Of course they don’t believe it. Of course they don’t. Setting aside the fact that Elias Bouchard is a rat bastard who lies like a cheap rug, never mind that Sasha’s attempt to call failed (and it’s not just hers, or just a one-off thing; Martin and Tim both try. Twice), they don’t believe the message because both Tim and Martin know, with a certainty that has nothing to do with the Eye and everything to do with the last several months, that Jon would never go out of town on an errand without letting them know first. He would at least call them to say he was leaving.
Jon Prime assures them that it’s probably fine. Well, maybe assures is the wrong word. He tells them that it’s probably fine, but he sounds uncertain and Tim doesn’t believe him either. They don’t ask what could be going on, not at first; as Martin Prime said, this isn’t the Primes’ story anymore and asking what happened to you is unproductive. The best they can do is put their heads down, plunge ahead with work, and hope.
That lasts about three days.
On Friday afternoon, Sasha comes back from lunch with a funny look on her face and something cradled in her hands, which she sets wordlessly on Tim’s desk. It’s a phone, cracked and battered, looking like it’s been dropped and run over a couple of times. Martin manages to turn it on, and they’re greeted with a cracked, warped picture of two men and a little boy staring raptly at the sky, all three of them utterly content despite everything life has thrown at them. They stare at it for a couple seconds before the phone fizzles and shuts off with a final-sounding pop.
Hope dies with Jon’s phone, and Tim shuts down a little. He spends the rest of the day looking at Gertrude’s tapes, squinting fiercely at them, drawing on every scrap of power he can, trying desperately to see through the green to the colors beneath. The best he’s able to do is sort them into piles that are sort of the same color blend, and it leaves him shaky, drained, and irritable. That night he sits up at the kitchen table with the box of Gertrude’s books they’ve never actually gone through and carefully, methodically, sorts them out. He tries to look at them, too, the way he did the tapes, but either he’s too tired or they don’t actually have anything of any of the powers on them. Instead, he begins going through them, one at a time, notebook and tape recorder set up in front of him as he jots down observations, notes, anything that might be helpful.
He doesn’t know what he’s looking for, other than the generic “answers”. Something that might provide a lead to where Jon is, he guesses, even though in the back of his mind he can’t imagine why something like that would be in something belonging to Gertrude Robinson. Maybe there’s a part of him that suspects Jon is off on some madcap adventure, that he dropped his phone like Tim forgot his, and that if they can only find a clue to where he is they’ll be able to find him and get him home.
He’s at it all weekend, and by Monday, he’s frustrated and angry about the lack of answers. When Sasha asks him why there are fifteen piles of tapes instead of only fourteen, he snaps at her and can’t bring himself to apologize for his tone as he tells her that the fifteenth is the ones he isn’t sure about, the ones he can’t tell the underneath color of.
Sasha doesn’t react to his tone. She simply shrugs, points at the Document Storage room, and tells him to go listen to some of them then.
Tim is annoyed with her, at first, but three tapes later he realizes he’s stopped shaking. He’s still upset, but he’s not so angry, and he’s definitely feeling a bit stronger than before. It’s only then that it occurs to him how much energy he’s been using. And it’s not until he comes out, ready to apologize for his temper, that he realizes how pale and drawn Martin looks and it occurs to him that he hasn’t slept since Friday. Which, apparently, means Martin hasn’t either.
Martin confirms as much that night, while he’s making tea for them both (Tim only realizes then he’s been drinking Martin’s tea all weekend without even noticing). He says he’s tried, a couple of times, but he can’t seem to rest for worrying, both about Jon and about Tim, which makes him feel horrible. Tim actually goes to bed that night instead of working himself to exhaustion over the books, and he and Martin both manage to get some rest even though they’re both horribly conscious of the fact that there’s something—someone—missing from their bed.
It’s not until almost lunchtime on Tuesday that the little voice in the back of Tim’s brain asks him when it became their bed rather than his bed.
After that, he tries to get back to work, tries to buckle down to doing their duty—Jon will be back, he tells himself, and they’ve got to keep things moving for him—but he’s distracted, and from the way Martin’s eyes keep drifting to Jon’s closed office door, he knows Martin feels the same. And while they’re trying to talk about it, they’re both still tense.
By the time Jon’s been gone almost two full weeks, Tim decides he’s had enough. He glances at the clock on the corner of his laptop, then shuts it with a snap that startles the other two and pushes back from his desk.
“I can’t stand this,” he says, barely controlling his tone. “I’m going to run this down.”
Martin seems to understand. He closes his own laptop. “I’m coming with you.”
“Martin—”
“No. I’ve been—I need to know, too. And I need to hear it directly, I think. Otherwise—” Martin shakes his head.
Tim thinks he understands what Martin isn’t saying. “Sasha, can you hold things down up here?”
Sasha nods, her eyes sympathetic. Tim manages a half-smile, then heads over to the trapdoor.
The Primes are in the middle of eating—probably breakfast, given their odd sleep schedule—but Jon Prime looks up when the light of Martin’s torch plays through the door and sets aside his plate. “Tim. Martin. Any word?”
“No. Nothing.” Tim hesitates, trying to figure out how to phrase it, or even what it is he’s there to ask.
Martin beats him to it. “We were hoping you could tell us where he is.”
“I don’t—I can’t be sure,” Jon Prime says gently. “Things aren’t—”
“No, we’re not asking where you were this time around,” Martin says, unusually to the point for once, which either shows how comfortable he’s grown with them all or how absolutely stressed and terrified he is. “We’re asking if you can—Know where he is.”
“Oh,” Jon Prime says softly.
Martin keeps talking, words tumbling out almost desperately. “We’ve been—we were trying to figure it out, if, if he left on his own after all and just dropped his phone, maybe if there was some clue. But there’s nothing. Sasha tried to Know—”
“When?” Tim asks, surprised.
“Yesterday, when you were picking up lunch. But she couldn’t find him. She’s not sure if it’s just because it’s the wrong kind of Knowing or if it’s because she’s not strong enough or what, but—” Martin gestures helplessly with both hands, making the torchlight bob about. “It’s been two weeks. And we can’t—we need to know if he’s okay.”
Martin Prime touches Jon Prime’s shoulder gently. “I think he’ll forgive you for looking, Jon. I know you’re trying not to, but…if it was me, I’d want to know you were okay. Remember…” His face darkens slightly.
Jon Prime turns and hugs Martin Prime tightly, and Tim’s stomach lurches. He remembers the day after Jane Prentiss’ attack, when the Primes gave them the basic rundown of everything that happened to them—remembers Jon Prime mentioning being kidnapped and held prisoner by Nikola Orsinov. Could that…? No. No, he can’t let himself imagine…
Oh, God, Jon’s been kidnapped.
The thought must hit Martin at the same time, because he reaches over and grips Tim’s hand tightly. Tim squeezes back as hard as he can. It seems like an eternity before Jon Prime whispers, “All right. All right.”
He eases back from Martin Prime, straightens up, closes his eyes, and takes a deep breath. Static fills the little room, softly at first, then louder and louder. Tim isn’t trying to look, he isn’t, but apparently the Eye’s power is too strong with Jon Prime calling on it like this, because he sees the glow, Jon Prime’s closed eyes and a third eye on his forehead and another on the back of each hand, all glowing green, faintly at first, then a bit stronger. Not as strong as Tim might have expected if he’d been expecting it at all, but bright anyway.
Jon Prime’s eyebrows knit in a frown. The static fizzles out, the glow fades, and when Jon Prime opens his eyes, they’re perfectly normal, if worried. “I can’t See him.”
“The tunnels—” Martin Prime begins, his own expression worried.
“Make it more difficult, but not impossible. And I’m a bit…hungry, I suppose, so that might—but I should at least be able to see something.” Jon Prime looks up at Tim and Martin. “He’s not dead. I’d Know that. But—but I don’t have anything more than that. I’m sorry.”
Martin makes a small sound of distress, then screws his face up tightly for a moment before huffing out a sigh and squaring his shoulders. His eyes are wet when he opens them. “But you know—he’s been kidnapped, hasn’t he. Orsinov’s got him.” It’s not a question.
“I—I don’t know that for sure,” Jon Prime stammers. “I—it’s possible, but I—but we can’t know that for sure. Not right now.”
“F-fine. Fine! We don’t know, but we’re pretty sure, right? So—so where would she be holding him?”
“I told you, I can’t—”
“I’m not asking you to use the Eye! I’m asking where she was holding you.”
Jon Prime inhales sharply, but Martin Prime wraps an arm around his shoulder and pulls him close and answers first. “What could you do with that knowledge, Martin? The police aren’t going to do a raid based on your say-so. Not so soon after the Brodie operation, not with so little to go on. Not for a missing adult. Especially if Elias has a good story to spin them about where he is.”
Martin sputters. Tim clenches his jaw. “Yeah, but we can go after him.”
“No!” the Primes shout in near-unison. Tim and Martin both jerk back in surprise.
“First of all, we don’t know for sure that’s where he is, or who has him,” Jon Prime says, a bit more calmly. “If you walk into the Stranger’s domain and he’s not there, what then? You’ve tipped your hand, again, that you know where they are. The Unknowing isn’t going to be ready for another five months, and where I was held was where they planned to do it. Gertrude had a—a reputation for stopping rituals, by the end, so the Stranger might move the site to somewhere else, and it might be harder to find.”
“And that’s assuming,” Martin Prime adds sharply, “that they let you leave at all. You’ve managed to escape them twice, Tim, there’s no way they’ll let you walk away a third time unchallenged. And if the Not-Diana left the memory of the original Diana in your mind, Martin, you’re marked by the Stranger, too. It’s going to be that much harder for you to get in unnoticed, let alone get out unnoticed, especially not with the Archivist. If he’s there.”
“We’ve got to try,” Martin says angrily. “We can’t just let him suffer because—”
“You think he’ll suffer less if you get hurt? Or killed?” Martin Prime interrupts. “And—okay, fine, say you don’t. Say you get in and out unscathed. If he’s not there, you really think they’ll risk holding him for another five months? They’ll kill him then and there rather than risk you finding him and disrupting her plans for the Unknowing.”
“Martin,” Jon Prime says, sounding pained. He lays a hand on Martin Prime’s arm, but Martin Prime shrugs him off.
“Do you honestly think I don’t know how much it hurts?” Martin Prime’s voice cracks at that. “What it’s like not knowing where he is but knowing he’s probably in danger and you can’t do anything about it? You think I wouldn’t have given everything to know where to find him? But if you’re wrong and he dies, I know what it’ll do to you.”
Jon Prime wraps his arms around Martin Prime; Martin Prime resists for a moment, then slumps and clings to Jon Prime in return. Tim, slightly numb and feeling like the bottom has dropped out of his stomach, sees a few tears squeeze their way out of the corners of Martin Prime’s eyes.
He’s not wrong, that’s the hell of it. As badly as Tim wants to storm…wherever it is, as much as he desperately wants Jon to come home, he knows Martin Prime is right. They can’t risk putting Jon in danger by going to the wrong place to rescue him, and the Stranger is probably almost as bad as the Spiral about misdirection and concealment. Until they’re sure, or as close to sure as they can be, they can’t chance it. And more than that, Tim knows he can’t risk putting Martin in danger. He hadn’t thought about Martin being marked by the Stranger, but now that the thought’s in his mind…he refuses to lose anyone else to that thing. Refuses. Scylla and Charybdis for sure.
“At least wait until we’re sure,” Jon Prime says. He looks over at Tim and Martin, and Tim can see how much pain he’s in, how utterly scared he is. He knows, more than the rest of them, what Jon might be going through and he probably feels it down to his toes, as much as he feels their pain. And that’s assuming the Eye isn’t channeling all their fear through him also. “Once the Institute is closed for the weekend. Maybe I can get better…reception aboveground, in the Archives, closer to the Eye. Consume a statement or two or something, but—please. Don’t risk it until we know exactly where he is.”
Tim looks over at Martin, sees the conflicted look and the suspiciously wet brightness in his eyes, his lips pressed tightly together in an evident bid to stop them from shaking. He’s going to follow Martin’s lead on this one. Martin stares at the Primes for a long moment, then nods once and hisses out a single word. “Fine.”
“Okay,” Jon Prime says softly. “Okay.” He closes his eyes and drops his head onto Martin Prime’s shoulder.
“We’ll see you after hours then,” Tim manages. He reaches for Martin’s arm, but Martin jerks away and simply leads the way out of the tunnels without speaking. He’s pale and shaking and way more upset than even Tim would expect, even knowing how Martin feels about Jon, and he doesn’t know what to do about it.
Sasha looks up when they come out of the trapdoor, but evidently they don’t need to say anything, because a series of emotions plays over her face and her shoulders slump. Tim shakes his head anyway. Martin stops at his desk long enough to set the heavy-duty torch on it. “I need to—I’ll be back.”
“Martin—” Tim’s heart seizes. He grabs Martin’s arm, fear coursing through him. He let Jon go out alone and Jon—
“I’m not leaving the building, Tim, I just—I need to walk for a minute.” Martin looks at him and his face softens. He squeezes Tim’s arm with his other hand before removing it from his own. “I promise. Not going outside.”
“Okay,” Tim says softly. “I’ll wait for you.”
As soon as Martin leaves, Tim drops to his seat and sighs. “They’re not sure where he is. Jon Prime said he’d come up after we close and see what he can do.”
Sasha glances at her computer. “That won’t be long.”
The door to the Archives opens, and Tim looks up, preparing to try and tease Martin about his short walk. It’s not Martin who comes in, though, but Basira. She raises an eyebrow at Sasha. “Hey. What’s with your friend?”
“Martin? He’s…it’s a long story.” Sasha gestures at Jon’s closed office door. “Jon’s been missing for a couple weeks now.”
“Hm. Wouldn’t have figured him for the flaky type.” Basira slips her hands into her pockets. “Came to see if you wanted to grab a drink. Been a hell of a week.”
“You, too, huh?” Sasha glances hesitantly at Tim. “I’d love to, but you mind waiting a bit? We’re technically here another twenty minutes.”
“Nah, you go ahead,” Tim tells her. “Martin and I can close down here. Take some time. You deserve it.”
Basira grunts. “You think he’ll be back in time? Where’s he heading?”
Tim rubs his forehead. “Probably up to the library to torture himself by dealing with the Not-Diana. I love him, but he’s so damn prone to punishing himself for things he doesn’t need to.”
Sasha gives Tim a funny look that he’s too tired and stressed to really parse out, but only says, “If you’re sure. Might want to make sure those kids are out of here by closing time if the others are coming up.”
“What—oh, right.” Tim honestly forgot about the pair of students back in the stacks doing research for some joint project. They first came the day before, but several of the cases they need are on tape and one or two of them are live statements; Tim keeps meaning to do transcripts of those, but hasn’t got around to it yet. They’ve been so quiet he honestly hasn’t thought about them since they walked in earlier that afternoon. “Didn’t realize they were still here, but yeah, don’t worry. Have fun.”
“Sure. Have a good weekend, Tim.” Sasha pats his shoulder, shrugs into her jacket, and heads out the door with Basira. Tim watches them go, glad Sasha has a friend, then heads back into the shelves looking for the students.
They’re not hard to find, seated at one of the tables tucked in an odd bend in the Archives, which is scattered with books, papers, and a small stack of cassette tapes. Sitting on the table between them is a battered white plastic tape player that looks exactly like the one Tim had when he was three—rounded at the edges, with a soft rubber grip at the handle, brightly-colored buttons on top, and two tiny microphones with coiled cords, one on either side. Plugged into the headphone jack is an adapter, then a splitter, then two pairs of headphones leading to the two students, who are listening intently and alternately scribbling in a notebook they’re passing back and forth.
One of them looks up and spots Tim coming closer, then pokes the other and points at him. The other sees Tim and hits the big red button on top of the recorder, stopping the playback with a loud CLUNK.
“Getting close to closing time, guys,” Tim says.
“Aww, it’s just getting to the good part,” one of them complains with a humorous texture to her voice. Tim’s pretty sure she introduced herself as Helena.
The other one gives him pleading puppy dog eyes. “Can we just finish listening to this tape? I don’t know how much we have left in it, but it’s the last one that—um, Martin—pulled for us. We’re almost done. Please?”
Jaz, Tim remembers. With one Z. He’ll be the first to admit he was a hair distracted when they turned up yesterday, but Jaz is a distinct enough name that it’s stuck in his mind. “Sure, no problem. We can wait around until you’re finished.”
“Thanks.” Jaz flashes him a grin and returns to the notebook. Helena pushes the bright green PLAY button and they go back to listening.
As Tim turns away, he happens to catch a glimpse of the last note in the shared notebook—judging by the color of the ink, Jaz is the one who wrote it. Bet this guy’s as hot as his voice.
He suppresses a smile, even as his heart aches, as he heads back to his desk.
Martin’s still not back, and Sasha didn’t finish putting her files away before she left, so Tim busies himself for a minute neatening everyone’s stacks. After a moment’s thought, he tucks the files into their drawers. It will make things easier in the long run. He hopes.
He packs up his laptop and is about to start on Martin’s when something…twists. It’s the best way he can phrase it. It’s like the worst tinnitus he’s ever had, but outside his head rather than inside his ear, and it makes his head pound. He looks up in time to see a glowing yellow door in the wall suddenly open and Martin comes stumbling out, chased by warped, weirdly echoing laughter that makes the headache worse.
“Tim. Run,” Martin gasps. “We have to—go.”
“Why? What’s going on?” Tim’s stomach lurches, even as his headache subsides.
“The Not-Diana. It’s coming, Tim.”
“This way.” Tim grabs Martin’s arm and starts towards the door leading directly to the grounds, then pulls up short. “Shit. Those kids.”
“Wh—oh, God.” Martin turns pale. “They’re still here?”
Tim takes off in the direction of the two students, Martin hard on his heels. “Jaz! Helena!”
They don’t answer, but Tim rounds the corner just as their tape player shuts off. Jaz pulls off their headphones and looks up. “Oh, hey, we just finished—”
“Time to go,” Tim cuts them off.
“Yeah, just let us pack up—”
“No, now. You can come back and get all this later, but right now, we’ve got to evacuate.”
Helena’s eyebrows go up. “Is there a fire? I didn’t hear the alarm.”
“No, just—” Tim begins.
“Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaartiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin…”
The voice from the direction of the stairs sounds like Diana’s—or at least the Diana Tim remembers, which means it’s the Not-Diana—but distorted, warped. Martin turns, somehow, even paler.
Jaz’s eyes widen. “What the fuck?”
“Yeah, going. Going sounds good.” Helena starts to push back from the table, then stops and mutters something that sounds very much like “Horror Movie 101” before slithering out of her seat and sliding under the table.
“Good girl,” Tim mutters. “Let’s go. Quietly.”
Jaz grabs Helena’s arm as she crawls out from under the table. Tim leads them as quickly and quietly as he can towards the exit. They can probably get there, and if they’re outside, they’ve got a better chance, but down here without cameras, he doesn’t want to risk whatever might happen.
“Maaaaaartiiiiiiiiin,” the Not-Diana sings out again. “Come out, come out, wherever you are…I just want to thank you, that’s all.”
There’s a rustle from up ahead. Tim checks and shoos the others in a different direction, which means Martin is leading now, the two students still between them. Maybe they’ve got a better chance with Martin in the lead, him having lived in the Archives for so long…Tim sincerely hopes that Martin’s still got his mental map of escape routes. Surely he has one.
“It’s okay, Martin, it’s just Diana,” the Not-Diana calls, voice gooey with insincere reassurance. “Kind old Diana. Nothing to be afraid of.”
Helena is muttering under her breath, something Tim can’t quite catch or understand, but it’s probably a mantra or a prayer given the panicked look in her eyes. Martin halts at a gap in the shelves, looks both ways, then indicates for the others to come with him.
“You seem tense, dear.” The Not-Diana’s voice is impossibly close, coming from absolutely the wrong direction to have been where it was before. “You should have a nice cup of tea. You like tea, don’t you? Always the tea.”
They’re at one of the intersections where the shelves branch off, the gap between the nineteenth and twentieth century statements. Martin glances over his shoulder, then points to the left. “Go. That way. Should be able to get out. I’ll draw it off, it’s me it wants—”
“Absolutely not!” Tim hisses through clenched teeth. “I’m not leaving you to that thing—”
“I’m going to wear you, Martin,” the Not Diana calls. Ice water runs down Tim’s spine. “I’m going to wear everything you are. Like you never existed. Nobody will even know. And it will hurt, oh, yes. It hurt Diana.”
“What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck,” Jaz whispers, clutching Helena’s arm hard enough it has to hurt.
“Yeah, definitely not leaving you to it now. Come on.” Tim grabs Martin’s arm and drags him with them to the left.
A tall, twisted figure suddenly looms up at the end of the row they’re running down. To Tim’s eyes, it’s bathed in a glow of indigo light, almost bright enough to drown out the green on the shelves around it. “There you are. And you brought friends.”
Helena screams. Tim skids to a halt, pivots, and shoves the other three ahead of him. “Run, run, run!”
Menacing laughter follows them as they try to flee. Tim’s mind whirls as they stumble desperately towards what he hopes is freedom. Diana never comes down to the Archives, unless the Not-Them has been exploring when nobody else is around. It might be at a disadvantage, not knowing the place like they do. Or maybe not. Beholder versus Stranger, the known versus the unknown…something with centuries of experience versus two people with eight months’ worth of knowledge and two university kids who’ve barely scratched the surface of all of this. He honestly can’t say which way this is going to go.
“I’m glad we’re getting to run, Martin,” the Not-Diana says. “It makes this so much more…satisfying.”
Document Storage is up ahead, but Tim’s not about to lead them in there; if that thing follows them, they’ll be trapped in there, and it kills Martin. Of course, it’s perfectly possible, even logical, that it will kill Tim and the two students too, but he’s not sure if it would feel worse to have to watch it tear Martin to pieces and then live with that for the rest of his life. Actually, screw that, he knows that will be infinitely worse and he isn’t going to risk it. Instead, he steers them towards the steps. It’s not optimal, he really doesn’t want to lead this thing up to the main floor if people are still up there, especially since he has no idea how this thing got past them all (oh, God, he hopes it was too intent on going after Martin to worry about anyone else), but it’s better than nothing.
Except there’s an open expanse between the end of the shelves and the steps, no cover, and Tim hesitates three rows back, not sure if they can make it.
“I knew it would be you, in the end.” The Not-Diana sounds satisfied and delighted, its voice somewhat distant, and Tim fervently hopes it stays away. “Always so helpful, always so eager. Anything to get approval, to show you deserve to be there…”
“Shut up,” Tim grinds out. Martin shushes him.
“It’s a shame you’ll miss the Unknowing,” the Not-Diana says. “You would have loved to see it. But oh, maybe you will be there after all. Won’t you be a lovely partner for the Dance?”
Anything is better than nothing. Tim gets the other three moving again.
“And I can wear you to find your Archivist.” The Not-Diana laughs, cruel and malicious. “Oh, yes, I know where he is, and of course he hopes for a rescue. Won’t he be surprised when kind, helpful Martin is the one to skin him in the end?”
Martin lets out a frightened half-gasp, half-sob. Jaz’s chest heaves with panicked, stuttering breaths. Fear and fury mingle in Tim’s chest and he starts wishing he had a weapon of some kind, but he’ll tear this thing apart with his bare hands if he has to. For right now, though, his primary focus is on getting Martin, Helena, and Jaz away.
“Tunnels,” he gasps to Martin. It’s their last hope. Not a great one, but it’s better than nothing.
They break from the shelves and dash for the trapdoor. Martin flings it open and shoos the others down it; Tim grabs his arm as he passes, forcing him to come with. “Not leaving you behind,” he grinds out.
Their terrified breathing echoes in the tight confines of the stairwell, and somebody swears in what Tim thinks might be Portuguese as they evidently miss their step. He fumbles for his phone, thinking any light is better than nothing, when a torchlight beam suddenly sweeps the ground in front of them. Helena screams, louder this time.
“Tim? Martin? What’s going on?” Jon Prime sounds concerned.
“You can’t escape me now.” Not-Diana’s voice floats down from behind them. Tim throws a frightened glance over his shoulder and sees the shaft of light from the Archives, blocked by a shadow, spill down the steps; the light abruptly vanishes. “Nowhere left to hide.”
“Shit,” Martin Prime hisses.
“Get behind me, all of you.” Jon Prime strides past Tim, sounding determined.
Tim grabs Martin and drags him forward, then finds the two students and pulls them all into a tight huddle. He and Martin do their best to shield Jaz and Helena from the Not-Diana, and Tim can only hope it will be enough.
“I see you,” the Not-Diana sing-songs, then hisses. “You!”
“Leave them alone.” Jon Prime’s voice is low and laden with menace, the way it was when Breekon and Hope first came to the Archives.
“What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be—” The Not-Diana sucks in a breath. “You’re not Jon. What are you? What have you done?”
“Feel the pain of your victims.” Static builds as Jon Prime speaks, and the green glow builds. Like before, it starts with eyes, but not just Jon’s real ones, not just two or three extra ones—eye upon eye, popping into existence around him, all glowing brighter and brighter green and staring directly at the Not-Diana with an intensity that makes Tim’s entire being hurt. He squeezes his eyes shut and holds onto Martin and the students tighter.
“No, please,” the Not-Diana begs. “I’m sorry—”
“Understand it,” Jon Prime continues. The static is growing in intensity. “You have drawn out so much despair, and now, finally, it is your turn.”
“Don’t—I’m sorry,” the Not-Diana says. Then its voice changes, something higher, softer-pitched, with a roll to the R’s. “Please—don’t hurt me, please!”
Martin gasps again, and Tim realizes it’s the original Diana’s voice. The thing that stole her life is using her last words to plead for mercy, or perhaps to get one last taste of fear from them. It fills him with rage, and he guesses, from the intensity of Jon Prime’s next words that he’s thinking the same. “You have never truly understood. So much more suffering than you have ever known, and now—you will know. Ceaseless Watcher, turn your gaze upon this wretched thing.”
There’s a loud, high-pitched, discordant squeal that Tim can feel in his teeth. The green glow is so bright, so intense, that Tim can see it in detail even with his eyes—his real eyes, anyway—closed: hundreds of eyes forming the shape of a person, some floating around the head like a crown, others hovering around it like an arch, and one huge one appearing from behind, like a giant peering through the window of a house, and in between them, stretching and shifting and twisting into all sorts of humanoid shapes, a rapidly dimming glow of indigo. A roar mingled with a scream echoes through the tunnels, and then—
Silence. Darkness. Nothing but the ringing in Tim’s ears and someone hyperventilating.
He opens his eyes and eases up his grip on the others. Jon Prime stands where he was, unmoving, shoulders stiff, staring at the spot where—Tim assumes—the Not-Diana was a moment before.
“What,” Jaz says, voice shaking, “and I cannot stress this enough, the fuck.”
“We’re alive, we’re alive, oh, my God, we’re alive, I thought we were dead,” Helena whispers.
Jon Prime relaxes, at least marginally, and turns around to look at them. He seems…normal is the best way Tim can think of it. There’s nothing in his eyes but concern. “Is everyone all right?”
“I think so,” Tim says, uncertainly. His body aches like he’s been kayaking all day, and he’s still definitely more than a little terrified. The mental image of Jon being skinned alive by something pretending to be Martin isn’t going to leave his mind for a good long while. But, as Helena said, they’re alive. And nobody appears to be injured.
“Is it, um, is it safe to get our stuff and go now?” Jaz asks.
“Yes,” Jon Prime says without hesitation. “There’s nothing else out there. Not now.”
“Um. Good? Thank you?”
Jon Prime leads them out of the tunnels; Martin Prime brings up the rear. Once they’ve all emerged into the Archives, Helena turns to Tim and Martin, looking a bit hesitant. “I…think we got everything we need? We’ll, um, we’ll be back to let you know how the project goes, if that’s okay.”
“That’s fine,” Martin says softly. “We’d like to hear about it.”
“Okay. Cool. We’ll just—get our stuff and go then.” Helena pauses. “We didn’t rewind the last tape, but—”
Tim can’t help the bark of laughter that slips out. “We’ll take care of it. Don’t worry.”
Helena nods and turns away. Jaz starts to follow, then stops and looks back. “Thank you. For saving us.”
“Of course,” Jon Prime says quietly.
The two students head back into the shelves to get their things. As they go, Tim hears Helena whisper, “You were right, he is hot.”
“Oh, my God, Helena, shut up,” Jaz hisses, elbowing Helena sharply.
None of them speak, or indeed move, except for Martin Prime stepping over and resting his hand on Jon Prime’s back. Once the door closes behind the two students, though, Jon Prime whirls on Tim and Martin. “What did you do?”
Tim is about to deny that he did anything, then decides to accept blame; after all, it’s logical that it would be him, and while he doesn’t know what precipitated all of this, it can’t be that bad. Before he can, Martin speaks up in a small voice. “It wasn’t Tim. It was me.”
“Martin?” Jon Prime says in amazement, turning to look at him.
Martin crosses his arms over his chest. “It just—I know I shouldn’t have, I know what you said, but I was just—I was so angry. I felt so helpless. Knowing Jon’s in danger and we can’t do anything about it, a-and just, just the not knowing, it’s getting to me. And all I could think about was just—everything the Stranger’s done. What it did to Tim, what it’s doing to Jon, what it did to your Sasha—what it did to you. It just all boiled up. I-I went up to Artifact Storage and…and the table was there, and…”
“We told you what happened when I destroyed it,” Jon Prime says.
“I know! I just—I thought maybe if I did something different, it would…” Martin takes a deep breath. “I had Jon’s lighter, the one with the spiderweb design on it, I-I don’t know how it got in my pocket, but it was there. I thought it was a recorder at first. Then I pulled it out and—and I lit it and…it went up so fast. It was weird, it just—it caught and it burned and I had to jump back, and I was just thinking God, that was stupid when the fire went out and it was just a pile of ash and…”
“Martin.”
“I know. I know. It was stupid. You should be angry.” Martin isn’t looking at Jon Prime, though. He’s looking at Tim.
And he’s right, Tim should be angry. He wants to be angry. Martin’s expression says he wants Tim to be angry, too—no, he expects Tim to be angry.
Instead of yelling, Tim steps forward and pulls Martin into a hug.
Martin clings to him tightly, burying his face in Tim’s shoulder. Tim feels hot tears soaking into his shirt as Martin cries silently and gathers him closer, one hand cupping the back of his head and the other at the small of his back. He starts crying, too, as it finally sinks in how close a call it was. How close they both came to dying—worse, how close Martin came to dying.
“Non posso perderti anche io,” he whispers. “Please, Martin.”
“Sorry. I’m sorry,” Martin half-sobs, half-gasps. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t—I’m sorry.”
Martin doesn’t speak Italian, but he probably doesn’t need to. And Tim doesn’t say it’s okay, because it isn’t. It isn’t and they both know it. But what he does say, and what is equally true, is, “I forgive you.”
After a few minutes, they pull themselves together and separate. Tim’s face feels sticky and hot, and Martin’s is still blotchy, but they’re mostly okay. Martin snags a couple tissues off his desk and tentatively offers one to Tim, who accepts and turns to see the Primes holding one another, their foreheads resting together. Jon Prime looks…conflicted is the best way Tim can think of to phrase it. He guesses it has to do with Martin having destroyed the table and unthinkingly freed the Not-Them.
Martin evidently thinks the same thing, because he clears his throat. “I’m—I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” Jon Prime murmurs. He takes a deep breath and opens his eyes. “Well…maybe it is. This time. But I’m starting to think a lot more things are inevitable than we previously thought. Someone would have let it out eventually.” He lets his hands slide off Martin Prime’s shoulders and takes a half-step back.
Martin Prime lets him go with obvious reluctance. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine, Martin. Honest.” Jon Prime gives him a fond smile, then squares his shoulders. “Right. Let’s see about finding your Jon now.”
A guilty look crosses Martin’s face. “You don’t—I mean, after—you’re not tired or—or drained?”
“No,” Jon Prime says quietly. “I’m feeling rather…full, actually.”
“You—oh.” Tim swallows. “That was, ah—that was pretty—it was a lot. Did you know you could do that?”
“Yes and no. I’ve done it before, just…not here. The first time was Peter Lukas, and it was actually in the Lonely’s domain rather than, well, the real world. All the other times I’ve done that were after the world ended.” Jon Prime huffs. “To be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure it would work. Especially down in the tunnels, even with the trapdoor still open.”
“It was looking over the Not-Diana’s shoulder,” Tim says slowly, remembering the light show. “It was—it Saw, all right.”
Martin touches Tim’s shoulder softly, almost hesitantly; Tim reaches up to grab it and holds on tight. Martin Prime’s lips are in a flat line. “What would you have done if it hadn’t worked, Jon?”
“Tried to lure it deeper into the tunnels,” Jon Prime says, obviously trying for casual, but there’s a worried look in his eyes again, like he knows Martin Prime isn’t going to like his answer, which he probably isn’t. “Draw it away from all of you, give you a chance to escape. Leitner’s still down there somewhere with that damned book of his, he’d—probably have trapped it in the end. It would have been all right.”
Martin shivers. “She—it said it was going to wear me for the Dance.”
“It said what?” Jon Prime growls.
Tim hesitates. “Do—actually, do you want our statements?”
For a second, Jon Prime looks like he’s considering that, then shakes his head. “No. No, not right now. I don’t want to overdo it, and that was…a lot, considering I’m not quite as close to the Eye as I was. I at least need to siphon off a bit of power first. Let me take a look for your Jon.”
He rolls his head from one side to another, squares his shoulders, and takes another deep breath, closing his eyes. Again there’s the rush of static, again the glow, sudden, swift, and bright. Tim tries to stop himself from seeing it, but it’s too much and he’s too tired, and then it’s not just the Eye glowing on Jon Prime but all his other marks as well, some barely visible beneath the green and others impossible to miss. Faint hints of old marks still cling to Martin Prime, and Tim doesn’t want to look at Martin, doesn’t want to expose his trauma, but Martin wraps his arms around Tim from behind like he knows Tim’s about to collapse, which he probably does because it’s Martin, and Tim clings to his arms and closes his eyes tightly, but he can still see the green…
And then the static rushes out, as suddenly as it came, and the glow fades. Tim gasps as the last of his energy drains away, and he sags against Martin’s chest. God, he’s worn out.
“So?” he says tiredly. “Where is he?”
The look in Jon Prime’s eyes—mingled sympathy and fear—tells Tim the answer, even before he says, “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know,” Tim repeats. “After all that—you still don’t know?”
“I’m not omnipotent, Tim. I never was, even after the world ended. There will always be things that are beyond my knowledge, things I can’t just see. Blind spots.” Jon Prime hesitates. “I can—there are four that I can see. He’s in one of them, I can guess that much, I just—don’t know which one. He might be at the Waxworks, the one I was held at. He might also be in the Trophy Room—it’s shielded from the Eye, they’re still using it. They may have only stopped in our time because I questioned Sarah Baldwin directly. He might be in Wales—the Gwydir Forest—h-have you listened to that tape yet?”
“No,” Tim and Martin say in unison.
“I suppose it’s in the ones Basira gave you. Somewhere. Or Elias may have had it, I suppose, he’s the one who sent it to me, but…anyway. That’s a blind spot as well. I-I thought it had burned to the ground, but evidently something survived.”
Tim waits for a moment for him to continue, then prompts, “And?”
“Hmm?”
“You said there were four you could see. Or—not see. Where’s the fourth?”
Jon Prime winces. “You won’t like it.”
The bottom drops out of Tim’s stomach, and he’s even more thankful for Martin holding him up. “Covent Garden Theater.”
“Yes. It—th-they must still be using it, Tim. I’m so sorry.”
Martin’s arms tighten around Tim, and he gives a ragged sigh. “We—we can’t. It’s too dangerous, you’re right. W-we can’t take the risk. If we pick the wrong one…either he dies, or we do.”
Tim closes his eyes for a moment. He wonders how he has any tears left after the evening he’s just had. “But you can’t—is he okay?”
“He’s…alive.” Jon Prime inhales quickly. “Scared. M-maybe not the most scared he’s ever been, but definitely in the top five. I know what they did to me, but I can’t tell you for sure if that’s what they’re doing to him. It’s too…muted. Hidden. I have a strong suspicion that the only reason I can see as much as I can is because in some ways, he is still me. We’ve still got some connection, so it’s like looking for a part of myself. But I can tell you he’s alive.”
“I guess that’ll have to do,” Tim mutters.
“At least for the weekend,” Martin says. “We—we can regroup on Monday. Ask Sasha—oh, God, Sasha—”
“Left just after you did,” Tim assures him. “Basira invited her out for drinks.”
Martin Prime, who’s been unusually silent, gives a small laugh. “I always kind of wondered if they’d have been friends.”
Tim tries to stand on his own, but his knees buckle and Martin catches him. “Ugh. Think we can take one of those unmarked tapes home?”
“Yeah, sit down and I’ll grab a couple.” Martin eases Tim into his chair and brushes a light kiss against his forehead, seemingly without noticing, before heading over to the neatly sorted piles of tapes. A moment later he comes back and offers Tim his hand like nothing happened. “Come on. Let’s go home. You need food, a statement, and bed, not necessarily in that order.”
“No, that order sounds perfect, actually,” Tim mumbles. He lets Martin pull him to his feet and leans against him heavily, then looks at the Primes. “Thank you, by the way. For…everything.”
Jon Prime gives him a look of understanding. “I only wish it could have been more.”