Page 57 of Tomb of Ancients
Then Father’s spirit thinned, turning slowly to smoke, smoke that was caught in one of the Binder’s jars, settling there to mix with some inky liquid within. A quill was dipped into the vessel and a blank book was produced from the shadowy nothingness above us. At least, I thought, helpless and hurting, it would not be Mother’s skin used to make that new cover, as it was already bound in something smooth and pale. Whose it was, I would never know, but I saw the beginning of the binding, of the writing—Father’s spirit, his knowledge of the Dark Fae book, rewritten in his own essence.
One of the thin, pale hands of the Binder wrapped around Mother’s neck and began to squeeze. I was frozen, dying, and soon she would be, too. Her arms stretched out toward me, her lips twisted in a lost, sad smile. I watched her tears disappear intothe void around us and heard Malatriss cackle with satisfaction from somewhere beneath our feet.
“Courage, Louisa, daughter,” she whispered. “Your feet are on the path. I’ll be going with you.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
It did not feel as if my feet were on the path. I felt... nothing. What a strange sensation, nothing. No pain and no fear, no understanding if I had become hot or cold, or if my body was scattered in a million pieces. Instead, I existed only in my mind, in a place, like the tomb, out of time. I was dead, that much I understood, or soon to be dead, suspended by the Binder’s will, not in my body and not yet laid to rest.
When sound and light and feeling returned, it was all too much. I cried, as a baby must cry, forced through darkness and uncertainty, entering the world reluctant and confused. The place of not feeling or knowing was better than this. Here, back on the floor of the Tomb of Ancients, there was only more pain. Dust. The smell of wet leaves and earth, as if I had not been born but sprouted from the ground. My arm remained useless, broken, limp, and aching at my side.
The Binder waited above, Malatriss hovering close, and Mother, sprawled and empty on the stones, dead at the place of her birth.
I pulled myself toward Mother, heedless of the Binder, of its arms like slender white birds flying through the air as they prepared the new book and unwrote another. Mother looked as if she could be sleeping, with her lips slightly parted, as if the last breath pulled from her had been a sweet one. She didn’tsmile, but her eyes were closed, her hair pooled around her like a pillow of camellias.
“After all that I did to save you, it wasn’t enough,” I whispered, finding that touching her hand did not give the same soothing comfort. “I failed you. I should never have brought you to this place. You were nothing but peace and light, no soul so undeserving.”
A shadow fell over us. Malatriss.
“Are you quite finished?”
“You.”Refusing to leave Mother’s side, I twisted toward her on the floor, wincing as my injured arm took some of my weight, then collapsed. “I won’t let you keep her body,” I whispered fiercely, covering Mother with my arms. “It was not one of your demands.”
Malatriss glared down at me with her yellow eyes. One single scratch bled across her shoulder. Father’s doing. Her snake had not suffered, still wound faithfully around her neck. “It would not be wise for you to return here, little one, no matter how great your need. I grow weary of your tone.”
“What is this all for?” I sighed, lifting Mother’s hand and clutching it. “The books, the gods, the Binders. Why keep them here? Why not just give the world all of these creations?”
It was not Malatriss who answered me but Seven. I had not expected to be worthy of its notice now that it had passed judgment, but the egg-round head and soft white torso dipped low, regarding me with a curious smile.
“This one sees so much yet understands so little. Chaos, Daughter of Trees. Becausechaos. The humans wander. They squabble. They battle. All so amusing. And if the humans do it, why shouldn’t the gods? It is one more game to watch, one more match to observe.”
Chaos and balance. I shook my head, outraged, knowing that many a wicked and wayward schoolgirl had proposed to me that there truly was no God above, and that all our mortal toiling was meaningless. But to hear it, plainly, from one that might actually know...
“So it... it’s all a game,” I murmured. “You create the books, these gods, just to see which one willwin?”
The Binder stared at me as if I were simple and perhaps a bit pathetic. “Well. Yes.”
“A game. Agame. My friends, the shepherd’s people, Father, Mother, all of us bashing against one another just for your amusement?” A voice within me said to be still. A voice within me said that nothing more could be done, that to die here would accomplish nothing. I held my tongue for one moment longer, then took a long breath and said, “And if I refuse to play this hateful game?”
All the Binder’s free hands, perhaps twenty in total, spread wide. “What this one does when it leaves this place is not for me to say. But I will watch this one.” And here Seven smiled for the first time, and it shook me to my bones. “I will watch this one with great interest.”
“You will be disappointed,” I said.
The scribbling above us stopped; the quill rewriting our book had finished its task. It had all happened so quickly, but then, to these strange and otherworldly beings, our lives—our game—was probably a play readily consumed. Our human lives, no doubt, passed but in the blink of an eye, and the eternal ones like the shepherd and Mr. Morningside warranted only marginally more attention.We cannot be killed, Father had told me,only be made to surrender. Only... That was no longer true of me. I sensed not even the smallest trace of Father’s influence in my mind. I forced myself to think of the shepherd, and about him, my feelings were blessedly my own.
That was the one good thing to come of all this... loss.
I dragged myself up and watched as Malatriss accepted the finished book from Seven. She received it reverently enough, then placed it into the bag I had discarded. Returning to me, she waited until I offered my back and then slipped the shoulder straps over my arms, surprisingly cautious of my broken right arm.
“How will you take her from this place?” she taunted, hissing in my ear, so close that I felt the beads of her collar brush my good arm. “We do not waste a single part. You may leave her knowing she will resume her place in the world as a future book, as pages, as another story to tell. You will never see it, but she will not be wasted. You may take her spirit with you, but you cannot take her body from the tomb. You haven’t the strength.”
“Watch me.”
The book was not heavy this time, but light. I supposed that only the words of another or other gods weighted one down. Mother was still sprawled beneath the Binder, and I turned from Malatriss, crouching and slipping one arm under her soft, feathered gown. It did not matter how difficult the burden, I would carry her back with me.
Malatriss observed, then smiled as I gained my feet again, grunting, struggling, but still managing to slide Mother along with me as I approached the doorkeeper.
“She should be in that case,” I spat. “She should be at rest.”
