The Dark Vault

by Victoria Schwab

  “Yeah,” I say, forcing myself to echo his happiness. “Really.”

  I’m relieved as the conversation turns toward the more innocuous topics of whether Saf and Cash will put gold streaks in their hair and what color glasses Gavin will wear. I’m no longer looking at Owen or Wes, but I can’t shake the feeling that both pairs of eyes are still studying me. Wesley’s pretending to listen to something Amber says, but every time I look up, I notice him glancing my way, and Owen’s watching me like a hawk. And then Wesley’s attention starts drifting away from me toward the Alchemist, and it occurs to me for the first time that even though he can’t see Owen, he might be able to sense him. Owen seems to be realizing this, too. He stays quiet and still against the statue, his eyes narrowed in Wesley’s direction. Wes returns the gaze without seeing. They both frown.

  Mercifully, the bell rings.

  I practically spring to my feet. But as I turn toward class, I feel Wes come up beside me. He knocks his shoulder against mine, but instead of his usual noise I’m hit with something’s off what’s going on did I do something distant pulling back does she know how much I missed her noise couldn’t sleep before I can put space between us. I keep my ringless finger carefully out of his line of sight.

  “Are you really coming tonight?” he asks as Owen appears at my other side.

  “Wouldn’t miss it,” whispers Owen.

  “Wouldn’t miss it,” I echo, stomach twisting.

  “I can’t believe the watch and the warden gave in.”

  “Yeah, well”—they haven’t yet—“I can be very persuasive.”

  A pair of students calls to Wes across the quad. He hesitates. “Go on,” I say. “I’ll see you tonight?”

  “Can’t wait,” he says with a smile before taking off across the grass.

  “What’s going to happen tonight, Owen?” I ask when we’re alone.

  “Why?” he challenges. “Are you having second thoughts?”

  “No,” I say before doubt can weaken the word. “As long as my friends don’t get hurt.” Before he can reach out and read the questions in my skin, I turn and walk away, telling myself I will stop this before it goes too far.

  But how far am I willing to go? And how can I possibly stop it when I don’t know what it is?

  Owen shadows me all afternoon. I focus on the clock instead of his pacing form, and as soon as the last bell rings, I make my way toward the door in the shed, thinking that maybe, if I can get him to follow me into the Narrows, then—

  “This way,” he says, changing course when we’re halfway there. My heart sinks as I follow him toward a copse of trees, where he stops and draws a key from a hidden pocket in his sleeve. His Crew key. It takes everything I have not to lunge for it. But we are nowhere near a real door, and I now know that sending him into the void isn’t a permanent solution. I have to shelve him, and only one key is going to let me do that, so I still myself as he lifts it to a spot in the air and the teeth vanish into nothing.

  No, not nothing. A shortcut. Right here, at the edge of Hyde. Another reminder that this was Owen’s campus long before it was mine.

  He turns the key and offers me his hand, and I do my best to clear my mind before I let him take it and lead me through.

  My shoe hits the ground on the other side, and my heart lurches when I look up and see them. Gargoyles. We are standing on the Coronado roof. I suppress a shudder. How many of my nightmares have started like this?

  But if Owen sees the strange poetry of our being here again, he doesn’t mention it—only looks out over the edge of the roof and down.

  “The day I died,” he says, “it was Agatha who gave the order. Alteration. I remember running, thinking for a second how strange it was to be on the other side of the chase. And then I got to the roof and knew what I had to do.” He looks back at me. “Would you do it?” he asks. “To stay whole?”

  I shake my head. “No,” I say, turning toward the roof door. “But I wouldn’t go down without a fight.”

  Owen follows me. “Where are we going?”

  “There’s still one thing standing in our way,” I tell him.

  His brow furrows. “What?”

  “My mother.”

  Bishop’s is busy. A flock of students from the public school take up half the seats and, judging by Mom’s frenetic pace, have been ordering a slew of things. Berk is on the patio, and Mom’s behind the counter making drinks. Owen follows me in, his steps slowing as he sees the rose pattern on the floor. He stands there, looking down at it as I head up to the counter.

  “Hey, Mom,” I say, resting my elbows on the marble.

  “You’re home early,” she says, and I’m kind of amazed she knows what time it is, considering how many orders she seems to be juggling.

  “Yeah, it turns out the bus is a pretty efficient mode of transportation. Still dirty, but efficient.”

  “Mm-hmm,” she says, clearly distracted.

  “Hey, so, there’s a party at Hyde tonight, and I was wondering—”

  And just like that, her head snaps up from her work. “You’re joking, right?”

  “I just thought maybe I could—”

  She shakes her head. “You know the answer to this—”

  “I know,” I cut in, keeping my voice low, “and I wasn’t even going to bother asking, but Dallas said I should.” For how often she drops her therapist’s name, mine should carry some weight. And sure enough, Mom quiets. “I know it’s a long shot,” I say, hoping this doesn’t sound as rehearsed as it is. “It’s just…I want to feel normal. I want to feel okay, and this—the house arrest, the hovering—I know I’ve earned it, but it’s the constant reminder that I’m not. And I know I’m not. I haven’t been okay for a long time, and I know I have a long way to go before I get there, but for one night I just want to pretend I’m already there.”

  I watch her begin to falter.

  “Never mind,” I start to say, adding a small waver to my voice. “I understand—”

  “Okay,” she cuts in. “You can go.”

  Hook. Line. Sinker. My chest loosens even as my heart sinks. “Thank you,” I say, hoping my relief can pass for excitement. Then I do something that takes us both by surprise: I hug her. My head fills with tell her tell her you’re sorry can’t lose her was only trying to I can’t lose her too.

  For once, instead of pulling away, I tighten my grip. “But you have to check in,” she adds when I finally let go. I nod. “I mean it, Mackenzie. No disappearing. No antics.”

  “Promise,” I say, turning to go.

  “A rousing performance,” says Owen as we head back upstairs. I don’t reply, because I don’t trust myself. Just a few more hours. A few more hours and I will return Owen to the Archive.

  A few more hours and this will all be over.

  “Not again.” Owen’s voice is a low growl as we reach the third floor, and I look up from the steps through the glass insert to see what he sees. Wesley is leaning back against my door, holding a box. My stomach twists. Why is he making it so hard to keep him safe?

  “Send him away,” orders Owen.

  I shake my head. “I can’t. He’ll suspect something is wrong. Just give me some time—”

  “No,” says Owen. “You said you wanted to leave him out of this, so do it.”

  “I’m not going to tell him anything. I just want…” I trail off. Owen’s eyes bore into mine, and I would give anything in this moment to be able to read his thoughts.

  “How many good-byes did you get to say to Carmen?” I ask. “Please. Give me one.”

  Owen’s hand comes to rest on my shoulder, and I can feel him reading me for defiance, but I’m learning how to bury it. I am not a History. I am a human, and my life is messy and loud. I focus on the truths instead of the lies.

  Truth: I am scared for Wesley.

  Truth: I do not want to hurt him.

  Truth: This is not his fight.

  Truth: I cannot protect him from the Archive, but I can protect hi
m from me.

  Owen’s hand slides away. “Fine,” he says. And even if he can’t feel the relief in my skin, I’m sure he can see it in my face. “I have a few finishing touches to put on tonight. Have your time with him, but don’t be late. The party starts at seven. The show’s at eight.”

  I nod and head out into the hall, feeling his eyes on me the whole way there. When Wesley sees me coming, he smiles.

  “What’s with the box?” I ask.

  “You have a Fall Fest to get ready for,” he says. “I’ve come to help.” He clicks a button on the box, and it opens to reveal a dazzling array of makeup.

  “Does this make you my fairy godmother?” I ask as I let him in, locking the door behind us.

  He considers the term. “Well, yes. In this case I guess that’s fair. But don’t tell Cash. My cred will go through the floor.”

  “Where did you even get all this?” I ask, scanning the selection of pencils and shadows.

  “Stole it from Safia.” He sets the box on the kitchen table and starts searching through, then makes an aha sound and emerges with a handful of shadows and a silver liner. “Sit,” he says, patting the tabletop.

  I climb up, leaning forward until my face is inches from his. His hair is still smoothed down and his eyes unlined, and at this distance, I can see the gold flecks in his hazel eyes. A strange panic fills me. I don’t know what’s going to happen; the only thing I know is that I want Wes as far away from it as possible.

  “Skip it,” I whisper as he uncaps the liner.

  “Skip what?”

  “The dance,” I say. “Don’t go. Stay home.”

  “With you?” he asks, smiling crookedly. I shake my head and the smile falters. “I don’t understand.”

  “I just…” I start, but what can I say? What can I tell him without putting him in harm’s way? “Never mind.” I duck out from under his arms, feeling ill. I go into the bathroom and splash water on my face, then grip the counter and breathe.

  “You okay?” calls Wes as I rifle through the medicine cabinet above the sink for some aspirin.

  “My arm’s just sore,” I say, scanning the bottles of pills. My fingers curl around a prescription bottle I don’t recognize, and as I read the label, I realize what the small blue capsules are. Sleeping pills. Not your average over-the-counter kind; the kind strong enough to knock you out in minutes. They’re practically tranquilizers. These must be what Mom dissolved in my water. I hesitate, weighing the bottle, the contents, the possibility. Is this how my mother felt before she slipped them in my drink? My stomach turns, and I set the bottle back. I would do almost anything to keep Wes safe.

  But not that. He would never forgive me.

  “Here.” Wes appears in the doorway with a small vial. “I keep some aspirin in my bag.”

  I take the tube with shaking hands and rinse down two while Wes assesses himself in the mirror. He pulls a small disk-shaped container from his pocket and opens it, dabbing his finger in the gel. He starts to spike his hair when someone knocks on the door.

  “Coming,” I call.

  “Is it pizza?” asks Wes from the bathroom. “I would kill for some pizza.”

  “Wouldn’t get your hopes up,” I say. “Mom probably forgot a key.”

  I throw the lock, and the door’s barely open before a hand tangles in my collar and wrenches me forward into the hall hard enough that the door slams shut behind me. I’m shoved back against the wood as about time been waiting can’t wait has it coming little Keeper spills in through my head, and I hardly have time to register the noise as Sako’s before a key is driven into the door and I fall back and through.

  I hit the antechamber floor hard enough to knock the breath out of me and roll to my feet to see Agatha standing there, smiling grimly.

  “Seize her,” she says, and I feel the sentinels take hold from either side as she comes forward, holding a piece of paper in front of my face.

  “Do you know what this is, Miss Bishop?” The page is written in Latin, with the Archive seal—three vertical gold bars—at the top. “It’s permission,” she tells me, setting the paper on the desk. I try to pull free as she begins to tug off her black gloves one at a time.

  “Now,” she says, setting them aside, “let’s see what you’ve been hiding.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  WHEN OWEN LOCKED ME in the Returns room, my life—thrown onto the walls—began to compile, organize, and fold in. The sensation was strange and dull and numbing.

  This is the opposite.

  It’s like being turned inside out, exposed to things I don’t want to see, think, feel again. It’s all pulled out of the recesses of my mind and dragged violently into the light.

  The pain tears through my head as I see Wesley in my bed my parents together on the couch looking at me like I’m already lost Cash handing me coffee Sako pinning me in the alley carved a line into my skin beating the thug’s face into the park path Roland telling me to lie down and Owen stalking me through the gargoyles killing me in class lifting Ben’s blue bear sitting in Dallas’s chair.

  Da used to say that if you wanted to hide something, you had to leave it sitting out, right there on the surface.

  “When you bury it,” he said, “that’s when people go digging.”

  I think about that the instant before it starts. I think about it while Agatha’s in my mind, the pain knifing through my scalp and down my spine, all the way into my bones. I think about it after—or between—while I’m lying on the cold antechamber floor, trying to remind my body how to breathe.

  There is a moment, lying on that floor, when I just want it to be over. When I realize how tired I really am. When I think Owen’s right and this place deserves to burn. But I drag myself back together. It’s too early to stop fighting. I have to get out of here. I have to get back to the Outer. I have to get through tonight. Because one way or another, I will get through tonight.

  I struggle to my hands and knees. The metallic taste of blood fills my mouth, several drops dripping from my nose to the antechamber floor.

  “Get her back up,” orders Agatha. The sentinels drag me to my feet, and her hand wraps around my jaw. “Why is that traitorous History streaked across your life like paint?”

  Owen. I tell the closest thing to the truth that I can manage. “Bad dreams.”

  Her eyes hold mine. “You think I can’t tell the difference between nightmares and memories?”

  And then I realize something with grim satisfaction: she can’t. Because I can’t. She may be able to look inside my mind, but she can only see what I see.

  “I guess not,” I say.

  “You think you can hide things from me,” she growls, her fingers running through my hair. “But I’m going to find the truth, even if I have to tear your mind apart to do it.” Agatha’s grip tightens, and I close my eyes, bracing for another wave of pain, when the Archive door swings open behind her.

  “I warned you, Roland,” she says without looking back, “that the next time you interrupted me I would have you reshelved.”

  But the man in the doorway is not Roland. I’ve never seen him before. There is a kind of timeless poise to the warm brown hair that curls against his temples and the closely trimmed goatee that frames his mouth. A gold pin made of three vertical bars gleams on the breast pocket of his simple black suit.

  “Unfortunately, my dear,” he says, his accent unplaceable, “you cannot play judge, jury, and executioner. You must leave some work for the rest of us.”

  Agatha tenses at the sound of the man’s voice, her hands sliding from my head.

  “Director Hale,” she says. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

  Everything in me goes cold. A director. One of the Archive’s leaders. And one of its executioners. Roland appears at the man’s shoulder, and his eyes find mine for an instant, darkening with worry, before he follows the other man—Hale—into the antechamber. The director crosses to Agatha’s side with calm, measured steps, each eliciting a
small snap.

  “Seeing as my presence has a noticeable impact on your vehemence,” he says, “perhaps it’s best to behave as though I am always in the room.” His steady green eyes slide from Agatha to me. “And I’d advise you to take a little more care with our things,” he says, still addressing her. The sentinels release me, and I will myself to stay on my feet. “Miss Bishop, I presume.”

  I nod, even though the small motion sends a wave of pain through my head.

  Director Hale turns back to Agatha. “Judgment?”

  “Guilty,” says Agatha.

  “No!” I shout, lunging toward her. The sentinels are there in an instant, holding me back. “I didn’t make the voids, and you know it, Agatha.”

  Hale frowns. “Did she make them or not?”

  Agatha holds his gaze a long moment. “She didn’t make the doors, but—”

  “I will remind you,” cuts in Hale, “that I only granted you permission so that you could determine if she was behind the void incidents. If she is innocent of that, then pray tell how is she guilty?”

  “Her mind is disturbed,” says Agatha, “and she’s hiding things from me.”

  “I didn’t realize anyone could hide things from you, Agatha. Doesn’t that defeat your purpose?”

  Agatha stiffens, caught between outrage and fear. “She’s involved, Hale. Of that I have no doubt. At least let me detain her until I solve this case.”

  He considers, then waves a hand. “Fine.”

  “No,” I say.

  “Miss Bishop,” warns Hale, “you really are in no place to make demands.”

  “I can solve the case,” I say, the words spilling out.

  Hale arches a brow. “You think you can succeed where my assessor has failed?”

  I find Agatha’s eyes. “I know I can.”

  “You arrogant little—”

  Hale holds up his hand. “I’m intrigued. How?”

  My chest tightens. “You have to trust me.”

  Hale smiles grimly. “I do not trust easily.”

  “I won’t let you down,” I say.

  “Do not let her go,” warns Agatha.

  Hale arches an eyebrow. “I can always bring her back.”