I could imagine Dustin’s voice on the other line. Thank you, sir. Of course, sir.
“We’re lodging in the Belnort Castle,” my grandfather said. “Tomorrow we head up the mountain.” He paused. “I’ve found Renée. Yes, she’s safe. She was with two others. Anya Pinsky and Theodore Healy.” He paused. “Yes, the same Theodore Healy. I know it’s sensitive; that’s why I’ve sent them both on a plane back to Boston. I need you to meet them at the airport and make sure they get home.”
A pause.
“Well, hurry up,” said Ms. Vine. “Stop dallying.”
I ignored her, waiting for my grandfather to go on. “No sign of the Undead boy,” he said. “My hunch is that he defected to the Liberum, though we’ll find out soon enough.”
Would we? I tied my laces into a knot and stood, letting Ms. Vine escort me to our room to freshen up, all the while wondering what my grandfather had meant.
Dinner was served in a vast stone room, the walls the same shade of gray as the suits of the High Court. Iron chandeliers dangled from the ceiling, and a cool breeze floated in from the adjoining balcony, offering a panoramic view of the mountains. The food came, a hearty plate of breads and sauerkraut and sausages dripping in oil, but when I took a bite, I couldn’t taste a thing. The meat felt rubbery against my tongue, the bread so bland that I had to spit it into my napkin. Even the water tasted strange—dry and metallic, barely able to quench my thirst. I drank it anyway, and forced a few more bites of sausage before pushing the food around on my plate and hoping that no one would notice.
I felt a pair of eyes on me.
Clementine sat across the room beside her father, her fork raised while she watched me, as if trying to get my attention. When our eyes met, she wiped her mouth with her napkin, whispered something to her father, then stood and walked toward me. She kept her focus straight ahead, as if she didn’t know I was sitting nearby. When she passed, she brushed against my arm and gave me a quick glance. Her eyes darted to the balcony outside, which was lined with tall stone pillars.
Five minutes, she mouthed and walked by before anyone noticed she had spoken to me, disappearing outside.
I waited, and when the time had elapsed, I turned to the two Monitors guarding me. “I’d like to smell the mountain air.”
Irritated by my interruption, they put down their forks and got up to come with me, but I stopped them. “I’d like to go alone, if that’s okay. I just want a moment to myself. I’ll be right there, in plain sight.”
They exchanged a glance. From where they sat they could only see part of the balcony and the sprawl of stars and mountains beyond, though even if I tried to escape, there was nowhere to go. Mr. Harbes nodded to Ms. Vine. “Don’t make us regret this,” he said.
Across to the room, my grandfather sat at the head of the main table, absorbed in a conversation with a Monitor to his left. While they spoke, I wove through the tables quickly, my head bowed.
The balcony looked empty. I stood beside a tall stone pillar and waited. From the corner of my eye I saw my guards watching me from the dining room. I turned and glued my eyes to the countryside and pretended to take in the scent of the night breeze. The sky was staggeringly vast, just shades upon shades of blue, cut off only by the dark silhouette of the mountains beneath it. And yet without the accompanying sound, without the crisp taste of the air on my tongue, it felt like nothing more than a backdrop painted on canvas.
I thought about what I’d overheard my grandfather say to Dustin on the phone. We’ll find out soon enough. I held out my hand, waiting for a cold thread of air to wrap itself around my fingers, to tell me that Dante was out there, that he and the Liberum were close by. But before I could focus on the distance, a voice spoke from the other side of the pillar.
“Did anyone follow you?” Clementine asked.
“No.”
“I never told anyone that I saw you and Dante that night,” she said. “I wanted to. But I didn’t.”
I waited, unsure what to say.
“I’m telling you because I want you to believe me.”
“Believe what?” I whispered.
“That something strange is going on,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“The Monitors have been following you since the day you and Dante escaped from the Liberum at Gottfried Academy. I joined them soon after with my father. We came thinking we were going to hunt the Liberum; they killed Noah, and they tried to kill you,” she said, lowering her voice.
“And at first, that’s exactly what happened. The elders dispatched the rest of us to search for the Liberum, while they followed you and Dante, to make sure you were safe. The elders were more secretive about it than normal, which my father thought odd. They kept disappearing for days on end, and meeting up with us looking older and exhausted, but my father didn’t say anything. He’s always prided himself in his loyalty. He trusted them.
“Then late one night, after everyone else had gone to sleep, I was awake in my tent when I heard footsteps. Dozens of them, all quiet. I waited for them to pass, then slipped outside. I saw the elders walking into the forest. So I followed them, thinking they were going to have a late night meeting. But instead, they led me somewhere I’d never expected to go. The camp of the Liberum.”
I had been trying to refrain from having any physical reaction to Clementine’s story, lest the Monitors noticed, but her words caught me by surprise. “What?”
“We walked for what felt like miles. Then suddenly I could feel them,” she said. “I could see the Brothers of the Liberum through the trees, their long black robes gathered on the ground. The Undead boys lounged around them. At first I thought the Monitors were going to mount an attack; after all, no Monitor has ever been able to track the Liberum, and most have never even seen a Brother, let alone found their camp. But they didn’t attack. They waited on the outskirts of the camp, just out of sight. They kept checking their watches. Finally, two Undead boys snuck through the trees and walked toward them. I thought the Monitors were going to bury them, but instead, they started whispering to the boys, as if they had planned on meeting there. I tried to hear what they were saying, but couldn’t make out anything.”
I frowned. It didn’t make any sense. “You’re sure they were Undead?”
“Yes. While they talked, the elders seemed to get more and more angry. Eventually, two of them clamped their hands over the mouths of the Undead boys and carried them off into the woods. I watched them bury the boys, then stalk back to the tents. They didn’t seem to care about the Liberum being there at all. The next morning, the elders told us they were going to track you and Dante, and that the rest of us should continue searching for the Liberum.”
“But they already knew where the Liberum were camping,” I said.
“Exactly.”
The thought was baffling. This entire time my grandfather had known where the Liberum were, and hadn’t done anything to stop or apprehend them. “So the elders have been tracking the Liberum this entire time, and not telling anyone?”
“Not just tracking them,” Clementine said. “Talking to them. And not just once, multiple times. I’ve followed the elders a few times since. They always wait by the outskirts of the camp until a few Undead boys come out and speak to them. Then they leave. I’ve been racking my mind for days as to what the elders could possibly want from the Undead, but I can’t think of anything. All I know is that they’ve been lying to the rest of the Lower Court. And the only time I lie is when I’m doing something wrong.”
Multiple times? My heart began to race. “So the elders still know where the Liberum are?”
Clementine nodded. “I think so.”
I remembered what my grandfather had said to Dustin on the phone. My hunch is that he defected to the Liberum, though we’ll find out soon enough. All I had to do to find Dante was follow the elders out to the camp. “How often do they go out?” I asked.
“Every few nights. Why? Do you want to follow them???
?
“Yes—” I began to say, when I heard footsteps behind me. I glanced over my shoulder. The two Monitors guarding me had gotten up and were whispering to each other while they walked in my direction. “I have to go,” I said.
“My father and I sit close to the elders at breakfast,” Clementine breathed. “I’ll try to find out when they’re meeting next. In the meantime, keep your eyes peeled. I don’t know what the elders are up to, but it can’t be anything good.”
That night I dreamed of the lake again, its frozen surface dull like a clouded eye, the dark water seeping up through the cracks. A thudding filled the air, as irregular as a heart reanimating. The ice trembled then, shattered, a pale hand reaching out from the gash.
Noah rose from the lake, his skin glistening. His eyes snapped open. With a blink, he was running through the pines, his muscles shifting beneath the thin cotton of his shirt, his auburn hair dotted with snow. Renée, his heart seemed to beat. Renée, Renée, Renée. Another blink and the landscape behind him changed, flipping back like a canvas. He stole through the snow, the jagged peaks of the Bavarian Alps jutting up behind him like teeth. He paused, gazing up at a castle built into the edge of a cliff, its gray stone blending into the rocky landscape. A castle that I recognized. In a flash, he had scaled the cliff, his body hunched low as he crept beneath the windows lining the back of the edifice, peering inside each one until he reached a room toward the corner. He pressed his hand against the glass, his icy breath sending a bloom of frost over the pane. In the chambers within, a girl was fast asleep, her hair strewn across the pillow. I forgive you, he whispered.
A chill of cold shook me awake. I sat up in bed, feeling the thin wisps of air seep beneath the seam of the window and twist around my wrists. An Undead was here, though it wasn’t Dante.
Noah. Could it be? I turned to the window, where I saw three words drawn into the frost on the glass. I’m still here.
The frost receded as the presence of the Undead shrank back, beckoning me to follow it.
On the other side of the room, Ms. Vine tossed in her sleep, but did not wake. I slid out of bed and snuck into the hallway. The hotel was empty, the attendant sleeping in the back office as I walked through the lobby and out into the night.
The air rearranged itself, forming a narrow path toward the evergreens. I walked toward it until I saw a figure standing by the foot of the woods. A flash of wavy auburn hair, now wet with snow. A swath of smooth skin, now pale in the moonlight, his cheek punctuated by a dark freckle.
Noah.
Seeing him stirred something inside me. I froze, unable to believe that he was here, standing, breathing in front of me. A few weeks ago, I’d thought that I would never see his face again.
At first glance, he looked the same, though on closer inspection something had changed. His skin was now a clean white, and the dark constellation of freckles strewn across his face were even more beautiful than they had been before. Everything about him was more saturated, as if all of his features had been soaked in melancholy. His auburn hair seemed a deeper, darker red, just overripe, like the color of wet autumn leaves after they fall from their branches and collect on the curb. His boyish face was now mature, handsome, the way I’d always imagined he’d look as an adult.
But before I could walk toward him, I heard footsteps in the snow behind me. Noah receded into the woods. I backed through the trees in the opposite direction, watching as six elders of the High Court strode past me, their faces shrouded beneath their collars, their eyes darkened by the brims of their hats. At first I thought they had felt Noah’s presence, but they didn’t turn in the direction where he’d been standing.
I waited until they disappeared into the woods, then followed their tracks. They led me far from the castle, the silhouettes of the treetops standing tall against the moon. The temperature dropped. A voice rang out through the trees, first loud, then muffled. I crept toward it until I saw six more figures materialize through the trees. The others joined them. All twelve elders of the High Court. Their backs were turned to me, their gray overcoats sweeping the snow as they huddled in a circle over something lying on the ground.
I hid behind a tree and watched them, trying to figure out what they were doing, when I saw a pair of feet twitching through their legs. They were small, as though they belonged to a boy. An Undead.
“You know more,” one of the elders said, his white tuft of hair blowing in the wind. My grandfather. “Tell us.”
When the boy said nothing, my grandfather nodded to one of the other elders, who then began to slowly wrap the boy’s hands with gauze. The Undead cried out, his body trembling as the skin on his arm turned blue.
Two other Undead boys were pinned to the snow beside him, their feet, their hands, their thighs partially wrapped in gauze.
I watched them, confused. The method in which the boys were being wrapped wasn’t the proper way to mummify an Undead. Surely, the High Court knew that, which made their hasty work all the more baffling. I thought back to what Clementine had told me on the balcony. Could these be the Undead from the camp of the Liberum that the elders had been meeting with?
“You’re lying to us,” one of the elders said, dangling the gauze over an Undead boy’s chest. “You must know more.”
I shrank back. The elders weren’t trying to kill these boys. They were torturing them.
CHAPTER 11
The Refuge
W E SET OUT EARLY THE NEXT MORNING, the line of gray cars waiting for us like an extension of the stone castle. While we packed our things in the trunks of the cars, my grandfather peered up into the mountains.
“The Liberum are no more than a day ahead of us,” he said. “If we hurry, we may be able to reach them.”
I glanced at Clementine wearily, who was standing by the car behind mine. I thought of Noah, of how his auburn hair had hung by his face in the moonlight. Had he really been there, or had I been seeing things?
Tonight, Clementine mouthed, and stepped into the backseat behind her father.
My grandfather put his hand on my shoulder. “I’ve brought along some gear for you, as I assumed you would not be prepared.”
I studied him as he slid into the car. I didn’t thank him.
Just before we pulled away, the concierge emerged from the lobby, holding an envelope. She ran up to our car, wobbling in her heels, and tapped on my grandfather’s window. He rolled it down. She handed him a white envelope, his name written on the top. I recognized the handwriting immediately. Monsieur. Had he been sending my grandfather notes this entire time, too?
While we drove away, he tore it open and removed the note within. He held it discreetly, angling his body so that I could barely make out Monsieur’s swooping penmanship. His face drained of all its color as he read. When he was finished, he slipped the envelope into the inner pocket of his coat.
My grandfather barely acknowledged my presence on the drive up into the Bavarian Alps, in the direction of the Liberum and the twin peaks we’d seen from the second point. He sat on the other side of the car, his eyes out of focus as they stared out the window. Every so often he slipped his hand into his coat, feeling the weight of the note within. But he never took it out.
I sank back into my seat, exhausted from barely sleeping, my mouth dry, my hearing muted. The only sound in the car was the vibration of the wheels beneath us. I closed my eyes and listened to it, wondering if my grandfather was feeling the same way I was—for he, too, couldn’t taste or hear well, nor had he slept a wink last night. We had been in the woods together, though only I knew it.
“What was that note?” I asked, opening my eyes.
If he heard me, he didn’t let on.
“What did that woman give you?” I repeated.
“What’s that?” he said.
I sighed. I hated when he pretended not to have heard me. “The letter,” I said. “It’s incredible that they have mail out here.”
“Mail?” he said. “Oh, yes. It was ju
st a private matter. Nothing pressing.”
I watched him turn to the window, the scenery speeding past us like a film in fast forward. Perhaps they were beautiful, the majestic Alps, but I felt nothing. “You look tired,” I said. “You must have been up late last night.”
My grandfather frowned. “No, I wasn’t. I am merely preoccupied. There is a difference.”
He was lying, though I didn’t have the energy to argue with him, and frankly, he didn’t look like he had the energy to argue back. “Preoccupied with what?”
He turned to the snowcapped peaks in the near distance, his cheeks sunken, his eyes tired. “With matters that don’t concern you.”
The road was carved tenuously into the side of the mountain, with a small stone barrier separating us from a free-fall into the rocky valley below. As we wove around it, the twin peaks that had been etched into the chest kept flashing in and out of view, growing larger, closer. The trees grew thinner, their branches starved for air. Just as we crossed the tree line, my grandfather leaned over the front seat and muttered something to the driver.
We pulled off onto the shoulder of the road. The earth outside was rocky and layered with snow, barely a tree or plant to be seen. The line of cars pulled in behind us, parking on the side of the road. The twin peaks that matched the etching from the chest jutted up through the mist in the distance.
“Why are we stopping?” I asked.
“We aren’t going to find the Liberum by sitting in the car,” my grandfather said. “We walk from here.”
I thought back to Clementine’s story from the night before, and to what I had witnessed in the woods. He already knew where the Liberum were camped; he and the elders had been tracking them this entire time. So if he wasn’t searching for them, then what exactly was he looking for?
I grabbed my backpack from the trunk and slung it over my shoulder. It was lighter now without the weight of the chest and the black box. My grandfather now kept the latter in his own rucksack. He handed me a tent and a sack full of gear, along with my shovel. “This will be yours. I don’t know what lies ahead,” he said. “Best to be prepared.”