“I don’t understand.”
The Keeper sighs.
“Think of time as a river,” he says, drawing a line in the air with his finger. He wears several rings and they glint in the light. “The river flows in one direction. If there is an inlet along that river the water within it does not flow the same way as the rest of the river. The inlet does not follow the same rules. You found an inlet. Sometime, months or perhaps years from now, this girl you speak of finds the same inlet. You both stepped out of the river of time and into another space. A space in which neither of you belonged.”
“Are there other spaces like that? Other inlets, down here?”
“Your line of thinking is not wise. Not in the least.”
“So there is a way to find her, it is possible.”
“I suggest you go home, Mister Keating,” the Keeper says. “Whatever you are seeking here you will not find it.”
Simon scowls. He looks around at the office, at the wooden drawers with their brass handles and the leather chairs with their fancy pillows. There are several compasses on chains in a dish on the desk. His broom, his mother’s broom, rests against the wall by the door. On one pillow a cat is curled up as though it is asleep but it has one eye half open and fixed on him.
“I appreciate the advice, sir,” Simon tells the Keeper. “But I will not be taking it.”
Simon takes one of the compasses from the dish on the desk and turns on his heel, walking briskly but not running, walking deeper into the depths toward the Starless Sea and looking back only once to be certain that the Keeper has not followed him. There is nothing behind him but books and shadows.
Simon consults the compass and continues on, despite the needle insistently pointing him in the opposite direction. He keeps the Heart behind him as he heads out into the unknown.
Out where time is less reliable.
ZACHARY EZRA RAWLINS sits on a faded leather sofa far below the surface of the earth, at a time that might be very late at night, next to a crackling fireplace, reading.
The book that Rhyme left for him is entirely handwritten. Zachary has only managed a few pages so far. It’s slow, reading a handwritten book. Additionally, he’s not certain what language it is written in. If he unfocuses his eyes the letters jumble into something he doesn’t recognize as a language, which is headache-inducing and frustrating. He puts the book down and moves a lamp so he can see better.
He tries to sort through how this book connects to everything else. He’s certain that the girl who is also a rabbit is the same one that fell through the memory of a door in Sweet Sorrows, and the narrative has just moved out of the Harbor on the Starless Sea to introduce a Keating.
Zachary yawns. If he’s going to read the whole book he’s going to need caffeine.
His normal Kitchen-writing pen has wandered off likely due to cat interference so he looks for another one. There are usually a few on the mantel beneath the bunny pirates. He moves a candle and a paper star and something falls to the ground.
He reaches to pick up the plastic hotel keycard and his hand freezes, midair.
Took you long enough, the voice in his head remarks.
Zachary hesitates, deciding between all the mysteries in need of investigation.
He puts the key in his pocket and leaves the room.
The halls are dim, it must be later than he’d thought. He takes a wrong turn, trying to remember how to reach his destination.
He finds himself in a familiar tiled hall. He stops at a door that practically disappears into the darkness. He stands indecisively in front of it. There is a line of light visible underneath.
Zachary knocks on Dorian’s door once and then again and is about to leave when the door swings open.
Dorian looks at him—no, through him—eyes wide yet tired and Zachary thinks maybe he was asleep but then realizes that he’s fully dressed but badly buttoned and barefoot and there’s a glass of scotch in his hand.
“?‘You have come to kill me,’?” Dorian says.
“I—what?” Zachary answers but Dorian continues without pausing, narrating.
“…the Owl King said. ‘I have?’ the sword smith’s daughter asked.”
“Are you really, really drunk right now?” Zachary asks, looking past Dorian at the nearly empty decanter on the desk.
“?‘They find a way to kill me, always. They have found me here, even in dreams.’?” Dorian turns back to the room on the word here, the scotch in his glass following a half-second behind and splashing out the side.