Heartland

brothers Vaschax: Henri and Girard. Henri had a tiny symbol next to his name: a 'v' in a tight box. Interesting. They had drifted apart in the last few years. No longer matching each other, step for step. Henri had made Viator; Girard hadn't.

Trying to recall the names of the two men who had been with Henri at the airport, I checked the desk drawer for a pen. Jerome Theirault and Charles Lentier, Cristobel reminded me. I found a black ballpoint in the top drawer and added their names under Henri's.

'You know Vaschax?' Vivienne asked.

'I'm the reason he limps.'

'You do leave an impression on people, don't you?'

'Not intentionally,' I argued. 'It just. . that's the way situations turn out. Sometimes.'

'I'm sure they do.'

I let that slide, and continued to make notes: labeling Husserl as the Scryer, drawing a line connecting Father Cristobel and Vivienne's father (if there wasn't a connection before, there certainly was now), and putting a thick box around Antoine's name. He was way out on the edge of the chart, as if they couldn't decide what to do about him. He'd like that placement.

Next to his name was a small lowercase 'p' within a circle with tiny lines radiating from the circle like eyelashes. Protector-Witness. I started to cross the symbol out and write his new title, but a spasm in my arm sent the pen sliding away.

It's his secret; let him keep it awhile yet.

Vivienne misread my hesitation. 'You and he have fought over Marielle, haven't you?'

'It was a long time ago,' I said.

'But these things are never really forgotten, are they?'

'No,' I admitted, thinking more about why the Chorus didn't want me to reveal Antoine's secret. There was the obvious reason: I didn't know Vivienne all that well, and she clearly had some history with both Antoine and Marielle. Who knew what she would do with the information should I give it to her.

I was starting to see some of the paranoia that Delacroix had disliked about Chieradeen. You started to not trust anyone whom you didn't know intimately. And even those people could have motives they weren't being clear about.

'He has the key.'

'What?' I asked, jerked back to the present.

Vivienne tapped Antoine's name. 'You said he has the key.'

'Yes,' I said, catching up with the conversation. 'Well, I think he has it. I'm not entirely sure. Well, almost one hundred percent. But-' I glanced around the room. There was no one there but the two of us, yet the sensation was strong that we weren't alone. The spirits in the Chorus, notwithstanding.

Paranoia. Another symptom of schizophrenia.

'He had the opportunity-' The words slid out of me almost unconsciously, distracted as I was by the thoughts in my head.

'When was this?'

I blushed. 'When I first arrived yesterday morning. Marielle met me at the airport and-'

'Just Marielle? Not her and Antoine?'

'No. Just her. Antoine showed up later, when we were in trouble.'

Vivienne nodded. 'The incident at the airport. Terrorists supposedly hijacked a train and tried to deliver a bomb to Gare du Nord.'

'It wasn't a bomb. It was me and Henri. And. . ' I tapped the pen on the page.'. . some friends of his.'

'So you called in the big guns.'

'No, she did.'

Vivienne spread her hands. 'She did. Okay. What happened next?'

'I. . uh-' The Chorus sparked, and I felt the sharp spike of their energy down in my hips. 'I told Marielle that her father was dead.'

A smile that gave me goose bumps rose on Vivienne's lips. 'Was it an accident?'

'Yes. I hadn't meant to tell her. Not then.'

'No. The Hierarch's death.'

I stared at Vivienne, trying to read the light in her eyes. 'No,' I said, finally.

'Did you kill him?'

I nodded. 'At his request.'

'Are you sure?'

I cast back to that final conversation with Philippe. I am beginning to forget things, he had said. I've Seen too many springs.

Is the organization supposed to die with you? I had asked, and he hadn't answered that question. Not then. But earlier, he equated himself with the organization, and the organization had become diseased. It could no longer support life, and it had to die. Vivienne's point was well taken. Philippe had never said it outright-kill me, Michael-but the inference had been clear, and he had let me touch him with the Chorus.

Though, in hindsight, I wasn't sure the Chorus had harvested him properly. In the past, they had been a voracious hunger, driven by the Qliphoth to harvest darkness so as to keep the lies intact. Philippe had been the first soul I had taken since that night, and it was like the new voices didn't know how to do it correctly. Thinking about it now, though, I wondered if the problem wasn't that the Chorus was doing it wrong-that I had somehow forgotten how to break a soul-but that the Hierarch had leveraged some loophole in my mind. Some trick by which he could remain a separate personality within my patchwork soul, and now that he had friends, they were building a separate community within my brain. Kind of like a rogue state inside your national boundaries.

'No,' I told Vivienne. 'I'm. . not sure.'

Nothing is ever lost; it is simply transformed. The memories kept overlapping. Mine and Philippe's and Cristobel's and Lafoutain's. More so than the old Chorus had ever been, these new additions complicated my identity, confusing my self with this scattershot amalgamation of past experiences. The Chorus had been my psychic anchor, a nexus through which I drew power that sustained me as I did magick, and I no longer needed them for that. The upside of the Ascension Event had been a healing of the split in my psyche. I no longer believed in the hole in my soul, and as a result, I had been more able to actualize energy from the leys.

The Chorus was still my conduit, though, an old habit that was integral to my understanding of how magick worked. But they had changed too, and their new formation had new secrets. Nothing approaching the Qliphotic agenda that had driven me back to Seattle, but a subtle influence on me nonetheless.

You will be your own agent. That is all you will ever be.

'I'm sorry.' I shook off the echo of the Old Man's suggestion. 'I don't mean to be difficult. It's difficult to explain what happened. . '

'Why don't you try?' She glanced at the table, and saw something there that caused a momentary hesitation. She touched my wrist, and through the contact, I felt the warmth of her pulse. 'Tell me what ails you,' she Whispered, and the words remained in my head, a glowing script floating in the cavern of my brain.

My hand had been fidgeting with the pen, and the touch of her fingers stilled that energy in my hand. I had been doodling on the page. Tiny strokes, over and over, blackening a tiny spot in the margins. A curve, two lines, a third perpendicular to the two. A curve, two lines, a third. Over and over again.

The shape of a cup, like the Ace of Cups.

The glowing words compressed into an ornate key that dove into the shadows of my skull, finding a lock. The one that, apparently, controlled my tongue. Almost without realizing I was doing so, I started telling her the truth.

'Philippe. . bequeathed me certain gifts when he died. The key, his ring, and his deck of cards. Those were the physical artifacts I got, but there was something else too.'

I set the pen down and moved away from the table. I was full of nervous energy all of a sudden, and I wanted to move about. To not be caged. It was like going to confessional and finding the small box too crowded,