THE SIXTEENTH

 

Stephen had raised an eyebrow when Kaley and I wandered into the church building two months ago, carrying an extra coffee.

“Hi, I’m Stephen.” He introduced himself to Kaley and waved a hand toward the nearest pew. “Feel free to sit down.”

He slid into the seat in front of us. “I’m glad you came back,” he said to me. “It’s been a while.”

“My grandma made us come,” I admitted, and Kaley jabbed me with her elbow. “We’re not going to stay long. I was just wondering about our brother. It’s been almost a year since we’ve heard from him, and I don’t even know if he’s still…”

Stephen offered a slight smile. “I’m happy to help, but I don’t really have any information to give you. I haven’t seen him since we last spoke.”

“Oh…”

“Thanks anyway,” Kaley cut in. “Sorry to interrupt your day. Can we repay you with a coffee?” She held out the extra one we brought.

Stephen chuckled. “How about a coffee tomorrow morning?” he suggested. “And a date after that?” His eyes flickered to me.

I felt a flush cross my face. Kaley’s gaze moved between the two of us, and I felt like she wanted me to say yes. But I didn’t know what to say. Why in the world was Stephen asking me when Kaley—the pretty, athletic option—was here? I avoided my sister’s intense, green gaze, wishing she’d mind her own business.

But Stephen laughed. “Don’t worry, Helen, your face is telling me enough. I’m not insulted. Disappointed, maybe, but that’s how life goes, eh?” He patted the back of the pew, thankfully still smiling about it.

I released a horrendously fake laugh and Kaley grimaced. “I’d still like to be friends,” I said, and Stephen chuckled again.

“I’d like that too. You have a certain light in you, you know. Usually, I’m pretty in tune with these things, but for some crazy reason I can’t seem to figure out exactly why yours is the way it is.”

My smile had been real after that. If only he knew.

Stephen glanced at Kaley and studied her curiously. Maybe he saw some of that light in her as well. “That’s how faith works though. Even just a spark is enough to shatter the darkness when it’s got a hold on you.”

I had brought him coffee the next day. And the one after that.

 

 

 

My eyes stayed on Kaley until we reached the Green prison—a village of wood-beam rooms with no windows. Thick chains hung over the path like a metal jungle, locks dangling where lanterns were supposed to be. The wood smelled wet, like a humid summer night, and my thoughts drifted back to my summer spent pouring over the story of Day and Night, humming that obnoxious song that was supposed to summon a Guard of Doors.

“Split them up.” The Axeman’s voice was a dagger.

Zane and I were wrestled one way, Lucas and Kaley another. My gaze broke from my sister as I was shoved into a log room with splinters sprouting from the walls, decaying wood rotting in the corners.

The ceiling was made of sparse wooden slats, revealing tiny stars peeking through the foggy blanket of troubled, gray sky. The clouds promised a pending storm.

Zane dropped to sit against the wall. “The Patrols will come,” he said. “They’ll figure out a way to escape the Dungeon of Souls, and they’ll come for us.”

“You didn’t see what I saw.” I sank down beside my Patrolman, my coat puffing around my face.

“Don’t give up yet, Helen.”

Without warning, a spoon flung over the wall of our cell and landed in the snow at Zane’s feet. But the most unexpected part was that Zane laughed. I stared at him in surprise. I watched my Patrolman blink a few times, then pick up the spoon. He held it up like he was looking at his reflection. “I’m starting to see shadows and light, Trite, and dull colours.” He stood and threw the utensil back over the wall.

“Ow!” Lucas bellowed from his own enclosure across the path.

I smiled, but it fell away when I looked back at the log cage, the slat ceiling, the prison.

“I’ve been in the dark too long,” Zane went on. “My sputtlepun scotcher is ready to muddle some Green buttons. This isn’t the end for us, Helen…” His merriment fizzled away when he found me staring off. “What?”

Instead of explaining myself, I cleared my throat and started to hum. I’d only had a sip of cider at the feast, so the tune was raw and dry, but I carried it until I felt someone watching me.

“Helen…?” Zane said again.

I opened my eyes to find a small hole in the air, a golden iris peeking through.

Obb may have cursed—it was muffled as the hole peeled open wider. The white-bearded man’s entire face pushed through, hovering like a balloon. Zane was wide-eyed and frozen at the room’s wall.

“What is it now, girl? Don’t you know I have things to do?” Obb’s bushy brows tilted in.

“I know you serve Elowin even if you can’t admit it,” I said. “Elowin’s last Carrier is about to be executed in the Green Kingdom, and the Volumes of Wisdom, wiped out.”

Obb’s face soured. “I’ll not get involved either way,” he promised.

“Then Nightflesh will win, even after I’ve warned you.”

Obb blinked impatiently. “It’s not possible to make a door to Winter inside of Winter. And even if I could do it, I wouldn’t.”

“Then how are you doing it now?” I challenged, climbing to my knees.

“This is not a door!” His face reddened. “It’s a peephole! And I’m breaking the rules by talking to you through it. Be gone now, girl.” Obb’s white beard pulled back through the opening.

“Don’t leave!” I couldn’t get the words out before the hole plugged and every trace of the man in the navy tent vanished.

I slumped back against the wall, kicking my legs out. My stinging eyes slid shut.

“What are you doing?” Zane’s tone was accusatory.

And after all my months and efforts of trying to restore everything, I lost it.

“Why is it so easy for you to ask that question?!” I shoved myself up and Zane shuffled back. “You asked me to stay in Winter, but when I suggested you come to the Trite world, you laughed.”

“Helen, I—”

“Do you want to know why I looked like garbage when we met in Waterloo? That’s why!” I growled. “Because everyone’s making me choose. Even you aren’t willing to help me find a door!” I was almost screaming now, sure even Lucas and Kaley could hear.

I realized my face was wet. I blinked through the blur, trying to slow the blood pumping through my veins.

Zane was dead-still for a heartbeat. He finally dropped his gaze to the snow, jaw tight. “Well, it’s about bloody time you admitted what’s wrong,” he murmured.

Snow descended on a chilly current, piling up in our cell.

“I can’t keep being separated from this place. From you. From all of it,” I said.

When Zane lifted his graying, dismal eyes, I thought he would explode. “So, I’m part of the problem? Because of our bond?”

I glanced off, throat dry. “It doesn’t matter anymore. We’re in this mess because I made an irrational plan that’s going to get us killed.”

He moved closer, boots dragging through the snow. “But you weren’t wrong, Helen. The Volumes don’t offer parables for no reason. Ragnashuck, bringing the Triad of Signs back together might be possible with those clues. Trust me, I should know.”

The dip in Zane’s voice was odd—I studied him as he chewed his lip like a little boy who was about to get in trouble for bad behavior.

“What do you mean, you should know?”

He fiddled with the buttons on his jacket. “I have a troubling idea about where the third piece of the Triad is.” His throat bobbed. “I mapped those snowseas from dawn to dusk. Even as a child, I steered the ships to learn the sea’s tricks. So, I know them well. But I also know there’s a thing or three out there worse than your greatest nightmares.”

The image of Zane steering a ship as a child was one I’d never be able to scrub from my imagination. “Pirates?” I asked.

“No. There are things a good measure worse than pirates in those snowseas,” he whispered, a flash of navy darkening his eyes before he tilted away.

My fingers dug into my hair. “Why didn’t you say something before?”

“Because the price for what we need will be costly, and I think I’m the only one who can pay it.”

I studied his fidgeting fingers, his stolen glances at the sky. “Why does it have to be you?”

Zane paused to shake the snow from his hair and brush it off his shoulders. I thought he wouldn’t answer, but he finally said, “The snowseas don’t forget things, Trite. And I gave them a lot to remember.”

I grabbed his restless hands, bringing him still. Zane’s blotted eyes flickered back and forth between mine. He raised his sleeve to brush the remains of moisture from my cheeks, feeling his way around the curve of my jaw, squinting. His lashes flickered down toward my mouth, and a ribbon of warmth moved through my abdomen.

A dinner fork spiralled over the wall and landed in the snow beside us. I released the breath I’d been holding and reached for it when the lock on our door rattled. A deep voice came from the path. “Take them one at a time to be interrogated. Do the Rime-blood first.”

My hand halted and my gaze fired to Zane.