Lord of Shadows
Page 114

“Didn’t you hear me?” The voice rousing Kit out of sleep became more urgent. “Wake up!”
Kit opened his eyes. His room was full of the pale glow of witchlight, and there was a shadow hovering over his bed. With memories of Mantid demons fresh at the edge of his consciousness, he bolted upright.
The shadow moved swiftly backward, barely avoiding colliding with Kit. The witchlight beamed upward, illuminating Ty, his soft black hair a mess, as if he’d rolled out of bed and come to Kit’s room without brushing it. He wore a gray hoodie Julian had given him before he left for Cornwall, likely half for convenience and half for comfort. The cord of his headphones trailed from his pocket to wrap around his neck.
“Watson,” he said. “I want to see you.”
Kit groaned and scrubbed at his eyes. “What? What time is it?”
Ty spun the witchlight in his fingers. “Did you know that the first words ever spoken on the telephone were ‘Watson, come here, I want to see you’?”
“Totally different Watson, though,” Kit pointed out.
“I know,” said Ty. “I just thought it was interesting.” He tugged at the cord of his headphones. “I did want to see you. Or at least, I have something I have to do, and I’d rather you came with me. It was actually something you said that gave me the idea to do the research.”
Kit kicked the covers off. He’d been sleeping in his clothes anyway, a habit instilled in him during the times when some deal his father had been involved in had gone wrong, and they’d slept fully dressed for days in case they had to pick up and run. “Research?” he asked.
“It’s in the library,” Ty said. “I can show it to you before we go. If you want.”
“I’d like to see it.”
Kit slid out of bed and kicked on his shoes, grabbing up a jacket before following Ty down the hall. He knew he ought to feel exhausted, but there was something about Ty’s energy, the brightness and concentration of his focus, that worked on Kit like caffeine. It woke him up inside with a sense of promise, as if the moments in front of him suddenly held endless possibilities.
In the library, Ty had taken over one of the tables with the notes Emma and Julian had sent from Cornwall and printouts of Annabel’s drawings. It still looked like the same mess to Kit, but Ty glided his witchlight over the pages with confidence.
“Remember when we were talking about how a raven carried messages between Malcolm and Annabel? On the boat? And you said it seemed unreliable?”
“I remember,” said Kit.
“It gave me an idea,” said Ty. “You’re good at giving me ideas. I don’t know why.” He shrugged. “Anyway. We’re going to Cornwall.”
“Why? Are you going to exhume the bird and interrogate it?”
“Of course not.”
“That was a joke, Ty—” Kit broke off, the impact of Ty’s words hitting him belatedly. “What? We’re going where?”
“I know it was a joke,” said Ty, picking up one of the printouts of the drawings. “Livvy told me that when people tell jokes that aren’t that funny, the polite thing is to ignore them. Is that not true?”
He looked anxious, and Kit wanted to hug him, the way he had the other night on the roof. “No, it’s true,” he said, hurrying after Ty as they left the library. “It’s just that humor is subjective. Not everyone agrees the same things are funny, or not funny.”
Ty looked at him with sincere friendliness. “I’m sure many people find you hilarious.”
“They absolutely do.” They were hurrying down a set of steps now, into shadows. Kit wondered why they were going, but it almost didn’t matter—he felt excitement sparking at the tips of his fingers, the promise of adventure. “But Cornwall, seriously? How? And what about Livvy?”
Ty didn’t turn around. “I don’t want to bring her tonight.”
They’d reached the bottom of the steps. A door swung out from here into a massive open stone-bound room. The crypt of the cathedral. The floor and walls were made of massive dark slabs of stone, filed to smoothness, and there were brass fixtures attached to stone pillars that had probably once held lamps. Now the light came from Ty’s rune-stone, spilling between his cupped fingers.
“What are we doing, exactly?” said Kit.
“Remember when I stayed at the shop to talk to Hypatia Vex?” Ty said. “She told me there’s a permanent Portal down here. An old one, maybe one of the first ever, made around 1903. It only goes to the Cornwall Institute. The Clave doesn’t know about it or regulate it.”
“An unregulated Portal?” said Kit. Ty was moving around the room, shining his witchlight against the walls, into cracks and corners. “Isn’t that dangerous?”
Ty didn’t say anything. Long tapestries hung against the walls at intervals. He was glancing behind each one, running the light up and down the wall. It bounced off the stone, lighting up the room like fireflies.
“That’s why you didn’t want Livvy to come,” said Kit. “It is dangerous.”
Ty straightened up. His hair was a mess. “She already got hurt,” he said. “Because of me.”
“Ty—”
“I need to find the Portal.” Ty leaned against the wall, his fingers drumming against it. “I looked behind all the tapestries.”
“Maybe look in them?” Kit suggested.
Ty gave him a long, considering look, with a tinge of surprise to it. Kit caught just a flash of his gray eyes as he turned back to examine the tapestries again. Each one showed a scene from what looked like a medieval landscape: castles, long stone walls, towers and roads, horses and battle. Ty stopped in front of one that showed a high hedge, in the middle of which was an arched opening. Through the opening the sea was visible.
He put his hand against it, a hesitant, questioning gesture. There was a flare of light. Kit darted forward as the tapestry shimmered, turning glimmering and colorful as a slick of oil.
Ty glanced again at the drawing he held, then turned, his other hand outstretched to Kit. “Don’t be so slow.”
Kit reached for him. His fingers closed around Ty’s, warm and firm under his grasp. Ty stepped forward, into the Portal, the colors parting and re-forming around him—he was half invisible already—and his grip tightened on Kit’s, pulling him after.
Kit held on tightly. But somewhere in the whirling chaos of the Portal, his hand ripped free of Ty’s. An irrational panic seized him, and he shouted something out loud—he wasn’t sure what—before the Portal winds cartwheeled him through a shadowy doorway and spit him out into cold air, onto a slope of damp grass.
“Yes?” Ty was standing over him, witchlight in hand. The sky behind him was high and dark, shimmering with a million stars.
Kit stood up, wincing. He was getting used to Portal travel, but he still didn’t like it.
“What is it?” Ty’s gaze didn’t meet Kit’s, but he looked him over, as if checking for injuries. “You were saying my name.”
“Was I?” Kit glanced around. Green lawns sloped away in three directions, and rose in the fourth to meet a large gray church. “I think I was worried you were lost in the Portal.”