“Karis?” Dane looks between us, confused. “What are you doing?” His hand grips the hilt of his sword, but he isn’t moving. Even Rudy is standing there, frozen.
I fight my legs, throwing every bit of me that makes me who I am against the movement of my body. It isn’t enough. My steps don’t even falter. The Heart looms over me, monstrously beautiful, its gold flashing in the torches. I’m thrown back to that night, to the glow draining out of it, rendering it useless. The pride and joy on my father’s face. The shouts as soldiers flooded down the stairs. My father falling even as he yelled at me to run. Falling and dying so that no magistrate could ever use its power again.
Now that will all be undone, by my own hands.
“Karis.” My voice breaks as I look over my shoulder. “Please.”
She raises her head, her face pinched and pale, a battle waging in her eyes. The smallest hope flares into my heart. She wouldn’t really do this, not to me.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “But I can’t watch you die.”
“Karis!” The word rips from my throat but it’s too late. She writes another rune and my arms reach out, my hands planting themselves on the surface of the Heart, burning so hot that even my metal skin stings.
The music of the runes cascades into my head, intertwining melodies that come together like some siren’s song. It’s beautiful, ethereal, so radiant that even through my panic and despair I want to weep from the sound. I remember this, the most wondrous melody I’d ever heard. Hearing it back then nearly made me hesitate when locking it away, as if it was wrong to touch anything so beautiful.
I feel no hesitation now, only the anguish of needing to end this, but it doesn’t matter because I’m not the one unlocking the Heart. It’s the lines carved into my body, that my father put there. They blaze over my skin, hot and terrible, even as I try to make them all stop. I can’t. The melodies keep reverberating through my head, and I can’t tell them apart. I can’t catch on to any of the individual melodies long enough to find their beginnings. It’s all too powerful, too complicated, too much.
A prick of numb touches my toes. Panicked, I look down. The numbness crawls up my legs and a rune peeking out from beneath my chiton goes dark.
A cry wrenches out of my throat. Light pulses around my fingers like a heartbeat even as the Scrivolia fills with a blazing shine, and the numb keeps stealing over me.
Suddenly I know. Who I am. What I am.
All this time, I thought the Script ink was locked down inside of the Scrivolia. It wasn’t. The Script ink is inside of me. I took it all those centuries ago. My father didn’t build me to be a weapon. He didn’t build me to be a puppet.
He built me to be a Script ink vessel.
Another rune beneath my chiton goes dark. The Heart is stealing all the Script ink back, draining it from my body. I need it. I know that with everything inside of me. I need the Script ink to stay who I am.
I try to wrench my fingers away, to break contact, but Karis’s rune keeps me frozen in place. Someone shouts behind me, but I can’t turn because everything is going fuzzy, my surroundings and the Scrivolia shifting in and out of focus. The numb creeps down my arms, up my neck, piece by piece my body falling out of reach. Despite all that, one blazing thought manages to pierce through.
I don’t want to die.
Whatever I am—vessel or tool or weapon—I want to live. Whatever my life is, I don’t want it to end like this.
Only it’s too late because the world is still going fuzzy.
Fuzzy.
Fuzzy.
Dark.
34
* * *
KARIS
Unlock.
As I write the word, a rune flares hot on Alix’s side beneath his chiton, and a glimmer shoots through the lines on the Scrivolia like a heartbeat.
The Script ink.
The magistrate stares at the Scrivolia and there’s no mistaking the triumph in his smile. The triumph that I gave him. Dane looks at me, and the helpless disbelief on his face is worse than anything else I could have seen there. But I don’t stop. I don’t write the rune that could undo all this. It’s too late.
Golden light leaks into the Scrivolia. It’s beautiful and terrible, burning so bright it’s hard to look at. Alix stands at its center, wreathed by the blaze. I clench my hands around his tome, shaking, wanting this to be over.
Alix lets out a cry, terrified, guttural. His runes, blazing in the reflected light of the Scrivolia, wink out, one by one.
“Alix?” I whisper.
He doesn’t turn. I don’t think he can even hear me.
Something’s wrong.
I scribble the rune move, but he doesn’t obey. Alix still stands there, nearly all his runes dark. He sways on his feet.
“Alix!” I cry.
I write turn, step, lock but nothing happens. My breath rasps harshly in my ears. Why isn’t it working?
The light filling the Scrivolia reaches its top and it lets out a flash, so bright that gold is all I can see burning against my eyelids. As my sight clears, I see Alix falling. Doing nothing to catch himself. He hits the ground with a thud that reverberates in my bones, staring up at the ceiling with sightless eyes.
No.
I frantically scrabble wake in his tome, but he doesn’t move. I write wake again and again, my writing growing increasingly distorted, but nothing happens. The tome falls from my fingers, hitting the floor with a thump. I clap my hand over my mouth.
What have I done?
“Yes,” the magistrate says. His soldiers have all backed away and he steps forward alone, into the fiery light that burns like it wants to consume him. He pulls a tome from his robe and touches the book to the Heart. A tendril of gold seeps into the seal on its spine. “At last. After all this time. The Scriptorium will regain its power.”
Rudy darts to where Matthias was left by his guards, cutting the ropes binding his arms and hauling my brother to his feet. The magistrate doesn’t notice. The soldiers still don’t move, staring at their leader as he writes something in the tome with a reed pen. A massive shudder tears through the building, sending tremors through the ground beneath our feet. Hunks of stone fall from the archways, clattering to the ground. And even though I can’t see it, I know what the magistrate has done, what automaton he would choose to reanimate first.
The Colossus.
Feet pound down the steps behind us. I go numb, sure it’ll be more soldiers. But Dane’s eyes widen in surprise and relief.
I turn. It’s Zara. Following her are some of her crew, the people she rescued from the cells. She looks from the magistrate to Alix to the Scrivolia.
A slow smile spreads over the magistrate’s face. “Ah, the infamous pirate queen. The girl who got away. I’ve been hoping to meet you.”
Zara grabs her dagger and throws it. The magistrate sidesteps it and the blade clashes against the Heart. A bolt of Script ink sparks off it like lightning. The magistrate stumbles back, his eyes widening.
“Kocha,” Zara shouts, scooping up the tome at my feet. “Get Alix!”
Four of her crew move, rushing to Alix and hauling his stiffened body up onto their shoulders, straining beneath the weight. But the soldiers are already closing in on them, on us. My hand gropes for my dagger, because I have to help somehow, but as it brushes my belt pouch, something inside it shifts. I pull it out and stare down at the bronze disc in my hand.
The stop seal.
I have no idea what it will do to the Heart. And I don’t care.
I throw it. It connects and bolts of Script ink explode from the Heart, scouring the walls, the roof, the ground. One hits a soldier and he’s flung into an archway, his body making a sickening crack before he tumbles to the ground. Chaos erupts as everyone tries to avoid the lashing light. It strikes one of the arches and the entire thing collapse
s in a cascade of stone.
“Karis,” Rudy cries, struggling to maneuver Matthias. “Help me.”
I run to him, grabbing Matti’s other arm and throwing it over my shoulder. Air hisses between my brother’s teeth.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” I whisper, the words cracking at their edges. After all these years my brother is finally at my side and I can’t summon a scrap of triumph.
We reach the stairs, Dane and Zara in the back, as we leave the scathing light behind and head into the darkness above.
“After them!” the magistrate shouts.
The Heart is still in turmoil but some of the closest soldiers obey. Dane pulls his sword, metal clashing against metal as he engages one of them. They lock swords and Dane twists, sending his opponent tumbling off the edge of the stair.
There’s another massive shudder and we fall to our knees. My stomach lurches as I look over the edge at the Heart and the pandemonium still below.
“Keep moving!” Zara shouts.
I heave Matthias up. His face has gone white, and his head lolls against his chest.
“Hang on,” Rudy whispers. “Just hang on.”
We come out into the cells, empty now, the others gone. We’ve barely staggered forward when there’s an earth-shattering crash right behind us.
A massive hand, carved with runes, plunges down through the layers of floor. The entire building shakes, threatening to crush us all. I stare, gasping for breath, as the hand comes back up, clutching the Heart like a ball, pulling it out through the new hole in the roof. I catch a glimpse of a massive body before it shifts away, the thud of its feet rattling through my bones.
We haul each other up, stagger out of the library and through the elegant hallways. The quiet from earlier is replaced by screams, pressing against the outer walls. We burst out of the first door we find.
The yard has devolved into mayhem. Scriptmasters, soldiers, and scholars alike scream and run for cover, backlit by the light from the torches. In the middle of it all stands the Colossus, wide-awake, its runes flaring in the dark against the harsh glint of bronze. Terror pulses through every piece of me. This is the mightiest automaton ever created, a monster from legends come alive.
It takes a step, its foot moving over us like a cold shadow, landing so close we all hit the ground again as it bucks beneath us. Rocks sting into my palms and lash against my cheek.
We pull each other up and then we run, for all we’re worth. Through the gates, no longer manned in the mass panic. Down the main road, shoving our way through the flood of people. Behind us we still hear screams but I focus on the pounding of my feet, the draw of my breath, as we race away from the Acropolis and all my mistakes.
35
* * *
KARIS
The Crimson Streak cuts through the inky water. We’re running scared. Trying to take as many as we can as far away as we can. We left so many behind. Too many.
I sit in the sick bay, in a chair that digs into my spine. Off to my left, Matthias rests on a bed anchored to the wall. Rudy sits next to him, stroking his hand and murmuring softly. Off to my right, Alix is in another bed. His tome sits beside him on a table. I tried writing wake again when we got here, but it didn’t work.
Despair as thick as ink twists through my veins. Alix had been so scared of losing what made him himself. In the end, I was the one who took it away. I still remember how he looked in that cave when we met—lost and lonely in this world that wasn’t his own. And yet he trusted me. He let me in. Willingly gave me his tome.
And I used his tome against him and broke everything. I don’t know if whatever made Alix himself is gone for good. I don’t know if automatons can die. All I know is that for the first time he’s cold to the touch, and his tome doesn’t have the power to do anything. The panic and fear that I put on his face haunt me like a sickness.
A groan escapes my brother’s lips. I look over, my neck already stiff. He’s stirring and not even the knowledge of what I did is enough to choke out my sudden burst of hope.
Matthias tries to sit up, only to groan again. Rudy gently eases him back down.
“It’s all right,” Rudy murmurs. “Just rest for now.”
Matthias smiles at him. It’s a smile I’ve never seen on his face before: so tender and soft, it makes my heart ache that I wasn’t around to notice it growing. “Missed you, Rud.” Matthias says, a bit drowsily.
Rudy presses his lips to my brother’s. I glance away, wanting to give them some privacy.
“Karis?”
My brother’s head tilts in my direction. At this distance he can probably vaguely make out my form, maybe the light of the lamp behind me. I doubt it’s enough for him to know it’s me sitting here. But at the same time, he must know that it could only be me, because his smile shifts.
And it’s that boyish smile—the same one I remember from our days together, the one I know I don’t deserve anymore—that breaks down every wall I’ve built in the last seven years. I throw myself into Matti’s arms, remembering a moment too late that with his depth perception he won’t be expecting it. He sucks in a sharp breath, but before I can apologize, he’s squeezing me back.
My brother, my only family, is finally here. I cling to him as if he’s the last rock left in my swaying world. So much of my life has led up to this moment, and now it’s here, and it’s nothing like what I thought it would be. I feel so lost. My world should have been put right when Matthias and I were finally reunited but it wasn’t.
I’m not sure how long I hold on to him, sobbing, before he starts rubbing my back. I remember all the times he did that when we were young, after our parents died, when we were cold and hungry. Bit by bit I pull my shattered pieces back together, until I feel as if I’m some sort of whole again, riddled with cracks but still there.
I pull away, sniffling and rubbing at my eyes, the tears sticky against my cheeks. Rudy has retreated to the far side of the room. Clearly, he’s more considerate than I am. After what I did, everyone is more considerate than I am.
Matthias’s tunic, already ripped and dirty, now has splotches of wet on it as well.
“Sorry,” I say.
“Don’t be.” Matthias’s eyes crinkle with his smile. He reaches out to me and the movement is so familiar that without thinking I guide his hand to my cheek. His thumb gently wipes at my eyes. I can already feel myself—feel us—settling back into the patterns we lived before. And yet this isn’t before. It isn’t the same.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” he says.
“Are you?”
As soon as the words are out, I want to take them back.
His brow furrows. “Of course I am.”
I hunch my shoulders. I shouldn’t say it. I need to say it. Because after everything I’ve done, I have to make us right, or what was the point of any of it? “You didn’t come for me,” I whisper. I need to know why. Why he stayed. Why he was so willing to die down in those crypts when the brother I knew was determined to survive.
Why he chose to leave me behind.
His hand falls and finds my own. It’s so much bigger than mine now. But the sincere look on his face is the same. “I’m sorry, Karis. I wanted to. I was just...” He shakes his head. “When I got out of the Magistrate’s Library, I was in a bad place. I was so angry. I wasn’t eating, wasn’t sleeping. Every night I’d have these nightmares, and so many of them were of the Scriptmasters catching you and taking you to that terrible place. I wanted you to be safe, to be far away from this life.”
I touch his arm, near where an obey rune is inked. I wasn’t there for that either.
Matthias shakes his head. “I should have known better. You were always built from tougher stuff than that.”
Once I might have agreed. Once I thought if I was determined and reckless enough, I could do anything. But I don’t see a way ahead. A
nd I don’t feel strong anymore. “I don’t think I am.”
Seven years have passed, but my brother still knows what I mean without having to ask. “How’s your friend?”
I shake my head, clamping down the tears because if I cry, I don’t see how I’ll be able to stop. “I don’t know. I don’t know why the Heart shut him down.”
“From what I heard, he seems like a pretty unique automaton.”
He is. And I still took his will away. That look in his eyes... It makes the panic come back, burning in my heart and turning everything to white-hot ash. I press my hands against my face. “How could I have done that to him?” What if that wrenching betrayal is the last thing that’s ever on his face? A memory to be replayed over and over in the lifetime he should have had.
“Karis...” Matti begins, but I don’t want to hear the understanding in his voice. I don’t deserve it.
“It was my fault.” I drop my hands. “All of this was my fault. And you should be mad at me, too.” Just like everyone else. Pile on the hate until I can’t breathe, can’t think. “You told me not to do it, and I did it anyway.”
Everything I did, everything I risked... It was all to get Matthias back. The only reason I used Alix’s tome was to make sure he got out of there alive. But everything went wrong. “I just wanted to save you,” I whisper. “To save him.”
Matthias doesn’t say anything, even though I desperately want him to, to break up the creaking of the Streak, the lapping of the waves. The sounds are too normal after everything that’s happened. I want them all to stop. It isn’t right that the world should keep going when Alix lies still and cold on the bed across the room.
“Maybe he didn’t need to be saved by you,” Matthias finally says. “Maybe he just needed you to be there for him.”
I look up, Matthias’s face blurry through the tears. But I catch his expression. Soft. Serious.
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