With a slight clearing of her throat, Sorcha straightened up.
“So, who built this thing?” Raed asked, averting his eyes from the disturbing images.
Merrick was so intent that he didn’t answer, instead muttering under his breath, “The answer is here somewhere.” Sorcha and he spread out, staring down into the fractured possibilities with an interest that quite unnerved the Pretender. This wasn’t finding the Arch Abbot, he felt like reminding them.
It was Sorcha who let out the first gasp.
Merrick darted to her side. “Have you found—by the Bones!”
Sorcha spun on Raed. “You need to see this.”
The look on her face brooked no argument. At her side, looking down, he understood.
He had no love of the Emperor or his kin, but the shimmering pool that reflected the Grand Duchess’ assassination showed not just her death; the City of Vermillion was in flames behind her. The scenes around that one showed her being gunned down: all showed the city burning, though the method of her murder varied. All these possibilities seemed to show death and disaster for the citizens of the city—the city that Raed had been brought up to believe was his.
“Whatever they are planning,” Merrick said, “it must need a great deal of death and the blood of the Grand Duchess Zofiya.”
“That is one hell of a summoning,” Sorcha chimed in grimly. “It will make the Ulrich Priory look like a summer picnic.”
“Is there no other possibility?” Raed said, feeling his pulse race. If they were not trying to bring on the end times, it—it was damn close.
They scrambled about, desperately looking for any other sort of outcome. And then by sheer chance he found it. A small pool reflected something he would never have guessed in dream or nightmare. He was standing in place of the Grand Duchess, pulling her out of harm’s way; the bullet missing its target and burying itself into his own chest.
Raed cleared his throat while the others looked on in silence. “Just how accurate are these things?”
“Truthfully, I don’t know.” Merrick didn’t sugarcoat his answer. “Too many variables . . .”
“But in this one, the city isn’t burning.” Raed took a deep breath, like before plunging into an icy ocean. “In this one, Vermillion survives. Do you know where it is?”
Sorcha was grinding her teeth a little, and he hoped it was concern warring with common sense.
She meant well. She had always meant well, despite everything. He didn’t care that Merrick was only feet away and watching with steady brown eyes. Raed cupped her head in his hands. She tried to pull loose, but he wouldn’t let her go. “Tell me where this is, Sorcha!”
Her blue eyes, like chips of ice in the red light of the cavern, finally were able to meet his. He felt her swallow hard. “Brick-maker’s Lane.” The words came out as if choked.
“Then we know where we have to go.”
TWENTY-TWO
The Danger of Vespers
They followed the water out of the caverns. Merrick came up with that idea, and Sorcha was only too grateful to let her younger partner take the lead. She trailed at the rear as Raed followed Merrick. The cave grew narrower and the red light dimmed as they got out from under the baleful presence of the Possibility Matrix.
Raed caught her arm just as Merrick disappeared from view around a corner. The Pretender’s lips against her ear were for a moment warm and distracting, until he whispered into it, “Did you notice the one person who was not shown in that contraption?”
He pulled back, and in the light of the lantern his eyes were stern. Comprehension flooded across her mind: Nynnia. The slip of a girl should have been in many of those scenes, but she had not been; what exactly that meant, Sorcha couldn’t grasp.
Raed tilted his head and shrugged, indicating he too was at a loss. Neither of them asked Merrick, though; he was too busy trying to get them out without going back up through the Mother Abbey.
They went on, wrapped in silence and contemplation. Sorcha couldn’t get the images she had seen in the Possibility Matrix out of her mind. Fire was one of the true elements of the geistlords, and were Vermillion to burn, it could mean only one thing: someone wanted to release a hell of a lot of them.
History was littered with plenty of crazed people’s attempts to reach the deepest parts of the Otherside. All had ended in disaster for the summoner and usually a fair proportion of the innocents around them.
Sorcha was so concentrated on these dire thoughts that she nearly crawled into Raed. “Not right now,” he quipped as she brushed against his breeches. “Merrick says there is a large pool of water ahead. Shall we risk swimming under it?”
“Not much choice, unless we want to go back through the Abbey,” she said, suddenly feeling the walls closing in on her.
They swam, diving down beneath the rock and into the frigid water of the lagoon. Sorcha ducked under, feeling her chest constrict as if a person were sitting on it. Her muscles tensed as she concentrated on not taking a disastrous gulp of water. For a moment it felt as though her arms and legs were made of lead and she might just sink to the bottom of the lagoon. Then the Bond clicked over in her head, guiding her like a compass, swinging reliably north, if north were the two men. Though her skin was stinging uncomfortably, she was able to kick out and swim alongside Raed and Merrick as they popped up in the predawn grayness of the city.
Together they swam to an empty pier. It looked like they were only a few streets away from the Abbey at the Prince’s Canal. The boats bobbing nearby were painted the bright orange that said they were available for hire, but there was no sign of any ferrymen just yet. This deep into Vermillion, trade was nonexistent until the daylight hours. Activities that required darkness were carried out farther away on the fringes—places that these city-sanctioned ferries would not go.
As they hauled themselves onto the pier, Merrick gasped through chattering teeth, “We—we are lucky the lagoon isn’t—isn’t frozen.”
“Yes,” Raed choked, wringing out his cloak in a vain attempt to get dry. “Very damn lucky.”
Sorcha did the same to her hair before tying it back up against the nape of her neck. The important thing here was to think only one step ahead at a time. If she tried to take in the big picture, she might just seize up. If they were to change the possibilities they had seen in the matrix, then they would need to work at the top of their efficiency—they couldn’t afford to begin doubting. “Now we need to find the others at this tavern and get to Brickmaker’s Lane. No way of telling when those events may happen.”
Raed nodded, and then smiled wickedly. “If I know the habits of aristocrats at all, it won’t be early. Not much of a reputation for early risers.” He craned his head over the tops of the boats and voiced the one issue that was now bothering Sorcha. “The question is—how do we get to the tavern? Normal observers I can handle, but this Sight thing—”
“I have an idea,” Merrick chimed in, and raised a leather pouch with the shape of a tin inside. It was a very familiar shape.
Sorcha’s hand flew to her pockets. It was indeed the very same container she kept her cigars in. “How did you—”
“Now, now.” The young man’s eyes gleamed with delight at his having managed to fool her. “Some of us weren’t brought up by the Abbey—some of us learned a thing or two beforehand.”
He pulled the tin out of the pouch and opened it. Inside were not the two remaining cigars Sorcha had gratefully accepted as gifts from the citizens of Ulrich, but a mound of the white rock dust from the cavern.
Despite their dire situation, she felt rage fill her. “Where are my cigars, Merrick?”
“I needed to keep this dry, and believe me, this could save—”
She snatched the tin off him and stared hopelessly at the pile of dust. “Where—where are the cigars?” she choked out. She’d been planning to grab a moment, even just a short one, before heading to Brickmaker’s Lane. Facing imminent death, it was the least she deserved.