by Ted Sanders
But in the meantime, there was a kind of pause. A lull. A breathless hanging at the very peak of a leap, where something unexpected might occur.
And April had been thinking a lot about what that unexpected thing might be. What they might make it be.
She’d been thinking a lot about Neptune, too. She was still here, venturing out into the hallways at night, speaking to no one but Gabriel. April still had the tourminda, and was beginning to realize that somehow Neptune had managed to fade so completely, so quickly—in just a few days!—that she could no longer feel it. And when April looked at the tourminda now, it no longer registered as Tan’ji to her eyes.
From talking to Mrs. Hapsteade, April knew that the process of fading often took much longer than a few days. Neptune’s tourminda was weak, as far as Tan’ji were concerned, but apparently the more powerful the Tan’ji, the longer it took to fade. Sometimes it took months, or even years. And when that time was over, after the bond had drifted into nothing, the Keeper was free.
Free. She hated that this was the word that came to her mind. Being the Keeper of the Ravenvine wasn’t a prison. It was a privilege, or no—a responsibility. Or no. A destiny.
Not that April believed in destiny.
April sighed in frustration, letting her head fall forward into her hands. It seemed like every thought she had led into a thousand other thoughts, and so on. She couldn’t keep track of them all. Her thoughts, she realized, were almost like the multiverse itself. Branching and branching and branching again.
“I see you’ve met my birds.”
April practically jumped out of her skin at the sound of Falo’s voice. She scrambled to her feet, smoothing her dress. Her scattered thoughts fell apart like a dropped glass. “Yes,” she said.
To April’s great surprise, Falo lowered herself to the floor, leaning back against the wall just as April had been doing. Falo said nothing, and made no gesture, but after an awkward moment April returned to her seat, joining Falo on the floor. Even seated, the Altari towered over her, her legs too long to stretch out fully.
“I take it you’ve felt the change,” Falo said, catching her completely by surprise.
Determined not to seem stupid, or uncertain, April answered the question the way she was sure it had been meant. She tried to say exactly what she’d just been thinking as best as she could.
“Yes,” she said. “The multiverse is watching us now. It’s waiting.”
“It has given us room,” Falo said. “Room to act.”
Hearing Falo say these words filled April with a flood of almost blistering relief. Tears she didn’t know she’d been making poured down her cheeks. This was the thinking she’d been wrestling with all day, dragged out into the open and shared with a wise friend.
“But why would it give us that room?” April asked.
“When it comes to the multiverse, there is no why,” Falo said. “The multiverse is not a creature, April, no matter how alive its song may seem. The multiverse is a manifestation of what we the living choose to do.”
“And we’ve been choosing to let the multiverse heal itself.”
“To be fair, we’ve been poking it into healing itself.”
“Poking it, right,” April said. “As we tangle the universes more and more, the Mothergates will close faster to prevent those tangles from happening. But what Horace did the other day—that was more than a poke.”
Falo laughed. “Yes indeed.” She paused and looked intently down at April. “Being a Warden means being aware of our place in the multiverse. Not just in thought, but in deed.”
Falo let the words hang, clearly not waiting for an answer, but waiting for April to absorb her words. And April tried, wiping away her tears. “Being aware of our place in the multiverse.” Knowing the multiverse. Knowing how actions might affect the multiverse—especially if you were a Keeper, with the power to tangle universes. April nodded at Falo, willing her to continue.
Falo said, “What Horace did, sending the astrolabe, was an unprecedented physical manifestation of that awareness—a mirror held up to the multiverse itself. He showed the multiverse that we know it, that we see it. And in that mirror, we too have been seen.” She shook her head and heaved a huge, lovely sigh.
April looked up at her. “You sent me away. Why did you do that?”
“I was prepared to do something I should not have done.”
“What?”
“Like you said, what Horace did was more than a poke. Far more. More than enough to cause both remaining Mothergates to close completely.”
April just sat there with the idea. Slowly it dawned on her what Falo had intended, why she had sent April away. The chorus of bird voices above trickled through the vine.
Hungry. Curious. Hope. Tomorrow.
“You were going to keep the last Mothergate from closing,” April breathed. “You were going to weave the flows—to force the Mothergate here in Ka’hoka to stay open.”
Falo sighed again, lightly this time, almost as if hearing the words spoken aloud was a relief. “Forced is a strong word. The flows I planned to weave would not have lasted—not Isabel’s cruel stitches, I assure you. Even had I done it, the Mothergate would have closed in just a few days.”
“I’m confused. Why would you want to keep the Mothergate open for a few more days?”
This time, Falo answered much more slowly. “First,” she said, “let us gently consider where we would be right now if I had not been ready to do that thing.” She held April in long somber stare, full of kindness and calm.
April nodded, swallowing. If the final Mothergate had closed, as Falo had expected, it would have been the end for all Keepers, then and there.
Still, she hardly knew what to say. Letting the Mothergates close was the whole point of everything, wasn’t it? And Falo was not the sort to do something so drastic without reason. It was far more likely, April thought, that Falo did not want to share those reasons with her. With anyone.
“It would have been the end we all expected, the end we’ve been fighting for,” Falo said, seeming to read her thoughts. “But I sensed what Horace had done, and that the multiverse was taking note—that it was pausing for a moment to consider itself, and to consider this story suddenly unfolding within it. . . .” She shrugged. “I was ready to take the opportunity. Ready to step into the pause. But then I did not need to.”
“Because the Mothergate didn’t close. This pause the multiverse has taken—it was bigger than you thought.”
“Yes.”
“But if the Mothergate doesn’t close,” April said, “all the tangled universes will be destroyed.”
“Not while the multiverse watches. Not while it waits to see what we intend. As I said, we have been given a respite. For the time being, the multiverse is not yet ready to forget this part of itself.”
April wanted to ask how long that respite might be. But she was afraid that Falo wouldn’t know the answer.
Falo turned to her, smiling. “You took a rather lovely trinket from the Warren, I believe. May I see it?”
Bewildered by the sudden change of topic, April barely understood the question. And then she realized—Falo meant the tree. She pulled the little sphere from her pocket, handing it over gently.
“It’s not important, is it?” April asked. “I don’t know why I took it, I just—”
“Beauty is always important,” Falo said, gazing at the little sphere, no bigger than a marble in her hand. Inside, a ripe purple fruit was just falling. The tree’s leaves began to color, to wither and die.
“Kothulus made this,” Falo said. “My predecessor. He had a flair for the profound, a fondness for the oblique. I have often wished I possessed some of his subtlety.”
“You can have it back if you want,” said April. She didn’t think she’d done anything wrong, exactly, but it was never good to assume. “I don’t even know what it does.”
“It does no more than what you see, but I think you knew that already.�
�� Falo handed it back. “Keep it. It suits you far better than it does me.”
“It’s been comforting,” April admitted gratefully. “Life and death. Renewal.”
Falo nodded vaguely, as if they were discussing nothing more consequential than the shapes of clouds. “It reminds me of Uroboros,” she said lightly. “The fish.”
This entire conversation had April on edge—a minefield of casually dropped bombs and hints—and now she felt as though she had suddenly slid out onto a sheet of thin ice. She understood instinctively that Falo would answer any question April might ask of her now, but for April’s own sake—for the sake of not slipping further, or breaking through into waters she wouldn’t be able to tread—she was determined to proceed cautiously.
“You’re talking about the fish Gabriel brought back,” April said. “The fish in the glass rod.”
“Is there another fish?”
“Not that I know of. That fish spoke to me.”
“Yes, it would have,” Falo agreed. “That is what it does.”
“Why does it do that?”
“I do not know. It does not speak to me. Or rather, I do not know how to listen. That is for the empath to say.”
“I couldn’t understand it,” said April. “But I know that it’s old. Very old. Do you know how old it is?”
“I know what the stories say. I do not know whether those stories are true.” Falo was answering the questions swiftly, as if she’d been prepared for this conversation.
“And what do the stories say?”
“That Uroboros swam forth from the Starlit Loom. The legends say that when the Loom was brought into this world, through one of the cracks between our world and all the others—”
“A Mothergate,” April whispered.
“—a fish swam circles inside it, its tail in its mouth. Around and around it swam, endlessly.” Falo leaned forward, and the large black pendant she wore dangled in April’s face. It began to shimmer and deepen. Points of light began to drift inside it.
April gaped. She knew at once she was looking at the Starlit Loom. It had been here in plain sight, all this time. She wondered if Horace and Chloe knew, and she decided that they must. A wave of awe swept over her as she gazed into the Loom, leaving her as calm as melting snow, as raw as a burn. Inside the Loom, points of light rearranged themselves, took on the shape of a long, thin fish. The fish swallowed its own tail, circling the Loom. Around and around and around.
“When the Loom was first Found,” said Falo, “the first Keeper set Uroboros free. A power had been laid upon the fish, so that it could not die. It was tended to with care, kept with honor. In time, as Tan’ji were made to exploit the talents of empaths like yourself, some of them reported that the fish spoke to them. Or tried to speak, anyway. No one could understand it. Many years later—lifetimes later, when the tale I’m telling you now is all anyone knew of Uroboros—a vessel was built for it. Some say to keep it safe, some say to silence it. Some say to keep it from swallowing its tail. And there it remains to this day.”
“It’s cruel,” April burst out. “It’s a terrible thing.”
Hiraethel faded back to black. The circling fish melted away. “Shall we release it, then?” Falo asked. “Break the glass?”
“No, I—”
“Tradition suggests that the Keeper of Hiraethel—the Starlit Loom—should be the one who maintains custody of Uroboros. But perhaps now, here so close to the end, it would be better off in your hands.”
April didn’t know if the offer was serious, and had no idea what she’d say if it was, so she pretended she hadn’t even heard it. “If it’s supposed to be with you, why was it in the Warren?”
“I took it there myself, years ago. Mr. Meister wished to study it. He had a young Tuner—a Tuner with the sensibilities of an empath—who he thought might help us unravel some of its mysteries.”
“A Tuner,” April said. “You mean Horace’s mom, don’t you?”
“I do. But now you are here. Uroboros speaks to you. Perhaps you should listen.”
“What do you think it’s trying to say?”
Falo sat up, turning gracefully toward April so that she had her full attention. She clasped April’s hands, her expression earnest and pleading. “I honestly do not know,” she said. “You’re no fool, April Simon. You know I meant for this conversation to come to this place. But what comes after this place—and what you will discover there—is beyond whatever wisdom I possess. Beyond any answers that I have. Truly.”
April nodded. She knew the words were true. A person couldn’t stand in front of the Mothergate for long hours, as she had, without realizing just how little any one mind could know. Listening to a secret keeper like Falo—a guidance giver, a wisdom bringer—it was maybe easy to believe she had the answers to everything. But that was impossible. The universe could never be such a place. In fact, April realized now, looking into Falo’s deep and searching eyes, the very existence of the universe, and the expansion of the multiverse, depended upon a simple truth that could never change.
There were more questions than answers.
There would always be more questions than answers. Ever and forever. That was what life did.
“Take me to it,” April said. “Uroboros. I want to see it.” She had questions, yes.
Falo released her, nodding. “Down the hall, around the bends. In the Aerary.”
April stood up. She had no idea what an Aerary was, but there would be an answer to that. An answer filled with more questions.
“And if I break the glass?” said April.
Falo shrugged. “And if you do not? What will you wonder then?”
April laughed. “You could have let me stay, you know. At the Mothergate. I would have understood.”
“It wasn’t about you understanding. It was about me understanding.” Falo smiled a broad smile, so radiant that it burned countless years off her ancient face. “Sometimes a girl just needs to think.”
April beamed back at her. She turned away. She went slowly down the hallway, past the chattering crowd of birds. She did not know what she would find, and that was okay.
She laid a soft finger against the Ravenvine through her hair. And as she walked, she listened.
Chapter Nineteen
Memories
IT WASN’T EASY, WAITING TO DIE.
Horace had no idea whether having his mother beside him while he waited made the waiting easier, or even harder. He tried not to think too much about the fact that she was waiting for him to die too. Every once in a while she lifted her head, looking off into the distance with a faint frown of worry. She was listening to the Mothergate, for signs of its inevitable end. He wasn’t sure she knew she was doing it.
He didn’t mind. It helped that his mother wasn’t the weepy sort. And of course it helped that she wasn’t cold either. That would not have been good.
But most of all, right this second, it helped that she was absolutely crushing him on the chess board.
Crushing him for the third game in a row, actually.
They were in a kind of sitting room Chloe had discovered the day before, a sacred little library space, filled with an afternoonish light. There were bookshelves and desks and chairs and sturdy stone benches filled with huge, sumptuous pillows.
And a chess board, as big as a kitchen table, with squares of shadowy black and summery blue. The pieces were absurdly large, as tall as soda bottles, carved from heavy stone. As could be expected, some of them weren’t quite . . . usual. The knights were birds instead of horses, great raptorlike things. The king and queen were marvelous Altari figures, male and female, lean and elegant and strong. The rooks were cages, filled with lightless black stone—a disturbing apparent reference to the Nevren. But that wasn’t the worst of it.
The pawns were humans.
And not particularly elegant humans, either. Or lean. Or strong.
“It’s sort of rude, don’t you think?” he’d asked Chloe when they first found it
.
“It’s brilliant,” she’d said. “Oh my god, this is the best.”
“But who even does a thing like that?” said Horace.
“Someone with a lot of confidence.”
“A jerk with a lot of confidence.”
“You should relax, Horace. It’s got to be super old. I’m sure things have gotten a lot more progressive around here.” She pointed to one of the pawns. “Hey, check it out. This one looks like your dad.”
And now, trying to play with the pieces, distracted not so much by playing but by losing so badly, Horace was left longing for his little wooden chessboard at home. He had been experiencing a lot of longing lately, which was only logical. The chessboard. Home. Loki the cat.
His dad.
It was hard to concentrate, for sure. But his mother seemed to be having no such problems. She hefted a feathered knight over the top of one of Horace’s pawns, forking his bishop and rook. He hadn’t even seen it coming.
“It’s these pieces,” Horace complained, for like the tenth time. “They’re too big for my brain.”
His mother grunted, unimpressed. “Says the kid who figured out how to send the astrolabe.”
“That’s got nothing to do with this,” Horace said, even though it did. Being good at chess was a lot like being good at the Fel’Daera—the position of pieces, lines of influence, desired future states. So why was he playing so badly? “You’re beating me without even trying,” he said.
“What?” she protested. “I’m trying. I’m very trying.” She turned and looked back at Chloe, who was sunk so far down in a refrigerator-sized pillow that only her feet were visible, sticking into the air. Her face was buried in a tall Altari book. “Chloe, tell Horace how hard I’m trying.”
“She’s trying so damn hard, Horace,” said Chloe flatly, without looking. “You don’t even know.”
“See?” his mom said.
“So you’re trying. Okay. But how are you . . . how can you even concentrate?”