Chapter 208: Who Stays

On Wednesday morning I went around the castle and asked everybody who wasn't coming what they were going to hold.

It was my father's idea. He found me in the east-wall nook at five, where I always sit, with my back against the cold stone and my coat around my knees and the palm-coal warm in my right hand. He sat down beside me, on my right, and didn't say anything for a while. The sky over the downs was black going gray. Out west, past the river, Dorian's beacon on the Westmere headland was a pinprick of orange, still burning.

"You chose the ones who go," said my father at last. "Yesterday. That was the easy list."

"It didn't feel easy."

"It never does. It is, though." He looked out at the downs. "The ones who go have something to do. They walk. They row. They knock on doors. Every hour, there's a next thing." He turned his peeling hands over in his lap. "The ones who stay get the other kind of day. The kind where there's nothing to do but hold on and wait for a lamp. That's harder. Ask anybody who's done both."

"You've done both."

"I have." He was quiet. "I'd rather walk into a sea that boils than sit at a window for one night waiting for you to come back through a door." He looked at me. "So go and ask them, Garrick. Every one. Not what they want. What they're going to hold. People can carry nearly anything if they know what it's called."

* * *

I started with Thor, because she'd be offended if I didn't.

She was on the top landing of the east stair, where the stair turns toward the little kitchen. She'd brought a chair up from somewhere. It's a big chair, oak, with arms like a throne, and I don't know where in the castle it came from and I've decided not to ask. She was sitting in it with her hammer across her knees and her braid down over one shoulder, looking down the stair at the lower hall like a cat looking at a mousehole.

"The top of the stair," she said, before I could ask. "You said. So I'm at the top of the stair." She patted the arm of the chair. "Helena says I can't take it into the kitchen. So it stays here. Anything that comes up those steps that isn't family, or doesn't knock, meets me first."

"You don't have to sit here day and night."

"I know," said Thor. "But I'm going to." She looked at me with her bright fierce eyes. "I've been thinking about it all night, little brother. You were right. It was a terrible reason. It was the right one." She lifted her chin. "I hold the stair. I hold the walls. I hold anything that comes over the sea while Uriah's holding the sea." She banged the hammer once on the landing, gently, which for Thor means very loudly. "And I hold your boy's afternoons. Helena says I can take him up on the north tower roof when it's not raining, if I hold on to the back of his coat."

"Hold on to the back of his coat."

"I just said that," said Thor.

* * *

Adriana and Mother were in the infirmary off the south solar, packing.

They were working side by side at the long table under the window, in the gray early light, rolling linen and stoppering little brown bottles and putting them into a leather satchel with Evelyn's own mark burned into the flap. Mother's hands were quick and sure. Adriana's were slower, and every so often she stopped and just looked at Mother's hands for a moment, the way you look at something you love that you'll miss, and Mother would feel it and look up, and they'd smile at each other across the bottles without saying anything.

They've been like that my whole life. I used to think everybody's mothers were.

"This is for Io," said Mother, without looking up, tying off a roll of linen. "She'll mend the big things. But somebody has to do the small ones, the splinters and the blisters and the burned fingers, and she won't think of them until there are fifty." She put it in the satchel. "You'll carry it. Not Io. You."

"I'll carry it."

"What are you holding?" said Adriana. "That's what you came to ask. Your father sent you." She smiled. "He told us at four in the morning, in bed. He told us everything at four in the morning, in bed. Neither of us got any sleep."

"What are you holding?" I said.

Mother put down the bottle she was holding.

"Your father," she said simply. "That's mine. He's holding every ship on the western sea, and he's going to try to hold this house, and you, and the boy, and Thor, and the whole Council, and the weather, all at once. And he's going to tell everyone he's fine. He always does." She looked at me with her sharp eyes. "When he says he's fine, he isn't. I'm going to keep my hand on his back until you walk back through that door. And if he tries to go after you, Garrick, I'm going to sit on him."

"She will," said Adriana. "I've seen her do it."

"And you?" I said to Adriana.

Adriana was quiet a long moment. She's the Saint of Refusal. Her light is silver and it says no to things, the way Mother's says mend. She refused Varrick's door once, when I was very small, and it stayed refused.

"The gate," she said. "The Hold gate, and the Concordia arch, and every door the Castellan opens while you're gone. Anything that comes through them for your boy, or for this house, I'll refuse." She smiled, but it wasn't a soft smile. "And I'll stand at the window over the lower hall every evening at nine with a lamp. So when you come home, the first thing you see in this house is somebody waiting."

Mother reached across the table and took Adriana's hand, and held it, and didn't let go.

"And I've got something to teach you," Adriana said to me. "Before you go. Not today. You're not ready today." She looked at me for a long time. "Thursday. Come and find me Thursday."

I didn't ask what. Adriana doesn't explain things before she's ready to. Neither does her mother.

* * *

Caitlin was at her desk in Mary's office, which she's had since she was nine.

She had her blue book open and three pens laid out beside it, the way she always does, and a new page ruled into columns. She didn't look up when I came in. She hears everything about four minutes after it happens, and she'd known I was coming since I left Thor on the stair.

"I'm holding the count," she said.

"What count?"

She turned the book around so I could see it.

Eleven names down the left side, in her small exact hand. Garrick. Carol. Ignatius. Io. Lexander. Selvane. Loki. Jörmungandr. Iselle. Roderic. Kessavel. And across the top, a column for every day, starting with Friday. And at the very end, on the far right, a column with nothing in it yet. Just a heading.

Home.

"Every night," said Caitlin, "I'll go through the Hold gate and sit with Davren at the stone, and write down the flashes, and what time, and what Ignatius's flame does if you send word, and anything else. Every night, for every day. And every name gets a mark for every day it's still out there." She put her finger on the last column. "And when one comes home, I'll put a mark here. And when every name has a mark here, I'll stop."

I looked at the book for a long time.

"And Mags," I said. "And Clemmie and Goldie. And Seraphina."

"Under the line," said Caitlin. She turned a page. There they were, four more names, in a smaller column of their own, with Home at the end of it too. "I didn't put them with the others. They're not going. They're coming." She turned the book back around. "I've counted everything in this house since I could hold a pen, Garrick. I've never once counted wrong." She picked up a pen. "I'm not going to start now."

* * *

Faelan found me. I didn't have to find him.

He came running down the gallery with his green laundry ledger under his arm, the one he's been writing gods in since he was small, with ink on his fingers and a frog's leg, I'm fairly sure, sticking out of his coat pocket. He's ten. He has Adriana's dark hair and his grandfather Roderic's chin and enormous serious gray eyes.

"I've done everyone," he said, out of breath. "Except Kessavel. I need Kessavel. He's not in the book. Is he allowed in the book? He's Kethran. I've never had a Kethran one."

"Ask him," I said. "He's in the little kitchen drying cups."

"Will he mind?"

"Ask him that too."

Faelan considered this. Then he opened the ledger and showed me. He's given every one of the Company a page. Name, and what they keep, and what they're afraid of, if they told him, and their favorite thing, which he always asks. Under Loki, favorite thing:Jörmungandr. And Fenrir. And apples. (He said that wasn't in order.) Under Selvane: her lamp. Under Carol: the first snow. Under me, in his best writing: Seraphina. (He didn't have to think.)

"What are you holding?" I asked him.

He looked at me as if I were very stupid.

"The book," said Faelan. "Obviously. If you're all in the book, you have to come back. That's how the book works." He shut it. "The pages have to balance. They always balance. If you don't come back, the page won't balance, and that's never happened, so you'll come back." He tucked it under his arm. "I'm going to ask Kessavel what his favorite thing is."

"He might not know."

"Then I'll wait," said Faelan, and ran off down the gallery.

* * *

Mirelle was in the lower hall, lighting the lamps without a taper.

She's seven and a half, with red-brown hair that won't stay in its ribbons and a gap where her front tooth should be. She loves roads and lamps and anything that shows you which way to go. She was going along the row of lamps by the six arches, touching each wick with one finger, and each one lit as she touched it, small and yellow, the way they always do for her.

She saw me and came straight over and took hold of my hand with her lamp-lighting one.

"Selvane's taking her lamp," she said. "Isn't she. Over the sea. To knock with."

"She is."

"Then who answers at the stone? When Seraphina does three-and-three? Benjamin used Selvane's lamp, and now it's going." She looked up at me. "You need a lamp at the stone, Garrick. Somebody has to answer, every time, or she'll think nobody's listening."

I hadn't thought of it. I'd thought of everything else and I hadn't thought of that.

"Sella's going to bring one," said Mirelle, before I could speak. "I asked her. She keeps the lamps for people still on the road, and Seraphina's on the road, so it's hers. And I'm going to light it." She lifted her chin. "Every time. Benjamin can hold it up and cover it. But I'm the one who lights it. Mother says I can go through the Hold gate every night as long as Caitlin's with me and I'm in bed by ten." She squeezed my hand. "That's what I'm holding. The lamp for the answer."

I knelt down on the cold granite of the lower hall so my face was level with hers.

"That's the most important thing anybody's holding," I said.

"I know," said Mirelle. "That's why I picked it."

* * *

Elenos was in the chapel.

He's the youngest of all of us, Mother's last. He goes to Aurelia for whole days and doesn't explain, and he hears what things are, the way Caitlin counts and Faelan balances and Mirelle lights. He once heard the Keeper of Roads say thank you for the lamps. He once told my father the sea was coming up the stairs, and then it very nearly did.

He was sitting in the front pew with his feet not reaching the floor, doing nothing at all. When I sat down beside him, he leaned against my arm.

"What are you holding?" I asked.

"Nothing," said Elenos. "I'm listening." He was quiet. "You're going to bring back more than you're taking."

I looked down at him.

"Three," I said. "Mags and Clemmie and Goldie. And Seraphina. Four."

"More," said Elenos. He didn't explain. He never does. He just leaned on my arm and looked at the candles on the altar. "Count the boat when you come home," he said. "It'll be heavier."

* * *

My son I didn't ask. He's fourteen months old. He doesn't hold things; he holds on to them.

But I went to the little kitchen at noon anyway, and Helena was at the range, and Grandpa was at the scrubbed table mending a hinge, and Thora was on the floor against the kettle cupboard door with her raven on her knee. My son was asleep in Grandpa's basket. Fenrir was lying across the front of it. The wolf opened one yellow eye at me as I came in and closed it again.

"Don't ask me," said Helena, before I could. "I know what I'm holding. I've held it since the day he was born. I don't need to say it out loud to know it." She turned a sausage. "Sit down and eat something."

"I'm holding the door," said Grandpa, without looking up from the hinge. "Same as always. Somebody has to." He's nearly eighty. He held the kettle cupboard door against men with chains, the night the Choir came, with a mallet. "I'll mend whatever breaks while you're gone. And I'll carve him a boat. A proper one. With eleven people in it."

"Twelve," said Thora, from the floor. "Count Fenrir. He'll want to be in it even if he's not going."

"He'll be on the shore," said Grandpa. "Looking out. I'll carve that too."

Thora looked up at me. She's nineteen. Seraphina's little sister. She came through the Concordia arch with her parents last Thursday, and she's barely moved off that kitchen floor since.

"I'm holding him," she said. "With the wolf. That's all." She stroked the raven's head. "And my ravens can't cross. I know. But they can fly to the Westmere headland every night and back, and tell Caitlin and Mirelle if he said any new words. So when you come home, you'll know every one."

* * *

The gods came to me. I didn't have to go to them.

All afternoon, one after another, the ones who weren't going found me wherever I was and told me what they'd hold. Brannoc in the tilt yard: the shore, every mile of it. Dorian on the walls: the beacons, every one lit until we're home. Sel at the gate with her hands full of apple whips: the trees, one a day, above the north sands. Caldris in the gallery, his hands folded: the oath. "I'll sit with it," he said, "every night, the old line, the way you'd sit up with a fever. If it so much as creaks, I'll know, and I'll tell Aurelia, and she'll tell your father."

Nara found me last, in the court, at dusk, and put her warm hands around my cold one.

"The hearths," she said. "Every one in this house. Hers most of all. Her room will be warm when she walks into it." She squeezed my hand. "And tomorrow night I'll put my warmth on all of you, before you go. All eleven. So you won't be cold. That's my holding."

* * *

At nine o'clock my father and I stood in the lower hall in front of the six arches.

Somebody had nailed a board to the wall beside the Greymere arch while I was out. Not the slate; a new board, plain pine, with paper pinned to it. Mary's writing. The Watch, at the top. And under it, every name I'd asked that day, and what they'd told me.

Uriah — the sea, still.

Evelyn — Uriah's back.

Adriana — every gate; the lamp at nine.

Thor — the top of the stair. The walls. The boy's afternoons. (Holding on to the back of his coat.)

Caitlin — the count. Every night until every name is Home.

Faelan — the book. It has to balance.

Mirelle — the lamp for the answer.

Elenos — listening.

Helena — (She says she doesn't have to say.)

Grandpa — the door. And a boat with eleven people in it, and a wolf on the shore.

Thora — the boy. With the wolf.

Fenrir — the boy. Before anything.

Wynn — the plate she comes home through.

Benjamin and Davren — the stone.

Brannoc — the shore. Dorian — the beacons. Sella — the lamp at the stone. Sel — a tree a day. Caldris — the oath. Nara — every hearth, hers most of all.

The Castellan —

That one was blank.

My father looked at it.

And from beside the Greymere arch, eight feet tall, gray as the granite it's made of, the Castellan said, "I have not said yet."

We both turned.

"I keep the doors," said the Castellan. "All of them. Every gate in every ward." It was quiet a long moment. "When you go, Garrick Grey, you will go out by the Westmere gate. I will hold it open behind you. And when you come back, you will come in by a door. I do not yet know which. I will hold that one too." Its stone face didn't change. It never does. "But I think they will be the same door. That is usually how it is, when someone goes to fetch someone home."

It took a pen from Mary's desk. I have never once in my life seen the Castellan write. It wrote, very slowly, in square letters like cut stone:

The door you go out by. And the door you come in by. They are the same door.

Then it put the pen back.

My father stood looking at the board for a long time.

"There," he said at last, quietly. "Now everybody knows what they're holding." He put his hand on my shoulder. "You hold your end, Garrick. We'll hold ours."

* * *

From Mary's book. Wednesday. Mary's hand, small and steady:

5 a.m. Uriah in the east-wall nook: the ones who stay get the harder day. Go and ask them. Not what they want. What they're going to hold. People can carry nearly anything if they know what it's called.

Garrick asked everyone. The answers are on the board in the lower hall. I have copied them here in case the board falls down, which it won't, because Grandpa nailed it.

Thor has a throne at the top of the east stair. Nobody knows where it came from. Nobody is asking.

Evelyn: when he says he's fine, he isn't. If he tries to go after you, I'm going to sit on him. Adriana: I've seen her do it.

Adriana told Garrick: come and find me Thursday. I have something to teach you.

Caitlin's count: eleven names going, four names coming, and a column at the end headed Home.

Faelan's book: if you're all in it you have to come back. He is waiting for Kessavel's favorite thing. Kessavel is thinking.

Mirelle will light the answering lamp at the stone every night. Sella is bringing it. In bed by ten.

Elenos: you'll bring back more than you're taking. Count the boat when you come home.

Grandpa is carving a boat with eleven people in it and a wolf on the shore.

The Castellan wrote on the board. It has never written before. The door you go out by and the door you come in by are the same door.

Garrick folded three miles today, the Hold gate to the far end of the north sands and back. Whole. Carol: Friday.

Kessavel's favorite thing (Faelan, 11 p.m., by the kitchen fire): honey. In porridge. He didn't know until today.

And under that, in a tiny exact hand, every letter the same height, with a ruler line beneath it:

Caitlin Asta Grey. I'd like it noted that I have counted everything in this house since I was four. Spoons, stairs, the windows in the west range, the gods at Council, the times Davren says do you see. I have never once been wrong. I'd like it noted that tonight I ruled a column headed Home and left it empty, and that it is the first column I have ever ruled without knowing how it will add up. I'd like it noted that I am not frightened. I'd like it noted that that is the first thing I have ever written in this book that isn't true.