The Lost Codex Page 17

  I can barely see Alice as she says this. Hell, I can barely think, the pain is so intense.

  “Do not bother fighting it. I know what was done by mīn swëster. I know how to work around it. She was senfte with you. That is her way. I am not her, mīn scōnī.”

  I fumble for her hand. “Alice. . .”

  She knits her fingers into mine, anchoring me. “I’m here.”

  “She—” Bile shoots up my throat, but I manage to keep it at bay. It burns like hell when I swallow it back down. “She did something to me.”

  Alice’s grip tightens. “Whom do you speak of?”

  “I—I’m starting to remember bits and pieces.” I dive beneath a wave of nausea as I roll onto my side, toward Alice. “From Koppenberg. My mom—”

  “Katrina did something to you?”

  I wince at her quickness. “No. But she was there. Jim, too.”

  A pause. “In the mountain?”

  There’s no disbelief, no skepticism. Just a request for clarification. “Yes. They protected me. Helped.” My mom was there. Jim! How is that even possible? “They couldn’t go with me when I was with her. At least, I don’t remember them there. I don’t remember much anyway. They told me to not tell anyone they were there.”

  “Whom, love?”

  “I think she doesn’t want me to remember. Every time I do . . . Damn, this headache is brutal. I’ve never had one like this before.”

  An arm loops around me, folding me closer. “You speak of the thirteenth Wise Woman.”

  I honestly wonder if my scalp is bleeding. If my skull is, in fact, breaking apart. My confirmation is little more than a whisper.

  The way she holds on to me, it’s like she’s afraid the thirteenth Wise Woman will just up and appear in my bedroom just by calling her name, like the world’s most insane game of Bloody Mary. “Do you know what she did to you?”

  I don’t, and that’s the most terrifying part of it all.

  “Do not fight to remember any more right now. Just rest.”

  “Alice—”

  “Finn, I beg you do not argue with me. You have a fever. I cannot bear to think of what might happen to your body if you continue struggling. I have seen firsthand what Sara Carrisford goes through in her efforts. You have witnessed what befalls Wendy.”

  Wendy has seizures. I supposedly had a Grand Mal seizure when we left the mountain. Sara . . . She gets headaches, right? Nosebleeds, too.

  Despite the agony, I frantically shuffle through the puzzle pieces I have. Bunting could see the words in the Codex. Could Sara? I’d lay down money that she could—and did. There was nothing during the meeting that said one way or another. I didn’t see specific words, but there was that one moment I wondered if gold shimmered on those pages.

  I’m compromised.

  I am a liability to the team and the mission. Any moment I could go rogue.

  I lower the washcloth across my eyes as Alice calls the Librarian. Have I done anything out of the ordinary? Are there gaps? Yes. I don’t remember the seizure or the minutes leading up to it. I didn’t remember Katrina or Jim until tonight. How could I forget hallucinating about my mother and my best friend for three days straight?

  Was I hallucinating?

  Jesus, it hurts to even think about it. I had my mom back. I had Jim.

  I’ve lost them all over again.

  Only fragments of the thirteenth Wise Woman are present. I can remember being tortured, of knives and hot pokers, but not what the Piper’s partner did.

  Something wipes across my nose. “You’re bleeding again.”

  Just like Sara. Does she develop fevers, too?

  “You’re thinking about it, aren’t you?” Hard diamonds edge Alice’s frustration. “Son of a Jabberwocky! Stubborn man. Cease this foolishness at once.”

  “Your bedside manner isn’t the best today.”

  My crack apparently goes over as well as a visit from the Queen of Hearts, because when I remove the washcloth, Alice’s glare is just as painful as the monsters in my skull.

  She dips the washcloth into a bowl of cool water and wrings it out. “The Librarian will be here shortly.”

  “Don’t tell me anything more about the mission or any findings.”

  She lays the washcloth back upon my forehead. “You act as if you are in rapture. Stop being so maudlin.”

  “I refuse to risk anyone—”

  “You aren’t.” The set of her mouth dares me to contradict her assertion.

  “You yourself pointed out the comparisons to Sara and Wendy.”

  “In relation to how those who attempt to reveal secrets are punished.” She flattens a hand against my stomach, over where lines of her love trace pictures across my torso. “Neither Sara nor Wendy have this. They did not have the magic of the twelfth Wise Woman.” The tension straining the lines of her body eases a fraction. “Or the courage of the goose.”

  Could Katrina and Jim have been due to the twelfth Wise Woman’s spell?

  “I saw something in the Codex, Alice.”

  “By your own admission, you saw only faint golden marks—no words, no pictures, nothing substantial. And certainly not for anything more than a moment at best.”

  “But—”

  “I certainly hope that, by now, you would understand that if I truly believed you to be at risk, I would not hide it from you.” She blows out a harsh burst of agitation through her nose. “However, I do believe you in that the thirteenth Wise Woman did something. Allow those who love you to focus on determining what that was and how to counter it.”

  I tell her the truth. I say, “There isn’t time.”

  “Clearly, the fever has left you addled as a bowl of mush.”

  Huh? “Every day—hell, every hour that goes by, the Piper slips further away from us. I need to go join Sara or Wendy somewhere, so that—”

  “Throwing yourself upon the sword is beneath you.” Flinty sparks charge the air between us.

  The door to my bedroom swings open. The Librarian coughs politely. “I see I am just in time.”

  “How convenient that you are so punctual,” Alice snaps. “Unlike the rest of us.”

  The Librarian brushes off the dig and converges on the bed. “You discussed it with him.”

  Discussed what?

  It’s Alice’s turn to ignore a stab of disapproval. “I believe I clearly stated that I am no nursemaid, and that he is no risk.”

  The Librarian stares down at me. Thankfully, the nausea is lessening by the second, as is the pain. “Perhaps you are right. Even still, we cannot allow the presence to fester.”

  I set aside the washcloth and pull myself into a sitting position. “Don’t talk about these things in front of me. I refuse to have any information they can dig out of my head.”

  The Librarian waves a hand at me. “Goodness. Who would have thought you to be so dramatic?” To Alice, she says, “Any solutions that I have researched are not . . . optimal.”

  Standing up sends my head straight onto a roller coaster. Contradicting my very last statement, I mutter. “I’m right here.”

  Her blue eyes practically twinkle as they laser in on me. “Make up your mind, Finn. We do not have time for you to teeter back and forth between nativity and determination, fever or no.”

  I literally bite my tongue in response.

  “He doesn’t require a doctor,” the Librarian informs Alice. “The less he tries to remember the specifics, the less the witch’s influence will plague him. What he needs is rest and plenty of distractions to keep his mind off of that which will cause him harm.” She frowns. “I don’t know what will happen if someone like Finn or Sara were to push the boundaries of the spell too far. Would they fall into rapture? Fall into a coma? Would their brains melt? Would they become soulless? Would they disappear entirely? Would they instantly become murderers, intent on killing everyone in their path?”

  Alice blanches. Hell, I think I do, too.

  “It’s best not to push such thi
ngs.” The Librarian reaches up, patting me awkwardly on my shoulder. “Be a good boy and let your girlfriend distract you, hmm?”

  It might be my fever, but I’m pretty sure Alice growls. I know I do.

  To Alice, she says, “As I requested earlier, allow me the evening to determine the best course of action.” She heads toward the doorway. “Your stubbornness, my dear, is not always an endearing quality. I certainly hope that, when the time comes, you will concede to do as asked rather than fight against reason.”

  Once she’s gone, I ask, “What the hell is she talking about?”

  Thankfully, Alice doesn’t taunt me about my contradictions. “She requested I withhold our suspicions.”

  “She was right.” I pause. “You knew I was compromised.”

  “I hardly see how you are compromised. That said, it was not hard to assume that the thirteenth Wise Woman had done something to you,” she says flatly. “You were able to see something in the Codex, after all.”

  “Why are you so certain I won’t fall into rapture?”

  “I already explained this.”

  “I appreciate the support, but—”

  The planes of her face harden. “I am not a romantic, Finn. Nor am I the sort to allow my emotions to dictate my actions. Lest you forget, I am the Queen of Diamonds, and I once had armies at my beck and call and the lives of thousands of people to consider on a daily basis. I am not rash, nor am I prone to exaggeration.” Tight lines dart around her lips. “I walked away from everything and everyone I loved in order to ascertain my people’s welfare. If you believe that I am deluding myself about whether or not you will become one of the Chosen, then that is your mistake. Allow me to say this once, and only once. If there comes a time in which I believe you to be a liability, I will not hesitate to ensure the Society’s safety by locating a secure location for you to reside within until I can figure out how to reverse the change.”

  It’s a surprise that I still have skin attached to my body. “I’m behaving like an ass, aren’t I?”

  Her smile is still cool. “You have a fever, brought on by magic. It has been my experience that many reasonable men become the opposite during illnesses.”

  “How very sexist of you.”

  She herds me toward the bed. “Lay down before you fall prey to the vapors.”

  Once the washcloth is placed on my forehead again, and I grudgingly accept her assistance in removing my shoes, drowsiness settles in. Alice lies beside me, holding my hand, and I’m reminded of Katrina doing the same when I caught the flu shortly after moving to New York. The entire situation was so foreign, and I didn’t quite know how to accept the comfort. I was stiff; she was loving and patient.

  I wanted to run. I was so certain she would find me lacking just like everyone else did. She didn’t, though. She didn’t push me, or expect me to be anything other than I was.

  I shift, wrapping an arm around Alice’s waist. I hold on to her, not wanting to let go, not wanting to run, until darkness comes for me.

  The sound of glass shattering jerks me upright. The room is dark, the sheets tangling my legs damp. I fumble for the light, but a strong hand grips my wrist.

  “Shite. Sorry. I thought. . .”

  Adrenaline surges past my grogginess. “Victor?”

  The bed groans as he sinks down on the mattress next to me. “Tried to get you a drink. Thought you might be thirsty. Ended up breaking the bloody cup.”

  He sounds so rational, and it worries me even more than his erratic behavior. Victor was tortured, too. Could he have seen the thirteenth Wise Woman? Could he be at risk of rapture? I can’t tell, not with the lights out.

  My brother cannot be one of the fucking Chosen. He can’t.

  “What are you doing here?” My question is a piece of sand paper, thinned from too much use.

  His silhouette is inky black against the stale gray of an airless room, but I still can make out his lack of hair. “Overheard one of those prats in the lab talking about you, before the Librarian told them to not come. Needed to see for myself how you are.”

  His voice is rougher, less polished, like a spoon that once slipped down into the running garbage disposal and now threatens to cut the lips of those who use it.

  “It’s only a fever—”

  He cuts me off, as if I haven’t said anything at all. “He’ll know that I’m gone.”

  Shafts of clarity cut through the fog of fever. The last time I saw my brother, he was in restraints.

  I keep my tone as neutral as possible for one firing on one cylinder. “Dr. Addu?”

  Victor springs off the bed; something loud clatters to the floor. “Fuck that prat.” Another unseen item bangs against the hardwood floors. The swarm of black mass blurs, and suddenly, hot breath steams in my face. “He’ll know. He’ll kill you if he finds you, and I won’t be able to stop him. He’ll kill all of you, because no one says no to what he wants.”

  My gag reflex kicks into gear. “The Piper—”

  He swirls away. “Won’t do anything.” Another crash. “Dammit, keep up, will you?”

  I nearly spill toward the ground when I roll over, but my big brother is there to catch me. “You’re useless like this. She got to you, didn’t she?” He snatches the lamp next to the bed and hurls it against the wall.

  I grab a gun out of a nearby drawer.

  I angle it toward him just as he tears one of my pillows clean in half. “You better calm the hell down right now.”

  In a flash, he’s pressed himself up against the barrel, arms high in the air. “Do it.”

  Before I can say anything, let alone do anything, he wrenches away. In his wake, a chair is forcefully kicked across the room, most likely broken. A blaze of light flares, and I hurry to follow him in the bathroom.

  Victor stands before the mirror, mismatched eyes focused and yet dead all at once as they fixate on the image before him.

  One brown, one blue.

  He snarls at the reflection. “It’s his eye. I—I didn’t—”

  A fist flies, shattering the mirror. Victor’s roars echo off the tile and through the newly formed holes he keeps punching in the walls. “A family’s sin is a stain that cannot be washed away!”

  Eye update: one brown, one black.

  I tackle him to the ground. His bellow rattles the glass shards to rain down upon us.

  “You’ve got to calm down!” Goddamn, he is strong—stronger than he’s ever been. “Victor, if you don’t, I’m going to have to—”

  Any remaining words fall into a blinding void of searing pain when he slams his head against mine. “I AM NOT VICTOR!”

  I manage a decent slug to his jaw, which only serves to infuriate him. When gnashing teeth close in on me, I knee my brother, or whomever he thinks he is, in the nuts.

  “Get off Finn this instant.”

  Victor’s thrashing slows down to about eighty-miles-per-hour. He sneers, “This isn’t your concern, Your Majesty.”

  But he rolls off of me, scrambling toward the shower. The blue eye remains black as a captured sliver of glass angles our way.

  Alice steps into the demolished bathroom. “Everyone is looking for you, Victor.”

  Grymsdyke scuttles in behind her, crawling up onto the ceiling.

  Suddenly, Victor slams his head back against the shower door. A loud crack grows visible as hairline fractures run throughout the newly bloody frosted glass.

  The black eye fades to blue once more. “He’ll know I’m gone. I can’t keep you safe if I don’t go back.”

  Grymsdyke positions himself directly over Victor.

  “Believe me,” Alice says coldly, “the entire Institute is aware of your escape. You are lucky that none of your victims died.”

  I can’t focus on what she’s saying, though. I reach for my brother. “Who will know?”

  The glass quivers in his hand even as beads of crimson drip toward the floor. “Finn?”

  I ignore Alice’s protestations as I creep toward him. �
��It’s me, big bro. It’s Finn.”

  Beads transition into a thin sluice of blood that alarms me. He says plaintively, “He’ll know.”

  “Whom are you scared of?”

  He shakes his head, skin ashy white. The glass shifts, now hovering over the swatch of skin and the blue veins of the opposite wrist. “Never told me his name. Didn’t need one.”

  “Put the glass down, Victor.”

  “You need to kill me, Finn. Kill me or take me back.”

  I ease down in front of him. “Do you mean . . . the creature? Like the one from 1818SHE-F?”

  His plea is as hoarse as my own. “A family’s sin is a stain that cannot be washed away.”

  I wrap my hand around the one that holds the sharp shard of glass. My brother jerks, as if shocked by static electricity. “He’s dead, Victor. I killed him.”

  Brown and blue-green eyes fasten upon me in what I can only describe as pure horror.

  He doesn’t fight me when I tug away the glass. “Right after that, we blew up Koppenberg Mountain with a shitton of gunpowder. He can’t hurt you or anyone else again. I made sure of that.”

  His bloody hand clamps down over mine. “What did you do?”

  I refuse to wince over the strength of his grip. “Nobody can hurt my family and get away with it.”

  The back of his head slams into the shower’s glass door once more, sending another crack shooting toward the metal frame. He squeezes his eyes shut. “Oh God. She’ll know. They’ll know. Alice—hide him. Now. Before it’s too late.”

  I catch his head before it smacks against the glass a third time. “It’s okay. You’re safe. You’re home. We’ll fix this.”

  He tears out of my grip just as Brom bursts through the door. Eyes still closed, Victor cries, “You killed their son.”

  A NUMBER OF VICTOR’S doctors suffer from broken bones; a few have concussions. We nearly deplete Mary’s stash of healing spray tending the bevy of wounds my brother inflicted during his impromptu escape. Some people apologetically leave the Institute, no doubt fearful of their erratic charge. A few, Dr. Addu included, commit to staying, even when I wouldn’t blame them for also running for the hills.