The sight distracted her, and then his house crashed down upon her. Strings of bricks whipped about her head, and she crouched; walls clattered, chattered triumphantly as they built themselves around her.
The chaos ceased. The roar of the city was muffled now; there was only a slight vibration beneath her feet. Carefully, she rose. She was in a room made from the rubble of other rooms—windows were embedded in the floor, half-formed flights of stairs ribbed the ceiling, and flower-shaped lamps glowed from the walls.
She had to find a way out.
The building was an impossible jumble. Stairs wound and climbed their way straight up into the ceiling. Windows opened to reveal flat, featureless walls. Rooms were turned on their sides, or nestled inside each other. Statues hid in corners, their cold, marble faces too lifelike for her to be easy looking at them; she remembered the statues on the outer walls, which moved and climbed.
At last, she found a stair of polished ivory, and at the top a room paved in black and white tiles. There was a great bay window, looking out on the city, and before the window stood her father.
As she stepped into the room, he whirled, one hand rising, his face contorted into a snarl of fear. It was an expression she had never seen on him before, and she flinched from it.
Juliet remembered when she loved her father, when she was so proud if he was the least bit pleased in her. It seemed so long ago.
She remembered breaking his neck, and it felt only a moment past.
Then he recognized her. His face smoothed.
“It’s only you,” he said. “Well, then.”
And he turned away from her.
Juliet had braced herself for rage, but the simple dismissal was like a knife between her ribs.
“Father,” she said weakly, but he did not turn.
Never, in her whole life, had he cared when she needed him.
“Father!” she called again, striding toward him.
He whipped his hands up in a violent motion, and the building surged forward. She stumbled, nearly losing her balance.
“If you must be here,” he said, “you might as well make yourself useful and guard the door.”
Juliet swallowed dryly, wondering if he remembered that she had killed him. “Against what?”
“The statues,” he said. “Haven’t you learned anything since dying? Some of them rebel, and find their way inside. They move more slowly in here, but they’re still troublesome to stop.”
She glanced at the doorway, but it was empty.
“What are you doing here?” she asked. “What is this place?”
He laughed harshly. “When I’m done? The closest thing to the Paths of Light.”
The old, bitter disappointment twisted at her heart, and she demanded, “Did you ever believe in them?”
There was a vast thunder of colliding stone, and the floor shuddered beneath them. Her father’s house was eating another.
“No,” he said, and the word was soft, but it rocked her back on her heels, because it was an admission she knew he never would have made while alive.
“When has there ever been a place prepared for us?” he demanded. “A peace we did not buy with our own blood? All other peoples hate us, and death claws at the doors of our city, and yet still the magi tell us to trust in zoura. What has zoura ever given us, but death and silence? I’ll trust in what I can build. I’ll make a palace for our people right here, and invite them all home.”
Juliet knew, with a knife-edge clarity, that he was at last speaking truth. That this was his heart and what he desired, and it was almost a noble ambition. It was almost like something Runajo might have said.
She could almost forgive him for it. But she knew what he had done for that ambition—and still, still he did not look at her.
“You can try to drag him out,” said a voice from behind, “but you’d have to build a house to do it. And then you’d just make him into a statue.”
She whirled. A reaper stood in the doorway, watching her with calm, golden eyes.
“He can’t see me,” said the reaper. “I’m surprised he can see you. He must not have been here very long.”
“What is this place?” she asked.
“You’re a clever child,” said the reaper. “Do you want to hear a story about what happens to clever children when they face Death?”
And as the reaper told her the story, she saw it as if in a dream:
There was a boy so clever he could talk the stars into his hands. He had a brother, and he loved that brother more than all the stars in the sky.
Of course the brother died.
And this boy, he decided he was clever enough to get his brother back. He found his way through the chinks and crannies of the world, down into the land of the dead. He tricked the Eyes and the Teeth into eating a cake of poppy seeds that put her to sleep. He charmed the reapers into carrying him across the river of blood. And finally, beside a pool of still, black water, he found Death waiting for him, wearing his face.
The boy smiled and said, “If you love me so much already, I’m sure we can come to an agreement.”
Death did not smile in return, but she loved him for his cleverness. “I can’t give you something for nothing,” she said. “But do me a favor, and you can have your brother back.”
“I’ll do anything you like,” said the boy, “and I’ll make you laugh while I’m at it.”
Death took him by the hand, and led him to an endless plain of stone. “I would like to have a palace here,” she said. “The stone of this plain has a special power: it can be shaped by a single thought—but only a thought from a human mind. Fill this plain with a palace from end to end, and I will give your brother back.”
“Is that all?” said the boy. “Prepare for your kingdom to be one soul smaller.”
He threw up his hands. Arches and columns and walls sprang out of the plain. Room by room, tower by tower, he built Death a palace, and oh, it was very fair. But the plain was as wide as thought is quick, and no matter how swiftly he built, he came no closer to filling it.
And still he builds, endlessly clever and devising, surrounded by all the clever souls who think they can devise a way to rule death; and Death, when she visits him, laughs.
The vision released Juliet at the same moment that the building shuddered again. She staggered, then fell to her knees. Despair was like a heavy weight in her heart. Because she had seen what happened to the brave, and now she had seen what happened to the clever.
She had trusted in her own bravery. She had trusted in Runajo’s cleverness. If neither could save her—
“Juliet!” called her father. “Juliet, listen to me!”
Her head ached. Slowly, she turned to look at him.
“Yes, Father?”
“Stand up. You’re a child of mine. Guard my house with pride. Stay.”
He still did not turn to look at her. But he wanted her. He wanted her, and in his voice was the promise of meaning and purpose.
She had believed in that promise so long. And what else did she have any hope of? If she tried to challenge Death, only ruin would follow.
Her hands felt stiff and heavy. Juliet looked down, and saw paper-thin traceries of stone winding around her fingers. She flexed them, and the stone crumbled. But she could still feel the heavy weight of obedience at the pit of her stomach, dragging at her like an iron weight.
Stay. It was like a voice in her ears, like a drug in her veins. Stay with him. Obey.
But she had made her own promise.
Slowly, painfully, she turned to the reaper.
“Is Death on the other side of this plain?” she asked.
“For you, she is,” said the reaper.
“If this plain is as wide as thought,” said Juliet, “how can I get across it?”
“How did you come to this land?” asked the reaper.
“I sank into the water,” said Juliet. Then she looked at the window and started to understand. “I fell,” she said, more softly. “It felt like I was falling forever.”
The reaper smiled. “You will need to fall much farther still, to speak with Death,” it said, and vanished.
Juliet remembered buildings crushed to rubble against the heartless plain, and she was afraid. But here in the land of the dead, she could hardly die more.