“Like the Grue,” someone else mutters.
“Have the Architects infiltrated us?” another asks.
I can’t help but look around for Hal at that, but he’s nowhere to be seen. I don’t want to believe he would be behind such a thing, but then again, he’s the only Architect I know. The Architects steal or release Unnaturals from time to time, saints only know why. Father has always been certain that’s what happened to the Grue when it disappeared last year shortly after Charles came. I think about the breathing I heard in the dark downstairs and shiver.
Dim greenish light filters down onto the empty exhibit. It tricks out the scales of the Wyvern in the adjacent alcove. If the Architects are stealing specimens, what are they doing with them? And what will become of the Museum? I’m suddenly angry at Hal. If he is behind this, more than just his precious Unnaturals could be affected. I look at Father, who’s rubbing his chin with a gnarled hand. Ultimately, the responsibility for all of this rests on Father’s shoulders. I know there were repercussions from the loss of the Grue, though Father never speaks of it. I cannot imagine how he will fare with the loss of a prime exhibit like the Sphinx.
Father shakes my elbow to make me pay attention. “I must go to my office now, Vee,” he says. “This security issue is very serious. Stay in the Cataloguing Chamber today, do you hear?” He mops sweat from under the Sheep of Learning with his handkerchief.
I nod. His black robes swish down the corridor and off toward the old observatory.
He’s not going to his office.
Hm.
I follow him, far enough behind that I can see the edge of his robe as he turns corners. He vanishes through the observatory doors just as I peep into the corridor.
I follow, walking as softly as I can, but there’s no need. There’s a deep hum and rumble from within that obscures all sound. One of the doors is still ajar. I slip inside.
I’ve always loved the old observatory and was sad when it was mostly dismantled. The Pedants of the Astronomy Division said the ambient light from the Refineries made it hard to see the stars, so they moved the telescope to one of the mountains outside Scientia. But the old orrery is still here; the planets on its skeletal arms are connected by long cobwebs. Near it rises the sleek dome of a hellish-looking machine I’ve never seen before. Hoses snake out from its center like tentacles toward laboratory benches. A glass container sits under the mouth of the machine, and in it stirs the restless black sand of the Waste.
Father is over on the other side of the array. And there’s someone with him. Two someones.
I creep a little closer, hoping I’m well-hidden in the shadows of the entryway. I know I should be writing my letter of apology to Pedant Simian about the loss of his collection or perhaps helping the Scholars search for the missing Sphinx (if they would allow me), but I want to know what Father’s doing. He used to tell me everything; I don’t understand why he won’t now.
Charles leads a girl to the table, a girl with a checkered headband and long, dark hair. A Tinker? What is Charles doing with a Tinker girl?
“Don’t you have other things to do besides skulking around your father’s laboratory?” someone whispers behind me. All the hairs on my neck shiver.
Hal.
I do my best to turn slowly and keep my expression icy-calm.
“Don’t you have better things to do than sneaking up on people?” I retort.
“Vespa, if you have any sense at all, which I begin to doubt, you will come with me now before we are discovered and all my work is in vain.”
He’s so close to me now that I can smell him—crushed roses, ink, a whiff of jam cake. Piskel looks up at me from his pocket, nodding fiercely.
I turn and walk out of the observatory and down the corridor back toward the Main Hall. Reaction makes my knees hot and wobbly. If the Sphinx leaped at me from some corner right now, I don’t think I could run fast enough to get away from her. Hal catches up to me in silence.
“What do you want, Pedant?” I say, finally.
He slides a cream-colored, neversealed envelope into view. “This was delivered to your Father’s office. The clerk asked me to give it to you when he passed me a bit ago; he couldn’t find you,” he says.
The invitation from Lucy Virulen. It’s sealed with a tiny Manticore.
“Just in time, it appears,” he says, looking back toward the corridor where he found me.
My hands shake. I touch the seal and it dissolves. The letter unfolds like a living creature and rests lightly in my palm.
“Yes,” I say. Words with all their arabesques and illuminations swim before my eyes.
“What were you doing back there?” he asks. His voice is stiff.
“Why are you angry? Because I was about to discover information you haven’t dared to find out for yourself?”
Hal looks around at the flood of Pedants and Scholars moving through the Main Hall on their way to morning lecture or laboratories. A search party is still wandering through the halls, but I’m guessing they’ll call in the Raven Guard when they get desperate enough. Or else just forget about it and hope nothing untoward happens, as they did with the Grue.
“Not here,” he says. He takes my elbow. A little shock zips past my sleeve and beneath my skin. Before I can protest, we’re on the stairs toward the storage basement.
I clutch the letter like a limp bird in my hand as we descend. Fear slips through me—why should I trust Hal? He is an Architect and a heretic. He’s had every chance to use my own powers (about which I know nothing) against me. And yet he has risked his life for me more than once. He has kept my secret. Whatever else there may or may not be between us, he’s the only person in the world who could possibly understand me, perhaps even help me. Why, then, is he so angry with me now?
We go to a storage room beyond the iron gate. I peer down the narrow stair as we pass. That elusive breathing haunts me with thoughts of the lost Unnaturals.
A single everlight wanders an endless circuit around the room Hal chooses. Skeletons, collection boxes, and specimen jars cast strange shadows, but the musty smell of ancient things is infinitely comforting. I would like to hide here for quite a long while.
Hal releases me. “Do you have any idea what’s at stake here? Do you have any idea how much you risk if we are exposed?” His anger flashes cerulean in the gloom.
I raise my chin and arch my brow in the way the Instructor of Refinement once taught us at Seminary. “We?”
“Yes, damn it,” he says. “You are part of this now, whether you like it or not.”
“Why? And I don’t particularly appreciate your cursing at me, Pedant Lumin.” I would almost swear the boggle fetus in its jar trembles at the frost in my words.
Hal closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose with a long sigh of frustration. Piskel peeks out of Hal’s waistcoat pocket. He glares at me and shakes his fist, as if reminding me that he’ll bite me again if I don’t cooperate, even though I’m not exactly sure what I’m to cooperate with. He slips out of Hal’s pocket and floats over to examine the specimens on the shelves.
“Well?” I ask.
“I am trying with all my might, little as it is, to shield you and keep you safe. And yet you are continually putting yourself in harm’s way.”
“It seems I’m putting myself in harm’s way no matter what I do. But I don’t see what that has to do with anything. Are you just jealous because I’m on the verge of discovering things you aren’t? Is that it?”
“Vespa, don’t you see? You’re at the center of a vast web of darkness that is about to close in on you. The Empress sits at the center like a spider, waiting for one such as you to be delivered into her clutches. And your father is just the one to do it.”
The everlight slowly travels the perimeter of the storage room. Things leap from the shadows—goblin spines, kelpie eggs preserved in spirits. Piskel floats between them, humming sadly.