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ollieofthebeholder · 11 months ago

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to find promise of peace (and the solace of rest): a TMA fanfic

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Chapter 102: February 2018

The chill vanished. Gerry’s hair settled back around his shoulders, black flowing back in like ink. He let out a long, slow breath.

Tim, well used to Gerry’s post-flashback collapses by now, shifted his grip and weight so that when Gerry went slack and boneless a second later, the sudden shift didn’t send them both tumbling to the ground. Instead, he took a careful step backwards to press against the door to the Archivist’s office, which thankfully didn’t budge, and then slid slowly down it so that he was sat on the floor with Gerry passed out in his lap, flopped against his chest. He was still cold, but he knew from experience he would gradually warm up over the next few hours.

He was going to hate himself when he woke up.

Tim didn’t have to look up to know what his friends’ faces were probably doing, but he did anyway. Sasha looked shocked, and also like she was about to be sick; Melanie’s face was ashen, even as her eyes glinted with anger; Martin simply looked quietly devastated.

“He didn’t want you to see that,” Tim murmured.

“Is that what they’re always like?” Martin’s voice was soft and barely audible.

Tim recognized that he was both trying not to throw a fit and trying to keep from compelling the answers. He nodded. “He usually gets a bit more warning that one’s coming on, but for the most part, yeah. Never seen him have two so close together, though, so he’ll either be around in a few hours or a couple minutes. I don’t know how that part works.”

“And does he usually…” Sasha flapped a hand helplessly.

“Narrate?” Tim supplied. “Yeah. They’re, I mean, actual memories, so I can’t change anything—at least I don’t think I can change anything. But I can sort of…interact with him a bit, you know? Get clarification, air theories with him…and I had more than a few choice words for your mother when he was in her past. If it doesn’t affect the actual events, he might, um, respond a little. But, yeah, usually he just…goes through the memory and then passes out.” He sighed and ran a careful hand through Gerry’s thick, glossy hair, tugging out the remains of the hair tie.

Sasha turned to Martin and Melanie. “And…I have to ask. Was he, um…accurate?”

“Yeah.” Martin rubbed his arm reflexively, as if he could still feel the weight of the earth on it. “That’s exactly how I remember it happening.”

“He did ask me if they were noisy,” Melanie said. “The ghosts. I remember thinking that was a weird question out of the blue…wait, is he actually experiencing these memories now and changing them?”

“No. He’s able to respond when the interaction is all in his head, and sometimes he can fit what’s being said to what was experienced at the time, but they’re as unchangeable as the statements or the dreams—all he can do is walk through them and witness them and go on.” Martin made an annoyed sound in the back of his throat and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Okay, that has got to stop. I can’t—I don’t have the energy for this right now.”

Tim had been noticing for a while that the soft, gentle crackle of static that used to accompany any instance of Martin calling on the Beholding, deliberately or inadvertently, had started to appear less and less frequently since he’d come back from America until it only seemed to be audible when he was actively trying. Seemingly little things like that just appeared in his head without warning, and he didn’t always catch himself before blurting them out. Tim knew, better than probably anyone except Jon and maybe Gerry, how much it bothered him, but coming on top of everything else that had happened today, it had to be worse. He felt himself shift, on instinct, to give Martin a brotherly hug, but Gerry’s weight reasserted itself and he realized he couldn’t. Instead, he shot an imploring look at Sasha.

Thank God, she understood. She threw an arm around Martin’s shoulders and squeezed. “I think you need a break. Take a walk or something.”

Martin side-eyed her. “Considering the last time you suggested I step out of the room in that sensible tone of voice was three hours ago and Jon immediately climbed into the Buried, you’ll forgive me for being suspicious of why you’re suggesting that.”

Sasha ducked her head guiltily. “You know what, that’s fair, but I really mean it this time. It’s not a ploy to get you out of the way while we do something stupid behind your back. I think we’ve kind of done all the stupid for the day.”

“Not helping, Sash,” Tim muttered, scanning Martin’s face. He glanced at Melanie—in particular at her leg, which looked like it was oozing a bit—then cleared his throat and spoke louder. “Tell you what, why don’t you and Sasha both get Melanie to the clinic? Get that leg stitched up proper. Take your phone, and if Jon comes back up before you get back, I’ll have him call and talk to you, okay? Even better, keys are in my coat pocket—take the car so you don’t have to carry Melanie four blocks.”

The pain and longing on Martin’s face was palpable, but he nodded reluctantly. “We, um, we should probably…run and get you a new set of trousers, too.”

“You need a different shirt, too,” Sasha said, gesturing at Martin’s torn and bloodstained shirt. “Honestly, it wouldn’t hurt for all of us to have the supplies to stay here for a few days. You know, just in case.”

In case of what went unspoken, but Tim could guess. Martin had just done a fairly big display of power on one of the few surviving remnants of the Stranger. Nothing had really attacked them since Jared Hopworth, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t, just that they were overdue. He nodded. “I’ve got an overnight bag at Gerry’s still packed, and I think he has one by the door ready to go just in case.”

“I know where he keeps that. Same place he always has.” Martin swallowed. “Promise you’ll call if anything happens.”

“Swear on my nonna’s cannoli,” Tim said solemnly, which did at least make Martin smile. “And that goes for you too, by the way.”

“Will do.” Sasha fished Tim’s keys out of his jacket and jangled them in the others’ direction. “Allons-y.”

They left, Melanie once again using Martin as a makeshift crutch. Tim watched them leave, then waited a few minutes after he heard the door to the Archives shut before moving. He carefully shifted, then got to his feet, hefting Gerry in his arms. He’d gained a bit of weight in the months they’d been more or less living together, between regular meals and not being constantly on the run, but he was still wiry, and it was easy enough for Tim to carry him, bridal style, to Document Storage.

The cot was still largely made—Tim didn’t think Melanie had actually been under the blankets—so he got Gerry settled on it and tucked him in. There was a pen lying abandoned next to a statement scrawled in Martin’s familiar handwriting and a mostly empty cup of tea; he picked it up, grabbed a piece of paper that didn’t look important, and scribbled a note to Gerry, then tucked it under his hand so he’d be sure to notice it when he awoke. He crept out, closed the door quietly, and went to the break room to make a cup of tea. On second thought, he made a cup of coffee; tea was soothing, and right about then, he wanted to be tense.

Then he went back into the Archives, grabbed his chair and his laptop, and dragged it over to the door to the Archivist’s office. Might as well get some work done, such as it was, while he kept his vigil.

A lot of their research was perfunctory these days. It took absolutely no effort for Martin to know (or Know) which statements were real and which were false, so they didn’t need to look into them to determine veracity. Mostly it was about doing damage control on the real statements—making sure things hadn’t got too out of hand, finding out how bad things were now, that sort of thing. But the false ones still needed to be recorded, in theory, and with Martin handling the real ones—Jon didn’t need them anymore, a development they all pretended didn’t worry them in the slightest to varying degrees of success—the rest of them took care of the stuff that would end up in what they were still calling the Discredited section. So Tim pulled over the small stack of files, clicked on the recording app on his laptop, and got to work.

“Statement of Jonny D’Ville—seriously? Okay—regarding a series of creepy notes.”

He’d powered through about six recordings, including one that was clearly an entry from Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark with the serial numbers filed off, and was most of the way through a seventh when the door to Document Storage opened and Gerry came out, looking haggard. Tim gave him a quick wink and held up a finger as he said, “Mr. Newall informed us that he was going to, quote, ‘stand on the rooftop, shake his fist at the sky, and curse existence itself’, which I guess means the statistics convinced him. But, and I know we’re not supposed to put personal stuff on these recordings, but I have to say that if he runs his games anything like he talks, I might have to give that podcast of his a listen. End recording.” He shut off the app and smiled up at Gerry. “Hey. How are you feeling?”

“About like usual.” Gerry bent down to give Tim a much gentler kiss than normal, then sank to the ground next to him, resting his head against his hip. “How long was I out?”

Tim glanced at the clock on his laptop before closing it. “Three hours, give or take. A new record.”

“Didn’t need the sleep as much as usual, I guess. And it’s not because I slept last night. Just a refreshing flashback overall.” Gerry sighed. “Where is everybody?”

“Clinic. I think,” Tim added, reaching for his phone. There were no messages from anybody, which he supposed was good. “Martin and Sasha took Melanie to get her leg stitched up properly, and then they’re going to go round and get stuff for everyone to stay at the Archives overnight for a few days. We’re overdue for an attack.”

“And even if we weren’t, Martin won’t leave until Jon comes up from the coffin, and if we leave him alone here he’ll probably do something stupid like climb down after him and get trapped forever, which I assume is why you’re parked in front of the door like something out of a heist movie.” Now that the laptop was out of the way, Gerry shifted to lay his head in Tim’s lap. After a moment’s pause, he asked, “How bad was it?”

“Define ‘it.’” Tim wrapped a lock of hair from the white streak around his finger idly.

“How did Martin take it?” Gerry’s voice was soft.

Tim definitely should have known that would be Gerry’s first concern, actually. Especially given the nature of the situation. “He’s…not having a great time of it. Melanie stabbing him, and then Breekon delivering the coffin, and apparently he managed to extract a statement from him…then finding out Jon went in there after Daisy, and then the flashback? It’s a lot to handle. And then he sort of Knew you could only talk back to us when it fit in with the narration, I guess, and that frustrated him a bit. But I don’t think he’s mad at you.” He paused. “Yet.”

“Oh, he’s going to be, once he has the time to be,” Gerry assured him. “When he’s in crisis mode, he puts off his own needs and emotions in favor of taking care of everyone else’s. You can usually tell when he’s decided the situation is safe when he explodes on you about something. Record is six months. I think Melanie had even forgotten what it was he was mad about. He’ll probably rip my head off as soon as Jon comes back.”

“Is it weird to say I’d like him to do it sooner?”

“No. It’s not good for him to bottle up like that, but especially if Melanie went all…Slaughter on him, he’s going to fight his anger for a bit out of fear that it’ll manifest.” Gerry stole Tim’s coffee cup and took a sip. “God, that was bad. I don’t remember the Buried trying to sweet-talk me into giving up like that the first time. Must’ve blocked that out.”

“Not the Buried, babe. That was me.” Tim rubbed his thumb over Gerry’s cheek. “I know you can’t usually respond or anything, but, Jesus, you sounded so distressed, I just—I thought maybe if I reminded you that you were having a flashback you might calm down a bit. Guess it backfired.”

Gerry looked up at him in surprise, then smiled. “You’re not exactly beating the ‘sweet’ allegations there, Stoker.”

“Shut your whore mouth.” Tim bent down to kiss Gerry, then gave a muffled yelp as Gerry, with surprising strength, grabbed him around the neck and pulled him down into his own lap for a more intense kiss.

“Should we come back later?” Sasha’s voice said from nearby, sounding amused.

Tim held up his middle finger, and from the shift in Gerry’s grip and the choked-off laugh from someone nearby, he guessed Gerry had done the same. Then he heard a plaintive mew and pulled away from the kiss enough to ask, “Is that a fucking cat?”

“If I’m going to be here for a few days, I’m not leaving the cats alone,” Melanie said, sounding annoyed.

Gerry let go of Tim, who got to his feet and pulled Gerry up easily. Martin, Melanie, and Sasha were laden down with several bags each; Martin also had a cat carrier, while Sasha had another. Melanie had changed into a pair of loose, silky-looking trousers, probably so they wouldn’t rub her stitches, and a fluffy jumper the color of sea foam. Martin, too, had changed his torn shirt for a black turtleneck that made him look both slightly slimmer and significantly more intimidating. It also made Tim suspect he was planning to jump straight into the Buried after Jon.

“Are you okay?” Melanie asked Gerry.

“No, not really, but I’m feeling all right, at least.” Gerry looked between Melanie and Martin, his expression guilty. “I’m sorry. I—I didn’t want you to know it was like that.”

Martin stared at Gerry, his lips pressed into a tight line. Tim could see the tension building, and could also see Martin visibly swallowing it down. He took half a step away from Gerry and sat back in his chair, picking up his coffee and leaning back as best he could. Thankfully, the door kept him upright. “Nope, you deserve this, Ger. Don’t hold anything back, Marto.”

Martin took a deep breath—and let Gerry have it, with absolutely none of the Archivist and every ounce the little brother. “What the fuck, Gerard.”

“Ooh, full first name, he’s in trouble,” Sasha murmured to one of the cats, all of whom had been freed from the carriers now. The extremely fluffy grey tuxedo cat mrrped in agreement.

Martin ignored them both. “You keep doing this. You didn’t tell us what Mum and Aunt Mary were using me for, you didn’t tell us you were working with Gertrude Robinson, you didn’t tell us about the rituals, you didn’t tell us you had fucking cancer, and it was ages before you told us about the flashbacks at all. And now it turns out that you’ve been…possessed by the past, forced to narrate it into the void even while you’re reliving it, and you just…weren’t going to tell us?”

“It—it didn’t seem that bad,” Gerry said, a bit lamely. Tim could see, from his expression, that while he’d expected Martin to be mad, he hadn’t quite expected this, and it honestly seemed to be scaring him a bit. “I didn’t—”

“It’s feeding you,” Martin cut in sharply. “You know that, right? Not to the same degree as reaping the dying, but every flashback that isn’t something mundane, every time you relive an encounter with one of the Fourteen where someone should have died but didn’t, it’s feeding you, and it’s taking you further along the path you’re fighting, and you didn’t think it was that bad?”

The legs of Tim’s chair thumped back to the ground. “Wait, it’s what?”

The guilt in Gerry’s eyes was instant, and Tim swallowed down on no small amount of his own anger at the realization that Gerry had known that. “It’s not…as bad. Like you reading the written statements rather than taking live statements. Look, I know that usually someone is…I don’t know, dreaming about the moment when the flashbacks come, but it’s not like I’m standing there watching—” He broke off abruptly and clapped a hand over his mouth, eyes widening.

If Jon had been there, Tim thought distantly, he’d be shouting on Martin’s behalf right about now. For just a moment, in the shocked silence that followed Gerry’s words, it looked like Melanie was going to fill in that role. But Martin held out a hand to stop her—and for once, he didn’t look like he was going to back down.

“Does it hurt?” he asked, steel in his voice. “The flashbacks. The aftermath. Whatever. Do you feel it?”

“Yes,” Gerry answered immediately, hand coming away from his mouth. “It’s not the same as the seizure-inducing agony that happens when I refuse to take someone who’s on the cusp of dying, it’s more like the kind of headache you get when you’re low on oxygen, but it still hurts.” He winced and closed his eyes. “I deserved that.”

Martin screwed up his face and dropped his head for a moment, which was when Tim realized he had compelled Gerry. “No, you didn’t. I didn’t actually do that on purpose. I’m sorry.”

“I know better than to push you when you’re upset.” Gerry took a deep breath and looked up at Martin. “You’re right. I should have told you a long time ago. Both of you. I just…didn’t want you to think I was less than human.”

“You just didn’t want me to rip out your spine and flatten your ribs like spatchcocking a chicken,” Melanie muttered. She limped over to Gerry and hugged him tightly. “You’re still human, you asshole. Even if you do have creepier dreams than Martin.”

Martin huffed at her, but came over to hug both her and Gerry, too. Gerry clung to both of them, and for a long moment none of them moved.

Finally, Gerry stepped back and looked around. “Now that we’ve got that out of the way…what do we do now?”

Tim shrugged. “Sit vigil until Jon comes up, I guess.”

Martin shook his head, his worry rushing back in an instant. “I—I can’t do that. I need to—”

“You need to stay out of there, Martin,” Melanie said sharply. “It only just let you go once. You really think it’ll stick at swallowing the Archivist?”

“I can’t just leave him in there,” Martin shot back. He turned to Tim and Sasha. “Did he have a plan? A way to get out? Hell, a way to find Daisy? Anything?”

“He thinks the fact that she Marked him might give him a lead,” Tim answered. “And to get out…” He hesitated and looked up at Sasha.

“It’s you,” Sasha supplied. “We thought—you know, you two have each other’s hearts, so that should be enough to get him out, right?”

“I—” Martin hesitated. “I-I don’t know. I can’t—that’s too close to another Fear, I can’t Know anything about it in that detail. I—I can still sense him—just—but I can’t—i-it’s too far away.”

That…was less than optimal. Tim swallowed the sudden surge of nerves. If Jon had got so deep that Martin was having trouble finding him…what chance did Jon have? It was tempting, for just a second, to let Martin into the office—maybe if they all stood with him, they could—

“Tapes,” Gerry blurted suddenly, his face lighting up.

“What?” Martin, Melanie, and Tim all said in unison, looking up at him in confusion.

“Tapes, the tapes. You’ve got a bunch with Martin’s voice on them, right?” Gerry gestured at the door. “How many recorders do you have? Play a bunch of the tapes on top of the coffin, it should—I mean, today notwithstanding, when I’m having the flashbacks, I hear you, Tim. I heard Martin and Melanie too—didn’t hear you, Sasha, but I don’t know if that’s because you didn’t say anything or—”

“Oh, I had a lot to say, you just didn’t answer me.” Sasha set down the cat and ignored his plaintive cries to be picked up again. “I’ve seen about a dozen recorders in various places. They just keep…turning up, and we keep putting them in the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet there. It could work.”

Melanie pushed herself to a standing position. “I’ll get the tapes. Martin, come on, you can help me get them.”

Martin hurried to Document Storage, where they still kept all the tapes, Melanie trailing along in his wake and fussing at him to slow down. Tim stood up and kissed Gerry’s cheek. “Brilliant.”

“Wait and be sure it works before you say that,” Gerry cautioned in a low voice, but he smiled as he said it.

He joined Tim and Sasha at the file cabinet. Sasha pulled open the bottom drawer, and Tim stared at the motley collection of shoebox recorders, handheld recorders, and one candy-colored miniature boom box with a microphone attached by a curly cable. “I don’t remember us having so many.”

“They’re like wire hangers. They breed when you’re not looking.” Sasha bent down to grab a handful.

“Better than breeding when you are looking, I guess. The reproductive habits of Machina kasetophono is not something I’ve ever wanted to observe,” Gerry said dryly, snagging the boom box.

“Did you just invent a scientific taxonomy for ‘tape recorder’?” Tim demanded.

“I’m impressed that you picked up on that.”

“First in Anthropology, remember?” Tim scooped up what was left in the drawer. “Come on. Hopefully this will be enough.”

They dropped the recorders onto the desk just as Martin and Melanie emerged from Document Storage, arms full of tapes. Tim didn’t think he’d done a task with this kind of urgency since his student days as they all grabbed tapes, checked they were properly rewound, and snapped them into place. Gerry dashed off and returned with a box that he began piling the loaded recorders into. Once they were done, he hesitated, then handed it to Tim. “Be careful in there.”

“I will.” Tim gave Gerry one more quick kiss, then hugged Martin with one arm. “We’ll get him out. We will. C’mon, Sash.”

Sasha followed him without question. Tim glanced over his shoulder briefly to see Gerry and Melanie wrap their arms around Martin from either side, all of them watching with worried expressions, then opened the door to the Archivist’s office and went in.

Just like in the statement, the coffin was of pale, unvarnished wood, with the words DO NOT OPEN scratched deep into the surface. The chain lay on the floor, padlock still open with the key inserted, but the lid was closed. Sasha stared at it for a long moment, open curiosity on her face. Tim locked the door to the office—just as a precaution—and nudged her. “Don’t get any ideas, Miss James. Come on, let’s get these queued up.”

“How long has he been down there?” Sasha checked the clock on the wall. “A few hours? Should we just play one at a time or—”

“No. All of them,” Tim said positively. “Take ‘em out, set ‘em up, let ‘em go. We can stay here to monitor and rewind them if we need to, but the more he can hear Martin’s voice, the better.”

He pulled out the first recorder, one of the shoebox ones, and twiddled the volume dial so it was all the way up. He set it on the coffin and pressed PLAY. After the customary split second of spooling, Martin’s voice flowed out. “Martin Blackwood, Archivist at the Magnus Institute, recording statement DA-12, statement of Adelard Dekker…”

Getting the hint, Sasha grabbed the next one and put it at the other end of the coffin. A second later, Martin’s voice overlapped with the statement that was beginning to roll out. “You’re sure this is all right?”

It probably took them about ten minutes to get all the tapes they’d found going. Martin had, at this point, recorded almost more of the statements than the rest of them put together, so there was a veritable cacophony of recordings, to the point that Tim couldn’t even distinguish what they were saying. They were all Martin’s voice, though, so hopefully that would be enough.

Sasha evidently had the same thought as she stepped back. Over the babble of statements, she said, “I feel like there ought to be more we can do.”

Tim bit his lip. Suddenly, the memory of Gerry’s echoing voice floated into his head: Desperate, defeated, and oh so afraid, I begin singing “Let the Bulgine Run”—it may not work, but it will at least let it know that we are fighting.

“Shit, how does that song go…” he muttered. Gerry had taught him most of their standards, but it took him a second to match words to tune. Raising his voice, he sang out as loud as he could, “Oh, the smartest packet you could find…”

Thankfully, Sasha apparently knew it as well and joined in. He could hear the others, faintly, singing through the door behind him and knew they were joining in, and he hoped that the shanty, combined with the tapes, would be enough.

They had just reached the end of the words Tim knew, and he was scrambling to improvise an additional verse, when the lid of the coffin rattled. Tim grabbed Sasha and pulled her back against the wall as the recorders began sliding away, some silenced as they reached the ends of their tapes, others still yelling to the ceiling about forests and ghosts and monster movies. After a moment, the lid flew open and��thank Christ—Jon emerged, gasping, covered in dirt head to toe, with haunted eyes, but still alive. Tim could see a narrow flight of stone steps that he was scrambling his way up, one hand clutching a recorder and the other behind him. He got a little further and…

And there was Daisy.

Jon all but fell over the side of the coffin, dragging Daisy with him. Sasha didn’t hesitate. She lunged forward and grabbed the coffin lid, then stopped, staring into it.

“Sasha, no, don’t!” Tim, panicking slightly, darted forward, intent on dragging her back, slamming the lid shut, and locking it tight. Possibly welding it in place.

Sasha shook her head and looked up, but there was no fear in her eyes—only wonder, and a bit of respect. “It’s empty.”

“What?” Tim and Jon said in unison.

“Look.” Sasha pointed into the depths. “It’s—it’s gone. It’s just a coffin. Jon, you defeated the Buried.”

Jon seemed understandably reluctant to look, but Tim peered over Sasha’s shoulder and blinked. The steps he’d seen were—as Sasha said—gone. There was nothing in the coffin but a thin sprinkling of dirt scattered over a pale yellow bottom.

“Holy shit.” Tim blinked, then shook his head. “I’ll be damned. Still, uh, let’s not tempt fate, yeah? C’mon, let’s lock this sucker up, just in case. Now we can send it to Artifact Storage.”

Jon shook some of the dirt out of his hair and looked around the room. “What…tape recorders?”

“Gerry’s idea. He thought Martin’s voice would help.” Tim wrapped the chain back around the coffin and locked it securely. “He’s outside waiting for you. Come on.”

Sasha unlocked the door to the office and yanked it open. “It worked!”

She had to dodge out of the way as Jon practically charged out the door and into Martin’s waiting arms, coming together in a cloud of dirt. It was only when he let go to throw his arms around Martin’s neck that Tim realized Jon had still been holding Daisy’s hand.

Tim studied her. She looked…different. Her hair had grown out during the months she’d been trapped underground, from what he could see under the dirt and dust, and there were dark hollows under both eyes. She seemed almost to have shrunk into herself, and the look in her eyes actually stirred a little bit of sympathy in him—she looked lost. Broken.

“Are you okay?” Martin’s voice cracked and shook even on those four syllables. “Christ, Jon, I—when they said you went in there—”

“I’m okay. I’m okay.” Jon didn’t sound totally convinced of that, and the way he clung told Tim he was definitely not okay, but it also told him he was getting there. “It…wasn’t fun, but—I, I found her.”

Martin tucked his chin over Jon’s head and looked over at Daisy, then offered her a weak but genuine smile. “Hey.”

Daisy’s mouth twitched slightly, like she was considering smiling but wasn’t sure she was allowed to. Tim hesitated, then held out his arms hesitantly. “Uh…welcome back?”

To his surprise, she actually accepted—as hesitantly as he’d offered, but she did step closer and tentatively put her arms around his shoulders. He responded in kind, not wanting to squeeze her too tightly if…but after a second, she seemed to release a lot of tension, all at once.

“It was lonely down there,” she said, her voice low and shaky, almost fragile somehow. “Quiet, but…I didn’t think I needed…people.”

Melanie’s expression looked conflicted, but then she shifted and crossed her arms over her chest. “Well. You’ve got us, for what it’s worth.”

“Yeah.” Daisy let go of Tim and looked around the room, like she was marking everyone. “Where’s Basira?”

And, really, Tim thought with a sinking feeling, he should have expected that, too. He looked around at the others, who all bore expressions he thought were probably pretty similar to his own—guilt, sympathy, pain, worry. Maybe a little bit of fear, but strangely, he wasn’t as afraid of Daisy as he had been. She didn’t seem as dangerous as she had.

Yet, an evil little voice in the back of his brain said. Give her time to recover.

Sasha was the one to finally break the silence. “She’s working for Peter Lukas.”

Daisy blinked and tilted her head to one side, sending another shower of dirt to the floor. They were going to have to do some serious cleanup. “Do I…know him?”

“No reason why you should. The Lukases are Institute donors, and they’re also very tightly bound up in the Lonely,” Martin said, gently and carefully. He’d let go of Jon, probably so as not to rub it in to Daisy, but they were still standing incredibly close to one another. “The plan worked, Tim and Sasha got Elias arrested, but Peter Lukas took over pretty much right away. Basira’s been working directly for him since just after Halloween.”

Daisy stared at Martin. Tim had always found her expressions rather difficult to read, unless she was trying to be intimidating. He didn’t now. “Why?”

“She made some kind of deal with him. There were a lot of attacks against the Archives, and the last one…i-it was bad. We all realized we couldn’t keep fighting them off like that.” Martin swallowed visibly. “Basira left mid-conversation—we thought at first she’d just gone out for a walk or something, but the next thing we knew, her desk was empty and I got a memo from Peter Lukas that she had been reassigned. She’s his personal assistant now.”

Sasha nodded. “We don’t…see her too much these days. She’s still around, and we see her more often than we do Peter Lukas—I actually don’t know if anybody has seen him other than Basira and maybe Manal—but it’s still a rare thing.”

Martin hesitated. “I’ll go let her know you’re back. She’ll want to know.”

“Ask if we need permission to send the coffin to Artifact Storage or if we can just drop it off while you’re at it,” Tim suggested. “I don’t think we need that thing sitting down here any more, even if it’s empty.”

“Wait, what?” Martin said incredulously. “Did you say empty?”

“Tell you what, you explain,” Tim said to Sasha. “I’ll go talk to Basira myself. And maybe see about finding the extra brooms. Be back in a jiffy.” Before anyone could argue with him, he headed out of the Archives and into the Institute proper.

Manal being away from her desk was, surprisingly, a good sign; Tim had learned that if he bumped into anyone else outside the Archives, he was that much less likely to find Basira. Her office door was firmly shut, but he knocked on it three times and then opened without waiting for permission.

“Daisy’s back,” he said without preamble, and then stopped. There was a coldness in the room, and a faint smell of salt and damp permeated the air. The computer was on, humming low in the background, and a set of half-filled forms sat next to it, a fat-barreled pen resting on top of it, cap stuck firmly to the back and exposing the nib to the open air.

Other than that, the room seemed empty.

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