Please. I do not wish to hurt you. I do not think I could in any event.
"I… I know." My voice sounds strange, thin and full of breath "Who are you?"
He looks at me for a moment, almost as if he is disappointed that I have to ask. Then he says,
Come
with me.
I get up and follow him, gripping the lantern handle so tightly that it starts to cut into my fingers, and I have to switch hands.
The ghost leads me unhurriedly, but without hesitation. I don't know enough about clothes to guess at how long he has been dead, but I am sure it must be more than a hundred years. He has had a very long time to become familiar with the labyrinths of the Mirador.
He brings me to another staircase; it begins at an arch in a corridor wall, faced with white marble. The staircase is white marble, too, and the pilasters and banisters are carved with the Cordelius roses. I have a bad feeling that I know where we are going. I can remember someone telling me once that the crypt of the Cordelii was somewhere in the depths of the Mirador.
The ghost pauses, four steps down, and glances back.
"I'm coming," I croak.
The door at the bottom is made of iron, fronted with a wrought-iron grille of twining roses and flanked by grotesquely skeletal caryatids crowned with roses.
I do not believe the door is locked
, the ghost says.
I try the knob; the door swings open. I step inside.
It is all white marble and black iron, with three rows of sarcophagi, and wall tombs all the way around. The center row of sarcophagi are the largest; approaching, I see the name of Paul Cordelius, the first of his line, and succumbing to the silent weight of history, I follow the names down the hall: after Paul comes Matthias, then Sebastian, Edmund, Laurence, Charles, Claudius, Jasper, and the ill-fated John. I wonder who risked a charge of treason to be sure that John's remains were properly interred here with those of his forebears.
I look up and see the boy standing by another sarcophagus, this one in the row nearest the door, the last but one from the end. I make my way through the cold immensity to join him.
This is, er… that is to say, when I was alive…
I look at the engraving on the sarcophagus:
Silvester Ludovic Magnus
Cordelius
13.1.2-13.3.2
The dates are in the old-style reckoning and mean nothing to me.
I look up at him.
The boy sighs, a little line of worry pinching between his brows.
Does no one remember me at all?
"I don't know," I say. "I'm not… I'm not very well educated." I remember suddenly, too clearly, Shannon teasing me about my "patchy" knowledge of history. It seems so separate from me now that it might have happened to someone else. I look down at my hands.
It does not matter
, the boy says; I can tell from his voice that he know he has upset me, although he does not know how.
It is only, I suppose, the last of my mortal vanity, and it is in that case well
served.
"Would you like…" My voice breaks, and I have to try again. "If you wish to tell me, I will listen."
You are very kind
. I look up in time to see him smile, and although he is ever so slightly translucent, and although his eyes are pale and strange it is a charming smile, full of kindness and warmth.
But there is
nothing to tell. I died of plague, and it is only by the great mercy of the gods that my brother
Edmund did not die as well.
I say, stupidly, "I'm sorry, Prince Silvester."
Oh, please, call me Magnus.
"Magnus. And my name is Felix."
For a moment, the brightness of his smile makes him look almost alive.
You must be wondering what I
want—why I have frightened you half to death.
"You didn't." We both know I am lying. "What I want," I say hastily, "is to know why you can see me. Why you can talk to me."
Your question is the obverse of mine, then. I was wondering if, because you can see me, you might
be able to help me.
"Help you?"
I can talk to you
, he says very carefully,
because I was, er…is "raised" the correct term?
"Um. You mean necromancy?"
Yes.
"I think so. I'm not a necromancer."
Neither were the wizards who raised me
, he says, a sharp flick of contempt in his long-dead voice, and I remember that the court wizards of the Cordelii were all necromancers.
And they were fools. They
were seeking to raise Loël Fairweather.
I recognize the name Loël Fairweather, and then I realize that I know what happened to Magnus. "They thought that since he had defeated Porphyria Levant, he could show them how to defeat Brinvillier Strych."
Was
that
their reasoning
? He sounds disgusted.
"They didn't know any better," I say, feeling obscurely guilty and ignorant on their behalf. "They were desperate."
Which does not excuse them
. He sighs, and the fire goes out of him.
They did not disperse me before,
er…
"Before they were successful," I say, and there is a moment's grim silence as we contemplate the rewards of their success.
I want to be dispersed
, Magnus says.
This existence is unnatural and painful.
"But I… you don't think… surely you aren't imagining I can help you?"
You can talk to me. I know you said you weren't a necromancer, but—
"There are no necromancers in the Mirador. And I can talk to you because I'm crazy."
Oh
. It is a tiny noise, barely more than a gasp.
But you
are
a wizard. Isn't that what those tattoos
mean?
I look at the staring blue eyes on my palms. "Yes. But…"
But?
It is too much. I cannot explain. "I cannot help you. I am sorry. I can't even help myself, or I would…" But I don't know what I would do if I were not crazy, if Malkar had not broken me, if I still had my magic. "If I ever can help you, I will. I promise."
But you do not think it likely
. His expression is uncompromising, bleak, and I see that he does not want to be lied to.
"No. I am sorry."
Please. Do not be
, he says and reaches out, as if he would touch me. Felix
. And I can do even less for
you than you can do for me. Do you wish me to take you back to… to the part of the Mirador that
is still alive?
"No," I say. "I don't want to go back there."
But—
"It makes me worse," I say, and suddenly, brilliantly, I see the truth. It is the weight of magic that keeps me mad. I
was
better in St. Crellifer's, before Robert came. And this part of the Mirador, where no magic has been worked for hundreds of years, is better for me. There is a headache throbbing behind my eyes, from the effort of holding myself together, but I
can
hold myself together, I
can
talk to Magnus like a normal person. I haven't been able to do that since… since Robert came to St. Crellifer's. I remember the yellow-eyed man in the garden; I wonder if I could find him Magnus says, obstinately worried,
But
there is nothing for you to eat down here. It does no good to be sane if you starve to death.
"I'm not so sure of that."
You cannot be cured of death.
And the yellow-eyed man had said he thought my madness could be cured.
"Very well." I cannot help sighing. "But if I start to become… odd, please leave me."
As you wish
, he says, although his gaze is troubled. He leads me out of the crypt; I close the door behind us. We start back toward, as Magnus put it, the part of the Mirador that is still alive.
Mildmay
In the dream, I'm lost in the curtain-mazes at the Trials. This is a stupid dream, and I know it. I didn't go to the Trials this indiction. I couldn't stand being around that many people having a good time when Ginevra was dead and cold and was never going to laugh again. And anyway, I've never been lost in the curtain-mazes in my life. Even when I hadn't finished my first septad yet, and some of the older kids thought it would be funny to ditch me, I didn't get lost. I still remember them staring when I came out, and that was the first I'd known they'd done it on purpose.
So it's a stupid dream. But I can't get free of it, and I can't find my way out, and sometimes I think there's something behind me, although there never is when I look. And even though I feel like shit, I keep walking.
Even in the dream, I had the Fever in my lungs, and what finally woke me up was a coughing fit that could've waked the dead. About all you could say for it was I didn't cough up blood and I didn't quite puke.
When I was okay again—at least, I wasn't coughing, and that was good enough to get by on—I lay there and looked around. I didn't know where I was, and I knew that should have scared me, but it didn't. I couldn't seem to care enough to be scared. The light coming in the window was sort of morning-colored, even with the rain, and there was nobody in the room. And then I saw the table by the window, and the chairs, and the dark lantern still sitting there, and I knew I was in the hocus's room. He hadn't pitched me out to die in the street, and that was nice, but he hadn't had his bruiser drag me to St. Cecily's either, and that was worrisome. Would have been worrisome, I mean, except then I fell asleep again, and I was right back in that fucking maze.
Felix
The first sign is thee blood on the floor. At first it is just occasional drips, then pools, then streams running down the corridors, and then the floor disappears entirely beneath a river of blood.
What's wrong
? Magnus says.
"Nothing," I say, and wrench my eyes away from the tide of blood rising above my ankles. I cannot feel it, but that makes it worse, because I do not know whether I should mistrust my sense of sight or my sense of touch. And I think I can smell it faintly, a faraway stench of copper.
Are you sure? You look ill.
"Don't worry about me." My voice is shaking.
Felix, are you—
"It might be better if you left me." The blood is up to my thighs, and I can feel the Virtu distinctly, the black, rotten core of my throbbing headache.
But we—
"Please!"
Very well
. He gives me a slight bow and returns down the corridor the way we came. I cannot watch him go; the effect of the blood washing through him is more than I can bear. I am afraid I have offended him, but I truly don't know how much longer I can keep from screaming. After a moment, I continue walking; the blood is up to my waist, and darkness is rising off it, like fog off the Sim. I glance over my shoulder; Magnus is gone. I fold up where I am. If the blood is real, it will drown me; if it isn't real, it doesn't matter, because the darkness will drown me anyway. My knees hit the floor; blood fills my eyes.
Darkness.
The small monsters find me. They get me on my feet; their paws are gentle.
They take me to a larger monster; my vision wavers for a moment, and I see Master Architrave, who is the Second Steward of the Vielle Roche the oldest part of the Mirador. Then Architrave is gone again, and I am surrounded by monsters. In time, they bring me to the snake and the corpse.
The snake is furiously angry; the corpse is not angry, but the corpse
never
angry, and that means nothing. I expect to be beaten, but they 0nly make me wash my hands and face, and then drag me after them, out into the hallways. The blood is gone, and I am grateful.
The Virtu is getting louder in my head, but every time I try to stop, the corpse grabs my arm and drags me farther. I don't want the corpse to touch me, so I keep walking, eyen though my vision has started pulsing with the Virtu's brokenness, and sometimes I cannot see where I am going through the darkness. I only fall once; the corpse jerks me to my feet, and we go on.
Then we are in front of the great bronze doors of the Hall of the Chimeras. They are open. I don't want to go in, but now the snake takes my other arm, and it and the corpse march me through the doors.
The shards of the Virtu streak the darkness in my eyes with strident blue. My magic is bound and broken; I have no defenses against the throbbing wrongness that fills the Hall of the Chimeras. I clench my teeth to be sure that I don't start keening.
We come to a halt somewhere in front of the Virtu. My eyes won't work, and all I can hear is the Virtu's frail song. I know there are other monsters here; I see them in fragmentary glimpses: a bear, a granite lioness, an alabaster statue with eyes as blue as the Virtu's shards, a thing like a silver wolf, a hawk-headed monster in a blue coat.
The corpse forces me to kneel. The snake's fingers touch my temples. I am screaming. I can't see; I can't hear; everything is black and terrible, and the pain is like being turned inside out. If I could see my hands, know the bones would be splintering through my skin. I can feel the black, howling thing in my chest ripping itself free of my ribs.
Suddenly, the pain is gone. I fall forward, catching myself on my hands, retching, although there is nothing in my stomach to bring up.
The mosaics bite into my palms. Slowly, I fold backwards, bringing my hands up to cover my face. I can feel tears on my cheeks, and I am still shaking. I can't see, and my ears are full of a roaring noise.
Something touches my shoulder; my hands go up, reflexively, to ward off the blow that must be coming, and I touch the stiff elaboration of brocade. But my eyes will not work; there is nothing here except darkness and the terrible blue shards of the Virtu. Then the monster—it must be a monster, for I have seen no people since the boy left me—is gone, and I curl up on myself again and wish my head would just split open and end this horror.