Chapter 86: Aftermath

Carol kept reaching for her lightning.

That was the first thing I noticed, in the morning. We'd come back through the big Concordia gate at four, all of us except Roderic, who wouldn't leave the infirmary, and Ignatius, who wouldn't leave Carol, and so had come. The Castellan said every one of our names at the arch, very slowly, as if it were counting us twice. Then it said, "All." And then, after a long pause, "Not all. The lady from the east range is not."

Nobody answered it. There wasn't anything to say.

Carol didn't go up to the north tower. She came into the little kitchen and sat down on the end of the bench in Ignatius's old green coat, with her paper mask still hanging from her neck by its string, and Helena put a cup in her hands. And every few minutes, without seeming to know she was doing it, she lifted her free hand an inch off her knee, and a tiny thread of lightning jumped between her fingers. Blue-white. Crackling. There.

And then she put her hand down. And a minute later, she did it again.

Checking. The way you check a pocket for a key you know is there.

* * *

"Carol," said Ignatius, very gently, the eleventh time.

"I know." She put her hand down. "I know. I can't stop."

"You don't have to stop."

"It wasn't there." She was looking at her hand. "Ignatius, it wasn't there. I reached for it, and there was nothing. Not gone. Just locked. Like reaching for the banister in the dark and the banister isn't there and you're falling." She lifted her hand again. The thread jumped. "It's never not been there. Not since I was born. Not once in my whole life. It was there before I could talk."

The lightning crackled between her fingers. Then the frost came, too, without her asking it to. White ferns, all the way up the window behind her, and across the scrubbed table, and over the rim of Helena's cup until the tea in it froze solid with a little cracking sound.

Carol looked at the frozen tea.

And then she put the cup down and put both hands over her face, and I felt it through the middle, all at once, the thing she'd been holding under the lightning since four o'clock.

She was frightened. Not of anything. Of nothing. Of that hand's-width gap inside herself where everything she was had been, for ten minutes, and wasn't.

* * *

Helena took the frozen cup away and gave her another one. Hot. And didn't say anything. And then, after a moment, she put her own hand on the top of Carol's head, very briefly, the way she does with little Uriah when he's fallen over and isn't hurt but needs to cry anyway.

Carol cried.

Not for long. A minute. Maybe two. With her face in her hands and her shoulders going, and Ignatius beside her with one hand flat on her back, not saying anything, and the frost on the window going on growing and growing until the whole pane was white.

And then she stopped. All at once. And took her hands away from her face. And her eyes were red, and her face was wet, and the frost on the window cracked. Straight across. Like a sheet of ice on a pond when somebody steps on it.

"She said her name," said Carol.

Nobody said anything.

"Iselle. With a chain around her heart. While it was trying to take it. She held on to her own name with nothing. She hasn't got anything, Ignatius. No lightning. No frost. No fire. She's never had anything. She's just a girl from a valley whose mother weaves." Carol's voice had gone very low and very flat. "And I had everything. Every god in every room. And they locked it, and I was frightened, and I climbed. And she didn't have anything to lock. And she just stood there in front of Caitlin and said her name."

The window cracked again. A second line, across the first.

"I said I'd go," said Carol. "In this kitchen. I said I'd like to go and see what he's built and break it. And I did. I went. I broke it. And it was Iselle who paid."

* * *

I should have said something then. Something true and useful, the way my father would. It wasn't your choice that hurt her. It was his. That's what he'd told Loki on the east range steps. It was true.

I didn't say it.

Because I couldn't. Because through the middle, Carol's anger was coming through like a fire through a dry field, and mine was rising up to meet it, and I couldn't tell anymore which of us it belonged to.

I'd folded thirty paces wrong.

That was mine. All mine. The ring was broken, and every door inside me was open again, and I'd thrown myself through a fold toward my little sister on the east range steps, and it had come out on the wrong side of a fountain, facing the wrong way. And by the time I'd turned around, a chain was wrapped around Iselle's heart.

Thirty paces.

I've folded across the whole of Avarra in a breath. I've folded a herd of forty-one unicorns from Orselle to Lyradon. I've never once, in my whole life, folded thirty paces wrong.

* * *

I went up to the map room.

I didn't decide to. I just found myself there, at the top of the hundred and twelve steps, at six in the morning, standing on the cold stone floor with the maps all around me. Every road and river and silver gate-circle in Avarra. And to the west, over the bare gray stone where the old maps stopped, Severin's silk.

Kethra.

I stood and looked at it for a long time.

The golden city, near the middle, a cluster of tiny gold stitches. The Temple of Oaths, Iselle said, was on the highest hill. The palace beside it, with its painted ceilings and no windows. The great hall, where a black cushion holds the first link of the chain, and everybody files past it on feast days.

The ink dot of Blackstack, between Avarra and Kethra, out in the gray sea.

And I thought: I could be there by tomorrow night.

* * *

Not by folding. You can't fold to a place you've never been; you have to know the shape of where you're going, or the fold doesn't know where to open. I've never been west of Blackstack.

But Westmere has ships.

Dunmore's grain ships. Tamar's harbor boats. And Bram Halloran's Gray Heron, broad and low, which has crossed the western sea to the Kethran grain ports more times than anyone can count. Bram knows the shape of every harbor on the far coast. He's been to the golden city's own quay. And I could borrow that. I could borrow it from him, the shape of the place, the way I borrow everything else, if he'd lend it.

And once I had the shape, I could fold.

Not just me. All of it. Everything I carry. My father's storm. Seraphina's flame. Thor's strength. Carol's frost and lightning and the holding she took from Malachar himself. Damar's stone. Every god in every room.

I could fold straight into the great hall of the golden city with every one of them in my hands. And find the black cushion with the first link of the chain on it. And melt it into the floor.

* * *

I don't know how long I stood there. The sun came up behind me, over the river, and laid my shadow out long across the maps, all the way from Greykeep to the edge of Severin's silk.

When I turned around, Seraphina was standing at the top of the stairs.

She had little Uriah on her hip. He was asleep, with his face in her neck and one fist wound into her hair. She was still in her festival dress with the singed hem, and there was ash on her fingertips from the chain.

She looked at my face. And at the silk. And at my shadow lying across it.

"No," she said.

"Sera..."

"No," she said again. Not loudly. "I know what you're thinking. I can feel it from the stairs. You're thinking about the Heron. And Bram Halloran's map of the harbors. And folding into the great hall with every god you've ever borrowed in your hands." She shifted little Uriah on her hip. "And melting things."

I didn't say anything.

"I want to," said Seraphina. "Garrick. I want to so much I can taste it. I cut that chain with everything I've got, and I've never used everything I've got, not once, and it was the best thing I've ever felt in my life. I want to go and cut every chain he's got. I want to burn his whole golden city to glass." Her eyes had gone very bright. Not white-gold. Just wet. "And then I look at him." She looked down at little Uriah, asleep on her shoulder. "And I think about leaving him on a beach in Westmere with Tamar's wife while both of us sail into a city full of people who can lock a god in ten minutes with a few bits of iron in the grass."

* * *

"I wouldn't take you," I said.

It was the wrong thing to say. I knew it the moment it was out.

Seraphina went very still.

"You wouldn't take me," she said.

"I'd go alone. You'd stay with him. You'd be safe. Both of you."

"And you'd fold into a city full of Hushed," said Seraphina, "with every god you've ever borrowed in your hands, and they'd put a ring of iron in the floor of the great hall, and lock every one of them away, and you'd be standing in the middle of the golden city as just a man. Twenty-three. With a bad paper mask. And nobody there to cut you out." She took a step toward me. "Because I'd be safe. On a beach. With your son."

I didn't answer.

"You folded thirty paces wrong," said Seraphina, much more quietly. "Didn't you. Last night. At the end."

I looked at her.

"I felt it," she said. "I always feel your folds when I'm near. That one went sideways. And then I saw your face." She shifted little Uriah again. "It's not your fault. The ground was hurt. Anybody's fold would have gone wrong through ground like that. Mine would. Your father's lightning would."

"I'm not anybody."

"No," said Seraphina. "You're my husband. And you're going to stand in this room and decide whether to sail tonight because you folded thirty paces wrong, and a girl you love like a sister got hurt for it. And that's the worst reason I've ever heard for anything."

* * *

I didn't answer her. I want to be honest about that. She was right, and I knew she was right, and I didn't answer her, because if I'd answered, I'd have had to stop being angry. And I didn't want to stop.

She looked at me for a long moment. Then she turned around and went back down the hundred and twelve steps with our son asleep on her shoulder, and didn't say anything else.

That was the worst part of the whole day. Worse than the frost cracking on the window. Worse than Carol crying. My wife going down the stairs without saying anything.

* * *

The day went on. Days do, whatever's happened in them.

Mary went to Concordia at nine and came back at noon with news, and wrote it in her black book in the little kitchen, and read it out to us because my father asked her to.

Iselle was sleeping. She'd woken twice in the night and said her name and gone back to sleep. Her right hand was still closed. Roderic hadn't let go of it. He'd fallen asleep at five in the chair beside her bed, still holding it, and Io had put a blanket over both of them and left them.

The black fist over her heart was no bigger. No smaller. Io had looked at it and said the same thing Ignatius had. It's a lock, half-shut. Don't pull.

Aurelia was in the far north, at a birth that had gone wrong in a shepherd's hut on the high moors, and wouldn't leave until the baby was breathing properly. She'd sent word by a raven. Tomorrow. Keep saying her name. I'm coming. A.

* * *

The thirty-two Hushed were in the cellars under the Concordian palace, in the old cells nobody had used since the war. Captain Hesk had them. Twenty in their masks, standing in a row against the wall, perfectly still, not eating, not drinking, not sleeping. The eleven from the anchors lay on straw at the far end, breathing, with their eyes open.

One had got away in the dark, through the east range arch, and nobody had found him. And one, the stooped one, with his mask off, sitting on the floor of the last cell with his back against the wall. Still crying. Without a sound.

Kip had asked to sit outside his cell. Nobody had told him he could. Nobody had told him he couldn't. He'd been there since dawn.

* * *

Master Ashby had told my father everything. He'd come through the Concordia gate at eight in the morning in his torn robe, gray-faced, and asked the Castellan whether he might see my father, and stood in front of him in the south solar and told it.

There'd been a patron. Last autumn. A letter, unsigned, with a draft on a Belleren bank. Ashby had been trying for twenty years to find somebody to pay for the printing of his life's work, a history of the Varrick War in eleven volumes. Nobody would. Too long, the printers said. Too dull. And then, out of nowhere, a patron who'd read the first volume and found it brilliant, and paid for all eleven.

No conditions. Nothing to sign. Nothing to promise.

And then, three weeks ago, a second letter. Very small. Very reasonable. Wouldn't it be a kind thing to invite the Lady Carol to cut the first line? She'd danced so beautifully. The college would be honored. And a man of his standing could suggest it so easily.

"For your roads," said Mary, when my father told us. She didn't look up from her book.

"Yes," said my father.

"He came back," said Carol, from the end of the bench. "When the iron woke. He ran five steps. And then he came back and held the line."

"Yes."

"Edric says that's how you know," said Carol. "Whether somebody can be turned. Whether they come back."

* * *

I went to Westmere at sunset.

I didn't tell anyone. Not my father. Not Seraphina, who'd been in the nursery with little Uriah all afternoon with the door shut. Not Carol.

Except that you can't not tell Carol. Not with the middle open. She knew. I felt her know, at the top of the north tower, the moment I stepped into the Westmere arch. And I felt her not say anything, and I didn't know whether that meant go or don't or I'm coming.

The Castellan said, "Garrick Grey." And then nothing. No yes. No you may. Just my name, and a long silence.

I went through anyway.

It let me. It always lets us. But it had never once, in all my life, not said you may.

* * *

The Gray Heron was still at the anchorage, riding low and broad beyond the lighters. Bram Halloran was on her deck, coiling a line, the way he does every evening, Edric says, because it's the only thing that stops his hands shaking. He'd been at Greykeep a month ago, telling my father everything, and the Castellan had let him in. He'd come home and gone back to his ship.

I folded onto the deck beside him.

He dropped the line. Then he looked at me, and picked it up again, slowly, and kept coiling.

"Prince Garrick," he said.

"Mr. Halloran." I stood there on his deck in the last of the red light. "I need to borrow something from you."

"Anything," said Bram. "You know that. After what your father..."

"The far coast," I said. "The Kethran harbors. The golden city's quay. You've sailed into all of them. You know their shape." I held out my hand. "I need the shape of them. If you'll lend it. So I can fold there."

Bram stopped coiling.

He looked at my hand for a long time. Then at my face.

"Tonight," he said.

"Tonight."

"Alone."

"Yes."

Bram put the line down on the deck very carefully. He wiped his hands on his trousers.

"Edric told me something," he said. "On the wall. When he turned me. He said there's one thing you always ask a man before you help him do anything. Not what. Not why." He looked at me. "Are you all right?"

I didn't answer.

"Are you, Prince Garrick?" said Bram. "All right?"

* * *

I was going to say yes.

I had the word in my mouth. Yes. I'm fine. Give me the shape of the harbors. It would have been so easy. I'd have folded to the golden city's quay with every god in every room in my hands, and walked up the highest hill to the palace with no windows, and found the great hall and the black cushion and melted the first link of the chain into the floor. And whatever came after that would have come.

And then the middle opened. All the way. Like a door flung back.

And Carol was standing on the deck behind me.

She hadn't folded. She'd come through the Westmere arch and run down the whole length of the harbor wall and taken one of Dunmore's lighters out to the anchorage herself, rowing, in Ignatius's old green coat, with her hair coming down. She'd climbed up the Heron's side on the rope ladder, hand over hand, the way she climbs everything. She was breathing hard. Her hands were shaking. The tar from the ladder was on her palms.

"No," she said.

* * *

I turned around.

"Not without me," said Carol. "That's what you were going to say, wasn't it. I'm fine. Give me the harbors. And go. Alone." Her eyes were very bright. "I felt you decide. At the top of the tower. I felt you decide to go and melt it on your own and not come back."

"I'd come back."

"You wouldn't. You know you wouldn't. You'd go into that hall with every god you've ever borrowed, and they'd lock you the way they locked me, and you'd be standing there, just a man, in a city full of Hushed, and nobody would be there to cut you out." She took a step toward me. "Sera's right. I heard her. Through you. On the map-room stairs."

"Carol..."

"So I'm coming," said Carol.

Bram, beside us, had gone very still.

"If you're going, I'm coming," said Carol. "Both of us. Together. The way we did it at three. At the stream. With our hands joined." Her voice shook. "I'm frightened, Garrick. I've been frightened since midnight. I keep reaching for my lightning to see if it's there. And I'm so angry I can't breathe. And if you're going to go and do something stupid because you're angry, then I'm going to do it with you, because I'm not letting you go into a ring alone. Not ever. Not in a hundred years."

She held out her hand. Palm up.

"May I?"

* * *

I looked at my sister's hand. Shaking. Tarred from the ladder. Skinned along the back where the link had dragged, healed now, but you could still see the pink line if you knew where to look.

And I felt it, through the middle. Her fear, and her fury, and under them both, the thing that's always been under everything, since before we could talk.

Not alone. Not ever.

I put out my hand to take hers.

* * *

And the sky over Westmere went white.

Not lightning. Not yet. Just white. All of it, from one horizon to the other, the whole red evening going pale in an instant, the way a face goes pale. And the sea went flat. Every wave on it. Every ripple around every lighter in the anchorage. Flat and still and silver as a plate.

And out on the end of the harbor wall, beside an upturned bucket and an old man with a fishing line, something came down out of the white sky with a sound like the world being folded in half.

When the light cleared, there was a ring of scorched stone on the end of Westmere's harbor wall.

And my father was standing in the middle of it.

He wasn't looking at the Heron. He wasn't looking at us. He was standing very still, with his coat smoking and his hair on end, looking out at the western sea.

And I could see his lips moving.

Counting.