Chapter 209: Farewells

Adriana didn't wait for me to find her on Thursday. She found me.

She came up the ladder onto the north tower roof at six, in her plain gray cloak with the hood back, while I was standing inside the ring of Davren's lightning rods with my right hand held out in front of me, looking at the palm-coal. I'd been there since five. I'd been there since five every morning that week. It's where I go to feel which way Seraphina is.

West. A little south. The grain of gold sitting off-center in Io's pale ring, leaning toward the sea like a dog leaning on a lead.

Adriana came and stood on my right.

"You want to go now," she said.

It wasn't a question. I didn't answer it.

"I watched you from the window," said Adriana. "For an hour. You've put the fold out four times since I've been watching. Not far. Just to the edge of yourself. Like a man putting his foot on the first step of a stair and taking it off again." She looked at my face. "You want to fold to her. Now. This morning. All the way. Four hundred miles and the line and whatever's on the other side, in one go, so you're standing next to her by breakfast."

"Yes," I said.

"You'd come apart."

"I know."

"You know," said Adriana, "and you want to anyway. That's what I came to teach you about." She folded her hands inside her cloak. "Sit down, Garrick. This takes a while."

* * *

We sat on the cold leads with our backs against the parapet, the way we used to sit up there as children, the four of us. The sky was going from black to gray behind the downs.

"Your mother's light mends things," said Adriana. "Mine refuses them. You know that. Everybody knows that. The Saint of Refusal." She smiled a little. "What most people don't know is that refusing isn't the same as not wanting. People think if you say no to a thing, it's because you didn't want it very much. That's the easy kind. Anyone can refuse a thing they don't want." She turned her hand over in her lap, and there was a little silver light in it, cool and steady, like moonlight on a knife. "The hard kind is refusing a thing you want with your whole heart. Without stopping wanting it."

I looked at the light in her hand.

"When I refused Varrick's door," said Adriana, "you were very small, so you won't remember. I stood in front of it with this light, and it said no to him, and it held." She looked at the downs. "What I've never told anyone except your mother is that I wanted to go through it."

"Through Varrick's door?"

"There were people on the other side of it I loved. People he'd taken. I could hear them. I thought, if I go through, I can bring them out." She closed her hand, and the light went out between her fingers. "I wanted it so badly I could taste it. And if I'd gone through, the door would have stayed open behind me, and he'd have come out after me into this house, where you and Carol were asleep." She was quiet. "So I said no. And I kept wanting it. I stood there wanting it with everything I had, and saying no with everything I had, both at once, all night. That's what held the door. Not the no by itself. The no and the wanting together. The wanting is what made the no strong enough."

The sun came up over the downs. It was very cold.

"Over there," said Adriana, "on the far side of that sea, there'll be a moment. Maybe more than one. When you can feel her. When she's close. When somebody offers you exactly what you want, the way they always do over there. Come through this door and she's right here. Fold just a little further and you'll have her. And everything in you will want it." She looked at me. "And you'll have to say no. Not because you don't want her. Because you do. Because if you grab, you break, and then she's on her own over there with nobody holding the other end."

"How?"

"Practice," said Adriana. "Now. Put the fold out. Toward her. The way you've been doing all morning."

I put it out. West. I felt it go, the old familiar reaching, the edge of the long table in the dark. I felt the crack in me take the weight, the place where I broke on Tuesday night, mended now, strongest at the join. I felt the pull at the far end of it, the palm-coal, warm, leaning.

Her.

"Now want it," said Adriana. "All the way. Don't hold anything back. Want to be there."

I wanted it. It came up out of me like water out of a spring. Every morning in the nook alone. Every night on my own side of the bed. Her list in my coat. Her cuffs scorched. The boy saying Ma at a stone in a washtub. I wanted it so badly my hands shook.

"Good," said Adriana softly. "Now say no."

I couldn't.

I tried. I said the word. It didn't do anything. The fold stayed out, straining, like a horse at a gate.

"You're trying to stop wanting," said Adriana. "Don't. Keep wanting. Want it more. And say no on top of it. Not instead. On top."

I shut my eyes.

I wanted her. All of it. And I said no.

Not I don't want this. Not I can't. Just no. Not now. Not like this. Because I want it.

And the fold came back.

Slowly. Like pulling in a long rope hand over hand. All the way back into me, and folded up small, and the crack didn't shift, and I was sitting on the leads of the north tower roof with my back to the parapet and my face wet, still wanting her so much it hurt, and still in one piece.

Adriana didn't say anything for a long time.

"Again," she said at last. Very gently. Like Avarn in the yard.

We did it eleven times. Want, all the way. No, on top. Until I could do it without shutting my eyes. Until I could do it with my face dry.

* * *

When we stood up, she took my left hand.

My dead hand. The white one. The one that's been cold and numb to the wrist for weeks now. Mother says it will come back at midwinter, when my eye does. I can't feel anything with it. I couldn't feel her holding it.

Adriana opened it, finger by finger, the way Iselle opens her own hand, on purpose. And she put the little silver light into the middle of my palm.

I didn't feel it. But I saw it. It sat there in my white palm, cool and small and steady, like a drop of moonlight.

"That's one of mine," said Adriana. "One no. A whole one. It'll hold anything I could hold." She closed my fingers over it. "For when yours isn't enough. Not before. You'll know when."

"Adriana—"

"You can say no," she said, and almost smiled. "But I'd rather you didn't."

I looked at my closed white hand.

And for a moment, just for a moment, very faint, I thought I felt something. Not the light. Just the inside of my own fingers. Cold against my palm.

I didn't say anything. I didn't want to frighten it away.

* * *

Grandpa finished the boat at noon.

He brought it into the little kitchen wrapped in a cloth and set it down on the scrubbed table in front of my son, who was sitting on Thora's knee eating bread and honey. Fenrir got up off the floor and came to see, and put his chin on the edge of the table.

It's dark oak, the length of my forearm, smooth as glass. A long low boat with a high curved prow. And in it, ten little figures, each the size of my thumb, each one somebody. Carol with her hand in a sling. Ignatius with a flame on his finger, picked out in a fleck of red paint. Io barefoot. Lexander with a tiny axe. Selvane with a lamp. Loki sitting backward. Iselle with her hand open. Roderic one step behind her. Kessavel, very tall, at the very back. Me in the middle, with my left hand white.

And under the boat, carved into the long base it sat on, the coils of a serpent, swimming. Eleven, if you count the road. Grandpa does.

On a separate little block of oak at the end of the base, facing out, a wolf. Lying down. Looking out to sea.

My son looked at the boat for a long time with his mouth open and honey on his chin.

Then he reached out one sticky finger and touched the wolf.

"Fen," he said.

Fenrir, at the edge of the table, made a sound in his chest.

"There's one more," said Grandpa, gruffly, and reached into his apron pocket and took out another figure, smaller than the others and on its own. A girl. Standing on a tiny square roof, with one hand up over her head, holding something. A lamp.

"I didn't know where to put her," said Grandpa. "She's not in the boat. She's on the other side." He set her down on the table, a long way from the boat, at the far end of the scrubbed wood, by the salt. "So she goes there. For now."

My son looked at the little girl on the roof by the salt.

Then he climbed down off Thora's knee, which he's never done on his own before, and stood up holding on to the table leg, and walked along the edge of the table holding on, all the way to the salt. Fenrir walked beside him, step for step, between him and the hot range. And he picked up the little figure in his sticky fist.

And walked back. All the way. Holding on.

And put her in the boat, next to the little figure of me, and patted her.

"Ma," said my son.

Nobody in the kitchen said anything. Helena turned around to the range very suddenly and stood there with her back to us. Grandpa took off his spectacles and cleaned them on his apron, for a long time.

"Well," said Grandpa at last, thickly. "That's where she goes, then."

* * *

I folded five miles that afternoon. From the Hold gate to the old wreck on the north sands and up the coast to the Saltings and back. Carol held the other end, standing on the end of the north pier with her eyes shut and her good hand in her coat pocket.

When I came out whole beside her the last time she opened her eyes and looked at me.

"It's light," she said. "The other end. It's nearly nothing." She took her hand out of her pocket. "Tomorrow, Garrick."

"Tomorrow."

She looked out at the sea. Selvane's lamp wasn't on the end of the pier anymore. Selvane had it in the Hold, being packed.

"I'm frightened," said Carol. "I want to say it out loud once, so it's said. I'm frightened of the far side." She put her arm through mine, her good one. "That's all. I've said it. I'm coming anyway."

"I know."

"Idiot," said Carol, and leaned her head on my shoulder.

* * *

Nara came to the lower hall at eight, after supper.

The eleven of us stood in a row in front of the six arches, under the board that says The Watch. Everybody else stood around the walls. My father and Mother and Adriana. Thor, who'd come down off her throne for once. Caitlin with her blue book. Faelan with his ledger. Mirelle, holding Sella's hand, because Sella had brought the new lamp for the stone and Mirelle wanted to show it to everyone before she lit it. Elenos, on Mother's hip, though he's too big to be carried. Grandpa and Helena. Thora with my son, and Fenrir. Half the gods of the Accord along the gallery above.

Nara went down the row.

She didn't say anything grand. She doesn't. She stopped in front of each of us and took both our hands in both of hers, and held them for a moment, and let go. That's all.

Her hands are always warm. But this was different. When she let go of mine, the warm stayed. It went up my wrists, both of them, even the white one, and settled in my chest like the feeling of coming in out of the snow to a kitchen with a fire in it. It didn't go away.

She did Carol, and Ignatius, and Io. Lexander, who bent down very low so she could reach. Selvane, whose lamp flared when Nara touched her. Loki, who stood very still and didn't make a single joke. Iselle, whose right hand closed when Nara took it and then opened again on its own. Roderic, who went red.

Kessavel was at the end of the row. He'd stood at the end on purpose.

Nara stopped in front of him. She looked up at him. He's very tall, and she's short, and he looked down at her, and I saw him brace himself, the way you brace for a door you think will be shut in your face.

"You too," said Nara.

She took his big gray hands in her small warm ones.

"You too," she said again. "You've been cold longer than anybody here."

Kessavel closed his eyes.

When she let go, he stood there a long time with his hands held out in front of him, as if he were holding a cup that was too full. Then he put them very carefully in his pockets.

* * *

I put my son to bed at nine.

Not in our room. In the little kitchen, in Grandpa's basket by the kettle cupboard, because that's where he sleeps best now, with the range ticking and the smell of tomorrow's bread and the wolf across the front of the basket. Helena had banked the fire low. The boat stood on the table with Seraphina in it now, next to me.

I knelt by the basket.

He wasn't asleep. He was lying on his back with his thumb in his mouth, looking at me, his eyes very dark in the firelight. Seraphina's eyes. He has her eyes and my chin, Mother says, which is unfortunate for his chin.

"I'm going to get your mother," I said.

He took his thumb out of his mouth.

"I'll be gone a while," I said. "Thor will hold you on the roof. Thora will sit with you. Helena will feed you. Great-Grandpa will mend things. Fen will be here." Fenrir's tail moved once on the floor. "Every single day. And I'll be on the other side, and so will she, and we're coming back." I put my hand on his chest, my right hand, with the palm-coal in it. "Do you know what I'm going to say?"

He looked at my hand. At the grain of gold.

"Coming," said my son.

"Yes," I said. "Coming."

He put his small hand on top of mine. On top of the coal. And held it there, very seriously, the way he'd held on to the table leg walking to the salt.

Then he put his thumb back in his mouth and turned his face to the wolf and shut his eyes.

Fenrir lifted his head and looked at me. Yellow eyes, very steady, in the low light. He held my look for a long moment.

Then he put his chin down on the edge of the basket, so close the boy's breath stirred the fur on his nose.

I know, he said. Not out loud. Wolves don't. But I heard it.

Before anything.

* * *

My father was on the east wall at midnight. I knew he would be.

I sat down in the nook beside him, on his right. Neither of us said anything for a long time. Out west, Dorian's beacon burned on the Westmere headland. Below us the river ran black under the bridge, and the snow on the downs was gray in the starlight.

"I've said everything," said my father at last. "This week. To you. To the others. I've got nothing left that you don't know."

"I know."

"So I'll just say the one thing." He didn't look at me. He looked west. "Come home."

"I will."

"That's the whole of it, Garrick. That's all I've got. Bring her home and come home." He was quiet. "And if you can't bring her, come home anyway, and we'll think again. Don't you dare stay over there trying. I'm holding a whole sea still. I'll hold it another year if I have to. I'll hold it ten. But not if you're not coming back to the other end of it."

"I'll bring her."

"I know you will," said my father. He put his hand on the back of my neck, the way he did when I was small, and left it there. "I know you will. I just needed to say it."

We sat there until two. He didn't take his hand away.

* * *

Helena was up at four. She always is.

The little kitchen was warm and dark except for the range, and she was at it, in her apron, with her sleeves rolled, stirring the porridge. Nobody else was up. The boy was asleep in the basket with the wolf across it. Thora was asleep on the floor beside them with her raven on her shoulder.

I came in and sat down at the scrubbed table without being asked, across from the boat.

Helena put a bowl in front of me. Porridge. With honey in it, which she doesn't usually do for me. And an egg. And a cup of tea. And then she did something she never does. She sat down across from me, at the table, before it was light.

She didn't say anything while I ate. She just sat there, with her hands folded on the scrubbed wood, watching me. She waited until I'd eaten every bit of the porridge, and the egg, and drunk the tea.

Then she said, "Well."

"Well," I said.

Helena looked at me for a long time. She's looked after me since the day I was born. She knows every scar I've got and where I got it and which ones I lied about.

"Bring his mother home," said Helena. "And don't be dramatic about it."

I laughed. I didn't mean to. It came out of me like a cough.

"I'll try."

"Don't try," said Helena. "Do it. In and out. No speeches. No standing on anything tall and shouting. No folding yourself into a hundred pieces because you couldn't wait five minutes." She stood up and took my bowl. "Get her, and get the girls and their mother, and turn around, and come home. And come in through the kitchen door, not the front, because I'll want to see her first."

"Yes, Helena."

She put the bowl in the basin. She stood there with her back to me for a moment, with both her hands flat on the edge of the basin.

"I've made a cake," she said, without turning around. "For when she's back. It's in the larder. It'll keep. It's the kind that keeps." She was quiet. "Don't make it keep too long."

* * *

From Mary's book. Thursday into Friday. Mary's hand, small and very steady:

6 a.m. north tower roof. Adriana taught Garrick how to refuse something he wants. Not by stopping wanting it. By wanting it all the way and saying no on top. She told him: the night she refused Varrick's door, she wanted to go through it. The wanting is what made the no strong enough. Eleven times. Until he could do it with his face dry.

Adriana put one of her own refusals into Garrick's white left hand. One whole no. For when his isn't enough. He thinks he felt his fingers for a moment. He hasn't told anyone but me, and he asked me not to write it. I'm writing it.

Noon. Grandpa's boat. Ten in it, a serpent under it, a wolf on the shore. One more figure on a roof with a lamp, put by the salt. The boy walked along the table holding on, by himself, all the way to the salt, and brought her back and put her in the boat next to his father. Ma. Fenrir walked beside him between him and the range. Helena turned around to the range. Grandpa cleaned his spectacles.

Garrick folded five miles. Carol: it's nearly nothing. Tomorrow. Carol: I'm frightened. I've said it. I'm coming anyway.

8 p.m. Nara's warmth on all eleven. Kessavel last. You too. You've been cold longer than anybody here.

9 p.m. Garrick: I'm going to get your mother. The boy: Coming. He held his hand on the coal.

Midnight. Uriah: come home. That's the whole of it. Hand on the back of his neck until two.

4 a.m. Helena sat down at the table. Bring his mother home and don't be dramatic about it. Come in through the kitchen door. There's a cake in the larder. It's the kind that keeps. Don't make it keep too long.

And under that, in a hand that's quick and slanting and silver-gray, as if the ink had a little light in it:

Adriana. I'd like it noted that I have refused a great many things in my life, and that the ones that held were always the ones I wanted most. I'd like it noted that I gave Garrick one of mine, and that it is the one from the night of Varrick's door, and that I've never given that one to anybody, and that I'm not sorry. I'd like it noted that he's going to want to grab her when he finds her. Everybody does. And I'd like it noted that I've seen how he holds his son, and I'm not worried. A man who can hold something that gently can hold off grabbing for five minutes. That's all it takes. Five minutes.