The walls were paneled and curved into low benches near the floor. I had seen pictures like these in my mom’s books. Monks and acolytes sat on benches like this to pray.
Why was I here?
When I looked up again, the room was suddenly full of people. They were wedged onto the entire length of the bench, filling the space in front of me, crowding and pushing from all sides. I couldn’t see their faces; half of them were cloaked. But all of them were buzzing with anticipation.
“What’s going on? What are we waiting for?”
No one answered. It was as if they couldn’t see me, which didn’t make sense. This wasn’t a dream. I was in a real place.
The crowd moved forward, murmuring, and I heard the banging of a gavel. “Silentium.”
Then I saw familiar faces, and I realized where I was. Where I had to be.
The Far Keep.
At the end of the hall, Marian was hooded and robed, her hands tied with a golden rope. She stood in the balcony above the room, next to the tall man who showed up in the library archive. The Council Keeper, I heard people around me whisper. The albino Keeper was standing behind him.
He spoke in Latin, and I couldn’t understand him. But the people around me did, and they were going crazy. “Ulterioris Arcis Concilium, quod nulli rei—sive homini, sive animali, sive Numini Atro, sive Numini Albo—nisi Rationi Rerum paret, Marianam ex Arce Occidentali Perfidiae condemnat.”
The Council Keeper repeated the words in English, and I understood why the people around me were reacting this way. “The Council of the Far Keep, which answers only to the Order of Things, to no man, creature, or power, Dark or Light, finds Marian of the Western Keep guilty of Treason.”
There was a piercing pain in my stomach, as if my whole body had been sliced with a giant blade.
“These are the Consequences of her inaction. The Consequences shall be paid. The Keeper, though Mortal, will return to the Dark Fire from which all power comes.”
The Council Keeper removed Marian’s hood, and I could see her eyes, ringed with darkness. Her head was shaved, and she looked like a prisoner of war. “The Order is broken. Until the New Order comes forth, the Old Law must be upheld, and the Consequences paid.”
“Marian! You can’t let them—” I tried to push through the crowd, but the more I tried, the faster people surged forward, and the farther away she seemed.
Until I hit something, someone unmoving and unmovable. I looked up into the glassy stare of Lilian English.
Mrs. English? What is she doing here?
“Ethan?”
“Mrs. English. You have to help me. They have Marian Ashcroft. They’re going to hurt her, and it’s not her fault. She didn’t do anything!”
“What do you think of the judge now?”
“What?” She wasn’t making any sense.
“Your paper. It’s due on my desk tomorrow.”
“I know that. I’m not talking about my paper.” Didn’t she understand what was happening?
“I think you are.” Her voiced sounded different, unfamiliar.
“The judge is wrong. They’re all wrong.”
“Someone must be at fault. The Order is broken. If not Marian Ashcroft, then who is to blame?”
I didn’t have the answer. “I don’t know. My mom said—”
“Mothers lie,” Mrs. English said, her voice void of emotion. “To allow their children to live the great lie that is Mortal existence.”
I could feel my anger building. “Don’t talk about my mom. You don’t know her.”
“The Wheel of Fate. Your mother knows about that. The future is not predetermined. Only you can stop the Wheel from crushing Marian Ashcroft. From crushing them all.”
Mrs. English disappeared, and the room was empty. There was a smooth rowan doorway in front of me, recessed into the wall as if it had always been there. The Temporis Porta.
I reached for the handle. The second I touched it, I was on the other side again, standing in the Mortal tunnel, staring at Liv.
“Ethan! What happened?” She hugged me, and I felt a flicker of the connection that would always be between us.
“I’m fine, don’t worry.” I pulled back. Her smile faded, her cheeks turning bright pink as she realized what she had done. She swung her arms behind her back, clutching them awkwardly, like she wished she could make them disappear.
“What did you see? Where did you go?”
“I’m not exactly sure, but I know it was the Far Keep. I recognized two of the Keepers who came to the library. But I think it was the future.”
“The future? How do you know?” The wheels were already spinning in Liv’s mind.
“It was Marian’s trial, which hasn’t happened yet.”
Liv was twisting the pencil tucked behind her ear. “Temporis Porta means ‘Time Door.’ It could be possible.”
“Are you sure?” After what I’d seen, I hoped it was more of a warning—some sort of possible future that wasn’t set in stone.
“There’s no way to know, but if the Temporis Porta is some kind of portal, which seems likely, then you could have been seeing something that hasn’t happened yet. The actual future.” Liv started scribbling in her red notebook. I knew she wanted to remember every detail of this conversation.
“After what I saw, I hope you’re wrong.”
She stopped writing. “I suppose it wasn’t good, then?”
“No.” I stopped. “If that really was the future, we can’t let Marian go to that trial. Promise me. If they come again, you’ll help me keep her away from the Council. I don’t think she knows—”
“I promise.” Her face was dark and her voice cracked, and I knew that she was trying not to cry.
“Let’s hope there’s some other explanation.” But even as I said it, I knew there wasn’t. And so did Liv.
We retraced our steps, through the dirt, the heat, and the darkness, until I couldn’t feel anything except the weight of my world collapsing.
10.13
Golden Ticket
That night, after the visit from the Far Keep, Marian went into her house and didn’t come out again, as far as I could tell. The next day, I stopped by to see if she was okay. She didn’t answer the door, and she wasn’t at the library either. The day after that, I brought her mail up to the porch. I tried to look in her windows, but her shades were drawn, and the curtains, too.
I rang the bell again today, but she didn’t answer. I sat down on her front steps and leafed through her mail. Nothing out of the ordinary—bills. A letter from Duke University, probably about one of her research grants. And some kind of returned letter, but I didn’t recognize the address. Kings Langley.
Why was that familiar? My head felt foggy, like there was something at the edge of my memory I couldn’t reach.
“That would be mine, I believe.” Liv sat down on the step next to me. Her hair was braided, and she was wearing cutoff jeans and a periodic table T-shirt.
On the surface, Liv seemed the same. But I knew the summer had changed things for her. “I never asked you if you were okay after that scene at the library, with the Council. Are you—all right, I mean?”
“I suppose. But what happened at the Temporis Porta scared me more.” She looked scared, and faraway.
“Me, too.”
“Ethan, I think it was the future. You walked through the door, and you were transported to another physical place. That’s the way a time portal operates.”
The Far Keep hadn’t felt like a dream, or even a vision. It was like stepping into another world. I just wished that world wasn’t the future.
Liv’s face clouded over. Something else was bothering her.
“What is it?”
“I’ve been thinking.” Liv twisted her selenometer nervously. “The Temporis Porta only opened for you. Why didn’t it let me through?”
Because bad things keep happening to me. That’s what I was thinking, but I didn’t say it. I also didn’t mention that I’d seen my English teacher in the future. “I don’t know. So what do we do?”
“The only thing we can. We make sure Marian doesn’t go to the Far Keep.”
I looked up at her door. “Maybe we should be glad she won’t come out of the house. Guess I should’ve known nothing good would come out of sneaking around in Amma’s pantry.”
“Except the preserves.” Liv smiled weakly. She was trying to distract me from the one thing I could never get away from—myself.
“Cherry?”
“Strawberry.” She said it in two syllables. Straw-bry. “With a spoon, straight out of the jar.”
“You sound like Ridley. All sugar, all the time.” She smiled when I said it.
“I meant to ask you. How are Ridley and Link and Lena?”
“Aw, you know. Ridley’s tearing up the school. She’s a cheerleader now.”
Liv laughed. “Siren, cheerleader. I’m not up on American culture, but even I appreciate the similarities.”
“I guess. Link is the biggest big man on campus you’ve ever seen. The girls hang all over him. He’s a real chick magnet.”
“How is Lena? Happy to have her uncle back, I bet. And you.”
She didn’t look at me, and I didn’t look at her. When she finally spoke, she looked up into the blazing sun, instead of at me. That’s how much she didn’t want to say it to my face. “It’s hard for me, you know? I find myself thinking about you, things I want to tell you, things I think are funny or odd, but you aren’t there.”
I wanted to drop Marian’s mail and bolt down the steps.
Instead, I took a deep breath. “I know. The rest of us are all still together, and you’re alone. After everything we went through, we bailed on you. It sucks.” I finally said it. It had been bothering me since the day we came home to Gatlin, the day Liv disappeared into the Tunnels with Macon.
“I have Macon. He’s been wonderful to me, almost like a father.” She twisted the bits of string that were always tied to her wrist. “But I miss you and Marian, and not being able to talk to either of you is horrible, actually. I don’t want to get her into any more trouble. But it’s like being told you have to give up ice cream, or prawn crisps, or Ovaltine.”
“I know. I’m sorry it’s all so weird.” What was weird was this conversation. It was so much like Liv to be the one brave enough to have it.
She looked sideways at me, and half smiled. “I was thinking, after I saw you yesterday. It’s not like I can’t speak to you without trying to kiss you. You’re not that irresistible.”
“Tell me about it.”
“I wish I could print up a sign and tape it to my forehead. I OFFICIALLY DO NOT WANT TO KISS ETHAN WATE. NOW PLEASE LET ME BE FRIENDS WITH HIM.”
“Maybe we could make T-shirts that say PLATONIC.”
“Or NOT DATING.”
“UNATTRACTED.”
Liv took the returned letter out of the pile with a sigh. “This was me feeling sorry for myself a few weeks ago. I wrote home and asked if they’d have me back.”