Mary's Arc

Chapter 4 of 5

Mary carried the book back to her room and set it on the desk. She did not open it. Even shut, it pulled at her chest, thinner now but still there, like a thread tied behind the ribs. She slept badly. In the morning, the pull had changed direction. It no longer tugged toward the book. It tugged toward the chamber they had left. She found Void in the east wing hall. He was standing very still, one hand at his side. "You feel it too," she said. He nodded once. "Since last night. It's coming from the statue." His voice was lower than usual. "Something is leaking out of the crack." They went back down together. The stone chamber smelled wrong now — wet iron, and under it something sweeter. The statue of the two embracing figures stood where they had left it, half-fractured. A pale grey vapor slid from the seam between the two shadowed bodies. It did not rise. It moved along the floor toward Mary's feet. When she stepped back, it stopped. When she stepped forward, it reached. "It wants what the book started," Void said. "The part you closed off before it could finish." Mary understood then. The book had pulled something up out of them and had not put it back. The statue had cracked holding what spilled. Now the crack was open and the thing inside was hunting the person it half-knew. Her. She set the book on the tablet again. She did not open it. "If I open the book here, it will feed. If I leave, it follows me out." Void was quiet for a long time. "Then we don't feed it and we don't let it follow. We seal it." He drew his blade and cut his palm. He pressed the cut against the fracture in the stone. "Put your hand next to mine. Don't open the book. Just hold it against the seam." Mary did. The vapor stilled against the cover. The book grew warm, then cold. She felt the pull in her chest thin further, then snap clean. The fracture in the statue closed under Void's blood, sealing to a thin dark line. The vapor drew back inside and did not return. She lifted the book. It was lighter again. Two closings now. Two things it had almost shown and had not. Void wrapped his hand in the edge of his cloak. He looked at her for the first time in a day. "I don't know what we sealed in there," he said. "I know it was ours." Mary nodded. She had wanted to master the book by using it. Twice now she had mastered it by refusing it. That was not the same skill. She would need the other. And she would need a face that could not close, next time — someone who could not press their palm to a crack and stop the truth from coming out.