The Portal and the Veil Page 3

  “What if she figured out a way around it?” Horace insisted.

  “Nobody can get past a spitestone.”

  “But what if she can?”

  “She can’t.”

  Horace paused, a queasy kind of déjà vu rolling over him. The future he’d witnessed through the box had just come to pass.

  “But what if she can?”

  He’d just spoken the words he’d seen himself say four minutes and thirty-four seconds ago. And here was a weirdness that only the Keeper of the Fel’Daera could truly understand: Horace had only begun to suspect Isabel like this because he had seen his future self say those words, and yet . . . he only said those words because he started suspecting her. It was the chicken and the egg, impossible to say which came first.

  He shook off the dizzying notion. The truth was this: through the box, Horace had seen what Horace would do. And as the Keeper of the Fel’Daera, he had to remember that the seeing and the doing were a single act, two sides of the same coin. If you were true to the box, the box would be true to you. So instead of resisting, he embraced the moment. Isabel couldn’t be trusted, and everything that had happened this night told him that his terrible suspicions might be correct. Even Mrs. Hapsteade seemed to be concerned, a step ahead of the rest of them as usual. Isabel wanted to find Brian, spitestone or no spitestone. It was only logical. Brian could be in danger. They had to get back.

  Horace crouched down in front of Neptune and opened his mouth to say the promised words again.

  “But what if she can?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  One Day

  ISABEL SQUEEZED JOSHUA’S HAND. “THE WARREN,” SHE SAID, gazing around them. “It’s smaller than I remember. I think.” She released him and spun in a circle, scowling up at the walls. “My senses are still foggy. My memories, too. We have to find the spitestone. We have to destroy it.”

  “I don’t know where it is,” Joshua replied.

  “You’ve been close to it already tonight. Mr. Meister’s doba, maybe. Where is it again?”

  Joshua looked—but didn’t point—down deeper into the stone forest of the Great Burrow, where Mr. Meister’s huge doba loomed in the golden shadows, largest of all. Isabel grabbed him again and pulled him forward, moving so fast that he had to jog to keep up.

  Inside Mr. Meister’s office, the round red walls towered over them, covered in shelves and cubbies full of wondrous things, amazing things: a book as thick as a chest, a floating cube made of floating cubes, an owl figurine with a single yellow eye that glowed like a torch. Maybe Joshua’s Tan’ji was here, too. His heart skipped a beat as he noticed a white compass with a red needle on Mr. Meister’s desk. Was this the Laithe? But he stared and stared at the compass, and felt nothing. Not that he knew what he was supposed to feel.

  A couple of tiny birds fluttered down from above, chattering wildly around Isabel’s head, obviously bothered. For a moment, Joshua forgot his instrument and thought of April, and Arthur. Isabel had put them in danger, he knew that for sure now. All so she could break into the Warren. With Joshua’s help.

  “Were you here tonight?” Isabel asked.

  “Yes.” He didn’t bother to tell her he’d been here while the Wardens were figuring out how to save April.

  “Your instrument won’t be here, then,” Isabel said. “Meister would have seen your talent, and before he brought you here, he would have hidden the Laithe deeper in the Warren. I think that’s where we’ll find Brian, too.” She scowled fiercely. “But the spitestone is here. I feel it, like a shadow in a dark room. Do you see it?”

  “I don’t know what it looks like,” Joshua said, frowning angrily at the compass. Why was he angry?

  “It’ll be yellow. That’s my color. It might be glowing.”

  Joshua considered the furiously shining eye of the little owl, just beside the compass. It was right in front of her.

  He looked away quickly. “I don’t see anything like that,” he said.

  She cocked her head at him, eyes narrowing. “You’re lying.”

  “I’m not.”

  She crouched down and grasped his hands. “I’m trying to help you, Joshua. You’re going to be a Keeper at last, just like I always said.”

  “If that’s true, then I’ll become one anyway, even without your help. Mr. Meister will make sure I do. He said so.”

  Isabel hesitated, and then broke into a low, cruel laugh. “After what you’ve done? Helping the hated Isabel break into their precious sanctuary? You think they’ll want you now?” She released him and stood straight. “Let’s just wait for them to return, then. Let’s see how it goes.”

  Joshua clenched his fists, his head and gut a tornado of fear and anger and doubt and regret. Would they forgive him? Would they let him become a Keeper now?

  “I can fix it all, Joshua,” Isabel said gently. “I’m going to take you to your instrument, and fix myself, and then they’ll see. Then they’ll understand. They’ll forgive us both once they see.” She clasped her hands together, pleading. “It’s the only way to make everything right, Joshua. Help me. Where is the spitestone?”

  His stomach full of lead, Joshua spoke. “It’s here. It’s right here.”

  “I can’t see it,” Isabel said. “What is it? Pick it up for me.”

  Reluctantly, Joshua took the one-eyed owl. It was warm to the touch. The gleaming yellow eye brightened, lighting up the room—but not, he noticed now, Isabel. It was like the light couldn’t admit she was here. She cast no shadow in it.

  “That’s it,” Isabel said, though her eyes wouldn’t focus on it. “We need to destroy it. I think there’s a . . . hole here in the Warren. Like a bottomless canyon. I remember but don’t remember. Do you know what I mean?”

  “You mean the Maw?”

  “That’s it,” Isabel snapped greedily. “Take me there. Take me now.”

  Clutching the owl, his heart still heavy, Joshua led her back outside and deeper into the Great Burrow, where the chamber ended in darkness at the edge of a wide, deep chasm. The bottom of the Maw was so far down you couldn’t see it. A narrow staircase led down into the gloom, carved out of the stone—the Perilous Stairs, a sign announced, and then in the fine print:

  Swallow up your fear,

  or be swallowed up yourself.

  Joshua had never been invited down these stairs before, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to be, but he’d come to understand that Brian did in fact live below.

  “Throw it over the edge,” Isabel said.

  “What?” Joshua said.

  “Throw the spitestone into the Maw. It’s clouding me, and I can’t help you unless we destroy it.”

  But Joshua didn’t think he could do it. He would have to admit to Mr. Meister that he’d not only helped Isabel sneak into the Warren, but that he’d destroyed the spitestone too.

  “You do it,” he said, and he awkwardly shoved the owl into Isabel’s hand. She shrieked, as if it had burned her, and jerked back. The little statue fell. It tumbled over the edge of the Maw and down the steep cliff. Once, twice it bounced, and on the third it shattered, exploding with a loud shriek into a sparkling cloud of startling gold. Joshua jumped. The shrill cry faded slowly as the breeze from below blew the cloud apart into nothing.

  Isabel laughed with relief. “Better,” she said, looking up and all around as if the lights had just been turned on. “Oh, much better. Now I see. I remember.” Her dark eyes fell on him and widened. She grabbed him by the shoulders and leaned in so fast he flinched.

  “It’s here,” she muttered hoarsely. “It’s yours. The Laithe of Teneves.”

  Joshua froze. That name again. The Laithe. The Laithe of Teneves. But he shook his head, feeling like he might drown in the very idea of it.

  “It’s yours, Joshua,” Isabel said. “I tuned the Laithe myself, years ago, and I know it better than anyone but its Maker.”

  Isabel had tuned his instrument? So maybe she did know—maybe he was its Keeper, whatever it was. That
sick flame of hope flickered in his chest again. He tried to ignore it. “I don’t want it,” he said, and it was a terrible lie. The worst lie ever.

  “But you do,” Isabel insisted softly. “All this time I’ve been promising you, and now you’ll see I was right. Tonight you become a Keeper, Joshua. We just need to find it. You’ll lay eyes on it, and then . . . everything will change. You will become who you are.”

  Isabel scanned the air around him. Joshua could barely breathe. She looked down at the ground, then spun about and spotted the staircase. “The Perilous Stairs,” she breathed, with the voice of someone who has just discovered a long-forgotten thing. “That’s our path.”

  She started down the stairs. Joshua stood there swaying for a moment. You will become who you are.

  He looked back into the Great Burrow. Mrs. Hapsteade was back there somewhere, unharmed but helpless. Isabel could have cleaved her, he knew. But she hadn’t. And what if everything Isabel was saying now was the truth? Wouldn’t the Wardens understand? Wouldn’t they forgive him?

  He couldn’t let himself answer. There were answers he couldn’t bear. He turned and followed Isabel in a daze.

  The Perilous Stairs were rough and terribly steep, and on one side the bottomless Maw yawned like the mouth of a giant beast. Joshua kept close to the wall, turning sideways to manage each high step as they zigzagged down the cliff face. The breeze ruffled his dark hair and made him shiver. He told himself to keep his fear swallowed. He counted the steps to keep himself distracted from everything—Isabel breaking into the Warren, Mrs. Hapsteade severed and helpless, the deadly fall just inches away, the possibility of his promised instrument waiting for him below at last. The Laithe of Teneves.

  As they rounded a sharp bend in the stairs, Isabel said, “Back when I tuned the Laithe, when I worked for the Wardens, I wasn’t much older than you are now. I’ve never forgotten it.”

  Joshua nearly tripped, unable to ask her anything—all the things he wanted so badly to know.

  She glanced back at him, her brown eyes full of dark excitement. “It’s a globe, Joshua,” she whispered. “Wait till you see. It’s a living globe, a tiny earth. Every continent, every river, every mountain range, every forest—every house! All there to be found. All of it. That’s how I know the Laithe is yours.”

  And now Joshua did stumble, so caught up in her words that he missed a step entirely. He plunged toward the edge, his heart frozen. But Isabel swiveled and caught him nimbly by the arm. She righted him and then continued down the stairs without comment.

  “Every Keeper has a talent,” she said. “And yours, of course—”

  “Maps,” Joshua breathed. Joshua loved maps. Reading maps was his only hobby, the only thing he remembered always doing. He scoured them, memorized them easily. And it was his talent because he’d always thought of the world as a map he was standing on, walking across. He could hardly imagine not thinking this way. How did other people get around? Directions and distances and destinations—Joshua knew these things as easily as he knew colors. And this Laithe, this globe, it sounded . . .

  “The Laithe is the greatest map that has ever been made,” said Isabel. “More than a map—you’ll see.”

  “And it’s for me?” Joshua managed to ask. “You’re sure?”

  “It’s already yours. It always has been.”

  At last they reached the bottom of the Perilous Stairs. One hundred and forty-seven steps, roughly—Joshua had missed a step or two when he’d nearly fallen. They were now almost two hundred feet below the Great Burrow. To the north, a great stone bridge crossed the Maw to a kind of balcony on the far side. To the south, the path they stood on cut into the rock face, into a narrow tunnel. Joshua squinted into the tunnel, confused. A little ways in, the passage darkened into a clean rectangle of total black. Impossible edges, impossible black.

  Isabel tilted her head curiously at the darkness. “What’s this?” She stepped into the tunnel, right up to the black. It was only a shadow, Joshua could tell, but its edges were so sharp that it looked more like a thing. Like a door. Isabel studied it, the wicker sphere pulsing and glowing again at her chest.

  “Oh, that’s clever,” she murmured. “Something precious on the other side of this, no doubt. Something and someone, I think.”

  “Was this not here before?” Joshua asked. “When you were little?”

  Isabel scowled. “Meister didn’t allow me down here,” she said bitterly. “He didn’t let me do anything but the one thing he wanted from me. I came and tuned his precious unclaimed instruments, so that they’d be clean and ready when—if—their Keepers came to claim them. That’s all the Wardens wanted me to do.”

  She stepped up to the edge of the shadow door. Miradel grew huge, its tangled strands spreading and spilling green light everywhere. “But I can do much more,” she said, and then the shadow door seemed to shiver. It shuddered violently, and then suddenly it came loose, falling toward Isabel like a giant black domino. She didn’t move, and looked as if she would be crushed, but the darkness was only a shadow and not a thing at all, and it passed through her like air. It vanished with a puff as it toppled onto the ground. Beyond, the tunnel stretched onward toward a bright light shining eighty feet ahead.

  Isabel looked back at Joshua, laughing like she’d surprised herself. “There’s not another Tuner alive that could do that,” she said.

  “Was it a trap?”

  “No, nothing dangerous. Just a trick. The Wardens are full of tricks, you know.”

  “They’ve been nice to me,” Joshua said.

  A flash of fury slid across Isabel’s grinning face, but then she tugged her red hair and smiled again. Not a real smile. “Of course they have,” she said calmly. “You’re valuable. They want to keep you for themselves. Just like April.”

  “They helped April. Brian fixed her.”

  “Yes, and now it’s my turn. My turn at last,” said Isabel. She gripped Joshua by the arm—not too hard, but not exactly soft—and looked into his eyes. “Brian is going to take some convincing. Don’t be alarmed. I won’t really hurt him.” Without waiting for an answer, she pushed him gently into the hall.

  When they reached the far end, Joshua paused at the threshold to Brian’s workshop. He could see him at his bench, concentrating hard on an instrument, his eyes almost crossed.

  “Go,” Isabel whispered.

  Joshua swallowed hard and then stepped through the doorway. Brian looked up and began to smile. A real smile. He looked goofy, not because of his ghostly pale skin or his ponytail, but because of the crazy goggles strapped over his glasses. He looked like an insect, or an alien. Almost as soon as his smile began, though, it vanished. He jumped up, knocking over his stool and dropping his equipment to the floor.

  “You must be Brian,” Isabel purred, right behind Joshua. “I’ve heard so little about you.”

  “Who are you?” said Brian, backing away.

  Isabel walked up to him and plucked at his shirt. “‘Beware of Danger,’” she read. “Is that why they have you locked away down here? Danger?”

  “You’re Isabel,” Brian said, his gaze falling to Miradel. “How did you get in here? Where’s Mrs. Hap—”

  “She’s fine, totally fine,” said Isabel with a wave. “We’re old friends . . . or old somethings, anyway. I’m not here to hurt anyone.”

  Brian looked at Joshua, his face a question. Joshua could tell he was mad and scared. Joshua wanted to leave.

  “Don’t blame Joshua,” Isabel said. “He’s here for the same reason I am.”

  “But . . . the spitestone,” said Brian. “How did you find us?”

  “The spitestone is gone,” Isabel said with a laugh, not really answering. “Finally gone, and it’s like . . .” She pressed all ten fingers to her scalp. “It’s like I discovered a box of old diaries.” She held a finger in Brian’s face, like she was lecturing him. “It’s not just that I haven’t been able to find the Warren, you know. All my memories of this place h
ave been cloudy. It’s like the spitestone—”

  “I’m pretty up-to-date on how the spitestone works,” said Brian.

  “Yes, you would be, wouldn’t you? You’re the one that fixed April’s Tan’ji. There’s only one kind of Keeper that can do something like that.”

  Brian took off his goggles. Joshua just stood there, not knowing what to say or do. “I’m not a Keeper,” said Brian. “I just tinker around down here in the basement.”

  “Tinker,” said Isabel with a giggle. “Let’s not waste time. You are a Keeper. Your Tan’ji is a Loomdaughter. I’d like to see it.”

  Brian shook his head. “No,” he said. “No way.”

  Isabel sighed. Miradel began to swell and glow, a green haze lighting the space between Isabel and Brian. “You don’t seem to understand. I need help. You are going to help me.” Miradel throbbed, and Brian staggered, grimacing, his eyes glazing over.

  “What are you doing?” Joshua cried, even though he knew. She was severing Brian.

  Brian staggered numbly for a moment, and then straightened, his eyes clearing. Isabel had stopped, apparently, but Brian still looked like he was in pain. Joshua wondered if he’d ever been severed before.

  “Just a friendly reminder of what a Tuner can do,” Isabel said. “And severing isn’t the worst of it, as I’m sure you know.”

  Brian swallowed so hard Joshua saw his Adam’s apple bob up and down. Isabel was talking about cleaving, ripping apart the bond between Brian and Tunraden by force, all at once. Permanently. Joshua told himself she wouldn’t do it. That she would never.

  “Of course, there’s no need for anything like that,” Isabel said. “Not between friends. All you have to do is help me.”

  Brian eyed Miradel. Joshua thought he looked worried, but not as worried as he himself would have been. Something bright and thoughtful was burning behind those glasses. “Help you what?” Brian said calmly.