I wrap my arms around my ribs, feeling sick. He could have been taken, dragged through into the dark. Others were.
“Is there any way,” I say, “to get them back?”
Owen shakes his head. “The void isn’t meant for the living. It’s not meant for the dead, either.” Even in the dim light, I can see the way it wore on him. He looks strangely fragile. But I know better than to trust appearances.
Four people dead, for thinking about me. For caring. And how many others could have been taken? My parents? Wesley? All because of Owen. All because of me.
“What are you doing here?” I say through clenched teeth.
“I told you, I came to talk.” Owen turns, considering the rest of the room. “I hate this place,” he whispers, the words almost swallowed by the melody still leaking from the radio.
And then I remember this wasn’t always my room. It was hers; Regina’s. Owen’s sister lived in here. She died in the hallway just outside. Owen looks down at the floor, where faint bloodstains still linger, worn to shadows by time. “Funny how the memory doesn’t fade.”
His hands, hanging loose and open at his sides, curl into fists. He should slip. If he were an ordinary History, the sight of this room and the memory of what happened here would be enough. The black of his pupils would waver and spread, engulfing the icy blue of his eyes. And as it did, he would go mad with fear and anger and guilt.
But Owen has never been an ordinary History. A prodigy turned prodigal son of the Archive. A brilliant but cunning member of Crew. A manipulator. A boy willing to jump off a roof just to die whole so he could return to punish the system he blamed.
I watch him step around the mark on the floor the way one would a body. “How long was I gone?” he asks, crouching to fetch his knife from the corner.
“Three weeks, six days, twenty hours,” I say, wishing the answer didn’t come so easily.
“What happened to Carmen?” he asks, straightening.
“She was reshelved,” I say, “after she tried to strangle me on your behalf.”
Owen turns back toward me, sliding the knife into the holster at his back. “Did she do anything else?”
“Besides waking up half the branch? No.”
A grim smile flickers across his face. “And the Archive just let you walk away?”
I say nothing, and he closes the gap between us. “No,” he answers for me. “They didn’t. Something is different about you, Miss Bishop. Something is wrong. They may have let you keep your memories, but they haven’t given you back your life.”
“At least I’m alive,” I challenge.
“But your head is full of splinters,” he says, his fingers tangling in my hair, his cheek coming to rest against mine. “Broken pieces and bad dreams and terror and doubt,” he whispers in my ear. “So jumbled up you can’t even tell real from not. Tell me, did the Archive do that to you?”
“No,” I say. “You did.”
His hand falls away as he pulls back to look at me. “I opened your eyes,” he says with strange sincerity. “I told you the truth. It’s not my fault you couldn’t handle it.”
“You lied to me, used me, and tried to kill me.”
“And you threw me into the void,” he says matter-of-factly. “The way I see it, we both did what we had to do. I didn’t enjoy deceiving you, and I didn’t want to kill you—I told you that then—but you were in my way. I’m here to find out if you still are.”
“I will always be in your way, Owen.”
A pale brow arches. “If only your thoughts were as sure as your words, Miss Bishop. But they don’t lie as easily. Do you know what’s written all over your mind? Doubt. You used to be so certain about your ideals—the Archive is law, is good, is god, trust in them, trust in Da—but your ideals are crumbling. The Archive is broken. Da knew—he had to know—and he still let them have you. Your head is full of questions, full of fears, and they are so loud I can barely hear the rest of you. And when Agatha hears them, she’s going to treat you like rot in her precious Archive. She’ll see you as something to be cut out before it spreads. And not even your beloved Roland will be able to stop her.” He brings his hands up to the wall on either side of me, caging me in. “You want to know why I’m here? Why I haven’t just slit your throat? Because unlike the Archive, I believe in salvaging what can be saved. And you, Mackenzie… Well, it would be a crime to let you go to waste. I want you to help me.”
“Help you do what?”
The ghost of a smile touches his lips. “Finish what I started.”
TWENTY-FIVE
I ALMOST LAUGH. And then I realize that Owen is serious.
“Why would I ever help you?”
“Other than self-preservation?” says Owen, pushing off the wall. “I can give you what you want.” He wanders around the bed to the bedside table. “I can give you back your grandfather.” His fingers trail along the edge of a photo before reaching for the blue bear beside the lamp. “And your brother, Ben.”
Owen’s fingers close around the bear just before I slam him back against the wall. Ben’s stuffed animal tumbles from his grasp.
“How dare you?” I hiss, pinning him there. “Do you think I would actually fall for that a second time? You’ve played this hand, Owen. It’s tired. And Ben is gone. I have no desire to drag him out of sleep again. The only thing I want is to see you on a shelf.”
Owen doesn’t fight back. Instead he levels his infuriatingly calm gaze on me. “That won’t solve your problems. Not anymore.”
“It’s a start.”
Owen’s hand flies up and wraps around my bad wrist. “So much misdirected anger,” he says, tightening his grip. I gasp at the pain, but the room holds steady around me as I pull back—and to my surprise, he lets go. I cradle my wrist, and Owen crosses his arms.
“Fine,” he says. “Let your dead rest. I can give you something else.”
“What’s that?” I snap. “Freedom? Purpose?”
Owen’s blue eyes narrow. “A life.”
I frown. “What?”
“A life, Mackenzie. One where you don’t have to hide what you are or what you do. No more secrets you don’t want to keep. No more lies you don’t want to tell. One life.”
“You can’t give me that.”
“You’re right. I can’t give it to you. But I can help you take it.”
One life? Does he mean a chance to walk away? To be normal? No more lying to my family, no more holding back from Wes? But there wouldn’t be a Wes, because Wes belongs to the Archive, Wes believes in the Archive. Even if I could walk away, he wouldn’t. I would never ask him to, and it doesn’t matter because it’s not possible. The Archive never lets you go. Not intact, anyway.
“What you’re promising doesn’t exist.”
“Not yet,” says Owen. “But by the time I’m done it will.”
“You mean once you’ve torn the Archive down—how did you put it, Owen? Branch by branch and shelf by shelf? You know I won’t let you.”
“What if I told you I didn’t have to? That the Archive would stay, and you would stay with it if you wanted to? Only no more secrets. Would that be worth fighting for?”
“You’re lying,” I whisper. “You’re just telling me what I want to hear.”
Owen sighs. “I’m telling you the truth. The fact that you want to hear it means you should listen.”
But how can I listen? What he’s saying is madness. A dream, and a poisonous one at that. I watch as Owen crosses to the radio and switches it off.