In Innsmouth, at the butcher shop or the grocer’s, I once believed I knew the future of everyone around me. The same people would surround me as I grew, would live with me later among the throng in the deep ocean. The insurmountable age gap between child and storekeeper would dwindle until we could hardly remember which of us was older.
These people had no such illusion of security. I would probably never see them again. Or one might turn around and say some mad thing, and like Audrey become an unexpected and intimate part of my life. Part of my burden of mourning.
I couldn’t even imagine that I knew their future. In the morning papers, in the tension that drove Spector and Barlow in opposing directions, I heard murmurs of apocalyptic fear. I could be confident, as they could not, that life would last long on this world. Even men of the air had history yet unformed. The Yith, as the elders complained, were ever stingy with specific timelines, and history told us they had good reason for that. But there were empires named that had yet to rise. Little comfort to be found there: they could rise tomorrow and fall to the great bombs in a scant few years—or could rise long after humanity again dwindled to a thousand individuals huddling around a river mouth.
Endless disasters might overtake the short-lived people to whom I’d bound myself. Plagues and famines, mind-destroying magics, careless or uncaring powers, vast rocks hurtling unseen through the dark. And the little choices, made by people with a little power, that could unravel lives.
A young man laughed, flirting with the woman behind the counter. She moved aside and began preparing his meal: picking the best of the sliced ham, piling it with care, slicing cheese to his nodded approval. I forced my attention to the little island of order, and thought on whether I might, in the face of power and foolishness, make any such refuge of my own.
CHAPTER 20
Dinner at the spa was a tense affair, during which we all affected relaxation. Barlow dined with the rest of his team. He greeted us affably, every word glinting obsidian. At intervals throughout the meal one or another of his people found an excuse to wander over, ask a question of Spector, inquire about the progress of our studies. It was a relief to put aside our plates and go out into the cold, uncrowded night. Spector headed for the guest dorm, while the rest of us went on with Trumbull.
As Trumbull unlocked her door, Dawson slipped up beside Caleb. Trumbull gave her an amused look. “You’ll want the study again tonight?” she asked me.
“If you don’t mind.”
“This is what comes of having guests.” But she acquiesced. Neko took out a notebook and settled to her chosen secretarial duties, and we of the confluence went upstairs. Once the door was shut, Dawson dangled a ring of keys for Caleb.
“You got it!” he cried. He grabbed her waist and swooped her into a somewhat improper kiss. She shrieked, but returned the embrace in full. When he set her down, though, she pulled away as if burned and eyed the rest of us with trepidation.
Charlie had looked away, blushing. Audrey’s mouth had thinned, but she shook it off. “Boy, you two are cute! What’s the occasion?”
“Library keys,” said Caleb simply.
My lips parted. “Caleb, you didn’t ask her to—but is it safe—and where are we going to—”
He put up a hand to forestall my sputtering. “For now, let’s just look. To know what we’re dealing with, how big the collection really is. We can plan more from there.”
“And it’ll be safe,” said Dawson, “if we go at the right time.” She squatted to examine the palimpsest slate, not meeting any eyes. “The library closes at midnight. Watchmen check in during their rounds, but there’s no regular guard—hasn’t been a break-in in over twenty years. I’d say 2:30 or so’s a good time to slip inside. Should be okay as long as you resist waving flashlights around near windows.”
“We see in the dark,” Caleb told her smugly. It was a slight exaggeration, but the moon wasn’t yet new, the night was clear, and we’d manage.
“I don’t,” said Charlie. He hefted his cane, frowning. “You’d better do this without me—be careful.”
I could see that he wondered whether it was a good idea at all, and I felt much the same. But I could also tell that the others wouldn’t be dissuaded, nor did I wish to waste whatever sacrifice Dawson had made for this opportunity.
And I was grateful for those excuses: my heart sped at the thought of standing unimpeded among our treasure. “Can you see in the dark?” I asked Audrey.
“Not that I ever noticed. But I’m pretty good at not bumping into things unless I mean to.”
It was well before midnight, and our burglary required minimal planning. Instead—after making sure she understood what she was getting into—we brought Dawson more formally into the confluence.
There were no great revelations in her blood. If anyone was startled to find it much like Charlie’s, they kept it to themselves. Afterward, she leaned against Caleb’s shoulder. There was something in our connection that transcended propriety. In the afterglow of the ritual my companions felt solid and sure and safe—and while I knew it for illusion, I also knew it concealed more truth than the seductive lies of our first summoning.
“You got pretty blood,” she told him.
A blush crept over his sallow features. “So do you.”
“That’s a new one,” said Audrey. “Most guys stick to saying nice things about your outsides.”
I forbore from sharing some of the more salacious stories of the Mad Ones. “That’s never been an issue for me,” I said, keeping my voice light.
Audrey gave me a piercing look. “You have your own way of looking right. It’s different when you know what it means.”
I forbore, too, from pointing out that men of my own kind—had I agemates other than my brother—would need no such deeper understanding to find me alluring. Or that I’d begun to fantasize about such men, even as I struggled to call up the urges that would let me return their imagined affections. Jealousy of Caleb under the circumstances went beyond unseemly.
We talked of other, easier things. I told Dawson more of the principles behind the Inner Sea, Charlie and Caleb and even Audrey adding explanation as they were able. I wondered whether Spector would notice Charlie’s continued absence.
I stifled a few yawns, but when the time came to go I felt wide awake. Audrey poked my arm.
“Have you actually done anything like this before? Illegal, I mean?”
Prayed. Snuck food beyond my ration from the camp mess hall. Drawn letters in dirt for Caleb, though we’d had no texts to show their importance. “I’m alive, aren’t I?”
“Just try not to look like you’re skulking.”
I gave her my mother’s best irritated look, and she faltered.
“That’ll do,” she said.
“You may be the sneakiest person here, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t manage.”