An angry blaze flayed at my cheeks. I’d given him an inch of trust, less than an inch, and he’d taken me for all I had. He’d taken seven years of memory. He’d taken Finn. He’d taken Nick.

He stayed there for a minute. Perhaps he expected me to say more. I wanted to shout myself hoarse at him, but I couldn’t do it. I just wanted him gone. When I didn’t move, he closed the heavy drapes around the bed, sealing me off in a dark little cage.

23 Antiquary

23

Antiquary

I didn’t sleep for hours. I could hear him at his desk, writing away, hidden from me only by the drapes.

My eyes and nose were raw, my throat tight as a fist. For the first time in years, I wanted everything to vanish. I wanted everything to be back to normal, like it was when I was little, before I’d been ripped open by the æther.

I looked up at the canopy. No matter how much I sometimes wanted it, there was no normal. There never had been. “Normal” and “natural” were the biggest lies we’d ever created. We humans with our little minds. And maybe being normal wouldn’t suit me.

It was only when he turned on his gramophone that I started to get drowsy. I hadn’t been in his dreamscape long, but I’d done it without life support. I drifted into a doze. The crackling voices blurred together.

I must have slept for a while. When I woke, the drip was gone. In its place was a small plaster.

The day-bell tolled. Sheol I slept during the day, but it seemed I wasn’t going to sleep. There was nothing to do but get up and face him.

I hated him so much it hurt. I wanted to smash the mirror, to feel the glass break under my knuckles. I should never have taken those pills.

Maybe it was the same as what I did. I spied on people, too—but I didn’t look into their pasts. I only saw what they imagined themselves to be, not what they were. I saw flashes of people: the edges and the corners, the faint glow of a distant dreamscape. Not like him. Now he knew everything about me, every little bit of me I’d tried to keep concealed. He’d always known I was one of the Seven Seals. He’d known from the very first night.

But he hadn’t told Nashira. Just as he’d kept the butterfly and the deer from her, so he’d kept my true identity. She might have guessed that I was part of the syndicate, but she hadn’t got it from him.