“Quin,” Shinobu breathed, beginning to recover. He took her face between his hands and looked at her as though amazed to find her unharmed. She was shivering, the adrenaline still coursing through her, yet the intensity of his gaze made her feel warm all over. He kissed her softly again and again on her lips and cheeks and neck. “I’m so sorry I left you. I shouldn’t have left. How could I leave?”
“You scared me,” she whispered, holding on to his arms so he wouldn’t let go of her. “I thought I hadn’t been careful enough about hiding the focal and maybe it had done something irreversible to you.”
“I’m all right. I understand it now. Are you all right?”
Quin nodded. She was all right, though she was trembling uncontrollably. Now the canopy was trembling as well—a faint vibration from an athame was reaching up to them through the sail. The boys were leaving—or perhaps it was John and Maud. Shinobu’s gaze turned from her to look out through the tear in the canvas, as if he’d had the same thought.
“John was here,” he said. “Why? Did he hurt you?”
She shook her head. The confrontation with John felt as though it had happened days ago, though probably not more than an hour had passed.
“No. It was like he thought I might go off and help him. As if there were something still between us,” she whispered. “But he did help me, Shinobu. They would have gotten me if he hadn’t been here.”
Her muscles were starting to shake more violently. Shinobu pulled her closer to him.
“I learned a lot,” he told her. “We were right about the Middle Dread. He was doing so much…You have to help me think everything through.” He drew the athame of the Dreads from his waist and began to adjust its dials. “But first I’m taking you home.”
18 Years Earlier
It was late at night, or perhaps very early in the morning, depending on one’s perspective. Catherine sat cross-legged in the middle of the living room floor of Archie’s flat, which had become her flat as well. He’d fallen asleep hours ago, but she wasn’t tired.
Before her on the floor was a small piece of paper that bore writing in a tidy, foreign hand:
1. Be firm in body, in good health.
2. Clear your thoughts, begin from neutral mind.
3. Focus upon the subject at hand.
4. Place the helm upon your head.
5. Follow these rules faithfully, lest the focal become a havoc helm.
Mariko had written out those instructions and sent them to her. The five steps were directions for using the other object in front of Catherine—the focal she’d found inside Archie’s wardrobe.
She picked up the helmet and felt its cool metal between her hands. She’d let it sit in the sun for days, soaking up energy, just as one did with a disruptor when charging it. Now it crackled faintly when she moved it, hinting at the power within.
Resting the focal lightly atop her six-months-pregnant belly, Catherine studied its details for the hundredth time. Or perhaps for the thousandth time. She had never worn it, however, never pulled it fully onto her head, even though she’d had Mariko’s instructions for months.
The baby moved, and Catherine put a hand to her belly. There was always fresh amazement to feel him and to think: There really is a child in there.
She’d never given any thought to being a mother. There were so many things she wanted to do as a Seeker, and beyond that, there was the other idea, what she’d dreamed of becoming one day if the Old could be turned against the Middle Dread…and motherhood didn’t fit into that plan.
But Archie had changed the landscape. He’d surprised her entirely by being overjoyed at the news that she was pregnant. When she’d suggested the timing wasn’t great, considering that she was seventeen years old and they weren’t married yet, he’d teased her for being old-fashioned. “We’ll get married when we feel like it, anytime,” he’d said calmly. “That’s a ceremony for our parents, not for us.”
She had slowly embraced the change in her life. Though she was only eighteen now, she would have a child, she would have Archie, and together they would search for truth in the history of Seekers.
Now, sitting on the living room floor, she read the first line of Mariko’s instructions again:
Be firm in body, in good health.
There was the catch, the reason she hadn’t used the focal. The reason she’d done nothing, as a Seeker, in a long while.
She felt perfectly healthy, and yet things were not so certain. Catherine had started to bleed at three months, and the doctors hadn’t been hopeful that she would keep the child. She’d gotten into bed, and she’d scarcely gotten out since—and her bleeding had stopped months ago. Surely there was no more danger?
The weeks and weeks of rest had been torture. She’d made Archie clear out the living room furniture and rig up a practice dummy, and she’d spent vast amounts of time lying on a sofa shoved against a wall, instructing him in the use of whipswords and many other weapons. (She’d even adjusted the whipsword to work for Archie as it worked for her, which she’d promised him was the most romantic gesture a Seeker could make.) The dummy was badly battered but still looked better than the walls of their living room, which were covered in slashes and divots and outright holes.
And she’d taught Archie a good deal about Seekers. Though she hadn’t told him everything, he understood that Catherine had an unusual way of getting from place to place, and that this method of travel was dangerous—you could lose yourself as you went, if you weren’t careful with your mind. She’d immediately regretted her honesty when Archie made her promise that she’d do no such thing while she was pregnant, that she would take no risks until their baby was safe in their arms.
The next direction on Mariko’s paper was:
Clear your thoughts, begin from neutral mind.
Catherine did. She emptied her mind of everything but an awareness of sitting on the living room floor, the metal helmet in her hands.
Focus upon the subject at hand.
For a long time she’d thought she understood what was happening to Seekers. They had run wild, because the Middle Dread was lax and cared very little about his duties as a Dread. There was a saying that within a house an athame ended up with whom it belonged. But because the Middle was not handing out proper justice, Seekers had begun to attack other houses, to steal athames to which they were clearly not entitled.
Now, however, Catherine was not sure things were this simple. The letter she’d found, tucked away in this very focal, had sent her thoughts off in a new direction. What if Seekers were not simply disappearing because of other Seekers’ greed and because of a lack of Dread justice?
She’d always hoped she would find Emile, but it had been a quest in the back of her mind, not her prime focus. Now she felt that discovering what had happened to him might lead her to the heart of things. Perhaps he was dead, as her attacker in Hong Kong had implied. But if so, she wanted to know how it had happened, and why, and where.
She read the next instruction again: Focus upon the subject at hand.
Emile Pernet, house of the boar, she thought.
Place the helm upon your head.
She lifted up the focal and held it just above her hair, letting it hover there, inches from her scalp. She’d gotten this far dozens of times before, but she’d never actually put the helmet on. I promised Archie I wouldn’t do anything risky, she thought. But the baby is out of danger, and it’s not as though I’m injured, and shouldn’t I take this time to teach myself, so I’m ready after the baby comes?
She felt the pull of the focal, as though it were willing her to slip it all the way onto her head. She inched it closer, and her eyes swept over the last line of Mariko’s instructions:
Follow these rules faithfully, lest the focal become a havoc helm.
What did that mean?
“I know you don’t put much importance on your own life,” Archie had told her after she tried to get up and go for a walk during that first week of c
onfinement to bed. “But I need you to put our child and yourself first now.”
“But—” Catherine had started.
“But nothing,” Archie had told her firmly. He’d given her a wicked look and said, “I’m your husband and you have to obey me.”
“You’re not my husband!” she’d said indignantly from the bed as he pulled the covers up to her chin.
“I’m better than a husband,” he’d answered, kissing her forehead. “I’m the boy who got you pregnant and hasn’t bothered to marry you yet.”
She’d laughed at that, and so had Archie, but then he’d turned serious, taking her face in both his hands and leaning his head against hers. His voice had been husky as he said, “You will take care of yourself, and protect our baby. Promise me, Catherine.”
Tears had sprung into Catherine’s eyes at his tenderness. She wasn’t used to having someone look out for her. Even her parents, for all their concern about her safety, her behavior—they thought of her as a valuable tool for their own ends, not as someone they wished to keep from harm for her own sake. She’d nodded against Archie’s head.
“I promise,” she’d told him.
Still, sitting now on the living room floor, she lowered her hands until the sides of the focal were brushing her temples. She felt a thrill of electricity where her skin touched the metal edges. Can it really hurt to try? she wondered.
Before she knew what she’d done, she’d pulled the helmet onto her head.
—
Catherine lay on the couch, curled around her journal, her small night-light illuminating the well-worn pages covered in rich and varied ink, including her own. The focal hummed on her head, expanding her mind so that it felt as though her awareness filled their whole flat and spilled out into nighttime London beyond. She was studying the entries under the illustration of a boar, Emile’s house. There were pages and pages for that family, all the times when, and places where, members of the house of the boar or their athame had been spotted. The list ended a few years ago. Catherine herself had written the final entry:
Emile Pernet, seen on the Scottish estate.
She’d included the date of the last day she’d seen him. No one had admitted to encountering Emile or his parents since.
But Emile’s mother was from a different house. She’d been born into the house of the horse, a fact Catherine had never thought about much. Yet now, wearing the focal, the connection was obvious. She flipped back and forth between the pages of the boar and the pages of the horse, comparing both. Between them, there was a repeating location. Yes.
She removed the focal. An unpleasant sensation washed over her, as though the helmet and her mind were stretching each other thin as they pulled apart. When it was off, she felt a rush of dizziness and had to lie back on the couch cushions with her eyes closed. Nausea came next, scaring her for several minutes, but eventually all of the sensations passed. After a time, when she was able to get to her feet, she returned the helmet and the journal to the safe they’d installed under a cabinet in the bathroom. Then she carefully crawled into bed.
Archie was sound asleep after a particularly grueling practice session that afternoon.
“Archie,” she whispered. She shook his shoulder lightly.
Instantly he woke. His hand came out to touch her belly, and his eyes searched hers. “What is it? Are you all right? Did something happen?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
As if on cue, the baby moved beneath Archie’s warm hand. He lay back on his pillow, looking relieved, and she settled next to him.
“I might know where Emile’s parents are,” she said.
“Who?” he was already drifting back to sleep.
“Emile, the apprentice who disappeared from the estate.”
He struggled to get his eyes open. “Right, him. From the estate.”
“His parents disappeared too, but maybe they’re just hiding.” She moved her chin onto his shoulder and whispered, “Maybe there are still a lot of Seekers around, hiding, waiting for the right person to find them. I think there’s somewhere we can check.” She was aware that her excitement on this topic was strangely intense, as though her natural reaction was being magnified by her use of the focal.
“We can’t go anywhere until after the baby comes…” he murmured.
“There hasn’t been any bleeding for two months, Archie. The baby’s all right. I’m all right.”
“Catherine…”
“It’s not too far. We shouldn’t wait. What if I’m right but they don’t stay in this place for much longer? I might not find them again.”
She heard Archie sigh beside her, obviously exhausted. He slid his hand across her belly and moved closer.
“Suppose you find them,” he murmured. “How do you imagine this search of yours will end?”
“I’ll know what happened to Emile. And that might tell me what’s happened to everyone else.”
“What would you do if you knew that?”
Catherine took a slow breath. She didn’t want to say her most private thoughts out loud—it felt as though the mere sound of them in the air could somehow call attention to what she was doing or jinx her search. Or more precisely, it felt as though whatever murderous Seeker mind she had unwittingly connected with, back when she’d found the athame hidden on Mont Saint-Michel, would be drawn directly to her if she formulated her deepest wishes into words. The memory of that strange connection always made her shiver. Whose mind had that been, with its cold, unpleasant, and ruthless thoughts?
But this was Archie, and she wanted to tell him, even if the telling felt dangerous. “Seekers are the ones killing each other, but the Middle Dread has allowed it to happen,” she explained quietly. “And a long time ago he did many bad things. He even killed a Young Dread.”
“So at the end of your search, you want to kill him?”
“No.” Strangely, she realized, that idea had never even occurred to her. The Middle Dread, regardless of his faults, was a Dread, and she was a Seeker. The idea of murdering him went against her basic principles.
“Then what?” Archie pressed. He still sounded half-asleep, but she could tell she had his full attention.
“I don’t want to say,” she whispered.
“Why not?”
“It’s private.”
He laughed against her shoulder. “All right, then.”
“You’ll make fun of me, like my parents did.”
“Do I ever make fun of you?”
She pulled his arm more tightly around her, and they lay that way for a while, both drifting off toward sleep. When she was in that state between awake and unconscious, her mind floating freely, Catherine murmured, “I’ve always felt I was meant to be a traveler through our past as Seekers and into our future. I imagined I would find the Old Dread. Somehow I’d find him. I’d tell him what the Middle Dread did to that Young Dread centuries ago. I’d tell him the other things the Middle Dread has done and failed to do…And then…the Old would get rid of the Middle and he would make me a Dread. He would train me. I would be the new Young Dread. And the Young Dread would become the Middle—because I think she’s good. And we’d put things back the way they should be.”
It took some time for Archie to answer, “You want to become a strange creature that lives for hundreds of years and hands down justice?”
“They’re not strange creatures, Archie. They’re people. They don’t live for hundreds of years. They spend long stretches There, so they seem to live for hundreds of years. Their actual time awake in the world is just a normal lifetime’s worth, or close enough.”
“Hmm.”
“You are making fun of me.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, “but wouldn’t you rather just be Catherine?”
Catherine’s eyes were still closed. She could feel Archie breathing evenly. His brow was against the back of her head and his warm hand on her belly.
“Be
ing the Young Dread was what I used to want,” she murmured. “But now I have you, and we’ll have our son. He’ll grow up in time, though, and someday, maybe a long time from now…what if we both trained with the Old Dread? What if we both became Dreads together? Maybe we could be with each other, travelers going forward through time, being just, being fair, helping. For centuries. What could be a better use of our lives…?”
She was falling asleep even as she spoke, as though the focal had taken all of her energy. She was already dreaming, seeing herself and Archie walking into that strange future together. Before she lost consciousness entirely, Archie whispered, “You’re such a romantic, Catherine. Most girls just want jewelry…”
Nott got his blindfold off by rubbing his face against the rock wall. He scraped his left cheek in the process, but that hardly warranted his notice. He was too busy staring furiously about his frozen surroundings and cursing his fellow Watchers.
They left me in my cave! Even saying the words in his head made his heart beat wildly with fear. It was what their master had always threatened them with—and many times he’d carried through on that threat. Nott knew this because sometimes their master woke a bunch of his Watchers at once and made them train together, and that didn’t always end well for the Watchers. Now it was Nott’s turn to be abandoned to die in his cave, the worst fate that could befall him.
It wasn’t a cave exactly (and he was not entirely certain why it was his cave); it was more like a tunnel through rock and ice. Most of the ice was overhead, so thick in places that it was as dark as earth, but in others it let light through, like a great, irregular sheet of glass. There was sunlight somewhere above that ice, but too far away to bring him any heat.
The floor of the cave was rock that had never been warm. It radiated waves of cold that penetrated his muscles and sank into his bones. He was relieved to see that his feet were not tied, but this probably also meant there was nowhere for him to go.