Daffy nearly had a panic attack when he got back to the Archives—thanks to Max—and found them completely deserted. No sign of Tweety, no sign of Jonny or Basira having dropped in, no sign of anything…and, crucial to his panic, no sign of the Cramped Coffin. Had Statler come back to take it away, disappointed that Daffy’s venture hadn’t kept him there? Had someone else stopped by for it?
As it turned out, yes, but not someone malicious. According to Rosie, the only person willing to condescend to speak to him, Bugs had simply had the the coffin taken to Artifact Storage “where it belongs”. Daffy had attempted to head up there and been firmly and less than politely rebuffed. He wasn’t authorized to go into Artifact Storage, especially after the “previous incident”, and no amount of pleading that the coffin had been delivered to him made so much as a dent in anyone’s armor. Bugs hadn’t even bothered coming out of his office, assuming he was in there. And Tweety simply wasn’t in yet.
“You haven’t exactly been here to inspire him to be on time,” Rosie pointed out. Her tone of voice couldn’t be taken as anything but judgmental.
Daffy was more shaken than he wanted to admit. He’d got a headache traveling through the Distortion’s corridors…again…and been in a little longer than necessary because he’d insisted they drop Alex off first. And it had apparently been three days, it now being a Monday morning. He just hoped Alex had got home faster, but it wasn’t like he could reach out to him. Like Jessica, he’d never been one for cell phones, and he hadn’t thought to get the phone numbers of…well, any of the people he interacted with, really. They turned up when he needed them and that was that.
Of course, with a little effort he could probably have Known Alex’s number, but he’d used most of his energy banishing the Dark and the rest of it holding onto Alex’s sanity. He needed…something. No, not something. He needed a statement. Shame he hadn’t tried to take the Duke’s, but he was fairly powerful if not fully in Rayner’s class—it might have taken too much energy out of him. No, better to have saved that for crowing and get his strength back like this.
He was just emerging from his office to go rooting through the stacks for a nice, fat, juicy one—maybe something about the Buried, he thought, maybe if he sank his teeth into that it would help him the next time he managed to break into Artifact Storage and venture down into the coffin—when he heard the door open.
“I wath wondering when you’d get in,” he said distractedly.
There was a short pause, and the voice that spoke was not the one he’d expected. “How’d you know I was coming?”
Daffy turned quickly to see Basira standing just inside the door to the Archives, awkwardly clutching something in one hand and looking both suspicious and worried. He tried to smile. “Actually, I thought you were Tweety. Hi, Bathira, how are you? How’th Daithy?”
“Better,” Basira said cautiously. “I think. She’s still…she’s not herself.”
“It’th going to take time. She wath in the Buried for monthth.” Daffy rubbed his face and muttered, “I don’t even know how she got in there.”
“Don’t ask.” Basira’s voice sharpened to a point. “She doesn’t need that on top of everything else.”
“I wathn’t going to athk,” Daffy protested. “Not unlethth she offerth. What kind of a monthter do you think I am? Don’t anthwer that,” he added, noticing the tension in her shoulders. Something inside him slumped. Of course Basira thought he was a monster. Why wouldn’t she? She’d probably heard about everything he’d done…and he had come back from the dead, more or less. If he wasn’t a monster, he was probably one of the closest things to it this side of the Atlantic.
Something in Basira’s eyes flickered, and then her face softened. “I don’t think you’re a monster.”
Daffy sighed. “You don’t have to lie to me for your grandfather’th thake. Or for mine. I know that’th not true.”
“Yeah, well…you can stop that any time you want. Daisy is.”
“Sure.” Daffy cocked his head at her. “Tho. I’m trying not to read your mind here, but I am curiouth ath to why you’re thtopping by the Archiveth thith early in the morning.”
“It’s not that early.”
“It ith when you’re not working and are up until two in the morning dealing with thomeone elthe’th nightmareth,” Daffy pointed out, then flinched. “Thorry.”
Basira shook her head. It was obvious she wasn’t willing to forgive him, or even to really accept his apology, but she also wasn’t quite willing to hurt his feelings by telling him so. Or maybe it wasn’t obvious at all, maybe the Eye was just taking fiendish delight in giving him that information. Whichever the case, it was kind of moot. “You didn’t do it on purpose.”
Daffy wasn’t too sure about that, actually, but he let it pass. “Anyway. You thtill haven’t thaid why you’re here.”
“I drew the short straw,” Basira said dryly. She folded her arms over her chest. Daffy’s eyes were drawn, almost involuntarily, to what she held in her hand—a folder. “Alex rang me up after he got home the other day. Said you’d raised a couple of interesting points on your…adventure, whatever it was…and needed some help tracking down the info. We recruited Jonny and the three of us spent a day or two digging.”
“Pleathe don’t be tho vague,” Daffy begged. “I’m trying really hard not to read your mind, and if you keep teathing me, I’m going to do thomething we’ll both regret. Jutht tell me what it ith you were looking into.”
To her credit, Basira did look a little chagrined, but she didn’t otherwise react. “Right. So you told Alex that there are three stages to a Toon’s ending—dead, gone, and forgotten, right? And you also told him Foghorn Leghorn had been murdered. Jonny confirmed you’d told him that, too, and I remembered you’d been asking about him but he hadn’t been on the registry. So we went to look him up. Can’t confirm he’s dead with no body, and there’s no grave registered to him—”
“Bugth buried him under the name Jurgen Leitner. Thaid it wouldn’t arouthe thuthpicion.”
“Oh. I guess that makes sense.” Basira neither looked nor sounded as if she believed that. She rallied and continued. “If he is dead, then he’s also gone—not making more cartoons, that’s what you said, right? What Alex was worried about was the forgotten part. So that’s what we were looking into. Took us a couple days, but…we were able to find a record of everything that’s been…Vaulted. We found evidence that at some point in the last few months or so, they locked up over a hundred cartoons. A hundred and thirty, to be exact.”
Daffy frowned. “Not jutht Foghorn Leghorn’th, then. He wath only in twenty-nine cartoonth all told, not counting thpecialth and movieth.”
“That’s just it.” Basira waved the folder at him. “Foghorn Leghorn’s cartoons aren’t the ones that have been Vaulted. He’s not the one they’re trying to forget.”
Daffy’s blood ran cold. He didn’t need to ask, he could guess—but he didn’t know, and the vault was something he couldn’t…the Vault belonged to one of the other Fears, he’d never thought about that before, but it was impenetrable to him. He couldn’t See into it, couldn’t Know whose cartoons or films had been sealed in its depths, and he couldn’t be sure even if he could count.
The static took hold of his tongue before he could stop himself. “Whothe cartoonth have they plathed in the Vault?”
Basira met his eyes unflinchingly, and he saw the hostility in them and knew he fully deserved it, even as she answered. “Yours.”