15
I WISH YOU’D NEVER MET me.
“Stop hesitating!” Chae Rin barked as her bō staff came for my head.
I hadn’t even realized that I’d stopped moving. It was for a split second, but apparently that was enough for a hit to land. It wasn’t Chae Rin’s staff, though, but Belle’s that swept me off my feet from behind. My own staff slipped out of my hands as my back hit the mat hard.
The morning sun filtered through the high windows of the training gym. We’d been training for hours; it was already a little past breakfast time, and yet I felt as if I were barely awake and functioning. I usually performed better than this during training. Once, I’d even earned an approving nod from Belle, who usually doled out her compliments with all the generosity of a miser.
Today, I was sluggish, falling to easy attacks. I was also careless, though having to block both Belle and Chae Rin at the same time wasn’t exactly a walk in the park.
Harder still if your mind was elsewhere.
“You need to concentrate.” Chae Rin stuck out a hand to help me up, but the moment I touched her fingers and began to pull myself off the ground, she snapped hers away, letting me fall back down. “And stop letting your guard down,” she added, using her staff to hit my leg.
Belle nudged my head with her staff and flicked her chin up. “On your feet.”
I got up, my bones burning as I picked my staff off the ground. The white bandages around my left arm, the ones I tied there to sop up the blood after one of Chae Rin’s attacks, were starting to come unfurled. Lake probably wasn’t having an easier time, having to climb the thick rope set up a few feet away from us all the way to the very high ceiling. She was halfway up, but I could hear her whimpering from down here as she climbed, inch by painful inch.
“What’s wrong?” Chae Rin tapped her staff against the floor, forcing a flinch out of me. “You’re distracted. What’s going on in there?”
“Is it Natalya?” Belle suddenly launched an attack, twisting around to sweep me off my feet again. I jumped, dodging it this time, turning quickly to block Chae Rin’s staff. The loud crack of wood against wood reverberated against the ceiling.
“No,” I grunted, blocking Belle’s next attack while leaning back to dodge Chae Rin. “This steel thingy is keeping the voices under control in there.”
The neck-band was still around my neck like a dog collar. The back of my neck kept chafing from Mellie’s stupid injection, and it was all I could do to keep my fingers from scratching the itch at the base of my neck, but it was doing its job.
“If that’s the case, then maybe we should try scrying again.” Belle lowered her staff. “We don’t know when Saul will attack next. We have to get ahead of him. But with the existence of those soldiers and more rogues potentially within the Sect, the issue’s getting more complicated. Last night, I tried searching the flash drive Philip gave us, but it’s encrypted. Natalya might have an idea of what Saul’s plan is.”
“If she’d even tell me,” I said, touching my neck. “She seems more interested in playing games—‘Find the Keys to Maia’s Body,’ for one.”
I caught myself. Belle couldn’t help letting the displeasure show on her face whenever someone—anyone—said something negative about Natalya. It was understandable. Nobody would be cool with hearing someone crap on their hero. Even if there was a grain of truth to the smack.
Or a silo.
But truth and lies were dangerous, messy constructs, especially when they concerned Natalya. Even if this steel albatross around my neck stopped her from bleeding too heavily into my subconscious, I doubted it could keep her from leading me in the wrong direction.
“Look, I’m not crazy about having to go back in there, but since I’m your two-way radio, there’s nothing I can really do about it,” I said. “But, Belle, you’ll have to help me.”
Belle was about as easy to read as the Rosetta Stone. She said nothing as she stared back at me calmly, and I wondered, as I always did, which one of us she saw—the protégé or the mentor? But to her credit, over the past few weeks, Belle had legitimately tried to help me learn to scry properly, safely. She led our training, preparing us for the battles to come.
She was making an effort for us. For the team.
But when it came to scrying, the breathing techniques that worked for her didn’t necessarily work for me. Belle was naturally calm; of course the process was easier for her.
“Scrying still isn’t easy for me.” I rubbed my chest as I remembered the way Natalya’s mind had spread across mine like a virus, filling my body like too much air in a balloon. If I could get away with it, I’d never try to contact her again.
Belle thought for a moment. “There is a place we could go to.”
“A place?”
“Here in London. They might be able to help with the process.”
Suddenly, Chae Rin’s staff hit my back, sending me flying to the floor.
“Hey!” I spat, flipping onto my back to see her standing over me.
“You’re right; you should talk to Natalya again. Also, like I said.” She set the staff against her shoulder. “Never let your guard down.”
The double doors opened, the loud creak reverberating through the gym.
“Oh great, it’s that guy.” Chae Rin rolled her eyes as Brendan walked through the doors. He had the same prim suit on, though he’d changed his tie to match his new dress shirt.
“Good morning, girls. Good to see you keeping yourselves fighting ready.”
I grimaced at the cheesiness, but Brendan didn’t seem to notice. He kept his hands behind his back while he strolled toward us with a good-natured smile. There weren’t any signs of last night’s vulnerability, no sign of the boy whose eyes had welled up at the sight of his little brother crying in front of him.
“Usually I wouldn’t come down here myself,” Brendan started.
“Look at that, we’re so blessed.” Chae Rin turned from him. “God, I miss Sibyl,” she added as she twisted her staff around and began to practice on her own.
Brendan coughed. “What I mean is, I’m here because I’d like to ask you something.”
“What’s up?” Lake grunted a bit as she let go of the rope and let herself drop from that great height, landing on the ground with a puff of air that blew up her training shorts. “Oh, no. Saul didn’t do anything, did he?” Scurrying up to him, she grabbed him by the arm. “Was there an attack? Do we have to fight? We don’t have to fight, do we?” She tugged at him childishly. “Please, please, no. I need a break. See? My skin is horrid, my eyes are sunken—it’s all the stress.”
Lake was starting to break out on her forehead, something I’d previously thought impossible with all the expensive skin-care products (one of which she endorsed) that she kept in our shared bathroom. But Brendan wasn’t looking at her forehead. He was looking at her gorgeous face. That is, before his eyes, for a shameful second, slid down to the T-shirt tied around her stomach.
“Uh, excuse me.” I leaned over and snapped my fingers.
Brendan jumped out of Lake’s grip so quickly his glasses slid down his nose. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Victoria—uh, everyone—no, Saul hasn’t attacked.” He gulped and inched away from her. Another fanboy. Perfect. “There’s something I need to ask one of you to do.”
“Get to it.” Belle folded her arms as Lake went to pick up her water bottle by the side of the wall.
Brendan twitched under the pressure of Belle’s intensity, but he kept his composure nonetheless. Impressive. “Blackwell is holding a black-tie fund-raiser this Thursday. Very exclusive. Nothing but the political elite.”
“That’s in three days,” I said.
“What’s he playing at, Blackwell?” Lake plucked off the cap of her water bottle. “I get that he’s the Council representative, but that stunt he pulled with the press was sketchy. Whether or not someone from the facility gave him false information like he said, don’t you think he’s creepy enough to warrant an interview?”
“Believe me, I’ve done so,” Brendan said. “He’s been interviewed thoroughly, along with the other agents in the facility. The process is clearly ongoing, but for right now Blackwell checks out. And the Council has already approved of his event.”
“Why?” I started to untie the rest of the bandages wrapped around my left arm. “What’s it for?”
“At the outset? Press. Key members of the Sect’s higher ranks will be seen with political leaders reaching out to victims of phantom attacks, donating to rebuild lives in places where the APDs aren’t always sufficient to protect them. That’s the overt purpose.”
“And the covert purpose?” Belle plunked her staff onto the mat, hooking her elbow around the wood. “What’s the Council planning?”
“Those key members of the Sect are going to be meeting with a few of the politicians that have been instrumental in fanning the flames against our operations—and against you.”
“Inviting your enemies over for tea. Playing nice for the cameras.” By the time Lake came back, she’d downed half the bottle. “Straight out of the diva playbook.”
“The Sect can be seen as trying to build bridges,” said Brendan. “While at the same time, they can exert their influence, make deals, do whatever they can to try to lessen the public and political heat on us right now. It’s political maneuvering, but doing so under the guise of charity softens the edge.”
“It’s risky, though,” Lake said. “I mean, you don’t want to look fake while you’re being fake. That’s the first rule of PR.”
“And it’s actually because of the PR that I’d like you to be there—not all of you, mind,” he said quickly because Chae Rin had already thrown her staff onto the matt. “You can’t be seen as shirking your duties. I’d like one of you to go while the rest complete missions. Just one. For extra security and for the optics.”
“Not it,” said Chae Rin, splitting the air with the swift crack of her staff.
“Me! I’ll go!” Lake waved her hand in the air enthusiastically. “I’m sick of being stuck in here anyway. Honestly, lately it’s like we’re either narrowly avoiding death or training up on how to narrowly avoid death.”
“Sorry, but I think your image as a pop star might have the opposite effect,” Brendan explained. “We need the charity and the Sect by extension to look genuine.”
“What do you mean?” Lake pulled back. “You think I’m not genuine?”
Well, I certainly couldn’t tell. Lake’s big doe eyes were a weapon when they were trained at the right target. Brendan was already squirming with guilt.
“N-no, not at all. I was merely explaining the importance of framing and—don’t get me wrong, Victoria, you’ve been an irreplaceable asset in humanizing the Sect through your activities. You’re very . . . human.” He covered his cough with his fist. “And certainly your appearance has been our asset—appearances!” he added fast, his face burning red. “Your appearances. Your appearances have been an asset . . . to us.”
“I’m sure you’ve done a lot of thinking about her appearance.” Without looking at him, Chae Rin spun her staff around her head and struck the air with one quick thrust. “And her assets.”
“Maia!” Brendan blurted out my name, flustered, just as Lake began to consider him with a curious stare. “You, Maia. I think you would be good for this. You have the image of being somewhat of an ingénue. It would work.”
“Great, another fund-raiser,” I said. The last fund-raiser I went to in New York was a dud even before Saul started slaughtering everyone with phantoms. “All right, whatever. Let’s just hope there isn’t a death toll for this one.”
“Good. I’ll make sure they know to expect you.” Without another word, he walked out the door.
“Oh, wait!” I stuffed my bloody bandages into the garbage and caught up with him outside.
“What is it?” Brendan said as I shut the door behind me.
“Uh. Well . . .” Now that I was out here, under the unfiltered glare of the morning sun, I didn’t know how to start. The breeze lapped at my face, fluttering the curled hair across my forehead.
“It’s about Aidan, right?”
Brendan looked at me like he understood. Of course he did. Aidan was his brother. They were family.
As I watched his brown eyes lighten, I suddenly felt bare, as if I’d just remembered that half of me was missing. It was the same phantom pain that always sprang up each time I thought of my sister.
“He’ll be okay,” he said before I could speak. “You’re friends with him, right?”
I lowered my head. “Friends . . .” Was I?
“Girlfriend?”
Startled, I snapped my head back up, shaking my head resolutely.
“Well, whatever it is, thank you for caring about him.” Brendan lifted his arm as if to touch my shoulder, but, overcome with awkwardness, settled on a curt nod. “He can be a lot to handle. He’s always been mouthy, rebellious. Always talked back to Father.” He paused. “Well, he used to before Greenland. . . .”
As he trailed off, I could tell the same questions screamed in the silence that stretched between us.
“Brendan,” I started in a quiet voice. “What Vasily said back there in the Hole—”
“Vasily is a liar,” Brendan snapped, cutting me off. Then, composing himself, he continued. “Vasily was merely trying to confuse us. It was my mistake bringing Aidan; I should have known something like that could happen.”
But I wasn’t satisfied with that answer. “Vasily made it seem like something went down, Brendan. Something beyond the fire.”
“But nothing did,” he said. “You can check the records yourself; it’s all there for public viewing. Believe me, I’ve pored over them more than once. Was the facility tough? Of course. Was the training difficult? Historically so. But when the fire happened, there were so few survivors that the Council simply voted to keep it closed. That’s it. No foul play. All the survivors of the fire were thoroughly interviewed. Even Aidan. He was only fourteen. The poor boy was traumatized. And he never wanted to go in the first place.”
Brendan’s lips trembled a bit as he closed them.
“He’s not a bad person,” Brendan said. “Really.”
“Yeah.” I’d felt it too. The warmth he’d shown me since he’d met me was genuine. But everything about Rhys seemed like a contradiction. The more I peeled, the more sweet parts fell away, revealing those black spots I wasn’t sure I was ready to see.
“It’s honestly not that complicated, when you think of it.” Brendan shrugged. “He’s a good kid. He has a soft heart, always had. Maybe that’s why it was hard for him. . . .” He trailed off. “He had to go through things, sure—we all have. But he’s fine now. There’s no problem.”
I let Brendan leave thinking I believed him.
Secrets piling up like bones in a graveyard. Natalya knew it too. She was probably mocking me in front of the red door, waiting. She had answers. And I had to know for sure.
I had to see Natalya.
• • •
Belle borrowed a vintage pink Beetle from the Sect lot—the same one she always took when she wanted to disappear for a while without telling us where she was going. The fully tinted windows made driving around the city a lot easier; she could peer at the outside, but the outside couldn’t peer at her. It was a comforting thought as we drove through the outer gates, passed the warring crowds picketing and counterpicketing on the other side of the bars. Fans and Sect haters, newly spurred by the attacks in Bloemfontein.
I pressed my temple against the window as Belle drove. “Isn’t there more we can do?”
“Agents are out trying to locate the remaining trainees of Fisk-Hoffman, assuming they’re alive. Communications is still attempting to track Saul, but he’s hidden his frequency. We don’t know where he’ll attack next. Of course, the usual method is to track phantom movements, looking for swells in activity, but we’ll always be at least a little late. The only way to get ahead of him is to find out who he is and what his goals are.”
Which meant we needed Natalya. Marian. Me.
“We know they’ll be coming for me eventually.” The dread I felt seemed the perfect reflection of the grim skies above. “Then again, Vasily seemed pretty confident that I’d go with them on my own. That I’d ‘listen to Jessie,’ whatever that means. Either way, I can’t rest easy.”
I shut my eyes, ignoring the cold sting of the window against my temple. It was hard to imagine there was once a time I woke up every morning and ate Uncle Nathan’s pancakes. Being an Effigy had stolen the one connection from me I needed most right now. But worse still, it’d placed a target on my back.
“We’ll be here with you.” She’d said it simply, her stern gaze never leaving the road ahead of us. “The three of us.”
“The three of you . . .” I let the words fall to silence, but they lingered between us nonetheless. The three of us. Yeah. Being an Effigy may have stolen one connection from me, but it had given me others in its place. I couldn’t forget that. “Despite everything, we’re in this together, right?”
Belle glanced at me and nodded. And with just that gesture, Natalya’s haunting spirit had been banished, the two of us freed if only for that fleeting moment. We were what I always wanted us to be. Mentor and protégé. Part of the same team. I didn’t know how long the feeling would last, but it was there, unmistakably. I smiled.
Belle drove us into London, through the winding streets. There was a church on the corner of Friary Road, its large sundial beneath the steeple carved into stone.
“A church?” I frowned as Belle parked by the side of the road.
“Natalya brought me here once to train me,” Belle said, unbuckling her seat belt.
“This place will help me scry?” I considered it. “Well, scrying requires calm,” I said. “I guess a church might make sense, but . . . I mean, I know you’re Catholic and all, but I’m not particularly religious.”
“Neither am I.” Belle stepped outside. “And this is not a Catholic church,” she added before shutting the door.
As I got out of the car, a scrawl of words written below the sundial caught my eye. “Et in . . .” I paused. “In tenebris . . .” I squinted, partly from the sun in my eyes. The Latin words were hard to read, chiseled too lightly on the plaque below the sundial. “Invenies?”
“ ‘And among the shadows, you will find them.’ ”
Without saying more, Belle walked up the stone steps and entered the church. I understood the second I entered through the arched doorway and saw the solemn march of black robes down the long aisle. Rich, haunting chords from the church organ gave the procession its rhythm, and never once did they fall out of sync. Even their hands were sheathed in black gloves as they carried tall candles to the altar at the front of the church, where a man in flowing white robes spread out his arms, ready to receive them.
Phantoms painted black across the white walls . . . “Wait, this is . . . this is that death cult,” I said, my voice hushed because the old man sitting in the last pew stirred and looked back at us once the door slammed shut behind us. “You’re kidding me. They’re Scales, Belle.”
“The Deoscali,” Belle said simply, using the “proper” term, as if we somehow needed to respect a group of psychos who thought getting eaten by phantoms was some kind of honor.
I’d heard they did rituals and worshipped phantoms in “churches” like these before going on pilgrimages into Dead Zones through illegal networks and letting phantoms kill them. They were probably in the middle of one now. Montreal’s Cirque de Minuit may have had an unhealthy fascination with using phantoms for entertainment, but they did everything on the level and kept people safe. Then you had Scales, who took unhealthy fascination to a whole new level.
Not very many people out there bent the law in order to get killed.
Motioning me to follow her, Belle took her seat in the second-to-last pew. Disgusted, I trailed behind her nonetheless.
That was when the old man launched himself at me.
“Effigy!” he spat as he grabbed me by the collar and pushed me back out of the pew. “You’re not welcome here. . . .”
He tried to push me again. Swiftly, I shoved him back into his pew and held my foot against his chest to pin him down.
“Okay,” I said, no longer bothering to keep my voice low. “And you want to tell me why you took me to some den of phantom-worshipping death cult nutjobs? Especially when they hate us?” I added as the old man struggled against my foot.
“Not all of us,” said the priest standing at the pulpit. Despite the commotion of the attack, the procession hadn’t even stopped shuffling toward him until he put up his delicate hand. He’d tied his wavy brown hair in a ponytail behind his giraffe neck, showing the contours of his soft, small face. “Joseph, please escort Mr. Goffin out of the church.”
A large man who’d been standing silently by one of the white pillars nodded at the order.
“Yeah, teach him some manners while you’re at it,” I said as Joseph grabbed the cursing man by the arm and began dragging him out.
“Pastor Charles,” Belle said as the man came near us. “I thought you had made some progress with your teachings.”
I straightened my blouse. “What teachings? Or do I want to know?”
The halted procession had turned to take a look at us and finally I could see each of their faces, all manners of shapes, sizes, and shades, but each with the same fear tinged in a slight hint of distrust. Scales were stupid enough to worship the monsters responsible for terrorizing mankind. Of course, this made Effigies the bad guys. We were like their Lucifer or something.
“Please sit,” Pastor Charles told us. “Let us finish here. Then we’ll speak.”
When Pastor Charles asked the procession to continue, they did so, but only reluctantly. After prying their eyes from the two Effigies at the back of the church, they managed to complete their ritual, marching up the steps of the pulpit platform, circling the altar with their candles. I watched from my seat while their quiet chants rumbled low to the floor like the silent tremors of an earthquake. It was hard to concentrate for those ten minutes that they “gave thanks” to the beasts they called the spirits of life and death, “for where life begins, so too must death.”
“The spirits, you see,” Pastor Charles explained once the procession had ended and the worshippers had left, “are agents of both.”
“Spirits.” I stood up with Belle. “That’s what you’re calling them? Is that the politically correct term? Or are you trying to make phantoms more marketable and cult-friendly?”
“Phantoms are not spirits,” he said. “Phantoms are of spirits. But they are not spirits. The spirits’ existence is what allows for life and death to occur naturally in the world. In that way, they are also agents of fate.”
Walking up the aisle, he spread open his arms as if the painted phantoms would tear themselves from the wall and fly to him.
“Life and death.” Pastor Charles kept his hands behind his back as he spoke to us. “During our present lives, they maintain that balance, giving us the tools we need to live. They are in all things. They are our souls, the souls of nature, animals, the elements, the universe. They never leave us. They are with us always, even if we cannot see them. Feel them.”
Closing his eyes, he breathed in the air as if he didn’t look crazy enough.
“And when we die, our spirits leave our bodies and join the chorus before it’s time to be reborn again. Maia, these spirits are not our enemies.”
“Okay, I’ll bite.” I tilted my head. “You said phantoms weren’t spirits. They were of spirits. Now, I have no idea what you mean, but all this weird crap just sounds to me like you’re trying to let phantoms off the hook for what they do. If that’s the case, then I’ve seen enough of their handiwork to respectfully disagree with you on that, sir,” I told him.
I didn’t dare close my eyes, even for a second, because if I did, I’d see the dead bodies of all the people I’d failed to save.
“The phantoms are not spirits,” he insisted. “Indeed, phantoms are evil,” he agreed, surprising me. “But the spirits are not. Neither are the Effigies. And that is what I’ve always tried to teach here.”
“What do you—”
“Pastor Charles,” Belle interrupted. “I called you earlier about a request.”
“Ah, yes.” He nodded. “And this is Maia Finley.”
Despite his incredibly twisted point of view, he seemed nice enough. I shook his hand. “I don’t agree with you at all, but it’s nice to meet you.”
“Come.” He flicked his head toward the front of the church. “We’ll take her to the cellar.”
We followed him through a door at the rightmost corner of the church, which he opened with a key. He continued to explain his philosophy as he led us down the corridor.
“The common perception of the Deoscali is that we worship phantoms. And you’re not wrong.” His white robes skidded across the stone floor. “It’s a common perception among the Deoscali as well. But this is only a corruption of the true teachings handed down to us—the teachings of Emilia Farlow, the originator of our church.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Which are?”
“That it is the spirits who are agents of life, death, and fate. Not the phantoms. You see, we Deoscali are a relatively new religious group. The practice of worshipping phantoms began just shortly after the phantoms appeared themselves, but it quickly devolved into the blood-worshipping cult you’ve probably grown to disdain. I, too, once fell prey to this ideology.” And he looked like he regretted it. He shook his head. “Many view Effigies as the enemy. Groff grew up believing this. He only recently joined us here at this church. An uncomfortable amount of Deoscali have even come to believe in the terrorist Saul as a kind of a prophet, an envoy of the phantoms.”
Saul, a prophet. It really didn’t take much to get people to believe in garbage.
“I’ve been trying to rehabilitate some of these wayward thoughts. One can only hate the Effigies if you worship the phantoms. But the phantoms are not the spirits. The spirits only exist in the world as silent shadows, protecting the world without ever being seen.”
“A world of shadows . . . ,” I whispered as Saul’s words from that night in Marrakesh bubbled up in my memories.
“As I said, they are agents of life, death, and thus fate, existing all around us, existing in us, connecting us in a cosmic chain crossing space and time. They only become phantoms when something provokes them: a great sin, a great evil. The phantoms are a manifestation of that imbalance. Only then do they become beasts of nightmare.”
It felt like semantics, a way to ease the guilt of worshipping monsters, but he was earnest enough as he spoke.
“Oh, yeah?” He was probably so into his own babble, he didn’t notice the mocking edge I’d slipped into my voice. He didn’t show one way or another. An eerie serenity possessed him as he spoke about his beliefs. Creepy, to say the least, but maybe all religious types were like that. “So then, what are we?”
“The Effigies.” Pastor Charles breathed a sigh as he considered us as if we were the one puzzle he hadn’t yet cracked. “Farlow’s writings spoke at length about the spirits and the phantoms. But only one time did she ever refer to the four of you.”
“And what did she say?”
“That you were blessed.” Pastor Charles grinned down at me. “Perhaps it was the spirits that gave you your gifts. Perhaps you’re more connected to them than any of us will ever be.”
My family was never that religious. While many had taken to the refuge of the steeple to explain the existence of the phantoms, others like us chose to just take things as they were, but for me at least, I’d always figured there was a god. God. Magic. Spirits. Effigies and monsters. What was true? Or was it all true in this world where the impossible was possible?
I shook my head. “So what’s in the cellar?” I asked as we turned a corner and started down a flight of stairs.
“I met Natalya, the fire Effigy before you, about a year before her unfortunate death,” Pastor Charles said, and I felt Belle go rigid beside me. “She was curious about my views, about why my teachings differed from the usual discourse of the Deoscali. And one day, during our discussions, I showed her this.”
The cellar looked more like a crypt. A small, square room, it was built entirely of gray slabs of stone, dark but for the sunlight streaming through one clover-shaped window.
But there was something else about this room, something I couldn’t name. A silence hung in the air, so heavy I could feel it whispering against my skin. And when I breathed in, something primal in me lifted its head and groaned, a slight tremor stirring me from the inside.
“What is this place?” I asked, staring down at my tingling hands as if I’d never seen them before. At the far corner of the room, one of the stone slabs had writing etched into it, but I couldn’t make out the words from here.
“It feels wonderful, doesn’t it?” This time, when he lifted his head and closed his eyes, I understood why. There was something here, something that cast shadows of stillness over us. “Many years ago, when I was still young and misguided,” Pastor Charles said, “I was fortunate enough to go on a spiritual pilgrimage with a traveling sect of the Deoscali. It’s where I learned to return to the old teachings of Farlow. And where I learned there are many secrets in this world. Secrets beyond the old dichotomy of phantoms and Effigies.”
“He calls this cellar the Listen,” Belle told me, gesturing toward the chamber. “It’s the same as I remember it. You can feel the cylithium here, can’t you?”
I did. Cylithium existed in nature, and in some areas it was more concentrated than others. Those were the areas human populations stayed away from, the areas where phantoms sprang forth. But it was different here. The atmosphere seeped inside me, a targeted assault on my nerves, but strangely soothing all at once. Even though I knew London’s antiphantom municipal defense was strong, I half expected phantoms would suddenly emerge in front of us, growing their limbs and bones and putrid flesh from thin air as they always did in cylithium-rich areas. But nothing happened. A strange sort of peace washed over me.
“Calm,” I whispered. “I feel calm.”
“For only in the calm can you hear them speak,” the pastor said as if reciting lines from a text. “The leader of that sect had a cellar like this built in an old chapel where she would rest every so often. She used it to meditate, to commune with the spirits.”
When I breathed in deeply, my bones felt like liquid. “How did you draw so much cylithium here?” Like most cities, this wasn’t a cylithium-rich area. “What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything,” he answered. “The religious sect I told you about—they were kind enough to build one in my church, though they refused to share its secrets and I haven’t been able to find them since. Natalya meditated in this place once or twice before, to do what you call scry, particularly when her mind was too perturbed to achieve meditation on her own. You Effigies have your own way of connecting with spirits of this world, it seems.”
Spirits. No, not spirits; it was the cylithium resonating with what I had inside me. Had to have been.
“Go ahead,” Belle said. “Find out as much as you can from Natalya. Try to reach Marian.”
My body felt heavy, my heels tingling with each step toward the center of the room. The dense air dried me out inside. It was as if the warmth of my palms and the flush of my face had been sucked out through the skin. And my thoughts seeped out with it.
The secrets of the world.
Sighing, I sat quietly on the ground and closed my eyes.
Something shivered past my cheek, and I opened my eyes with a shudder, but there wasn’t anything else here. Concentrate. Ignore the presence of Charles and Belle. Keep everything out. The breathing techniques Belle had taught me were useful enough to calm my nerves, but this was more intense: the rich energy in the air, the silence, the feeling of my sensations dying off inside me.
I listened and heard it: her humming. The same tune. Always the same tune. It was her song that carried me into the recesses of my own mind.
The water was still against my ankles. Ah, the white stream. I’d seen it many times before, ever since Saul had forced me into my own subconscious in New York. That’s when I started to see their memories, the Effigies who’d fought before me. For a long time, I’d bumbled carelessly, recklessly through Natalya’s thoughts, picking up only jagged pieces of a frame. But, as Belle had taught me, this was the proper route. Here in the white stream with the thick fog surrounding me. And the red door, large and magnificent, like the entrance to a palace. The door to her memories. The first door of many, perhaps.
But this time, Natalya was not guarding it.
I felt the tip of her sword against the bare skin of my neck, just above my neck-band.
“This . . . thing,” Natalya said in her Russian accent, softly clinking her sword against the steel plate. “You let them cage you. You trust too easily.”
“What’s wrong?” I kept my voice as still as my breath. Losing my cool wasn’t an option. My nerves were a latch Natalya could use to open the window into my body. “Mad because you can’t go running around in my dreams anymore?”
“Your dreams. My memories.” Natalya laughed lightly through closed lips. “We were becoming closer, you and I. The barrier between us isn’t as solid as you would like to think. Who knows, we may become closer still.”
“You’d love that, wouldn’t you?” I hissed. “It would just make it easier for you to steal my body.”
“It would make it easier for me to lead you. I am always trying to lead you, Maia. To the right memory. To the right path.” Her blade tilted up and I could feel the added pressure against my skin. “You can trust me.”
Finally, Natalya withdrew her sword and walked off to the side, letting the blade’s tip trail the water.
“You just said I trust too easily.”
“You do.” Natalya pointed once more at my neck with her sword, but said nothing. I touched the steel brace, confused for just a moment before I snapped out of it. It was a trick. I couldn’t let her distract me.
“That’s why I don’t believe you,” I said, my chest tight.
“About what?”
“About Rhys.”
“He killed me. Do you believe that, Maia?”
The question I couldn’t escape, ghosting my every step, screaming at me from within every time I stared into his dark eyes. Rhys’s secrets frightened me. But the dizzying feeling of meeting his gaze and the thrill of his touch was too real, as real as Natalya’s will to live again. It didn’t matter what I reasoned. It was what I felt, the way my heart clenched as his tears fell. He wasn’t bad. I knew that. I believed it. The boy who fought beside me, protected me, teased me, laughed with me. That was the Rhys I was sure of. The only Rhys I wanted.
And so I decided.
“No,” I whispered finally. “I don’t believe that.” My voice had started to rise dangerously, but when I saw the glint of readiness in Natalya’s eyes, I held myself back. “Rhys is too kind, too gentle. He’s not a murderer.”
“He is kind,” Natalya said, looking up at the sunless, cloudless sky. “He’s too gentle, I agree. His heart is pure. And also . . .” Her scar-covered hand gripped the hilt of her sword more tightly than before. “He is a murderer.”
“I don’t believe you,” I repeated. I couldn’t hide the strain in my voice.
“I can never lie to you, Maia.” It was strange. Her grin felt as menacing as it did sincere. How was it possible? This woman I had once worshipped . . . that my sister, June, had once adored. The noble warrior. Looking at her smile now, I felt like retching.
No. I really did feel like retching. My body was beginning to buckle and bend. It was too difficult being here. It took too much energy, too much willpower. Every second I was here in the mist, I could feel my mind breaking down. I could feel something hooking me from the inside, pulling me back out.
“If you do not believe me, I will give you a sign of goodwill.” Shutting her eyes, Natalya lowered her head. “Naomi.”
“What?”
“Naomi will know. But, Maia . . .” A breeze swept over the strands of her short black hair as she looked at me. The nobility, the fierceness etched into her face, was as powerful in death it was in life. “Your enemies are all around you,” she said. “Are you really not aware?”
“Maia!”
It was Belle. I’d fallen over and now was actually retching. Belle and Pastor Charles helped me back up to my feet.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know that when Natalya was here, it was also an intense experience for her. Especially the last time she came.” He shook his head. “I don’t envy the burden you Effigies bear.”
“What do you mean? What happened when Natalya came?” asked Belle as she propped my arm around her shoulder.
“Oh, she was just . . . distraught about many things. She never clearly mentioned why. She referred to a girl called Alice.”
“Alice . . .” Wiping my mouth, I lifted my head.
“She asked me about Emilia Farlow’s writings, about the leader of the traveling sect. Mentioned a man named Baldric.”
“Baldric. Who is that?” Belle asked. “She never mentioned him before.”
“I don’t know. She never explained. She said so much—too many things to remember. But one thing I do remember clearly is the symbol she drew. She asked me if I recognized it, but I couldn’t help her.”
“Do you still have her drawing?” Belle asked.
“I can get it from my office.”
After we returned to the main hall of the church, we only had to wait a few minutes before Pastor Charles returned with a torn piece of notepaper. Though my head was still swimming and my body still languid from scrying, I rose to my feet anyway, fast, holding the back of the pew for support as I stared at the picture of a bright, flickering flame.
“She didn’t know what it was herself,” said Charles. “She told me that she’d seen a glimpse of it while scrying into an earlier Effigy’s memories: Marian, she called her.”
“Marian,” I whispered. The girl both Nick and Alice were really after. The girl inside me.
Belle took the paper. “I’ve seen this before . . . haven’t I?” She searched the ink as if she’d find her answers there.
Yes, we had. It took me a minute to remember, but this was the same symbol I’d seen in the desert hideout. A symbol connected to Marian. Another clue into who she was. I looked around at the shadows scrawled against the wall.
The secrets of the world.