Lakshmi stood. “Yes, but Handel is a powerful wraith and the Ward has been weakened, which may embolden him to try and force his way down.” “The Ward told me she would rather fight than wither away.” I put the sheet music back in my pack. “And she can let whomever she wants pass down the Steps.”
“You think the Ward would allow it?” Lakshmi asked. “To make a final stand, perhaps?”
“We’ve got to go.” I tried to stand, but my legs gave out and I collapsed back down.
My friends needed me to get up, but my stamina was gone. The small hollows that had opened inside me every time I’d imparted a piece of myself seemed to be catching up with me. How could I descend through history like this, let alone face a wraith of Handel’s magnitude? My heart was willing, but I just felt tired . . . small.
Kincaid sat next to me. “You look weary. Maybe I can help.” I knew where this was going. “Heal me, you mean?”
“After a fashion,” Kincaid said.
I’d done something like this for Chuey—the elanothalia drycraeft—but I sensed what Kincaid meant was something a little different. Trouble was, much as I liked the priest, I still had feelings about prayers and such that went back a long time. Probably more of the forgiveness path the Ward said I needed to get back on.
Those misgivings were hard to let go, though. Some of them had hardened me for the street, and that wasn’t all bad. But I needed help, or I wasn’t getting up. “All right,” I finally said.
Kincaid laid his hand over mine and silently shared a beautiful empathy that passed down deep into my soul. It was as quiet and hopeful as the sunrise. It soothed my scars, made them seem bearable, and restored a few simple, pleasant memories—Aunt Gloria chasing off the bullies, Dad fixing my bike chain—where hollows had been.
It wasn’t just that I felt stronger. I felt . . . more like myself. And I was so happy to have back these little parts of me that I’d lost.
I took a deep breath—deeper than I had in a while—and stared back at Kincaid. Instead of imparting one of his memories to restore me, he’d given me back some of my own. “How . . .”
“Not everything is thanaturgy.” He offered a half smile. “Our burdens are the very things that make us strong, Jack, the very things a friend is pleased to help shoulder. And like the bones in my abbey, memory carries a residue of the soul that can be reconstituted when given a little care.”
This priest was all right. And maybe I’d let myself hate on guys like John for far too long. “Thank you.”
He nodded. Then he reached into his pocket and handed me a spinner of dark-blue twine. “Lingual thread. For you and your friends. Worn at the neck, it will remove language barriers in the deep Strata.”
“Thanks,” I said again, then handed him Handel’s most recentMessiah. “For safekeeping.”
He gently took the score. “Jack,” he added, “descending that far is risky. I’ve replenished some of what you’ve lost. But for young thanatists, the increasing weight of the past tends to call up deeper memories.”
“I’ve felt a little of that already.”
Kincaid looked at me and Chuey. “Pause on each stratum long enough to center yourselves, or you won’t survive the descent.”
He walked us back through the Abbey and out the Dean’s Yard door. “Godspeed, my friends,” Kincaid called after us.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
The summoning of mature wraiths is forbidden, for such beings, even if successfully bound,invariably promote Strata imbalance and loss of life.
—Precedent Law, Rule Three
Then we gotclose to the Iron Horse on the Renaissance Stratum, we found the Shiguan throng had completely filled Manette Street and spilled out onto Castle Street. It was getting dark, and linkboys stood around lighting the street with pitch-and-tow torches. Vestiges, semblances, thanatists, and other beings I couldn’t place milled restlessly, readying for Brach’s invasion. There seemed no way to get to the Iron Horse door, and I didn’t think my Cannibal Corpse trick was going to work on a crowd this big. We were losing time getting to the Ancient Stratum. The wraith could be there now.
“We only need the Abyssal Steps from the Roman to the Ancient Stratum,” Lakshmi said. “We could take the Dials steps from here to?—”
I shook my head. “We don’t have time to zigzag our way down.”
A horse carriage was rolling up Castle Street behind us—gave me an idea. I darted toward it, grabbed the lead horse’s tack, and pulled the team to a stop. “We need to borrow this,” I told the driver.
The guy pulled his whip back as if he meant to lash me. Lakshmi leapt up and ripped the whip from his hand. “Do as the man says. Precedent business.”
The driver grumbled but climbed down. Church, Chuey, and Lady clambered in back. Lakshmi joined me on the trundle bench. I yanked the reins toward the Iron Horse and cracked the whip.
The horses took off at a run directly toward the crowd. “Stand back,” I cried out.
Carriage wheels rumbled; horseshoes struck stone in a frenzied rhythm. The crowd shouted and swore at us, but scurried out of the way. Torchlight glinted off serrated daggers, swords, and polearms. We plowed ahead.
