Mira and Holt stepped out of the shed and moved to the closest lift. It was not a quickly cobbled-together box of scrap wood; its pieces had been chosen from strong sources, blended together and rounded into soft curves, and polished and lacquered to a brilliant sheen. Mira opened the door to the closest one and stepped inside, feeling it tilt as her and Holt’s combined weight shifted it.
Inside was a small wooden panel with two large metallic handles. One was marked
LOWER
and the other
RAISE.
Mira looked at Holt as he shut the door behind them. “This can be a pretty wild ride,” she said.
Holt studied her soberly. “Yeah, that was my guess.”
Mira smiled and yanked the lever labeled
LOWER
down and back.
Outside the lift, the huge chains and weights they had just configured in the shed raced through their pulleys as the tension released. The lift lurched and they were flung off the platform and up into the air.
Mira felt gravity catch them as they moved not just upward, but also sideways. Looking up through the small window shaped into the ceiling of the lift, she and Holt saw the ropes and chains that suspended them from the grid-work on the ceiling shift through various metallic rails and tracks as the tension pulled them to a specific spot.
When they reached it, the lift swung to a halt, swaying precariously over the hundreds of feet of empty air between them and the rock floor below.
Holt pushed back against the wall, probably in an attempt to feel something solid and not think about the sheer drop underneath them. Mira held his gaze, finding his discomfort pretty cute, if she were to be honest about it.
“Going down,” she said with another smile …
… and then the lift plummeted at breakneck speed toward the dark of the Vault below them.
42.
VAULT
MAX WATCHED,
chin on his paws, as Zoey rummaged through a collection of items on a desk and placed them one at a time back on the study area’s cabinets. They were all things she assumed were from the Strange Lands—pens, circuit boards, coins in plastic sleeves, springs, candles, spoons, doorknobs—and she watched as they all seemed to writhe and push away from one another, ever so slightly. Or was it a trick of the eye? Zoey couldn’t tell.
“You were supposed to organize them by color,” a stern, gravelly voice said behind her. Zoey turned and saw the Librarian watching her inquisitively, standing near the bottom of the teaching area, where the steps began.
She couldn’t read the old man as easily as she could other people. His emotions were weaker than everyone else’s, but not because he was without feeling. There were feelings there, but she guessed he was so in control of them, they never stood out. There had been only two times when she felt something from him, and both had been mixtures of sadness and apprehension, but so brief, she barely felt them at all. Zoey wasn’t sure if the mastery came from the old man’s age or from some facet of his personality. Either way, that restraint wasn’t something she experienced often.
“I was lining them up by how strong they felt,” Zoey replied, holding the old man’s gaze. She watched as his eyes thinned, and there, right then, she felt something from him: a stir of emotion, surprise mainly, but it fell away almost as quickly as it came.
“And how do you know which are ‘stronger,’ little one?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I just … feel it, sort of.”
The Librarian studied her even more closely now, and she felt the weight of his scrutiny on her. It wasn’t pleasant—she felt like one of his artifacts, like something to be analyzed and cataloged.
“Your name, girl,” the Librarian said bluntly after a moment. “Tell it to me.”
“Zoey,” she answered simply.
“Zoey,” he said in a slow, musing tone, as if deciding whether it truly fit her. “There is an air about you. A vibration almost, like a static charge. It’s something I encounter frequently, but never in people.”
Zoey had no idea what he was talking about, but it was interesting. “Where
do
you notice it, sir?”
He held her gaze pointedly. “Only in artifacts from the Strange Lands.” There seemed to be some implication in the statement, some musing, but she had no idea what it was. But before she could ask, he spoke again. “Where are you from?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Where did you grow up, I mean,” he pressed.
“I don’t know,” she said again in a lower voice, reaching for more of the artifacts. This subject wasn’t something she liked talking about. “I don’t have many memories.”
The Librarian contemplated her even more intently. There was a long pause before he finally spoke again. “You sensed the artifacts’ power as you touched them. I’d bet you can sense other things, too, can’t you, Zoey?” he asked.
Zoey went still at the question, hands holding the artifacts she was about to stack, and Max’s ears perked up curiously. No one had ever guessed her ability, not from simple observation, and she was suddenly uneasy about the old man. If he was that perceptive, who knew what else he might be able to deduce.
“Emotions, thoughts, memories?” the Librarian kept on. “Which is it?”
Zoey said nothing, just stared at the old man at the bottom of the steps.
“You can tell me, girl. There’s no danger in it,” he told her. “You can tell me if anyone, I assure you.”
Zoey wasn’t convinced. Should she tell him? He already seemed to know the truth, but was it smart to confirm it? What would Mira or Holt say? Mira trusted the old man—Zoey could sense that much—and there was even some affection there, but she was also cautious around him.
Suddenly, she felt a stirring in the back of her mind. The feelings blossoming and coming to life, the ones that had guided her before. When she noticed them this time, the first thing she felt was anger. Why now? Why hadn’t they appeared earlier, when she could have saved Mira from the Tone?
The feelings washed over her, and she absorbed them, discerning their meaning, and it was almost instantly clear: She should trust the old man. There was no hint as to why; she sensed only that it was important she do so. They wanted her to tell him everything.
The feelings were unpredictable, it was true, but they had never steered her wrong, as far as Zoey could tell. In fact, in spite of the frustrations she sometimes had, she’d come to trust them, almost as much as she trusted Holt and Mira. So she followed their lead yet again.…
“Feelings,” she said. “Other people’s feelings.”
The Librarian nodded, as if he’d expected that answer. “You can sense them,” he said.
“It’s more than that. It’s like I’m the one feeling them,” she answered. “Sometimes it’s scary.”
“I can imagine, Zoey,” the old man said with sincerity. “But there’s more, isn’t there? A lot more.”
Zoey told him the rest. Told him about the feelings, how they came and went, how they guided her. She told him how they had helped her cure two survivors of the Tone, how she had wiped it away by just touching them and willing it to happen. And how she couldn’t make it happen when she tried to heal Mira, how it never seemed to be
her
doing it at all.
Through it all, the Librarian remained quiet, listening and absorbing her words. When Zoey was done, he stood in silence, thinking. “Keep stocking the shelves,” he said absently. “It’s work that needs doing.”
Zoey started stacking the artifacts again, moving them around so that they were grouped in matching colors, as the old man wanted. As she did so, she noticed the Librarian was no longer watching her. He was too deep in thought.
“Why are you here, Zoey?” he finally asked. “In Midnight City. You came here for a reason, not just to help Mira. Am I right?”
“The feelings pushed me to come,” she said. “But I don’t know why. I just know there’s something here for me.”
The Librarian was silent a moment more; then he looked at Zoey. “It’s possible that your inability to use your powers is tied to your memory loss. Memories are what make us who we are. It’s also possible the memories were taken from you. Maybe to repress your abilities. If that’s the case, these … feelings of yours may have brought you here for the Oracle.”
The name itself meant nothing to Zoey, and it was so vague, she wasn’t sure how she was supposed to feel about it.
“It makes sense,” the old man continued, thinking out loud, “that they would send you here for that, but how did they know? Could they be more prescient than I thought? Or…” His eyes refocused, locking back on to Zoey. He seemed to be considering things, important things, but she couldn’t sense any of it, and that frustrated her.
“Do you see the curtain hanging over the wall at the back of the study area?” he asked.
Zoey looked past the desks and chairs, past the cabinets lined with glowing artifacts, to the wall in the far back. Hanging there was a curtain, red and blue, with a diamond pattern. It was probably an old rug the Librarian had repurposed, but it added a splash of color to the black walls that dominated everything. “I see it,” Zoey said.
“On the other side lies what you seek,” he declared.
“The ‘orkle’?” Zoey asked.
The Librarian’s beard crinkled around his cheeks, signaling a smile, but it lasted only a second. “Yes, Zoey,” he told her. “The Oracle. All my students visit it once. Mira herself did so, but she was much older than you. In fact, when you speak to it, you will be the youngest ever to have done so.”
“What does it do?” Zoey asked, looking at the curtain on the wall, wondering what was on the other side.
“It’s a powerful artifact,” he said, “maybe the most powerful ever to be brought out. I found it many years ago, when I still had the strength for such things.” He paused a moment, considering his next words. “The Oracle reveals to you your three greatest truths, Zoey. Who you were, who you are … who you will be. The revelations are not always … pleasant. Nor are they always clear. Some of them you will have to decipher for yourself, but they should be enough to tell us what you are meant to do.”
“You think I’m here for something important,” Zoey said, and it wasn’t a question.
The old man considered her. “If you are what I think you are … then yes. I would believe that. I’d believe it’s no coincidence that you’re here, Zoey. In this place, at this time. In fact, where you’re concerned … I’d wager that coincidences cease to exist altogether.”
Zoey looked away from the curtain and back at the Librarian, confused.
“It doesn’t make sense, I know. But it will, Zoey. And sooner than you might think.” They held each other’s gaze a long time before he finally spoke again. “Set the artifacts down—you can finish it later,” he told her, and Zoey set the last of the artifacts on the shelves. “To the side of the curtain is a small chest on a shelf, made of golden wood. Open it and take one of the coins inside. They are Strange Lands coins, so use caution—don’t remove it from the plastic sleeve until it’s time.”
“How will I know when?” Zoey asked.
“You will know, little one,” the old man answered. “I have no doubt of that. Go now.”
Zoey hesitated; then she motioned Max to follow her. He jumped to his feet and padded ahead of her up the steps that led past the rows of desks and chairs of the study area, toward the red and blue curtain. When they reached it, Zoey looked at a row of shelves to the left side and saw a small antique chest, which had been brushed a long time ago with a dry, gold substance that flaked off it like old leaves.
Zoey opened the chest, and inside lay dozens of quarters, tarnished and faded, each in separate plastic sleeves. She grabbed one of them in her hand. It was the first time she’d ever held a Strange Lands coin, and she felt it subtly vibrate and pulse, moving around in her palm. She gripped it tighter to stop it from squirming out.
Zoey looked at the thick curtain in front of her.
She couldn’t see past it; there was no indication of what was on the other side. Whatever was there apparently was the reason she’d come all this way, why she had traversed such a dangerous path. Now that she was faced with the truth of it all, an ending of sorts, it was suddenly not the easiest thing to draw open that curtain.
She did as she always did now when faced with difficult moments like this. She asked herself what Holt and Mira would do, and the answer was always the same: They would be brave, she told herself. They would do what they had to do.
Zoey reached for the curtain and pulled it open.
Nothing but darkness waited for her beyond. The entrance to another tunnel stretched out of sight and into the shadows far ahead. Max whined apprehensively next to her. She knew how the dog felt. Zoey exhaled a long, slow breath, and together, they stepped past the curtain.
* * *
THE LIFT JARRED AS IT
lurched to a halt directly in front of one of the Vault’s many ledges. The initial plummet had been so steep, Holt had thought he was going to fly up into the ceiling, and when it stopped, his stomach felt like it had dropped into his shoes. He’d been sure the entire contraption was going to come apart in midair and send them hurtling to the cavern floor below.
But the lift had held, and it had stopped. He looked at Mira, and she was smiling back at him, seemingly unfazed by the experience. “What?” he asked, frowning.
“I don’t know why,” she said with an amused look, “but it’s very cute seeing you scared.”
“I’m not
scared,
” Holt insisted, even though his heart was still pounding.
Mira took his hand as she moved past him. “Come on,” she said, and her arm brushed against his. The quick, soft feel of her and the scent of her hair helped to slow his pulse.
Holt let her pull him out of the lift, and as she did, he took in the sight of the Vault up close. At the top, it had been deceiving to look at—the rows of hung shelves and cabinets that spiraled down the walls looked like they had somehow been bolted or attached to the rock—but from here, it was clear that the architecture was much more complicated.
Just outside the lift was a rocky outcrop that had been cut into the cavern’s walls, one of many Holt could see: a man-made ledge that stretched probably a hundred feet in either direction, and another twenty feet or so into the cavern wall. It was on this ledge that the cabinets sat, two rows deep. The pattern continued all around him, up and down the circular cavern’s walls, stretching out of sight in every direction. Ledges, cut into the rock, containing hundreds of cabinets and shelves, and within them, thousands of artifacts.