The low vibration changed in pitch, now coming very clearly from one pathway and not the other. I stood, brushing the bone fragments and dust from my skirts, and started to walk, but the sense of surety faded. Puzzled, I touched my hand to the wall and immediately felt it again.
“So I have to be touching you,” I said. “All right.”
It should have felt strange to be talking to a wall. It was remarkable how verynotstrange it actually felt. Baldbeak and I continued together through the catacombs, turning this way or that depending on what my fingertips told me.
I felt rather like I was following a fine thread spooling outin front of me and behind, marking my path and drawing me inexorably forward to … something. The book, I hoped. Butsomethingwas calling me, undeniably.
Strangely, I was very calm. I felt the same sense of timelessness and quiet absorption that I felt when embroidering a design. Baldbeak was silent, hunched and vigilant on my shoulder, staring straight ahead as we walked.
The imaginary thread led me to a cavern, different from the others we had passed. For one thing, there was only one way out—the tunnel through which we had entered. It was a perfectly round space with an arched ceiling, every surface set with ivory bones. The curve of the walls and ceiling gave the feeling of being inside a gigantic eggshell. Large sarcophagi lay at intervals throughout the room, carved with frowning, bearded men wearing crowns and holding swords in the hands they clasped at their chests. The effigies were painted gold. It wasn’t hard to guess that this was the Tomb of Kings.
Shiny, said Baldbeak approvingly.
All about the walls were openings, or alcoves, arched at the top and flat at the bottom. The bones in these alcoves were arranged in a more regular pattern than in the tunnels, like a mosaic, forming strange but oddly fluid designs. They looked familiar. I stared at them for a while, finally recognizing shapes that resembled the “forbidden” Temple stitches I used in my embroidery—the Anchor, the Hands Raised in Prayer, the Sacred Knot—and wound through them all were the now-familiar symbols of magic—the knot of hair, the tooth, the spread hand. The skull. Relics from a time when the practice of magic had been so interwoven in the lives of kings that it had been given a place in their halls of death.
Directly opposite the tunnel through which we had entered was a semicircular recess at floor level, like the apse in a temple building. Its end was in shadow from where I stood.
When I walked forward and cast the light of the glim towards it, it illuminated a ruined tomb, stones and bonefragments strewn around it as if someone had taken to it with a sledgehammer. There were also spots of what looked like blood. I stepped over them cautiously. On top of the tomb lay a single volume, bound in pale leather, set with mother-of-pearl, seawater pearls, and uncomfortably toothlike wedges of ivory.
Mother’s book.
After all this time.
With shaking hands, I lifted it. It thrummed with energy against my skin. The leather felt warm and fleshlike. This close, the pearls had the milky shine of the whites of eyes. I riffled through the pages that represented Mother’s life’s work. The ink was wine red, almost purple; the illuminations picked out in gold paint that I remembered making for her with powder and gum. I recognized Mother’s distinctive, forceful hand at once.
Now what?said Baldbeak.
“I’m not sure.” Part of me had still hoped that Mother would be here, although I knew it was unlikely. I still had no idea what had happened to her. Another part of me had hoped that simply holding the book would causesomethingto happen, but clearly that wasn’t the case either.
I set it back down in its place and opened it, hoping that by some alchemy, I would finally be able to read it … But the symbols were as meaningless and as impossible to pin down as always. I felt sick and clasped it to my chest. If I could get it out of here, at least, back up to the surface, perhaps I could find the Book Man again, and …
“Netta.”
I spun around, nearly dropping my light, but catching it just in time. It swung in my hand, creating chaotic, ominous shadows. A figure stepped out of them.Ban Morin, my panicked brain told me, then realized the figure was shorter and slighter than my would-have-been husband. Baldbeak’s pleased squawk also gave him away.
“Netta. It’s me.”
Patrick. He was not dressed in the high lord’s garb he had worn at the party, but in the plainer black he had worn on the road, just without the many-colored coat over top. His face was drawn with exhaustion.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. I angled the glim to see behind him. “Have you come to drag me back to the king?”
“No.” He stood with his hands clasped in front of him, as if to reassure me that he wasn’t going to make any sudden movements.
“What’s happening with Ban Morin’s men?” An awful thought occurred to me. “Are they in the city?”
“No. The king’s men are keeping them at bay.” He took a cautious step forward. “I see you found the book.”
“Stay back,” I said. My Hair floated out around my head, a bright and angry halo.
“I came to help.”
“Just stop,” I said. “Stop talking. Stop lying. Just don’t say anything for once. I don’t want to hear a word you have to say.”
His jaw clenched, but he said nothing.
“Did Mieka tell you where I went?”
“She didn’t want to.”
