by M. K. Hobson
“Tell me how to find the Black Glass Goddess,” Stanton repeated, his voice perfectly level, as if striving to make each word balance precisely with the next.
Fortissimus threw his head back and cackled—something halfway between a laugh and a shriek. Tears streamed down the sides of his face, mingling with the sweat that ran in rivulets down from his forehead.
“I don’t know!” he screamed. “I swear it, I don’t know anything!”
“Tell me how to find her!” Stanton said, his voice rising.
“Dreadnought, no!” Emily seized his shirt in her good hand, shook him, made him look at her. “I did not help you regain the power of the Institute so that you could do this!” Her eyes searched Stanton’s face frantically. “I told him the truth! I told him you were decent! And I told myself …”
“Emily …” Stanton looked down at her.
“Don’t make it a lie,” Emily whispered, her voice tiny and desperate. “Oh please. Please don’t make it a lie.”
She saw the flicker of anguish behind his eyes. His face softened for a moment, but it hardened again almost as quickly, like wax cooling. He put a hand on each of her arms. “It’s the end of the world, Emily.”
No sooner were the words out of his mouth than a vision knifed through her like a cold glass blade slid between her ribs. The agony of it drove her almost to her knees.
The Black Glass Goddess, thrusting a knife of obsidian deep into Stanton’s side …
“Xiuhunel!” she cried, tearing herself away from his grasp, throwing herself away from him, running out into the beautiful, strong, powerful hallways of the Institute.
She ran until she came to the Veneficus Flame, and when she reached it, she collapsed beneath it, pressing her hot cheek against the cool marble pedestal. She pressed a hand over her mouth, her stomach heaving.
There were swift footsteps, and a warm hand was laid on her shoulder. A figure crouched down beside her. Dmitri. His eyes were wide with betrayal and anguish.
“Goddamn him,” he growled. “Goddamn them both.”
She stood quickly, intending to run, but he caught her arm and jerked her close. It was as if he needed to be comforted as much as he desired to comfort. He wrapped his arms around her, pulled her to his chest.
“A torturer. A sangrimancer. I told you so!” Dmitri said again, clinging to her. “And Perun … How could he let it happen?”
Emily pressed her face into Dmitri’s shoulder, stared at the weave of his jacket. She didn’t want to think. She wanted to lose herself in the calm, orderly arrangements of threads. Hot tears stung her eyes, flowing into the fabric of Dmitri’s jacket. Then she was sobbing without restraint, jerking and shuddering.
“I will take you away from here,” Dmitri said firmly. He sounded as if it was the only thing he could do that would make the world right. “Away from all of them.”
She looked up at him, shaking her head, and in that instant Dmitri’s mouth came down over hers roughly. She pushed against his chest, but he clung to her, embracing her with the desperation of a man seeking to replace a shattered illusion with a new one.
It was the sound of a betrayed gasp that finally made him release her.
Rose stood staring at them, her mouth open. Her eyes were wells of anguish. She brought up a hand, put it over her heart as if it hurt her terribly.
“Shame,” Rose whispered. “Shame on you!”
Sobbing, she spun on her heel and ran toward the Sophos’ office. Pushing herself away from Dmitri violently, Emily ran, too—in the opposite direction.
Emily went back to her room on the fourth floor, where she could almost make herself believe that the beautiful summer day she saw out of her window did not contain torture, pain, and betrayal. She felt numb and old, so very old. She felt as if her body were made of poured lead, her limbs stiff and slow, her core hot and vitreous. She found a chair to sit in. She stared out the window at the tops of the trees, waving mutely in the warm afternoon breeze.
Not honest. Not forthright. Not decent.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she implored Ososolyeh. “How could you let me fall in love with him?”
Stanton came to her an hour later, the doors of the room flying open without his having to touch them. They closed behind him silently. She struggled not to look up, to keep her eyes fixed on the tops of the stirring trees, but just as she had been unable to ignore Mirabilis in his own Institute, just as she had been unable to ignore Zeno, she could not ignore Stanton. The Institute was his now; it belonged to him and he belonged to it. She glared at him, despising the intrusion.
He stared down at her silently. She could see that despite his mastery of the Institute, he did not know what to say.
Good, she thought, bitterly. As long as she could unsettle him, discomfit him, she’d never be totally under his sway. It was a horrible way to think about a fiancé, but it was a perfectly logical way to think about an ex-fiancé. She thought about taking the diamond ring from her finger and throwing it at him, but the action was unnecessary; the diamond itself spoke more loudly than even the most desperate of gestures. It sat on her finger as dead and flat and lusterless as a piece of glass.
“Fortissimus wouldn’t tell us,” Stanton said, looking down at her. “Pushing him any further would have killed him.”
“Well, why didn’t you just kill him, then?” Emily spat. “That’s what sangrimancers do, isn’t it?”
There was a long silence. He stared down at her as if expecting her to speak, but she held her lips together tightly.
“Rose saw you,” he broke the silence, finally. “She told me.”
Emily stared into his eyes, putting all her strength into the gaze. She pressed her lips together until they ached, until she tasted blood behind her lips from where her teeth cut into them. Stanton wanted her to apologize, to beg for his forgiveness, to say that the Russian meant nothing to her. And he didn’t. But no one would force her to say the words. Not ever. Not with all the glowing needles in the world.
“Do you love him?” Stanton’s voice was acid.
“I don’t think I love anyone,” Emily said. They were the words she wanted to say, not the words Stanton wanted to hear, and she said them with great relish.
“Perhaps you are not capable of love,” Stanton said. “Perhaps you are only capable of making men desire you. With underhanded powders and potions and—”
“Stop it.”
“Perhaps it’s all a matter of convenience with you,” Stanton continued, his voice low and brutal. “Perhaps that’s what men are to you. Convenient harbors for the dingy little boat of your life. Creatures you can manipulate into loving you—”
“I said stop it!” Emily screamed.
“No,” he said. “I won’t stop. Not in my own—” Even though he checked himself, Emily knew perfectly well what he’d been about to say.
“… in your own Institute.” She completed the sentence for him, fury whipping her. “The Institute that you stole with blood magic … that I lied to get back for you!”
“Lower your voice,” Stanton said through gritted teeth. “I’ve had enough of your shrieking.”
Emily stared at him, breathing hard, her heart thudding. She wanted to fly at him, tear him into bloody strips. But with great effort, she calmed herself. She took a deep breath. When she spoke again, her voice was low and resonant—so low as to be almost inaudible.
“It’s all right,” she said finally. “You won’t have to listen to it much longer. I’m leaving.”
“You can’t leave,” he said.
“Can,” she spat. “Will.”
He seized her as she tried to dart past him, wrapped her in strong arms that had the force of iron bands. She struggled against him, but he held her fast. Finally she subsided, breathing heavily, staring down at his chest. She held her body stiffly. Her hand was a fist.
“Let me go,” she breathed, the words growling in her throat.
“No,” he said. “I won’t.”
They stood like that, locked in anger and fear, for a long time. Finally, without slackening his grip, Stanton murmured something by her ear.
“It will be terrible, Emily. More terrible than Perun described. More terrible than any of your visions.”
“How do you know?”
“I just know that it will be terrible,” he said.
“No, you know more than that,” she said. “For God’s sake, stop lying!”
“It will be terrible!” he shouted, the force of the words shaking her, rattling her bones. She couldn’t stand under the force of those words; only his arms, wrapped tightly around her, kept her from sinking to the floor.
“You’ve seen it all, too,” Emily said, awareness dawning on her. “How?”
Stanton’s eyes were closed, his face was painted with terrible remorse.
“Alcmene Blotgate,” he said finally.
“Did you love her?” Emily searched for an explanation, any explanation.
“Sangrimancers don’t fall in love.” Stanton’s eyes remained closed. “They use each other for mutual benefit.”
“Then how—”
“She took me to the Temple to be initiated into the Goddess’ service,” Stanton said, the words tumbling out in a rush. “When I was a cadet. I failed the initiation. The Goddess released my neologism, showed me the world remade. Showed me temamauhti. I couldn’t bear it. I ran away.”
“You knew?”
“That’s why Alcmene Blotgate tried to kill me—because I was a traitor. Because I was a failure and a coward. I don’t know why she didn’t finish the job. I was ready to finish it for her when Mirabilis found me. He made me see that there were better choices—”
“You knew?” Emily cried. “You knew it was coming? You knew ten years ago, and you did nothing? When men like Morozovich, or my father—my father!—were dying, trying to save the world? How could you? How could you?”
Stanton opened his mouth to speak, and it was clear the intended retort was scalding. But in the end, he didn’t say anything. He just shook his head and released her from his arms, as if finally realizing that it was futile to hold on to her any longer.
“You’re right,” he said. “About everything. Hate me. It will make things easier for both of us.”
Taking a step back, she slapped him across the face, hard.
“Go to hell, Dreadnought Stanton.”
He nodded, rubbing his face tiredly.
“I will,” he said. “It was only you who ever made me think I could go anyplace else.”
And as he left the room, the doors slammed behind him with a force that made the whole Institute rumble.
After he left, Emily sank to the floor, as if he’d taken all her strength with him. That was that, then.
At length, Emily got up. She took off the peach-blush dress, let it fall to the floor, laboriously removed her corset and chemise and everything soft and lacy, and stood savoring her nakedness for a long time.
Then she put on old things. She would have put on the clothes she’d brought from Lost Pine, if there’d been anything left of them. But there wasn’t. So she put on the simplest gray dress she could find, dragging it down over her head and buttoning it slowly, her ivory hand tinking against the buttons.
Then she sat down wearily on the window seat to wait for the end of the world.
She watched the leaves of the trees swaying in the early evening wind. This time, she saw them moving a special way, a way she knew. This time, she already knew there would be a message for her in them. But she didn’t want to see it. She tried to look away. She was tired of messages, tired of the responsibility they brought. But, still, she looked.
Zeno is in the Dragon’s Eye.
Emily contemplated this with black amusement.
Ososolyeh, beloved earth-mother, Emily said to it, trying to send her reply down through the treacherous stone floors of the Institute. I’ve had just about enough of you.
She knew what the Dragon’s Eye was, of course. It was the brown and green orchid, Zeno’s favorite plant in the Institute’s conservatory. In her vision, Zeno’s last words had been soft and simple, spoken in the language of wind and water and wood: I am coming home.
Komé had transferred her spirit into an acorn; Zeno had sent the last drop of himself singing along a root. But that place, the place he’d died … it had seemed so immeasurably far away. How could he have made it all the way back here, to New York, to the Dragon’s Eye orchid he loved?
Sighing, rising wearily, she thought about not going. She thought about ignoring the message, but she knew she could not. She went to open the door and found, completely unsurprisingly, that it was locked.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The Dragon’s Eye
Emily pounded on the door, assuming it would do no good, but finding the act of pounding very satisfying indeed. After a moment, however, the handle turned. Emily stepped back as the door opened, praying that it wasn’t Stanton. But it wasn’t. Outside of the door stood Rose, flanked by two guards in Institute gray.
“Let me out of here!” Emily said.
“You’ve had your chance,” Rose snarled at her. “He’s got important business to attend to. He’ll send for you when he’s ready.” She put a distasteful emphasis on the word “you,” as if even the idea of Emily tasted bad.
“You can’t keep me a prisoner here,” Emily said. “You want me to go, I want to go. Now get out of my way.”
“You deserve to be a prisoner!” Rose’s mouth was tight with anger. “He should throw you into a pit and forget he ever met you. You’re mean and deceitful and cruel, and I know for a fact that you never gave him my card!”
“Rose,” Emily groaned. “Please.”
“It was a very special token,” Rose said. “Intended to convey my deepest admiration and respect. And yes, if you must know, I signed it ‘with love’ … something you’d know nothing about!”
“Rose, honestly, you can have him.” Emily bit the words. “Take him with my blessing. Just let me the hell out of this room.”
With a strangled cry, Rose slammed the door hard, and once again came the sound of a key scraping a lock—a sound Emily knew so well by now.
She whirled savagely. With a high-pitched scream, she picked up a delicate chair and hurled it at the door, just to hear it smash.
Then she stormed over to the window, threw the casements open, and climbed up to kneel on the padded window seat. She looked down. It was a long sheer drop to the ground. She suddenly felt terribly certain that it had been planned this way from the beginning, and that giving her this room had been a very conscious choice.
Emily leaned a hot forehead against the stone frame of the window and watched the leaves of the ivy fluttering in the gathering evening breeze. They shone in the setting sun. There was the touch of a gentle hand on her shoulder. She startled, then looked back slowly.
But it was not a hand. It was a tendril of the thick English ivy that blanketed the Institute’s exterior wall. Emily pulled back in surprise as the tendril slithered down across her chest and down around her waist. She tried to pull it off of her, but it grasped her tightly, pulling her out of the window. She screamed in surprise and protest, her voice hoarse from all the screaming she’d done previously, but more thick vines came up, pulling themselves away from the wall, their suckers making popping sounds as they released from the stone. Emily felt vines snaking around her ankles, around her knees, around her waist … she was being pulled out of the window, toward the sheer drop.
But more tendrils of ivy wrapped themselves around her, and she realized that she was being borne out of the window on gentle verdant hands. They conveyed her slowly down the wall, toward the ground below. Leaves and rough stalks tickled her skin as they passed her down, higher vines releasing as lower vines tightened. And then she was on the ground, the good soft ground through which she could feel Ososolyeh thrumming up. She was on the verge of sinking to her hands and knees in sheer grat
itude for the closeness, but she saw students inside a classroom rush to a window; some pointed and called. She started running. If the lowest of the Institute’s cultors knew that she’d escaped, Stanton would know soon. And he would come for her. She fled to the conservatory.
Inside the hothouse it was as warm as she remembered it. She recalled how Emeritus Zeno had led them along these crushed walnut paths, showing off his orchids like favorite grandchildren. The orchid he had been most proud of was the huge Dragon’s Eye orchid, with its stinking flowers of chocolate brown and chartreuse. Its roots reached far down, to where soil met bedrock and water.
Kneeling quickly, she placed her hands on the orchid’s thick, woody vine, closing her eyes.
Ah, something greeted her. Emily, isn’t it?
Emily relaxed, letting her body slump against the vine, letting her consciousness reach into it.
“Emeritus Zeno,” she breathed.
Is that my name? Oh well. If you say so.
“I saw you die.”
Emily felt Zeno’s consciousness spreading through the orchid, suffusing it, becoming thinner and less human with each tendril he curled into. She had to hurry.
I made it home. Zeno’s spirit breathed satisfaction and relief. I went through a root, then another root, and another. I lost my way a few times. Several times. But I went through another and another and another and another …
“You have to tell me how to find the Temple,” Emily asked, trying to hold on to him, trying to pull his mind back together. “The Temple where you died. We have to get there, stop temamauhti …”
Who are you, again?
Her fear stoked a sudden rage. He hadn’t come all this way just to melt into an orchid. He was Benedictus Zeno, father of modern credomancy, a roil of calculation. He just had to remember. She had to make him remember. Taking a deep growling breath, she gathered the power of Ososolyeh within herself. Closing her eyes, she reached her spirit into the orchid and shook the old man, seizing every diffuse piece of him. It was like rattling a box of marbles.