to find promise of peace (and the solace of rest)

a TMA fanfic

Chapter 78: June 2017

Content Warnings:

Pining, loneliness, nightmares, unreality, grief, panic attacks, mention of suicidal ideation, mention of plane crashes, mention of skinning

“I told you to wait until—ugh, never mind. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Tim’s voice from just outside his office door startled Jon out of his work.

Jon was on his feet before he really thought about it. Once he’d fully woken up that morning and realized the implications of why Tim and Melanie might have been “running an errand” together, let alone one that would make them late to work, his anxiety had gone into overdrive, to the point that he’d almost called Martin—although what Martin could have done about it, he didn’t know. Really it was just that these days when things went wrong, he found himself wanting Martin, trusting him to fix it or at least make it more bearable. The fact that Elias had been hovering—lurking may have been the more accurate term—about the Archives for most of the morning had not helped that, and he hadn’t been able to stop himself from hugging both of them tightly with relief when they finally stumbled in at quarter to eleven, bleary-eyed and strung out. They’d both been tight-lipped about where they’d been—understandable—but promised to let everyone know later.

But what Tim was saying put Jon immediately on edge. Had Melanie gone off on her own? Had she called Tim for backup? He really needed to stop cooping himself up in his office. What good was he if he couldn’t even keep an eye on his team when—

“Give me like twenty minutes,” Tim’s voice continued. “Yeah, yeah, love you too. ‘Bye.” A second later, the door swung open and Tim followed his voice into Jon’s office, clutching his phone in his free hand and looking somewhere between annoyed and worried. “Hey, Jon, hate to do this since I was late this morning, but I need to take the rest of afternoon off.”

“Is everything all right?” Jon looked from Tim’s face to his phone and back, hoping against hope.

“Yeah, it’s—sorry. Nightmares. Not mine.” Tim tried and failed to smile. “It’s, uh, the boyfriend. He called me after a panic attack and…I need to be there for him, Jon. I’m sorry. I don’t want him dealing with this alone.”

Not Melanie. Nothing stupid. Just Gerry having a flashback. Jon slowly relaxed, even as he nodded. “Of course. I—I understand. I’d do the same if…” He cleared his throat. “Go ahead. We’ll, ah, we’ll come…check on you after work?” He glanced at the clock. “It’s only an hour or so.”

“Yeah. Then I can tell you all about the shenanigans I got into last night.” Tim’s smile was a little more genuine this time. “See you, Boss. Don’t work too hard. Oh, and I nailed Melanie’s feet to the floor, so just pry her loose at quitting time, would you?”

Jon had to laugh at that. “No, I thought I’d leave her here as bait for Elias.”

“She’d give him indigestion. Talk to you later.” Tim nodded and withdrew from the office.

As Jon settled back in his seat, he fought back an overwhelming wave of mingled melancholy and jealousy. His own nightmares were still bad, and it seemed like they were worse without Martin there. He didn’t begrudge Gerry for calling Tim after one, or Tim for going, but he still wished he had that as well.

As if on cue, his phone rang. The display read MARTIN (WORK), and Jon grabbed for it immediately, fumbling for the button to answer the call.

“Ha—hello?” he said, a bit breathlessly. Please, oh, please let him not be too late…

“It only rang twice, Jon.” Martin’s voice on the other end of the line was warm and amused. “You had plenty of time.”

The little knot of tension in Jon’s stomach uncurled, and he smiled as he settled back into his seat. “How did you know I was worried I’d miss your call?”

There was a short pause, perhaps two heartbeats. “It was pretty obvious in your voice. Everything okay over there?”

Jon considered how to answer that. “Well. Tim and Melanie were late this morning.”

“Are they okay? They didn’t get caught, did they?”

“Caught?” Jon sat up straighter. “You knew what they were doing?”

Martin’s sigh sounded more resigned than annoyed. “No, but the way you said that implied they came in together. Since Tim is definitely in a more committed, monogamous relationship than either he or Gerry wants to admit and Melanie is about a seven point nine on the Kinsey scale, they weren’t doing anything…like that. Therefore they must have gone off to do something stupid, like investigating a statement. It’s logical to assume they were looking into the Unknowing.”

Jon sighed and slumped. “Probably, but neither of them has said anything yet. They came back intact, though, and neither one seems any worse for the wear. We’re going to debrief after work today. I’d offer to call you, but…”

“Yeah, that won’t work, but text me and let me know what you can. Or I’ll call you…well, later, I guess.”

“What time is it, anyway?” Jon glanced at the widget he’d installed on his laptop, which displayed the time in Beijing next to the time in London. To his surprise, it was close to eleven P.M. in Beijing. “Why are you still awake?”

“I grabbed a nap earlier,” Martin assured him. “My flight’s leaving in about an hour. I got through ticketing and customs, and I was going to text you, but…well, since I had the time, I figured I would call you.”

At that, Jon’s spirits lifted. “You’re coming home?”

“Jon,” Martin said gently. The way he said it, Jon’s heart sank once more, and he knew what was coming, even before he continued, “I’d have led off with that if I were. I mean, I’m coming home eventually, but…not yet.”

“Oh,” Jon said quietly. He slumped a little lower into his chair. “Oh. I…I understand.” He cleared his throat and added, “So where are you off to, then?”

“Chicago,” Martin answered. “I—well, I told you I was heading to the Pu Songling Research Center. The librarian there, Zhang Xiaoling, gave me a copy of the statement her assistant said Gertrude had checked out.”

“Anything helpful?”

Martin exhaled. “Yes and no? It—it was a Slaughter statement, not a Stranger one. Also, it wasn’t one she checked out the last time she was here. Apparently she’d visited at least once before, and I didn’t notice until after I’d recorded the statement that she checked it out in 2004, not 2014. It, it had some interesting points, and, um, actually, I posted the tape earlier today. It’ll probably beat me home. It’s coming to the Institute, but it’s addressed to Melanie—and Jon, I need you to make her listen to it. Sit with her if you have to, but it’s one she needs to hear, whether she wants to or not.”

A chill ran down Jon’s spine. Something told him he did not want to hear it, any more than Melanie probably would. Silently, he vowed he wouldn’t let her listen to it on her own. “I will. But if Gertrude was there in 2014…did she not check anything out?”

“Not exactly. She was looking for information—there were a couple of statements she wanted—but according to Xiaoling, or at least according to her assistant, she was in a hurry and couldn’t wait around for them to be dug up. Or someone else had them out at the time. Dunno. I didn’t talk to the assistant, just to Xiaoling. Anyway, Gertrude eventually gave her an address to forward them on to…”

“In Chicago? Why not send them to the Magnus Institute?”

“Because Gertrude was going to be in Chicago. I think she still had it in her mind at the time that the Unknowing was going to happen somewhere in the US.” Martin huffed. “It makes sense, I guess. It’s a big country. If you wanted to do a ritual and you wanted to do it somewhere it wouldn’t be easily located and noticed, you’d probably pick a large one to make it harder to find. The Sunken Sky was supposed to be there. Michael said the Great Twisting was taking place in Russia—or in a place that would have been Russia if it truly existed. I’ve got a hunch the Risen War took place in China, but I’ll have to see if I can find those statements Gertrude asked to be forwarded on to her before I can confirm that, I think.”

Jon sighed. “And then you’re coming home?”

“Depends on what I find, Jon.” Martin was trying to be gentle, but Jon could hear the sadness and frustration mingling in his voice. “Like I said before I left, I doubt I’m going to get all the answers if I don’t follow it through to the end. Which means from Chicago, I’ll have to go on to Pittsburgh, as much as I don’t want to.”

“What’s in Pitts—oh.” Jon remembered suddenly. “That’s where Gerry died, isn’t it?”

Martin exhaled heavily. “Yeah. Which means Gertrude was there. I, I don’t think she came straight back to England from there, but I’m not certain.”

“Right, you—you said once you never talked to her, so…”

“It’s not just that. I…I remember Rosie venting a little to me about not knowing where Gertrude kept the statement forms and her having to give them to people while she was out, and that wasn’t too long before Christmas that year, but…Christ, Jon, I don’t know if that actually happened or if it’s just a memory the Not-Them planted.”

Something in Jon’s chest twisted. His relationship with Rosie had been in passing at best, but Martin remembered her as a friend. From the tape Jon had found, he’d at least had a decent relationship with the original Rosie, but he’d never considered that Martin might be mourning her loss, in at least some small, private part of his mind. And if he couldn’t trust his memories, who was he even sad for?

Martin kept talking before Jon could express his sympathy. “Anyway, I’m…going to see what there is in Chicago, and then what I can learn in Pittsburgh. From there, I might be able to come home, or I might have to make another stop. My real problem is that I’m probably going to run out of money before I run out of leads.”

“Elias didn’t give you an expense account or, or a-a credit card or anything?”

“No, the Institute paid directly for my first flight and the hotel here in Beijing, and that envelope of cash Sasha brought me from Elias via Manal turned out to be enough for the ticket to Chicago plus enough left over to buy myself a drink on this side of the gate, but everything else I have to pay out of pocket and submit a report to the Institute afterwards to get it reimbursed. Which I’m sure is going to be a lengthy process.”

“You don’t think he’ll…deny it, do you?” Jon didn’t know why that idea bothered him more than anything else, except that he knew how much Martin had to pay for his mother’s bills at the care home.

Martin laughed. It sounded more bitter than anything. “Oddly enough, that’s one of the few things I’m not worried about. Elias loves his paperwork. The more I bring him, I think, the happier he’ll be. Like I said, the only real issue is I do need to budget carefully so I can get back home.”

“If you run out, call me and I’ll get your ticket for you,” Jon promised.

This time, Martin’s laugh sounded warmer and more genuine. “Hopefully it won’t come to that, but thank you.”

“Of course.” Jon cleared his throat. “But, ah, but no leads on the Unknowing?”

“Unfortunately not. It doesn’t look like Gertrude checked anything on circuses out at Pu Songling, which could just be because there wasn’t anything in English. I did ask Xiaoling about that.”

“You didn’t check them out yourself?”

“I speak Cantonese. I don’t read it. And I can do fuck all with Mandarin.” Martin paused. “Usually.”

“Usually?” Jon echoed.

Martin was silent again. Finally, he said, “It’s…probably nothing. Or at least nothing major. But Xiaoling used a couple of Mandarin phrases, apparently, and I just…understood them. I’m guessing it’s another aspect of me Knowing without trying.”

Jon swallowed hard, but he tried to make his tone as light as he could. “That could come in useful sometime.”

“If I could do it on command, maybe. After I got the address from Xiaoling and booked the cheapest flight I could get to Chicago, which happens to be a red-eye with a layover in Istanbul—”

“Not Constantinople?” Jon asked before he could stop himself.

“That’s nobody’s business but the Turks’,” Martin said dryly, which made Jon laugh. “Anyway, I asked Xiaoling if I could see one of the circus-related statements she mentioned, but I couldn’t make heads nor tails of it. Which either means it was a random burst that I understood her…”

“Or that the Eye doesn’t want you to have that information that easily,” Jon guessed.

“Or that it wasn’t important. Or…real, maybe? I dunno. It was a fairly recent statement. Since the Unknowing isn’t happening anywhere near China, there’d be no reason for Pu Songling to have any recent statements that had any relevance to it.”

Jon bit his lip. “As much as I hate that it’s happening here…I-I’m glad it’s not happening there. That, that you don’t have to deal with it alone.”

“I am, too,” Martin said softly. “And…Jon?”

“Mm?”

“If you get wind that it’s happening soon…call me. Call me immediately and I’ll be on the next flight to London. I don’t…I don’t need to retrace Gertrude’s steps if we figure out what’s going on with the Unknowing before I finish. We can improvise a plan to stop it on the way.”

Jon exhaled. As badly as he wanted to keep Martin out of it, he knew that wasn’t happening. Of course it wasn’t. “I will. I promise.”

“Good.” Martin exhaled, too.

They were both quiet for a while. Finally, Jon took a deep breath. “I, ah…we still don’t actually have an idea of how to stop it. I think that’s what I’m going to start…working on. It’s more productive than sitting here stressing about you.”

“I agree,” Martin said, and Jon could hear the smile in his voice. “Don’t worry about me, Jon. I can handle myself. I’m—I’m not really worried about you all that much, since I know you’re not alone…mostly…but I do want you all to keep together, yeah? Don’t go off on your own.”

“No, absolutely not. And I think Tim is trying his level best to keep Melanie and me from going off together,” Jon said. It was his turn to make Martin laugh. “Basira’s been helping out with the statements, and Sasha is…I’m going to rein her back from the research, I think. O-or at least redirect her towards the Unknowing. I don’t want her digging into things she’s not asking us about.”

“Yeah, that’s…not optimal,” Martin agreed. “Good. I’m…I’m glad you’re all all right.”

“Are you all right?” Jon asked. “Really.”

“I’m fine, Jon. No ill effects from being away. Apart from missing you, that is.” Martin’s voice softened. “I wish you could’ve come with me. But…I’m glad I can talk to you, at least.”

“Me, too,” Jon said, and meant it. “When are you landing in Istanbul?”

“Ugh.” There was a rustling of fabric, as if Martin was checking either his ticket or his watch. “In about, um, eleven hours? My flight leaves at twelve-ten AM, China Standard Time, which will be five-ten PM in London. I land in Istanbul at five thirty-five AM, Eastern European Summer Time, which will be about three thirty-five AM in London, so no, I’m not calling you when my plane lands.” Jon couldn’t help but sigh. “I’ve also only got about an hour’s layover. Then I pick up a flight to Chicago, which should take about eleven hours, and arrive at O’Hare at nine-forty AM, Central Daylight Time, which will be three-forty PM in London.”

“Tomorrow? Or Saturday?” Jon frowned as he clicked through the buttons to add Chicago to his widget.

“Tomorrow. I’m crossing the International Date Line backwards, which is the closest thing you can get to faster than light travel without spaghettification—twenty-two hours compressed into nine and a half.”

“I don’t even want to begin to imagine what that’s like. The—the long flight across that many time zones, I mean, not the, ah…spaghettification.”

“It is, almost certainly, going to suck.” Martin sighed. “I hate flying. I don’t like heights to begin with. I certainly don’t like heights when I’m not in control of how high I am. And knowing the statistics on crashes and plane safety doesn’t help as much as you might think.”

Jon’s fingers twitched towards the mouse. He curled them into a fist to resist the urge to look them up. “Are they…that bad?”

“Good, actually. Statistically speaking, airplanes have a much lower rate of death per miles traveled than trains do, and the number of crashes has gone down significantly in the last fifty years. The problem comes in both the fact that most airplane crashes happen during takeoff and landing—which are the times I’m least nervous—and in the fact that generally speaking, plane crashes with fatalities tend to be mass fatalities rather than something you can walk away from.” Martin paused briefly. “Don’t look those numbers up, by the way. You’ll just worry worse than you already are.”

Despite himself, Jon laughed again. “You know me so well.”

“I love you, Jon,” Martin said warmly.

Something inside Jon went soft and pink. “I love you, too.”

They fell into another silence. Jon could hear the bustle of the airport faintly over the line; even after eleven o’clock at night, it was still evidently a busy place, or at least busy enough. He watched the second hands tick away on the clock widget and knew, knew, that at any moment Martin was going to say I have to go, Jon and then it would be almost a day before he heard from him again.

God, he was pathetic.

To put off that moment as long as possible, he asked, “You’re going to get some sleep on the plane, right?”

“Yeah, I promise,” Martin assured him. “I bought a little bottle of sleeping pills before I left London. I figure I’ll take a dose right after I get into my seat, and I should be good until Istanbul. At the very least it should help me relax enough that I don’t break something.” He paused, then added in a lightly teasing tone, “Anything you want me to bring you back from the States?”

“Just you,” Jon said quietly. “Just you.”

At that, Martin’s tone grew serious. “I’ll be back, Jon. I promise. I don’t know how many stops I have to make, but hopefully not too many. And I swear to you that I am starting for home by the end of the month, no ifs, ands, or buts. Any answers I haven’t found by then can damn well stay lost, or we’ll figure them out on our own. Hell, I don’t even know if Gertrude found any answers, and the longer I’m away, the more nervous I’m going to be about you lot.”

“That goes both ways, you know.”

“I know, but…somehow, I don’t think it’s the same, Jon. You’re a lot closer to the Unknowing—physically anyway—than I am. Orsinov wanted your skin originally and I don’t know if she’s still going to be after you or if she’s going to find a different, equally powerful skin. And I’m pretty sure the only reason she held off as long as she did with me was because my skin wasn’t in good enough condition for her to use it.” Jon looked down at his ashy, worm-scarred hand and curled it into a fist as Martin continued. “Something powerful is stirring. I’ve only felt this a few times before in my life, but now that I know about the rituals, I’m starting to suspect it’s been the Eye alerting me that someone’s getting ready to try one, and I don’t know how much time we have left before this one goes off. And if I’m not back in time to help stop it, you’ll have to go without me, and I absolutely do not want that. Just…please be careful.”

Jon gripped the phone a little tighter. “I will. I swear it. And…I’m holding you to that promise, Martin. Please come home.”

“I will. I will.” There was a faint noise in the background, and Martin took a deep breath. “They just called my flight. I have to go…look, I know I said I wouldn’t call you, but I will text you when I get to Istanbul if I can, okay? And I’ll call you the second I’m through customs in O’Hare. Cross my heart. I love you, Jon.”

“I love you, too.” Jon swallowed hard. “Have a safe flight, Martin.”

“Good night.” There was a soft beep, and the call disconnected.

Slowly, Jon set the phone down. He suddenly felt colder, lonelier, and more lost than he’d ever felt in his life. The acute, aching loneliness of his childhood had been bad enough, but the truth was that back then he hadn’t known what having friends, family, people who really loved him, was like. Now he did, and it made it so much worse.

It was ridiculous. The others were just in the other room…unless they’d decided to leave for the day after Tim did, under the theory that Jon would be so wrapped up in his work—distraction, really—that he wouldn’t notice. After all, he hadn’t noticed Tim and Melanie were still there when he left the day before…

Suddenly things got too much. Suddenly he was eight years old again, wanting someone, anyone, to be there for him, but knowing he was alone, that no one would want to be around him, that he was too awkward, too pretentious, too strange, too Jon, that he was destined to always be alone. The world was suddenly too big and exposed and dangerous.

He slid off his chair and tucked himself into the space under his desk. It was bigger, relatively speaking, than the space under his nightstand had been, but he was able to tuck himself into the corner, pull his knees up to his chest, and huddle into the jumper he’d pilfered from Martin. Even that didn’t help as much as he would have wanted it to. He closed his eyes and bit his lip and tried not to cry, tried not to start rocking back and forth, tried not to go back to that place he’d been in as a child where he didn’t want to die but didn’t want to exist anymore, that’s still suicidal, Jonathan, it’s not something you should want…

He wanted to be here. He did. He was an adult with a job and responsibilities, he had friends and family and…and he had Martin, even if Martin wasn’t there. He wasn’t alone, he wasn’t, but God, it felt like it and it was all getting too much, and he didn’t even have the comfort of his dream-friends anymore…

There was a bang as the door opened, making him flinch and curl tighter into himself, followed almost immediately by a voice. “I say if we’re not going to get anything else done, we should just call it a day and—Jon? Jon, are you in here?”

Melanie. Jon should have uncurled himself and come out from under the desk, straightened out the jumper and spoken to her brusquely, put the professional mask back on…but he didn’t. He couldn’t. He just stayed where he was, hunched over his knees, lips locked in a tight line.

There was silence for a while, and then a familiar pair of boots appeared just in his line of sight. A moment later, Melanie’s face peered under the desk. “Jon? You hurt?”

Jon shook his head, but couldn’t force himself to talk. He wanted…he didn’t know what he wanted. A lie, he supposed. He knew what he wanted—he wanted Martin—but he didn’t know what he wanted from Melanie.

Surprisingly, she didn’t say anything. She got down on her hands and knees and crawled into the space under the desk, then wedged herself with her back against the side facing him and her feet propped on the lower edge of the drawer next to his hip. With her arms draped over her knees and her head back against the desk, she studied him. “You mind me being here?”

Jon shook his head again. Melanie nodded in reply and didn’t say anything further, which surprised him, in a distant and fuzzy way; he hadn’t thought Melanie was capable of shutting up. Then again, there were people who said the same about him. They fell into silence for several long minutes as Jon struggled to come back to himself.

At last, Melanie said quietly, “I’m going to hold your hand. That okay?”

“Yes.” Jon’s voice was hoarse and ragged, and it cost a lot of effort to force the word out, but he managed it. He tried to uncurl his arms, but Melanie reached over and gripped his fingers where they rested on top of his arm. She didn’t say anything else, but her hand was warm and solid and her fingernails bit ever so slightly into his skin, not enough to leave a mark, not even really enough to hurt, just enough to give him a bit of a sensation. He took a breath, then another, then slowly, slowly began to relax.

Finally, he managed to raise his head and lean his shoulders back against the side of the desk. He gradually uncurled himself until he was more or less matching Melanie’s pose, and he managed to shift his arms so that they now had the fingers of their respective left hands hooked lightly into one another.

“Thanks,” he said.

Melanie shrugged one shoulder and didn’t directly acknowledge his gratitude. “Come over tonight. We can flip the loveseat over and build a blanket fort and, I don’t know, read fairy tales with a torch. Otherwise I’m going to end up doing something stupid. Like going back up to Great Yarmouth.”

“What’s—what’s in Great Yarmouth?” Jon tried to remember if it had come up in any of the statements they had been looking into lately. Had they been looking into statements lately?

“Tell you at the bookstore. But that’s where Tim and I went last night.” Melanie cocked her head at him. “You good to go? Or are we spending the night here?”

“I…think the cats might object to being left alone all night.”

“True.” Melanie hesitated. “What’s…have you heard anything from Martin?”

Jon nodded, glancing up involuntarily at the underside of his desk. “He, he called right after Tim left. We’d sort of just hung up when…” He gestured vaguely with his free hand, encompassing his state, the space he was wedged into, and the universe in general. “He’s on his way to Chicago. And, ah, he’s sending a recording of a statement he wants us to listen to.”

Melanie grunted. “Great. Is he okay otherwise, though?”

“He says so, a-and I believe him. I just…” Jon bit his lip and looked away. “I miss him.”

“Not surprised. I miss him, too.” Melanie squeezed his fingers gently. “He won’t leave you forever.”

Despite himself, Jon chuckled. “Reading minds, Miss King?”

“Do me a favor, Sims. Never play poker.” Melanie smirked. “And if you really want to do me a favor, let’s cut out early.”

Jon managed to twist his wrist and look at his watch without letting go of Melanie’s hand, somehow. “By a whole…seven minutes.”

“Hey, enough time to play one round of a shitty teen party game.” Melanie raised an eyebrow at Jon’s confused expression. “Seven Minutes in Heaven? You never played that one?”

“I…didn’t go to a lot of parties as a teenager. Or any, really.”

“Fair enough. It’s a kind of variant on ‘Spin the Bottle’, except instead of kissing in front of all your friends you’re supposed to spend seven minutes in a closet with the other person, doing…whatever you want, really. Which sucks when you’re playing it with a bunch of horny teenagers, but, you know, I think that’s essentially what we just did here.”

Jon smiled. “Thank you. For…I don’t know. Crawling into my cavern of despair with me?”

Melanie actually smiled back. “You want the truth? You’re the only person in my life right now who gets that. Or, well, I mean, Martin understands on an…intellectual level, I guess, but when I have days where I need to squeeze myself into as small a space as possible he…he’s sympathetic, but he can’t join me. It’s, I get it, he doesn’t do well in tiny cramped spaces, especially after…you know, the Mermaid Inn. Has he told you about that yet?”

“N-no.”

“Probably doesn’t want that to touch you,” Melanie mumbled. “But it’s…yeah. I get you. Sometimes the world is too big and you just wish you could put yourself in a vacuum-sealer or something.”

“How do you usually handle it?”

“Roll myself up in a blanket like an old-fashioned cigarette and sleep under my bed. Or if it hits me too early in the day and I need to go out somewhere, I dig out one of my corsets.” Melanie studied him. “You want one? I’ve got three or four and I don’t really wear a couple of them.”

Jon blinked and turned the thought over in his mind. “I…might not mind that, actually.”

“Great. I’ll hook you up after we get done at the bookstore, then.”

Jon realized that Melanie hadn’t actually asked him to come over—she’d just told him, and assumed he was going to. And the thing was…she wasn’t wrong. “Sounds like a plan. Come on, let’s go round up Sasha…and, ah, I-I think we should try to make Basira come with us. If she’s going to be helping, she needs to know what’s going on.”

“No argument from me there, mate. Right, let’s get going.” Melanie crawled out from under the desk, and Jon followed her.

As he got to his feet, his phone buzzed with a text notification. He picked it up to see that it was from Martin. [Just sat down. About to turn off my phone. I love you.]

Jon sighed and felt the knot in his chest unravel. The ropes were still there, but at least they weren’t a tangled mess anymore. [I love you, too. Stay safe.] Pocketing his phone, he turned to Melanie. “Right. Let’s get this over with so we can start moving things forward. I want to have at least some idea of what we’re going to do to stop the Unknowing before Martin comes home. I have a feeling once he gets here, we’re going to have a very short amount of time to put our plans in motion.”

“I hate your feelings.”

“You and me both.” Jon sighed. “Come on. Lots to do.”