Page 113 of The Mask Falling

“He failed to break you. He failed to kill you,” Arcturus continued. “You bested him by surviving, and for Thuban, there could be no greater humiliation than losing to a human. He believed your life was brittle and worthless, and you proved him wrong. Every breath you take now strikes a harder blow than any weapon. Die at his hands, however, and he wins.”

She swallowed, her mouth a wavering line. Her collarbones surged out with each inhalation.

“He’s right,” I said quietly. “Thuban would make short work of either of us. Surviving is the best way to piss him off now.”

“Whether or not I do anything about Thuban,” she said, “I’m still coming. I want to do my bit.”

“If that’s what you want.” After a silence, I rose. “I suppose we’d better all get some rest, then—we’ve a long journey ahead of us. There’s a bedroom all made up for you, Ivy.”

“I don’t want to put you out of your bed.” Ivy hesitated. “You don’t sound very well.”

“Pneumonia. Just had some very attractive yellow slop sucked out of my lung, in fact.”

“Lung fever?” Ivy looked stricken. “Paige, that’s really serious. People died from it in Jacob’s Island.”

“I’m all right.” I showed her the dressing taped to my hand. “Taking my medicine.”

“Okay.” She lowered her gaze. “There is . . . one more thing.”

I nodded. Ivy retrieved her coat and pulled a parcel from one of its pockets.

“I don’t know how Eliza got this—I guess from the same person who helped you escape from the Archon.” Not meeting my eyes, she held it out. “It’s what your dad left you in his will.”

A roar filled my ears.

“I’m really sorry, Paige,” Ivy said. “I didn’t know my real parents, but I know how I’d feel if I lost Vern or Wynn.”

I took the parcel from her in silence. It was wrapped in waxy brown paper, tied with string. Ivy stepped out of the room, leaving me holding all that was left in the world of my father.

****

The parcel lay innocuous on the pillow, offering no clues. I sat on the bed with it for a long time before I took a knife I had brought from the kitchen and held it to the string, which was knotted too tightly to unravel.

I clenched my fingers around the knife, steadied the blade with my thumb, angled it. It sliced the string with a rasp like scissors through hair.

The paper was secured with a wax seal. I snapped it off and folded back the paper, little by little, revealing what my father had left me: a box, about the length of a cigar, carved from applewood. I lifted it closer to my face. It smelled dimly of clove, and something else.

It smelled like my grandmother. Like her perfume. I could never have described its notes, but I would have known it anywhere. My grandfather had given her a bottle on their anniversary each year, which she had rationed by the drop. It was the only luxury she ever allowed herself, and somehow, after so many years, its scent was preserved in the grain of the wood.

She had touched this box. I remembered her strong hands, the broad square palms, calloused by decades of work. When I was three, one of the cows had crushed the tip of her ring finger, leaving her with a stub. I could see her in the kitchen, her firm grip on the stamp, pressing a honeybee into rounds of hand-churned butter. People trusted that stamp. Our farm had been renowned for cheese washed in honey, which always sold out at the market.

I remembered her chestnut hair, always windswept. How stern and tired she had often looked. The sparkle in her eye, reserved for me and my grandfather. Every detail of her was impressed on my memory, as surely as that bee into our butter, unlocked by the whispered rumor of a scent.

The box was sealed. There were markings on the lid—straight lines scored into the wood, the pattern strong and deliberate. Moving it caused a rustle, as if a winged insect was fluttering inside. A letter. It had to be. Without a key, there was only one way to reach it. I picked up the blade again and started to work it into the seam, but my hands shook so hard I almost dropped it.

I wasn’t ready. Whatever was in the box, it wouldn’t change the fact that he had died a traitor, jeered by a thousand strangers. I shoved it under the wardrobe, too far away to reach.

Arcturus had moved the drip to his room for me and attached another pouch of medicine. I hooked myself up to it and laid my hand flat on the duvet. Somehow I was still as tired as if I hadn’t slept at all.

It soon became clear that I wasn’t going to drift off. I watched the drip, waited until the whole dose had gone in, then freed myself and retrieved my sweater from the floor.

As I pulled it over my head, the ground tilted. My breath thickened. I could smell the water, taste its foulness, feel the sodden cloth over my nose and mouth. A clammy membrane. My joints ached from the manacles, the chill. I reached out and dug my nails into the bedpost.

You are alive. You are safe.I smoothed down the sweater and flattened my hands on my stomach. You are not alone.

The apartment was dark. I headed to the kitchen for something to settle me—a glass of milk, a bite to eat, anything. On my way, I looked into my own room. Ivy was sound asleep, one arm wrapped around the pillow.

It was only when I passed the door to the attic that I realized what I needed. I stepped into my boots, picked up my coat, and half ran up the stairs.

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