The lock eater, p.21
The Lock-Eater, page 21
“We’ll have to agree to disagree,” he said. “Just because a miracle is created by people instead of the ley, that doesn’t detract from its miraculousness.”
“I don’t mean to give offense,” the Hexe replied. “But only the ley can create true life. While the metal that makes up your body came from the earth, it contains no trace of the ley.”
She leaned forward in her chair. “But let’s start at the beginning. What do you first remember?”
“Fire.” Traveler’s eyes darkened. “I awoke in the blazing ruin of a thaumaturgic laboratory. I don’t know where I was, or how I got out. The next thing I do remember is wandering the streets of Crossport.” Traveler placed his metal hands on the table, curling his fingers. “I used magic to hide for a time, and stole what gold I could. Then I concocted a plan to escape the city and met Melanie here.” The gearling’s eyes fell to her. “She saved me. Despite my deception, she still joined me. I owe her everything.”
Ein tapped her lips thoughtfully. “Didn’t Zerend perish in a fire?”
Melanie watched as Traveler’s eyes widened, the glowing motes dilating in surprise. The gears in his neck whirred softly as he turned back toward Ein. “Why, yes.” Traveler’s voice was hushed. “But we’d assumed that was you . . .”
“And I’m telling you it wasn’t,” Ein said. “Believe me or don’t; it won’t change what followed.” She let out a slow breath. “Here is what I suspect, gearling, based on what you’ve told me. I believe that you’re a vessel—a record of sorts—of a life that was inscribed upon you, in what must have been a formidable and likely very illegal act of empire wizardry. If the red wizards believed this same act of magic killed Zerend, it might explain why they lied about his death.” She grimaced. “It’s much easier to blame an evil old witch than admit their leader toyed with human souls. And what a convenient excuse to launch a war.”
At this, Ein’s grimace deepened, carving a scowl into her face. For the first time, she didn’t look at all familiar to Melanie. More like the stranger she was.
Just as upsetting was her assessment of Traveler. Melanie realized that it aligned perfectly with Parno’s parting shot at the gearling. An outline of a dead man burned into metal . . .
Traveler’s eyes fell to his hands on the table. He turned his palms upward. “Am I . . . human?”
“The echo of one.” Ein’s face softened. She extended her own calloused hand across the wood, touching her fingers to his. “With your permission, I could investigate the spell that binds you to this armor. If I’m correct, I may be able to unlock some of your old memories.”
Traveler’s head snapped up. “You could do that?” he asked. “How?”
“The process isn’t so different from my usual conjury. I’d call to the presence imprinted within you. Use a bit of the ley to coax it out. You are already . . . awakened. But this could open the doors that remain closed.”
“I told you my mistress was the best!” Blitz bragged.
Traveler was silent for a spell. Melanie wondered what was going through her friend’s mind right then, what doubts he was wrestling with. Doubt is good, he’d said. It proves you’re real.
But that didn’t mean it was easy.
“Very well,” he finally said.
Ein smiled, pulling her hand back. Her eyes flicked briefly to Melanie.
Melanie felt her face flush again. Beneath the uncanny elation of the ley, and the simple comfort of the cabin, something twisted in her stomach. Melanie swallowed. Her head swam and her jaw felt stiff. She had so many questions of her own for Ein, but couldn’t seem to grasp hold of one.
“Stand here with me,” Ein said, rising from her chair. She set Abraxas atop the wooden table and smoothed out her skirt.
The cat gazed at Melanie the whole time. His eyes bored into her.
Traveler joined the Hexe, his posture loose with excitement. Ein placed her palm to the gearling’s armored chest. Her fingers ran over the looping patterns engraved into the metal.
Two eyes watched Melanie. One yellow and one white. One was sharp and clear. The other milky and . . .
Blind.
But they both watched her all the same.
That’s not Abraxas, Melanie thought wildly. The realization confused her. What could that mean? And yet, she felt absolutely sure. This was not the cat she’d grown up with.
It was a dubbelganger. An imposter.
She tried to sit up, but found she couldn’t. Her back was stiff and unmoving. The cup of tea was still clutched in her hands, but her fingers wouldn’t rise to shift it to the table. Her thoughts were a haze.
Something . . . something in the tea!
She looked to Ein and Traveler, where the Hexe’s hand still rested on her friend’s chest. Melanie tried to shout, but her throat wouldn’t cooperate. Her lips trembled but didn’t budge. She tried to open, to unlock, to free. But whatever was happening, her power wouldn’t work.
Traveler!! Melanie thought as hard as she could at the gearling, just like with the Gossip’s Friend charm. She had no idea how the spell worked, but she put all her will into it. TRAVELER, IT’S A TRAP!
“What?” To Melanie’s astonishment, the gearling began to turn his head toward her. His eyes tilted in confusion.
Ein pushed.
There was a sputter of magic and a sickening crunch as her hand broke through Traveler’s breastplate as if it were paper. The metal surrounding her wrist immediately darkened. Veins of rust lanced out from the breach, splitting the gearling’s beautiful chassis. All Melanie could do was watch as the lustrous gold corroded with startling speed.
Traveler’s head snapped back toward the Hexe. His eyes were bright with alarm. He tried to step backward, but Ein had a grip on something inside the gearling that was impossibly, supernaturally strong. She anchored the automaton in place.
Traveler raised his arm to strike out. Melanie could hear the whirring clockwork inside failing even as he did. His joints stiffened and cracked with the spreading rust. There was a terrible grinding sound—gears shattering—and his arm fell limply aside.
“No!” the gearling shouted. “Let go! Let go of me!”
Melanie looked desperately at her hands, willing them to Open!
Nothing happened.
Open! She thought again, putting everything she had into the command. Open, open, open!
But her body stayed locked. Whatever the Hexe had given to her, it had muted her ability. Melanie was truly trapped.
“Mistress!” Blitz cried, frantic. “What are you doing?”
Ein said nothing. She simply stared into Traveler’s glowing eyes with grim determination. She maintained her grip even as the automaton’s legs collapsed beneath him.
“Mistress, please!” Blitz screamed. “Don’t do this!”
But even if she’d stopped now, it was too late. Melanie could see that. Traveler’s glowing motes flickered, the lights failing. They rolled within their mask, angling toward her. Melanie felt a tear trail down her cheek, a scream trapped within her.
I love you, she thought as hard as she could at the gearling. When you wake, the world will be right.
But the lights within him had already died.
Darkness hollowed the space behind Traveler’s grille, his mask an empty shell. Vagabond—his cloak—slipped off his back, fluttering to the ground. Half a heartbeat later, the rust reached Traveler’s helm.
The last of Melanie’s friend dissolved before her eyes.
CHAPTER 26
EIN’S hands were shaking.
Melanie watched as the woman wiped rust from her arm, but the stubborn flakes clung to her like dried blood.
Clutched in the Hexe’s hand was a yellow crystal. Some sort of gearling power source? A smoky globule of red liquid was suspended in the stone.
Ein set it down on the wooden table, steadying herself against the edge for a moment. Her bright eyes were on Melanie.
“I thought I’d lost you forever,” she said, “the day they took you from me.”
Somewhere behind Melanie, Blitz was weeping. “I promised . . .” he fizzed. “I promised them safety.”
Ein turned, frowning at the spirit. The whimpering abated.
“I’m sorry, Blitz,” she said. “But it had to be done.” Then her gaze fell back on Melanie. She seemed to register Melanie’s own tears for the first time and her eyes softened. “Oh, dearest. Don’t cry. Whatever inhabited that thing was already long dead. I simply exorcised its ghost.”
Ein sat down at the table with a sigh. “This must be so scary and confusing,” she said. “I was confused as well, when you didn’t recognize me. Whatever the aldermages did to you, they did it too well. They erased me from you entirely.”
Ein’s eyes shifted back and forth, searching Melanie’s face for something. Some hint of understanding? Of connection?
Well, Melanie had no idea what this murderer was talking about. She dropped her gaze to the pile of desiccated metal on the floor. Vagabond lay discarded and inert among the bits of rust.
“Fine.” The Hexe sighed. “I’ll explain it to you, then. Whoever you think you are, Melanie Gate, it’s a lie. A story that others have created for you. You’re not an orphan. You aren’t even a little girl. You are me.”
Melanie’s eyes shot up. Ein’s gaze was cool, her jaw set.
“That’s right,” she said. “You’re a piece of my own soul that I gave shape and sent out from the Zwarte Woud. I was young when my mistress died. Too young. I wasn’t ready for the responsibility of the ley . . . or for the isolation. You can’t imagine how lonely it was. I was a child whose obligations bound me to this forest. I wasn’t ready to have my life consumed by adult concerns. But my gift has always been for conjuration. By tying pieces of this forest to the ley, I can awaken the spirits within them—spirits of earth and water, of air and lightning. And in my desperation, I awoke a spirit unlike any before, using a part of myself as the wellspring.” The Hexe held out a finger toward Melanie. “That piece became you: a spirit of freedom.” Ein’s eyes darkened, and the finger turned back around. “My freedom.”
Spider legs of fear skittered along Melanie’s arms. This woman was delusional. What she claimed couldn’t be possible. Melanie was a girl! She was flesh and blood! She got sick and scraped her knee. She ate meals and slept in a bed and cried real human tears. She was nothing like the spirits of the glade.
And yet . . . she couldn’t deny the pull of this place, or the way that Ein had perfectly matched Melanie’s inner image of Misty Steppe. As if she’d always been there in the back of Melanie’s mind, waiting.
Ein stood again, crossing to where the false Abraxas sat upon the table. She began gently stroking the cat’s head.
“I didn’t realize what I’d given away in creating you. Without my freedom—without you—it wasn’t just obligation that kept me in this forest. I was physically trapped here, well and truly. My power was also depleted, a portion carved off in your creation. Still, for a time, all was fine.” She chuckled. “More than fine. Wonderful. The ley tethered us. I watched through your eyes as you left the wood and journeyed toward Crossport. You were a formless spirit then, able to take whatever shape you chose. Never staying in one for long. You were adventure distilled. A key to open doors. While we were connected, no place was barred to me. Together, we visited Kinderbloom and wandered faraway forests. Soared through the air and swam in the sea. And we spied too. We watched the aldermages in Crossport and noted their plans, laughed at their attempts to infiltrate our place of power. All until the day that Riquem caught you.”
Ein pulled her hand from the cat, studying it with a hurt, baffled expression.
“I saw it through your eyes,” she said. “Zerend’s little lackey plucked you from air, incapacitating you before you could escape. And then . . . nothing. You disappeared. From me. From the ley.” Her eyes found Melanie’s. “I thought you were gone forever. And with you, any sense of freedom I would ever have. Until the night Zerend died.”
The wish, Melanie realized. The night she’d exploded the orphanage while freeing Abraxas. Her grief curdled inside her. One night, one mistake—had it all led to this?
“I felt you again for the first time in years,” Ein said excitedly. Her bright, lovely eyes were almost raving. “It was just a flicker, and so far away, but it was you. I searched for you through every semi-wild creature I could find—searching the spirits of anything that had so much as grazed the ley—until I discovered . . . a cat.”
Ein grabbed the false Abraxas by the scruff of his neck. She lifted him into the air, staring into his eyes. Abraxas gazed back placidly, completely calm.
“The thing was so domesticated, it’s a wonder I reached it at all. But a dalliance with liberty had washed away enough of its urban stink that the ley could touch it. I searched its memories for you. I watched and listened. You left your little group home and I thought I’d lost you again, but then you found me. Do you remember? Sitting at the table?”
A nagging memory tugged at Melanie. A dream of the strangest dinner party with seven guests, and one place set just for her.
And a voice . . .
Who is sitting in my chair?
A voice she recognized now.
You!
Seeing Melanie’s expression, Ein nodded slowly. “You remember. That was when I had what I needed. For the second time, I pulled a piece from myself. I conjured a guiding spirit, and molded it into the shape of the cat, a form you were familiar with. I sent it with Blitz to find you and bring you here.”
Ein smiled at the false Abraxas—the dubbelganger created to trap another dubbelganger.
“It was a gamble to part with more of myself, especially after the last time. Each time I did, my power waned. But it paid off. Now, back where you belong, little one.”
The false Abraxas began to change. Its fur shifted, the colors blending and churning. Its edges bubbled away and the spirit became a sort of doughy goop that writhed in the Hexe’s hand. The ichor thinned, growing watery and insubstantial. It absorbed into her skin like a spill into a rag.
In moments, the cat had disappeared.
Ein stretched her arms with a contented sigh. “That’s better,” she said. Then she turned toward Melanie, straightening her dress.
“You’re safe now, dearest. Safe at home.” She smiled indulgently. “You’ll live on in me. Everything you’ve seen, all your adventures, they’ll be right here.” The Hexe placed a hand against her chest. “The red wizards are burning the world down, but once I’ve reclaimed the power I so foolishly gave away—once I have my freedom back—I can use it to strike against them with a fury that will end this war for good. With your gift—our gift—what barrier could stand against me? There can be peace again.”
Melanie closed herself off. The Hexe kept talking, but she didn’t care.
Something cold had dawned within her. A frozen sun crested a blighted horizon.
Everything she’d known about herself was wrong. She’d thought Lady Porta was a fiction—a character she and Traveler had made up.
But Melanie Gate had been the lie the whole time.
You aren’t even a little girl.
Then what was she?
A spell.
A story.
A piece of someone else, sent out into the world.
“Please, mistress!” Blitz was saying. “Can’t she stay like this? Melanie helped me! She saved me!”
“I saved you, Blitz. I led her to you. And Melanie is a part of me.”
Melanie tried to recall her earliest memories, to summon something from her time before Merrytrails. If she could only prove that Ein was wrong. If she could just remember something real. But there was nothing. The orphanage had been her whole life. Her friends and Jane and Mrs. Harbargain and even Abraxas—they were all she had.
Them, and Traveler. Beautiful, soulful, one-of-a-kind Traveler. The voice for the voiceless things. Was this what her friend had felt all the time? This gaping void beneath his feet, where years of memory and identity should have formed the solid foundations of his life? How did he survive it?
Doubt.
That’s what Traveler had said. Doubt is good. Doubt proves you are real, even if everything else is a lie.
Ein claimed that Melanie was just a part of her, like a work of art she’d created, with no mind of its own. She said that Melanie would live on in her, but Melanie wasn’t so sure.
Right here, right now, she was alive. She was a thinking, feeling, doubting being. She was real. Just as Traveler had been real, before Ein killed him.
And now the Hexe of the South meant to kill Melanie too. Well, she wouldn’t let her.
Melanie glared down at her hands, still locked around the poisoned cup of tea.
Open, she demanded.
Her fingers didn’t move.
Open! Melanie summoned her will. She searched for the deep core of certainty at the center of the doubt. She was real. She was real. She had a life and friends! Jane and Mariana and Baruti and Sun-mi and Helen and even . . .
Take care out there, lock-eater.
Even Agatha.
It’s not such a bad name, Traveler had said. It sounds powerful.
Melanie had always hated the nickname. It sounded hostile, aggressive. It made her seem like a predator, or a weapon.
Maybe that’s why it cut so deep, why she’d held it so far away. Melanie hadn’t wanted to think of herself as a force of chaos. But her recklessness had left a path of destruction everywhere she’d traveled. It had brought her to this very moment.
But now that the moment was here, perhaps it was exactly what she needed to be.
Lock-eater.
Melanie closed her eyes. She never left her chair, but she hunted using some inner sense—the part of her that brokered with bonds and persuaded passages. The part that had followed the grouille’s rune to its unsettling source. She wasn’t even sure what she was searching for. Yet what she found still surprised her.
