"Well, if you know who's funding all this, why aren’t you doing anything about it?" Now, it was fair to say that I lost my cool. I took a step closer to him and let in a long breath. "Why won’t you let me help? I want to figure this out as much as anyone."
"Until we understand more, I don’t see that happening. I'm not saying no. But we can’t risk your safety, not while there is even a chance that this is far bigger than we understand."
Huh. I tried not to let it show on my face that his response was far more promising than I’d prepared for. Still, it wasn’t a yes, and I hoped I could use that.
"Okay, how about a compromise?"
Jonathan raised his blonde eyebrows, not speaking.
"Ditch the guards. Having them follow us around the Archive is a waste of resources, and a waste of time. What exactly are you hoping for, having them tailing us?"
"Not me. Joanna. I voted against this, and I would again. We gain nothing by having the three of you followed. But I was outvoted."
Clenching my jaw, I tried to see my next step. I still didn’t have a complete understanding of the Archive’s hierarchy, but having three councilors intent on something didn’t feel promising.
"Still," Jonathan said, without prompting, surprising me, "Joanna was the only one of us who felt sure this was necessary. If you could sway one of the others, the decision could be reversed. Perhaps, someone who might be able to find more productive uses for the Protectorate?"
"Grayson?" I asked.
"He would be the best place to start, yes. For now, I'll say that I'm not entirely opposed to the idea. And if Grayson will listen, then I'll back you up as best I can. But consensus will be key, in the end. Still, if you can get Grayson, as well as me then perhaps you’ll get a chance."
Next step: it was Grayson’s turn for an unexpected visit.
"No, no way. There is absolutely zero chance we’ll consider using you, or anyone else, as bait," Grayson said, staring at me from the other side of his desk. His office was to the right of the central office where the entire group of councilors questioned me before. It was a little smaller, and had a massive whiteboard on one side of the wall, plus more books than I could count. A treadmill stood in the far corner, but it didn't look like it had been used for a while as a pile of books was building up on the track. "I appreciate the offer, but Jonathan should have shut this idea down immediately."
I winced, feeling guilty under the intensity of Grayson’s stare. "Technically," I said, "Jonathan said no too. I just wanted to float the idea, since this is more your thing than his. And there has to be more we can learn from those mercenaries."
Grayson shook his head, exasperated. "We've already tried questioning the mercenaries we could find, looking for the source of their orders. But not one of them remembers anything about who paid them in the first place. Even the man we saw that night, the one who took your friend, Harper. He doesn't remember anything about her, or what he did. So, putting you out there would be an unnecessary risk."
"Except, if no one is looking for us anymore, what's the risk at all?" I let out a huff. "Why bother holding us here?"
"Because memory work like this is no small feat. We cannot guarantee that they were the only ones looking for you, or that whoever did this hasn't put a different group on your retrieval now that they know we’re on to them. Not only that, but now I'm starting to have some doubts about our working theories, and am certain what it all means, but I'm not sure what we really have to gain by taking that kind of risk."
My heart sunk a little, I’d already suspected there was no way I was going to win him over to my idea. It was a good thing I hadn't bothered stopping in to see if Marc would be on board to help, as I know I would've gotten his hopes up and it would have been for nothing.
I knew I should have just walked away, right then. I had no way of knowing whether insisting on leaving the building would only do more to make me look suspicious. And if it would hurt Devon’s and Marc's chances of earning some trust as well in the process.
"How long?" I asked. "How long do I have to wait before this just becomes a giant question mark in the history of the Archive rather than something that you’re all still working on?"
"I'm not really one for quitting."
"Me neither," I said, even though a week ago, I wasn't sure that was something I would've said about myself. "I'm not willing to give up and just live here for the rest of my life."
"Give me one week," Grayson said after a minute. "After one week, I'll insist on a meeting between the councilors and moving forward with a new game plan. I can't guarantee that the action taken is going to be one you approve of, or something you like. But give me one more week and I promise something will have changed. We'll know more, or maybe you'll have displayed some sort of magical bird power and got yourself locked up."
I wanted to argue, but I saw a small smile touch the corner of Grayson's lips. "Did you make a joke?"
"I'm actually a pretty funny guy."
"Uhuh," I said with an exaggerated nod. "Sure you are."
"You’ve caught us all at a very weird time, Kadie. None of what is happening makes any sense. For every theory I have, another pops up and contradicts it. There's something I'm not seeing, that none of us can see. And already, with your arrival in the city being so unprecedented, it's clear that whatever is happening could have far-reaching repercussions. But we're all on the same side here, and if you can believe that, then I hope you can be patient for just a little longer."
"And what about Devon?" I asked. "It's a lot harder for him to be patient."
Grayson nodded. "You're right. We've erred on the side of being overly cautious, in that case. That’s not fair. But there's no denying he has access to magic that he shouldn't have. And even if that's somehow of no fault of his own, that can be undeniably dangerous."
"Well, all you people are magic. Can't you come up with some other way to help him control it other than keeping him locked up?" I couldn't believe that the extent of the ability to control magic all came down to lines drawn arbitrarily on the ground. There had to be more.
"I'll give it some thought, I promise," Grayson said. "If I can come up with something that mitigates the risk, I’ll bring it to the others."
I smiled and nodded, grateful. My meeting with Grayson hadn't exactly gotten the result I was hoping for, but at least it had gotten me something. And hopefully this would result in a win for Devon as well.
"What about the guards you have following us around?"
"Joanna thought it would be in everyone's best interest."
"And you? Wouldn’t you rather have all hands on deck, instead of having some of your people wasting their time, walking me from office to office? And you know Marc isn’t exactly going to be fun to work with."
Grayson sighed. "You really know how to push your luck." I grinned. "I'll see what I can do. But I'm not making any promises."
"Hey, I'll take what I can get."
CHAPTER NINETEEN
"Okay, seriously. This is getting ridiculous. Can you people come back at a reasonable hour?"
I sat up in bed, annoyed that once again someone was knocking on my door in the middle of the freaking night.
This time, they never bothered to knock a second time. But I was in the habit of getting up to open the door in my pajamas at this point, and I was already awake. Besides, I couldn't rule out the possibility that it would be good news waiting for me at the other side of the door.
Except, no one was waiting for me. There was an empty hallway, and that was it. When I took a step outside the threshold to get a better idea of what was going on, two things happened at once. The first was that the door slammed shut from the other end of the hallway. The second was that I nearly tripped over a book that was on the floor.
"Won't you people shut up?" Devon shouted out from under his covers, his voice muffled. "I'm trying to sleep here!"
Doing my best to keep quiet, I leaned down and picked up the book tha
t had been left by my door, and slipped back inside my room. With a groan, I turned the overhead light on and gave my eyes a second to readjust.
The first thing I noticed, was a sticky note fastened to the front cover reading: "From my personal collection." I removed the sticker and got a look at the cover of the book, getting less and less curious by the second as to why someone thought I needed to read this now. If someone had a book recommendation for me, it could've waited until the morning.
All In. The title of the book was “All In” and showed a beach scene stretching out over both the front cover and around to the back. But it wasn't the golden and red hues of a sunset over the water that caught my attention, but a signpost and a bench on the far side of the image. I recognized this place, this stretch of beach. I'd visited it as a child, and while I hadn't been there in years, I could distinctly remember a conversation I had with Darren about this exact spot.
My heart started skipping in my chest before I even realized what I was considering. I flipped the book back over and frantically read the perfectly aligned text on the back cover. I felt too frantic to concentrate on the blurb and didn't take much of it in. Instead, my eyes scanned for words that would jump out at me. They did.
Darren's name. Kelsey's. Several people I didn't recognize. No mention of me, but I was already certain about what I was looking at. This was my story--All In. This was the book I had come from, and for whatever reason somebody had hand-delivered it to my door not long after it was officially declared missing. I didn't have time to figure out what any of that meant. Like a magnet, I was already moving toward the armchair, suddenly wide awake.
It was here, my book. And I wasn't going to wait another second to read it.
At first, I tried merely flipping through and taking in random snippets, hoping to find the answers I was looking for, whatever they were, sooner rather than later. But there were so many characters, and places and plot lines going on that I couldn't follow any of what was happening. It wasn't a small book, and after fifteen minutes I hadn't found any mention of me whatsoever. Finally, it was clear that the only answer for me was to take my time with this. Not like, take my time, wait until morning when I had properly rested and had something to eat, take my time. But at least I owed myself and this book enough time that I had to start at the beginning, really read it, and go until I finished.
A quick glance at the clock showed that it was four in the morning. I knew I'd never get that night's sleep back, but the five hours I'd gotten would be more than enough to get me through this.
Almost holding my breath, I flipped back through to chapter one and started to read.
That's it? I wondered to myself as I read the final page of the book.
Rather than closing it I skimmed through the pages back to the beginning. I must have missed something.
I couldn't even bother lying to myself that deep down I'd been hoping this book would answer all the questions I had about who I was. That desire hadn't been deep down at all. I'd been expecting so much from this, and gotten so little.
All In had been one of those sweeping sagas about a group of people whose lives all interconnected in one way or another. There had been at least a dozen characters whose viewpoints were used by the author at one point or another. And their stories were all intricate in the way they meshed together by the end of the book. I was one of those characters, but just barely. I'd met Darren in the coffee shop that day. We had gone out on our first date. I'd seen our second date through Darren's eyes, which also happened to be the day he'd met Kelsey, and connected with her instantly. A woman named Margaret had spotted me doing yoga in the park one morning, but I hadn't noticed her and we’d never even talked. I was only a passing reference in chapter twenty-two. I showed up in a few more places, chatting to an old man in the checkout line at the grocery store, and on my fourth date with Darren passing by a girl walking a large pack of dogs as he and I whispered secrets to one another on the boardwalk. And all the while, Darren and Kelsey were falling deeper in love. Kelsey’s sister had been that same girl on the boardwalk, and the one who would tip her sister off to the fact that Darren was dating someone else. But it hadn’t been a secret, they weren’t exclusive yet. At least, not until that same night when Darren had decided to do the right thing and choose one of us over the other. Because his heart had already known exactly what the right decision was going to be.
And it wasn't me.
As I’d suspected, the last time the book focused in on me directly was when I'd gotten that phone call from him, that night in my bedroom. I didn’t need to relive those moments to know exactly what happened, but I dreaded it anyway. It was like it was happening all over again, practically sending me right back to my bedroom. I was only reminded about what was happening when the splash of a tear hit the page I'd been reading.
My parents had never even featured in the book, only my mentioning in passing that I had dinners with them as often as I could. They didn't even have names, something that I’d never thought about before. But then, as I sat there in the chair trying to digest everything I’d just read, I tried to think of them and came up with nothing.
Who are they now if they hadn't had so much as names in the story?
I closed the book and let it sit there on my lap for a second, just staring at the cover and the familiar landscape that I'd once loved. Darren and Kelsey had been the ones to visit the spot in the book, not me. I'd only mentioned once that I'd been there, and as far as the After was concerned, that was enough to form a memory for me once I'd arrived here in this new world.
It explained so much, and so little. And I felt more than a little sick.
I felt like a fake and a failure. I was a mess, and a mess without any real substance.
Hastily, I changed out of my pajamas and back into the clothing I'd been wearing the day before. I was out the door, book in hand, before I'd really come up with any sort of a plan. I just needed to move, to see the world around me and figure out what it meant.
"Hey, Kadie. Is everything okay?" Devon asked, voice still groggy. I winced a little, feeling guilty waking him up.
"I'm fine. I just need to get out of here for a bit. I'll talk to you later."
"But…" I was already around the corner, cutting off whatever it was Devon had wanted to say. It could wait until later.
It hit me then that Devon was my only real friend, since I hadn't had any in the book. I'd mentioned a best friend from before to Darren, but like my parents, she’d never even had a name. I searched my memories, but couldn't remember a single moment we'd ever spent together. Okay, I corrected myself, I do have more friends now, here in the After. But a big part of me mostly just wanted to feel bad for myself.
It was something I was turning out to be very good at.
I stepped out of the halls of the private rooms of the Archive and into the main library. It was open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. But it was never all that busy in the middle of the night, and it didn't look like people had really gotten the memo yet that they were encouraged to come back into the building after the three-day hiatus.
I made my way down to the lobby. An older librarian I didn't recognize was sitting at the front desk. He looked up in surprise but didn't say anything when he noticed me walking by.
I just stood in the center of the lobby for a moment, staring at the glass doors that formed the entryway to the building. The rest of the world was right out there. People who had once been book characters like me, people who had been able to build lives for themselves, even if they'd been little more than minor characters in a past life.
And right now, I could be building a new life for myself. But instead I was stuck. No real past, no real future. Just stuck.
I took a step toward the front door, nothing happened. For a second, I almost considered it. Running. Just going out the front door and seeing what was waiting for me there.
But I never had the chance to figure out if it was something I would'v
e done. Instead, Eliza came in through the same door I'd been watching, a few moments later. As though she'd appeared straight out of the darkness of the night. Her eyes widened in surprise as she noticed me standing there, staring right at her.
"Hey," she said once she was close enough. "What are you doing up this early?"
I didn’t answer at first, and my eyes darted back to the door, to outside. To freedom.
"Kadie?" I felt Eliza’s hand on my arm, but my vision was already starting to spiral, my breath quickening as panic filled my gut.
"Hey, Kadie. Stay with me. Tell me, what’s wrong?"
I wanted to tell Eliza every thought that was whirling through my head, but I didn’t know where to start with any of it. How did you tell someone that your life had been barely a footnote in someone else’s story? Especially someone like Eliza who would have been born to parents with names and histories of their own, and grown up in the After, with every possibility at her fingertips.
And I was just the rejected corner of a love triangle.
"What are you doing in so early?" I asked, doing my best to focus on Eliza’s face, which contorted with concern for me. I couldn’t be a crappy friend on top of everything else.
"Unfortunately, this is when my shift starts. I’m filing reports for Keeper Dorset today."
"Sounds like fun," I said.
"Okay, something is clearly going on with you. If you don’t want to tell me, that’s okay, but we should really get you some tea, or a cookie or something."
As soon as Eliza reached out to put her arm around my shoulder, something inside me cracked. I let out a shuddering breath, and a moment later burst into a sob.
I didn’t follow much of what happened as Eliza led me away, cooing reassurances as we walked, but soon she had me sitting in a chair, far away from the prying eyes of the man who had been working at the front desk. I only really zoned back into what was going on around me again when I felt her try to tug the book still clenched in my fists out of my hands. I squeezed harder and finally looked up at her.
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