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  To Christopher Schelling, for braving the blackberry bushes

  Oh, these are the days

  These are the strangest of all

  These are the nights

  These are the darkest to fall

  But who knows?

  Echoes in tenement halls

  Who knows?

  Though the years snare them all

  Like a slow burn

  Leading us on and on and on

  Like a slow burn

  Twirling us round and round

  And upside down

  There’s fear overhead

  There’s fear overground

  —David Bowie, “Slow Burn”

  Prologue

  EPISTEM HAL TURIN PACED BACK and forth in front of the windows, enacting a manifold dialogue in his mind—an attempt to encompass the nearly endless potentialities inherent to a single conversation, the myriad futures that could be engendered by a single phrase. His cigarette had gone out some minutes before, but just holding it helped him to think more clearly. He stopped moving for a moment and gazed out over the city. It was a dark and drizzly day—the kind that made even the most rational man believe God must be feeling melancholy. Usually the sound of the rain soothed him, but today he found its relentlessness irritating, like a fly buzzing against a windowpane.

  No escape.

  The knock at the door came sharp and sudden; Turin dropped his half-smoked cigarette in surprise, kicked the stub toward the wall.

  “Come in.”

  Attendant Rami Koury entered the office and closed the door behind him. He wore the standard uniform of his office—brown robes tied at the waist with braided white rope—yet somehow he still managed to look dashing. Standing just over six feet tall, his head freshly shaved and oiled, Koury carried himself with the unaffected arrogance of a mountain lion. Thankfully, his demeanor belied his bearing—warm and good-humored, almost impossible to hate. He’d started at the Library nearly seven years ago now, at the relatively advanced age of twenty-five.

  Turin had been smitten with him immediately.

  He’d probed the subject as subtly as possible over the course of that first year, and though he eventually decided that his advances would likely be welcomed, by then Koury had insinuated himself into the social and professional fabric of the Library. He was well regarded, and even worse, well liked. Turin was willing to risk his own career—he’d taken a handful of lovers over the years, knowing full well that every one of them had the power to expose his deviance—but he couldn’t bring himself to put Koury’s future in jeopardy.

  He’d mourned the loss at the time (and it had felt like a loss, even if it was only the forfeiture of a fantasy), but he was glad for it now. That sort of intimacy would have made what he had to do today so much harder.

  “Good afternoon, Epistem.”

  “Afternoon, Rami. How are the magic potions coming?”

  Koury smiled. “Magic potions” was the term used within the Library to refer to medicines. “Well enough. Hulce thinks he may’ve found something in dandelions that alleviates stomach pain, but it needs more experimenting.”

  “Very good. Speaking of potions, would you like a drink?”

  “It’s a little early in the day, isn’t it?”

  Turin turned away, toward the cabinets built into the west wall, struck by a sudden fear that something in his eyes had already given him away. “Nonsense,” he said.

  “Well then, I suppose I’ll join you in a nip.”

  Turin had prepared two bottles of wine for the occasion—that is, he’d readied two and prepared one. Both were more than forty years old, part of the collection left behind by Epistem Baraka: it didn’t seem right to use anything of lesser quality today.

  “Here you are,” he said, offering the glass in his left hand.

  “Thank you.”

  They sat down in the plush chairs Turin had arranged in front of the fireplace. “Now what shall we toast? Health? Happiness?”

  “I’ve always liked the Wesah saying, ‘May all your dreams be nightmares,’ ” Koury said.

  “Yes. Kahkiiyow pawatamihk kiishkwayhkwashi.”

  They tapped glasses. As Koury drank, his Adam’s apple dipped and rose in his long neck, like a body twisting beneath a bedsheet. Turin had the urge to touch it.

  “Delicious,” Koury said, smacking his lips. “So tell me, when did you learn to speak Wesah?”

  “Here and there, over the years, but I’m far from fluent. It’s a beautiful language, the poetry in particular. It’s a shame they’ve never bothered to write any of it down.”

  “I seem to remember one of ours attempting to transcribe a few verses, once upon a time.”

  “Attendant Chappuis. He planned to make a full rendering of the Wesah origin story, until he discovered that only a few tribeswomen are authorized to tell it. It would be as if only Honors were allowed to read the Filia.”

  “How strange.”

  Turin shrugged. “Every culture determines what knowledge is sacred and what profane. It’s part of the fun.”

  “Gates must be built so there can be jobs for the gatekeepers.”

  “Exactly!” Turin said, laughing.

  “Recite something for me,” Koury said. “A beautiful Wesah poem, I mean.” The attendant’s eyes were sparkling, a combination of the liquor and a completely understandable misconception. Hadn’t the Epistem called him in for a private meeting, only to offer him a drink in the middle of the day?

  “I only know love poems.”

  With the same ease and confidence he brought to all his actions, Koury placed his hand atop Turin’s. “And what’s wrong with that?”

  Had they ever touched before? Turin couldn’t remember. He only knew that his heart was suddenly racing. He closed his eyes, as if that self-imposed darkness might slow the cruel onrush of time, hurtling heedlessly toward the cataract. The least he could do was give Koury this last moment of communion, of happiness. They both deserved that much.

  “You believe in the mission of the Library, don’t you, Rami?”

  Koury was clearly confused by the abrupt change of subject. “I—of course I do.”

  “And you would do anything to further that mission?”

  “You know I would.”

  “Good.” Turin turned his hand over and interlaced his fingers with Koury’s. “I’ve been watching you, you know, ever since you came to the Library. You’re one of the brightest men I’ve ever met.”

  “That’s kind of you to say.”

  “I imagine you must find the strictures of this place frustrating.”

  Koury raised an eyebrow. “Strictures?”

  “You know—having to request books one by one, the waiting periods, all the talk of anathema.”

  “On the contrary, I enjoy constraints. They encourage creative thinking. Besides, if I had free rein, who knows the trouble I’d get into.” Koury smiled flirtatiously, but Turin pressed on.

  “And that sort of trouble doesn’t appeal to you? Not in the slightest?”

  “I don’t know . . .” Koury trailed off, frowning as if at a joke he didn’t quite understand. His left eye had begun to twitch. Did he sense what was happening? Turin had so little time to try to make himself understood, to justify his actions.
r />   “You are about to undertake a grand task, Rami. More than that, you are about to be granted knowledge reserved only for the most blessed few.”

  “What . . . what are you saying?” Rami swallowed hard, and the first glint of fear appeared in his eyes.

  “The Holy Order of the Damned was formed less than a hundred years after the founding of the Descendancy and has operated in secret ever since. There is no greater honor than to be inducted into this order. Nor is there a greater sacrifice the Church can ask of a man.”

  The panic was rising in Koury now. He clumsily tore his hand out of Turin’s and tried to stand, but his balance was already compromised and he fell right back down into his chair. “Something is wrong,” he said, his eyes moving wildly in their sockets, as if seeking escape. They alighted on Turin at last—accusing, betrayed. “What have you done to me?”

  “Please, Rami, try and calm down. There’s no use struggling.”

  But Koury was a fighter, and with a great effort, he managed once again to rise to his feet. Like a toddler taking his first steps, he plodded uncertainly in the direction of the door. But just as Turin was beginning to worry that he hadn’t adjusted the recipe sufficiently to account for the attendant’s size, Koury let out a terrible groan and went down on one knee.

  “My poor giant,” the Epistem murmured, running to Rami’s side. The attendant looked up at him, and where Turin had expected to see rage or terror, there was only sadness—a desolation beyond words. That look would haunt the Epistem for the rest of his days, even after he’d consigned others to the same fate. It reminded him of a particularly cutting phrase from that odd, shambolic text the first generation of men had rated so highly: My God, why hast thou forsaken me?

  Turin leaned forward and planted a soft kiss on Rami’s trembling lips. “May the Daughter keep you, my son,” he said.

  A moment later, the attendant’s eyes rolled back in his head, and the Epistem lowered him gently to the floor.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Koury woke in darkness to an excruciating hammering in his skull. His first thought was that he must be dead, only nowhere in the Filia did it say there would be pain in death, unless it was the unfathomable agony of hell itself. This was only a headache, though one of the worst he’d ever known: shinefog writ large. He spent the first few minutes of consciousness just trying to keep the waves of pain from overwhelming him. Slowly he became aware of the sound of breathing.

  His throat ached, bile-burned, but he managed to speak. “Who’s there?”

  A torch flared to life, bright as the sun. Koury cried out and covered his eyes. When they’d at last adjusted, he squinted out through the lattice of his fingers.

  “No,” he said, as he began to discern the contours of the chamber, the nature of his sacrifice. “No, no, no . . .”

  A hand landed on his shoulder and squeezed, sympathetic but firm, silencing his protestations.

  Yes, it said.

  Part I

  STRANGERS

  * * *

  He who despairs of the human condition is a coward, but he who has hope for it is a fool.

  —Albert Camus

  1. Gemma

  THE MORNING AFTER HER ABDUCTION, Gemma awoke to a rumbling in her belly, a hunger whetted by the succulent aroma and homey sizzle of roasting meat. For just a moment, she imagined she was back at her grandfather’s house in the Anchor. Any second now, he’d call out—breakfast!—and then she and Flora would race downstairs to battle it out for the first helpings of scrambled eggs and bacon.

  The fantasy dissipated when Gemma opened her eyes. She lay between two fur blankets in a small, conical tent supported by three smooth wooden poles. Her wrists were bound behind her back with leather straps, but her legs had been left unrestrained.

  So it was all real: she’d been captured by the Wesah, who were taking her Daughter only knew where, and the odds were she’d never see her little sister or her grandfather ever again. She allowed herself to cry, but made sure to keep it quiet; she didn’t want the Wesah to know she was hurting. More than that, she didn’t want them to know she was awake. If they believed her to be asleep, she might have a chance at escaping.

  After the tears stopped coming and Gemma awkwardly wiped her cheeks with her shoulders, she crept over to the tent flap and peeked her head through. The campsite was larger than she’d expected—at least thirty small tents and a couple of larger ones. Tribeswomen walked the snowy lanes between these tents, spitting and shouting, laughing their throaty, masculine laughter. Not a dozen yards from Gemma, two men silently tended to the meat roasting over a large fire. They could only be the “missives” she’d heard so much about; watching them made her think about those comedic plays whose plots revolved around cross-dressing princes and mistaken identities. Odd to see a man cooking for a group of women; odder still to consider just why it looked so odd.

  But she was wasting time. Any moment now, someone would look in and realize they’d forgotten to truss the new prisoner’s legs. Though there was no hope of getting through the campsite unseen, with luck she could lose her pursuers in the snowy woods. (And then what? Don’t worry about that now.) She said a quick prayer, took a deep breath, and charged out of the tent, making for the sparse cover of the trees. The tribeswomen she passed watched her go with varying levels of amusement or contempt; no one made a grab for her, or bothered to give chase. Still, she ran as fast and as far as she could, sundering the silence of the morning with her ragged panting and muffled footfalls, leaving prints like a trail of bread crumbs in the snow behind her, until her muscles ached with the effort and the piercing cold had become a blessing. Only when her legs were on the verge of giving out did she press her back up against the trunk of a pine and begin rubbing the leather straps around her wrists against the rough bark.

  “Come on,” she whispered. “Come on.”

  She’d been at it for about ten minutes when she saw Athène approaching. The chieftain looked younger than Gemma remembered, shorn of the authority conferred on her by the rest of the naasyoon, and her expression was serene, almost beatific.

  “Here,” she said, approaching with her hands outstretched. Steam seeped from between her interlaced fingers, as if her soul were leaking out of her body, and the many copper bangles she wore on her arms slid down to her wrists; Gemma knew from Burns what they signified—a chronicle of death. The ruby ring on Athène’s left middle finger glistered like freshly spilled blood in the brittle winter light. “Is food. You need eat.”

  “You can go to hell,” Gemma said, still raking her restraints against the bark. Why did the leather have to be so wretchedly thick?

  The chieftain frowned sympathetically. “Where you go, chee. No cities here. Only trees. You starve.”

  Gemma’s arms felt like lead weights hanging off her shoulders. She twisted her fingers around to feel at the leather and found a barely palpable thinning in one spot; rubbing her way free would take hours. She slumped back against the tree, defeated. “Just kill me.”

  Athène smiled, as if at a joke. “I no kill you. You are only now alive. You are only now free.”

  “Free?” Gemma spun around to show off her bound hands. “You tied me up. You took me from my friends. If I’m so free, let me go back.”

  Athène shook her head. “You are even less free then. I show you.”

  Gemma couldn’t help but laugh; it was all nonsense. “Like I said, you can go to hell.” She tried to spit at the chieftain, but her mouth was so dry, she only managed a fleck.

  Athène wiped it away, calm but disappointed. “You will let go this anger, then we talk like nimish.” With that, she turned around and strode back toward the campsite.

  Here was more false freedom: the chieftain was giving Gemma the opportunity to run, but both of them knew it would be certain death to strike out into that desolation alone and fettered. Still, Gemma was tempted. At least she would die on her own terms, unsullied by whatever the Wesah planned to do to her.


  A breeze galvanized the leaves of a small, spindly oak that had survived half the winter with its coppery coat intact. Its crepitation seemed a kind of boast, a paean to its unlikely vegetal tenacity—only survive, it seemed to say.

  Gemma sighed. Freezing to death just to spite her enemies held a certain melodramatic appeal, but she knew it was a selfish and vain fantasy. She wasn’t alone in this world. How would Flora get by without her, or her grandfather, or even Clive and Clover, wherever they were now? Gemma had to do whatever she could to stay alive—for their sake, if not her own.

  She would bide her time, play the compliant captive, so that when she eventually escaped, she could do it with all her limbs available for use, a bit of food in her belly, and a fast horse between her legs.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  The only enjoyable part of her days now was how they ended.

  When Gemma closed her eyes at night, she could go home again. She could walk the bowered paths of Portland Park with Flora at her side. She could plant herself outside Kahneman’s Bakery in Armelle Plaza and inhale the yeasty sweetness of fresh bread. She could lower herself onto one of the plush kneelers of Notre Fille, swaddled in echoey silence, and gaze up at the great golden annulus floating like a hollow sun above the ambo. These dreams brought back all the quotidian details of her old life and, in the process, rendered them miracles.

  Other nights, darker visions came. Gemma would find herself sitting cross-legged beneath the willow tree on the banks of the Ivan. Moonlight scythed silver through the gaps in the branches, bejeweling Irene’s tearstained cheeks. The curtains parted; the play began. Shadows slipped into the bower, an infinite army of faceless Wesah warriors, while Irene simply faded away, as if she’d never been anything more than a phantom.

  Gemma’s heart still recoiled from the inescapable truth—that Irene must have played a part in the abduction that night. For the final few weeks of the journey to Sophia, Clive had been obsessed with the idea that Irene was a wolf in sheep’s clothing, but Gemma had discounted his suspicions as sour grapes. Even now, there was so much about the betrayal that didn’t make sense. Irene couldn’t have been working for Athène’s naasyoon from the beginning, so when did she turn? Had Clover known, or had she fooled him, too? And why would the Wesah go to such lengths to secure one unremarkable girl from the Anchor in the first place?