isn't you."

Carol didn't say anything for a while.

Then she leaned her head on my shoulder, on the ninetieth step of the north tower stair, the way she used to when she was six.

"Carol Clara Grey," she said quietly. "Who says no."

"Heard," I said.

* * *

Mary wrote it at one in the morning. She'd been in the south solar the whole time, at the writing table, and she'd written every word, and then she'd sat for a long while with her pen in the air before she wrote the last part.

Aurelia invited Loki. He did not like it.

Why fragments: a whole god has a no in it. A piece doesn't. A piece is a brick.

Why seams: because every seam has a little of the twins' hands in it. Every piece torn comes away with a little of them on it. Like thread on a nail.

Why Blackstack: the false Carol. Garrick's fold, Loki's coat, Carol's footprint for one breath. The footprint went home. The shape did not. Malachar leaned on it, wanting it to be her. The rock remembers.

Aurelia: I think they're building a Carol.

Iselle: because she said no. Someone remembers what he wanted. They're making him one that can't.

Carol: it'll be a coat on a hook. One day someone will ask it its name, and it won't have one.

Loki: they took my lie and they're making it true. Carol knelt on the hearthrug. She said: you asked me. I'd say yes again. Loki laughed. A real one.

Three days. Carol, Garrick, Seraphina, Iselle, Loki, Caitlin. Halemar. Jörmungandr, if he'll come.

Carol will ask it its name first.

And under that, in Loki's hand. Which nobody in the family had ever seen, because he has never once in his life written anything down that could be read back to him. Thin, slanting, very fast, as if he wanted to get it over with:

Loki. I asked her. She said yes. I'd like it noted that I asked.