Chapter 195: Taken

That's what people call it, when they tell it. Taken. The night Seraphina was taken. I've heard it said in the market at Havenreach and in the Concordian court and once, very carefully, by a priest in Lyradon who thought I couldn't hear him. It's in the ballads. There are four ballads now, and two of them are quite good, and all four of them are wrong.

Nobody took her.

I want that written down first, before anything else, in ink, where it can't be rubbed out. Nobody took my wife. Nobody has ever taken Seraphina anywhere in her life. She went.

* * *

The arch was a third open and closing.

I could feel it going. Everybody in the lower hall could. The fold was drawing in on itself the way a wound draws closed, slowly, from the edges, the Castellan behind it pushing with everything it had. The white square of Orselle through it grew narrower with every breath: the fountain, the torches, the black carriage with the closed hand on its door, the four black horses stamping. The woman in the sling. The two girls.

Seraphina stood in the middle of the hall with the last of the Flame drawing back into her like a tide going out, and looked at me.

"Garrick," she said.

"No."

"I haven't said anything."

"You don't have to." My voice wasn't steady. Nothing about me was steady; I was standing up mostly because the wall was behind me. "I know that face. I've known it since you were nine and decided to climb the Lyradon bell tower. No."

"I was ten," said Seraphina. "And I got to the top." She came across the hall toward me through the scattered black iron, barefoot, and the little fragments of the chain hissed and went dull where her feet passed. "Listen to me. We haven't got long. Listen."

I listened. God help me, I've always listened to her. It's the best thing I've ever done and it's cost me more than anything else in my life.

* * *

"That's Wynn's mother," said Seraphina.

I stared at her.

"Mags. With her wrist. The right one. You told me what Faelan said, on Wednesday night, in bed. The thin letter. The outside in her own hand." She said it fast, low, not taking her eyes off mine. "And those are his sisters. Clemmie and Goldie. Eleven and eight. You told me that too. Goldie walked to the dog first."

"Wynn," I said.

I said it the way you say the name of someone who's died, before you've understood they're dead. Just the name. Just to hear if it's still a name.

Someone I know, the Castellan had said, through three hundred miles of stone. I know the hand. I know the weight. In a hand I know, also. A beautiful hand.

Wynn, who reads oath-script better than Eleanor now. Wynn, who wrote in Mary's book on Monday that the arch had gone through a day early and that it was good work and he'd like that in ink so it stays true. Wynn, on the quay, looking a long time south down the coast road with my son's hand on his knee. You should keep him close.

I want them to be safe. That's all I've ever wanted.

"Oh," I said. "Oh, Wynn."

"Not now," said Seraphina. "Later. Later you can be as sad as you like and I'll hold your hand for all of it. Not now. Garrick, they're going to put those three in that carriage and take them down to the harbor and onto a ship and west, across the sea. Kessavel says they keep them. In case. For years. Forever." The Flame came up in her eyes. "That little girl walked to the dog first."

"Then we'll go and get them. All of us. Tomorrow. Father and Thor and Carol and—"

"Tomorrow they'll be at sea. Past the last islands. Where the phoenixes won't fly." She took my face in both her hands. They were very hot. "And the Castellan will never open that arch again. Not after tonight. It can't. It's blind. It doesn't know who's beside us. It'll keep it shut till Eleanor rebuilds every plate in it, and that's a month, and in a month they're gone."

"Then I'll fold there."

"You can't stand up."

"I'll fold sitting down."

"You'd fold into the sea," said Seraphina, "and drown, and I'd have to come back and fetch you, and then nobody would get them." Her thumbs moved on my cheekbones, through the dried blood. "You've done the thing nobody's ever done tonight. You've done it once. You haven't got it in you to do it twice. Not tonight. I can feel it; I can feel how empty you are. You're like a cup somebody's turned upside down."

* * *

The arch was a quarter open.

"Then don't," I said. "Seraphina. Don't. Please."

I'd never said please to her like that. Not once in our lives. Not when she climbed the bell tower, not when she set fire to the Concordian ambassador's hat, not the night our son came and she wouldn't let anybody into the room but her mother and Helena. I'd never asked her not to do a thing. It's not how we are.

She looked at me for a long moment with her hands on my face.

"I'm not going to be taken," she said. Very quietly. "Do you understand? Nobody's taking me anywhere. They tried, tonight. They came through my house for my fire and my son and they didn't get either. They're not going to get me either. I'm going. On my own feet. Because I want to. Because there's a woman over there with her wrist in a sling who wrote a thin letter with a knife at her back and two little girls watching her do it, and her son opened our door because they'd have hurt them if he didn't, and I'd have done it too, Garrick. If it was our boy. I'd have opened every door in the world."

"So would I."

"I know you would. That's why I'm going and you're not." She almost smiled. "Somebody has to stay with him. Somebody has to be here when he wakes up in that cupboard with a hen on his head and wants up. And it can't be me, because I'm the one who can still burn, and it can't be anyone but you, because you're his father."

I couldn't say anything.

"I'll bring them back," she said. "Mags and Clemmie and Goldie. And then I'll come home. And then you can be as angry as you like, and I'll let you. For a week. Two weeks." Her thumbs moved again. "But not now. Now there isn't time to be angry. There's only time to ask."

And she took her hands off my face and stepped back, one step, so that she was standing in front of me, straight, the way she stands when she means something, and said:

"Garrick Elias Grey. Will you let me go? You can say no."

* * *

I could have said no.

I want that written down too, because people tell it as if I stood there helpless. I wasn't helpless. If I'd said no, she'd have stayed. I know her. She'd have been furious, and she'd have stayed, and she'd have stood in the lower hall with me and watched the arch close on those two little girls, and she'd never have said a word about it afterward, and she'd never have forgiven herself, and I'd have watched her not forgive herself every day for the rest of our lives.

It's what we do now. We ask. We asked the milk boy and the queen of Caldermoor and Hob the stableman and the hollow gods in the kitchen. We ask, and we let the answer be the answer.

She was asking me.

And it was hers to ask, and mine to answer, and the answer was the hardest thing I've ever had to say, harder than take to Carol on Thursday, harder than three hundred miles.

"Yes," I said.

* * *

"Borrow?" said Seraphina.

She held out her hand. Palm up. The way I've held out mine to her ten thousand times, for a little of her fire. The way she'd done once before, when she offered me patience and I didn't take it.

"A little of the fold," she said. "Not much. You haven't got much. Just enough so you can feel where I am. Like Carol. Like the door you've got with Carol. I want one too. I've always wanted one." Her voice shook, just once. "So you'll know. So you'll always know I'm all right."

I put my hand in hers. My right hand, the good one.

"Take," I said.

And I gave her a little of the fold. The first thing. The thing that's only mine, that was never only mine. I don't know how to describe what it felt like. Like tearing a page out of a book very carefully, along the fold, so it comes away clean. Like giving someone the end of a thread and keeping the spool.

She closed her hand on it.

Then she turned my hand over, palm up, in hers, and put her other hand flat on it, and something went into me from her. Hot. Small. A coal. Right in the middle of my palm, the way it had been in our son's palm when he caught me through the walls. Her flame. Not much of it. Just a little. Just enough.

"So you'll know I'm alive," she said. "Every minute. It'll stay lit as long as I do. If you ever look at your hand and it's dark—" She stopped.

"It won't be dark."

"No," said Seraphina. "It won't." And she let go of my hand.

"Tell him," she said. "When he wakes up. Tell him Ma's gone to fetch a little girl who walked to the dog first, the way he did. Tell him she'll want to meet Fenrir." Her voice went, and came back. "And every night, when you carry him down to put his hand on the wolf's nose, you put yours there too. After his. And you say it for me."

"Say what?"

"Fen," said Seraphina. "Obviously. It means the best thing in the world." She wiped her face with the back of her wrist, quick and cross, the way she does when she's annoyed with herself for crying. "Every night, Garrick. Till I'm home. Promise me."

"Every night," I said. "I promise."

"Good," said Seraphina. "Then that's settled."

It's been kept. Every night. I want that noted too.

* * *

The arch was a fifth open. A slit. A door left ajar.

Loki was on his feet beside Kessavel. "I'll come," he said.

Seraphina looked at him. "No."

"I'm very useful on a ship. I've been a ship."

"Your son is lying across my son's door with a spear wound in his shoulder," said Seraphina, "and he won't move off it even to be looked at. Somebody has to sit with him, and he won't let anyone but you." She looked at him a moment longer. "Stay with Fenrir, Loki. Please. For me."

Loki opened his mouth. Then he shut it. Then he bowed to her, the long Concordian bow, the one he does for her father, all the way down, and when he straightened up his face was wet.

Kessavel was on his knees still, with the collar on. He looked up at her.

"The ship," he said. "They'll take them down to the harbor. There'll be a ship at the end of the long mole, black, three masts, no lights. The priests won't stop for anything once they're aboard. You'll have until the tide." He swallowed. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I wish I could—"

"You held the tower," said Seraphina. "Go and eat Brannoc's bread."

And she turned to the arch.

* * *

She went to it the way she goes everywhere. Fast, straight, barefoot, in my old green coat with the sleeves pushed up, with her hair going back to red as the Flame drew down into her and settled, the way a fire settles when it's been banked for the night and will be ready in the morning.

She didn't run. She's never run anywhere in her life.

At the arch she stopped. The gap was the width of her shoulders now, and closing. Beyond it, the white square of Orselle, the torches, the fountain, the carriage. The faceless men had seen her. They were turning toward the arch, a dozen of them, more. The woman in the sling had seen her too. I saw her face change. I saw her not understand, and then understand, and put her good arm around the smaller girl.

Seraphina put her hand flat on the Orselle half of the split brass plate, the way Eleanor does. The way Wynn does.

"Castellan," she said. "It's Seraphina. Seraphina Grey, of Concordia. I'm going out. Will you let me?"

The Castellan was in the walls. It's always in the walls. And its voice came out of the stone of the lower hall all around us, small and gray and very tired, the voice of something that has been pushing a door shut with everything it has for half an hour and is blind and frightened and doing it anyway.

I cannot see who is on the other side.

"I can," said Seraphina. "I'll tell you. A woman with her wrist in a sling. Two little girls. And a great many men who are about to wish they'd stayed in bed."

The Castellan was quiet.

You are asking, it said.

"I'm asking."

Then I will let you, said the Castellan. But only you. And then I will shut it, and I will not open it again tonight for anyone, not for you, not for him, not for the whole world, until I can see. I am sorry. That is all I can do.

"That's all I need," said Seraphina.

And she turned around.

* * *

She stood in the closing arch with Orselle behind her, and she looked at me across the length of the lower hall, across the scattered black iron and the old stone and the pale patches where the other arches had been.

And she stood where I could see her.

On my right. The side I can see. She'd moved, at the last moment, half a step, so that she was in my right eye and not my left, the way everyone in the house has learned to stand since the autumn. She'd thought of that. With the arch closing on her shoulders and twelve men turning toward her with spears, she'd thought about which of my eyes was dark.

She lifted her hand. The one with the fold in it.

I lifted mine. The one with the coal.

And she smiled at me. Not the warm one. Not the one she uses on her father, or on ambassadors, or on my son when he won't eat his carrots. The real one. The one she smiled in the Lyradon bell tower when she got to the top and looked down at me on the ground and I knew, at ten years old, that I was going to marry her or nobody.

Then she turned around and walked through.

* * *

I saw three things before it shut.

I saw her come out on the white stones of the Orselle gate square, barefoot, and the Flame come up out of her all at once, not a fire, a sunrise, so that the whole square went gold and every torch in it looked like a candle stub.

I saw the faceless men in front of the carriage fall back from her like grass in a wind. Not hurt. Not burned. Just back. Because nobody stands in front of that. Nobody.

And I saw the smaller girl, Goldie, take her face out of her mother's skirt and look at Seraphina walking toward her across the burning square, and stop crying.

Then the arch closed.

* * *

It shut in my face. That's what the ballads say, and that part's true. I'd crossed the hall without knowing it; I was standing right in front of it when it went, close enough to touch, and it closed the way a door closes in a house where someone's died, softly, all the way, with a small click at the end.

And the plate went white.

The holding frost came across the brass from the edges, flat and smooth and unmelting, the way it had at Westmere, and covered the Orselle half and the Greymere half and the split down the middle, and then the arch was just stone. Gray stone in a vault under a castle. Numbered in Eleanor's chalk, ready to go down to the quay next week.

I put my hand on the frost.

My left hand. The white one. The one with my father's frost in it. And for a moment, for a heartbeat, the frost on the plate and the frost in my hand knew each other, the way frost knows frost, and I thought: I could open it. I could. With my father's cold against the Castellan's cold, I could pry it apart like a frozen door.

And she'd asked it to stay shut. She'd asked. And it had said yes.

I took my hand away.

* * *

On the slate beside the arch, the one Aldren had put up on Monday so the Castellan would have somewhere to write in the empty hall, a line was coming up in the narrow gray hand. Slowly. As if the Castellan were writing it very carefully, every letter, because it would never be able to write it again.

Seraphina Grey, of Concordia. Going. Asked to.

And under it, smaller:

To bring them home.

I stood and read it.

Then I looked down at my right hand. At the palm. And in the middle of it there was a small light, gold, steady, the size of a coin. Not flickering. Not dim. Burning, the way the last coal burns in the grate in the morning when everyone's still asleep and it's the only warm thing in the house.

She was alive. She was on the white stones of Orselle, a long way down the coast, with the Flame coming off her like a sunrise, walking toward a woman with her wrist in a sling.

And I was standing in an empty vault in front of a shut door.

I heard feet on the back stair. Running. I know whose. He doesn't run. He was running.

I didn't turn around. I stood where I was, in front of the arch, with my hand held up in front of me, looking at the light in it.

* * *

From Mary's book. Saturday. This page has no drawing and no date. At the top, in Mary's hand, copied exactly, letter for letter, as she found it on the slate in the lower hall the next morning:

Seraphina Grey, of Concordia. Going. Asked to.

To bring them home.

And under it, in Mary's own small straight hand:

She went through the Greymere and Orselle arch at 12:41 a.m. on her own feet. Nobody took her. She asked Garrick, and he said yes. She asked the Castellan, and it said yes. She stood on his right.

She has a little of his fold. He has a little of her flame. It is in the middle of his right palm. It is lit.

And under that, in a hand nobody would ever mistake, the worst handwriting in Greykeep, large and sloping and nearly illegible, as if written by someone holding the pen in the wrong hand, which he was, because his right hand had a light in it and he wouldn't close it:

Garrick Elias Grey. I'd like it noted that she asked. That I said yes. That nobody took her. That she stood where I could see her. That it's lit.