Across The Universe Part 8

Dante looks at Nim, his face set in stone. "And what does your mentor think of all this?"

"I think-" Nim begins. She swallows hard, her voice turning meek. "I think Amara is confused. She's young, much younger than us. Please don't hold it against her that she weaves such stories to pa.s.s the time."

"I can't do that," Dante replies. He struggles to keep a triumphant smile from creeping onto his lips. "She's brought her case to me and as a Leader, I can't rightfully ignore her insubordination. I must sentence her to trial."

Nim's chest stills. Her hand trembles against my collarbone. "There's no need for that."

"She'll have two hours to collect proof behind her claims. Report to the Court Room on time and perhaps the Leaders will grant her leniency."

Dante spins on his heels and walks away, disappearing around a bend in the hall.

"What does that mean?" I ask. "What's the trial for?"

"Oh, Amara," Nim cries. "I asked you to be quiet. To keep out of trouble. But even I can't help you now. In two hours' time, your fate rests in Dante's hands. He, along with the other Leaders of The House, decide whether or not you should be cast into the void."

My skin is raw from where Nim scrubbed the mud off. I'm wearing a fresh change of clothes, but my hair is still damp with lake water. My mentor leads me through halls and around corners until we reach the Court Room.

The chamber is large and sloping, with an auditorium of seating on one side and an empty stage down below. The crowd of Leaders positioned there is silent. Dante lounges in the bottom row, a cold sneer turning up the corners of his mouth. I'm surprised to see Elli standing at the other end of the room. When I spot her I wave, but she shakes her head ever so slightly back and forth, and I drop my hand back to my side.

Nim leads me to stand in front of the audience. My mouth is dry like cotton and my palms are sweaty. I can hear Nim's frantic breath next to me.

"Speak only when spoken to," she tells me.

"Yes, Nim," I say.

"And don't say anything else that gives them a reason to cast you out."

"Yes, Nim."

She squeezes my shoulder. "Good luck."

I stop her with a hand wrapped around her wrist. "You believe me, right?" I ask her, my voice barely above a whisper.

Her eyes dart from me to the Leaders and back again. She looks torn-stuck between an order she must abide by and the girl she has raised-but her frantic expression says it all.

It's not a matter of whether she does or doesn't trust me. It's that she doesn't want to believe.

She walks away, joining Elli at the other end of the room. Dante stands, clearing his throat before speaking.

"Amara, Watcher of The House, has spoken out against the order. She has accused Harbingers of attacking her in the universe she watches, on a planet called Earth. Have you brought us any evidence of these claims?"

I gulp back dread and answer in my best impression of someone more confident than myself. "No, but-"

"And why is it that you haven't come up with any proof?" Dante interrupts.

"My proof is my word. There's no physical evidence. The Harbingers came after me and I was forced to jump off a cliff to escape."

Dante turns his back to me and addresses the Leaders. "You heard her for yourselves. Amara has no evidence of her claims. She's made up a wild story that is meant to break down the order we've established in The House."

"I believe the girl is allowed testimony from those she calls friends," Elli chimes in. Her words cause the smile smeared across Dante's face to falter.

"Very well," he snaps, motioning for Elli to approach the audience.

She comes to stand beside me and imitates Dante's throat-clearing with flourish. "Do you, Dante, Leader of The House, have any evidence?"

Dante blinks out at her, his brow furrowing in confusion. "Evidence of what?"

"Evidence that the events Amara described didn't happen, of course."

Dante clenches his hands into fists. "I'm a Leader of The House. I'm not required to-"

"So I'm a.s.suming you don't have any evidence, then," Elli interjects. "In which case, I'd like to present the audience with a puzzle of logic. How can one be convicted guilty if the court can't prove one either innocent or faulty, in either direction?"

A tall, willowy Leader sitting next to Dante leans forward in her chair. "She has a good point," she says. Dante flexes his hand open and shut again, as if he wants to hit her.

"I've known Amara for a long time," Elli continues. "Ever since she came into being, in fact. She may have a wild imagination-a penchant for causing trouble and a terrible case of clumsiness-but she's no more of a liar than I am. And may I remind you that I'm one of the first members of The House to ever come into being. My word is as good as the years I've served."

Emboldened by the faltering confidence the audience exhibits, Nim steps forward and joins Elli and me before Dante.

"If I might add to that statement," Nim says. "Amara has done nothing to upset the order of things yet. She's only told the audience here today and me of what she saw. As long as she doesn't run her mouth any farther, I don't see how she's jeopardized the balance of The House."

"We'll put it to a vote," Dante bellows. "Those in favor of casting Amara into the void, lift a hand."

Dante and a few others scattered throughout the crowd raise their hands. He tallies up the votes before lowering his arm and continuing on. "Those in favor of pardoning Amara, lift a hand."

An overwhelming majority lifts their hands, and Dante's face goes sour. His lips purse and his eyes turn dark. "Very well then," he concludes. "You're pardoned."

The audience clamors from their seats and begins to filter out the door. Dante pa.s.ses by me as he leaves, bending in and snarling into my ear so that no one else can hear. "I advise you to stay out of my way for a long time, Amara, if you don't want to end up in front of the court again."

Then he exits, and I am left standing with Elli and Nim in an otherwise empty room.

"How did you know to come?" I ask Elli.

She smiles and knocks her shoulder against Nim's. "Your mentor may have called on me to come to the rescue."

"I didn't say Amara needed rescuing," Nim objects. "Just that your considerable years in The House could influence the Leaders' decision. Now, if you'll excuse me, I must go speak to Dante about one other matter before he gets too far away."

Nim rushes out the door. Elli follows her with her eyes and as soon as she's gone, she turns to me and speaks in a serious tone. "You've got to be more clever than this, Amara. Whatever's going on with the Harbingers-whatever threat looms over The House-the Leaders won't acknowledge it. Rules are in place so this kind of thing can go on ignored."

"So I'm supposed to pretend it's not happening?" I ask. "Go about my business until it's too late and there's not enough of us left to fight back?"

"I didn't say that. You've just got to go about things with more finesse. I don't know what's happening myself, but it seems that The House has called on you to save us all, whether or not the Leaders want to believe it. Otherwise the Harbingers wouldn't be targeting you. They're scared, can't you see that? You're a threat."

"How am I supposed to get to the bottom of things all by myself?"

Elli gives me a rib-cracking hug, lifting my feet from the ground before letting me loose. "You're not by yourself. You've got me. And I'm sure if push comes to shove, Nim will be on your side too."

"Thanks," I say, my cheeks going warm.

"I've got to get back to the Archives Room. I'll walk you out," she concludes, and leads me to the door.

We part ways in the hall and I'm just about to head back to my bedchamber when I see two shadowed figures in an alcove. The light filters in just enough to reveal a few key features: Nim's severe stare, Dante's sour face. I inch nearer, leaning against the wall nearby and trying to look nonchalant as I listen in on their conversation.

"-have to make sure it's safe," Nim is saying.

"How can we possibly do that? No one knows where it is. It was hidden for a reason," Dante replies.

"There has to be some record of it in the Archives Room. Some history of where it was placed to keep it safe."

"It doesn't matter. This threat that Amara talks about-it isn't real."

"What if it is?" Nim hisses. "What if the Harbingers are rebelling? If they're trying to take control of The House, the one thing they'd need to do so is the Key."

A memory flashes through my mind-two words scrawled in the margins of a book in the form of a question: "The Key?" Could what Nim refers to and the strange note be referencing the same item?

"The Key will never be found, and you'll speak of this no further," Dante commands. "Amara's already gotten inside your head; we don't need her paranoia spreading to others."

Nim sighs, the same way she does with me when she tries to teach me but her efforts go nowhere. "Very well. But if the time comes and Amara is proven correct, perhaps it would be better if we know where the Key is hidden before the Harbingers do."

Nim slips out of the alcove and I turn around just in time. I am lost in a sea of bustling bodies with the same color hair and skin and eyes. Nim doesn't notice me as she walks away and splits off around a corner to my left.

I don't stop walking, either. Instead I head into the bowels of The House, my pace nearly a jog until I come across the door with a blazing star etched into its surface.

The Archives Room holds the histories of all the universes that ever were and will be.

And somewhere in that mess, there has to be a book about the Key.

Chapter Thirteen.

The Archives Room is busier today than it usually is.

Archivers roam about the tunnels, dusting off shelves and cataloguing books. Elli sits at the desk mending the cracked spine of a particularly hefty leather bound volume. She looks more frazzled than usual, with her hair falling in frizzy tangles around her face and her eyes as wide as saucers. When I reach the counter and tap on the marble surface, she jumps in surprise.

"Amara! Now isn't the best time," she says.

I frown. "I'm sorry, but I really need to find some information. It's important."

"What kind of information?" Her harried expression changes to pure curiosity faster than the flip of a switch.

"The kind Nim and Dante don't want me to see. It's about-" (I look left and right to make sure no one's listening in, then drop my voice to a whisper) "-something called the Key."

Elli leans over the counter and matches my tone. "And why is this Key so important?"

"Because it could be what the Harbingers are after."

"And what makes you think that?"

"I overheard Nim and Dante talking. Nim also said it's hidden somewhere, but no one knows where. I was thinking the Archives Room would have something on it-about what and where it is."

Elli whistles, low and dramatic. "Sounds like something The House doesn't want anyone to know about. That means any information on it'll be tucked away in a corner somewhere. Somewhere that even most Archivers won't know about."

My breath catches in my throat. "But how can Archivers not know their way around the tunnels? Isn't that your job?"

"Learning how to navigate through history is a skill that's learned, not given. How d'you think I always know where to find what you're looking for? I've had billions of years to teach myself what tunnel holds what books."

My face falls, frustration welling up in my gut. "So it's hopeless. If you don't know where to find a book about the Key, I doubt anyone else will."

Elli purses her lips, narrows an eye at me. "I might know one place we can look. A secret chamber, hidden amongst the tunnels. It'll be difficult getting there, what with all the other Archivers around here today. We'll need a distraction to slip by unnoticed."

"I'm sure we can think of something."

I can see the wheels turning in Elli's head. She's debating on whether to help me or not, weighing the possibility of us getting caught against her curiosity. "It'd be easier to wait for a less crowded time-"

"What if it's too late by then? If the Harbingers find the Key before we do-"

"Fine, fine. We'll go now. Just let me finish repairing this book."

I wait with folded arms and a tapping foot as Elli sews the spine back together. Once she's done she sets the volume aside and rounds the desk, leading me down a tunnel on the right. As we pa.s.s by Archivers their eyes follow us suspiciously, and suddenly I feel like it might be harder to squeeze by unnoticed than I originally thought.

"Why's it so busy today?" I ask.

"Annual stock appraisal. All the Archivers are tasked with cataloguing and cleaning the tunnels. A dusty job, as you can imagine, but nothing we can't handle," Elli says.

"And to think I once believed being a Watcher was more interesting than alphabetizing a bunch of books."

My sarcasm isn't lost on her, and she elbows me playfully in the side. "It might sound dull, but we keep The House running, just like you."

We turn down another corridor, and then another. The farther we go into the bowels of the Archives Room, the mustier the air becomes. The Archivers dusting the shelves have kicked grime into the air, and every breath feels like I'm inhaling a bucket of dirt.

Elli stops in front of a random stretch of shelves. They look no different from the others, but she gives me a meaningful glance, and I know we've reached our destination. There are Archivers all around and though they don't turn away from their work, they stare at us out of the corners of their eyes.

"We need to find a way past them," I mumble to Elli.

She bites her bottom lip, lost in thought for a moment before her face becomes bright again. "You stay here. When it's time, pull the red book off the shelf."

Before I can ask any questions, she dashes off around the corner. I wait in bated breath, and then-BOOM! A resounding thud echoes through the corridors. The Archivers race away from their duties, running in the direction of the noise.

I scan the shelves frantically in search of the red book Elli mentioned. Five rows up from the floor I find it: a dusty, crimson binding hewn from dyed leather. Standing on tiptoes, I reach up and wrench the volume from its resting place. It comes halfway out and then sticks, hanging at an angle from the shelf. I stumble back as the act causes the wall to slide forward and then sideways, revealing an entrance into a hidden room. I wave my hands to bat away clouds of dust as I run inside.

The pa.s.sageway begins to slide closed behind me, the grating sound of marble against wood echoing out, and I begin to panic. Elli appears at the last second, squeezing through the crack as the wall seals itself off.

"What'd you do?" I ask her.