He whose name is Annihilation

Chapter Twenty-Nine

‘We need to go back for her,’ Kit says as Lazarus pulls him through a back door, pushing him down a spiral staircase, down, down, into the basements of Richmond Palace.

‘No, right now, we need to find a way out of here.’ Lazarus has a clamped grip on his hand as they stumble through the packed tunnels, full of crates and baskets of food brought in for the kitchens. ‘This comes out by the stables.’

In the careless, calculated tone of his voice, Kit feels a hint of the man who stood, silently, in the corner of the cellar. He twists and shoves Lazarus firmly up against the wall, to remind himself that it is not the same.

‘That was our poison.’

‘Kit, we have no time—’

‘Do not lie to me, I will beat the fucking truth out of you, did you plan this? To poison your father? To blame Mariner?’

‘No.’ Lazarus pushes him away by the shoulders and he stumbles against a sack of potatoes. ‘Not to blame her! My formulas, your skill, my silence, his death. It was not an agreement, as such, we didn’t say when or where, but…’

‘You planned to murder your father with your sister and get away with it.’

Lazarus nods firmly and looks back over his shoulder, his fingers flickering nervously.

‘Then why do it in a royal palace? Why make it treason?’

‘I do not know!’ Lazarus’ voice is furiously low and Kit sees that he has been as much taken by surprise by his sister as Kit and Mariner have. ‘We need to get away, either Mariner or Pyncher could change their story, blame us—’

‘We are to blame!’ Kit points back along the corridor, his voice bouncing against the stone. ‘Mariner is the only one of us not guilty of this, and we’re going to leave the country? We, the monstrous, she, the innocent?’

Lazarus grabs his collar, pushes him back against the wall, lips close enough to be a stolen kiss but instead it is a vicious spittle of words.

‘Monstrous, maybe, but we will live.’ Kit wonders if it possible to taste another’s desperation through their words. ‘You will live, Skevy, if I have to tie you up all the way to Scotland.’

‘Scotland, Lazarus? You wound me.’

They both turn their heads to the sound of her voice. Lady Blackwater steps daintily over rolling potatoes and enters the tunnel. ‘Kit Skevy is my apprentice. I have paid for him. He will come back to Hart House.’

Lazarus says nothing but continues to use his hand to hold Kit in place against the wall. For the first time, Kit thinks it is a protective gesture.

‘Your apprentice, my Initiate.’ Lazarus carefully pulls something out of his purse. The same odd-shaped thing he used to bring down the wall at Isherwood House. Kit stiffens. ‘You have your desire. We will not hang for it. We are leaving.’

‘Your Initiate?’ Lady Blackwater looks at Kit, smiling pityingly. ‘I suppose he bedded you and told you that you were remarkable, the only one? Drew out your true powers and hoarded them for himself?’

Lazarus lifts the ball of explosive but Elody’s fingers move, a flicker of silver, faster than a wasp and Lazarus gasps, clamping a hand to his neck.

‘Laz?’ Kit scrabbles to pull back Lazarus’ fingers, finds a silver needle wobbling against his throat.

‘I would not touch that, Master Skevy. It is dipped with a sedative. Ladies do need to take measures to ensure they are protected, after all.’ She lifts a ribbon at the line of her bodice, showing a row of silver needles with minuscule leather caps. ‘Do not worry, dear Lazarus will still be able to hear us for now, but it is time you and I had a discussion, without interruptions.’

Lazarus slumps, Kit struggling to hold him as they both crumple to the floor. Lazarus’ eyes are wide with panic and his breath slow, mouthing the word: run. Kit wants to obey him, but his legs are shaking too much to bear his weight.

‘Lazarus has kept many of your skills hidden from me, or so he thinks, but the truth is, I knew your potential before you ever stepped into my house. Even since before you terrified my father and brother at Crossbones. I have known it about you since I saw you whipped at the Standard.’

‘That day, you are the lady who watched me,’ Kit stammers, trying to hold Lazarus’ lolling head up against his knee. ‘How did you—?’

‘You would be amazed with all the things I know about you. Things I have known your whole life.’ She is looking at Kit with a fondness he doesn’t understand. Lazarus’ grip on his sleeve becomes even tighter. ‘I knew you when you were nothing more than a child with cold fingers.’

Kit stares at her, his heart thundering. He looks at Lazarus in his arms, who is fighting to keep his eyes open.

‘Did you tell her about the mirror?’ He shakes Lazarus but his head is loose on his neck, drooping.

‘Why would he need to tell me what I remember?’ Lady Blackwater says, stepping closer. ‘You do not recognise me. They called me Ella then. I was much younger when my father conducted his experiments in Antwerp and I would watch.’

‘No.’ Kit shakes his head violently. ‘He didn’t know me, you’re lying.’

‘Am I?’ Lady Blackwater leans forward, a smile on her lips, her voice conspiratorial. ‘We would leave the windows open and let the snow blow in.’

Kit sees her as she was, young and stern and cruel, always fascinated, always curious, wanting to pinch the inside of his forearm. Does this hurt? she would ask, over and over. Does this hurt now? He does not want to believe her, but why does he remember if it is not true? He looks at the girl called Ella, the woman called Elody, once his torturer now his mistress, and the past collides with the present. Is it trustworthy, he wonders, this surety inside me?

‘You knew who I was?’

‘Initiate,’ Lazarus mumbles. Lazarus is fading quickly, and whatever answers Lady Blackwater might offer, are they worth it if they require Lazarus to die?

‘You trust him so dearly,’ says Elody softly. ‘Yet you do not know who he is. He does not love you, Kit Skevy, he is his father’s son through and through. Even now he works to advance his way with the King of Scotland and he would use you to get there.’

‘No!’ Lazarus’ eyes open, a sluggish pull, the whites swivelling to his silver irises.

‘No?’ Elody echoes mockingly. ‘He sent Griffin the stage crafter the tainted formula. He killed him.’

Lazarus’ countenance is full of fear. In the terror, Kit knows it is true but he cannot believe it. Knowledge thundering in his heart is struggling to reach his brain. He scrambles away, letting Lazarus’ head smack onto the stone. He is splayed out so similarly to Griffin, the man whose death sent Kit into a spiral of desperation to leave London, that sent him to Crossbones, that sent him to the cellar. Every terrible thing that has happened to him this year is a line of toppled trees and there, at the beginning, the force pushing them over, is the same man who told him that Kit was the centre of his universe. Lazarus is looking up at him with dreadful, exhaustive weariness, not a hint of denial.

‘Say not,’ Kit whispers.

‘Kit…’ Lazarus’ breath is laboured, his body failing. ‘Your sun…’

‘Say it is not true.’ There is betrayal like fire in Kit’s body, faster and more vicious than the flames of Crossbones. Griffin is dead on the floor and there is smoke closing his throat. Kit is laid out by Isherwood’s physician and Lazarus is watching and they are in bed and Lazarus’ penitent lips are opening him so gently, erasing that violent act of intrusion with a soft tongue and whispered words – ‘Say not! Say fucking not, you bastard, say not!’

He is kicking him, he cannot see him properly through a strange haze over his eyes, can barely make out Lazarus’ crunched, curled form and suddenly Elody has pressed a knife into his hands.

‘He will not stay with you now, he will only prove himself faithless. Better, is it not, to be the one with the most power?’

Kit presses the blade against Lazarus’ throat, thinks yes, this is some kind of justice for all the ways he did not see Lazarus. Better to turn a coat than burn in it. How burned Kit is, how the despair inside of him is wide and uncrossable, a yawning ocean of emptiness, the space that he carved for Lazarus Isherwood inside of him. Lazarus’ face is swollen, eyes bloody, but they do not close. They fix on Kit that same way they always have done, as if he is the most riveting thing in the room. What is the gain? Kit thinks, against his will. What is the fucking gain? The knife tips gently out of his hand and clatters down.

‘I thought not,’ Elody sighs. Her hand is on his neck and suddenly his legs give way under him, sending him toppling into Lazarus’ body. Another pin, he realises, and Elody stands over them both, looking vaguely disappointed. ‘It seems, Master Skevy, that there is nothing my brother can do that will quite make you regret him enough to displace him, so we will have to leave the onus upon Lazarus to break your heart in turn. There is no love strong enough in an Isherwood to allow them to stay against their better judgement. We are beasts of self-preservation. By the time you wake, he will be long gone.’

Here then is the answer to the question; what becomes of his heart if the sun is not the centre of the universe? It is gone forever, turned inward, sucking all light inside of it.