Ory looked down again. He didn’t want to agree with it, but he knew Imanuel was right.
“I have to tell you something else,” Imanuel began again at last. “I just want you to listen, that’s all.” He drew closer, voice dropping. “I’ve heard some things over the last two years. Not much, but snatches here and there. It’s rumor, but so many people have the same story, there must be at least some truth to it.” Imanuel was speaking faster and faster in his excitement. “They’re saying—”
“New Orleans.” Ory grimaced.
Imanuel blinked in surprise. The icy rain pattered against the ground into slush outside. “You know about it, too,” he said at last.
“I heard the same thing back in Arlington.” The group of hardened travelers standing around an empty pool played in his mind like a silent film. Their leader’s leathery face and shaved head, her gun: Ursula. Had they made it after all? How many of them still had their shadows?
“Well, that’s what the books are for. The One Who Gathers, the rumors say he’s gathering people, but not just people—he’s looking for something else. Memories. Books have memories, right?” Imanuel asked, staring hard at his hands. “In a way.”
“Books also have shadows,” Ory said. Imanuel looked up at him hopefully. “So do pieces of shit sitting out on the asphalt.”
“Ory,” he bristled.
“So do dead birds, trash cans, decrepit buildings—”
“Stop.”
“I’m just saying, that’s a lot of risk to collect thousands of books from a crazed warrior clan and a long, dangerous way to drag them for a rumor about a bunch of jumbled nonsense.”
Imanuel refused to give up. “I don’t think it’s just a rumor.”
Ory didn’t look at him. He couldn’t. They both knew what he was going to ask next.
“Ory, it’s over,” Imanuel said gently. Ory felt his hand on his shoulder. “It’s been weeks since she forgot, and disappeared. She’s gone. She was gone a long time ago. There’s no reason to stay here now.”
“No,” Ory said.
“Ory—”
“No.”
Imanuel put his hands up and moved back a few steps as a gesture of peace. He took a long breath. In the dim light, Ory could see the outline of him against the wall grow and shrink as he did.
“I know how bad the odds are,” Ory said. The fire hissed. “But I just can’t.” He stared at the exhausted slope of Imanuel’s shoulders. “If it was the other way around, what would you want me to do for you? What if Paul was possibly still here in D.C.? What would you want me to do?”
Imanuel turned away abruptly, and made a sudden sound that could have been a sob. It came from so deep inside him that Ory jerked halfway to his feet before he realized he’d even moved, arms out to catch his friend before he fell. It was the sound of pain that was too great for a mind to bear anymore. The sound of a soul dying, leaving only biological echoes behind to wander through the motions of life until the end. Ory waited for a long time, for the rest of it, for Imanuel to collapse. But nothing followed. Nothing fell into his arms.
“I would want you to tell me to give up,” Imanuel finally said, but the words were hardly words. They were a moan.
Ory looked at him as he withered in the firelight. Too far. His words had gone too far. Imanuel’s hands were still pressed against his face, blocking his expression from view. Their shadows twitched, weak in the firelight.
“I shouldn’t have said that,” Ory finally said. “I—”
Imanuel held his hand up, to cut him off. “After.” His voice was hard. “After we get Paul’s book, I’ll lend you a few soldiers to look for Max. But I promised them all that if they helped me get what I need, all of them would make it to New Orleans with me. I can’t go back on my word. Whatever you decide for yourself is up to you, but the soldiers will stay with you for two weeks and then follow after us.”
“Thank you,” Ory said.
Imanuel nodded. Ory thought he was going to leave, but he stayed there, head down, for a long time. “I hope you change your mind before that,” he finally said. “About New Orleans.”
“I can’t,” Ory said.
“Can’t,” he asked. “Or won’t?”
They looked at each other for a long time. “I don’t want to forget,” Ory said.
The expression on Imanuel’s face was the worst kind of pain. “I didn’t say forget,” he murmured quietly, his voice thick with sadness. “I would never say forget.”
The One Who Gathers
THE FIRST SHADOWLESS HE FOUND WAS CALLED MICHAEL.