My blood boils at the thought of that thing being in Alice.
“I look forward to dissecting it,” Mary says cheerfully. “It’s currently in my freezer.”
Brom strokes his short beard. “I must admit, the more we uncover in our quest toward the perpetrators behind the Timeline deletions, the more complex the web grows.” His eyes meet mine. “Victor and I questioned Todd extensively during your absence, and he is unfortunately still sleeping off the vast amounts of serum pumped into his system.”
Victor tugs on his collar. Coughs.
“He had no concrete answers to give about his association with the Queen of Hearts, other than to say they had met on a pair of separate occasions and spoke of nothing except Ms. Reeve. Additionally, he has no solid answers to give on any matter. He has never met the person assigning which catalysts he was to obtain or which ones to destroy. He presented a series of names we are in the process of researching and claimed the voice he occasionally spoke to on the telephone changed depending on the day. All communiqués were either typewritten or simply torn pages from books or newspapers.”
I rub at my hair, frustrated. “What about Wendy? Was there any legit connection there?”
“Todd had no answer when it came to dealings with Ms. Darling. That said, he did claim he’d been in touch with someone who bore a striking resemblance to the perpetrator in our security footage.”
“What does Wen has to say about this?”
My father purses his lips. “Ms. Darling has said nothing at all since her seizure.”
“She’s fine, though,” Victor interjects. “As far as I can tell, nothing’s physically wrong with her right now.”
I ask my father, “Are we really thinking that . . . guy, for lack of a better word, was Peter Pan?”
It’s the A.D. who answers. He’s sitting next to Brom, taking notes on a tablet while a recorder lies on the table between them. “It has to be, right? Wen wouldn’t betray us for just anyone.”
“Mr. Dawkins, there is no concrete proof that the person in the security footage was Peter Pan. In all our dealings with 1904BAR-PW, no Society member has ever successfully made contact with this person. We have not even been able to breach Neverland.” To Alice, he offers a rueful smile. “I’m afraid it was much like your Wonderland. Unlike Wonderland, though, 1904BAR-PW’s catalyst was not located within Neverland. Once we obtained it, we had no need to breech Neverland’s borders.”
“I am curious. How many years did the Society attempt to locate Wonderland?” the Cat asks.
“Several,” Brom admits. “Eventually, we shifted our focus to finding someone who had been to Wonderland yet now resided in the world beyond. Ms. Reeve was always our first choice. I believe we searched for her for . . .” His eyes flick to me. “Two years. Had we known, of course, that she wasn’t even in England and still in Wonderland, it would have saved us many frustrating trips and searches.”
“You mean it would have saved Finn many frustrating searches.” Victor elbows me. “Poor sod. You had him and Sara in their so-called free time traipsing all over the bloody country in their search. There was one point I thought he would rip somebody’s head off if they ever said Alice’s name in his presence. She was like a ghost or urban legend to the Society.”
Sometimes, my brother doesn’t know when to shut his damn mouth.
Alice touches my arm. “You searched for me for years?”
“I already told you this.” I did, didn’t I?
She says more softly, “Yes, but you searched for me.”
I love her, truly love her, but this makes not a lick of sense.
“Nonetheless, the point I was making was, we have no idea if it was Peter Pan who Wendy was communicating with, let alone if he even exists anymore.” Brom taps his fingers against the desk. “Unfortunately, the video has no sound, so we cannot confirm this, but we must not rule out the possibility that the person in question hypnotized Ms. Darling into offering up our secrets.”
I snap my fingers. “The pipes.”
“But then, how do we connect the possibility of Peter Pan to Sweeney Todd?” Brom continues. “And to a Sweeney Todd who was supposedly hanged?” He swipes a finger across the table. “And from there to the Queen of Hearts—a person who, by all accounts, knows nothing of Timelines and yet was seen by someone outside of Wonderland? Unfortunately, Todd has provided us no answers to any of these questions. Rosemary and Jenkins know even less than he. Incidentally, I had Rosemary moved to her own room in the containment ward, next to Jenkins.’ I don’t want any of them to communicate with the others.”
“Would the Queen of Hearts have edited from Wonderland?” Marianne muses. This is the first she’s spoken so far. “From the reports I have perused on the matter, it is believed none can edit directly from that land but must instead rely upon travel to England or Wales first.”
Taking in the group in the conference room, I notice a face is missing—the one that actually might have the answer to Marianne’s question. “Where is the Librarian?”
“She has,” Brom says carefully, “gone to acquire a piece for our collections.”
He might as well have dropped a bomb on the Society members sitting at the table. The Librarian has, in the entire time I’ve known her, never left the Institute. Going outside is stepping onto a patio or the rare trip to the roof. In the winter, she pulls out those Seasonal Affective Disorder machines, and for years, we all laughed about it because how was winter any different for her than any other season? Her entire life is lived out within these walls. She does not know how to drive. I highly doubt she’s ever been in a car. I asked her about it once, and her answer came with a straight face. “Why would anyone entrust their life to a steel trap such as an automobile?”
“What do you mean, she’s gone to acquire something?” the A.D. asks.
“My words were not unclear, Mr. Dawkins,” Brom says evenly. “She had an errand to run. She is doing so.”
“Outside of the Institute?” an agent named Holgrave asks from farther on down the table.
“Logic would indicate so.”
Henry Flemming asks, sounding just as dumbfounded as the rest of us, “How did she leave?”
“As I was not with her when she left, I cannot answer that, Mr. Flemming. Nor did she see fit to explain it to me.”
“When did she leave?” Holgrave presses.
“While I was interrogating Todd.”
This makes no sense. The Librarian has just left? “What books?” I ask my father.
“That I do not know either.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know? Didn’t she run them by you?”
He gives me a meaningful look, one that leaves me edgy. He didn’t say she was going to get a book. He said she was going to acquire something.
“Did she go to meet Pfeifer?”
Alice’s head snaps up; her eyes narrow. “Do you mean Lygari?” And then, before anyone can say anything, “You questioned Todd about his estate. You asked him about Bücherei.”
“What is Bücherei?” The Cat’s eyes focus on Alice. “And who is this person who apparently has two very different names? And where is the tea? How can any of us be expected to elaborate upon strategy without a proper cup of tea?”
As if on cue, the door bursts open with a man hauling in a cart filled with teapots and cups.
The Cat sniffs; its nose wrinkles. “This world,” it says, “is barbaric. I’m sorry, but there it is. From what I can tell, you’re trying to serve us jabberwocky urine.”
Neither Alice nor the White King even blink at this. The King himself is side-eying the tea that’s hastily being poured for them.
“You will get used to it. I did, and I am fine. As for Lygari, he is a book collector,” Alice tells the Cat, but my father is giving me a look that tells me, quite clearly, that I need to keep my mouth shut. “Finn and I were sent to purchase several volumes a number of weeks back. Bücherei translates to library, and it is a fitting nomenclat
ure, as the estate in actuality is an enormous library filled with artifacts belonging to authors. It was most unpleasant.” She turns to me. “Why would the Librarian go see him? We were there so recently.”
It’s my turn to glare at my father. He didn’t tell her, did he?
And . . . he is utterly unapologetic.
Screw his wishes for silence. “Right after we got back from St. Petersburg, I was sent back to collect a catalyst from him. You were asleep and I was given no choice.”
Her eyebrows lift up in surprise. “Lygari collects items associated with authors, not Timelines. He made sure to elaborate upon that in vivid detail.”
The Cat murmurs quietly as it peers into its cup, “Yes. I was right. This is urine. How you all function is beyond me.”
Brom sends another message out, requesting more tea. I tell Alice, “According to the Librarian, he also had a catalyst from a book of fairy tales.”
A V forms between her eyes. “We discussed this before. While there were multiple references to fairy tales, he had none showcased in his exhibits.”
“I know. And the book they claimed it was from—”
Someone down the table murmurs quietly, “Claimed?”
“—Is one that doesn’t even have a legit origin text for us to pinpoint. Or, at least, one that’s easy to pinpoint. It’s never been one we’ve gone after before, simply because we can’t even prove the Timeline exists.”
My father says nothing during this. He simply tents his hands and listens.
“Were you successful?”
The A.D. snorts. I say carefully, “No. When we got there, the library wasn’t there anymore.”
Her eyes widen. “What do you mean the library wasn’t there?”
“It wasn’t there,” the A.D. bursts out. “There was no bloody library. None of any of the fancy stuff you and Finn reported. All that was there was an empty house.”
“What?” Alice turns back to me.
In a way, her confused outrage is comforting, like it means I’m not as crazy as feared. Like my memory of the night is right. “From the outside, it looks the same. Same design. Same hedge maze. But inside . . .” I turn to face her. “Do you remember how the library stretched all three stories up? And filled most of the house? How there were those massive, carved doors, and that the floor was tiled with scenes from stories?”
There’s no hesitation. “The ceiling had frescos with eyes that followed us everywhere.”
“It wasn’t there. None of that was there. There—there were floors to the house. Three stories worth of floors. There was an indoor swimming pool where he had that damn Twain table, one that connects to another outside. There was carpet. The ceilings were just ceilings. There was a kitchen. Bathrooms. Alice, it was a house.”
Her acceptance of this isn’t any easier than mine. “We were there for close to an hour and toured the entire space. What you are telling me is impossible.”
“Your Majesty,” the Cat says from his perch, “you of all people know the impossible is quite possible. Except, perhaps, the creation of proper strategy tea in this Institute of yours.”
“In Wonderland, yes. Here?” She waves a hand around. “Not so much.” To me, she says, “We need to go back there.”
The A.D. smacks the table. “I’m telling you, there’s nothing there!”
“There was,” I correct, “one thing.”
Her eyes narrow as they take me in, almost as if she’s bracing herself.
“I found a photograph.”
She whips to face my father. “You showed one to Todd. You asked him about it. He said . . . He claimed Rosemary took it.”
That’s news to me.
Alice touches my arm, brings back my attention. “What was the photograph of?”
I take a deep breath. Even now, just thinking about it is creepy. “Us. It was of us, the first time we ever went to the coffee shop down the street.”
It’s rare to ever see Alice rattled. Nothing fazes her. But her mouth drops open now, just a little. Her eyes go wide. She says quietly, “There was a photograph of the two of us in Lygari’s home? One taken prior to any introduction to the gentleman?”
I nod. “It was where the Carroll exhibit was.”
“He had photographs of Carroll’s,” she whispers. “Dozens of pictures of little girls. He—he had a picture of the real Alice.”
“You are the real Alice.”
“Is anyone real?” the Cat murmurs.
“I . . . Mary and I met him at that dance club. He told me his name was Lygari. He said—” She shakes her head, more pissed than confused. “He had on a ring. A blue ring. I saw him again, at the Public Library. He asked me to coffee. He has two names. Why does he have two names? He said . . . He said, ‘Many of us do.’ What does that mean?” She blinks before refocusing. And then, in a low, cold voice, “He had a photograph of us, Finn. Taken by Rosemary. Lygari knows Rosemary. We must assume he knows Todd and possibly Jenkins as well.”
“Let us question Rosemary and Jenkins, as well and—”
Alice cuts my father off mid-sentence. “Lygari is a patron of the New York Public Library.” She snaps her fingers. “Mary, what day is it?”
Mary rattles off the date, but before she finishes, her eyes widen. In perfect unison, the ladies exclaim, “Tonight is the library fundraiser gala!”
Victor tosses his pencil at me. Mouths, “Told you.”
Asshole.
“The Caterpillar used to tell me that coincidences are not coincidental at all.” Alice looks at her Wonderlandian friends, flashing a grim smile. “He was quite insistent about that.”
The Cat sniffs. “For a pompous thing, he was usually right.”
“It is settled,” Alice says firmly. “We will go to the gala tonight and search for Lygari. I suspect more than one of us has questions for him. Perhaps it’s time we have a chat.”
AN HOUR AFTER THE meeting ends, I visit the flat Jace and the Cheshire-Cat are residing in during their stay. While matters in Wonderland require their attention, both insisted on remaining at least one more day to ensure my recovery has taken. Jace and Finn are to create more poultices together in the morning before his departure, so that I will have enough to last throughout the week.
And then there is the matter of how he is giving us his blood for protection. I do not know how to properly show this wonderful man just how much gratitude I have for him.
“Does it really take a week’s worth of applications to ensure the boojum’s influence is gone?”
My former lover’s smile is wry. He is dressed in some of Finn’s clothes, and it is entirely jarring to see him so out of time in a flannel shirt and jeans. “I have no idea, to be honest. But it is best not to take chances.”
For a moment, neither of us speaks. The Cheshire-Cat is in another room, napping in front of a sunny window. Grymsdyke is . . . well, I am not quite sure. Exploring the Institute, most likely. Finn is conferring with his father, and Mary is undoubtedly ensuring I have a dress proper enough for the evening.
I allow myself to touch Jace. Just a hand upon his arm, but I allow myself this anyway. “Thank you.”
The smile on his beloved face turns bittersweet. “I will always come to your aid if you need me. Always.”
I do not ask him why he stood back and allowed Finn to enact the blood magic. Truthfully, there is no need, as I already know the answer. True love does not have limits or restrictions. True love allows a person to love deeply and unconditionally. True love does not ask you to let go of life. True love encourages you to live.
Instead, I walk over to the window and pull back the curtain. He comes to stand with me, and we watch the taxis and cars far below zoom down the streets, honking, and the helicopter in the sky blocks away, and the people in their races to get everywhere and anywhere.
“New York is not as I imagined it to be.”
My head tilts toward him. “No?”
“It is so busy.” He sounds sad, even. “So v
ast and yet so small all at once.” A hand presses against the cold pane. “The sky is lost amongst such giants.”
He speaks my own heart’s secrets. “Do you remember that day in the Field of Daydreams?”
He chuckles, and dozens upon dozens of warm, happy memories flood me at such a beloved sound. “Of course. It is a favorite of all my favorite days, I think.”
“Mine, as well.”
“The sky,” he says softly, “was more of an ocean than a sky that day. The waves were gentle, the crests foamy. We were happy that day.”
We were, indeed. He and I had ridden out by ourselves, much to the consternation of our Grand Advisors. We lay beneath that ocean and talked for hours. The grass was velvety, the flowers sweet with their songs. We did not get too many days like that, lazy, warm days built upon feelings rather than experiences, nor many more visits to the Field of Daydreams in the year that followed. But that day was a picturesque one. It was sublime.
“The sky is not the same here,” I tell him. “It is just sky and nothing more.”
“Do you miss Wonderland?”
I focus on the scene before us rather than his face. “Desperately.”
“It misses you.”
Gone unsaid, by the both of us, is how much we miss the other.
“Have you—”
“Yes,” he says softly. “Last week. The White Queen and I had an official treaty signing and ceremony announcing our joint resolve. It was, what we thought, a shot straight at Hearts’ psyche, but now I wonder if she was even in Wonderland to know of the alliance.”
“I am sure you still had Red’s wrath.”
He chuckles again. “Yes. Apparently she had effigies of the both of us thrown to the bandersnatches during games meant to mark the occasion.”
My smile fades. “It is a sad state of affairs for Wonderland for Monarchs to have to sign treaties with their counterparts to ensure alliances.”
“It is, indeed.” He blows out a hard breath. “And still, I would not turn my back to the White Queen, Alice. Her knives are sharp.”
The Hidden Library Page 24