half sister.
Because Nicodemus’s half sister was not disabled, she might become the Halcyon—the spellwright prophesied to stop the Disjunction. No doubt, the Alliance had trained her to find and kill Typhon’s Imperial, to find and kill Nicodemus.
Therefore, Shannon might have been murdered by Nicodemus’s half sister or one of her agents.
Then the ghost considered the paper note left on the book. A bloody spot, followed by the words “our memories are in her” and another bloody spot. There was no punctuation or capitalization. Why?
The Numinous message had instructed him to find the Cleric Francesca DeVega. Only she can help you find your murderer, it had read. Shannon hadn’t collected all the broken Numinous runes. Perhaps there had been more information.
But was there a connection between the two notes? Did “our memories are in her” mean that Shannon’s memories were in the cleric Francesca? And why write “our” memories?
Perhaps the blood had covered a letter? Maybe it was supposed to read “Your memories are in her.” That would explain the lack of capitalization. Or perhaps there was another word that was supposed to follow “her.” Perhaps the sentence was supposed to be “Your memories are in her care” or some such. He had to find Francesca DeVega.
The ghost, still unable to guess how much time had passed while in the book, wondered what part of his textual mind sensed time and if he could connect to it. However, when he tried to send out exploratory sentences, a stiff pressure held them in place. He tried twice more before realizing that the book he was in had been closed. The hierophant who had been editing the kite must have picked up his book.
Was he going to sit on a shelf for decades until someone pulled the book down? Perhaps he could find his few Magnus passages and use them to push the book open?
Suddenly the pressure holding the ghost on the page vanished. With a jarring speed, his face flew out of an open page.
Once again, he was peering out of an open book on the floor. Before him stretched the hallway where he had encountered the warkite. The hierophant from the library stood beside him. She must have been carrying the book and dropped it.
The woman lowered her veil, grimaced, and then let out a rush of incomprehensible words. Her eyes widened in terror. She brought her hands to her mouth as if shocked. Then she lowered her eyebrows in concentration. For a moment no sound came. Then she let out a fluid mash of words.
Soundlessly, Shannon swore. A powerful and unknown spell must be locked around the parts of the woman’s brain that allowed her to speak. She had expressive aphasia.
The woman’s gibberish rose and then fell. A distant chorus of voices answered. She began walking toward the clamoring voices.
Shannon stuck his head farther out of the book and watched her walk down the hallway. He imagined the book as the “ground” and focused his Magnus sentence in his chin. Awkwardly, he used his chin to lift another page. From this new crack in the book came first his fingers, then his whole right hand.
With concentration, he used three silvery sentences in his reconstructed hand to turn the page from which his head emerged. The world tilted, and then all his text began to interconnect and pull itself free. The pages flipped faster and faster, releasing paragraph after paragraph that wove themselves into his body. When the last page turned and pushed him away, he slid a few feet along the floor and stopped.
Down the hall, the wailing grew louder. Cautiously, he stood and walked back to the library. The door was open. Inside, the warkite lay folded next to a stack of books. The hierophant must have deactivated its text. Shannon peered out the window but saw no warkites in the sky. For the moment, he was safe.
So he turned and trotted after the aphasic hierophant. The hallway ran in a slow curve. Through the windows, he saw more red-tiled roof, ornate sandstone minarets, glimpses of the city beyond. Every thirty feet or so, he passed a smaller hallway that ran toward the dome’s center.
The hierophant’s gibberish now rose and fell to a manic cadence. Coming around a corner, Shannon caught sight of her just before she broke into a run.
He hurried after, keeping a safe distance. The voices answering her grew louder. The woman ran faster. He sped up.
Then something made him stop.
He looked back down the hall. He now stood on the other side of the sanctuary’s dome, the shaded side. No sunlight came through the windows here. The hallways leading toward the dome’s center were nearly black. But why had he stopped? Had he heard something?
It came again. He jumped.
It was just barely audible. He walked toward it, away from the direction the hierophant had been running.
It came again. A chill ran down his ghostly body.
“Shannon.” It was a feeble whisper. “Shannon.”
Something about the voice was familiar.
Shannon’s hands began to tremble. Suddenly, he wished he could return to being a fragmented consciousness, distanced from his ability to feel emotions like dread.
The whisper came again. “Here.”
With a start, Shannon realized that the voice was coming from one of the hallways to the dome’s center.
Someone was standing in the dark—a hunched figure leaning against the wall. A thin old man? A creature standing on the figure’s shoulder flapped its wings.
“Blood and hell!” Shannon swore without sound. He stepped back.
“No!” the old man pleaded. “No, stay. Please …”
Shannon halted. The stranger’s voice was raw with desperation.
“You know me.” The old man took a few halting steps toward him. “You know me.”
Shannon took another step back but then stopped. The stranger was right. But … the memory, it wasn’t all there.
Shannon waited. The old man did not move. Shannon took a cautious step toward him.
“Oh …” the old man said. “Oh, I have missed you …” The stranger took two more halting steps forward. “Please. Please, come back.”
Now closer to the light, Shannon saw that the creature standing on the stranger’s shoulder was a large blue parrot. The skin around her beak and eyes was bright yellow. The old man had tawny skin, a hooked nose, two blank white eyes, long silvery dreadlocks.
“Shannon,” the old man whispered and held out a hand.
Filled with confusion, fear, and longing, the ghost held out his own hand and tried to say “Shannon.”
Chapter Eight
As Francesca fell from the lofting kite, her eyes met Deirdre’s. Time slowed, and she could identify every radial fleck in Deirdre’s green irises, every black strand of hair flickering before her tawny face. The immortal woman’s mouth was parted, as if she were just about to say something extremely interesting.
Then time jumped forward. Francesca plummeted.
Above her, the air warden’s kite wrapped around its pilot. The hierophant shot downward as if loosed from a giant bow and struck her in an awkward, aerial tackle. The world spun. The sanctuary seemed above her as she fell down into blue.
Then the kite coiled around her and pressed her close to the air warden. He had raised his veil, covering everything but his light brown eyes.
It had been three years.
Francesca’s heart was kicking, but the terror of her fall was melting into giddiness. The pilot hadn’t looked at her face yet; he was distracted by the approaching ground.
Two sheets of the red sailcloth stretched forward and out to form narrow wings. A tiny adjustment in these wings tilted them to a horizontal