Judgment (25 page)

Peers visited the restroom, relieved himself, and splashed some water (hot from the tap; Ember flats had everything) on his face. Then he removed the ball from the sheets, using only his index finger and thumb in deference to the slobber. The ball went back to the bin, and Peers traded it for a chew toy. Let the damned dog gnaw. It’d mean gross chomping sounds all night, but what the hell, Peers was plenty tired enough to sleep through it, and “chew” wasn’t a game that required a partner.
 

Nocturne watched Peers set the toy on the floor. Then he ignored it, returning to the bin for the ball. He set it down and barked again.
 

“You don’t even like balls.” Then, because it was late and he felt lightheaded, he added, “Just like my ex-wife.”
 

Nocturne retrieved the ball again then ran out into the hallway. Which was good enough. Until he returned, left, then returned again, tail wagging, dropping the ball long enough to pant, retrieving it, dropping it to woof and play-growl and bark.
 

“What the piss is wrong with you?”
 

Nocturne barked.
 

“There aren’t any other dogs here, shitbox.”
 

Another bark, now wagging his tail while backing toward the open doorway.

So Peers left his bed again, wrapped himself in the soft, fragrant robe provided by the household, and plodded toward the doorway to see what the hell the dog had up his butt. Halfway there, he retraced his steps and put on a pair of big, puffy slippers. They were posh but black enough for Peers to consider them manly.
 

He stuck his head out into the hallway, half expecting to find one of Jabari’s assistants walking some froufrou breed of terrier, possibly with a pink bow in its hair, around the house for late-night exercise. That would be funny; Nocturne was large even for a lab, and chances were he’d annihilate a little dog if they played the race-to-the-ball game together.
 

But the hallway was empty.
 

Nocturne looked up at Peers. Then, likely anticipating more profanity, the dog trotted away, glancing back over his haunches, begging his owner to follow and join in the fun.

“No,” Peers said.
 

Nocturne barked halfway — a quieter noise than usual, perhaps in deference to the late hour, and the likelihood that others were sleeping.
 

“I said no.”
 

Another bark.
 

“I’m going to have you skinned and made into a wallet, you shitter.”
 

Nocturne had reached the short hallway’s end, where it met another perpendicular hallway. The dog ignored Peers, glancing off to the right, and barked in that direction. His big black head turned to Peers, ears flopping. His mouth dropped open, the ball falling to the floor with a disgusting smack. He dropped his front half down, elbows on the floor, elevated ass wagging feverishly: “downward dog” to human yoga aficionados; “play crouch” in dog parlance.
 

Before Peers could shout more epithets, the dog sprang from the crouch and ran off down the other hallway.
 

Peers mumbled to follow. There was nothing around the corner, but Nocturne kept going. Peers walked to the new hallway’s end and found himself facing another, also empty. The halls were like a hotel in Wonderland, endlessly lined with anonymous rooms, crisscrossing and intertwining in a configuration that Peers, exhausted, found impossible to follow.
 

“Fine,” he said at the next intersection to nobody in particular, hearing the now-distant scraping of dog claws and what sounded like a quiet human voice too low to hear. “But you’re out for the night.”
 

And that at least was something. He could close his door, and Nocturne wouldn’t be able to bug him again, unless of course he scratched at the door to be let in. Which he almost certainly would.
 

He turned and took the first step back toward his room, but that was all he managed before hearing a new sound behind him. He peeked back around the corner and saw small feet, small swinging arms, a mass of little-girl hair.

“Clara?” Peers said, finding himself suddenly spooked by the uncertain sound of his voice.

But Clara was gone, marching on to more exciting places in the dead of night.

He was about to follow, but then something caught his eye and he squinted, bending forward at the waist.
 

And said, again to no one in particular, “What’s this, then?”
 

The big black dog ran ahead then sat in front of the wall, waiting for Clara, his tail wagging.

Clara’s memories of the Heaven’s Veil viceroy’s mansion were clearer than her mother liked to believe, and it struck Clara now how similarly they’d been constructed — on the inside, if not out; in the details, if not the overall scheme. Heaven’s Veil had been like a Roman palace, and this place was a fittingly Ancient Egyptian one with a kooky modern interpretation, but both were stone and wood, and the wood was always elaborately carved, sconces on the wall distinct but similar enough to have been born from the same basic mind. The floor plans echoed each other (Clara sometimes still walked the Heaven’s Veil mansion in her mind; she’d read once about a memory technique called the “memory palace” and used their old home as her place to mentally place things she ought not forget), and the room sizes were too consistently repeated to feel like coincidence. To Clara, the echoes felt like two places designed by the same architect using distinctly different styles: an artist could change her mode but never hide her own, innate voice.
 

Two mansions created by the same mind.
 

Which, considering what Clara could see in the Astral collective (not much, but she caught a sense the way she did with most things), made perfect sense. They had many bodies, and one shared mind.
 

It was different from the way humans had many bodies and one shared mind. But, like the mansions, similar at root.
 

The wall where Nocturne had sat himself was wood-paneled, carved and polished, bookended by crown molding and a five-inch baseboard. The floor was hardwood, not tile like much of the rest of the house or carpeted like others. They’d descended a flight of stairs, and windows vanished from the walls. But even without looking out into the dark, Clara’s internal compass told her she was a breath below ground, in the part of the house facing the Ark’s courtyard, way across on the far end. Viceroy Jabari had given them that virtual tour, showing them around the local area without actually needing to show them around. Clara knew the others found this suspicious — being
shown around
while still inside. Clara could feel by probing at Ms. Jabari — it was true, they weren’t permitted to leave. But she also sensed conflict inside the viceroy, and it was ordinary, everyday discord like Clara felt coming from her mother. Mom sometimes forbade Clara things she wanted because it was best for her, not because she wanted to be mean. Viceroy Jabari’s feelings were like that. Clara liked the viceroy and believed even the parts of what she said that Clara, by tuning in, couldn’t objectively prove true or false. She wouldn’t lead them into danger no matter what Mr. Peers might think.

Nocturne was still sitting by the wooden wall, his tail slapping the floor. The hallway died at the wall, and Clara knew that when she reached it, she’d have to decide between right and left. This pretty much had to be an outside wall, with the courtyard beyond it.
 

“Which way should we go, boy?”
 

The dog barked, not moving.
 

“You can pick,” Clara said.
 

Clara liked following the dog. It was definitely more fun than aimless wandering. She’d lain in her bed for a long time, pretending to sleep because Clara sleeping would make Mom feel most comfortable. But she hadn’t been sleeping; Clara had been in her internal space, talking to any who came from outside, exploring her memory palace back in Heaven’s Veil’s echo, gathering objects that her mind (except for the deep-down parts) had forgotten she’d once put there. But the minute Mom had risen, sleepless herself, and wandered back to find Original Grandpa, Clara had popped out of bed. She could roam without worrying her mother if she kept tabs on Mom’s mind, just to make sure she didn’t return while Clara was gone. So she’d shut out the others she usually tried to hear — Kindred, Grandma Piper, Mr. Cameron — and focused. And with her mother’s emotional presence buzzing in the back of her mind like the fluorescents had buzzed in the bunker when she’d been inside Mom’s belly, Clara had set out, exploring, led wherever her guide chose to take her.
 

But Nocturne wasn’t choosing a direction, so when Clara reached him, she ran a hand from his slick head and down his back, pausing to scratch under his ears. And then she pointed for him, spinning a little as she indicated right versus left.
 

The dog faced the wall.
 

“You can’t go that way, silly. There’s a wall.”
 

Nocturne barked.
 

Clara stepped off to the left. “How about this way? I think the kitchen is this way.”
 

The dog didn’t move, staying where he’d sat. He looked at Clara, panting happily.
 

“Maybe they have bacon in the kitchen.”
 

No movement.
 

“Come on.” Clara patted her leg.
 

And still no movement. Until the dog stuck his butt in the air and rubbed against the baseboard moulding.
 

“Hey, hey! You’ll scratch it!”
 

She ran over to pull the dog away by his collar. Nocturne weighed more than Clara for sure, but he backed away willingly, panting at her with a dog-smile, as if he’d done well and she should praise him.
 

“Look at this, you bad boy,” Clara said, running her fingers along a series of dull scratches in the hardwood. They were faint, but noticeable once you really got in there and looked close. And there were plenty now that she saw them. More than should have been caused by a few seconds of digging at a corner. The damage was barely there, not much more than the normal scuffs in the rest of the hallway. But it was strange because these scuffs ran right into the baseboard.
 

Where, now that she looked, there appeared to be a recessed button. It looked like a little half-moon shape carved into the molding’s pattern, but there was clearly, on close inspection, a tiny gap around its edge.
 

A secret door?
Clara’s heart raced at the idea. She suddenly fancied herself inside Mr. Cameron’s most cherished memories — the ones he kept hidden deep, and even a few that he hadn’t given Clara permission to investigate. Mr. Cameron and his father had found secret passages when they’d been exploring together. Those old memories usually came with arguments — father saying one thing, son insisting another.

You’re absolutely sure you want to go in there?
Clara heard in her head.
 

But it was a ghost voice. Cameron’s dad from long ago — prelude to yet another boring lecture about how Cameron always insisted he knew things he didn’t because he was too proud. One of those memories Clara probably shouldn’t really go into because Cameron wouldn’t like her seeing, but to Clara it was all so mundane. He liked to be right. Was that really so bad? Clara liked to be right about things, too.
 

She pushed the tiny button. The dog nosed the wall as something clicked, opening a passage.
 

Clara’s internal compass had been right about one thing: this was an outer wall, and there really was just the courtyard beyond.
 

That’s probably why, with a mere three feet of clearance, the passage descended on a ladder.
 

Clara hesitated. She really shouldn’t go down there. It must be one of the passages Ms. Jeanine had said must be here somewhere, connecting the Ember Flats government buildings in case of emergency, but Clara wasn’t a viceroy running from bad guys. She was a bored little girl with an itch to explore.
 

Nocturne had no such compunctions. He leaped down into the tunnel, dropping six feet and landing lighter than he should have, like a cat.

Well, she couldn’t exactly leave Nocturne down there alone, could she? He’d found the passage, but Clara had opened it for him to drop into. She could go back and get help, but was there any point in waking Mr. Peers? He’d had a rough day, with almost changing his mind about killing the viceroy.
 

The tunnel had to come up somewhere. And if the only ways up were ladders that big black dogs were unable to climb? Well, that particular bridge could be crossed when she reached it.
 

She sent her mind out to her mother. With the others shut out, seeing Mom was easy. She was still talking to Original Grandpa, discussing the aliens’ memory bank and whether opening it was smart. It was good that particular decision wasn’t hers — of course she’d open it without thinking twice. Who could resist the lure of a big, gold mystery box? It had freaked her out the first time, just like Mr. Cameron. But it was okay now. Little wounds never lasted long.