The Keepers (40 page)

Horace knew from experience that his inner clock wasn't that accurate. He made the safest guess he could. “I don't know. Thirty?”

Mr. Meister opened his hand to reveal a small gold pocket watch, trim and handsome. It was indeed 12:41. But the second hand—which swept smoothly, rather than moving in ticks—was just approaching the twenty-second mark. “Close, but not close enough,” the old man said, and surprised Horace again by slipping the watch into Horace's hand. “Sometimes a plan may succeed or fail because of the difference of a few seconds. This is just a regular watch, not truly suitable for the Keeper of the Fel'Daera—there is only one such device that I know of—yet this watch is very fine in its own right. Take
it. Use it. Sometimes we must know the moment precisely, yes?”

“Thank you,” Horace said.

“When you elect to use the Fel'Daera tonight, Horace, first remember what you have learned. Use your intuition as well as your logic. Before opening the box, feel for the moment. Feel where you are and why you are there. Feel for your companions. Feel their fears and motivations as strongly as you feel your own.”

“I will.”

“The box may show you things you do not wish to see. Think hard before you choose to fight the course of action it seems to suggest. If you worry that your free will has been stolen from you, just remember: you already walk the willed path. There are choices you have already made, turnings you have already taken.”

Horace drank in Mr. Meister's words. “Who knows when the first turning has been taken?” he murmured.

“Not I,” Mr. Meister said, smiling.

And now, nearly an hour later, as Horace stood in Chloe's house gazing into the open box and remembering Mr. Meister's words, he repeated them to himself: “The willed path.”

The sudden soft crunch of footsteps announced that someone was there. He swung around, tensing, but it was only Chloe, hood around her face, hands deep in pockets, picking her way through the wreckage. “Nothing, huh?”

“No, not yet.”

“I was getting bored. I thought you might be too.”

“I'm tired. Tired of standing.”

“Yeah,” Chloe said, looking around. “This is the first time I've been back here, you know.”

Horace hadn't thought about that. “I'm sorry,” he said, not knowing what else to say.

“Well, at least this place is still good for something. I hope.” She spun in a circle. “Here's where the stairs were. That means we're in the hall.” She pointed at a toilet, cracked and blackened. “Bathroom, obviously. The kitchen. This would've been my dad's room here, then. The stump of bricks over there, that's what's left of the heart, I guess. And Go-Between, that's gone for good. It all is.” She kicked a heat-blistered stub of wall, sending it tumbling. “My dad, he was always going to fix this place up. And he might've, too. I think he was getting better before . . . all this.”

Horace couldn't find anything to say to that. He wondered if it were true. He watched Chloe kicking around, stopping now and again to examine something in the rubble. Then she sighed, tilting her head back and looking into the sky. “You think Neptune can keep that up forever?”

“I think maybe she can. She told me she made it across Lake Michigan once—that must've taken hours.”

Chloe grunted, unimpressed. “Yeah, but I bet she had to take the bus home.”

“Huh,” Horace said, thinking that one over. He scanned the area quickly with the box—still nothing—and then pointed
it toward the sky. Tomorrow night would be clear, it seemed. Almost directly overhead, he could see all six stars in the constellation Lyra. It reminded him of the day the house key had rematerialized and fallen into the bin of stars—the day he'd discovered what the box could do. From his house he could usually only see one: Vega, a very bright star.

Horace said, “I saw Mr. Meister gave you one of those dumin things.”

“Yeah,” Chloe said, looking down at herself. “A dumindar, he called it. I have so many damn things around my neck I feel like one of those jewelry store mannequin heads. Oh, and also, apparently I'm not supposed to be overly brave tonight.”

“What do you mean?” Horace said.

“That's what Mr. Meister told me. He gave me the dumindar and told me not to be so brave that I risked not coming back.”

“And what did you say?”

“I told him it didn't sound like he understood what bravery
was
. And then he said, ‘I understand that when it comes to courage, the lost are no match for the living.'”

“I don't know what that means.”

“I do. But he's wrong. It's not that the living are more brave; it's that they have no choice.”

“But you do have a choice.”

“No, Horace, I don't.” She spread her arms, indicating the burned ruins around her. “And you wouldn't either.”

“Maybe not, but . . . I don't have Madeline. If my parents
were lost, and I ran into trouble while looking for them, I wouldn't be leaving anyone else behind. Nobody who was counting on me, anyway. Maybe that's what Mr. Meister meant.”

Chloe's face was hidden in the shadows of her hood. “God you're fun, Horace.”

“I'm not saying don't do it, I'm just saying . . . come back.”

She stabbed a toe at the ashes, talking down at them. “Why does everyone think I'm not planning on coming back?” She leaned and called loudly past Horace, toward the scraggly trees off in the darkness. “How about you, Gabriel? Are you planning to come back? Has anyone asked you that?”

Horace grimaced and glanced back at the trees, but there was no reply. “The reason people ask you that, Chloe, is because you're the one that takes all the risks.”

“I'm the one that can afford the risks.” She threw a thumb at herself, at the Alvalaithen.

“Maybe, but you can't do everything.”

“Obviously not. I couldn't stop my dad from being taken.”

“That's not what I meant.”

“I can't destroy the crucible.”

“But maybe you can,” said a voice. Horace snapped the box closed, startled. Gabriel was coming toward them, walking across the lawn.

“What do you know about it?” said Chloe.

“I've been thinking about what Horace said earlier. About melding.” Gabriel stopped at the edge of the house.
He crouched down and picked up a charred piece of wood the size of a wine bottle. “If I understand correctly, Chloe, there are limits to what you can—how did you put it? Make thin? But if the crucible is too large, maybe we need to think about it the other way around.” He threw the hunk of wood to Chloe. She caught it awkwardly with two hands.

“A stick,” she said drily.

“Just an example. You meld it inside the source of the crucible's light. Whatever that source is, it's small—smaller than my forearm. You heard Mr. Meister: You don't have to physically destroy the crucible to sabotage the nest, to scatter the Riven there and set your dad free. You just have to extinguish the light.”

Horace wondered when, exactly, Gabriel had come up with this idea. He wished he had thought of it himself—he
should
have thought of it. “He's right,” Horace said.

“And destroying the crucible will destroy the nest for good,” said Chloe.

“Effectively, yes,” Gabriel replied. “The crucible
is
the nest.”

“Dr. Jericho would take it personally.”

“Very.”

Chloe looked thoughtfully down at the hunk of wood for a moment or two, turning it. Then she tossed it aside. “I guess we'll see what happens,” she said. “But I'm getting my dad out of there, one way or another.”

Gabriel prodded the ground thoughtfully with his staff.
Chloe rubbed her hands together, wiping ash from her palms. A strange kind of conviction swept over Horace, watching the two of them: if anyone could destroy the crucible and get Chloe's father out of the nest, it was these two. The thought came with a little pang of envy, but he swallowed it before it could thicken. Nobody was getting rescued unless they found the nest first—and that was Horace's job. “Speaking of see what happens . . . ,” he said.

He clasped the box between his hands, recalling Mr. Meister's words:
“Feel for the moment. Feel where you are and why you are there. Feel for your companions.”
After the toolshed, Horace was careful not to convince himself that their plan would succeed without a doubt. But he could certainly believe that it might. He and the other young Wardens had the power to rescue Chloe's father, and perhaps to do even more. He believed it.

Horace opened the lid. Immediately, so close he could have touched it—
a standing shadow, just a foot away
. Horace cried out, nearly dropping the box.

“What is it?” Chloe hissed, her voice like a whip. “Is he here?”

“Hang on.” Horace took a step back and righted the box, looking into tomorrow. This was it. This was the moment. A figure, standing motionless in tomorrow's burned-down house, hands in pockets. But not Dr. Jericho.

It was Chloe.

“No, no,” Horace said. “What are you doing here?” This
was not the plan. And yet there she was—
tomorrow's Chloe, clear and unmistakable, hood thrown back, standing in the ashes alone, not moving or speakin
g . . .
waiting?
“Oh, god,” Horace said, wishing there were some way to take this moment back, to unsee what he had seen. “What did I do?”

“Horace?” Chloe in the here and now, leaning toward him, her face wrinkled with worry. Chloe here now, Chloe here then. But why? And if she was here tomorrow, that meant . . .

Horace slammed the box closed. He ran, kicking up clouds of ash, Chloe and Gabriel at his heels.

Chloe was here in the house, tomorrow. And Horace was trying to lure Dr. Jericho into that very spot at that very moment.

He had to get the box away, to lead Dr. Jericho away. Horace barreled across the road and fought through the gap in the train-yard fence, Chloe slipping through behind him. He heaved himself onto the back of a boxcar. He checked the box again. And there across the road—
Chloe, small and stubborn and . . . not alone; a monstrous figure in a ghastly dark suit, pausing at the edge of the ruined house, many-limbed and many-headed, gazing at Chloe, sniffing at the air, faces peering all around, predatory
.

Horace was too late.

Future Chloe was looking right at Dr. Jericho. It seemed like she'd been
waiting
for him. Horace couldn't understand. He could only watch as the thin man strode over the ashes toward Chloe and hunkered down before her—
his lips moving,
teeth shining in the dark; a long finger reaching out for Chloe's throat, taking what hung there briefly into his palm
.

“What is it?” Chloe said, nearly in his ear.

“You're there. And so is Dr. Jericho. He's right in front of you. You aren't even running. What are you doing?”

Gabriel said, “You're saying Chloe will be here tomorrow night? With Dr. Jericho?”

Now Dr. Jericho bolting upright, many heads turning in Horace's direction, becoming one snarling face—

Horace snapped the box closed. “He's sensing the box. I have to be careful.” It was 1:36. He described the scene to Chloe and Gabriel.

“What about the Alvalaithen?” Chloe fingered the dragonfly, furrowing her brow.

“I don't know. I'm thinking. I'm trying to think.” He put his mind to it, taking hold of everything he knew, trying to understand where he himself and Chloe—and Neptune and Gabriel—now stood along the paths they were on. He cracked the box open:
Chloe, still there. Dr. Jericho, monstrous and spidery, writhing, and
—Horace's stomach turned to lead. Two other shapes were moving in from behind now, not quite so tall as Dr. Jericho but the same—
Mordin, surrounding Chloe, bending over her like dark, sinister trees
. The sight of them was sickening and heavy. “There are more now. Three of them.”

“A hunting pack,” said a voice above them. Neptune landed lightly on top the freight car.

“Are you sure of what you're seeing?” Gabriel asked. “The
Fel'Daera makes promises, but promises can be broken.”

Horace thought back to Mr. Meister again, about trusting in the box. “I'm sure. I mean . . . whatever path Chloe is on now, it brings her back here, tomorrow.”

Gabriel nodded. “We must follow them, then. Just as we planned.”

Horace slid the box open again. Across the street, the little gathering was already on the move:
four figures, three gaunt and shifting and horrible, one tiny and resolute; moving across the backyard, separating now into pairs, the tallest figure sticking close alongside the smallest; now a long, snaking arm reaching down to Chloe, and a tiny hand reaching up
—Horace slammed the box shut in revulsion.

Chloe and Dr. Jericho were holding hands.

“What is it, Horace?” Chloe asked. “What do you see?”

“Nothing. They're leaving . . . you're . . . leaving with them.” He pointed the way. He couldn't tell her what he was seeing. Why would she be here? Why would she not be fighting, escaping? He felt frozen. For a moment he imagined the worst—that Chloe was giving in, going with them willingly to save her father. But no—that was impossible. He shook the thought away.

Chloe stepped up as if she'd read his mind, throwing her hood back. “Maybe
I'm
the bait. You don't know. None of us know what's about to happen, what will work and what won't. Not even you.”

“It's my job to know.”

“It is your job to find the nest,” Gabriel said. “Neptune cannot do it alone.”

Neptune stood. “So let's go already.” She took three powerful, lunging strides, hurling herself into the air. She sailed over the street in the direction Horace had indicated, disappearing into the dark night.