My back presses against the wall as the tip of the knife nicks my throat, and I really don’t want to die like this.
“Key,” Hooper growls again, his black eyes dancing. “God, Abbie, I just want out. I want out and he said you had it, said I had to get it—so give it to me now.”
He?
The knife bites down.
My mind is suddenly horribly blank. I take a shallow breath.
“Okay,” I say, reaching for the key. The cord is looped three times around my wrist, and I’m hoping that somewhere between untangling it and motioning toward him, I can get the knife away.
I unloop it once.
And then something catches my eye. Down the hall, beyond Hooper’s massive form, a shadow moves. A shape in the dark. The form slips silently forward, and I can’t see his face, only his outline and a sweep of silver-blond hair. He slides up behind the History as I unloop the cord a second time.
I unloop the cord a final time, and Hooper is snatching the key, the knife retreating a fraction from my throat, when the stranger’s arm coils around the History’s neck.
The next moment Hooper is slammed backward onto the ground, the knife tumbling from his grasp. The motion is clean, efficient. The stranger catches the blade and drives it down toward the History’s broad chest, but he’s a beat too slow, and Hooper grabs hold of him and flings him into the nearest wall with an audible crack.
And then I see it, glittering on the floor between us.
My key.
I dive for it as Hooper sees, and lunges too. He reaches it first, but between one blink and the next, the blond man has his hands around Hooper’s jaw, and swiftly breaks his neck.
Before Hooper can sag forward, the stranger catches his body and slams it against the nearest door, driving the knife straight through his chest, the blade and most of the hilt buried deep enough to pin his body against the wooden door. I stare at the History’s limp form, chin against his chest, wondering how long it will take him to recover from that.
The stranger is staring, too, at the place where his hand meets the knife and the knife meets Hooper’s body, the wound bloodless. He curls and uncurls his fingers around the handle.
“He won’t stay like that,” I say, desperate to keep the tremor from my voice as I rewrap the key cord around my wrist.
His voice is quiet, low. “I doubt it.”
He lets go of the knife, and Hooper’s body hangs against the door. I feel a drop of blood running down my throat. I wipe it away. I wish my hands would stop shaking. My list is a spot of white on the blackened floor. I recover it, muttering a curse.
Right below Melanie Allen’s name sits a new one in clean print.
Albert Hooper. 45.
A little late. I look up as the stranger brings a hand to the slope of his neck and frowns.
“Are you hurt?” I ask, remembering how hard he hit the wall.
He rolls his shoulder first one way and then the other, a slow testing motion. “I don’t think so.”
He’s young, late teens, maybe, whitish blond hair long enough to drift into his eyes, across his cheekbones. He’s dressed in all black, not punk or goth, but simple, well-fitting. His clothing blurs into the dark around him.
The moment is surreal. I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve seen him before, but I know I’d remember if I did. And now we’re standing in the Narrows, the body of a History hanging like a coat on the door between us. He doesn’t seem bothered by that. If his combat skills aren’t enough to mark him as a Keeper, his composure is.
“Who are you?” I ask, trying to force as much authority into my voice as possible.
“My name’s Owen,” he says. “Owen Chris Clarke.”
His eyes meet mine as he says it, and my chest tightens. Everything about him is calm, even. His movements when fighting were fluid, efficient to the point of elegant. But his eyes are piercing. Wolfish. Eyes like one of Ben’s drawings, sketched out in a stark, pale blue.
I feel dazed, both by Hooper’s sudden attack and Owen’s equally sudden appearance, but I don’t have time to collect myself, because Hooper’s body shudders against the door.
“What’s your name?” Owen asks. And for some reason, I tell him the truth.
“Mackenzie.”
He smiles. He has the kind of smile that barely touches his mouth.
“Where did you come from?” I ask, and Owen glances over his shoulder, when Hooper’s eyelids flutter.
The door he’s braced against is marked with white, the edge of the chalk circle peering out from his back, and that’s all I have time to notice before Hooper’s black eyes snap open.
I spring into action, driving the key into the door and turning the lock as I grip the knife in the History’s chest and pull. The door falls open and the knife comes out; and I drive my boot into Hooper’s stomach, sending him back a few steps, just enough. His shoes hit the white of the Returns, and I catch the door and slam it shut between us.
I hear Hooper beat against it once before falling deathly silent. I spin to face the Narrows, only seconds having passed, but Owen Chris Clarke is gone.
I slump down onto the worn runner of the Coronado’s stairs and slide my ring back on, dropping the knife and the list onto the steps beside me. Hooper’s name is gone now. Little good it did, since it didn’t show up until I was halfway through the fight. I should report it, but to who? The Librarians would probably just turn it into a lecture on making Crew, on being prepared. But how could I have been prepared?
My eyes burn as I replay the fight. Clumsy. Weak. Caught off guard. I should never, ever be off guard. I know he’d lecture, I know he’d scold; but for the first time in years, the memories are not enough. I wish I could talk to Da.
“I nearly lost.”
It is a whispered confession to an empty lobby, the strength leaching from my voice. Behind my eyes, Owen Chris Clarke breaks Hooper’s neck. “I didn’t know how to fight him, Da. I felt helpless.” The word scratches my throat. “I’ve been doing this for years and I’ve never felt that.” My hands tremble faintly.
I turn my thoughts from Hooper to Owen as my fingers drift toward the knife. His fluid movements, the ease with which he handled the weapon and the History. Wesley said the territory had been shared. Maybe Hooper was on Owen’s list first. Or maybe Owen, like Wesley, had nothing better to do and happened to be in the right place at the right time.
I turn the knife absently between my fingers, and stop. There’s something etched into the metal, right above the hilt. Three small lines. The Archive mark. My stomach twists. The weapon belonged to a member of the Archive—Keeper, Crew, Librarian—so how did it end up in the hands of a History? Did Jackson swipe it when he escaped?
I rub my eyes. It’s late. I tighten my grip on the knife. Maybe I’ll need it. I drag myself to my feet, and I’m about to go upstairs when I hear it.
Music.
It must have been playing all along. I turn my head from side to side, trying to decipher where it’s coming from, and see that a sheet of paper has been tacked beneath the café sign: Coming Soon! announced in the cleanest, most legible version of my mother’s script. I head for the sign, but then I remember that I’m holding a large, unsheathed, and very conspicuous knife. There’s a planter in the corner where the grand stairs meet the wall, and I set the weapon carefully inside before crossing the lobby. The music grows. Into the hall, and it’s louder still, then through the door on the right, down a step and through another door, the notes leading me like bread crumbs.
I find my mother kneeling in a pool of light.
It’s not light, I realize, but clean, pale stone. Her head is bent as she scours the floor, the tiles of which, it turns out, are not gray at all, but a stunning pearlescent white marble. One section of the counter, too, where Mom has already asserted her cleaning prowess, is gleaming white granite, run through with threads of black and gold. These spots glitter, like gems across coal. The radio blasts, a pop song that peaks then trails off into commercials, but Mom doesn’t seem to register anything but the whoosh of her sponge and the spreading pool of white. In the middle of the floor, partially revealed, is a rust-colored pattern. A rose, petal after petal of inlaid stone, an even, earthy red.