Joy wavered, unsure. “I feel like we’re plotting. But I’m only doing it because I’m worried about her. But what if she’s really self-conscious about the scars? She’ll be so embarrassed we know! On the other hand, she might say no, because she doesn’t know we know. But we do know!”
Gaius laid a gentle hand on Joy’s shoulder. “Joy, you need to relax. I honestly do not think Zoë is in any immediate danger. Has she been sickly or tired or depressed? We have time to figure something out.”
“How do you know?” Joy shouted. “You don’t know what happened to her! None of us do!”
Rachel jerked back, as shocked by Joy’s words as by the volume of her voice.
“That’s true, Joy,” replied Gaius, patiently, “but it doesn’t mean we should panic. It doesn’t help Zoë if we lose our heads. Really, Joy, we’ll figure something out.”
Joy burst into tears. Gaius took a step back, uncertain. A look of resolve came over his face. He moved forward and pulled her into a hug. Joy cried on his shoulder. Touched by her boyfriend’s gesture, Rachel, too, hurried over and hugged Joy.
“You didn’t see the scars,” Joy choked out, weeping against the older boy’s shoulder. “They look terrible! What if…what if having them examined makes her remember what happened? It must have been so horrible!”
“Don’t cry, Joy,” begged Rachel. “You are doing exactly the right thing.”
“Am I?” Joy bawled. “Sometimes our best isn’t enough. Look what happened to the elf lady! She was murdered! Because of us! That’s what Siggy’s vision was about, you know! The one the Comfort Lion showed him? How his blabbing about her got her killed and made Zoë and me cry. And Valerie. She’s even more upset—since she’s the one we told.” She paused, wiping her eyes. “Maybe I should have asked the princess about Zoë.”
“If you asked Nastasia,” Rachel said sadly, “she’d go right to the Dean or Nurse Moth. That’s how she does things. We’re trying to give Zoë more control over what happens.”
“T-true,” hiccupped Joy.
“We’ll introduce Agent Bridges to Zoë and tell her who he is,” Rachel resolved. “Then we can take her aside and tell her that she should let him examine her.”
She spoke calmly, but inside, she grew more and more alarmed. What if her whole dream about her Elf’s husband were true? What if Zoë had fallen into the same place to which Remus had been dragged? She felt certain, as certain as she had ever been of anything, that it was a place of horror and madness.
She had been so relieved that her friend had not been conscious during the period when she was lost, but what if Joy were right, and Zoë had suffered some horrible fate that she merely did not currently remember. What if she did remember? Rachel shivered. Forgetting was terrible, but could there conceivably be a situation where remembering was even worse?
“A-and if s-she objects?” asked Joy.
Rachel blinked and pulled herself back from the yawning brink of emotional chaos.
“We’ll have Gaius talk sense into her.” She patted her boyfriend’s upper arm. “He owes her one, after the time she yelled at him when he got upset at me. The time I…well, never mind that. I think Mr. Bridges can help her. If not, you can tell Nastasia, and she’ll tell the dean.”
Gaius blinked. “Um, yes, I’ll speak to her, if she doesn’t listen to reason. I hope she does, though, without my getting involved. The fewer people whom she has to find out have learned about her situation, the better. Of course, I could try to convince her without mentioning her scars. There are a number of ways to approach this to minimize embarrassment to her.”
Releasing Joy, he held her at arm’s length, looking her straight in the eye. “But we will do this, Joy. If Zoë’s in danger, we will help her! No matter what. I’d rather have her dislike me for embarrassing her and be safe, than like me and be injured or ill. I’ll make sure she gets examined. I promise.”
Joy gaped at Gaius, as if he had shocked her out of being so upset.
“Okay.” She swallowed and nodded, sniffing once. “Okay.”
“Good.” Rachel folded her father’s letter. “I’ll write and ask Father to send Templeton.”
• • •
Templeton Bridges arrived the next afternoon. Mr. Fuentes pulled Rachel from class, causing a stir among the other students. The handsome proctor led her to a side room on the ground floor of Roanoke Hall where her father’s second-in-command waited. Agent Bridges was a tall, dark-skinned man with severe features. Like all Agents, he wore a tricorne hat, an Inverness cloak, and a medallion showing a lantern surrounded by stars. He carried a fulgurator’s staff that had a fist-sized emerald set into the top. A white silk pilot’s scarf circled his throat.
Upon seeing her, he gave her a stiff nod with just a hint of a smile. Rachel smiled back, tremendously glad that he had come. Just seeing him, looking so familiarly severe, helped lift the weight that had oppressed her since Joy first told her about Zoë’s scars. She suddenly felt very glad that she had written to her father.
Mr. Fuentes departed, leaving the two of them in a small, triangular room under the eastern spiral staircase, near the library, one wall of which was the curving, creamy marble of the stairs. Agent Bridges took off his tricorne hat and hung it on the back of a chair. His deep brown head was shaved close to the skin. He did not, however, remove his Inverness cloak. Shivering next to the cold stone wall, Rachel slipped into her own red coat.
Agent Bridges moved directly to the business at hand.
“Hello, Rachel.” Bridges spoke in a deep voice with a crisp British accent. “Your father asked me to speak to you about an incident. One of your friends has been injured? Possibly while outside the borders of the world? Can you fill me in on what has happened?”
Rachel took a deep breath. “My friend Zoë has a pair of sandals that let her walk into dreams.” She did not bother keeping anything back. The princess had told the dean anyway, and the dean had told the American branch of the Wisecraft. “My friend Nastasia can move between worlds, if she is in dreamland. They were walking down one of the silver tracks that stretch between worlds, and Zoë was pulled off the path.” Her voice wavered slightly. She took another deep breath. “Zoë was returned, but she had some kind of dark shadow possessing her. When it left, she did not remember what had happened—between when she fell off and when she woke up without the shadow in her.
“Now,” Rachel continued, “she has scars all over her body—but she is hiding this. We haven’t told her you’re coming. I’m not sure how best to tell her. Maybe,” She shrugged, uncertain. “Could we have her brought to see you, without telling her that we’re involved? Say you were here to follow up on her previous conversation with the Wisecraft, maybe?”
Agent Bridges regarded her seriously. “Rachel, if those sandals truly ‘go between worlds,’ you should turn them over to people who are older and more skilled than you and your friends. Our department—your father says you are cleared to know—deals with the activity of beings from outside of our own world. Our efforts are crippled, though, as most Outsiders are masked. They befuddle those around them. Or, worse, the entire world changes to pretend that they are a part of it. Who knows who is from Outside, and who is not?”
Rachel thought: Nastasia can tell if she touches them. She did not say this aloud, but, she was reasonably sure that the Wisecraft knew, since the princess had told the dean and the Grand Inquisitor.
Templeton Bridges pulled up a seat. Rachel expected him to sit down, but he lifted her up and planted her in it, as if she were a small child. She squirmed. She hated when people did that. Then he drew up a chair of his own.
“What you have done so far is amazing. But—and I want you to listen to me carefully—the world needs you alive, Rachel. I fully believe you and your friends will play a part in saving the world in the future, as you have in the recent past. But, you can’t do that, if you are dead.
“So I am giving you an order. As of now, you are to act in an observat
ional capacity only, until you are older and more skilled. Observe and report. We will try and respond in a timely manner. Your father and I and our fellows at the Shadow Agency are stretched extremely thin. We are traveling the world, looking into disturbances and trying to resolve incidents with minimal damage to civilians. The work is dangerous. What you are doing is even more so. The negligence and inexperience of your friend nearly led to her death. She was lucky.”
Rachel nodded seriously, but inside her heart was dancing. She had loved reporting to her father. Doing so had brought her a sense of purpose and made her feel useful. Being told she could report again was like being told, after hiding under cold water for months, that she was being allowed up for air.
She ignored the “observe only” part of the order.
“Now, back to the matter at hand,” Agent Bridges continued. “Who returned your friend? You’re leaving out information, and I need to know everything before I can treat her. If I can treat her. You say she had a shadow in her? Was it like a black, inky smoke? Did it come out of her mouth and nose as though she was vomiting? After it came out, did you see where it went? Did it touch anyone?”
He sat back. “I should add, if the Guardian of the world has told you not to repeat something specifically, I do not expect you to disobey. I know you have interacted with it. It most likely knows what is best for the world as a whole, and for now, we are following its lead, what little it shows. But I do expect you to report anything pertinent which has not been forbidden by that power.”
The Guardian? Rachel’s world reeled. Her father and his people knew the Raven was the Guardian? Why had her father told her to avoid the Raven, as if it were a wicked thing?
“These things are difficult to talk about,” she replied slowly. “We know who the Outsiders are. At least, we have a way of finding them. But even talking about the fact that they are from Outside can cause harm. If too many people find out, the Walls that protect our world will fall down, and the whole world will be lost to the kind of things that hurt my friend.
“As to my friend, I’m afraid I don’t know very much. I was not there. Only the Princess of Magical Australia knows the whole story, which she told to the dean and the New York Agents. Darling and Standish, I believe.
“But I can tell you that an elf brought her back. My dead Elf’s husband.”
“I know people are coming from Outside,” said Bridges. “You can tell me who they are.”
Rachel frowned, not certain whether he meant he wanted to know who at the school had come from Outside, or whether he was asking about people who might have recently come from Outside, such as her Elf’s husband—who, so far as Rachel knew, had immediately left again.
“I can’t tell you who they are,” she said. “That…that would be bad. It’s bad to know. It’s bad to tell. Bad things can happen. It’s best to pretend that everyone has always been here.”
“Very well,” he stated. “Now—”
A note in his voice set alarm bells ringing in Rachel’s head.
Agent Bridges leaned back and crossed his arms. “Rachel, please say: ‘Mr. Bridges, I will act only in an observational capacity unless my life or another’s is directly in peril.’”
When Rachel did not answer immediately, he added, “I don’t expect you not to save someone, if you get the chance. But your father is concerned that you are actively seeking out threats to confront.” Agent Bridges leaned forward, his elbow resting on his knee. “I am giving you an order that is not as restrictive as you might think. Our Agents are given more precise and restrictive orders than what I have asked of you. Keep that in mind, when you’re considering whether you’re going to listen or not.”
Rachel stared at him attentively, saying nothing. By a Herculean effort of will, she did not so much as nod her head. She just looked at him, silently willing him to take her lack of comment as acquiescence and move on. So far, this had worked. Everyone else had taken her silence for agreement. Of course, they had not asked her to repeat something in particular.
Agent Bridges sat there, waiting, piercing her with his keen, dark gaze. He did not move or waver. Deep inside, Rachel began to quake, but her many years of practicing her dissembling arts helped her keep calm. She felt oddly dizzy, though, as if the room was spinning.
He was not going to fall for her innocent stare.
“Please give me your word, Rachel. I am not going to assume your assent from your silence.”
Busted!
Chapter Twenty-Four:
Dread versus the Agents of the Wisecraft
Devastated, Rachel opened her mouth to repeat the words and paused.
In her mind’s eye, Siggy’s face stared back at her. He had the same crazy-eager look as when he asked her to take him to see the ogre and the storm goblin. She imagined his expression would if she had told him no. She imagined the long dull hours, sitting in classes listening to repetition of material she already remembered—with no hope of trips into dreamland or journeys to another world to look forward to. No adventures would mean no new secrets with which to dazzle Gaius and Vlad, no reason to talk to Jariel, or even see him again.
It would mean going back to being an ordinary girl.
She had tried the ordinary girl path once. It had not worked. She could not keep this promise, even if she were willing to try. Maybe once she could have, before she discovered the atrocities that Azrael had committed; before she saw Remus Starkadder dragged down; before she learned about Moloch, the demon who created the very concept of sacrifice; before her diligence in pursuing these matters stopped Azrael and saved the world—and her father. Now that she knew these things, however, she could no more stop doing everything in her power to find out more than she could halt the progress of the sun.
She did not mind lying. She had been doing more and more of it of late—ever since lying to Mortimer Egg had saved Valerie’s life. But lying was not the same as breaking her word. When she gave her word, she intended to keep it. So she could not tell her father or Agent Bridges what they wanted to hear. She was not capable of it.
“Rachel?” Templeton Bridges waited patiently.
She bit her lip. What could she say? Sadly, she shook her head.
Agent Bridges shut his eyes and ran a hand across his shiny dark pate. Opening his eyes again, he said, “Very well. Come with me. We need to go speak with Dean Moth.”
Rachel took a step backward. “W-wait. Why?”
“We are going to see your father. He will ask you to make the same promise. If you do not, he will, most likely, pull you from Roanoke and have you tutored at home.”
What?
No!
Agent Bridges stood and retrieved his hat. “I think at this point, you should verify that I am who I say I am. Ask questions only I would know, and make sure they are random.”
Rachel struggled to wet her extremely dry lips. “Okay, um, why were Ben and I dripping wet the time you came for dinner last summer? What are the marks on Ben and Yasmin’s necks? Why was Yasmin crying after we exchanged presents at the previous Yule party?” And several more questions in the same vein.
Bridges answered reasonably well. One or two details, he did not remember. Not remembering always mystified Rachel, and she was not sure how to judge whether these particular lapses of memory were ordinary or suspicious. But, as the particulars he could not recall seemed similar to the kind of details other people forget, she gave him a pass.
Agent Bridges departed the room. Rachel followed, feeling particularly small and sad.
• • •
“Mr. Bridges, Miss Griffin,” Dean Moth straightened behind her desk. “How can I help you today?”
The dean was a short, stocky woman with a page bob of white hair and an air of brisk authority. She sat behind a large cherry-wood desk covered with an old-fashioned black blotter. Shelves filled with arcane tomes and jars of specimens for alchemy lined the walls. In one corner, a large golden eagle with silvery talons perched on a stand made
out of a young tree. The office smelled like leather and sandalwood, with just a whiff of bird.
“Greetings, Dean Moth. I am taking Miss Griffin to the Wisecraft Offices in London to speak to her father,” said Bridges, in his deep, deep voice. “I have a letter here with his permission to remove her from school grounds. Her father has let the Agents know, so you can verify the request with Scarlet MacDannan. You may, if you wish, send an escort with her.”
He handed the dean a letter, which she read, frowning.
“Very well,” she said. “Let’s go speak with Mrs. MacDannan.”
Rachel stood before the large desk of the woman who was, still today, a heroine among the Wise for her courage and perseverance during the Terrible Years. When all the other tutors and staff fled Roanoke, when the Terrible Five seized the school almost twenty-five years ago, only Maverick Badger and then-Art tutor Jacinda Moth had stayed to protect the captive students. Furthermore, the dean was a friend of the princess’s family and already knew almost all the secrets Rachel knew—all the ones Nastasia knew, anyway.
Gazing at the dean’s careworn face, Rachel made a difficult decision. She would ask the dean for help. She would tell her everything and would beg her not to let the Agent take her off school grounds. Maybe, by some extraordinary miracle, the dean would understand and help her.
Rachel stepped forward and put both hands on the black blotter atop the desk. The thought of not having all these weighty issues on her own slender shoulders was a tremendous relief. Her spirits lifted.
“Um, Dean, could I talk to you privately?”
Dean Moth glanced at Bridges, who nodded and stepped outside and partially closed the door. “Yes, Miss Griffin?” asked Dean Moth.
“I…I don’t want to go see my father.”
“Why not?”
“I-It’ll g-go badly.” Rachel bit her lip. “May I sit down? This may…take a while.”
The Awful Truth About Forgetting (Books of Unexpected Enlightenment Book 4) Page 27