Gerard knocks twice, then cautiously eases open the door between the two adjoining rooms. Gertrude sits at the small, wobbly table in the corner, papers spread across it and her laptop in front of her, a cigarillo dangling from her lips and an intent look on her face.
“Gerard,” she greets him without looking up from her work. “How’s your head?”
“Best you’ve ever had,” Gerard quips as he steps through and closes the door behind him.
“I find that extremely difficult to believe. I’ve known some very talented men in my time.” Gertrude glances up to look at him over her glasses with one raised eyebrow. Gerard isn’t sure whether to laugh or gag. “I also don’t believe for a moment that you’re interested in women.”
“You’re not a woman. You’re a force of nature.” Gerard reaches into his pocket and pulls out his pack of cigarettes. He’s down to his last two; Woodbines don’t seem to be available in Overall Patches, Oklahoma, population would be twelve but Earl’s out getting petrol, so he’s going to have to either switch brands, at least temporarily, or stop smoking until he gets back to London. Actually, that might be the better option. It’s only a couple of months, he can do that. Maybe. “Can I borrow your lighter?”
Gertrude tosses it to him and waits for him to light up before going back to her work and asking, “Is your headache better?”
Gerard nods. “Yeah, the rest helped, thanks. What time is it?”
“Late,” Gertrude says, which isn’t remotely helpful. In the year and a half he’s been Gertrude’s helper—servant really, if he’s being honest—he’s learned two things: that her internal clock runs on Greenwich Mean Time regardless of where she is in the world, and that every task is urgent and immediate. When she says late, she could mean it’s close to midnight here, or she could mean it’s close to midnight in London but barely past dark here, or she could mean the plane she wanted to take to their next destination is closing its doors after boarding as they speak and this is somehow Gerard’s fault.
He decides he’s still too tired to bother guessing. “Late as in ‘all the restaurants are closed’, or late as in ‘the late great Harry Houdini, Avatar of the Spiral’?”
The look she gives him this time lingers, giving him the full force of her exasperation. Gerard is well aware that she could easily kill him, and probably will when she’s done with him, but right now he’s banking on her needing him too much to slit his throat and leave his body under the mattress, even if this is the kind of place where that probably happens once a week. “Houdini never encountered any of the Fourteen.”
“Knew him personally, did you?”
“It’s half past two in the morning, Central Daylight Time.” Gertrude shifts her cigarillo to the other hand and exhales heavily. “I’ve booked our tickets for Washington. I don’t believe there will be much to discover there, but I do want to see if there have been any new developments.”
Gerard tries to remember if she’s said anything about Washington before, then remembers. “The Usher Foundation, right?”
“Washington State. Not D.C. There are one hundred twenty-seven geographic regions in the United States named in some way after George Washington. Those in power are somewhat prone to romanticizing the past and ancestor worship.”
“Can’t think of any other nations like that,” Gerard says dryly. “Except maybe all of them.”
Gertrude rubs her forehead. “We’ll be flying into the Seattle airport, but our actual destination is something of a drive from there.”
“And…we’re looking for what, exactly? You said new developments. Is Seattle, Washington somehow important to the Unknowing?”
“Seattle, Washington is important to very little,” Gertrude says dryly. “But there is a town about an hour away that was the intended site of the Sunken Sky.”
Gertrude’s tone of voice isn’t particularly ominous—she utters those two words with the same weight as the rest of her statement—but the chill that runs up Gerard’s spine and the way his stomach twists itself into knots tells him that it’s probably something to be afraid of. And the fact that the eyes tattooed on his shoulders, and only the ones on his shoulders, suddenly feel like someone is pressing a hot compress to them tells him what that something is. “Does that…have something to do with the Buried?”
“Very good, Gerard,” Gertrude says, and she does actually sound a bit impressed. “The Sunken Sky is, or was, I suppose, the Buried’s ritual.”
Gerard almost swallows his cigarette.
Several responses come to his mind, at least half of which are profanity, but he can’t spit any of them out just yet, mostly because he’s too busy coughing and choking. Also panicking. That’s one entity he’s been incredibly thankful they’ve not encountered since he’s been working with Gertrude, but if she wants to walk straight into a ritual, for God’s sake…
“The Buried?” he finally chokes out. “We’re going to encounter the Buried? Fuck that.”
“We will be extremely unlikely to encounter it,” Gertrude assures him. “I was able to disrupt the Sunken Sky, let me see, six years ago. It should be quite some time before it can be attempted again. I simply want to see how much power the Buried has regained since then.” She considers for a moment. “Not that it’s likely to make another attempt in the same spot, but still.”
“Wait. Wait.” Gerard’s brain is beginning to catch up with the conversation, and he doesn’t like it. “Are you telling me it’s not just the Stranger? The Buried has a ritual as well?”
Gertrude looks slightly exasperated. “Of course. All of the Fourteen have rituals. Did you really think it was only the Stranger that wanted to come into our world?”
When she puts it like that, it makes sense. It does not, however, make Gerard feel any better. “So, what, they all just take turns? Go in some kind of order?”
“Hardly. I would imagine devotees of all the entities are constantly working to bring their masters through.” Gertrude takes another drag on her cigarillo. Gerard kind of wants to take it out of her fingers and bury it between her eyes.
“How can you be so calm about this?” he demands. “You’re telling me we’re focusing on turning back the Unknowing while some other entity could just swoop in and come through first?”
“Really, Gerard, what do you take me for, a fool?” Gertrude asks, glaring at him over her glasses.
Gerard doesn’t back down. “Yes. Next question.”
She ignores him, as she’s wont to do. “We are focusing on the Unknowing because it is, from my research, the nearest to completion. It is also the one I am most sure of the…shape it will take, and if I am correct, it will be the most destructive of the rituals even if it fails. We need to delay it as much as possible.” She shrugs. “Besides. Most, not all, of the other Fourteen have tried in relatively recent years. I told you, it can take centuries to build up enough power to attempt to bring one of the Fourteen fully into our world.”
“How do you know they’ve tried?”
“Because I’ve disrupted them, of course.”
“Of course.” Gerard takes another drag on his cigarette, hoping it’ll calm his nerves, and turns this information over in his mind for a moment.
Actually, knowing that particular fact makes a lot of things make much more sense. They’ve all heard the stories about the Archivist, and the more he’s traveled with her, the more he’s come to realize they aren’t exaggerated—if anything, they’re understated. Gerard’s desire to keep Martin and Melanie as far away from Gertrude as possible has been as much rooted in his fear that she’ll see Martin, with his Beholding powers that get stronger by the day, as something to be eliminated with ruthless efficiency as it is in his fear that they’ll get themselves killed trying to help. Knowing that she’s actually got a purpose, that she’s just trying to keep any one of the Fourteen from coming fully into this world and taking it over…that actually makes him relax somewhat. It doesn’t change the danger they’ll be in from her if she does find out about them and try to recruit them to help—especially Martin, who’s already part of the Institute; the last thing he wants is for her to decide she needs an official assistant and requisition him from the library—but at least she’s not likely to think Martin a monster and destroy him.
After all, she’s not a Hunter.
“I believe they’re all set to happen relatively close to one another,” Gertrude continues. She flicks the ash off the end of her cigarillo in the direction of the ashtray. “The Dance is coming up sooner than I would like, but it’s been over a hundred and fifty years since it was last attempted. The Dark’s ritual is in the works, I’m sure, but it hasn’t been gathering as quickly as the Stranger, so I believe there’s still time. I’ve not found any details on a ritual for Terminus—I’m not altogether certain there is one. And from what we’ve found here, the Hunt doesn’t seem keen to start the Eternal Chase anytime soon.”
“You’ve disrupted the other ten, then?”
“Well. Eight of them, at any rate. I believe the Pu Songling has some information on the Risen War, so I’ve asked Zhang Xiaoling to forward on a few statements that may tell us more—they’ll be waiting for us in Chicago, I hope, which is our next stop after Bucoda. The Rite of the Watcher’s Crown is still upcoming as well.”
Gerard stills. As evenly as he can, he says, “I beg your pardon?”
Please don’t let it be what it sounds like. Please don’t let it be what he thinks it is. Please. Please.
“The Rite of the Watcher’s Crown,” Gertrude repeats. She doesn’t sound particularly concerned. “I’ve no idea when it will occur, come to think of it, but I’m prepared to disrupt it as well.” She snorts. “At any rate, I won’t be a part of it.”
The last of Gerard’s hope rolls itself into a ball and dies. “It’s the Eye’s ritual.”
Gertrude nods sharply. “Correct. It’s nothing to concern yourself with at the moment. As I said, I’ve already got preparations in place for that, and we need to focus on the Unknowing.”
“Yeah.” Gerard stares at the end of his cigarette. Dimly, he wonders which of the Fourteen the fear currently unfolding in his chest belongs to.
Because all of his fears about Martin’s safety, should Gertrude ever meet him, return seven times over. Martin—bright, shining Martin—is Marked at least as heavily as a lot of the other things they’ve encountered. Whatever the Rite of the Watcher’s Crown is, and it’s obvious Gertrude has no interest in explaining right now, he’s likely to be swept up in it, willingly or unwillingly.
No. No, not willingly. Martin has dedicated years of his life to slowing the influence of the Fourteen on the world and protecting people from them, even without knowing about the rituals. He’d sooner scoop out his own eyes and burn them in one of their Leitner pots than willingly assist in reshaping the world for any of the Fourteen to take it over.
But what if he doesn’t know he’s doing it? And what if he just gets too close and gets caught in it without his consent?
Gerard swallows hard. He’ll have to pry the details out of Gertrude at some point. Maybe once they’re back in London he can ask again, or sneak a look at her notes or something. He needs to find out the details, because he needs to be able to warn Martin, keep him safe. Probably Melanie, too, if he’s being honest. Not that she’s as tightly bound to the Eye as Martin, but she’s in it enough, and there’s still a risk. Especially if she puts herself out there to try and deflect its attention from Martin.
It does, though, make him reconsider his promise. He hates himself for it, but he cannot introduce Martin and Melanie to Gertrude until he knows for sure what the Rite of the Watcher’s Crown is and what will be needed for it. He can’t risk her taking Martin out rather than chance him starting it off, with or without his knowledge. The best thing he can do for them is to keep them well away from her. Or so he tells himself.
He also can’t linger over this for too long or she’ll get suspicious, and if she gets suspicious she’ll try to compel him to tell her what he’s thinking so hard about. And even setting aside the fact that he knows she hates doing that, and she’ll remind him of that and ask him why he can’t just be honest with her without making her go that far and he’ll have to apologize a thousand times and it’ll make his headache come back and God, he hates that he’s once again trapped under the thumb of a woman who puts him through this exhausting level of mental gymnastics—even setting all that aside, he definitely does not want her to know what he’s thinking about right now.
“But this…Sunken Sky thing,” he says instead. “That’s definitely done with? I can’t get too close to the Buried. It won’t let me leave alive this time.”
It’s the right thing to say, because he sees the flicker of interest in Gertrude’s eyes. Call him fucking Scheherazade, because he’s just bought himself a little more time before she discards or kills him. “You can tell me about that later. After we’ve left Washington. I don’t believe there will be much of the Buried remaining there, but I suppose there’s always a risk.” She stubs out her cigarillo. “I want to see how much power has gathered there since I disrupted the ritual. It may give us some indication of how long it takes to rebuild, on average, and that may give us a better idea of how long we have to turn back the Unknowing.”
“Sounds great,” Gerard says. “When do we leave?”
“Our flight departs in two hours.”
“That doesn’t give us much time to get to the airport. Or to get through the security checkpoints once we arrive.”
“No. So I would suggest you gather your things. Quickly. We need to check out immediately.”
Luckily for her, Gerard is used to this. Old habits die hard. He walks into the other room and unplugs his phone—the only thing he’s taken out of his bag since lying down. There’s a text from Melanie, sent in their group chat several hours ago. [Trim your feeble lamps, my brothers.]
Christ, is that today? Gerard checks the date, and yes, it’s the twenty-third of September. As he looks, a reply comes through from Martin. [Let your lower lights be burning.]
Gerard quickly taps out his own response: [Send your gleam upon the waves.] That done, he switches his phone off and stows it in his bag along with the charger, feeling slightly guilty that he isn’t explaining things further to them. They understand…he hopes…or they will someday.
Oh, Martin, Melanie, I’m so sorry.
He slings his bag over his shoulder, palms the room key, and steps back into the other room, where Gertrude is still gathering her papers back into their folder. She looks up, evidently startled; he looks her dead in the eye and lies. “I’m ready.”