That actually made a lot of sense. “Isabelle’s clone had them here for a reason. She could clearly travel to and from her dimension through the shimmering portals, so why did she leave the box behind?” I wondered aloud.
“Maybe she didn’t have enough to send back,” Rose suggested with a shrug. “And she was still trying to gather enough intel when she got caught?”
“They already have all the intel they need,” Ben replied. “Considering they’re perfectly capable of mimicking us and infiltrating The Shade.”
“There was something in the tiny cube that Claudia’s clone recovered from Isabelle’s double, too. Or something about it that made it so important. Either way, it’s gone, they have it,” I reminded them. Without knowing what purpose each object served, it was easy to get confused.
Rose thought about it for a moment, and her shoulders dropped. Phoenix noticed her disappointment and set the cube on the table with the others. “We’ll find out,” he told her. “It’ll take some patience, but we will get to the bottom of this, one way or another.”
I believed that. I really did. It just bothered me that there were so many gaps still left to fill for the bigger picture to become clear. Rose’s theory about the cubes containing recordings did make sense, though. I only wondered what kind of recordings they contained—and why Isabelle’s clone had decided to keep them here instead of sending them back to wherever she’d come from. Unfortunately, she was dead, and she didn’t have an actual soul for any of the Reapers to question. She’d only had a fake one that did not belong in the Afterlife. It had been good enough to fool us, but not good enough to pass that threshold.
“Oh. Esme and Kalon are coming over,” Rose said, reading a new message from the screens. “Says here you authorized opening the main portal for them, Dad.”
“I did, yeah. Tristan and Unending are out of our reach for the time being. The last message Tristan left was that they would be away for a while, but we do have Esme,” my husband replied. “I figured we could use an anthropologist to help us with all the intel we’ve gathered so far. The clones are operating within a system of values. Esme can study what we know and potentially offer something useful in terms of analysis. Something we might have missed in the chaos that led to Thayen and the others… vanishing.”
“Good,” I said. “Esme is excellent at what she does. She specializes more on the physical side of things, but she is perfectly capable of filling in for Tristan in the theoretical department, as well.”
Besides, I looked forward to seeing her and Kalon again. They’d been on the outside until now, and our minds were nearly overwhelmed with our efforts to respond strategically and make sense of what small details we’d been able to gather thus far. A fresh pair of eyes might offer new insights, perhaps even an assessment of what we were doing right and what we could do better.
My stomach ached, and it wasn’t hunger. I missed Thayen. I missed him more now than ever before because I had no idea when I would see him again. I had to believe that he would be okay. That he’d survive, whatever fate decided to throw at him.
Thayen
Torrhen, with his all-seeing eye, had us at a disadvantage.
“You’re not leaving this place alive,” he said, looking at me. I pointed my pulverizer weapon at him and fired a shot. The pellet went inside him, vanishing. Nothing happened, other than a cold grin slitting his face. “Your weapons are useless, kid. We’re not of the living realm.”
“His may be useless, but mine isn’t,” Myst shot back, drawing her sword. Reacting quickly, Astra touched the blade, light pouring from her hands into the weapon, giving it a familiar pink sheen. “We’re here for the living. We have no business with you, Torrhen.”
“But you do. Since the living are my wards,” he replied. Slowly, sharp shadows extended from his hands in the form of long knives. I dreaded to even imagine what a cut from one might do to the likes of me.
Brandon stepped forward, positioning himself between Myst and Torrhen. Behind the all-seeing Berserker, I could see the faint figures of my friends. Voss, Chantal, and Isabelle were inside this frosted glass house, and they were probably heavily medicated—just like Richard had been when we’d recovered him from the Port dungeons. “Torrhen, don’t make me do this,” Brandon said, unsheathing his double swords. Darkness came off them like wisps of black smoke. He thrived in this strange land, while Myst had to draw light from a Daughter. I found it fascinating despite the dangers it conveyed.
“You don’t understand, Brandon,” Torrhen replied. “This isn’t your fight. Maybe Haldor doesn’t have the balls to do away with your Hammer, but you know me. You know what I am capable of.”
“This is betrayal of the worst kind. When Order hears about it—”
“Who will tell her? You? You’re stuck here, like the rest of us,” Torrhen spat, cutting him off. “We do what we must in order to push through in this realm, Brandon. In your case, if you wish to survive in this form and not become another shadow hanging around Haldor, you’re going to have to step aside. I have no desire to harm you, but I will if you insist.”
His words carried heavy meaning, forcing Brandon to put his swords away. His words also made me wonder… it meant that Haldor’s shadow hounds were destroyed Berserkers reduced to mindless forms of darkness. I’d been inclined to think they were some kind of Aesir for a moment, but this revelation certainly proved otherwise.
Jericho was the first to react, and he wasn’t happy. “What the hell are you doing?!”
“I can’t,” Brandon replied. “You don’t understand.”
“Don’t be a coward,” I
