The Unbound

by Victoria Schwab

  “She’s angry because I won’t grant her access to my mind.”

  “Good,” he says, pulling away. He pages through Roland’s notebook, and I’m surprised by how gentle he is with it. “It’s strange,” he adds under his breath, “the way we hold on to things. My uncle couldn’t part with his dog tags. He had them on him always, looped around his neck along with his key, a reminder. He served in both wars, my uncle. He was a hero. And he was Crew. As loyal as they come. When he got back from the second war, I had just turned thirteen, and he began to train me. He was never the kind and gentle type—the Archive and the wars made sure of that—but I believed in him.” He closes Roland’s journal and runs his thumb over the cover. “I was initiated into the Archive when I was only fourteen—did you know that?” I didn’t. “That night,” he continues, “after my induction, my uncle went home and shot himself in the head.”

  The air catches in my throat, but I will myself to say nothing.

  “I couldn’t understand,” he says, almost to himself, “why a man who’d lived through so much would do that. He left a note. As I am. That’s all he wrote. It wasn’t until two years later, when I learned about the Archive’s policy to alter those who live long enough to retire, that it made sense. He would rather have died whole than let them take his life apart and cut out everything that mattered just to keep its secrets.” His eyes drift up from the journal. There is a light in them, narrow and bright. “But change is coming. Soon there will be no secrets for them to guard. You accused me once of wanting to create chaos, but you’re wrong. I am only doing my job. I am protecting the past.”

  He offers me the journal back, and I take it, relieved.

  “It’s rather fitting that you chose to take that,” he says as I slip it into my bag. “The thing we’re going to steal is not so different.”

  “What is it?” I ask, trying to stifle some of the urgency in my voice.

  “The Archive ledger.”

  I frown. “I don’t under—” But I’m cut off as the door clatters open and Dallas comes in, juggling her journal, a cell phone, and a mug of coffee. Her eyes land on me, and for a moment—the smallest second—I think they take in Owen, too. Or at least the space around him. But then she blinks and smiles and drops her stuff on the table.

  “Sorry I’m late,” she says. Owen rises to his feet and retreats to a corner of the room as she collapses into the abandoned chair. “What do you want to talk about? Who you’re taking to Fall Fest? That seems to be all anyone else wants to talk about.” She fetches up her journal and begins to turn through pages, and I’m surprised to see she’s actually taken notes. I’ve only ever seen her doodle flower patterns in the corners of the page. “Oh, I know,” she says, landing on a page. “I want to talk a little about your grandfather.”

  I stiffen. Da is the last person I want to talk about right now, especially with Owen in the audience. But when I meet his gaze over Dallas’s shoulder, there is a new interest—an intensity—and I remember something he said last night:

  The Archive is broken. Da knew—he had to know—and he still let them have you.

  I’m just beginning to earn Owen’s trust (or at least his interest). If this is going to work, I need to keep it. Maybe I can use Da.

  “What about him?” I ask.

  Dallas shrugs. “I don’t know. But you quote him a lot. I guess I want to know why.”

  I frown a little, and take a moment to choose my words, hoping they both read the pause as emotion rather than strategy.

  “When I was little,” I say, looking down at my hands, “I worshipped him. I used to think he knew everything, because he had an answer to every question I could think up. It never occurred to me that he didn’t always know. That he would lie or make it up.” I consider the place between two knucklebones where my ring should be. “I assumed he knew. And I trusted him to tell the truth.…” My voice trails off a little as I glance up. “I’m just now starting to realize how little he told me.”

  I’m amazed to hear myself say the words. Not because the lies come easily, but because they’re not lies at all. Dallas is staring at me in a way that makes me feel exposed.

  I tug my sleeves over my hands. “That was probably too much. I should have just said that I loved him. That he was important to me.”

  Dallas shakes her head. “No, that was good. And the way we feel about people should never be put in past tense, Mackenzie. After all, we continue to feel things about them in the present tense. Did you stop loving your brother when he died?”

  I can feel Owen’s gaze like a weight, and I have to bring my fingers to the edge of the couch and grip the cushion to steady them. “No.”

  “So it’s not that you loved him,” she continues. “You love him. And it’s not that your grandfather was important to you. He is. In that way, no one’s ever really gone, are they?”

  Da’s voice rings out like a bell in my head.

  What are you afraid of, Kenzie?

  Losing you.

  Nothing’s lost. Ever.

  “Da didn’t believe in Heaven,” I find myself saying, “but I think it scared him, the idea of losing all the things—people, knowledge, memories—he’d spent his life collecting. He liked to tell me he believed in someplace. Someplace calm and peaceful, where your life was kept safe, even after it was over.”

  “And do you believe in that place?” she asks.

  I let the question hang in the air a few long seconds before answering. “I wanted to.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Owen’s mouth tug into a smile.

  Hook. Line. Sinker.

  “Why the ledger?” I ask as soon as we’re out.

  Everyone else is going to lunch, and I’ve chosen a path that rings the campus—a large, circuitous route few students use when they can cut across the quad—so that we can talk in private.

  “How much do you know about it?” he asks.

  “It sits on the desk in the antechamber. It has one page for every member of the branch. It’s how the Archive communicates with its Keepers and Crew.”

  “Exactly,” says Owen. “But at the front of it, before the pages for the Keepers and the Crew, there is one page labeled ALL. A message written on that page would go out to everyone in the book.”

  “Which is why you need it,” I say. “You need to be able to contact everyone at once.”

  “It is the only connector in a world divided,” says Owen. “The Archive can silence one voice, but not if it’s written on that page. They cannot stop the message from spreading.”

  “It’s your match,” I whisper. “To start the fire.”

  Owen nods, his eyes bright with hope. “Carmen was supposed to take it, but she obviously failed.”

  “When do we take it?”

  “Tonight,” he says.

  “Why wait?”

  Owen gives me a pitying look. “We can’t just walk up to the front desk and rip the page out of the book. We need something to distract the Archive. We don’t need something long, but we need something bright.” He gestures to the quad, where the stalls and booths and decorations are still being erected.

  “Fall Fest?” I ask. “But how will something in the Outer distract the Archive?”

  “It will,” he says. “Trust me.” Trust. Something I will never feel for Owen. Warning lights go off inside my head. The more factors, the less I can control.

  “You and I, Mackenzie, we are the same.” I attacked him once for that very idea, but this time I hold my tongue. “Everyone in the Archive has doubts, but theirs whisper and ours shout. We are the ones who question. We are the bringers of change. Those who run the Archive, who cling to their rules, are terrified of us. And they should be.”

  Something sparks inside me at the thought of being feared instead of afraid. I smother it.

  “And tonight we will…” He trails off, eyes fixed on something down the path. Not something, I realize. Someone.

  Wesley.

  He’s stan
ding on the path, holding his lunch tray and talking to Amber. I’ve been clinging to the hope that even if he saw him, Owen might not recognize Wes—the boy he stabbed on the roof of the Coronado had spiked hair and lined eyes and a different manner—but Owen frowns and says, “Didn’t I kill him?”

  “You tried,” I say as, to my horror, Wesley catches sight of me and waves before turning back to Amber.

  “I saw him written on your skin, but I didn’t realize the marks were so fresh,” says Owen, withdrawing his knife from its holster with one hand, gripping my arm with the other. “You’ve been keeping a secret,” he growls, quiet forcing through my head.

  He has nothing to do with our plans, I think as calmly as possible. But this time, the plural pronoun does nothing to placate Owen.

  “He is a tether to the life you’re leaving,” he says, tightening his grip. “A rope to be cut.” He twirls the knife.

  No. My mind spins with his blade. He can be salvaged. If your grand scheme is for the Keepers and Crew to rise up against the Archive, you’ll need every one of them you can get. And when the call goes out, he’ll stand with me. Killing him would be a waste.

  “I’m not convinced of that,” says Owen. “And don’t pretend to be pragmatic where he’s concerned.”

  “Fine,” I say, pulling free of his touch, “if you don’t want to listen to logic, then listen to this: this isn’t Wesley’s fight. I haven’t dragged him into it, and neither will you. If you hurt him in any way, you will never get my help. Trust me.”

  Owen’s eyes harden. The knife stops spinning, snapping into his grip. For a second his fingers tighten on the handle. Then, to my relief, he puts the weapon away and falls in step behind me.

  “Hey, you,” says Wesley, waiting for me to reach him before setting off again toward the Court. My eyes go to his hands to make sure he’s wearing his ring. He is.

  “Why weren’t you in Physiology?” asks Amber.

  “Doctor’s appointment,” I lie.

  “We were just talking about the cops on campus,” says Wesley. “Did you see them?” He’s asking another question underneath the words: Do you know why they’re here?

  I shake my head. “No. Amber, do you know what’s up?”

  “No idea,” she says with a groan. “Dad’s not giving me anything.”

  “The elusive Mackenzie Bishop!” calls Cash as we reach the Court. “No lunch?”

  “Not hungry,” I say. Owen wanders over to the Alchemist and watches the scene unfold, and it’s all I can do to keep from looking at him.

  “Missed you again in gym,” he says. “Another meeting?”

  I’m about to go with “doctor’s appointment” again, but Saf cuts in.

  “Gee, what kind of meeting forces you to miss gym multiple days in a row?”

  “Don’t be an ass, Saf,” shoots her brother. “You were sent to Dallas, like, seven times last year.”

  “It was three, jerk.”

  Cash turns his attention to me. “Point is, no big deal. We’ve all been there. Eventually your parents come up with an excuse, or the school does.”

  “What did they send you for?” I ask, eager to turn the attention on someone else.

  “Hyperactivity,” he announces proudly.

  “Perfectionism,” says Saf.

  “Stress-induced anxiety,” adds Amber.

  “Antisocial tendencies,” says Gavin.

  All eyes go to Wesley. “Depression,” he says, twisting a straw absently around his fingers. My heart aches at the thought of Wes suffering. I imagine us in bed, imagine myself pulling him in against me, wrapping my arms around him and warding off his demons. He’s worth it, I think. And I will not—cannot—drag him into this mess.

  “And you, Mackenzie?” asks Cash, drawing my attention back. “What have you done to land yourself in Dallas’s office?”

  My eyes flick toward Owen. “Apparently I have a problem with authority.” I say.

  “Is that why you can’t go to the dance?” asks Gavin. Owen frowns.

  “Actually,” I say lightly, “I’ll be there after all.”

  Wesley’s eyes light up. “Really?” he asks with a smile. It breaks my heart.

  “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—”