They’ve only just managed to calm down when someone knocks on the door. Tim is at first a touch nervous—he’s usually at work by now, so it shouldn’t be anyone actively looking for him unless a neighbor has seen the car in the driveway and surmised he has a guest—but he relaxes and grins when he opens it and sees who’s actually there. “You know, it’s unlocked. You can just come in.”
“We didn’t want to scare anyone,” Jon says softly.
“Failed step one. I couldn’t think who’d be knocking on my door at ten in the morning.” Tim steps back to let them in. “Then again, do monsters usually knock on doors instead of just barging in?”
“Yes, actually,” Jon Prime says. “Or at least some of them do.”
Tim snorts and shuts the door behind them. He can smell just the faintest hint of cigarette smoke off of one of them, but doesn’t say anything, not even when Jon sheds his cardigan and hangs it on one of the hooks, looking a tad guilty. Instead, he turns back to the living room. “Come on in. Martin and I made tea. If you two have been having anything like the conversations we have, you probably need it.”
He leads them back to the living room and announces as he steps in, “It’s just Jon Squared. Seriously, the lot of you, you don’t have to knock unless it’s locked. Mi casa es vuestra casa.”
Jon Prime goes straight to Martin Prime’s side and touches his shoulder gently; Martin Prime looks up in his direction with a slight half-smile. “Hey. You okay?”
“I’m fine,” Jon Prime assures him, his voice low and intimate. Tim’s heart turns over. “You?”
“We’re fine.” Martin Prime shifts slightly to the side, even though there’s no need. Jon Prime settles in next to him.
Jon hesitates before perching on the arm of the sofa rather than ask Martin to move over a little more, which Martin is clearly about to do. Tim decides not to mention it. Instead, he picks up the two mugs on the coffee table, identical save that one is blue-grey and the other is forest green, and hands one to Jon and the other to Jon Prime. “Here. They should be the same—they are the same, right, Martin?” he adds, glancing at Martin.
“Yeah. Erm, I—I didn’t know if you—I assume you still drink it the same way, I just—” Martin gestures helplessly in Jon Prime’s direction. “I would have asked, but he was in here and—”
“It’s fine, Martin,” Jon Prime says, his eyes crinkling upwards at the corners. “How I like my tea hasn’t changed.”
Jon stares into the depths of the mug in his hands like it holds the secrets of the universe, or possibly like he’s wondering if there’s enough in it to drown himself in. Tim settles back onto the sofa and picks up his own mug. “Great. So now that we have something to build on…where do we go to next?”
Sasha drums her fingers on the arm of the sofa for a minute, and Tim just knows she’s about to ask one of the deepest, darkest questions she can come up with. Thankfully, Martin seems to get that vibe too and jumps in before she can say anything. “Okay, so—so you were talking about being marked by the entities. W-what does that actually…mean in the long term? I mean, is it—what does it do?”
“For the most part,” Jon Prime says slowly, “nothing, really. It—being marked by an entity simply means that anyone who worships or follows or—or is a part of that entity will be drawn to you. It makes you a bigger target to them.”
“You’ve already got that baseline of fear, you see,” Martin Prime adds. “And you felt it down to your bones, so it’s not a case of ‘I looked my fear in the eye and I’m no longer afraid of it’, usually, it’s more of ‘I looked my fear in the eye and now I know what there is to be scared of’, which makes it worse. So those…entities, if you run into them, will be more likely to try something on you.”
“Brilliant,” Tim mutters, eyeing the bandages on Martin’s hands and face. Jon reaches out, like he wants to put a protective hand on Martin’s arm, but stops himself.
Jon Prime sighs and looks up at Jon. “But unfortunately, as in so many other things, it does mean something worse for you.”
“Me?” Jon stiffens. “What would being marked do to me?”
Jon Prime presses his lips together for a moment. Martin Prime touches Jon Prime’s hand lightly. “Do you…want me to tell them?”
“No. No, it ought to come from me.” Jon Prime turns his hand over and squeezes Martin Prime’s gently. “Each of the…entities has a ritual. Something designed to…bring them fully into the world, allow them to take it over. End the world as we know it and create a new world entirely devoted to fear, fear that feeds directly into that entity. Jonah Magnus has dedicated two hundred years to perfecting that ritual and bringing it to fruition.”
“B-but—wait, wait.” Martin takes a deep breath. “If—if these things are like Smirke said—balance and all that, you can’t—how can you be afraid of something if you don’t know what the world’s like without it? If the—if the Buried takes over, how can you be afraid if you don’t know the sky’s still out there? How can you be afraid of the dark if light doesn’t exist? You can’t just create a world where nothing exists but one fear, because then you—it’s just normal. Right?”
“Exactly. Which is why most of the entities’ rituals will…collapse on their own. Something Gertrude Robinson didn’t figure out until the end of her life—nor, for that matter, did Jonah Magnus—and something I’m afraid I—”
“We,” Martin Prime interrupts emphatically.
“—learned too late,” Jon Prime continues. “However, there is…Jonah has a ritual that he thought would work, that would bring all the entities into the world, with one at their head. And the keystone to that ritual is the Archivist.”
“No,” Martin and Tim say in almost the exact same tone. No, they won’t let that happen, they can’t.
“What is the ritual, though?” Sasha asks. “What does it do?”
“It’s called the Watcher’s Crown. Broadly, it involves allowing the Archivist to collect marks from all the entities, in effect becoming an Archive in and of themselves, and then…and then reciting an invocation to bring the fears forth into the world.” Jon Prime looks like he’s about to be sick. “In our timeline, when Jane Prentiss attacked, it was the middle of the day. Elias was watching from the moment he knew she’d attacked, his hand on the override switch for the CO2 system because there was no actual fire. He wanted to see how I acquitted myself, what happened. If I could survive it, because if I couldn’t, I wouldn’t be any use to him. I did—barely—and mostly because of Martin and Tim. From that point on, Elias—Jonah—deliberately put me in the way of as many powers as he could, so I would get the marks. And because I didn’t know what he was doing until far too late, I couldn’t avoid it. I had very little choice except to trust what he said. Then, once I had all fourteen…”
“He tricked you into saying the invocation,” Jon says softly. He doesn’t seem overly surprised.
“He disguised it as a statement.” Martin Prime’s voice sounds the way it did when he imitated Elias in the Archives—can it have only been yesterday? Tim feels like he’s aged a year since then. “Pretended it was something else, then taunted him about it. Explained his entire plan before ending with the words to invoke the ritual.”
“And I couldn’t stop, once begun,” Jon Prime adds. “Not without being interrupted. I—I always preferred to do the statements alone, so Martin had gone out for a walk. He didn’t get back until…after it was done. I had to speak the entire statement aloud.”
“He made you monologue for him? The bastard,” Tim says. He really is genuinely horrified by the idea, but he can’t resist the urge to make at least a somewhat lighthearted quip.
Martin Prime snorts, but some of the tightness leaves his face. “Now that you mention it, I can’t actually vouch for his parentage.”
Jon Prime actually gives a soft but genuine chuckle. “At any rate, that’s what we’re hoping to prevent.”
“But you already have, right?” Tim says. “Jon didn’t get attacked by the worms, so he hasn’t been marked by the—the Corruption. That means the plan hasn’t worked, right?”
“Yet,” Martin points out. “I mean, there’s—there’s no saying Jane Prentiss is the only avatar of the Corruption, right?”
Martin Prime nods. “She was the main one. The other one we kept encountering in statements is—” He turns to Jon Prime. “He is dead, right?”
“Yes, he’s been taken care of. But Martin is right, there are others,” Jon Prime tells them. “And there’s honestly no saying the Corruption had to be the first mark. Jonah is simply waiting to see how you acquit yourself when you do encounter one of the entities. Attacks were fairly common when Gertrude was the Archivist.”
“And they were fairly common for us, too,” Martin Prime adds.
“So we’ve got to keep Jon from getting hurt by anything at all,” Tim says.
“Sure. That won’t be hard,” Sasha mumbles. Tim kicks her in the ankle and she glares at him.
“No, she’s right. We—we’re going to do our best, but honestly, I don’t think there’s any stopping you getting at least one more before we can take Jonah down.” Jon Prime cocks his head at Jon. “And I don’t think it’s in your best interest that you not, actually.”
Martin sputters, but Jon nods slowly. “You mean that if I don’t…he’ll get suspicious. Especially if—” He shakes his head. “I’m not putting you in that kind of danger. God. Never mind the danger from the other entities—what would Elias do if he realized you three knew enough to potentially thwart his plans?” He looks up anxiously at Jon Prime. “Could he—never mind, I know the answer to that. Would he, though? Would he think he could get away with it?”
Jon Prime hesitates. “Probably. A-after all, most of us…don’t really have that many connections outside the Institute, I—” He breaks off and looks at Sasha in some little confusion.
Sasha, surprisingly, looks a little uncomfortable with the scrutiny. Tim raises an eyebrow and looks back and forth between her and Jon Prime, but she manages not to say anything and he doesn’t seem inclined to ask.
After a moment of silence, Martin Prime makes a soft ah noise. “The Not-Sasha told us she—you—had a boyfriend named Tom.”
“Oh!” Is it Tim’s imagination, or does Sasha sound relieved? “No. No, I’m single.”
“I thought as much. I—I was always fairly certain that was just its cover for why it was going to Madame Tussauds every day.” Jon Prime studies Sasha a moment longer, then returns to the group at large. “Under most circumstances, I-I’d say it was unlikely he’d actually do it himself. He’s not fond of getting his hands dirty. More likely to manipulate someone else into doing it, but if he was desperate enough…”
It’s at that point that Tim realizes Jon—and Jon Prime—are implying that Elias might actually kill them if he thinks they’re standing between him and world domination. He resists the urge to gather Martin and Sasha close to him; Sasha wouldn’t appreciate it and Martin will just hurt. “Okay, but is there a way we can keep Jon from getting hurt and keep Elias from being suspicious?”
“Not really.” To Tim’s surprise, it’s Jon who answers, not one of the Primes. “I—if he really can watch us whenever he wants to, he’s going to be watching me for a while, I think. I couldn’t figure out why he seemed so…disappointed in me when he was talking to me last night. Maybe he really did think I ran out of the Archives to save my own skin and left all of you down there, but from what you all have said so far, I-I think he’s more disappointed he didn’t get to see how I handled myself. I’d imagine he’s going to be even more interested in my next potential encounter with an entity.”
Jon Prime smiles sadly. “You catch on quickly, Archivist.”
Martin Prime frowns briefly, but says nothing. Tim decides not to ask. “What is the next one, anyway?”
“For me, it—well, the next one I encountered would have been the Not-Sasha, which is the Stranger, but a-apparently it didn’t mark me,” Jon Prime says. “The next one for me was the Spiral. But there’s no guarantee they’ll go in the same order.”
“Well, it’s something, at least. What do we need to prepare for?” Tim studies Jon Prime. “If I’m remembering right, the…description of the painting didn’t have a symbol, so that means you’ve got a physical scar from it, right?”
Jon Prime rests a hand on his side, seemingly without conscious thought. “Yes. It—Michael came into my office. He, he was stalking a woman…she’d come to give a statement. I-I found out later Jonah directed her there with the idea of leading the Distortion, the Spiral, to me. He…took her when she tried to leave.”
“The painting title,” Martin murmurs. “There Has Never Been a Door There. That means something, right?”
“It’s…all of those titles, at least in the ones of me, were things said during those encounters. My guess is that those were the points when it was irreversible, where I had gone too far and there was no chance of me leaving the encounter without a mark. The Distortion…it throws up those doors, leading to its realm, but it can’t actually pull you in. You have to open the door yourself. O-or knock, or whatever. Michael caused a door to appear in the wall of my office, and—”
“His victim took that door instead of the actual door,” Tim guesses.
Jon Prime nods. “I didn’t realize it myself until he pointed it out. And when I tried to argue with him, he stabbed me.”
“And because he was so paranoid at the time,” Martin Prime puts in, “Jon told us he’d accidentally stabbed himself.”
“And you believed him?” Tim says incredulously.
“No. He’s usually a good liar, but the fact that taking statements used to drain him combined with the fact that he was bleeding heavily made it harder for him to be convincing. He was also really paranoid at the time, though—I was only just starting to realize how paranoid—and I decided not to push him on it. Mistake, maybe, but it felt like the right decision at the time.” Martin Prime raises an eyebrow in Jon Prime’s direction, albeit with a slight half-smile. “Which isn’t to say that I didn’t make it clear I was only humoring him.”
“He hovered,” Jon Prime tells them. There’s an undercurrent of affection in his voice. “At the time, I tried to convince myself there was something sinister behind his constant attention, but even at my most paranoid I couldn’t quite manage it. I don’t know that I ever really believed you were a suspect.”
Martin Prime shakes his head. “Oh, I’m pretty sure you did. I know I wasn’t high on your list, but you did actually suspect me.”
Sasha looks back and forth between the two of them. “Sorry, have I missed part of this conversation?”
Jon holds up a hand. “While we’re discussing things that may have been missed—you keep talking about a Not-Sasha. You mentioned that in your statement, too, but—what is that? Everyone but me seems to understand.”
Martin Prime looks slightly sheepish. So does Jon Prime. Tim studies both of them, then ventures, “Maybe you two could just…tell us everything you’ve been through? Or as much as you feel like we ought to know. You don’t have to give us all the details, but at least, like, the Cliff Notes version?”
The Primes look at each other, or at least in each other’s direction; Tim sees several emotions play out across Jon Prime’s face. Finally, he squeezes Martin Prime’s hand briefly and turns back to the others, nodding. “I think we can manage that.”
They begin to talk, starting with the attack on the Institute and the immediate fallout from that. Tim listens in growing alarm and horror as they lay out the bare bones of what they’ve gone through in the last two years. He can feel Martin trembling at his side, while on the other, Sasha actually pulls away from him, leaning forward slightly with an intent expression, like she’s drinking in all the information. When Jon Prime describes his desperate flight into the tunnels to escape the thing pretending to wear Sasha’s face, Jon lets out a soft, high-pitched noise of fear and pain.
Tim doesn’t think; he just reacts. He reaches over and grabs Jon, dragging him over Martin’s lap and only belatedly remembering the mug of tea, which Jon fortunately no longer appears to be holding. There’s not really time for either of them to be startled before Tim has Jon slotted into the spot between Tim and Martin. Before they had Martin between them because, Tim suspects, they both felt the need to protect him; now it’s Jon who needs that protection. Tim puts his arm around Jon’s shoulders and touches Martin’s on the other side. Martin, almost hesitantly, does the same. Jon stiffens for just a second, then seems to melt back against their crossed arms.
A look flits across Jon Prime’s face for a second, warmth mingled with pure, unadulterated pain, and it makes Tim unconsciously shift a little closer to Jon. Jon Prime doesn’t comment, though, merely takes a deep breath and continues talking.
True to Tim’s suggestion, they don’t give all the details, but the little they do tell is enough. Jon reaches over and grabs Tim’s hand while Martin squeezes his shoulder when Martin Prime’s voice cracks telling them about the phone call from the one person to walk away from the Unknowing alive and unhurt; the three of them bunch closer together when Jon Prime grits out the basics of his interview with Jared Hopworth; Jon takes Martin’s free hand as gently as possible when they lay out the bare bones of the confrontation with Peter Lukas. Sasha occasionally shoots sympathetic glances in their direction, at least at first, but she seems more focused on the tale than on her colleagues’ reactions.
“…And then the world ended,” Jon Prime concludes, sounding tired.
Martin exhales hard. “Christ.”
Sasha cocks her head to one side, studying the Primes. “And then what?”
“And then we decided to try and fix it.”
“No, I mean, what was it like? The end of the world. What happened? What did it look like?”
Jon Prime stares at Sasha. He looks both genuinely confused and not a little alarmed. His eyes slide over to the knot of humanity that is Tim, Jon, and Martin, then back to Sasha. Tim would give a year’s salary to know his thoughts.
“It did exactly what Jonah wanted it to do,” Martin Prime says, his voice sharpened to the same point as when he answered Sasha’s probing questions about her fate. “And it looked like hell on Earth.”
Sasha jerks backwards, then blinks hard and presses her fingertips to her mouth. “I did it again, didn’t I?”
“‘It’?” Jon Prime repeats.
“I asked him why I didn’t have more marks in your timeline,” Sasha says through her fingers. “Even though I knew I was—that the me in your time had died. I knew that from the picture. But I pushed him, I made him say it out loud. I swear I’m not usually like this. I-I mean, I’m curious, don’t get me wrong. I want to know things. But I usually know to stop before…I don’t ask questions I can guess the answer to just to watch people hurt.”
Jon Prime studies her for a moment. Quietly, he says, “You’ll forgive me if we keep a close eye on you, Sasha.”
“Please do. I—I don’t want to lose myself.”
Tim almost reaches over to take her hand, but all of his hands are currently occupied and she probably wouldn’t appreciate it anyway. He settles for nudging her ankle with his foot. She nudges back and manages a smile, lacing her fingers together. Tim returns his gaze to the Primes and tries to regain his equilibrium, to summon up a way to break the heavy mood that’s settled over them, or at least ease it back. At the same time, he has a question that’s been persisting in the back of his mind, and he knows he needs to ask it before he lets it fester.
“While we’re asking questions,” he says. “You said I wouldn’t like the way to make the dreams stop. I’m assuming it’s not the same ‘only when they die’ thing as you told Jon when he asked.”
“No. Those are…two very different things.” Jon Prime rubs his thumb over Martin Prime’s knuckles. It looks like it might be hard enough to hurt.
“What did you mean by that?” Jon asks, sounding almost afraid of the answer.
“You’ve only got two right now, right?” Jon Prime frowns, like he’s trying to remember. “The woman in the cemetery and the…incident in the Cambridge Military Hospital.”
“Yes.” Jon’s voice is barely above a whisper. “God, you’re not telling me there will be more?”
“I’m afraid so. The dreams are a side effect of the statements, or…perhaps an extension of them. Strictly speaking, they aren’t your dreams. They’re the dreams of those who experienced them at first—those who handed over their terror to you in the first place. You’re simply…watching them.”
Jon’s eyes widen. “Oh, God.”
“W-wait, you can just—you can just see people’s dreams?” Martin demands.
“Not quite. It’s more…when is terror at its most pure? When it’s being experienced firsthand…and when you relive it in the dead of night.”
Tim flinches, because Jon Prime is right. He doesn’t remember being scared in the theater the first time, although he knows he must have been, but when he dreams about it, it’s always so much worse, because he knows and he’s powerless to stop it. Martin’s fingers squeeze against his shoulder again, even though he can’t know what Tim is thinking of, which in retrospect is totally unfair because Martin’s trusted Tim with so much about himself and Tim has trusted him so little in return.
Jon is shaking his head. “No, but—i-if it’s the real statements, I—why don’t I dream about the others, then? God, I’d have thought Carlos Vittery’s statement would give me nightmares, but—”
“Your fear isn’t interesting to the Ceaseless Watcher,” Jon Prime says. “Not when it can see it whenever it wants to. It’s the same for your assistants, which is why you weren’t all sharing nightmares about the infestation last night. And the ones you’ve recorded, the—the stale ones, that’s why they’re not as satisfying to…well, me, I suppose. It’s all secondhand. You’re not drawing the terror right out of them. The live statements, though…you sat with them, you drew out their fears, you heard and felt their emotional connection. You’ve also created a connection from them to the Watcher itself. Now when they dream about it, there’s the added terror of not only what they’re going through, but also the knowledge that someone, something, is standing right there watching them and doing nothing to stop it.”
Jon flinches hard. Even Tim feels a stab of pain lance through him at the thought. “Wait, they can see him? You? I mean, you said you didn’t dream last night…”
“Because, in this timeline, I haven’t heard any of the statements, I suppose,” Jon Prime says. “We didn’t really need to sleep after the world ended, and on the rare occasions I did…the Eye probably considered those pre-apocalyptic fears petty and pedestrian, compared to the horrors available after. Assuming…” He trails off. “Anyway, the only one who’s actually given a statement to you so far that I might still be able to see is Naomi Hearn. I stopped seeing Melanie in my dreams after she joined the Institute, which is why Daisy joined in the first place. To make the dreams stop. Otherwise, the only way they tend to stop dreaming about it is if they die.”
And suddenly, Tim gets it. “So that’s how to stop my dreams. To make a statement about them.”
“Essentially, yes. A-at least I think that’s how it works. Our Tim didn’t make a statement directly to me, I—I was in America at the time. Martin was the one who did the recording.”
“They stopped,” Martin Prime says quietly. “He thanked me later. Grudgingly. Said maybe not talking about it had kept him obsessing over it in his sleep. I didn’t put the pieces together until…after, and I still don’t know if they stopped before you listened to the tape or not.”
Martin cocks his head, studying his counterpart. “And you won’t have dreams? After…” He gestures at the recorder, then seems to remember Martin Prime can’t see him. “After giving your statement?”
“No. I’m cut off from the Eye completely.” Martin Prime taps the corner of his eye for emphasis. “It can’t See me, and therefore can’t use me. Melanie was the same.”
Tim’s still trying to wrap his brain around the angry former B-list Internet celebrity being part of their team, but he can at least see her gouging her own eyes out to get away from it. “Okay. So we’ve established the swirling vortex of terror that is your lives. How do we stop that from happening to us?”
“In the first place,” Jon Prime says, “don’t let Jonah know how much you know.”
“Can he read minds?” Martin asks nervously.
“In a limited fashion. It really depends on how hard he’s concentrating and how much you’re thinking about…whatever it is.” Jon Prime appears to think for a moment. “I think it may be stronger if it’s directed at him. He certainly always seemed to know when Melanie was about to make her latest attempt on his life.”
“To be fair, that was most of the time,” Martin Prime points out.
“Yes, well, point. But still. He never…all right, truth be told, he never exactly outright said what he knew, unless it was to his advantage. Like when he…” Jon Prime trails off.
“Like when he went after me,” Martin Prime supplies quietly. “Or Melanie. But for what it’s worth, I think you’re right. I think it’s…harder for him to sift through people’s brains if they’re not in the room with him, or if they’re not aiming in his direction. And he outright told me he’d never considered me worth paying that much attention to until I started burning those statements.”
“He knew—” Jon Prime begins and then snaps off the sentence. Tim almost misses the quick, slightly guilty glance he shoots in Martin’s direction.
“Jon, I’m almost completely certain that the only person at the Institute who didn’t know that was you.”
Jon Prime ducks his head sheepishly, but his lips quirk upwards in a smile nevertheless, and his eyes are warm as he regards Martin Prime. Seeing them like this feels right, and Tim tries to ignore the sudden flash of melancholy in his chest.
“Anyway,” Jon Prime says, returning his gaze to the four on the sofa and obviously fighting to get his face under control, “as we said earlier, if Jonah guesses you know anything, he may…do something drastic. So the first step is going to be to keep him from knowing you’re not as ignorant as he wants you to be. You especially, Archivist.”
“Don’t think I don’t know why you’re doing that, Jon,” Martin Prime says warningly.
Tim has no idea what he’s talking about, but it’s evident Jon Prime does. He looks like he’s gearing up to argue, then evidently changes his mind and sighs. “Right. You’re right. I’m sorry.” Turning back to Jon, he continues, “It’s why he murdered Jurgen Leitner in the first place—to keep me as ignorant as possible.”
“So if he knows that any of us have figured it out, he’ll kill us before we can tell Jon,” Sasha says. “What would he do if he knew Jon knew? If it’s okay to ask that,” she adds quickly.
Jon Prime gives her a quick half-smile. “That’s fine. And don’t worry, Martin, I’m not trying anything,” he adds, squeezing Martin Prime’s hand. “That’s a hypothetical, so I can’t Know that for sure, but my guess is that he’d kill him and go looking for a new Archivist. Again.”
Tim flinches at the bland statement. “Right, and we obviously want to prevent that. I mean, apart from the obvious ‘let’s not end the world’ thing, we definitely want Jon to stay alive. So apart from continuing to play stupid, what’s the plan?”
Jon Prime hesitates and looks at Martin Prime, who grimaces. “That’s…we probably can’t tell you our plan in detail. Let’s just say it’s best if you are actually ignorant of that until it happens. For your part, just…watch out for one another. Don’t let Elias push you apart. He’s…very good at sowing seeds of discontent under the guise of ‘promoting a healthy workplace environment’. And for God’s sake, keep an eye out for anything odd. Be careful when you’re out investigating statements.” His eyes flick up to Tim’s for a moment, and Tim swallows down a bit of not wholly unwarranted guilt at the worry in them. “If it’s something you’re truly worried about, get word to us and we’ll see what we can do to help. Either by giving you the information you need without you having to chase it down or by, well, chasing it down for you.”
“You can do that?” Martin sounds genuinely surprised.
“Why not? For the most part, we do know the answers, but if it’s something Elias is going to want proof for, we can easily get it for you.”
Tim notes, if only to himself, that Jon Prime refers to their evil overlord as Elias when he’s talking about day-to-day Institute business and Jonah the rest of the time. It’s probably a useful distinction. “What do we do about the table? If it comes?”
“I—I assume it’s when, not if. Breekon and Hope will have to deliver it at some point. And, honestly, I don’t know.” Jon Prime sighs. “Elias suggested we destroy it. I’m still not sure if it’s because he wanted me to destroy it so the thing trapped by it would get loose and come after me or if it was because he thought suggesting it be destroyed was the best way to make me not destroy it, so the thing could catch someone unaware.”
“Honestly, I don’t think he knew for sure what it was,” Martin Prime says slowly. “Not until it…well, you know. Not until after the attack. I think he really did want it destroyed. Maybe he saw it as a legitimate threat. But we still don’t really know what to do with it. Sasha, you worked in Artifact Storage—would they leave it alone if you sent up a copy of Amy Patel’s statement, maybe warned them what might be in it?”
“No. That’d be the fastest way to make them investigate it, actually. Addison—Dr. Bradley—can get a bit…obsessive about things that might actually have some paranormal significance.” Sasha purses up her lips thoughtfully. “On the other hand—why suggest destroying it to you? I mean, technically if it’s in the purview of Artifact Storage…”
“I think it’s because it was technically delivered to me. Rosie signed for it and had them take it up to Artifact Storage because, well, it was an artifact, but it was addressed to me. I-I suppose it was, strictly speaking, mine to dispose of as I saw fit.”
“Then I think all Jon has to say is ‘don’t touch it’. Lock it in its own room. That ought to do it.” Sasha seems uncertain. “Maybe.”
Jon swallows hard. “Right. As long as they bring it to me at the Institute and not…personally.”
Jon Prime offers him what he probably hopes is a reassuring smile. “I actually do have some small idea, but I’d need to…unfortunately, take a look at the table before I can be sure. And I’m not sure I can risk that.”
“Yeah, there are actually cameras up in Artifact Storage,” Sasha says. “But, I mean, would they be good enough to pick out the differences in the two of you?”
“I don’t know that my ability to shield myself from Jonah’s…attentions will extend to CCTV, so I’d rather not try,” Jon Prime answers. “Not until we’re a little more secure. A bit more settled.”
Jon takes a deep breath. “Well, you’ve got a few days to decide. Elias was a bit grudging when I asked him to give us a day or two to breathe, but either he finally realized none of us would get much work done with the Archives knee-deep in worm corpses or it occurred to him the police are going to want to look into some things—”
“Or he recognized that you were about six seconds from either a complete mental breakdown or a homicidal rampage,” Tim interjects.
“Tim!” Martin says reproachfully.
“I’m serious. You were in quarantine, you didn’t see the way he was trying to chew through anyone remotely official.”
“Nobody would tell me anything,” Jon mumbles.
Jon Prime smiles. “Whatever the reasoning, Elias did at least agree to give you some time off?”
Jon nods and looks up. “Until Monday. A-and of course Martin’s going to be out for a while. You’re—you’re not in any shape to come back right now. You need to rest.”
“Yeah.” Martin exhales heavily and frees his hand from Jon’s to rub it over his face. “Another however many weeks holed up in my flat, I guess. At least this time I’ll have power. Maybe.”
Martin Prime winces. “Ah—about that? You didn’t think to get in touch with Mrs. Mattson, did you?”
“N—oh, Christ, the lease was up for renewal on the twelfth.” Martin pales. “It’s only been a couple weeks—m-maybe it’ll still be okay?”
“It doesn’t matter. You’re staying here,” Tim tells him.
“Tim—”
“No, don’t you ‘Tim’ me. You don’t need to stay on your own when I’ve got plenty of space right here. And it’ll make me feel better if you’re somewhere I can keep an eye on you, just in case things get bad.” Tim makes an effort to soften his voice. “You’ve been alone enough. Why do it again if you don’t have to?”
Martin blinks at him in evident surprise. Jon eases his hand away from Tim’s and touches Martin’s knee lightly. “I know I’d feel better if there was someone looking out for you. I—I shouldn’t have left you alone in the Archives, and I’m sorry about that.”
“It’s—it’s not your fault.” Martin doesn’t seem to know what to do with all of this, but he does at least seem to realize that he’s only being given one option. “All right. If—if you’re sure.”
Tim nods, then adds to Jon, “You’re staying, too, you know.”
“What?” Jon looks startled.
“I’m serious. Look, call me paranoid if you want, but…after what we just went through? After what we’ve just heard? I don’t want to let any of you out of my sight, and if that makes me sound crazy, I’ll live with that. The point is that I will live with it, and so will you. Just…please. At least until we’ve got a better handle on everything.” Tim looks from Jon to Sasha and back. “I can even clean out the study and turn it back into a spare room.”
“Tim, that’s not necessary,” Jon says softly. “I—of course. I-if it means that much to you, I’ll stay for a while.”
Sasha manages a smile. “Yeah, all right, why not? God knows you need a keeper, too.”
“Shut up,” Tim grumbles without any real heat. He looks over at the Primes, who are both regarding him a little sadly. “It’s a given that you two are staying, of course. Don’t suppose you have anywhere else to go.”
Martin Prime’s cheeks color slightly, and Tim realizes how that probably came out. Before he can apologize, Jon Prime says, “As much as I’d rather not, all things considered, we’re planning on staying in the tunnels. Keeps us close to the Institute, keeps us a bit more hidden, and puts us in a position to handle things as they come up.”
Tim nods. “Right, fine, but you may have forgotten the small detail that they’re probably a crime scene right now. I mean, we found the shot-up body of a woman who’s been missing for the better part of a year down there, and you know the police are going to be all through there, failing to find evidence of who shot her. If we’re not able to get in to work, you’re not going to be able to get down there to hide out. You should at least stay here until it’s clear.” And then I’ll figure out an excuse to keep you here a bit longer, he adds mentally. He knows it’s not his fault that his counterpart in their timeline was an asshole, and he knows he can’t exactly make up for that, but he’s going to try anyway.
He’s not sure why the sudden, intense need to protect everyone. Maybe it’s knowing that the—the thing that took Danny from him is still out there (he’s not stupid; even though they didn’t say as much, he knows that the Unknowing and Danny’s death are connected) and that it’s not the only one of its kind. Maybe it’s that he’s more shaken than he wants to admit at the close call they had with losing Martin. Maybe it’s just hearing everything the Primes went through and knowing he’s powerless to fix it, but desperate to do anything he can to prevent it for his Martin and Jon. And, well, if he can give the Primes a bit of comfort in the meantime, that’s no small feat.
Jon Prime looks startled. “We—Tim, it’s not safe. Even if Jonah can’t see us, there’s no guarantee anything else…God knows I attract enough attention under ordinary circumstances. It’s a miracle I got this far without incident. W-we can’t put you all in danger like that.”
“Not like we’ll be any safer if it’s just us,” Tim points out. “At least if you’re here, we can all keep an eye on each other.”
“You said that us both being in the same room would…muddle things, make it more difficult for Elias,” Jon says. “At least until I can…get a handle on all this. I—anything you can teach me to keep them safe.”
“I think we’re outnumbered, Jon,” Martin Prime says with a soft smile.
Jon Prime looks at him, then sighs, nods, and turns back to Tim. “All right. But only until it’s safe for us to move into the tunnels.”
Tim grins, relieved for reasons he chooses not to examine. “Great. Now then. Who’s up for lunch?”