“What happened to your head?” asked Willow. “Did you fall?”
“In a way,” he answered. “Never mind that now. It happened when Boy and I parted company in the canals.”
“But the canals…?”
“Are not deep. No more than waist-high in most places. You need to watch your step occasionally. There’s one place a little farther along where-”
“But why were you coming down here? To find the book?”
“No,” said Kepler, and he laughed, a snorting noise that Willow hated him for. “No! I came down here to hide it.”
Now Willow was confused.
“To hide it? To hide it?”
“Yes. You see, Willow, I learnt things. I have been helping Valerian for a long time. We had not seen each other since… for years, until one day he just arrived at my house and told me about the specter he faced. He turned up as if nothing had ever happened between us! But when he told me about the book, I knew I would put the past behind me. Now is not the time, and certainly not the place to tell you all the trials and troubles we faced, attempting to find the book. Suffice to say that I discovered that an answer would be contained therein.”
“But what is the book? What did you learn?”
“It is an almanac, but much more than that. It holds answers to questions that men ask. It holds information about all manner of dealings, both light and dark. It contains much information on the nature of the… agreement into which Valerian placed himself. And it answers questions-questions in the mind of the reader. It could solve Valerian’s problem-of that there is no doubt.”
“You mean-”
“Yes, I mean exactly that. Valerian’s life ending in a most horrible way.”
Willow thought of something that had been bothering her. Something important.
“Why?” she asked.
“What?” Kepler replied.
“You were supposed to be helping Valerian find the book. And now you’re telling me you’ve been trying to hide it from him. Why?”
“I thought you had realized that. The horoscope. Boy’s horoscope. That gave me the answer, really.”
“What’s a-?”
“Horoscope? It’s a method of thinking about people, based on the patterns of the stars and the planets. It explains who people are, and why they are. It has deep scientific basis that few men truly understand, and yet the results of such investigation can be powerful.
“It concerns the heavens-the stars and the planets and their motions around the Sun, which is the center of the universe, and their relative motions around the Earth.”
Willow tried to follow what he said, feeling lost and lonely again.
“The position of all these things in the sky at the moment of an individual’s conception determines the nature, the character, of that individual. Irrevocably.”
Now Willow began to understand.
“The piece of paper Valerian found, with Boy’s name on it-is that his horoscope?”
“Sort of,” said Kepler. “Sort of.”
“But how can you have worked these things out about Boy? You said you have to know where the planets were at the moment someone was conceived, but no one even knows when he was born-not even he does!”
“I made a guess. I felt a coincidence. An enormous coincidence, maybe, or Fate working its path through Boy and Valerian’s lives. And mine too. And then I found the book, and the book confirmed it. It showed me. I found out the truth.”
“But what is this coincidence?” asked Willow.
“That two people have come to be together. In all this sprawling city of tens of thousands, that two people should find each other. No, I think it is not coincidence. I think this is how Fate works.”
“So why were you trying to hide it?”
“Valerian will kill Boy,” said Kepler. “That is the answer. That is the only way he can save himself now-for him to give Boy’s life in place of his own. The pact can be broken only by a life exactly as long as the term of the bargain. That is what I discovered. I guessed much of this. The book confirmed it to me. I guessed who Boy is, and when he was conceived, and I drew up his horoscope. I found that it described the boy I knew very well. And so then, knowing who Boy is and having looked into the book, I knew what Valerian would do if he found out. And so I began to try to cover the path I had started to clear. I came down here to hide the book.
“In a few hours from now Valerian can offer Boy in place of himself, and he will go free. That is how and why Valerian will kill Boy. That is why we have to find Boy before Valerian does.”
Willow’s heart thumped inside its rib-prison.
Boy. Valerian would kill Boy to save himself. Finally she began to understand the insane nature of the journey they had all been making. A dance-a hideous dance with Fate and Death.
Something else occurred to her.
“But why do you care about Boy?” she asked.
“Why do you?” said Kepler.
Before Willow could answer, Kepler spoke again.
“I have my reasons, as I’m sure do you. And I want the book.”
“So where did you find it?” Willow asked. “Who does it belong to?”
“I heard, after years of searching far and wide, that it had been in the possession of a rich and powerful family. A family who lived in the City itself. A family called Beebe.”
In the darkness, Willow jumped at the name, but Kepler continued unaware.
“A large and powerful family, though corrupt and broken now. They once owned properties in the City, and a large estate in the countryside. They built a church there, as their private place of worship and eternal rest. That was where I found the book, in Gad Beebe’s grave. I had traced it as far as the Beebes. A sum of money to one of their more degenerate members, and the book’s whereabouts became known to me…”
“But…” Willow felt her head swimming. “But I don’t understand.”
“What?” asked Kepler.
“Gad Beebe. We looked in Gad Beebe’s grave-there was nothing in there but his bones… you must have got there before us.”
Now it was Kepler’s turn to be surprised.
“You went to Linden? You went to Beebe’s grave? But how? How did you know his name?”
Willow smiled.
“I worked it out, from the music box that Boy got from Green. I don’t know where Green had got it from, but the notes of the tune it played spelled his name. Gad Beebe.”
In the darkness Kepler started to laugh, bitterly. Then he stopped abruptly.
“But that is too ridiculous.”
“What?” asked Willow.
“That music box… I found it in Beebe’s grave. I gave it to Green. Me! I’d brought it back from Linden. It amused me. Then I sent for Green; I needed him to go and meet Valerian. He saw it on my desk, and asked what it was. When I showed him he smiled like a child. He asked for it, along with the money I was paying him. He refused to do the job unless I gave it to him. That thug! But it was nothing to me, so I gave it to him. He must have had it with him when he went out to meet Valerian in the Trumpet.”
“But it held Gad Beebe’s name!” cried Willow. “Without it we’d have never found the grave…”
“Fate, once more,” Kepler said. “Fate steering us all for its own ends…”
Willow thought about what he’d said. It did seem extraordinary-that little music box had made its way from Gad Beebe’s grave, to Kepler and Green to Boy to Valerian, and only she had known what it held. Without it Valerian would still be struggling for the answer, and Boy would be safe. It was a coincidence too great to be anything other than true. The true path of Fate.
Then something occurred to her.
“But why?” she asked. “Why did you send Green to meet Boy, in the Trumpet?”
“I sent him to meet Valerian-did he send Boy instead? That may have saved his life.”
“What do you mean?” asked Willow.
“I was supposed to meet Valerian that evening, to report any progress on the book. He knew I was close to finding it. In fact, I already had the book, and had read it. I’d learnt what it would mean for Valerian. For Boy. So I had to send Green instead. I sent a letter to Valerian at the theater, telling him to meet Green.”