Curio (51 page)

Cold twigs snatched at her clothes and hair, and ripples of clinking glass followed her descent. A few translucent leaves dropped to the ground as Grey landed. The earth sprang beneath her feet like moldy black velvet.

Blaise lay as still as the roots breaking through the forest floor even when Grey touched his cheek. She untied the ropes of the sling from the steam pack harness but left Blaise tucked in the folds of canvas as she went to explore.

Still air robbed the place of time like the clear trees stole all color. Grey drew in a breath, and the action seemed foreign in this monochromatic world. The white tree towered at the edge of the clearing across from her. She made her way over the spongy soil, goose bumps tracking up her arms.

Midway up the trunk, a rectangle of frosted glass stood out against the glossy pattern of the bark. There was no knob or handle, only a keyhole set in the center of the rectangle.

Grey smiled. “I found it, Blaise. We're here.”

She turned to head back to Blaise, but a fleck of color caught her eye, a rusty brown hue that lodged in her brain. She scanned the trees closest to her then dropped her gaze to the forest floor. Shadows populated the wood, but Grey locked onto the source of the color. She stepped around the white trunk into the dense line of glass trees and walked only a few steps. There at her feet lay a mound of discarded keys.

The tangled mass of metal stuck in her thoughts, refusing to fall into place. She stared at the pile, and the keys morphed into fingers of rusted copper, bronze, tarnished silver, iron, and gold. Fingers and faces. Motionless tock bodies, piled at the edge of Cog Valley.

Grey covered her mouth with both hands and backed away from the heap of tock bones. How many lives lay here on the forest floor? And how had . . .? But she knew.

She stumbled across the clearing to Blaise and fell on her knees next to him. His long twists of hair writhed across the canvas as she shook his shoulders.

“Blaise, wake up.” Her voice carried in the stillness.

“Grey.”

She forced her fingers to unlock from his sleeves and sat back, pressing her fists to her temples. “The keys. I saw the keys.”

His liquid eyes didn't waver from hers. “Then you know. You know what I am. You know where the legend of the Mad Tock comes from.”

“How could you do that?”

“In the beginning, all I wanted was to escape. I didn't want to believe that the porcies and tocks were alive, like us.”

“Why didn't you take their keys back when you found out they wouldn't unlock the door?”

He winced. “I tried. But by the time I stopped stealing keys and started trying to repair the damage I'd done, they'd scavenged the de-animated tocks for parts and dragged what was left to the edge of Cog Valley.”

Grey slumped to sit on the ground. “I saw.”

“I'm sorry.” His voice thickened. “You don't know how sorry. I tried to do penance, tried to help them, but I can't take back what I did all those years ago.”

Grey stared at her porcelain fingers, moving them in a pattern against her leg as though she played the piano. Words of judgment formed in her thoughts, but she kept them inside.

“I won't blame you if you leave me here,” he said.

Her chin jerked up. “But I need you.”

“You never needed me. You're a better Defender than I could ever be.”

Grey studied his face. “But you're more than a Defender, aren't you? My hand? Clara?”

He pressed his pale lips together and gestured toward her throat. “Give me the key.”

She pulled it off her neck and held it for a moment. The object of Blaise's hundred-year search rested in her palm. She could run over, jam it in the lock, and be gone, leaving him to either die or continue his exile. She ran one porcelain finger over the etchings in the glass. Who was to say she wouldn't have stolen the tocks' keys? Who was to say she wouldn't have done worse to get back to her family?

Blaise watched her, a question in his dark eyes.

Grey dropped the key into his palm.

He gripped it between his hands and twisted. The two pieces separated and Blaise held them up for her inspection.

“Look, it's not broken.” He held the hollow piece in one hand and the intricately designed bow in the other.

“But, why—?”

“You never needed me,” Blaise repeated. “All you need is my blood.”

Grey gaped at Blaise then at the key. “I don't understand.”

“I'm guessing Steinar married an ordinary citizen. Your mother?”

“Yes.”

Blaise tapped the symbol of a cupped hand on the hollow shaft. “And your father is a Defender.” He touched the etching of a fist. “So was my father.” His finger rested on the figure of the open hand. “My mother was a Chemist.”

“But Chemists only marry other Chemists—”

“And Defenders only marry other Defenders, or at least that's the way it was before the Chemists exterminated the
Defenders. That's why this combination”—he stroked the symbols from top to bottom—“isn't exactly common.”

Electricity zinged through Grey's veins. “I have it now, don't I, because I have your blood in me.”

He nodded. “Magic in your veins.”

The phrase burrowed deep into Grey's mind, transforming out of Blaise's voice and into her grandfather's and finally into her own. She muttered the chant Granddad had spoken in his shop what seemed like years ago.

“Love is magic in our veins. Love the hand of the punisher stays. Love heals what justice flays. Love defends and mercy reigns.”

Blaise smiled. “The old Defender Codes. So your father has taught you something of your heritage.”

“My grandfather. He said it when I brushed my hand over the curio cabinet in his store. He checked my palm for blood and then he said those words.”

“Blood is the way in and blood is the way out.” He handed her the two pieces of the key.

A tiny glass knife was attached to the bow of the key. When the two parts were together, the hollow shaft hid the sharp edge.

“You're free to go, Grey.” Blaise's tone fell and her name came out in a whisper.

She curled her palm around the key and met his eyes. “You're going with me.”

“I saw the way you looked at me, after you found the keys. You were right to judge me. If I can't fix what I did, then I should pay for the lives I took with my own.”

Grey shook her head. “You have paid. Callis. Seree. All the tocks and porcies you fixed. Me. You're dying because of what you sacrificed for me.”

“No, I can't run from what I did.”

Grey closed her porcelain fingers around the bow of the key and drove the glass knife into the flesh of her other palm. Dark blood welled up and she pressed the tube part of the key to the wound. Her blood flowed into the vial, filling it in seconds. When she'd staunched her bleeding and twisted the two parts of the key back together, she held it up for Blaise to see.

The blood key glowed ruby red against the colorless backdrop of the clearing. Grey looked from the key to Blaise.

“We'll come back here. Together.”

His eyes met hers, the deep brown outer ring soft and searching. He jerked his chin down once.

Scrambling to her feet, Grey eyed the distance between Blaise and the tree. She grasped the corners of the sling and lugged it across the velvet earth. When she got him to the base of the white tree, his lids fluttered.

“Not yet. Stay with me a little longer. I'm not sure how this is going to work.”

He forced his eyes open, but his lashes drifted down as though weighted. She knelt but couldn't keep her hand on him and reach the keyhole at the same time. Would the tree trunk open like a door? Would she be sucked through like she was when she entered Curio? That scenario seemed more likely.

While she struggled to position Blaise, the pile of rusted keys drew her gaze again and again. The sight picked at her brain, crawling into dark places and festering. It was wrong and ugly. A visible testament to something broken inside Blaise.

She let her eyes rest on Blaise's face once again. He'd lost consciousness despite her quiet urging. The mark on her stomach pulsed as though reaching for him. The strange surge of his Chemist blood skimmed beneath the surface of her skin, mingling with her Defender strength to form a liquid shell, like a second skin beneath her own.

Even if she got him home, he might not make it. He'd lost so much blood. Given it to her. She let her eyes travel to the hoard of keys once more. If Blaise died, she would come back and see every key returned to the tock he'd taken it from. If it meant staying in Curio, if it meant facing Benedict and his soldiers, so be it. She'd see it done.

Strength flared from her gut outward, flashing through her limbs like a potent mix of thunder and lightning. She stooped, lifted Blaise in her arms, and propped him against the white tree trunk.

With her body pressed close to his, Grey thrust the blood key into the lock and turned it.

Whit stood where Adante ordered him to, in the back corner of Haward's Mercantile, surrounded by the remains of Grey's grandfather's store.

How much had his thoughts given away to the Chemist? He tried to remember what crashed through his head when he saw Marina lying on the pavement, stunned. But all he could see was her still body and the strands of her hair blowing in the wind. He thought his chest would crack in two.

The Chemist stood over Haimon like a black crane challenging a heron. Whit heard his own name in Adante's slick tone.

“Whitland's thoughts indicate otherwise, Haimon. Why did he picture you hunched over the case and attach hope—pathetic hope—to that image? It seems you're counting on a different outcome than you've led me to believe.”

Haimon looked up into the Chemist's eyes, his own scarred face expressionless. “That emotion belonged to the boy, as you well know. You can't connect my feelings and actions to his thoughts.”

“No, but I can see you in his mind just as he sees you.”

“It proves nothing.”

“And the blow that leveled me the night Grey disappeared? That wasn't just the power fluctuation of a budding Defender, was it? Grey had nothing to do with rendering me unconscious. It was you!”

Misery swallowed their argument. Whit's stomach clenched, giving the pain in his heart competition over which would kill him first. The bottles of Cagey's mix stashed in the truck lingered at the back of his mind. His errand cost him Marina, but if he could swallow one potion, the pain would vanish. Maybe he'd find a way to get her back.

The thought twisted into his soul until the image from the street killed it. They'd loaded her into a chug boat and, since she was unregistered, she'd be taken straight to the tower. He'd never see her again.

A pulse like the energy of an electrical storm pushed Whit backward. His spine cracked into the shelf behind him. The wooden edge tore a couple of his stripes open. He couldn't stop his fall. His legs buckled and he slid to the floor.

Haimon's face appeared over the display case, Adante hovering behind.

Whit opened his mouth to speak, but bright light poured into the store. He squinted and shielded his eyes. Adante yelled something, and the sound of hurried footsteps amid clutter carried to Whit's crumpled position.

“Holy Defender,” Haimon breathed.

Whit dropped his hand from his eyes and felt them widen despite the remaining glow.

Grey stood in the opposite corner, holding up a sagging form with long, tangled hair. She wore a strange white glove on one hand and an odd contraption on her back. Were those folded-up wings?

Adante appeared, standing before Grey and blocking Whit's view. Haimon dashed around the corner of the split counter.

Whit's fingers found the edge of the display case nearest him. He dragged himself up in time to see Grey falter. She tried to step away from the Chemist, but between the body in her arms and the bulky pack, she stumbled.

Adante reached out and took hold of the lifeless form, supporting him so that he didn't drop to the floor.

“No,” Grey screamed, her arms clutching the body. She glared around the lolling dark head. The words she spoke took Whit back to the night the deputies caught them in the alley.

“Take me. Take me. Not him.”