“Bringing back the dead requires certain circumstances,” Alexis said. “Like with Evan, he never quite left.”
“But it’s possible.”
“A lot of things are possible,” Alexis said, sounding annoyed.
“Okay,” Peter said. “Cool. So, knowing absolutely nothing about this world, I’ll just put it out there. We’ve got a fish on dry land, a bird without room to fly, a bogeyman in a mirror, and a ton of people crammed into a library, waiting for the doors to get kicked down. In the interest of thinking outside of the box… how do we get out of this… box?”
It wasn’t a question with an immediate answer.
Ty walked along the perimeter of the library, looking at book spines as if he could find something to spark an idea.
Alexis and Tiff talked in low voices.
A chunk of wood fell, dancing along the floor.
A hole in the bookcase.
One red eye peered through the hole.
That was it for our sole sanctuary.
They’d die and I’d…
I looked at Green Eyes.
The thought sparked an idea.
“Ty,” I said.
“‘Sup?” he answered. He was up on the floor above, still looking at spines.
“You’d probably be the one to know. We can bring Others here. Summoning them. Like we did with Green Eyes.”
“Yeah. Varying amounts of resistance, demands, obligations…”
“Can we go the other way?” I asked. “Visit… there?”
“Another exit,” Peter said. “While they think we’re here…”
“Where do you want to visit?” Ty asked.
“Anywhere but here,” I said. “But I’m thinking the most obvious, familiar territory for two of us…”
“No,” Green Eyes said. “Aw, no.”
“Just for a short time,” I said.
“It’s doable,” Ty said. “Question is, do we want to do it?”
“If we can get around to the back of the house,” I said, “There’s a stone porch and some furniture. It’s where Rose and I summoned June.”
“Okay?”
“If we can approach from an angle they don’t expect, we could probably get a bit of fire and smoke there without risking the house. From the town below, it’d look like the house was burning. If the situation called for it, we could be more ambitious with the firestarting.”
“We never agreed-”
“Ty,” I said, “This wouldn’t just be hoping that Corvidae could do something with the opportunity. We would be able to flank them. All of us. At least make a couple of moves. Set a fire, get their attention, and attack, while everything and everyone’s looking at the house.”
He, Alexis, and Tiff exchanged looks.
“You’d know better than us how bad these ‘Drains’ are,” he said.
“They’re bad,” I stated.
“Better or worse than what’s out in that hallway, making their way in?”
Something wispy was starting to creep into the library. Tiff stepped forward to banish it with a dash of salt.
“Can I get back to you on that?” I asked.
Tiff pursed her lips.
“But at least that way, there’s hope,” I said. “A short trip.”
“You don’t come out in one piece,” Green Eyes contradicted me, her voice quiet. “It’s almost a rule.”
I could see Alexis’ reaction, much as I’d caught certain words and bits of body language. I wished I hadn’t.
Not in one piece.
That meant something.
12.05
The holes in the bookshelf were widening as claws and weapons pierced the wood. With each thrust, each chunk that was torn away, there were books that fell from the shelves, the railing and ladder-stairs popped and creaked as metal strained.
“Should that be happening?” Peter asked, looking around.
“The doors have only held up this long because they’re part of a distortion in reality,” Tiff said. She was drawing in chalk on and around the bookshelf, while Ty was drawing on the floor. Alexis had a book open.
“I’m asking again, should that be happening?”
“In an ideal world? No,” Tiff said, her attention on the diagram she was drawing out.
I could recognize bits and pieces here and there. I recognized one of the symbols in the dead center, writ large, as an elemental ward, one of the more elementary ones we’d learned from Fundamentals. Not containing, but pointed outward, with fractal-like lines extending out from the four points of the diamond.
Ty, on the other hand, was drawing a diagram on the floor. The diagram was more of a wheel or Ouroboros. The snake eating its own tail, the diagram fed into itself. Not facing outward, not facing in.