Jon was not strong. Physically or otherwise. But adrenaline could do wonderful things, and right now it was enabling him to keep Martin’s shoulders and back steady while Melanie tried to find a good place to start cutting the web away from him.
“It’s not sticky,” he said. “Not really.”
“Good, that means that probably won’t hurt when we peel it off him,” Melanie grunted. Despite her words and tone, her eyes were worried. “Jesus. How far behind him were we? How long has he been wrapped up like this?”
“I—I don’t know.” Jon was trying not to think too hard about that, actually. If he let himself wonder how early Martin had arrived at Hill Top Road, how long he’d been tied up and dangling and not knowing if he’d be rescued, he would start panicking. Only the fact that he’d been moving earlier, and the fact—all right, the belief that if Martin was—if Martin was—if they were too late, he’d have known, kept him from collapsing in despair.
When was the last time he’d told Martin he loved him? Yes, they had gone to sleep in one another’s arms the night before—they always did, even if Jon always seemed to wake up wrapped in nothing but blankets that still held Martin’s scent if not his warmth—but had they actually said anything? It was silly. Jon knew Martin loved him, and he knew Martin knew that Jon loved him, and they didn’t need to say the words any more than Martin and Melanie and Gerry needed to say them to one another. Still, he liked to say them every once in a while…and he’d like to know that Martin had that to hold on to when he was scared. This had to have been terrifying.
Maybe it still was.
“I love you,” he murmured into what he hoped was Martin’s ear. He’d like to have said Martin wriggled in response, but in truth, he was as still as he’d been since Annabelle Cane left.
“Hold him steady. And stay behind him,” Melanie ordered, scrambling up onto a stack of wooden crates that had no real reason to be in a room that had never been lived in.
Jon glanced up at her briefly. “I can’t see his face. How am I supposed to know which side is front or back?”
“His feet, Jon. They haven’t changed direction. Besides, his arms are behind his back and his left leg is bent behind the right one.” Melanie stretched up to just below where the web bound Martin’s ankle to the ceiling.
“Oh.” That made sense, Jon had to admit. Then he paused. “Wait, how do you know that?”
“The Hanged Man. Hold him steady,” Melanie said again. She pulled back the knife, hesitated, and inserted it into the mess of webbing.
She barely had to cut it. The whole thing split open like an overripe pea pod with a somewhat unpleasant cracking, tearing noise. Melanie fell back, nearly toppling from her box, and Jon couldn’t help it—he jumped away to keep the webbing that had encased Martin from dropping over him like a blanket. It fell in two halves like a plaster cast but landed like a small cloud of cotton wool and spread itself over the floor.
Martin himself didn’t seem to move. His leg remained perfectly bent, his hands pressed to his back, but Jon could tell they weren’t bound there, just…resting. Melanie gave a small yelp and did fall off the box this time, with a muffled curse. Even though Jon was behind Martin, he could guess why. Even from where he stood, he could see the green glow radiating as if from a pair of twinned spotlights, directly in front of his face.
“Martin?” Jon said, hearing the barely controlled panic in his voice.
Martin let out a gasp, although that was a mild term for it—it sounded like the gulp of air a previously drowning man might take upon breaking the surface, the sort of sound often followed by a great bout of hacking coughs. What followed this time, however, was Martin managing a single word in a hoarse, scratchy voice, even as the light vanished and his arms dropped to hang loosely at his side. “Jon?”
Jon looked around desperately and spotted what he’d been looking for on the tilted wooden slat serving as a windowsill under the improbably boarded-up window—Martin’s glasses, lined up neatly alongside a tape recorder. He left the recorder for the moment, picked up the glasses, knelt beside Martin—who had indeed closed his eyes—fumbled for a moment to get them turned in the right direction, and slid them onto his face, then leaned forward and kissed him softly. “I’m here, Martin.”
Martin took one or two slow, deep breaths, then opened his eyes. They were, if possible, more intensely green than they had been just yesterday, but at least they weren’t glowing. They were also full of pain and contrition. “Jon. How—why—”
“Shh.” Jon kissed him again, just for sheer relief of being able to. He was still shaking with adrenaline. “You didn’t think we were going to leave you here, did you?”
“We?”
“We,” Melanie said, standing up and adjusting her shirt. “Hold on, let me get your ankle undone…”
Martin, with seeming difficulty owing to the blood rushing into it, managed to angle his head to look up at his ankle, then sighed and let his head fall back. With a sharp but simple twist of his leg, the webbing binding him to the ceiling came undone and he collapsed rather heavily to the floor. He groaned softly as he sat up.
Jon threw his arms around Martin and clung tightly. Tears welled up in his eyes, and he only just stopped himself from bursting into sobs. “Promise me you won’t ever go off on your own like this again. Please. Just…please. I-I don’t like worrying about you like that, and…and I…”
Martin hugged Jon back and kissed the top of his head gently. “I promise. No more…solo adventures. Certainly not investigating statements.”
Melanie came over and hugged both of them; Martin freed an arm from Jon to hug her, too. Jon didn’t, but he glanced up at her face and saw that she understood he was too scared and relieved to let go of Martin just yet. For a few moments, none of them said anything.
At last, Martin sighed heavily. “We should probably get back to the Institute. Please tell me the others knew you two were coming.”
“Tim loaned us his car.” Melanie got to her feet and held out a hand, a bit uncertainly, like she wasn’t sure which one of them she was offering to help up.
Jon accepted it, on the probably not unreasonable suspicion it would take both of them to help Martin up. “Speaking of, we should probably call…oh,” he said with a small grimace. The image floated to his mind of his phone, sitting on the desk in the Archivist’s office, still plugged into the charger. “Melanie, do you…?”
Melanie assisted Jon in levering Martin to his feet, then reached for her back pocket and sighed. “Unless it fell out in the car, no, damn it, I left mine at h—at the Institute, too. I wasn’t thinking about it. Martin?”
Martin bent down and picked up a small object Jon somehow hadn’t noticed—his phone, held together in the loosest possible sense with fragments of web, but there were enough bits missing from the screen that it was clear to Jon that even if it turned on, it wouldn’t work for long. “I wonder if the Institute will reimburse me for possessions with damage caused by being kidnapped in the line of duty.”
“Basira does all the paperwork. She’ll probably sign off on it,” Jon muttered. “She likes you.”
“I’m not having this conversation again. Come on, let’s get out of here.” Martin looked around, then crossed over to the windowsill—Jon only just stopped himself from clinging to his hand like a small child desperate not to lose his mother in a crowd—and reached for the tape recorder.
The soft click was the first clue Jon had that it had been running the whole time.
“Well,” Melanie muttered in his ear, “at least we’ll get some idea of what happened before we got here.”
Jon glanced at her as briefly as possible. “You don’t like it either?”
“I don’t think Martin left that tape for me. I definitely don’t think he dug through fifteen years’ worth of rubbish to find my tape recorder. Or his,” Melanie added. “Because if that isn’t the recorder Granddad gave him, I’ll eat it.” Louder, she asked, “Did you bring that on purpose?”
“No.” Martin was staring at the recorder as if he’d never seen it before…or, Jon supposed, as if he hadn’t seen it in a very long time. “I didn’t remember I had it until I got here and it turned itself on. And…Jesus. It looks almost like the one Granddad gave me for Christmas, but Mum smashed that when she had one of her temper tantrums.”
“If she wasn’t dead, I’d kill her,” Melanie said. “Turn it over.”
Martin did—and went pale. Jon went over to him and touched his arm tentatively. “It—Melanie found hers, too. I-it had—look, let’s, let’s talk about this on the way back, shall we?”
“Yeah.” Melanie came over and looped her arm through Martin’s. “Fuck this place. The Web can have it.”
“Sure.” Martin shook himself and pocketed the recorder, then reached for Jon, who tucked under his arm willingly enough.
It had stopped raining, but the clouds hung awfully low to the ground. Jon found himself eyeballing them nervously and tightening his grip on Martin’s waist. It probably wasn’t the Lonely, not this close to the Web’s stronghold, but that didn’t mean he was going to take any chances. Martin, however, stopped and stared at the small tree at the foot of the path, then at Jon, before turning to look at Melanie.
“Is it the twenty-fifth already?” he asked.
Melanie punched him lightly. “You forget every year.”
Martin smiled faintly in reply, then reached up and broke off a sprig of lilac, which he tucked into the pocket of his shirt.
Jon had…a number of questions. Most of them could, and probably should, wait until they were in the car and away from here, but there was one that couldn’t wait. “Martin?”
“Mm?”
“What were you dressed as?” In response to the look Martin gave him, Jon clarified, “For Halloween. The year you…Melanie told me about your, ah, encounter with the—well, the Dark—and she said she was dressed as the Beast and that you had a coat, but…”
Martin blinked, then laughed softly. “Dmitri. From Anastasia.”
Jon looked up at Martin and managed a smile. “I can see that.”
It was a stolen moment in a world gone mad, and Jon was going to cling to it as hard as he could. He had a feeling things were going to get worse before they got better.
“I hate your instincts,” Melanie said when he voiced that. She unlocked Tim’s car and looked in the driver’s seat. “Nope, no phone. Let’s get back before the rest of them panic.”
Jon hesitated, torn between sitting in the backseat with Martin and sitting up front. Finally, reluctantly, he took the seat next to Melanie. Martin reached his hand through the gap between the seats to hold his, though, which helped a lot.
As Melanie navigated onto the A240, Jon plucked up the courage to ask the least important of his questions. “What’s so significant about the twenty-fifth?”
“Nothing really,” Martin said. “It’s a Discworld reference.”
“The Glorious Revolution,” Melanie explained, shifting lanes to avoid yet another unsuspecting, law-abiding motorist. “Citizens pushing back against a bloody and homicidal regime. It’s just a silly little thing.” She was quiet for a moment. “We always loved those books.”
“I’ll dig them out for you sometime,” Martin promised. “You’ll love them.”
“I’m sure.” Jon squeezed Martin’s hand gently.
Martin squeezed back. “You…said you found your recorder from Granddad, Neens? I thought yours wore out.”
“It did. But it was sitting on my desk. Had my name scratched on it and everything.” Melanie’s eyes flicked up to the rearview mirror briefly. “The tape you recorded…this morning, I guess…when you talked about going to Hill Top Road was in it.”
“I didn’t remember recording that, either,” Martin murmured. “It clicked off when I said I was coming here…I assumed it was approval.”
“More likely it was trying to get downstairs before you got too far for us to catch you,” Jon said. “Except we…didn’t find it quickly enough. I wonder where it was before it turned up on your desk?”
“Probably a lot of really fucking obvious places,” Melanie said. “Tim and Sasha probably moved around it getting breakfast together. Hell, the cats were probably playing with it.”
Martin’s hand tightened around Jon’s. “You’re talking like they’re sentient.”
“You don’t think they are?” Jon twisted around to frown at his boyfriend. “We’ve all seen the tapes, or the recorders, turn up in odd places. You said even back when—even last year when I went after the Not-Them, the tape I’d been recording just…appeared at the bookstore. You always find the ones you need right when you need them, and there’s always something recording when you’re in a truly desperate spot.”
“You even said it turned off when you asked it to,” Melanie pointed out. “When you were in the shack in the swamp.”
“Yes, but…that was the recorders, not the tapes,” Martin said.
“I had the recorder I’d been using with me when I went up to smash the table,” Jon said. “I don’t know how the tape got to you without it, but…”
Martin sighed rather heavily. “I’ve always felt there was something comforting about them,” he admitted. “Certainly I feel less alone when they’re around. That doesn’t mean I understand them.” He glanced down at the recorder in his hand and added, “Still, thank you for fetching them. Bit stupid of me to expect I could just walk into the Web’s stronghold and walk out again.”
“Did you know that’s what it was?” Jon asked. Which, he realized a moment later, was a silly question. Martin was the nearest thing to omniscient there was, of course he’d known…
“Do you know,” Martin said, sounding a bit surprised, “I don’t think I did, actually. I, I knew the Web had been there, but…I just assumed it was the table. Not the place itself.” He shook his head. “Gertrude was right, I guess. It’s only after the fact that you can see all the subtle manipulations.”
“Why did it want you there?” Melanie asked.
“Dunno. To Mark me, maybe, although I can’t think why.” Martin paused. “Or it just wanted me away from the Institute.”
“Or us.” Terror suddenly struck Jon. “Annabelle said it was for my protection—”
“Annabelle. Cane?” Martin leaned forward. “The one from the spider experiment?”
“Were you awake in there?” Melanie asked. “Could you hear what was going on?”
“Not really. I was…” Martin hesitated. “Once she started wrapping me up in the webbing, I…sort of went inside myself? Or something took over. Something was keeping me alive, anyway. I, I was trying to See through the web, but it was…I-I must have pushed too hard. It was like trying to drink the entire ocean through a straw. I was getting everything all at once—every statement I’ve ever read or listened to or taken, every Leitner I’ve ever touched, every encounter I’ve ever had, all playing on top of each other like an overexposed film. But I could—there was something, some kind of truth, something that I—I was reaching for it, I almost had it, and then you called my name and—” He broke off.
“And you lost it,” Jon completed quietly. “I-I’m sorry. If—”
“No, don’t be. Whatever it was, I think actually reaching it would have been the last straw. Something would have come out of that cocoon, but it sure as hell wouldn’t have been me.”
If it had been safe to crawl into the backseat, Jon would have. As it was, he tightened his grip on Martin’s hand, and they drove the rest of the way back to London in silence.
There was more sun near the Institute than there had been in Oxford, but it was still cloudy enough that things felt a bit oppressive. Jon shivered and tucked up against Martin’s side. Weather aside, he needed the comfort. From the way Martin’s arm wrapped around his shoulders, he evidently felt the same.
The three of them made their way in through the side door into the Archives. The second it banged shut behind them, Melanie yelled into the space, “Got him!”
Gerry appeared out of nowhere and tackled Martin in a bear hug that nearly knocked Jon off his feet. “Martin, Jesus, we’ve been trying to get hold of you three for ages and both of these impulsive idiots forgot their phones…”
“Mine got, uh, Webbed.” Martin hugged Gerry back. “I’m okay. I promise. We’re all okay.”
“You won’t be for long. That’s not a threat.” Gerry tugged his arm. “Come on. Something’s up.”
Jon trailed after Gerry and Martin back to the main cluster of desks. Daisy was prowling back and forth like a caged animal, Wynken trotting at her side like a small calico shadow and wisely staying clear of her feet; Tim stood in front of the door to Martin’s office, arms folded across his chest and face grim; Sasha sat on the edge of her desk, looking worried. She leaped up when she saw them and hurried over to hug Melanie, which probably shouldn’t have surprised Jon as much as it did. Daisy, her attention drawn by Sasha’s movement, pounced on Martin in all ways but physical. “She’s gone.”
“What?” Martin blinked at Daisy, looking totally nonplussed. Jon, too, was lost.
“She’s gone, Basira’s gone.” Daisy looked agitated—not angry, not really frightened, but like she was mentally hopping from one foot to the other. “Something’s happened.”
“How can you tell?” The words that came out of Martin’s mouth crackled with static, and he looked instantly contrite. “Shit, sorry, I—”
Daisy didn’t seem to notice, though, or if she did, she didn’t care. “I just…can. Even when she’s in the Lonely, I can feel when she’s around, but she’s not. It’s not like she left for the day, she’s just…gone. And this was in my desk.”
Jon suspected what it would be, even before Daisy held it up, just from the laser-sharp way Martin focused on her hand. He was right. Clutched in Daisy’s long, slender white fingers was a cassette tape. Martin started to reach for it, then stopped himself. “Have you listened to it?”
“No. Listened to the statement you took this morning, tried calling the three of you, spent a while arguing over whether we should go after you or wait until you got back.” Daisy laid the tape on the desk. “Found this in the top drawer, on top of a new pack of gum. It’s from Basira, it has to be. She knows I like the purple pack.” She hesitated, then added, “Besides, it was just the tape. No recorder. Whatever’s putting them in your way didn’t want me to listen yet.”
Martin hesitated, then pulled out the recorder from his pocket. Gerry’s eyes widened at the sight of it. “May I?”
“Please.” Daisy pushed it towards him.
Martin picked up the tape, opened the recorder, removed the tape that was already in there, inserted the one Daisy had given him, and pressed PLAY. He then sat on the edge of the desk to listen.
Jon sat next to him, as close to on his lap as he dared, and listened to the statement. Basira had never got as deep into the statements as Jon or Martin had, but she read in a flat, emotionless voice that nevertheless conveyed everything that needed to be conveyed. She seemed…distant from the whole thing, and while Jon was certainly a bit creeped out by the statement, the whole thing seemed to bore her, merely making her express a wish that Peter Lukas would simply tell her what they were going to do about it.
And then he turned up to do just that.
Or at least, he told her some of the things about it. He asked if she remembered about the tunnels. He told her there was a “device” in the center that would enable them to see what was allegedly going on with the Extinction. He told her it would be hard to find without a map, which made Jon a bit uneasy, especially when he claimed he would have one by “tomorrow”, whenever that was, and that they would be going.
“I suppose I’m not coming back then.” Basira’s voice was as flat and emotionless as it had been reading the statement, and Jon found his eyes flicking briefly over to Daisy.
“You’re not going to die, if that’s what you’re asking, but—no.” Peter Lukas’ voice was calm but surprisingly jovial, considering the topic of conversation. “If all goes well, you won’t be. How does that make you feel?”
There was the shortest of pauses, in which Jon could hear the static building, and then Basira’s voice replied. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
“Excellent.” Peter sounded really pleased at that. “I’m so proud of you, Basira.”
“I really don’t care.”
“Perfect.”
Click.
Sasha’s throat bobbed as she swallowed. Melanie wrapped an arm around her. “Fairgrounds. Great. That didn’t sound like the Web, though. Didn’t sound like any Extinction to me, either. Dekker’s right, he’s looking to confirm his own bias. That was the Flesh. Maybe a bit of the Spiral.” She wavered. “I think.”
Tim put a hand on Daisy’s shoulder and squeezed absently; she reached up and covered his hand briefly with hers, which surprised Jon just a little. He rallied and tried to think rationally. “‘By tomorrow,’ Peter Lukas said. When did she record this?”
“Yesterday,” Martin replied immediately.
Daisy looked up sharply. “How do you know?”
“Has to be.” Martin slid off the desk and popped open the recorder, handing the tape back to Daisy. “The tape wasn’t there last night, but it was this morning. She probably slipped in and left it there for you on her way down to the tunnels. Either she was giving us—giving you—a hint to stop this, or she was saying goodbye. Either way, she and Peter are down there looking for…whatever it is.”
“Can you find it, too?” Daisy pressed.
“I—I don’t know. I don’t think so. Not knowing what it is…I-I don’t know that I could find it just by Knowing. Besides, those tunnels are hard to See in. Whatever’s hidden at the center of them, it’s there by design, and it’s probably something meant to be hidden from us.” Martin ran a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, I wish I could, but…”
“Well, maybe I can.” Daisy glanced at the trapdoor. “Or maybe if we work together.”
Melanie grunted. “Shit, do you think that might be why the Web lured you to Hill Top Road? To get you out of the way so Peter and Basira could get down there without being Seen?”
“It’s possible, but…” Martin shook his head impatiently. “That doesn’t…feel right. I don’t know. The Web never explains itself.”
Tim poked at something on the desk nearest him. “Think there’s an explanation on one of these?”
Jon looked—and did a double-take. Tim was nudging a pair of tapes sitting on Jon’s desk, right at the foot of the photograph he’d printed off and framed, the one they’d taken in Regent’s Park the month before for Gerry’s birthday: Melanie perched on Gerry and Martin’s linked arms, Jon standing practically on Martin’s feet, Sasha laughing as she leaned against Gerry’s shoulder, and Tim and Daisy lounging on the ground and posing outrageously. They had definitely not been there before he left to go after Martin.
“What on Earth…?” he began, reaching over to pick the closer one up. It had more than a few cracks in it, like someone had dropped it a few times or run it over with a lorry or slammed it in a door, and was labeled with two simple words in Gertrude’s by now familiar handwriting: Head Archivist.
He passed it to Martin. “I think this is for you.”
Martin stared at it for a moment, frowning, then slid it into the tape recorder. He didn’t even have to touch it; it began playing almost as soon as it closed. Gertrude Robinson’s voice sounded unusually determined. “Right. If you’re listening to this, it is extremely likely that—no. Let’s not beat about the bush. If you’re listening to this, it means I’m dead. And you have been chosen to be my replacement as Head Archivist.”
Jon glanced up at Sasha in surprise, and not a little guilt, as Gertrude addressed her directly, obviously having selected her as her successor. Sasha didn’t seem particularly upset, though, and he realized—though how he couldn’t tell—that, whatever she may have felt three years ago when Jon took the position she’d wanted, she sure as hell didn’t envy him or Martin now. She probably wouldn’t have at the time, either, if she’d had this tape. Gertrude was laying everything out, up to and including the fact that the Archivist was part of a ritual to bring the Eye to ascendancy, and that Elias was likely behind it.
“Oh, yes,” Gertrude’s voice said, almost as if it was an afterthought. “On the subject of Elias: Trust nothing he says. He was originally known as Jonah Magnus, the founder of this Institute—”
“What?” Jon, Melanie, and Sasha all cried out at once.
“Shh,” Tim said, face pale but eyes fixed intently on the recorder.
Jon listened, his heart in his throat, but Gertrude gave no further explanation for her extraordinary assertion that Elias was, or had once been, Jonah Magnus; she only went on to explain more things they already knew, that Martin as the Archivist was in great danger and that the world was now on his shoulders, before stating that she hoped she would be able to prevent him from having to listen to it.
“But if you are hearing it, then—good luck. Do what you have to do.” There was a heavy sigh, and then a brief pause before Gertrude’s voice added, a bit tremulously, “One last thing. Should you have the opportunity…please pass the message to Martin Blackwood that—that Mrs. Smith regrets he was unable to complete his studies, and regrets even more that he works here, but that she is thankful he is only in the Library…and that she is very, very proud of him.”
The recorder clicked off, much more quietly than usual.
“What,” Melanie finally said, “and I cannot stress this enough, the actual goddamn fuck.”
“Elias Bouchard is Jonah Magnus,” Jon said, his voice shaking as the realization settled on him.
Gerry pinched the bridge of his nose. “Why does that not surprise me?”
“He’s been body-hopping,” Daisy said. “Like Rayner. No wonder your dad was so surprised Bouchard became head of the Institute. He was a white streak of nothing and shouldn’t have got the job. James Wright—or Jonah Magnus or whoever—must’ve picked him out because nobody would miss him.”
Tim suddenly slapped his hand on the desk in front of him, making Jon jump. “Fuck! The tunnels!”
“The—what about them?” Martin jerked his head up and focused on Tim.
“They’re the remains of the old Millbank Prison complex,” Tim said, the words falling over one another rapid fire. “And what was at the center of Millbank Prison?”
“The Panopticon,” Melanie breathed. “You think that’s the device?”
“Must be. What does it do? It lets you see everything. Or, more to the point, it makes you feel like people could see everything. But it’s also isolating, which is why Peter Lukas needs someone touched by both the Eye and the Lonely to work it.”
Martin pressed his lips together. “And if that’s where Jonah Magnus’ original body is stored…”
“Basira has to destroy it,” Daisy said. “You think? That’s how it usually works in the stories. To destroy the monster, you have to kill the root.”
“Maybe. I don’t know. I can’t know, but—” Martin sighed, sounding frustrated. “There has to be a key. Some way of getting down there easily. A-a statement, or, or something. Peter Lukas can’t be the only one with a map.”
Jon looked over at the shelves, which were in better order than they had been—whether that had hastened whatever was about to happen or not—but were still stuffed with papers and a bit on the chaotic side in the places they hadn’t quite got to yet. “Where do we even start looking?”
Melanie looked at the surface of Jon’s desk and indicated the second tape. “What about this one? It’s not labeled.”
Gerry picked up the tape and went still. His hazel eyes seemed to drain of color, growing pale along with his skin, and he swayed as if caught in a high wind.
“Gerry?” Martin reached out for him, obviously concerned.
Gerry turned to face him. Jon swore he rippled, like he was standing in three places at the same time, as he held the tape out to Martin. “It’s your grandfather.”