And If Thou Wilt, Forget

Tim drove to work the next morning with Jon, while Martin—reluctantly—took the Tube. Gerry’s argument had been persuasive; if Elias knew, or suspected, that Jon had escaped the Stranger three days before coming back to the Institute and had been staying with Martin, it might have been bad for all of them. At least this way, they could plausibly claim Tim had found him over the weekend and brought him straight back to the Institute, and maybe Martin would be a little safer. Gerry, who was taller than Jon but at least slimmer than Tim so his clothes wouldn’t drown him entirely, had loaned him a shirt; he’d been reluctant to relinquish Martin’s jumper, but Tim had pointed out it wouldn’t exactly sell their story if he wore a shirt Tim couldn’t plausibly claim to have had. He’d agreed, if only because Martin had promised to bring the jumper with him.

They planned their entrance on the route in, and it seemed to lift Jon’s spirits somewhat. He actually rubbed his hands together gleefully as they pulled into the parking lot before schooling his expression, squaring his shoulders, and getting out of the car. Tim grinned to himself before following. This was going to be fun.

Jon slammed the front door of the Institute open and stormed across the floor, Tim hot on his heels and glowering fiercely. Rosie didn’t even have time to scream in surprise before Jon was past her and taking the steps two at a time before yanking the office door open.

“Elias,” he spat.

The look of absolute shock on Elias’s face made Tim’s entire month, especially since it was completely genuine.

“Jon,” he stammered, laying his pen down and attempting to compose himself. “This is…unexpected. Welcome back.”

Tim stepped fully into the office and, very pointedly, pulled the door shut before leaning on it, arms folded. He said nothing, though. Let Jon take the lead on this. This wasn’t his battle…yet.

“Unexpected?” Jon repeated incredulously. “You knew what happened to me.”

Elias’s eyes flicked, ever so briefly, to Tim, who kept his face blank. He sighed. “Yes. I was aware you had been kidnapped by the Stranger. Beyond that I knew nothing. It isn’t as though they sent around a ransom note.”

“And how long did you think they were going to hold me?” Jon demanded. “Since you obviously assumed I was still imprisoned.”

“Look, Jon, I understand you’re upset,” Elias began.

“Nine days, Elias. And you did, what, nothing?”

“I was doing everything in my power to locate you.”

Tim and Jon both made the exact same snort of disbelief. Elias shot Tim another look before returning his attention to Jon. “I was allowing everyone the opportunity to finish up the work they had been doing, but as I knew today would begin with clean slates all around, I had intended to get them working on finding the ritual site.”

“Were you planning to tell them I’d been kidnapped?” Jon asked.

“It wouldn’t have helped matters,” Elias said calmly. “Martin’s research, at least, would have been sloppier.”

Jon sneered. “And imagine what would have happened if your rescue had been slower.”

“Sarcasm isn’t going to help, Jon.”

“The only thing here that ‘isn’t going to help’ is you,” Jon snapped. “I am sick of relying on the kindness of things whose stated intention is to kill me.”

Annoyance suffused Elias’s face. He looked like he was gearing up for a truly impressive scolding, or at least what he thought would be a truly impressive scolding. Then his eyes slid over to Tim again, and he took a deep breath before speaking in a voice of forced calm. “I have been trying to help you, Jon. I have been trying to help you develop your own faculties, rather than explain everything to you like a child. But you have a job to do, and I cannot fight your battles for you.”

Tim growled softly. Elias shot him another look, but Jon never even turned in his direction. “So far it feels like the only battles I’ve been fighting are yours and Gertrude’s.”

“I would think that stopping the end of the world is not solely my concern.”

“Fine. At least we’ve established that you’re worse than useless.” Jon crossed his arms over his chest. “So what exactly have you been doing, other than sending me statements?”

Elias took a deep breath. “I have been trying to give you the information you needed.”

“When you weren’t bashing its head in with a pipe.”

“Leitner was…I admit I may have overreacted to his sudden reemergence,” Elias conceded.

“He could have helped.”

“No. At best he could have given you a crutch. I…” Elias trailed off, glancing at Tim again, then sighed. “I highly doubt he would have been able to provide you any information Tim doesn’t already have.”

Tim rolled his eyes, but said nothing. Jon scowled. “And yet, you effectively set things up so that Tim couldn’t give me that information. Don’t think I’m not aware of how hard you worked to keep us from trusting one another.”

“I have told you that if I just give you the answers—”

“It won’t work, yes. Fine.” Jon turned to Tim for the first time since coming into the Institute. “Tim. What information do you have on the Unknowing?”

“Everything Gertrude found up to the point we lost contact, and everything I found out on my end at the time, and everything I’ve learned since,” Tim replied promptly. “I’ve kept those files very close to my chest. It’s also why I never leave my laptop unattended.”

Jon nodded. “Right. Then you can tell me everything once we’ve settled into the Archives.”

“I don’t know that that would be a good idea,” Elias cautioned.

“I don’t know that I care,” Jon snapped. “If Leitner was a crutch, then Tim is a guide dog, and if I keep having to go into this blind I am going to walk out into oncoming traffic. I need what he can tell me.”

Elias sighed sharply. “Fine. I trust you won’t go overboard and ‘guide’ him off a cliff.”

“Say the word, boss, and I’ll rip his throat out,” Tim said.

“I doubt that will be necessary.” Elias scowled.

“I wasn’t talking to you, sir.” There was nothing subtle about the snarl in Tim’s voice, and he tried not to show that the Ceaseless Watcher’s sudden feint against Elias had startled him as much as it startled both Jon and Elias.

It did, at least, mean that Elias fell silent and allowed them to leave without further comment.

Rosie looked like she wanted to say something to Jon, but Tim bared his teeth at her and she subsided immediately. As they started down the steps leading to the Archives, Jon threw Tim an amused glance over his shoulder. “You’re enjoying this.”

“So are you,” Tim countered. Jon didn’t deny it.

Jon ducked into his office once they were in the Archives, muttering something about his spare clothes before Tim had a chance to remind him that he’d already taken the shirt out the last time he’d come back after an extended absence. Tim sighed and started to set up his laptop. He wasn’t sure how much use he would get out of it today, but it couldn’t hurt.

A few minutes later, Martin came in. To Tim’s surprise, he was holding a tray of coffees. When he caught Tim’s eye, he shrugged and smiled uncertainly. “I, uh…seems like bringing coffee might be the Archives ‘sorry I screwed up’ currency these days? Morning, Tim.”

“Morning, Martin.” Tim didn’t exactly raise his voice, that would have been too obvious, but he tried to pitch it so it could be heard. He remembered the instruction he’d been given by the director of his one and only foray into amateur dramatics: Imagine you’re yelling at your brother in the back of the room, but you don’t want your mother to hear you. “Headache feeling better?”

“Much, thank you.” Martin set the tray on his desk.

Jon suddenly appeared in the doorway to his office, notebook and pen in hand. “Martin.”

“Jon!” Martin’s face lit up and his shoulders slumped in relief. Tim could tell it wasn’t entirely feigned. Even knowing Jon was all right, there’d been a part of him that had feared something would happen between Morden and the Institute—that something would get him or, worse, that he would run. His cheeks turned slightly pink. “Um, morning. I wasn’t sure if you were coming in today, but I got you a coffee just in case?”

“Thank you. I suspect I’m going to need it.” Jon gave Martin a small smile as he came over. “We need to have a long talk, once Melanie and Basira get in. There’s a lot going on and it’s time we were all on the same page.”

“Blame it on the train, but the boss is already there…” Melanie, who Tim would never have pegged as a Bangles fan, burst dramatically through the door, singing as she did so. She stopped dead when she saw the three men standing a few feet away and stood for a second before yanking at the cord of her earbuds, pulling them abruptly out of her ears.

“Songs to Hate Your Job To?” Tim said dryly. “Morning, Melanie. Martin brought coffee.”

Melanie blinked, then sighed. “In that case, I can let you all live one more day, I suppose.”

“Your infinite benevolence and heroic sacrifice shall be recorded in the annals of history. Did you see Basira on your way in?” Tim handed her the cup with her order scrawled in barista shorthand on the side.

Melanie shook her head and took a sip of the coffee. “No, but you know her. Punctual to the second.” To Jon, she added, “How long are you planning to be here today?”

“I’m not planning to leave again,” Jon said, quietly and seriously. “But as I was just telling Martin, we need to talk as soon as Basira gets here. It’s…it’s important.”

“Tim was lying, we can actually quit, and you stayed away for a week to prove it?” Melanie guessed.

“I sincerely wish any of that was the case.” Jon sighed and took a swig of his coffee.

As Melanie had said, Basira walked in at eight o’clock on the dot. She didn’t seem particularly surprised to see Jon. Jon nodded at her as she took her coffee, then turned to Tim. “Right, we’re all here. I think it’s time we had a debriefing.”

Tim nodded. “Where do you want me to start?”

Melanie raised an eyebrow. “How about at the beginning?”

“‘Long ago, Frith made the world,’” Tim dutifully began.

“Maybe not that far back.”

Jon perched on the edge of Martin’s desk, his eyes fixed on Tim; Martin hovered just behind him rather than sit down. Melanie turned her chair around backwards and sat in it. Basira looked towards the armchair in the corner where her books were piled, then sighed and sat down at her desk as well. “I reckon you want me here for this.”

“I think we’re going to need you before it’s all said and done,” Tim said seriously. “And even if we don’t, the more you know, the better off you’ll be.”

Basira looked unconvinced, but sat back. Tim took a deep breath and set down his cup. “Right. So let’s start with our fundamentals. What do you guys know so far?”

Melanie put up her hand. “The world is scary and we are very, very fucked.”

“Excellent! Move to the head of the class.” Tim clapped his hands once. “Anyone else? Not you, Jon. You got a peek at the answers in the back of the book.”

“Except it’s one of those ones that only has the answer key to the odd numbered questions,” Jon grumbled, but he glanced over at Martin. “Martin? Thoughts?”

Martin didn’t answer for a moment. Finally, he said slowly, “We know that some of the statements are…real. Not just that they actually happened, but that they have actual paranormal…stuff behind them. And we know there are some people who are a lot closer to these things than others—people who seem like they, I dunno, embrace it? Get special favors from it? I’m not putting this well. But like—like Jane Prentiss. She should have been dead, but something kept her alive. And that thing calling itself Michael, it, it’s something—someone—who’s been—twisted, almost.” He hesitated. “And…you?”

“I’m not quite as bad as Jane Prentiss or the Distortion,” Tim assured him. “Worse off than Jon, though, and neither one of us is in Elias’s class, that’s for damned sure. But…yes.”

“Hm.” Martin raised his coffee cup to his lips again. Tim could see his hand was shaking, very faintly.

“Basira, do you have anything to contribute?” he prompted, turning to the last member of the group. “I’m not trying to be condescending. I genuinely want to know what you already have so I don’t bore you to death by telling you stuff you already know.”

Basira scowled. “I know that that’s really fucking annoying, and I’ve only been exposed to it for two weeks. Can’t imagine how they feel about it. But sure, what they already said. There are people who can set fires with their minds and people who can turn shadows into weapons. Someone who donates to the Institute can make people disappear without anybody seeing them and Jon just has to ask the right questions and people are spilling their guts to him, and then we’re stuck dreaming about it forever while he just stands there staring at us like zoo animals.”

“W-what?” Martin sputtered, nearly dropping his coffee.

“No, wait, didn’t that stop for you when you joined the Institute?” Melanie frowned at Basira. “It did me.”

“Right, that’s why those are empty now,” Tim said under his breath. Out loud, he added, “Okay, so it looks like you’ve all figured out where some of the puzzle pieces go, but we’ve got a long way before we’re finished. Let me give you a few edge pieces, yeah?”

“That would be nice.” Jon looked a bit shaken.

Tim nodded. “I won’t give you the full detailed lecture I got from Gertrude, we’ll be here forever, but I’ll give you the basics. There are beings in this world—or just outside of it, maybe, I’ve never been fully sure about that—that don’t just feed on fear, they are fear. Some people think of them as gods, but that’s not a great way of looking at it. We call them the Fears. They’re also sometimes known as the Fourteen. Robert Smirke—yes, Martin, the architect—was the one who developed the initial system of classification…Gertrude mentioned once that her predecessor had had a grand idea of reclassifying them, but got his face ripped off before he could, so Smirke’s system is kind of what we have to go on.”

“Hang on, there are more than fourteen things to be afraid of,” Melanie protested. “Why stop there?”

“They’re categories, not finite definitions. It’s like the Dewey Decimal system. Or like colors, I guess. Your shoes and Martin’s aren’t exactly the same color, but they’re both brown, aren’t they?” Tim pointed out. Melanie and Martin both looked down at their feet. “Lots of things can fit under the big umbrella.”

“So what are they?” Basira prompted.

“Yeah, tell us about the umbrellas, Tim.” Melanie sipped at her coffee and stared him down.

“Well, like I said, there are fourteen. They’ve all got different names, but in alphabetical order, Smirke’s names for them are the Buried, the Corruption, the Dark, the Desolation, the End, the Eye, the Flesh, the Hunt, the Lonely, the Slaughter, the Spiral, the Stranger, the Vast, and the Web.”

“And what do all those do?”

Tim knew what Basira meant, so didn’t bother responding sarcastically; she wouldn’t appreciate it. “Where do you want me to start?”

“I mean, the Dark is obvious,” Martin said. “Right? And the End…is that, like, death or—?”

“Yeah, basically. One of the other names for it is Terminus,” Tim said. “Classic, that one.”

“The Lonely seems like it’d be obvious, too,” Melanie said slowly. “And the Buried, that’s, like, being buried alive, right?”

Tim nodded. “Yep. The Vast is kind of the opposite of that—fear of emptiness, of big open spaces. Heights, falling, that kind of thing. The Hunt is more or less what it sounds like, too.”

“You wouldn’t think that would be such a big deal that it would have a whole category,” Jon murmured. “I mean, is that—is that really something people are all that afraid of?”

“The Fears don’t just prey on humans, Jon,” Tim pointed out. “If you’ve ever seen a cat at the vet or a rabbit trying to escape a fox, you know animals feel fear too. The Flesh is another one that probably crossed over from animals to humans. It’s why some of those statements get so damned weird.”

“And the Slaughter? Did that come from animals, too?”

“Maybe? Not necessarily, though. Slaughter’s more just…violence. Purposeless, senseless violence.” Tim glanced briefly at Melanie. “War falls under that one. You’d think it’d be the Desolation, but that’s more…wholesale destruction. Fire, mostly, but it can also be floods or storms or anything that throws out the baby, the bathwater, the whole damned tub, and knocks the house down for good measure. It affects things, not just people.”

Melanie shifted a bit, but said nothing. Martin, meanwhile, was counting on his fingers. “That’s a bit over half of them…um, I guess Jane Prentiss was the Corruption, maybe? Or is that—”

“No, you’re right. The Corruption, also known as Filth or the Creeping Rot, is…disease, vermin, bugs, that sort of thing. Infection. The Distortion’s part of the Spiral, which is like fear of your own mind, the idea that you can’t trust your senses.”

“Down is up, up is down,” Basira said.

“More like down is up, up is left, left is off on some weird sort of diagonal that cuts into dimensions you can’t see clearly and right doesn’t exist anymore,” Martin muttered. “But—spiders aren’t part of the Corruption, right? That’s the Web?”

Jon flinched, ever so slightly. Tim did the kind thing and ignored it. “Yeah, the Web claimed spiders. It’s more about being…trapped and manipulated, though. Loss of control. Something pulling your strings, you know? Gertrude used to call it ‘the Mother of Puppets.’ It’s honestly harder to spot in the statements unless there are obvious spiders, because sometimes it’s manipulating things in the background so subtly you’d never know.”

“That’s not horrifying at all.” Melanie tipped the chair forward and leaned the back against the edge of her desk. “That leaves us…the Stranger and the Eye, I guess.”

“Yeah, so let’s address the elephant in the room here.” Tim took a deep breath. “The Eye, the Beholding, the Ceaseless Watcher, is the fear of knowledge, secrets being uncovered, being watched, that sort of thing. And the Magnus Institute is its temple, its place of power. We all work for it, we’re all bound to it. It’s why I just know things so often and why Jon drags things out of people they don’t want to talk about. It’s also why you sometimes feel like someone’s staring at the back of your neck all the time around here. I did try to warn you two off, and that’s why.”

Both women scowled. Melanie jerked her thumb at Martin. “What about him? Did you try to warn him?”

“I was already working at the Institute before Tim was,” Martin said softly. “And he wasn’t…I’m guessing Elias didn’t tell you who he appointed ahead of time.”

“Nope. Not even Jon. All I knew was that he’d chosen a new Archivist and that the Archivist had chosen two assistants.”

“You didn’t apply for the job?” Basira asked shrewdly.

Tim shook his head. “Elias didn’t even raise that as an option, not that I would have anyway. Truth was, I didn’t actually believe Gertrude was dead. Not until Martin found her body. It’s part of the reason I acted the way I did that first year—I was just sort of trying to hold space for her, because I was sure she’d be back any day. I was just…keeping things going, you know? And I wasn’t sure she’d keep any of you on once she did, so I was trying to keep you out of the worst of it.”

Jon nodded slowly. “Which brings us rather nicely to the Stranger, I think.”

“Yeah.” Tim exhaled. “The Stranger, otherwise known as I Do Not Know You. It’s…also kind of what it sounds like. It’s the hidden, the unknown, the person whose face you can’t recall but you know is out of place. That Anglerfish thing, that’s the Stranger. So was the Trophy Room.” He hesitated, then said quietly, “So was the thing that wasn’t Sasha.”

Martin’s hands tightened on his cup. Melanie scowled deeply. “How come I knew it wasn’t Sasha but the rest of you didn’t?”

“That’s…it does that,” Jon said softly. “Gertrude recorded a statement…and everything we’ve come across seems to corroborate that. It—she said it seemed to ‘forget’ one or two people, but I-I assume that was deliberate.”

Tim nodded. “Yeah. You were its chosen victim, Melanie. Made you doubt your own memories, your own mind. Made you look insane to everyone around you. It picked you because you weren’t around enough to get suspicious, but you weren’t the only one. Her godmother down in Dover was suspected of having dementia because she kept insisting that someone had stolen all her photographs. Polaroids and magnetic tape recordings are the only things that were spared.”

“So why was it here?” Martin asked. “Just because of the table?”

“I don’t know why the table came here, or who sent it. I’m pretty sure the reason it took Sasha was because it wanted to be down here, though.” Tim ran a hand through his hair. “The Stranger knew what Gertrude and I were up to, and it was trying to keep Jon from stepping into her shoes, I guess.”

Basira raised an eyebrow. “So what were you up to? Just chronicling all this?”

“No, although it doesn’t like that.” Tim couldn’t keep the tiny thread of glee out of his voice. “Being Known is the worst thing in the world for a being that exists not to be. But…have any of you heard anything about the Unknowing?”

Martin and Melanie both looked at Jon, who took a deep swig of his coffee before pulling a face and answering. “It’s a ritual…of sorts. The Stranger doesn’t…fully exist in our world. None of the Fears do, really. But its devotees are trying to bring it into our world, and that’s what the Unknowing is.” He cocked his head at Tim with a faint smile. “Full marks, Professor?”

“Half credit, I’m afraid,” Tim said with a small smile of his own. Jon actually laughed, at least a little. “The Fears can’t exist in our world. It isn’t meant for them. It’d be like a human trying to live in an anthill. What the Unknowing will do is completely reshape our world to be exactly what the Stranger needs to survive.”

“Like sealing off a bedroom and turning it into an aquarium,” Melanie muttered.

Tim’s eyebrows lifted briefly. “That’s…not a bad analogy, actually.”

“So what is this Unknowing?” Basira pressed. “Exactly.”

“I don’t know exactly. That’s what I was traveling around the world trying to figure out. But I do know where it’s going to be.” Tim nodded in Jon’s direction. “Great Yarmouth. The abandoned House of Wax.”

Melanie pulled a face. “I know the place. We thought about doing an episode of Ghost Hunt UK there, but it was too creepy even for us.”

“I can’t imagine it’s improved much since then,” Jon said under his breath.

“Did you find anything useful out?” Basira said, looking and sounding thoroughly unimpressed. “Or did you just waste however many years of your life to find a crappy museum?”

“Hey,” Martin and—surprisingly—Melanie said at the same time, Martin in protest and Melanie in full angry defensiveness.

Tim held a hand out to pacify them and fixed Basira with a look. “First of all, the location is extremely useful. We’re not going to be able to stop it if we don’t know where it’ll be, and the more time we have to plan, the better. Second of all, no. There’s plenty more I’ve learned.”

“You told Elias you were keeping that very close to your chest,” Jon said.

“Yep.” Tim smirked in his direction and patted his chest loud enough that they could all hear the dull thump, then reached under his jacket and pulled out the folio. “I never leave home without it.”

Jon rolled his eyes, but at least he was smiling. Melanie cocked her head at it. “That looks like a lot of stuff. You found all that out about the Unknowing?”

“Uh…no. Gertrude found some of it. And, well, it’s not all about the Unknowing,” Tim admitted. “Or the Stranger. I made sure to get anything I found that might be useful about the others, too.” He looked around at the four sets of staring eyes. “Well, you didn’t think the Stranger was the only one that wanted the world for itself, did you? The other Fears have rituals, too.”

“Jesus Christ,” Melanie blurted out.

Martin worried at his lower lip, even as he studied Tim shrewdly. “Do we need to worry about…any of the others?”

Tim didn’t need to feel the tightening of the ring on his right middle finger to know that he had to tread very, very carefully here. Jonah was no doubt watching to see what Jon and the others were learning, and while he could keep the nosy bastard out of his head and even keep himself from being easily perceptible, the rest of them were not. Maybe if they’d had this discussion in the tunnels it would be a different story, but for the moment, he couldn’t mention anything he didn’t want to risk anyone knowing. Which meant that mentioning the Watcher’s Crown, or any of the other juicy bits he’d learned from Gertrude, was right out.

“Gertrude took out most of them during her time as Archivist,” he said after a barely perceptible pause. “There might be one or two still coming up, but the Unknowing is the pressing one.”

Instantly, Jon was on the alert. “Which ones? You, ah—a-after you found me, you mentioned something about an Extinguished Sun—the Dark’s ritual?”

“Yeah. That was the last one. It kind of crept up on us,” Tim confessed. “Remember that solar eclipse we had two years ago? That was the keystone. I was in Turkey following a lead on the Circus of the Other when Gertrude called and changed our plans. First she said to come back to London, then she sent us to the northernmost settlement on the Faroe Islands instead.”

“What did you do?”

“Watched. Observed. Gertrude told us she’d meet us there if what she was doing here in London didn’t pan out. There was a part of the ritual going on at the Hither Green Dissenters Chapel and…I don’t know what Gertrude had planned for it exactly,” Tim said with perfect honesty. “But whatever she did, it worked. The sun came back out from behind the moon’s shadow. Anyway, we don’t have to worry about that anymore.”

“You don’t think they’ll try again?” Basira asked shrewdly.

Tim shook his head. “It takes a century or more to build up enough power for something like that. Once it fails, well, not to be callous, but it’s someone else’s problem.”

“What others did Gertrude already handle?” Jon asked.

“The Desolation—you remember Jason North’s statement, the one who found that bottle with Gertrude’s picture in it and suddenly everything he loved was burning? That was what she used to stop their ritual, she called it the Scorched Earth. I think it was just keeping it in check, though. Agnes Montague was the key, and she committed suicide, so that’s that done.” Tim tapped the folio thoughtfully. “Then was the Lonely, about ten years back—that was called the Silence. Then the Flesh’s ritual, the Last Feast, followed by the Buried’s ritual, the Sunken Sky, both in 2008. After that, maybe six years ago, was the Great Twisting, which was the Spiral, and after that the Extinguished Sun.”

“Do you know how she disrupted them?” Martin asked softly. “I mean, I know you don’t know about the Dark, but, but she was, um…”

“She was dead before I could ask her,” Tim completed. “Yeah. I told you what she did to the Scorched Earth. The Silence was dead easy to disrupt, it depends on isolation, so she put a huge advertisement in the biggest papers in London and suddenly everyone’s eye was on what Peter Lukas was doing. The Last Feast she blew up. The Sunken Sky she, uh…she found someone who’d been touched by the Vast and threw him into the middle of it. ‘One plus, one minus, there’s no doubt—the edges simply canceled out.’”

Martin smiled briefly, although he also looked like he was considering being sick. “What about the Great Twisting?”

Tim hesitated, then looked at Jon as he said, “Michael.”

“The Distortion?”

“He wasn’t the Distortion then. Just a man. His name was Michael Shelley.” Tim pressed his lips together briefly. “He was one of Gertrude’s assistants. She sent him into its hallways with a map. It Is Lies couldn’t handle being Known any more than I Do Not Know You could, so it…it probably hurt both of them, to be honest.”

Jon let out a shaky breath. “Good Lord.”

Tim decided not to let anyone dwell on it. “Anyway, that’s it for what she disrupted. The others…maybe? I’m not sure what’s going on with the Slaughter. Gertrude was looking into that, she said she had an idea about it, but I don’t know if she got anything concrete. I don’t have any notes she took after I started going around the world. That one might be something to worry about sometime soon, but I doubt it’ll be in England.”

“Nothing for the Vast?” Martin picked at the sleeve on his coffee cup.

“I found evidence of an attempt in the 1800s, but nothing since then.” Tim pursed his lips. “Gertrude reckoned the whole Daedalus project, or at least the part of it Jan Kilbride was involved in—that’s the guy she tossed to the Sunken Sky, by the way—was a sort of testing ground for a future ritual. She said the next Vast ritual would involve outer space, but I never found out if that was an educated guess on her part or she had some kind of proof. Probably the former.” He picked up his own coffee and took a sip. Miraculously, it was still at least lukewarm. “The Hunt, really don’t know. I used to get in debates with Gertrude and Gerry about whether they’d actually started theirs or not.”

“Jesus Christ, wouldn’t you know?” Melanie blurted.

“Probably not. It’s called the Everchase.” Tim didn’t look in Basira’s direction. “And since every Hunter I’ve ever talked to has said the worst part of a hunt is the part where you actually catch your prey and the chase ends, I’m pretty sure they’d lose themselves in the joy of chasing and just…keep letting the end of it get away, even if they had given it a go.”

Jon pursed his lips briefly. “I—now that I know what I know, I wonder if Jane Prentiss was attempting a Corruption ritual. You recall, you mentioned an arch of worms, like they were trying to form a doorway…I saw it too. Perhaps they were trying to let the Corruption fully in.”

“That was my thinking, too,” Tim agreed. “Lucky thing you stopped that.”

“You stopped that,” Jon reminded him. “You’re the one who filled that room with carbon dioxide.”

“What about the Eye? Does it have a ritual?” Melanie reached for her coffee again.

Tim hesitated again. This was definitely treading close to the line. “If it is coming, we’ll have a harder time stopping it than the others.”

“What makes you say that?”

“We are the Eye. You’d probably have to get right out of it to stand a chance at stopping the ritual without It knowing. And…you know, we’re trapped here.” Tim shrugged. “I’m sure there is one, but damned if I know when.”

“So much for ‘occupational hazards,’” Melanie muttered, taking a sip.

Tim raised an eyebrow, then looked from her to Jon and back. “You both strike me as having been the kind of kids who, when you sassed off to an adult and they told you you were rolling your eyes hard enough you were going to be looking at your own brain in a minute, you actually tried to do it. Am I wrong?”

Melanie choked on her coffee. Jon looked like he wanted to protest, then admitted, “You are not.”

“And you couldn’t. Right? An eye can’t see inside itself.” Tim shook his head. “I can’t Know anything about the Ceaseless Watcher, any more than Jon could compel Elias. Or me. Whatever Snoop God up there’s got planned, it is an enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a question mark.”

“Fair enough.” Jon sighed. “That just leaves…two, right?”

“The Web and the End,” Tim confirmed. “Don’t need to worry about them, really. They’ve never tried a ritual that anyone knows about.”

Jon blinked. “What, never?”

“Nope.” Tim drew out the N. “The End probably doesn’t feel the need to—death comes to all things eventually, succumbing means they stop feeling fear, and people don’t generally keep having kids I n an apocalypse, you know? And I think the Web is having fun in the world as it is. That’s the thing about spiders, they aren’t greedy. Take what you need for a single meal and let it digest properly before you eat another. It’s one of the smarter Entities, that’s for damn sure.”

Jon’s reaction to that was instantaneous and visceral. He sank back slightly, his face going grey and his eyes flashing with fear before he could get hold of himself, his hands trembling so violently he almost dropped his coffee. Martin reacted immediately and seemingly on instinct—he reached over and wrapped Jon in a tight hug. Jon, for a wonder, let him, leaning against him and closing his eyes for a moment until the shaking subsided.

Melanie, who looked uncomfortable and annoyed at the same time, addressed Tim as if this wasn’t happening. “So what was her plan? To stop the Unknowing, I mean? I assume she had one.”

“I don’t know for sure,” Tim said. It was mostly the truth, at least. He didn’t know that had actually been her plan. “I know where to find it, though.”

“Where?” Again, the three who were not Basira spoke in unison.

Tim suppressed a smile. “Gertrude told Gerry once that if something got her before him, there was a storage unit up in Hainault. She rented it under the name Jan Kelly. The key is somewhere in your office, Jon. I couldn’t exactly go through it once you were installed as Archivist, but…”

“Oh. I…I think I know where that is,” Jon said thoughtfully.

Tim offered up a silent prayer of thanks to Saints Anthony and Lucy that he’d thought to sneak the key back on Friday before leaving. “Well, whatever it is she planned to use, it’s in there. Who’s up for a road trip? It just so happens I drove today.”