by Ted Sanders
“I told you not to use the vine,” Isabel said, still scanning the trees.
She hadn’t, though. She’d only told her not to push too hard. “I’m sorry,” April said, “but are you saying every time I use the vine, the Riven will feel it?”
“I’m saying it’s a possibility.”
“So what am I supposed to do?”
“Be smarter,” Isabel said curtly. “Remember that you’re being hunted.”
Hunted. By ten-foot-tall monstrosities who wanted the vine. “One of them spoke to me,” April said. “A very tall one.”
“I know. I heard him.”
“He called me a Tinker.”
“Yes,” said Isabel. “That’s what they call us.”
“And then Arthur scared him off.”
“Who?”
“Arthur,” said April, pointing. “The raven.”
Isabel looked over at the bird with surprise. Encouraged, Arthur hopped closer. “If you say so,” Isabel said cryptically, and went back to scanning the woods. What was that supposed to mean? Arthur walked over to April, patiently wondering about a snack. He was still feeling proud and angry, but starting to wonder why no treat had been delivered.
April reached for the dog food in her pocket, admiring how Arthur’s keen intellect perked up as he recognized the gesture—not with a doggish greed, but with a puzzle solver’s curiosity about where the food actually came from. Without thinking, April opened a space in her mind for Arthur.
On the instant, Isabel rounded on her with ferocious speed.
“I said stop,” the woman spat icily, flashing her teeth, and the world itself became ice. Cold bit into April’s bones. Arthur’s presence vanished from her head, and a beat later she realized it wasn’t just Arthur that was gone.
The vine itself was nowhere. For the past two weeks the vine had been a part of her, as present as her hands, her mouth, her heart. Its power had become as constant and expected as sight. But now she couldn’t feel the vine at all, couldn’t summon up its power. She reached up to touch it, and her fingers found the curling metal, but it was no relief at all because the vine was . . . gone.
There but not there.
Horrified, April stood frozen. She gaped at Isabel. The woman’s own heart seemed to be glowing, a tangle of green light pulsing from her chest—but no, not her heart. What was it? And who was Isabel? Lost in the yawning absence of the vine, unable to even allow her knees to buckle beneath her, April struggled to speak, unaware who she was talking to or if she could even be heard. Green light. Red hair. So cold. The vine was lost. April opened her mouth—what mouth?—and tried to make words: What did you do?
CHAPTER FOUR
Revelations
HORACE COULDN’T TAKE HIS EYES OFF THE PUZZLING TANU IN his mother’s hands, with its sails of shimmering thread. He couldn’t imagine what it might be. A twisted knot in his belly tried to insist that he didn’t want to know what it was, but for the first time in nine days, he refused to turn away. He reached for the comforting sensation of the Fel’Daera, snug in its pouch at his side. He was Tan’ji. He was the Keeper of the Box of Promises. Whatever his mother knew about the box, or its Maker, nothing could diminish that. He angrily crushed his doubts flat. He had a right to know . . . everything.
His mother watched him for a moment, then turned to Chloe. “I sensed you up in Horace’s room,” she said. “I suspected he might tell you about me. And Horace, I figured that once you two talked about it, you might decide . . .”
“Yes,” Horace said. “I’m ready now.” All the grumbling, caged-up questions of the last nine days now practically tripped over themselves to get in line in his head, including a brand-new one—what did his mother mean when she said she had sensed Chloe?
“Good,” his mother said, clearly relieved. “But first I want to apologize. Not for this, but for that night. I’m sorry I told you what I did, when I did. My timing could have been better. I just . . . I get tired of the secrets.”
She sounded weary, and that weariness felt so familiar. “It’s okay,” he said stiffly. “I’m sorry, too. I’ve been . . . pouting.”
Chloe stirred at Horace’s side. “I should go,” she said, though her eyes too were glued to the Tanu on the table. “I can wait outside.”
“Please stay,” said Horace’s mother. “There’s nothing I’m about to say that you shouldn’t hear too.”
Chloe glanced at Horace. He nodded, and she sat. Horace joined her. Chloe fiddled with the dragonfly, clearly nervous.
His mother set her Tanu on the table. It rocked slightly, like an alien boat at sea. “I can only imagine how many questions you must have, but we need to start here. This is called a harp.” She ran a finger down one face of the shimmering strings. They made no sound but quivered with prismatic light—red, gold, green, violet. “Every harp looks different, but they all contain these threads. Can you see them?”
“Sort of,” replied Horace, while Chloe said, “Yes.”
“I thought you would. Most people can’t see them at all, but Tan’ji often can.” She plucked idly at the strings, making them quiver and gleam. “I guess I don’t need to explain why we call them harps.”
Horace cocked his head, watching the strange threads flicker in and out of sight. “But what does it do? It’s not Tan’ji—you’re not Tan’ji.”
“No. I never went through the Find like the two of you did, and I never will. Harps don’t take the bond.”
The Find, that period of searching when a new Keeper struggled alone to discover the powers of his or her instrument, was a mandatory rite of passage for every Tan’ji. “Why not?” Horace asked.
“Well, first of all, there’s nothing super special about this harp. You could hand me almost any old harp, and I’d be able to use it.”
“So harps are Tan’kindi,” Horace said.
“Not exactly. Harps won’t work for just anybody.” His mother sighed and frowned, running her fingers up and down the shimmering strings, spilling a silent kaleidoscope of color across her palms, across the table. “I’m not really sure how much to tell you.”
“Tell me everything,” he said.
“I can’t do that. There are some things I don’t know. Some things I don’t care to share, even with you. Plus there are certain other things I’ve sworn not to reveal. To anyone.”
“Great,” Horace said. “So much for no more secrets.”
Chloe said, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Andrews, are you saying you took an oath not to talk?”
“‘Oath’ sounds awfully culty. Let’s say I took a vow—a vow I believe in. I can’t and won’t tell you everything.”
“No offense,” Chloe said, “but you sound like Mr. Meister.”
Horace’s mother frowned. “That’s probably fair. I haven’t seen him in twenty years, but even back then he could be maddeningly mysterious.”
“Twenty years,” Horace said, doing the math. “Since you were a teenager?”
“Yes. I was sixteen when I left—”
“Does he know I’m your son?” Horace interrupted. This was one of the questions that had been nagging at him.
“The Wardens tend to keep tabs on things when they can, so yes, I assume he does. Mrs. Hapsteade too.”
“Why didn’t they ever say anything to me?” Horace insisted.
“Possibly they thought it wasn’t their place to say.”
Or maybe it was yet another secret the old man hoarded for himself. Horace leaned forward hungrily. “Why would they keep tabs on you? Did something happen twenty years ago? Is that why you left the Wardens? Or wait—were you ever really with them?”
Chloe held up her hands. “Okay, Horace, we get it. Floodgates are open. This is why you shouldn’t fret in silence for nine days. I’m pretty sure your mom has lots to tell us, so maybe we just let her talk. Okay?”
Horace sat back, trying to tame his seething mind. “Fine. Okay.”
Chloe looked at Horace’s mom. “I have a place for you to sta
rt. If you’re not Tan’ji, what are you?”
Horace’s mother laughed. “Good question. Easy answer. I’m a Tuner.”
“What’s a Tuner?” Horace asked.
“First, a little background.” His mother bent her head for a moment, clearly gathering her thoughts, and then spoke. “You see, all the Tanu—Tan’ji and Tan’kindi—need power to function. Energy. This energy is called the Medium, and it’s all around us, all the time. As a Tuner, I can sense the Medium. I can tweak it. I can alter its flow in small ways.”
“That’s what you meant when you said you could feel me upstairs,” Chloe said.
“Yes. Because you were nearby, I felt a change in the Medium when you used the dragonfly.” She smiled. “A very familiar change.”
“But this Medium,” Horace said. “What kind of energy is it? Where does it come from?”
“I don’t know where it comes from originally, but I do know that before it reaches your instruments—and you—it flows through the Mothergates. Have you heard that name?”
“No,” Horace said, feeling at once exhilarated at all this new information, and frustrated—no, infuriated—that he hadn’t heard it before. “What are the Mothergates?”
“Again, I don’t fully know. I’ve never seen them. I can feel them, though.” She dropped her hand and pointed at the floor beneath the kitchen table, off to her right. “There’s one in that direction, on the other side of the world—several thousand miles away.” With her left hand, she pointed at the floor again, beneath Chloe’s chair. “And one that way, not quite so far.” Then she straightened and pointed out through the corner of the kitchen. “The last one is that way, much closer than the others.”
Horace and Chloe exchanged a glance. Chloe lifted her feet and looked straight down under her chair. Horace tried to imagine what was on the other side of the world in the directions his mother had pointed. Australia? The Pacific Ocean? Egypt?
“So there are three of these Mothergates,” he said slowly. “Scattered around the world, but one of them is closer by. Is that right?”
“That’s right. The third one is very close, relatively speaking. Just a couple hundred miles away, I think. It’s hard to say—the gates are kept hidden by a powerful Tanu called the Veil. That’s all I know.”
Every sentence his mother uttered was filled with new knowledge. Horace felt so silly now, remembering all his efforts to keep her in the dark about the Fel’Daera and the Wardens—he was the newbie here, not her. He forced himself to remember there was no shame in that.
“This is killing you,” his mother said, watching him. “Your brain is going to explode.”
“If my brain was going to explode, it would have happened before now.”
“It’s true,” said Chloe. “My brain has nearly exploded just hearing about what’s happening inside Horace’s brain.”
Horace’s mother laughed. “The point is, the Medium flows from the Mothergates and into your instruments—into you, too. And my harp gives me some access to those flows. Let me show you. Take out the Fel’Daera, and hold it in your hands.”
Somewhat warily, Horace pulled out the box and held it out. Chloe leaned forward eagerly.
“Higher. Good. Just like that.” His mother reached for the harp. “I’m rusty,” she said, grimacing. “Don’t laugh.”
“I am so far away from laughing,” said Horace.
His mother laid her fingers against the strings and began to . . . what? At first it looked like she was playing an actual harp, plucking at the strange threads. But as he watched her fingers move deftly, he saw that sometimes she pushed instead of plucking. Or sometimes she grasped a string between her thumb and forefinger, or between the pinkies of opposite hands, and drew down the length of the thread. Her fingers worked like the legs of weaving spiders.
A girlish laugh of pure joy popped out of her. She covered her mouth, embarrassed. Horace was startled to see shiny wetness in her eyes. “Sorry,” she said. “It’s been so long. I think I’ve been craving this more than I knew.”
“But haven’t you had the harp for years and years?” he asked.
“Yes, but a harp alone does nothing. A Tuner needs a Tanu to work on. Without a Tanu, I’m like a painter without a canvas, or a mechanic without a car. And until quite recently, Tanu have been in short supply around here.”
She took a deep breath and went back to the harp, pressing and plucking. She tipped her head slightly, and her eyes faded into the distance. All her motions were precise and arcane and beautiful in a way, and her face became a chiseled slab of calm concentration, and Horace knew that even if she wasn’t Tan’ji, still she was tapping into the same pools of thought that he swam in when he used the Fel’Daera. What a secret to have kept from him all these years. He remembered how she’d caught him with the raven’s eye—the small, round Tan’kindi that provided a bit of temporary protection from the Riven. Or better yet, when she’d first spotted the Fel’Daera in his room. What must she have thought?
“God, Horace,” his mother said suddenly. “I would not want to be you.”
“Who would?” said Chloe.
“Why?” he said. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” his mother said hastily. “I don’t mean that in a bad way. It’s just . . . I’d forgotten how crazy the Fel’Daera is. But I think I’ve got it now—or some of it, at least.” She gave him a mischievous look, her fingers still stretched crookedly across the threads of the harp. “Feel this?” she said, pushing the thumb of her left hand forward, bending one of those strands.
Abruptly, Horace felt the Fel’Daera slipping from his grip. He clutched at it instinctively before his eyes told him that the box wasn’t actually moving. But her thumb nudged the string again—and again he sensed that the box was sliding, toppling. Except it wasn’t.
“What are you doing?”
“Messing with you,” she admitted. “With a harp, I can take hold of the Medium that flows between your consciousness and the Fel’Daera. I can manipulate those flows—between a Tan’ji and the Mothergates, or between the instrument and its Keeper, or within the instrument itself. I can interfere with the Medium, or assist it. I’ve got hold of it now. The part I’m messing with is a kind of proprioception.”
“A what?” Chloe asked.
Horace had the answer to that one. “Proprioception. It’s a sense. There are more than just five senses, you know. Proprioception is the one that lets you touch your fingertip to your nose even with your eyes closed.”
Chloe frowned and then tried it, seeming surprised by her own success.
“See?” said Horace’s mother. “It’s knowing where all the parts of yourself are. And when you’re a Keeper, that proprioception extends to your Tan’ji, too. It explains why Tan’ji like you always know where their instruments are. And it’s what I’m messing with now.” She wiggled her thumb back and forth, and again Horace felt—but did not see—the box sliding back and forth in his hand. He sat staring for a moment, letting the strange war between his senses rage on.
“That is . . . insane,” he managed.
“So I hear. But that’s just a parlor trick. I’m a Tuner, so the main thing I do is . . . tune.”
“Tune what?” Chloe asked.
“Instruments,” she replied, indicating the box and the dragonfly. “You see, over time, every Tan’ji becomes attuned to its Keeper—the Keeper’s strengths, weaknesses, tendencies. The very will of the Keeper, in fact, becomes embedded in his or her instrument. The instrument, though, almost always outlives the Keeper. When that happens, the bond is broken, but the imprint of the last Keeper still remains within the instrument itself.”
Horace set the box down on the table, concentrating on the bond. He already knew that there had been other Keepers of the Fel’Daera before him, but he didn’t like the reminder—particularly because Dr. Jericho had hinted, more than once, that the Fel’Daera’s last Keeper had met with an unpleasant end. Horace tried not to imagine what kind of an i
mprint might have been left behind within the box.
His mother continued. “Instruments that have no Keeper are called Tan’layn—the unclaimed. Tan’layn are always in search of a new Keeper, usually with the help of someone like Mr. Meister. The Wardens have warehouses full of Tan’layn, as you probably know. But before the search for a new Keeper can begin, each Tan’layn, ideally, should be cleansed of its last Keeper’s imprint. That’s where we Tuners come in. We take hold of the Medium within the instrument and remove whatever residue we find. It’s somewhere between a house cleaning and an exorcism, I suppose. We eliminate the presence of anything unwanted, returning the Tan’layn to its original state. Tuning makes it much easier and safer when—if—a new Keeper comes along to claim the instrument.”
“Safer how?” Chloe said. “What happens if a Tan’layn doesn’t get tuned?”
“At best, nothing. At worst, the new Keeper finds that the instrument doesn’t always do as asked—that the shadow of the previous Keeper’s will hasn’t gone away.” She screwed up her face, thinking. “From what I understand, it’s sort of like getting a dog that used to belong to someone else. The old influences linger, sometimes dangerously so. Tuners remove those influences.”
Quietly, cautiously, Horace asked, “So were you the one who tuned the Fel’Daera, after . . . after its last Keeper?”
“No,” his mother said firmly, gently. “Not me. And I don’t know anything about the last Keeper, or how that Keeper lost their claim.”
“But you’ve felt the Fel’Daera before. And you said you knew . . .” Horace trailed off, unsure what to ask. Unsure what he even wanted to know. This was what he’d been most afraid of for the past nine days.
“The Maker,” his mother said for him. “Yes, I did. Would you like to hear about her?”
Her, Horace thought. He poured all his warm, worried hope into the box, trying to calm himself. He could only nod.
“She passed through just once, on her way west, and came to the Warren. She had a small collection of Tan’layn to leave with Mr. Meister and Mrs. Hapsteade. Deliveries of Tan’layn happened from time to time, in the hopes that Mr. Meister and Mrs. Hapsteade could try to find a match. Usually, the instruments were nothing major. But when Falo showed up, she—”