No one could see Kristýna’s house from the outside. What one saw, high up on the hill, to the east of the old fortress, was an old stone wall drowning in ivy and some vine with a small white flower that if you touched it, it pinched and you forgot where you were going. But especially you forgot anything peculiar you might have noticed about the wall close up. For example, the faint, faint outline of a door in the pattern of the stones beneath the ivy. Or the way the ivy would move even without a breeze in a sinewy, slow, mesmerizing way.
Inside, beyond the secret door, lay a courtyard riotous with flowers, wild and tame, and a little table with a lantern lit by glowworms, and beyond that the two-story house full of plants and curios that Kristýna had lived in off and on for several decades.
But it was there, in the courtyard, that she wanted to talk to Mack. Being in the house didn’t matter—it had no memories for them as a couple, was, in a sense, the place she went to be alone, and Mack knew that.
Because she no longer trusted him.
Because it irked her that Mack’s bulk beside her, so dapper and indestructible, had made her happy, had made her feel happy. Like she was home. Oddly. But not so odd. And not now.
Mack sat lounging on one of the wrought-iron chairs around the table, so casual she knew it was feigned.
No preamble for her.
“You let it into Prague. What is in Prague now. The old ways.”
The marmot’s shadow. Which, tethered or untethered, would start to go bad … oddly … would become more allied to the idea of the darkness than of the light. And, knowing that, she also knew that the animals were willing to take any risk to restore the Old Magic. And how could she blame them?
“It would have gotten in anyway. You know that.”
“You don’t care that the animals you serve don’t trust you?”
“I don’t serve them!” Mack, defiant. Good—glad to see emotion. What the shadow dulled.
“You don’t know what you’ve done.”
“What about the things you don’t tell me? All the secrets you keep from me.”
Upset now, so Kristýna knew his mood was dire. Again, good.
“Running a counterintelligence operation behind my back. Behind the Order’s back. Using information from the Order.”
“The secrets,” Mack said, ignoring her. “Secrets about the Lambshead family, for one. From what I can gather from afar. About Earth. About s—”
“You betrayed me.” Put it plain.
“I did not betray you! Not really.”
Not really. Still parsing the difference, then. Aftereffects of shadow, or just Mack, no knife? And he wouldn’t look at her, either.
“Explain it to me, then. How you didn’t betray me.”
“It doesn’t hurt the Order. The animals just want balance. And that serves our purposes, too. And yours—if you’d only think it through.”
“Stop defending them! They stole your shadow and spied on you—for weeks!”
“It doesn’t change anything. They want a place at the table, so to speak. And that helps my cause.”
His cause. Whatever it might be.
“But stewardship of the doors means that—”
“They don’t care about the doors. I don’t care about the damn doors, either. Pull back from your precious doors. Look at the bigger picture. Do you understand?”
The bigger picture? Did he not understand, even after all this time, the meaning of the doors? Of their impact? Of what could still come through them? The monsters. The deadly echoes of the past.
“Old magic is unpredictable. Other powers stand behind it. It lets in other things. It’s only back because Crowley’s destabilized Aurora.”
“Says you.”
“And what about Paris? Have you forgotten?”
“What about it?”
He sounded weary now. Disgusted. Contempt? Could she survive contempt? From him? Kristýna felt very old, like her blood had cooled and slowed. Should she give up? No. She couldn’t give up.
“The two who followed us in Paris—I’ve been thinking about them.”
“Why?”
“Because … they were too … wild. Too different. I don’t think Crowley sent them.”
“Your spies told us—”
“That he was sending someone after us, yes. And I think that was the demi-mage and the mecha-crocodiles. Not those two.”
“Then, who sent them?”
“There’s some other game being played here, Mack. One we don’t quite see the outlines of. I don’t think the animals, the old ways, see it either. Not quite.”
“So who did send them?”
“I don’t know yet. Someone who didn’t like the outcome of the War of Order, perhaps.”
“A member of the Order?” Scoffing. “So who is the enemy here? The old magic? The Order? Or do you see enemies everywhere.”
“I see opportunity, Mack, which supports ambition. I see a moment in time, in history, where Crowley has created the kind of chaos that … well, anything might step into that gap. Several somethings. It isn’t simple. It isn’t straightforward.”
“Or you’re paranoid. Or you don’t want to admit you’re on the wrong end of things this time.”
“I’m just pointing out possibilities.” Hurt, hiding it.
Mack contemplated that.
“And in all of this, that you’ve thought about. Have you given any thought about why I might be on the side of old magic? As you put it so crudely. You’ve not asked me yet.”
Because Kristýna had wanted to know the answer before she had to ask the question. So she would know if he was lying to her. Again.
“Why, then?”
“Isn’t it clear? Why do I need to spell it out? Your doors have made one thing stark. There are too many Earths where Europeans colonize the world. We don’t want Aurora, through Crowley or anyone else, to join them. So let Europe be in chaos. Divided. War of all against all. Let war exist here and not on our sacred soil.”
“What’s coming is larger than that,” Kristýna said. So much larger.
“Not to me it’s not.”
There was so much he did not know, but she dared not tell him.
For example, she had lost contact with Alfred Kubin, and she didn’t know why. He chose not to report, as far as she could tell. For example, the Order still didn’t know what Wretch meant to let through the doors. For example, the rumors of the Château coming back into play …
And there was the phone call from Stimply to this very house. The brief one, in which he’d said, “Don’t talk—just listen. This way of contact isn’t safe anymore, but I’ll be in Prague soon. I need to meet with you. Where can we meet?”
“Fester Growley Book Club,” she’d said, and a date, and then the line had gone dead on his end. She thought he’d heard, but maybe not. But it was the only place she knew for sure she’d be, and as public as possible. Who knew who watched even the outside of this place?
“Are we enemies, my love?” she asked. Wanted him to have to say it.
Mack looked away. “No. Not enemies.”
They fell silent, long enough to delay what might be inevitable, to reach a truce. Somehow, even silence felt like playing a role. Like, there was the her deep inside and then this outer person who must look the part from some other performance.
Mack, finally: “I don’t know if we are together anymore, but we can’t be apart for now.”
“I still love you.”
“And I love you. But that may not be enough.”
The sweet, terrible relief that came over her, that made her tremble. It was all out in the open. And he hadn’t just run off. That he understood the severity.
“Whatever you’ve done is done,” she said, relenting, even if she wasn’t sure she meant it. Because they still had a mission. Because, fatally, she felt she needed him for it. “But you cannot lie to me again. Promise me that. We’re at war.”
“I haven’t lied,” Mack said. “I just haven’t told you everything.”
And that was where they were now: a couple that not only kept secrets from each other, but admitted it. So many times the key was not saying it.
When she made no reply, Mack asked, “Will my shadow return soon?”
“Your true shadow? Yes.”
“And I will feel less cold?” Less alone. Less like a speck in the universe.
“You will.”
“Will that … shadow find me again?”
“It cannot reattach once unattached. Can it seek you out? Yes. But not become part of you again.”
Mack slumped in a kind of relief.
“You’ll be fine, I promise,” she said, reaching out to clasp his hand in hers.
They stared at each other across the widening divide of the table, lit by lantern glow. Not like lovers or friends, but wary. A parlay under a white flag.
It hurt her heart, but she imagined it hurt his, too.
And that was the shame of it.