“I’m afraid it may not be that easy. Wait. Is that a word up there?” She brushed the dust off the doorway. Some kind of inscription was carved into the frame.
“If it’s a Caster doorway, I wouldn’t be surprised.” I rubbed the wood with my hand, and it splintered beneath my fingers. Whatever it was, it was ancient.
“ ‘Temporis Porta.’ Time Door? What does that mean?” Liv asked.
“It means we don’t have time for this.” I leaned my forehead against the doors. I could feel a surge of heat and energy where the ancient wood touched my face. It was vibrating.
“Ethan?”
“Shh.”
Come on. Open. I know there’s something I’m supposed to see.
I focused my mind on the doors in front of me, the way I had on the Arclight the last time we were trying to find our way through the Tunnels.
I’m the Wayward. I know I am. Show me the way.
I heard the distinct sound of wood beginning to crack and splinter.
The wood shook as if the doors were going to collapse.
Come on. Show me.
I stood back as they swung open, split by light. Dust fell from their seal as if this entrance hadn’t been opened in a thousand years.
“How did you do that?” Liv was staring at me.
“I don’t know, but it’s open. Let’s go.”
We stepped inside, and the dust and the light dissolved around us. Liv reached out her hand, and before I could take it, I disappeared—
I was standing alone in the center of a huge hall. It looked the way I imagined Europe, maybe England or France or Spain—somewhere old and timeless. But I couldn’t be sure. The farthest the Tunnels had ever taken me was the Great Barrier. The room was as big as the inside of a ship, tall and rectangular, made entirely of stone. I don’t think it was a church, but something like a church or a monastery—vast and holy and full of mystery.
Massive beams crossed the ceiling, surrounded by smaller wood squares. Inside each square was a gold rose, a circle with petals.
Caster circles?
That didn’t seem right.
Nothing about this place was familiar. Even the power in the air—buzzing, like a downed electrical wire—felt different.
There was an alcove across the room, with a small balcony. Five windows ran the length of the wall, stretching higher than the tallest houses in Gatlin, framing the room with soft light that crept through the billows of sheer fabric hanging over them. Thick golden drapes hung at their sides, and I couldn’t tell if the breeze blowing through the windows was a Caster or a Mortal one.
The walls were paneled and curved into low benches near the floor. I had seen pictures like these in my mom’s books. Monks and acolytes sat on benches like this to pray.
Why was I here?
When I looked up again, the room was suddenly full of people. They were wedged onto the entire length of the bench, filling the space in front of me, crowding and pushing from all sides. I couldn’t see their faces; half of them were cloaked. But all of them were buzzing with anticipation.
“What’s going on? What are we waiting for?”
No one answered. It was as if they couldn’t see me, which didn’t make sense. This wasn’t a dream. I was in a real place.
The crowd moved forward, murmuring, and I heard the banging of a gavel. “Silentium.”
Then I saw familiar faces, and I realized where I was. Where I had to be.
The Far Keep.
At the end of the hall, Marian was hooded and robed, her hands tied with a golden rope. She stood in the balcony above the room, next to the tall man who showed up in the library archive. The Council Keeper, I heard people around me whisper. The albino Keeper was standing behind him.
He spoke in Latin, and I couldn’t understand him. But the people around me did, and they were going crazy. “Ulterioris Arcis Concilium, quod nulli rei—sive homini, sive animali, sive Numini Atro, sive Numini Albo—nisi Rationi Rerum paret, Marianam ex Arce Occidentali Perfidiae condemnat.”
The Council Keeper repeated the words in English, and I understood why the people around me were reacting this way. “The Council of the Far Keep, which answers only to the Order of Things, to no man, creature, or power, Dark or Light, finds Marian of the Western Keep guilty of Treason.”
There was a piercing pain in my stomach, as if my whole body had been sliced with a giant blade.
“These are the Consequences of her inaction. The Consequences shall be paid. The Keeper, though Mortal, will return to the Dark Fire from which all power comes.”
The Council Keeper removed Marian’s hood, and I could see her eyes, ringed with darkness. Her head was shaved, and she looked like a prisoner of war. “The Order is broken. Until the New Order comes forth, the Old Law must be upheld, and the Consequences paid.”
“Marian! You can’t let them—” I tried to push through the crowd, but the more I tried, the faster people surged forward, and the farther away she seemed.
Until I hit something, someone unmoving and unmovable. I looked up into the glassy stare of Lilian English.
Mrs. English? What is she doing here?
“Ethan?”