Chapter 24

 

“Seriously, Cole, stay here,” Lily called over her shoulder. “We won’t do anything important without you, we promise!”

Cole looked at his mother reluctantly. She really didn’t look like she ought to be left alone. Then he turned back to Lily with a flicker of mistrust, and nodded once.

When Lily caught up to Peter, whose feet pounded down the hall, she said, “Where are we going?”

“Third floor,” he huffed as he bolted towards the stairs. “Gerald – told me – the first night – that Isdemus’s study was there –”

As they approached, they heard voices speaking in low, tense whispers, though they could not make out what the voices were saying or to whom they belonged. Peter immediately stopped running, and Lily nearly crashed into the back of him. He turned and put a finger to his lips, and began to tiptoe to the heavy wooden door, pressing his ear to the crack. Lily did the same, her head below his.

“– only thing that makes sense,” Sully’s voice was saying thickly. “The Fata Morgana is the only place they could take Bruce where he couldn’t just call one of the nimbi to save him, and it’s the only place we couldn’t possibly find. He has to be there.”

Lily and Peter exchanged a wide-eyed look. Apparently, there was no reason for them to speak with Isdemus after all. He already knew.

“It doesn’t exist!” said Jael’s voice stubbornly. “After 1500 years of searching for it, don’t you think that if it did exist, there would be some evidence, or that one of the nimbi would have stumbled across it accidentally at least, since it’s supposedly part of their world?”

“Half a part of their world,” Dan’s voice pointed out. “It changes location all the time –”

“Even accounting for that, by random chance the nimbi should have stumbled across it at some point!”

“I agree with Sully,” said Isdemus’s voice quietly. Peter and Lily could practically hear Jael’s stunned expression. “According to legend, the Fata Morgana came into existence by the Philosopher’s Stone. We have all the evidence we need of that Stone’s power from the existence of the Shadow Lord himself and the many scars he left on ancient history before Arthur banished him. The fact that there has been no evidence of his existence since then does not mean, despite the speculation of some of Carlion’s greatest philosophers, that he was a myth. His absence has been perfectly accounted for by the prophecies, and now we have living proof in our midst that the prophecies are true.”

“Peter, you mean,” said Jael.

“Peter is one possible candidate,” said Isdemus pointedly. “However, there are others even now residing under our roof.”

“Others?” Jael asked.

Peter looked down at Lily sharply, but she did not return his glance. She looked ill.

“I am greatly disturbed that we have only just now discovered Miss Portman,” Isdemus went on, his voice low. “To be frank, it makes me question nearly everything we thought we knew.”

“There was no way any of us could have known about her,” said Dan’s voice tersely. “We just lost track –”

“That’s precisely my point,” said Isdemus. “After 1500 years of what we thought was nearly constant surveillance, we actually managed to lose track of one of the candidates, a few generations from the time of the prophecy’s fruition! We’ve been assuming, all this time, that the Child of the Prophecy would follow the paternal line and would himself be male. Is it possible that we were wrong? Is it possible that we have fallen into the very human trap of assuming Peter is the one simply because of his gender and his appearance? Looking on the outside of man often leads us astray!”

Peter’s fingers closed around Lily’s. She did not return his grip.

Jael interjected, “How could it be Lily, though? So far she’s completely unremarkable, other than the fact that she was a Seer in the outside world –”

“Yes, but Peter was unremarkable until that accident,” Dan pointed out.

“She may be unremarkable by our standards,” Isdemus said. “Yet somehow, despite the fact that we were not there to watch over her, Lily was protected when her parents were murdered. We don’t understand how or by whom. It wasn’t us, and it wasn’t the nimbi in any way we can explain. A nimbus could not have hidden her while remaining invisible himself. It is a mystery.

“Then, despite the fact that we lost track of her, somehow fourteen years later she found her way to our doorstep. After moving from one foster home to the next all over England, she happened to move to Norwich, and she happened to meet Peter right at the critical time, and she happened to be in the car when the accident occurred.

“Friends, what is all of that if not a miracle?”

“But... Peter stopped that accident! Not Lily!” protested Jael.

“I’d have thought you’d have been all for a female candidate, Jael,” came Sully’s voice dryly.

“It’s not that,” Jael huffed in irritation.

“Jael doesn’t like the idea of wasted effort,” Dan explained, and Jael snorted.

“Keep in mind, Jael,” said Isdemus, “that it isn’t always where you are, but how far you have come that demonstrates strength. Lily’s background was marked with tragedy and self-doubt, and despite that, she still maintained the existence of the nimbi and the penumbra. That takes enormous character. Peter, on the other hand, was raised in a loving and protective home, albeit without a mother. Peter heard the stories of the Ancient Tongue all his young life, so it is not surprising that he may be able to call it to his aid in a pinch, even if he only knew it subconsciously. It may be that given their relative starting points, Lily has made greater progress than Peter has done.”

“All due respect, sir,” said Sully in his grave and reserved voice, “but, is this relevant now? At the moment, the Shadow Lord is only aware of one candidate.”

“True,” Isdemus conceded. “You are right, Sully. What matters at the moment is finding Bruce and Brock, and bringing them safely home again, without Peter finding out that they have been abducted, or for what purpose.”

Lily looked up at Peter, her expression both frightened and sympathetic. Now it was Peter’s turn to look sick.

“Of course he’ll know immediately that the Shadow Lord wants to make an exchange,” said Dan. “Their lives for his. He’s not an idiot.”

“He will know that immediately if he finds out they have been abducted. I am sure that is true,” said Isdemus, sounding exhausted.

“He already knows we suspect that Bruce been abducted,” said Jael.

“He knows we suspect it, but it will be best if he knows no more than that until the situation has been resolved,” said Isdemus.

“Or at the very least, even if he does discover that much, we have to keep him from finding out where Bruce is,” Sully pointed out. “If he understands the nature of the fortress, he’ll know immediately how to find it.”

“Which brings up another important point,” said Dan. “Considering we’ve been looking for 1500 years unsuccessfully, how do we propose to find the Fata Morgana now without using Peter to do it?”

All three voices erupted in protest at this, but Dan spoke over them defensively, “I’m not saying we should! I know that if he’s the One, then he’s more important than Bruce or Brock or all the rest of us put together. All I’m saying is, it’s a perfect set up! The penumbra know that there’s no way we can find it – only he can, because the Shadow Lord wants him to.”

“I was right,” Lily mouthed to Peter. But there was no triumph in her expression.

“I’m just saying,” Dan went on, “do we have a strategy for finding the Fata Morgana that doesn’t involve putting a potential Child of the Prophecy in danger?”

There was silence in the room for a moment. One of Peter’s knees sank to the floor.

“I am hoping that Bruce’s training in physics will be sufficient for him to understand the nature of the structure itself,” said Isdemus finally. “If he can figure that out, he may be capable of escape.”

They could hear Jael shaking her head as she spoke. “Bruce is brilliant,” she said, “but that’s asking a lot. Who can think in terms of physics when their lives are in danger?”

“Are you kidding me?” said Dan. “When Bruce’s life flashes before his eyes, I’ll bet he sees the whole thing in equations. It’s the core of who he is!”

“Besides, we’ve all been trained for situations like this,” said Sully. “He might not have motivation enough to save himself, but now that Brock is there with him, he’ll do everything he can.”

“In the meantime, I do have a few other leads, meager though they are,” said Isdemus. “My greatest hope is that Bruce will be able to do a great deal more on his end than we can on ours in terms of rescue. Our primary goal, however, needs to be insuring that the Shadow Lord does not achieve his objective. Under no circumstances is Peter Stewart to leave the castle until Bruce and Brock have returned, or until we receive word that the situation has… otherwise resolved.”

“You mean until we find out they’re dead,” said Dan bluntly.

Isdemus’s silence was as good as an affirmative.

 

Peter shrank back from the crack in the door. The muscles in his thighs screamed at him as he straightened, but he barely noticed. He backed away a few steps, and then turned around and headed for the stairwell as quickly as he could without running, keeping to the carpet to muffle his rapid footsteps.

Lily caught up on his other side, but she didn’t speak until they were sure they were far enough away from Isdemus’s office that there was no chance of being overheard.

“What are you planning?” she asked warily.

“You know what I’m planning.”

“Peter,” said Lily, “you heard what Isdemus said –”

“I heard exactly what he said,” Peter said shortly. “He said I’m the only one who can find it. He said without using me as bait, they have no hope of rescuing my dad, or Brock.”

“He also said your dad could rescue them both!” she pointed out.

Peter gave her a withering look. “So you think I’m just going to sit here and wait for him to figure it out, when I know I can save him?”

“But Peter, you’re the –”

“If you say I’m the Child of the Prophecy, Lily, I swear!”

“Well, you might be!” she shot back.

“Well, so might you!”

They stared at each other in a stalemate for a long moment, until Lily broke his gaze with a shudder.

“I don’t care what they think, Lily. I know it’s not me,” Peter said flatly.

“How do you know?”

He looked away and sucked in a deep breath. Then he said in a calmer voice, “I just know, all right? It’s not me, Lily. It has to be you, then.”

She fell silent.

“So if I die, it really doesn’t matter. What matters is that the Shadow Lord believes it’s me, and the penumbra believe it’s me, because I’m the only one who can save them. That’s it then.” He turned and kept pounding down the stairs.

“All right,” said Lily very carefully, falling into step beside him. “How are you planning to do it exactly?”

“Haven’t you noticed a theme in this place, of how to find something when you don’t know where it is?”

She looked confused, keeping pace as Peter headed toward the Great Hall again. “You mean speaking names? That only works with the nimbi –”

“No, it works with everything,” Peter pointed out. “The whole Ancient Tongue is based on the concept of the power of an object’s true name.”

“It doesn’t work with a place, though. You can’t just say ‘Carlion’ and suddenly appear here –”

“But you can say the name of one of the nimbi to get him to lead you here, assuming he wants you to find it,” said Peter. “That’s how Mrs. Jefferson came back, isn’t it?”

“You don’t know the names of any of the penumbra, though,” Lily pointed out, and then added with a note of dread in her voice, “Do you?”

“No. But I know the name of their leader.”

All the color drained from Lily’s face. “The… Shadow Lord?”

Peter nodded, setting his jaw so that he looked braver than he felt. “When Cole and I were in Arthur’s head, right before Arthur killed the Shadow Lord, Arthur asked what his real name was. And he told him. He spoke it out loud. I heard it with my own ears.”

Peter stopped walking. Lily had grabbed one of his swinging arms and gripped it so tightly that he had to spin around and face her.

“I’m coming with you.”

Peter blinked at her for a moment, and then he said pointedly, “No. Lily, I am absolutely positive I’m not the Child of the Prophecy. Can you say the same?”

“Look, I get it,” she went on stubbornly, as if she hadn’t heard him, “You have to get outside of Carlion so you can speak his name out loud without endangering the city. You can’t go alone, though, Peter, and you can’t leave me behind. I’m coming.”

“Do you understand that this is a suicide mission? I don’t expect to come back!”

Lily gritted her teeth. “It will be a suicide mission if you don’t have help! Have I mentioned that I know how to fight? And I’m guessing you don’t,” she said, appraising his skinny frame.

Peter snorted. “What, you think if you insult me that’s gonna make me do what you want? Forget it, you’re still not coming!”

Her hands retained their grip around his forearm, cutting off the circulation. She stared at him with such intensity that she dared not blink, nor did he, as if they were trying to see who would back down first.

Peter could see in her face that she wasn’t going to give up. But he also knew that, no matter how stubborn she was or how sincerely she wished to help, where they were going both she and Cole would be utterly useless to him at best, and a liability at worst.

He had to give up his life, but theirs would simply be a waste. Lily’s might be worse than a waste. Isdemus himself had all but acknowledged that the fate of the world rested on her shoulders. If he wasn’t the One, and he was certain he wasn’t, then it had to be Lily.

So, he knew what he had to do.

“All right,” he said, trying to look as defeated as possible.

Lily’s expression flickered for a second, as if she hadn’t quite expected that response. She tried to look resolute.

They were only a few yards from the Great Hall. Peter paused before he entered, arranging his expression in such a way that he would not alarm Mrs. Jefferson.

“Cole,” he said in a very odd voice. Cole looked up anxiously and ran to him.

“Pete! Lily! What did he say? What did you find out?”

“Come on, we’ll tell you,” said Peter in a tone that did not belong to him.

“What?” said Mrs. Jefferson. Her face was still puffy and red, but as she stood and put her hands on her hips, her eyes flashed. “Tell him here! Don’t you dare keep secrets from me. This is my son!”

“No, no secrets, of course,” said Peter quickly, and then he cast a quick glance at Lily, looking for support. “Isdemus… was shocked when we told him where they are, of course. The Watchers will be leaving to try and rescue Brock and my dad any minute now… but Isdemus wanted us to come and get Cole so he could find out what we’ve learned directly from all of us before they go, so that they have as good an idea as possible of what they’re looking for.”

Lily looked at Peter, impressed.

“Oh… oh yes, of course…” said Mrs. Jefferson, sitting down slowly again. “Well, I’d just be in the way. Hurry back?” she said anxiously to Cole, and stifled another sob.

Peter felt a pang of guilt as he looked at her miserable face, but consoled himself that the lie was for a good cause – it was the only way to send both of her sons back to her.

When they were out of earshot, Lily and Peter briefed Cole on what they had overheard in Isdemus’s office. Cole also took it as a given that he and Lily were coming along, and he wore the same expression as Lily – a mask of determination and courage that barely concealed the suppressed fear lurking beneath.

“So what do we have to do next?” Lily said to Peter as bravely as she could.

“Now we go back to the stone wall by the store room.”

“Where the secret library is?” said Cole, confused. “Why?”

“Isdemus said I’m not to leave the castle until Bruce and Brock return.” He purposely left out the other half of that statement. “So if we tried to go out by the main gates, the servants or the nimbi would stop us. If we tried to get to the Commuter Station via the main halls, they’d stop us there, too.”

“But they don’t know that we know about the secret passageways!” Cole finished, his eyes lighting up.

“Exactly. See, I knew we’d be glad we didn’t call one of the nimbi to lead us out,” said Peter grimly. “But we’d better move fast. They’ll be patrolling the Commuter Station in no time, and we don’t even know how to get there from inside the passage. We have no time to lose!”