“Sasha?”
Sasha hummed inquisitively and looked up. Melanie was peering around the side of the door to Jon’s office. She was scowling, but Sasha was pretty sure it wasn’t directed at her—a surmise confirmed when she said, “Elias wants to see us. All of us.”
“Right now?” Sasha asked with a quick glance at the clock on the wall. It had no numbers—well, it did, but they were all piled in a heap at the bottom of the clock’s face underneath the words whatever, I’m late anyway in a faux handwriting that somehow managed to convey exhaustion and weariness—but you could still guess roughly at the time, and it was about the midpoint between lunch and the end of the workday.
“Yeah. Says it can’t wait.”
“Okay. Coming.” Sasha pushed the STOP button on the recorder and got to her feet. “Want this?”
“I’ll get it when we come back,” Melanie muttered. In response to Sasha’s raised eyebrow, she added, “I’m not bringing the tape with everyone’s…last will and testament or whatever up to Elias fucking Bouchard’s office. If it turns itself on, I don’t want whatever’s about to happen in the middle of that.”
“Fair enough,” Sasha admitted. “All right, let’s get this over with.”
The others were waiting for them in the Archives, or else they were just finishing setting things aside so they could go up; clearly, none of them were in a hurry to deal with Elias. Sasha couldn’t blame them. She was pretty sure none of them had been keen to come into the office, but Martin had said something about needing a shower and a change of clothes before he went in, and not a single one of them had questioned or argued.
She wondered what Martin would have done if they had.
Of all of them, he was the one who most likely needed the day off, but with only two days left before the Unknowing was most likely to kick off, she understood why he didn’t feel like he could take it. She watched him critically for a moment. He seemed…tired wasn’t the word. Weary, maybe. Older, although that might have been the new white streak at his temple. And she was pretty sure his eyes hadn’t always been that violently green. Passport photos weren’t great, but the eyes that had stared up from the burgundy folder he’d seemed relieved to get back were definitely a lighter shade than the ones currently scanning his desk to make sure everything was buttoned up. In fact, they reminded her strongly of Gertrude’s, which made her suspect it was something to do with the Beholding. It also raised all sorts of interesting questions, like why Jon—who was the Head Archivist and had definitely been trending towards spooky powers—didn’t even have green highlights in his eyes.
Something to consider in three days, maybe. Once they were sure the world wasn’t ending.
Jon hovered extremely close to Martin in a way that made Sasha hide a smile. He’d been suffering with Martin gone, and it was obvious he was afraid that if he let Martin out of his sight for even a second there was a chance someone would snatch him up again.
From the way Martin looked up and met her gaze, steady and calm but with a look that told her he knew she’d been watching him, she didn’t think that was particularly likely, unless one of the Fourteen went through so many proxies to hire a pair of thugs that there wasn’t even a whisper of a Fear on them.
Tim glanced at her and smiled briefly. “Gang’s all here. Shall we go see what fresh hell is waiting for us?”
“Yeah. I promise not to try and kill him,” Melanie said, answering a look from Martin that she hadn’t even glanced at. Sasha figured that was a sibling thing rather than a Beholding thing. “Maybe we’re lucky and he wants to tell us all how sorry he is for letting you get kidnapped.”
Sasha snorted. “And what do you think the odds of that are?”
“I’d say somewhere between Grand Chawhee winning a race unassisted and a snowman seeing July. Let’s get this over with.”
Manal met them with a brilliant grin and actually came around the desk to give Martin a hug, which he returned, before showing them into Elias’s office. Daisy was already there, arms folded over her chest; she gave a nod to Martin, who nodded back, then one to Basira, who didn’t, but came over to stand closer to her. Elias had his hands folded over something and was smiling like…actually, Sasha couldn’t decide if it was the cat who ate the canary or a cat who’d fallen into a vat of cream, but it was definitely feline and pleased with something, be it the circumstances or itself.
As soon as Manal had shut the door behind them, he said, “Thank you all for coming.”
Sasha wasn’t the only one who groaned at that. Jon was the one who said, “Well, you said it was important.”
“Martin, welcome back,” Elias said, turning turning to focus his smile on their prodigal member. “I trust you had a…restful morning.”
Jon bristled. Melanie looked like she was about to launch herself at Elias, promise to Martin be damned, but Martin rested a hand on her shoulder and she subsided, or at least dialed it back to a simmer. Martin gave Elias the same calm, steady, neutral gaze he’d given Sasha in the Archives. “I’ve been here all day, Elias. I came in with everyone else.”
Sasha noted the surprise in Elias’ eye with interest and couldn’t resist asking, “Busy morning?”
“Somewhat, yes.” Elias gathered himself, but the expression on his face was no longer quite so pleased. He was already off his game, which boded well for the next couple of days. “If I had known you were here already, I wouldn’t have—”
“What do you want?” Jon interrupted.
“To help,” Elias said, as if it were the most reasonable and obvious conclusion in the world. “Do you have your recorder running?”
“I do.” Martin reached into his pocket without breaking eye contact and pulled out a recorder that looked as though it had been dragged behind a car during a rainstorm. Shockingly, Sasha could see from where she stood that it was running just fine.
Once again, Elias looked slightly thrown off balance, and Sasha notched another point to their side, but he continued to look at Martin as he spoke. “Well, then, I’ll speak clearly. You will soon be attempting to stop something few have ever witnessed, and fewer still have survived.”
“Not alone,” Jon said.
Elias ignored him. “And I believe your plan—um, simplistic as it may be—does stand a reasonable chance of working.”
“Well, thanks,” Tim drawled.
“The more moving parts a plan has, the more things can go wrong or be interfered with,” Martin said. “Sneak in, plant bombs while they’re distracted…”
“Detonate at the height of the ritual,” Sasha completed. “They’ll be vulnerable.”
“It should work. It doesn’t need to be fancy,” Daisy said. She shifted slightly, like maybe she wanted to bump her shoulder against Basira’s, but held herself back.
“Well, quite. But given there is every likelihood that some or all of you might end up confronting the Stranger in a rather direct manner—” Martin and Daisy exchanged brief glances that Sasha couldn’t quite read, but neither said anything as Elias continued, “—I thought it best you have an idea of what you might encounter.”
“Oh,” Basira said.
Elias unfolded his hands, revealing what was underneath of them—a cassette tape, labeled in Gertrude’s by now familiar round hand. “During the difficulties with your absence, Jon, I took Gertrude’s tapes into my safekeeping.”
Jon sighed. “Yes, I thought as much.”
“There is one I feel it may be wise for you to hear. All of you.” Elias reached behind him and retrieved a pristine tape player that nevertheless looked as though he had probably brought it with him when he joined the Institute as a filing clerk. “If I may?”
Melanie snorted. “Does it matter if we say no?”
Elias inserted the tape into the deck and pressed PLAY. There was a few minutes of spooling, and then Gertrude’s reedy, precise voice came from the speakers. “Case 7870211. Abraham Janssen. Incident occurred in the Court Theatre Buda, October 1787. Statement taken from journal entry, dated the 2nd of November of that year. Committed to tape on the 4th of October, 2013. Gertrude Robinson recording.”
The statement was as interesting as it was terrifying, and even Gertrude’s dry and clinical tone didn’t take away from the dread the man who’d experienced it still felt a month later. But at least half of Sasha’s attention was on Martin. His gaze was locked on the recorder, or at the very least on the spot where the recorder was, but he seemed to be staring right through it, as though he was seeing the events unfold. He seemed to be holding his breath—or maybe he just wasn’t breathing at all, like he’d frozen, temporarily left his body behind to step back to 1787 himself. What really caught Sasha’s attention, though, was the fact that his eyes weren’t just greener than they had been before, they were glowing like the stars she remembered being stuck to the ceiling of one of her foster homes.
She was sure it wasn’t her imagination, particularly as it began to fade as Gertrude did her summing up. At the twin clicks as first Gertrude’s recording, then Elias’ playback ended, he blinked and took a deep breath, which confirmed her theory that he hadn’t taken one during the statement. Nobody else seemed to notice, though.
Just to be sure to keep everyone’s attention off him while he recovered, she said, “That’s it, then?”
“It’s unlikely to be identical,” Elias said. Sasha couldn’t tell if he’d seen what she had or not, and she was not about to ask. “The Stranger is not known for its, um, consistency.”
“It wouldn’t be strange if it was familiar,” Martin said, softly, as if he was quoting someone. He shook his head minutely, then added, “But it’s the same principle. The closer we get to the focus of the Unknowing, the less we’ll be able to trust what we see.”
Basira folded her arms across her chest. “Well, that’s what it wants, isn’t it? The Stranger, I mean? For us to doubt what we see.”
“One long category error,” Jon said with a sigh.
“Brilliant.” Elias flashed a smile once more. “I have been doing my best to prepare you, Martin, to see. You should have an easier time of it than the others.”
“Well, ‘the others’ aren’t going, so I don’t doubt that,” Daisy said, folding her arms over her chest and scowling. “And we’re not going in that close.”
Martin nodded. “This doesn’t need an army. Daisy knows how to set the charges. I know…my way around, more or less. And if someone needs to make a distraction, I’m the best choice for that—I’m a target they won’t be able to resist. Too many people will only attract attention.”
Elias hesitated, but something told Sasha that was for show. “I agree that Jon and Melanie should stay behind, but—”
“No,” Jon interrupted.
“No?” Elias repeated.
Jon lifted his chin and stared Elias down like he had nothing to lose. “I’m not letting anyone on my staff go into a dangerous situation alone—”
“Ah. About that.” Elias opened a drawer and drew out two pieces of paper, which he slid across the desk. “Circumstances have…changed somewhat.”
Jon blinked, temporarily derailed. “What?”
Martin picked up one of the two papers and skimmed it. Again, his eyes flashed green, and this time Sasha knew that Tim, at least, saw it too, if the way he started back was any indication. “This…you didn’t do this.”
“Correct. I simply discovered the—ah—alterations when I was looking for a safe place to keep your passport. Temporarily, of course.” Elias sat back, and his expression was serious. “Please understand, this has never occurred before in the history of the Institute, that I am aware of. But, well. I suppose it was only nominally my call to begin with.”
“What are you…?” Jon picked up the other paper and frowned at it. “This is the contract I—wait.” His eyes narrowed, then widened. “Archival Assistant?”
“I told Martin upon his…initial return from the House of Wax that the Archivist was a role played, not a position at the Institute,” Elias said. “It appears I was mistaken in that. There is only one Archivist. And at some point in the last two weeks, our master corrected the paperwork in order to make it clear that I had chosen incorrectly. Martin is the Archivist.”
Sasha felt her mouth drop open slightly. Out of everything Elias could have come up with…that actually did surprise her.
“Explains why that lady with the fire ghost couldn’t give you a straight statement to save her life.” Melanie scowled over Martin’s—well, over his arm, anyway—then at Elias. “Anyway, titles or hierarchies or whatever bullshit you’re trying to throw at us, none of it matters. We just got Martin back, and we’re not letting him go into this alone. If he goes, I go.”
“And I.” Jon laid the contract down on the desk again and took a step closer to Martin, then looked up at him. “I won’t risk losing you again. It’s not happening. I am not letting you out of my sight.”
Basira nodded, but she was looking at Daisy, not Martin, as she added, “Besides, you’re both equally likely to try and draw the Stranger’s attention if left to your own devices. You’d both try to sacrifice yourself so the other could make it out alive and then there’d be nobody left to bring back the news that we won.”
“We’ve already had this conversation,” Tim put in. “We knew you’d try this, and we’re outflanking you. We’re all going, and that’s the end of it.”
“Not me,” Sasha said, trying to sound as reluctant as she could. They’d planned this part, too. Sort of. “I mean…someone’s got to be here to hold down the fort, right? You know, just in case someone comes in to make a statement. Or, I don’t know, one of the other twelve Fears tries to overrun the Institute while you’re gone.”
Martin seized on that, as she’d known he would. “Sasha, you can’t—y-you can’t defend the whole place by yourself. Someone needs to be here with you.”
He started to turn to Melanie. Sasha had kind of expected that, too. The problem was they’d already had a long go-round about it, which had come to no conclusion. Melanie was dangerous and volatile, and while she could probably do a whole lot of damage to the Stranger if things went wrong, she also might try to do damage anyway. She began marshaling her arguments to bolster Martin’s when he started trying to make Melanie stay; there was no conceivable scenario where Jon would be left behind, no matter how desperately Martin probably wanted him to.
Tim spoke up before Martin could say a word. “Fine. I’ll stay, then.”
Sasha knew she wasn’t the only one who was genuinely surprised by that. She turned to look at Tim, eyes wide. He met her eyes with his lips pressed tightly together, and she could see how much it pained him to make this call, but she also realized why he had done it—because he wanted so badly to have been there for Danny, and he wasn’t going to deny Melanie the chance to be there for her brother.
What he said, though, was, “You’re my best friend, Sash. As bad as I want to go—as much as I think I can help—I can do more good here. With you. Anyway, I’ve already been Marked by the Stranger, haven’t I? Two of us with that kind of draw, that’ll get us spotted for sure. I’m the biggest risk. I’ll stay behind. You five can handle it.”
Jon reached out and took Martin’s hand wordlessly. Martin squeezed back and sighed, and all the fight seemed to drain out of him at once. “If you’re sure, Tim…”
“I’m sure.”
“Then…okay.” Martin turned back to Elias and set his jaw. “Tim and Sasha will stay here. The rest of us will go to Great Yarmouth and blow the Unknowing to hell where it belongs. And when we get back, I think we could all do with a few days’ rest for saving the fucking world.”
“That seems reasonable,” Elias agreed without batting an eyelash, unless it was one of the ones under the eye patch. “Now, unless there’s anything else?”
“No,” Martin said slowly. “No, I think that’s about it.”
“Excellent. And you’re certain it’s tomorrow?”
None of them questioned how Elias knew that. “The day after.”
“Of course, of course. Well, it’s a three-hour trip to Great Yarmouth. I’ll have Manal book you into a bed and breakfast near the museum.” Elias took the contracts off the desk and opened his desk drawer again. “We can finalize the details tomorrow.”
“Brilliant,” Basira muttered.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me?” Elias rose to his feet, making it clear the interview was over.
They left Elias’ office as one unit. From Manal’s expression as they passed, Sasha could only guess what they all looked like—like they were heading to their own executions, probably, which wasn’t that far off. She waited until they were halfway down the steps to the Archives before she asked quietly, “Do you think he bought it?”
“Not here,” Jon said swiftly with a glance over his shoulder. “Later.”
“Come on.” Martin strode into the Archives. Sasha thought she had a pretty good idea of where he was heading.
She was right. He went straight for the trapdoor to the tunnels, Jon at his side and Daisy hot on his heels. Sasha followed as close behind them as she dared. The unpleasant disorientating nausea swept over her as usual, but Martin didn’t flinch. Since she was pretty sure it was affecting him worse than the rest of them, she assumed it was just that he had more practice at hiding when he was sick or hurt.
The second they reached the room they’d gathered in just a few days before, Martin spun around to face the others and held out his hands. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I should have said something this morning, but I just—I got distracted and then there were other things going on and I just…I’m sorry.”
Sasha was about to tell him he didn’t need to apologize—she wasn’t even sure what he was apologizing for not telling them—and then it hit her, and she interrupted, “Wait, about the Archivist thing? How did you know that?”
“I just—did. Not until just before Daisy picked me up, but I was kind of trying to get my thoughts in order, and suddenly in the middle of them was the thought that it was my job as the Archivist to protect all of you from—from the other Fears.” Martin looked around the room at them. “Probed a little harder at that and there the Knowledge was. I, uh, didn’t expect the thing with the contracts. That was weird.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” Basira mumbled.
“Yeah, well, I can’t speak for anyone else in the room, but I’m not upset with you.” Sasha took a seat on one of the boxes and propped her right ankle on her left knee. “Like you said, there was a lot going on this morning, and it’s not like knowing that would have made a difference in anything we’d said up there, or done today. It should’ve been your choice to tell us and when, and fuck Elias for taking that away from you.”
“That would be flattering. Un-fuck him.” Tim smirked, but there was something worried in his eyes as he sat down, too. “Sasha’s right. You didn’t keep that from us for shits and giggles, and it’s not like it’s something you’ve been sitting on for weeks. It was less than a day, you know? You needed time to figure it out. I get it.”
Jon twined his fingers through Martin’s. “I agree. Elias had no cause to do that when he did, except to hurt you—he must have known you were already aware of what you were becoming, and that you hadn’t said anything to us yet.”
“Probably wanted us to all be suspicious and mad at each other before we go to the Unknowing, so we’re working as a bunch of individuals instead of a team and he can watch from his fucking ivory tower and laugh at how guilty you feel when we all get hurt or killed because we won’t let you protect us.” Melanie’s voice was tight with anger, but it was directed at Elias, not Martin. “It’s not like you chose this.”
“I didn’t want it, no, but every single decision I’ve made in the last…probably twenty years, honestly, has led me to this point, so in that sense, I did choose it. Our world is made of choices, and very rarely do we truly know what any of them mean, but we make them nonetheless.” Martin sighed and sat down, but he held onto Jon’s hand, and it looked to Sasha like a little bit of weight had lifted off his shoulders. “I’m still sorry, but…thank you.”
Jon tried to sit on the edge of the box Martin was on; Martin automatically shifted over to make more room for him. Sasha repressed a smile. “So, back to my question—do you think Elias was convinced?”
“How long have you all been planning that?” Daisy spoke for the first time since she’d declared nobody else was going, and she sounded pissed.
Basira didn’t flinch. “From the beginning.”
“When we started making plans a couple days ago, we knew you two were going to try and make the rest of us stay back,” Sasha said, looking from Martin to Daisy and back again. “That you’d want us all safe and out of the way. And we also knew that none of us were willing to let either of you go without backup. But we also needed to figure out a way for two of us to stay behind without it being suspicious.”
“We expected Elias to say someone needed to stay back,” Tim added. “Just didn’t expect it to be Jon, honestly.”
Sasha eyed Tim. “I also didn’t expect you to volunteer. I was banking on backing Martin up in his campaign to keep Melanie here.”
Melanie crossed her arms over her chest and harrumphed loudly. Tim ignored her. “Look, Sasha, you’re the only one that doesn’t have a compelling reason to go—beyond the obvious, I mean, we all want to save the world, right? But Jon and Melanie need to be sure Martin comes back alive, and Basira needs to back Daisy up, and I need to get revenge for Danny.” His voice cracked on his brother’s name.
Sasha started to get up to hug him, but Melanie beat her to it, shoving him with her hip to one side so there was room to sit next to him and squeezing him the same way she did Martin. “When you put it that way, it makes me sound like an arse. You go. I’ll stay here and…”
“No. Thank you, but no. You need to go.” Tim hugged her awkwardly back. “If it comes down to a fight, you’d stand a better chance of winning it on your own and getting out alive than I would. Something tells me I won’t walk out of that building if I go. And you and Sasha here wouldn’t work because neither one of you can do the distraction we have planned.”
“Hey,” Sasha protested. “I can, too.”
Jon shook his head. “No, he’s right. You’re too curious about the statements, you wouldn’t…you’d pick ones that wouldn’t, um, be as distracting. And Melanie’s been tied up in the Beholder so long that it might actually hurt her to do. It has to be either Tim or Basira, and Basira hasn’t been here long enough for it to be convincing.”
Tim looked at Sasha and gave her a crooked grin. “Besides. You and I haven’t had a proper crack, just the two of us, in ages. Might be fun.”
“Might be.” Sasha grinned back. “Well. Can’t say I’m upset to have you at my side for this, just that I’m surprised.”
“We’ve got it all laid out.” Basira looked back and forth between Martin and Daisy. “It should work. Both ends. I’m going for a pint with Becher tonight, so that should be the last piece we need.”
Martin sighed. “I feel a little better, which is a relative statement not to be taken as approval.”
“Your objection is duly noted.” Jon kissed his temple gently. “It’s going to be all right. We’ll stop the Unknowing, save the world, and deal with our other little problem all at the same time.”
“And then we all ride off into the sunset on matching unicorns?”
“Exactly,” Jon said. “Piece of cake.”
Martin laughed, and seemed to genuinely mean it. Sasha was hesitant to break it, but at the same time…“Hey, while we’re down here, can we address the other elephant in the room?”
“I think there might be a whole parade of them now, but sure, go for it.” Martin was still smiling. Sasha didn’t think that was going to last long.
She took a deep breath. “When we were…listening to that statement up there. I was watching you and…um, I don’t think you were breathing. And your eyes were glowing. Is that…did I imagine that? How long has that been going on?”
As she’d suspected, Martin’s smile faded, and something inexpressibly sad came into his eyes. “I…don’t think you imagined it, no.”
“You didn’t,” Tim said. “I wasn’t going to mention it, but—when you were looking at that contract, same thing. Your eyes, I mean. Not the breathing. That was still normal, as far as I know.”
Jon reached up like he was going to touch the corner of Martin’s eye, then stopped himself. Martin smiled again, even though he still looked sad, and took his hand, kissing the knuckles gently. “It’s okay, Jon. I’m—I’m not sure how long it’s been happening, but the first time I sort of became aware of it was after I got away from the Hunters. There was a security guard…I was trying to get through a nature preserve and I-I panicked. He saw the blood on my shirt and asked if I’d killed someone and…I don’t know. I tried to intimidate him, I guess. It worked, but I really shouldn’t have…anyway, for just a moment, it was like I was seeing myself through his eyes, and yeah, I, um, definitely saw the glowing green eyes. It was probably a lot creepier in the dark.”
“I’ll bet.” Sasha bit her lip. Martin was avoiding everyone’s gaze. It wasn’t exactly up to her to absolve him, but…
“You didn’t hurt him, right?” Jon asked gently.
“No. Just scared the piss out of him.”
“Then it’s all right.” This time it was Jon’s turn to lift Martin’s hand to his lips and kiss the back of it. “I’m not going to pretend any of us are happy about…but, but we’ve all done it. I sort of compelled Melanie a few days ago and—you were under duress. You were hurt and scared. I know you’re trying not to give into the Beholding more than you have to, but I think—”
“I had options,” Martin interrupted. “I just took the path of least resistance. It’s a really bad habit to get into and I’m trying not to. You start doing something for a good reason, it starts getting easier to do it for a bad reason and convince yourself it’s a good reason, and then for no reason at all. I’m not ending up like Trevor and Julia, watching the line between human and monster erode day by day.”
“Well. That’s what you’ve got us for.”
“That’s good of you, Jon, but—I can’t put the burden of my humanity on other people. I’ve got to be able to do it on my own or it won’t stick.”
They all sat in silence for a long time. Sasha was beginning to wish she’d kept her mouth shut. Something was building in the room, and she wasn’t sure what, but she was pretty sure she’d been the one to set it rolling, so whatever happened next was her fault.
At last, Jon took a deep breath, took Martin’s face in his hands, and turned it to look him in the eye. “Martin,” he said, clearly and calmly and without flinching. “If you ever get to the point where you’re no longer human enough to ask—if you ever cross the line fully into monster, if there’s ever a point where you are gone and only the Archivist, whatever that may be, remains—I give you my word that I will personally kill you.”
Martin let out a long, slow breath, and Sasha swore she could physically see the weight lift off his shoulders. He nodded, as best as he could with Jon still holding his face. “That…that makes me feel a lot better, actually. Thank you, Jon. And I give you my word that I will do everything I can to make sure you never have to make that call.”
“Good,” Jon said quietly. “Good.”
There was another brief silence. This time, Sasha was the one to break it, getting to her feet. “Right. Since I’ve successfully upset everyone, we should probably get out of here before the distance from the Beholder starts making us all sick. What do you say we cut out a little early and go have ice cream?”
Martin laughed and looked at Jon, who looked back with a smile and a lift of his eyebrows. After several beats, Martin glanced around. “What’s everyone staring at me for?”
“You’re the Archivist,” Basira pointed out. “It’s your call.”
“O-oh. Right, right, yep.” Martin blushed. “That’s going to take some getting used to. But—you know what? Yeah. Screw it. Let’s get the hell out of here. We can come back tomorrow. Someone call Gerry and see if he wants to meet us.” His smile turned a little wistful.
He didn’t say anything more, but as they turned and headed for the steps, Sasha wondered if he’d been thinking the same thing she was—that if any of them didn’t survive the next couple of days, this would be one last good memory for all of them to hold on to.
She really, really hoped it wouldn’t be.