I don’t know how I’m going to leave her down here.
“We have to go,” she says. And I can tell when Samara Archiva has decided what to do, because as soon as she does, she goes at it like a warrior. She pulls aside the gold curtain and there are clothes, a huge row of them, boxes and shelves of shimmering cloth and slippers and shoes.
I look around, at the gilded mirror walls, a dressing table carved by someone who is an expert at their craft, the ceiling painted with metallic stars. What must it have been like for Nita to come down here the first time, and then go back Outside again? What must it have been like for Samara? The difference is as down-the-rabbit-hole as you can get. But there’s nothing personal in here. No drawings, trinkets. Maybe when you can’t forget, it’s not necessary to fill your world with reminders. Maybe when your mind is so full, it’s easier not to have them.
I cross the rugs and watch her choose a tunic and leggings in a dark bloodred, embroidered all over with shining black. She already has a scarf and shoes in her hand.
“What are you doing, exactly?”
“Changing clothes,” she hisses, pulling the curtain shut. In less than a minute, the undyed cloth top and bottoms come sailing over the top of the gold curtain and her head sticks out. “Hide those beneath the mattress. Make sure the bed looks exactly the same.”
I do, and I’m thinking we risked a lot to come up here for Samara to grab a new outfit. Then she’s out, in the crimson and black, sitting at the table with the mirror, grabbing a blue glass jar. I’d like to look at that jar, but I think if I tried, Samara would smack me. She’s working fast.
“If we are seen,” she whispers, painting a line of black around her eyes, “I could make up an excuse, depending on who it is and how smart they are. Make up some story about a medical emergency … ”
When the Knowing don’t get sick.
“It won’t work. But it could buy me some time. But you … I can’t explain you.”
Or being in the corridors in undyed cloth. I see.
She’s winding a black scarf around her soft, curling tangles, pulling it all up and tying and pinning it around her head like a turban. She smears red on her lips, slides on a pair of soft black slippers, and turns around.
Her eyes are amber framed in black, skin shining. And now, for the first time, I think I really am meeting one of the Knowing. A descendant of Canaan, a human from another galaxy. She is so beautiful I can’t remember one word I was about to say. But I think I like it better when her hair’s down. I also notice she’s chosen colors that will blend with the dark.
She hurries, putting each thing back with precision, adjusting the gold curtain just so. Then with a move more like dance, she reaches behind one of the mirrors and tosses something at me. I stick out a hand and catch it before I know what’s coming. A ring of keys.
“Are you coming?” she says, adjusting the rug.
I think she needs to get out of this room.
For the faithful of the NWSE, our directive is clear: That we, the best of Earth, and now the most worthy of Canaan, we who were chosen to create a superior society, now have an even higher calling. To bring beauty, peace, prosperity, and, most of all, justice to the Earth. To take knowledge and our memory back to our home and rule it …
FROM THE NOTEBOOK OF JANIS ATAN
Down is harder than up when climbing the cavern. We take it slowly, finding our footholds in the dark. I don’t see anyone, and I don’t think anyone can see us. Beckett isn’t wearing the glasses, though, and I’m not sure why. He makes the railing of Uncle Towlend’s chambers before me, instantly sliding the glasses on, and I hop down after.
“Is it safe?” I whisper. He answers by beckoning, and I follow him inside.
Uncle Towlend’s empty rooms are as sad as his office to me. More so, maybe, because he and Aunt Letitia were so happy here. Until love killed them. Beckett is standing in front of the closed door, using the glasses to look through into the corridor. That shirt of Nathan’s barely fits him, and suddenly, I drop through my mind to the floor of my bedchamber, the skin of Beckett’s back running smooth beneath my fingers. And I drop again, to him catching my hand. Telling me he understands. Accepting me. Mess and all.
Right at this moment, I don’t care if love kills me.
Beckett looks back. “Ready?”
I nod. “You cannot be seen. And if you are, don’t speak.”
He puts a hand on my face, and then opens the door.
We steal out into the corridor, and I lead Beckett back to the kitchen-level stairs, my breath short, pulse thumping in my temples. There’s no easy way to the chemistry labs, and never have I wanted to go to them so badly. I want Beckett to be right. For there to be something in those injections, so I don’t have to be Knowing.
I don’t want to Forget him.
We move without noise up two more levels, Beckett first, using the glasses. We haven’t seen another soul. The Council is rumored to have watchers that report back our sins, that even roam the corridors during the resting. I’ve never seen one. But if the system is random, that would make it dangerous. I tug Beck to a stop at a doorway.
“Stay close. And we can’t talk; there will be an echo.”
We cross the grand entry hall, with its high ceilings and blue-and-black-riddled walls, floor sloping up to the gates and down into the city, step through a door on the other side, and then we’re moving again across the silence of carpet. Past the lit windows of the learning rooms, and the entertaining rooms, where I see Beckett’s head turn as we pass, down again, and into a short tunnel. I wait, giving Beck time to check it thoroughly, and when he nods we steal inside the Forum.
One or two lamps on balconies sprinkle down light, and already there are three false moons strung up high over our heads, ready to be lit for the Changing of the Seasons. We slide along the vast cavern’s edges, where we can’t be seen from above, the Torrens gushing, noisy beneath its bridges, around the tall rock platform, and down its channel. Beckett is trying to go fast while he takes it all in, and it makes me remember that the blue-black columns and the glowing, trailing flowers are beautiful. And then my memories show me Sonia, falling through the air in the silver dress, and I think the beauty of the Forum is no more real than my painted eyes.