The back of my neck itched again—the really horrible kind of itch that sent tingles running up and down my spine. I gave up and reached back to scratch—
Darkness slid over my fingers.
I jerked my hand away, but in an instant the darkness slid over my body. It wasn’t anything like the shadows from beyond the door. They had been cold, icy nothingness, while this darkness burned like acid. They had bubbled out of me, turning my own body against me; this darkness was unquestionably alien, burning into my body from the outside.
The Children of Typhon had shredded away all meaning from the world. This darkness came to impose a meaning on me. It flowed over my body like the movement of a tongue, shaping red-hot words across my skin. But the pain was nothing beside the desperate need to respond, to speak those words back to the bodiless voice.
Except I couldn’t understand the words. I couldn’t even repeat them, because they crawled across my body and burrowed into my ears and wept out of my eyes without leaving the least trace in my memory.
I had never thought that I would hear the voice in the darkness and not be able to understand it.
It’s not working, I thought, and I tried to call for Astraia, to tell her to light the candles and save me. I tried to scream. But the air in my lungs wasn’t mine to command anymore; it was speaking those same unfathomable words.
I realized I had collapsed to the ground. Astraia stood over me, and for a moment I thought that she would save me. Then I saw that her eyes were blank holes, darkness dripping out of them like tears. Her mouth curved in a smile. I blinked, and she was gone. Maybe I’d imagined her.
The darkness clawed into my mouth and covered my eyes. I shuddered and choked, and the world was gone.
I saw a great marble hall, golden shafts of light falling between its red-painted pillars, and a dais covered in mosaics at the far end. It looked like the throne room of a great king, but on the dais was no throne, only a little ivory table, atop which sat a small wooden box—the same box that I had seen in the round room. Beside it stood a stern-faced woman in ancient robes, and before her a young boy sat on the floor with his back to me.
“You have heard that when Arcadia stood alone against the barbarians, when they had landed on our shores and begun to sack our cities, your forefather Claudius sought out the Kindly Ones,” said the woman. “They are the Lords of Tricks as well as Justice, and it is said that even the gods fear them, yet he was so desperate to protect his people that he bargained with them.”
“And they said if he brought them Pandora’s jar, they would grant him a wish. So he searched for seven days and demons killed all his companions but one and then he found it.” The boy recited the words in the monotone rhythm of bored competence. “He brought it back and the Kindly Ones saved Arcadia from the barbarians. Making him the only one that ever bargained with them and wasn’t cheated.”
“True,” said the woman. “But more true than you know. For that is not the whole of his bargain. When Claudius brought them the jar, the Kindly Ones promised him one victory against the barbarians. But they said that they would protect Arcadia from all invaders all the days of his life, and all the days that his successors reigned, if he would agree to a further bargain: Each king of Arcadia must look into the jar. If he has a pure heart, the kind that would risk anything for Arcadia, the Children of Typhon will serve him and protect the land from any invader. But if his heart is not pure—if he loves himself more than his people, if hatred and passion rule his soul—then they will drag him down into the jar to dwell with them in the dark forever, and Arcadia will be protected no more. And if he does not dare look within the jar, they will find him just the same, and take him no matter how pure his heart.
“Claudius agreed. He looked into the jar and his heart was pure. So Arcadia was saved from barbarians, and the island has remained unconquered to this day, for every heir of Claudius has proved worthy and cheated the Kindly Ones. And so you must prepare yourself, my prince, to face the test on your coronation day.”
I couldn’t see the boy’s face, but I saw his spine straighten and heard the sudden tightness in his voice. “The jar is lost. Everybody knows that.”
“Not lost.” The woman laid a hand on the little wooden box. “Hidden. It takes a new form in every age.”
“That’s—that’s just the casket of the crown jewels.”
“And what greater jewel can a king possess than a pure heart? Someday you will lift the lid of this box, look inside, and be judged.” She leaned down toward the boy. “Now do you understand why you must always strive to be a good prince?”
“I never asked to be one!”
The woman raised an eyebrow. “What difference should that make?”
The two of them faded like smoke. A grown man strode between the pillars. It was Shade, the last prince; his hair was black instead of white, but I would know those blue eyes anywhere.
“I don’t care!” he yelled over his shoulder. “Send them away!”
“They are your warband.” A woman followed him into view: white-haired now but the same one who had lectured him when he was a child. “Sworn to fight at your side all their lives, even unto death. By dismissing them, you shame them forever. And this is the third warband that you have sent away. You cannot go on this way. A prince must—”
He turned on her. “A prince must not hate, didn’t you teach me that? And I hate them. I always hate them, so they have to go.”
“But you—”
“Go.”
The woman sighed and left. Alone, the prince gave the box a fearful look and covered his face with shaking hands. Then he faded into the air.
I walked toward the table and the room melted around me, columns sliding into streams of pale light that pooled across the floor.
Now do you understand? The voice hummed through my head without touching my ears. It was almost a woman’s voice, though with a bell-like quality that was not quite human, and I knew instinctively that it was the Kindly Ones.
A heart full of hatred and fear for his fate, desperate to live—he was always anything but pure. So he came to us and swore he’d pay any price if we’d continue to protect Arcadia from invaders and stop him from ending up in the darkness alone. The voice was on the verge of gentle laughter, like a mother speaking to her witless but endearing child. And now he’s never alone, for all Arcadia is hidden with him in the darkness, where no invader will ever find it.
All the room had melted away now; I stood atop a glassy puddle of light, surrounded by absolute darkness, with the table and box before me.
As within, so without.
And I knew that the shifting, paradoxical splendor of the house was nothing compared to the paradox of the box. All Arcadia was locked inside the house and all the house was locked inside that box, along with the Children of Typhon—and the last prince, who had once been so terrified he would be trapped alone with them.
But what was within the box-inside-the-house, the one that Ignifex had said was forbidden?
“If I open the box,” I whispered, “will that release us?”
You’re not the one who can open it.
“Shade.”
Yes. But not yet.
“What is he waiting for? His birthday?”
Laughter rippled through the air, the same laughter I had heard in the garden with the sparrow.
He and your husband are bound as opposites. So long as one has power, the other is helpless. But whatever one loses, the other gains. Summon the Children of Typhon and use them to rend your husband until his power is broken. Once the prince has gathered back all he has lost, he will be able to open the box. When the box is opened, all Arcadia will go free. The Sundering will end, and the Children of Typhon will be trapped inside the box, never to ravage your people again.