Jon was trying so hard to be sensible and brave.
After Elias had lectured—no, not lectured, scolded, like they were a pair of naughty children—him and Melanie for their rash behavior in going to the Trophy Room and forbidden them to do any more field research without authorization and proper supervision, he’d been making an effort to actually do his job. Melanie had thrown her nervous energy into trying to figure out how Martin, who was apparently the only one that ever paid attention to his own systems, had organized the Archives, while Jon had taken over the research into the log book from Breekon and Hope. He couldn’t tell the difference between the real and fake handwriting any better than Melanie could, but he figured looking up each and every delivery source and recipient would help better than impulsively throwing himself at desperate chances.
It was hard to stay focused, though. He couldn’t seem to stop himself from pinning all his hopes on each new name he found, and being crushed when it turned out to be closed or completely innocuous or thoroughly unrelated. He kept wandering to the statements, even the fake ones, barely interested in the follow-up anymore but still trying because maybe this one would be the key to the Unknowing’s location. And it was harder and harder to keep himself from going off on an impulsive adventure. Only Tim’s snapping and Sasha’s nagging kept him—or Melanie—confined to the Archives.
But Tim had called out today. He sounded like he needed it, but he also sounded calmer than he had since before Martin went missing, so Jon had had no problem accepting. Still…it meant one fewer person to keep him from doing something impulsive and stupid.
He tried to distract himself by going to the breakroom to get cocoa for everyone. He didn’t even know if Basira drank hot chocolate, but he wasn’t making tea, that was Martin’s thing and he refused to contemplate the idea that he wouldn’t be back to do it someday. It took some concentration to juggle four mugs at once, but he managed it and headed back to the Archives after longer than he would have liked. Sasha was at her desk, Basira in her usual corner, but Melanie was nowhere to be seen. Jon left a mug at Basira’s elbow—whether she’d notice or not he had no idea—and set another on Sasha’s desk, then looked towards the climate-controlled document storage room.
“She went to the bathroom,” Sasha said, startling Jon so much he almost dropped both mugs he was still holding. She reached up and took Melanie’s from him, then set it smoothly on her desk. “She’ll be right back…uh, I think she left something for you on your desk a minute ago, but I don’t know what.”
If it had been anyone else, Jon might have been apprehensive about what was on his desk. But it was Melanie, and he knew he could trust her. Clutching his mug of cocoa tightly like a talisman, he headed into his office to see what was going on.
It was, probably unsurprisingly, a tape. On top of it was a sticky note with Melanie’s handwriting scrawled across it: Think this is the one you didn’t want to record last week.
Jon shut the door to his office, then sat down and slowly moved the note to one side. Sure enough, the tape was labeled in Martin’s handwriting, a slight lefty slant to his otherwise precise, even handwriting. It simply had the file number, 9971402, and the words Internal Use Only, with no further identification. That wasn’t necessarily unusual; even Gertrude’s labels had rarely made sense to anyone but her, and they really only needed to know what tapes went with what folders. But Martin usually added a word or two to jog their memories if they were just pulling the tapes, and he always wrote the speaker’s name underneath the file number. This one he hadn’t. It was almost like he hadn’t wanted anyone to listen to it…or maybe that he did, that he wanted Jon to be so curious he would just listen without investigating.
That wasn’t like Martin, to tempt him. Martin was usually extremely careful to keep Jon from falling further into the Eye’s clutches. Maybe he’d just been in a hurry.
Still…Jon wanted to listen to it. And it had nothing to do with the Beholding. He wanted to listen to it because Martin had recorded it. He wanted to hear Martin’s voice, to imagine him sitting on the other side of the desk reading it, to picture the way his face relaxed and his shoulders straightened and his beautiful green eyes seemed to shine brighter than ever when he spoke the words, and wow, Jon was smitten. If he hadn’t realized how hard he’d fallen for Martin before, the fact that he was thinking about something as objectively both horrifying and terrifying as the statements that led them further and further into the clutches of an evil otherworldly being and all he could think of was how pretty Martin looked in those moments would be a pretty big tell.
He took a deep breath and popped the tape into the recorder, then hit PLAY.
For a moment, there was nothing, just a faint rustling. Then Martin’s voice came out, shaking slightly. “Martin Blackwood, Archival Assistant at the Magnus Institute, recording statement number 9971402, statement of Police Constable Thad Williams. Statement given fourteenth of February, 1997. File marked ‘For Internal Use Only.’ Statement begins.”
As Jon listened, he heard the change in Martin’s voice, the way he relaxed and sank into the statement, the way it took him over and let him speak calmly and coherently. It sent an ache through his entire body, largely centered around the heart, as much because of the fact that it was Martin’s voice as it was the implications of what that meant. He leaned his chin into his hands and stared vacantly at the tape recorder, listening as the statement spooled out, or at least the lead-up to it—the statement-giver seemed to mostly be complaining about his idiotic bully of a nephew, who was likely going to end up either in prison or the victim of an organ-harvesting scam. Jon was willing to bet this would end up being a Flesh statement, especially after the statement said the boy had gone missing without warning.
Then he heard the words Jurgen Leitner, and he sat up and paid closer attention.
It only took a couple more sentences for Jon’s heart to leap into his throat as the truth struck him like a thunderbolt. The Leitner being discussed was his. This was the young man whose name he’d never been able to remember, the one who’d saved his life inadvertently, and someone had made a statement about his disappearance and the search for him. He wasn’t surprised that the constable had found neither his nephew nor the book, but…
But he’d known about it, too. He’d known Leitner existed, and what the books meant. If Jon had known that…would it have made a difference?
“Statement ends.” There was a quick intake of breath from the other end, and when Martin’s voice came back, it was shaking again. “It took a little bit of, uh, I had to use some sleight of hand to keep Jon from recording this one, but…Jon, if you’re listening to this tape, I’m sorry, but I didn’t think you were ready for it. You just got back, and with everything else you’ve been through lately, I figured…I thought maybe I’d give you some time before you have to think about this. I’m hoping I’m sitting there with you for this, because I think you’re going to need the support. If I’m not there…well, come find me if you need me.”
Another deep breath, and this time, when Martin spoke, it was in the same tone of voice Jon had noticed him using for most of his summaries. “Investigating statements marked ‘internal use only’ is always a bit trickier than usual. Most of the time there’s some kind of nondisclosure agreement surrounding the events, or it’s something that was given to us in the nature of a priest’s confessional—something that was never discussed outside the Institute—which means that we have to be careful about any follow-up we do, and it’s naturally going to be more cursory. In this case, though, the incident predated the Freedom of Information Act by three years, and was even before the election that made that a campaign promise, so it wasn’t technically a Section Thirty-One case, which gave me a little more leeway into the research. Still, it’s been twenty years, so I knew there’d only be so much I could find. And I wasn’t about to let anyone else help with this one. I figured the fewer people who knew about it until Jon got back, the better.
“I got lucky, though. I went down to Bournemouth and made contact with P.C. Zacharias Smith, who’s now the captain of the entire precinct. He confirmed that Thomas Warner is still considered a missing person and the case is still open. Mr. Williams retired from the force about five years after this incident, but…well, there aren’t a whole lot of care facilities that deal with his issues and will take people under a certain age, and it just so happens that he turned out to be in the same place as…my mother, despite it being at the other end of the country, so it wasn’t hard for me to get in to talk to him, especially since he never gets—got, I guess—visitors. He was dying when I went in to see him, but his mind was sharp enough, or at least as sharp as it needed to be. He told me a bit more about his conversation with the ‘bright young spark’ who set him on the right path, and he was really concerned about him. I’m glad I could ease his distress enough to let him know that Jon was alive and well, and that I promised I’d look after him.
“He died before I could also assure him the book wouldn’t ever hurt another child again, but I hope it will comfort anyone listening to this tape to know that A Guest for Mister Spider was the first Leitner my siblings and I found and destroyed when we decided to start burning them. I didn’t regret burning it then, and I regret it even less now.”
Click.
Jon pressed both his hands over his mouth, staring at the tape recorder, which had suddenly become very blurry. Hot, wet tears dripped onto his thumbs and he didn’t even try to stop them.
He didn’t remember. He couldn’t remember any officers he’d spoken to about what had happened, or either of them telling him they believed him, any more than he’d been able to remember Thomas Warner’s name. To suddenly find out that one of them had believed him, that someone had known all along he wasn’t making it up, was almost more than he could stand.
And the gentleness in Martin’s voice when he spoke about it almost broke him. Martin had recognized right away that it was Jon in the statement, had gone out of his way to validate and reassure Jon that it wasn’t a figment of his imagination, and then even after Jon had returned, he’d kept him from having to confront it before he was ready.
Come find me if you need me.
Jon did. He needed him more badly than he had ever needed anyone or anything in his life. And he was trying to find him, but…maybe he was going about it the wrong way. Maybe he needed help.
The question was going to be how he found that help.
It took him an hour to figure it out, most of which was spent panicking over whether he should be doing this in the first place or should ask anyone else to help him with this part. Once he’d worked it out, though, he waited until the others had gone to lunch, then shrugged into the jumper he’d pilfered from Martin headed down into the tunnels.
He hadn’t been down in them since the first day he’d been back at the Institute, since the team had shoved him and Martin down to debrief one another. They were still cool and slightly oppressive, but they also felt…private, in a way very little else in Jon’s world did anymore. As long as he didn’t spend too long down here, it might be a good way to keep himself from going completely round the bend if he took a bit of time to sit and miss Martin in solitude.
First, though, he had a task to complete. For a moment he thought about venturing further into the tunnels, but he very quickly realized that would be stupid; he had no idea what direction to head, and if he missed his target he would never forgive himself.
Instead, he sat on the bottom step and waited.
He had no idea how long it had been—minutes? Hours?—before he heard the soft sound of footsteps approaching. Jon took a deep, silent breath, got to his feet, counted mentally to three, and switched on his torch.
“Daisy,” he said, fighting to keep his voice even.
Daisy Tonner stood a few feet away, frozen like a deer in the headlights—or perhaps more accurately like a wolf in the headlights: still, but with her every muscle tensed for action, her eyes cold with anger and menace, her gaze fixed directly on him. She hadn’t even flinched away from the sudden light.
“What do you want?” she growled.
Jon swallowed hard. She still terrified him, and he didn’t doubt for a minute that she would kill him if given the opportunity. The stairs at his back were his only asset right now—the stairs, the door, and the knowledge that she didn’t know for sure that nobody outside would hear if she tore his throat out here and now. There was no sense in beating about the bush; he’d need to make his case as quickly and concisely as possible. “I want you to find Martin.”
“I’m not your bloody errand boy.” Daisy crossed her arms over her chest and glowered. “Bouchard might have me on a leash, but that doesn’t mean I’m just going to fetch and carry and send messages to—”
“No, you don’t understand, he’s missing,” Jon interrupted, which was dangerous, but so was letting her think he just wanted her to do menial tasks about the Archives. “We were out on the street in front of the Institute and we got chased down by a delivery van—Breekon and Hope, the, the same ones that you told me about i-in your statement. They kidnapped him.”
Daisy snorted, sounding unimpressed. “Go to the police.”
“I am going to the police. It’s the Magnus Institute, that’s an automatic Section Thirty-One.”
“Just because you’re right about that doesn’t mean I’d even be the one who was going to investigate it.”
“I thought you were the only sectioned detective right now. Besides…” Jon gestured helplessly. “What am I supposed to do? I can’t…i-it’s been over a month. I know Elias has had you doing…other things. But I can’t just—if I go to the police now they’ll want to know why I waited so long. And you’re the only one I…”
The word trust curled up and dried out on his tongue. He didn’t trust her, couldn’t trust her. She’d tried to kill him for no reason, on no evidence, with no witnesses, and the only reason she hadn’t was because Basira had convinced her to hold off for now. Neither Basira nor Martin was there to protect or save him. If he screamed, he was pretty sure Melanie would come down, but he didn’t know which one would prevail in a fight and he refused to let anyone else get hurt in his place if he could help it.
He stood his ground, with a superhuman effort, and met Daisy’s eyes. “You owe me.”
“Owe you?” Daisy spat, and Jon would have taken a step backwards if there had been anything other than stairs behind him. “How the fuck do I owe you anything?”
For an answer, Jon traced the scar across his throat with two fingers. Six weeks meant it had faded to the point that it was nothing more than a slightly raised red line; he occasionally found himself rubbing it with his thumb like a worry stone, but at least it didn’t hurt anymore. Daisy’s eyes locked onto it, and there was something…hungry in them that Jon didn’t like.
It occurred to him, fleetingly, that the reason he didn’t like it was less because she was staring at his throat with that look and more because it was uncomfortably close to the way Martin looked at the statements on occasion.
Forcing the thought back, he said, a bit hoarsely, “I didn’t go to the police about what happened, even after what Elias said. You know I have that on tape. They would have had to believe me, and they would have…”
That fast, Daisy’s eyes snapped back up to Jon’s, blazing with anger. “You think I should be fucking grateful that you, what, saved my life?”
“Not yours. Basira’s.” Jon was aware that the beam of the torch was trembling, but he didn’t bother making himself stop. “I-I wouldn’t have, I don’t…but, but if that tape ever got into the hands of the police, Basira would be just as liable as you. That’s the only reason I didn’t say anything to the police, but I also didn’t tell Elias I had it. I gave him one less thread to hang on you, one less—one less thing to hold over Basira.”
Daisy tensed. Jon was pretty sure he’d said entirely the wrong thing and was about to die. “Why do you care so much? Don’t like other people taking your toys?”
“He’s not a toy.” For just a moment, anger overcame Jon’s fear, and he bristled at Daisy. “He’s the most important person in the world to me. I care about him more than anything, and not knowing where he is is killing me. I just—I need him to be safe, and you’re the only person I can think of who might be able to find him, if Elias hasn’t by now.” The anger left him all at once, and he added more softly, “Please, Daisy. It was me they wanted, and they took him instead. How would you feel if Basira was kidnapped in your place?”
Daisy stared at Jon hard. He held his breath, realizing he’d probably said too much, but waited it out. He’d cast his dice. All he could do now was see how they landed.
After long enough that a cold bead of sweat wended its way down the full length of his spine, she gave a sigh that sounded somewhere between exasperated, angry, and resigned. “I can’t make any promises. But I’ll do what I can.”
Jon exhaled hard. The torch drooped in his hand. “Thank you.”
“Whatever. Get out of my way. I’ve got a fucking meeting.” Daisy shoved Jon to one side and stomped up the steps.
Jon didn’t follow her. Instead, he sank back down onto the steps, his whole body trembling as the adrenaline flooded out of him. He tugged the jumper a bit tighter around his shoulders and hunched into it, leaning over and pressing the side of his face against the cool stone of the wall.
That had been an absolutely terrifying experience. It wasn’t just the fact of having faced down Daisy, who was still the thing that scared him most besides the possibility of never seeing Martin again. He really, really hadn’t enjoyed threatening Basira, whether he meant it or not. He tried to rationalize it—it wasn’t as though he’d actually meant to hurt her, or cause harm to come to her, it was just that he was letting Daisy know that if he’d chosen to do it, he could have. He wouldn’t have, but the truth was that he had the means to, and if that meant Daisy understood why he was willing to face her down and ask for her help…
No. No, he couldn’t rationalize it like that. Regardless of his intentions, he’d still done it, and that wasn’t something he wanted to get in the habit of doing. He would need to apologize to Basira later. Maybe get Melanie to help him figure out ways to…not do that again, at least until Martin was back to help him.
But not right then. Right then he was going to stay where he was and let himself hurt. He was going to give himself some time to miss Martin, and be afraid for him. And then, once he’d reminded himself that Martin would come home, and that he’d be okay, he would head back upstairs and deal with whatever consequences he had brought on himself.
For the moment, though, he simply hunched into himself, wrapped his arms as far around himself as he could, and tried his hardest not to cry.