Resonance (5 page)

CH
APTER EIGHT

Days until Tacet: 24

M
Y SUSPENSION FROM THE CONSORT
was meant to make me a better Walker. Instead, I'd become an imposter. Judging from the looks Eliot gave me on our way into training the next day, I wasn't a very good one.

Even before our train pulled into Union Station, I could hear the cacophony of pivots, each with their own distinct pitch. Some squeaked; some boomed; some were so low-pitched I felt their vibrations in the soles of my feet. Almost a century of choices, layered on top of one another until the air felt cobwebbed with them.

Once we were outside, the sensation eased slightly. We made our way to the Consort's headquarters, a discreetly expensive-­looking building in the Loop. The glassed-in lobby, the guards behind the desk, and the Impressionist paintings on the walls indicated to passersby that Consort Change Management was a staid, reputable firm catering exclusively to its clients, so move along please.

Its clients were Walkers. The CCM building housed our school, our archives, our laboratories, our government . . . it was
essentially a Walker embassy, a foreign land hidden in the middle of Chicago, fluent in secrecy.

“You're nervous,” he said as we approached the building.

“Tired. Laurel and Addie were on my case last night.”

“About what?”

I shrugged. “What else? My future. Or lack of one.”

We slid our ID cards through the scanner at the front desk, and the guard waved us through. Somewhere in this building my grandfather was locked away. I'd expected to sense some hint of his presence, as if the atmosphere would turn charged simply because we were under the same roof. My skin prickled, ice and nerves, but it wasn't Monty. It was the effort of stepping back into my old life. Too much loss, too many truths.

Across the lobby, a tall girl with a line of piercings in both ears and her black hair in a pixie cut lounged on one of the leather couches. She spotted us and sprang up, crossing the room in long, lithe strides.

“Hey, sexy!” Callie enveloped me in a hug. A beat too late, I hugged her back, and she frowned. “Where the hell have you been? Shaw said your suspension ended more than a week ago.”

“Frequency poisoning,” Eliot said swiftly. “Her parents wouldn't let her come back till she was one hundred percent.”

She raised one dark eyebrow. “If you say so. How'd you convince them to let you back in?”

“My stellar personality?” I offered.

“Right,” she said. “All sorts of crazy stories floating around about you.”

“Leave her alone.” Eliot folded his arms across his chest and stared Callie down.

She tipped her head to the side and studied him, not missing the way he'd stepped in front of me, or the warning in his tone. “Whatever you did, I'm glad. Things here could use some shaking up.”

I'd shaken things plenty, but I appreciated the sentiment.

“It's good to see you,” I said, and meant it. Callie Moreno was one of my favorite classmates—snarky and smart and practical, with a wild streak that kept life interesting. Eliot was always my first pick on Walks, but Callie ran a close second.

“What have I missed?” I asked on the elevator ride up to our classroom.

“The usual. Hookups and breakups and a whole lot of obsessing over class rank and apprenticeships. People are freaking out.”

“But not you?” I asked.

Callie smiled brilliantly. “Why would I? They know I'm good. They'd be stupid to put me—or you—anywhere but the Cleavers. The Consort's dull, but they're not stupid.”

“No,” I murmured as the doors slid open and we filed into the hallway. “That's the problem.”

Eliot gave me a sideways glance. Ahead of us, Callie breezed through the open doorway of our classroom, while I froze in place.

Immediately Eliot halted. “Del?”

My voice scraped. “I didn't think I'd come back here. Ever.”

It was a second chance—something Walkers rarely got. But
it's better to make fresh mistakes, no matter how painful, than to repeat old ones.

“You belong in there. The longer you wait, the more they'll stare.”

He pushed me toward the classroom, his hand on the small of my back. I lifted my chin and stepped forward, free from his touch. I wanted to return under my own steam and on my own terms.

The room was smaller than I remembered, as if I was viewing it from a distance. A thick oval conference table dominated the space, the seats half-filled with my classmates.

All chatter stopped as I hung up my coat and hat, the movements jerky and self-conscious. I took a second to wrestle my static-­ridden hair into submission and arrange my expression into something closer to happiness than dread before turning around.

Callie hip-bumped me. “Looks like those stories weren't so crazy after all. What have you been up to?”

My reply was more defensive than I would have liked. “Nothing!”

“Exactly.” She gestured to the front of the room. Next to the projection screen hung a battered whiteboard. A numbered column ran down the side, and next to it, the names of every person in our class.

Except me.

“Maybe Shaw has been too busy to put my name back.” My throat felt dry, my skin hot.

“Your name's been up there since the day you were reinstated,” Eliot said, hovering next to me. He spun his mechanical pencil with sharp, jerky movements, like he always did when stumped. “Shaw's been waiting for you.”

“Why would he take you off the list?” Callie asked. “There's no reason.”

Unless they knew about Ms. Powell. Unless I was about to vanish from the Walkers like my name had vanished off the board, like Gil Bradley had vanished from Simon's and Amelia's lives.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” I said finally, the words swallowed up in the silence around me.

“I bet—” Callie began, but a big, barrel-chested man wearing a lime green Hawaiian shirt and cargo pants entered the room, shutting the door firmly behind him.

“Let's see that homework, people. We've got a lot to cover.” Shaw, my instructor, clapped a meaty hand on my shoulder. “Good to have you back. How are you?”

The question seemed genuine enough. His eyes didn't leave my face, and I had a feeling he knew more about what had happened in Train World than he'd told my classmates.

“Getting there,” I said in a low voice. “Did I do something wrong? My name's not on the leaderboard.”

He glanced at the front of the room, annoyance tightening his features. But when he turned back around, his expression was smoothed out again. “Administrative glitch,” he said. “I'll sort it out. Have a seat.”

Across the table Eliot shrugged.

“Big day, people. Your latest inversion analysis should be in that pile.” He pointed to the stack of papers in front of him. “We're in the home stretch. Your final project before we start preparing for the licensing exam is to select a world for cleaving, make your case, win approval from the Consort, and perform the cleaving.”

Callie sat up, glowing with excitement like the sun's corona. “Ourselves? Seriously?”

“We'll break down the process so I can help you with each step, but yes. By the time you're done, you'll have cleaved a world on your own.”

I pressed my hand to my mouth, trying to quell the sudden rush of nausea.

“You okay?” Eliot mouthed.

To my right Logan Koskodan asked, “Cleavers work in teams—will we?”

“Not this time,” Shaw said. “You'll have support nearby, but this will be a solo cleaving.”

Madison Russo, sitting across the table from me, frowned. “But I'm applying for a medical apprenticeship. Do I really need to know this? Medics only Walk in an emergency.”

“We don't always end up where we expect.” Shaw's eyes flickered to me. “It's best to be prepared for anything.”

You're heading into infinity,
Monty had told me once.
There's no way to prepare for it.

I fumbled for the bottle of water in my backpack, hoping it
would wash away the sour taste filling my mouth.

“Ready? Good,” Shaw said, not waiting for a response. He hit a button on his computer, and a diagram appeared on the screen behind him. “Somebody tell me why we just spent a month on stabilizing inversions. Eliot?”

“Cleavings unravel fastest at inversions,” he said. “If you don't stabilize them before the first cut, you run the risk of unraveling the wrong world or allowing the inversion to spread.”

“Exactly. Correct, then cleave.”

Before Shaw could continue, I asked, “If inversions can be fixed, why don't we repair Echoes instead of cleaving them?”

Eliot dropped his pencil. Shaw's tone was carefully neutral as he said, “Good question. Theories, anyone?”

The entire class looked at him blankly.

“Come on, now,” he said, more amiably. “We haven't covered it yet, but you should have some ideas. It's a safe bet you'll be seeing questions like this on the ethics portion of your exam.”

“Fruit of a poisonous tree,” said Callie. “A flaw in an Echo's frequency is passed on to any Echoes that spring from it. Tuning would fix one Echo but leave the rest unstable. Cleaving cuts off the problem at its source.”

“But what if there's another way to fix the flaws?” I'd heard Callie's rationale a million times, but I had witnessed entire worlds disintegrating into ash. “We could save all those people.”

“What people?” Logan said. “Echoes don't even notice when they're cleaved.”

“Dying in your sleep doesn't make you less dead,” I snapped.

He lifted a shoulder. “You can't kill what's not alive. Besides, if it's us or them, I choose us.”

I bit back a snarl. I'd been as blind as Logan, once. But recognizing the truth didn't do much good if I couldn't act on it.

“You've both raised good points.” Shaw broke in. “Fact is, it comes down to numbers. The Originals' population is increasing exponentially; so are pivots and branches. But the Walkers aren't. Every day, we fall a little further behind the multiverse, and the only way to keep up is to cleave.”

My outrage sparked and crackled like a lit fuse. Shaw believed what he was saying, the same way people believed in the sunrise: It had always been there, so it always would be. We had faith in the Consort, in our traditions and our “innate superiority.” But our faith was nothing but a trick used to manipulate us. The fuse inched closer to an explosion.

Intent on controlling my temper, I didn't notice the door swinging open, or the chill in the room, or way Shaw stiffened until I heard a familiar voice say, “Sorry to interrupt. We need Delancey Sullivan, please.”

Randolph Lattimer. Head of the Cleavers, enemy of the Free Walkers, all-around horrible human being. And he wanted me, which could only mean disaster.

He stepped inside and beckoned to me with a sharp wave. Behind him, a small, white-haired woman waited, hands folded over an ivory-topped walking stick, her mouth pinched with annoyance. Councilwoman Crane, the Walkers' so-called ethicist. As if the Consort had any ethics.

Shaw inclined his head, the fluorescent lights glinting off his scalp. “Go ahead, Del.”

I tried to stand, but my legs were too watery to hold me. To cover, I asked, “Should I bring my stuff?”

“That will be easiest,” Crane said, glancing over the top of her glasses. It was hard to imagine she knowingly sentenced Echoes to death on a daily basis. She looked like a sweet little old lady, with her snowy hair and the silver brooch at the neck of her silk blouse. If you weren't a Walker, you'd think she belonged at a garden club meeting, or worked for the historical society.

Callie nudged my foot with hers. I forced a smile, as if acting normal could make this normal, when normal had been shot to hell.

I grabbed my coat and bag and made my way around the room. Eliot reached his hand out, a quick brush of fingertips along my sleeve.

I met his eyes. Unlike Callie, he wouldn't be fooled with a smile. Once you've glimpsed something's true nature, it's hard to see the veneer as anything but false, no matter how bright the shine.

C
HAPTER NINE

A
M I IN TROUBLE?” I
asked Councilwoman Crane as they escorted me to the elevator. She seemed like the type who might rap my knuckles with her walking stick if I sounded impertinent, but Lattimer was the type to slit my throat while he made small talk. I'd take my chances with the cane.

“Only if you've done something wrong,” Lattimer replied before Crane could answer.

“My name's missing from the leaderboard.”

“That's not a punishment, Delancey. It's an expression of gratitude.” He withdrew a key card from his suit jacket and slid it through the reader. A tiny red light switched to green, and he pressed the button for the sixteenth floor, where the Consort met. I'd been there twice before: once for my suspension and once for my reinstatement.

“I don't understand.” My coat felt too heavy in the close quarters of the elevator, my scarf like a noose.

Crane spoke in the raspy alto of a former smoker. “You agreed to help us with the aftermath of the anomaly. The opportunity has arisen for you to do so.”

I'd agreed to help, thinking I could find out the truth about
the Free Walkers. But now I had the truth—and zero desire to help the Consort do anything except self-destruct. “Isn't that what the Cleavers are doing? Why do you need me?”

The doors slid open, depositing us in a familiar black-and-white-tiled hallway. Lattimer ushered me past the Chamber of the Minor Consort, the formal meeting room where they handed down their decisions, and directed me to a nondescript door at the far end of the corridor. “The Cleavers are dealing with the effects; we would like your assistance in rooting out the cause.”

“In return, you'll have our thanks,” Crane said. “Which outweighs any ranking you might hold in class.”

A bribe, same as they'd done with Addie. Offer us a treat to do their dirty work.

Lattimer swiped the key card again, punched in a code, and the lock turned over with a thunk.

“I don't think—Mom?”

The room was smaller than the Chamber, but equally stark. Plain white walls, black-and-white-tiled floor, no doors except the one we'd passed through. And sitting on the far side of the table, clasped hands visible under the glass tabletop, were my parents.

“Hi, kiddo. Sit, sit.” My dad patted the chair next to him, but I stayed standing, trying not to look like I was about to run.

Behind me, Lattimer locked the door again. Running was out.

At the head of the table sat the third member of the Consort: Councilwoman Bolton, the scientist, her smile a sliver of white against her dark skin. “Apologies for interrupting your training, Delancey. Especially on your first day back.”

I nodded, not sure how I was supposed to respond.

Lattimer remained standing, and everyone's attention shifted to him—a wordless acknowledgment of who held the power. His silver hair was swept back, his pale eyes shrewd. He was old, but there was nothing frail about him. Unlike Monty, his age gave him an air of command, of cold iron will and calculation. “You were reinstated more than a week ago.”

“Del's been through a lot,” my father said. “She needed time to recover.”

“A prudent course,” Crane agreed, settling in at the end of the table. “The Consort is grateful for your help in apprehending your grandfather. I know it was a difficult time, but you handled it as a true Walker should.”

“Thank you,” I said, the words stiff and ungainly.

“Tell us again about the moment you realized he was dangerous,” Lattimer said, smooth as a well-honed knife.

A command, not a question. Typical Consort-speak.

Addie, Eliot, and I had all given reports about what had happened, making sure our stories were straight, concealing the truth about Simon and my solo Walking. We'd rehearsed it like a sonata, and now I performed it again.

“We went to the school for more training.”
We went to the school to fix the anomalies Simon kept triggering.
“Mom had told us to stay out of the Echoes, but we thought we'd be safe.”
We knew time was running out.
“The inversions were spreading so quickly, we decided to fix them on our own.”
Telling you would land us in prison and get Simon killed. So we did it ourselves.
“The Train
World inversion was too big for us to handle, but Monty refused to let us tell you, or cleave it.”
He'd told me to run there with Simon, and then everything fell apart
.

“You became suspicious,” Lattimer prompted, but his eyes narrowed.

“Eliot distracted him while Addie and I went through to stabilize it, but . . .” I lifted my hands helplessly. “The inversion was out of control. Addie figured out the anomaly was somewhere within that branch just as the threads split. We escaped, and Addie performed an emergency cleaving on the Key World side. Monty was furious, so I knew something was off. I brought him to another Echo and he confessed. That's when you found us.”

“Yes,” Lattimer said. “The cut site is weaker than we'd like, but considering the circumstances, you did the best you could.”

“Thank you,” I said again, fighting off the sensation that the walls were inching closer.

“Montrose mentioned the Free Walkers to you when he confessed.” Bolton peered at a report, then glanced up sharply, braids swaying. “We believe the anomaly was their attempt to destabilize the Key World, and by extension, the Walkers.”

I didn't reply.

“Coming to terms with your grandfather's betrayal must be quite difficult,” she said, the slightest note of compassion in her words. “I'm sure you're very angry with him.”

“I don't think about him,” I said. Which was a lie, and Lattimer knew it, and judging from the look my parents exchanged, they knew it too. But an obvious lie is like a magician's
patter—misdirection, to conceal the greater, more important trick.

It worked. Lattimer smiled, indulging me. “I see. Nevertheless, Delancey, it's the Consort's duty to think about him. We've questioned your grandfather about his affiliation with the Free Walkers, but he refuses to answer.”

My stomach lurched. If Monty talked—and the Consort listened—Addie, Eliot, and I would end up in prison alongside him. We'd counted on our manufactured reports and Monty's history of dementia to keep us safe, counted on his remorse to keep him quiet. Now that I was locked in a windowless room with a bunch of murderers, it seemed like a miscalculation.

I slipped my hand into my pocket and curled my fingers around the origami star within. “Monty's stubborn. That's not a surprise.”

“True enough,” he said. “But your grandfather's silence endangers us all. We believe the Free Walkers have developed a weapon, and he knows about it.”

“Monty never mentioned anything about a weapon,” I said truthfully.

“He might have called it something else,” my dad said. “You know how he was, always talking in puzzles. It might not be a thing at all, but a plan, or a technique. Whatever it is, kiddo, we need to figure it out.”

“Uncovering the Free Walkers' weapon could shift the course of the multiverse,” Bolton said. “As you said, your grandfather's quite stubborn. He's refusing to speak with anyone except you.”

“Me?” My shock was genuine.

Crane replied, “He'll give us the information we seek, so long as you're the one interviewing him. Otherwise . . . silence.”

“Why me?” I looked at each of them in turn, and finally my mother leaned forward, sliding her hands across the table as if reaching for me.

“Because he loves you, Del,” she said, soft and cajoling. “He knows what he did was wrong. He knows you must feel so, so betrayed, and he wants to make amends.”

In a million worlds, I could never forgive Monty. “I'm supposed to care what he wants?”

Lattimer spread his arms wide, palms up. “You agreed to help us.”

“Monty doesn't know anything. He's bluffing.”

“We don't believe that's the case.” He paused. “Would you turn your back on us, and the Key World, for the sake of a grudge you bear a harmless old man?”

“With all due respect, Councilman,” my father said, “harmless old men don't serve life sentences.”

“There's no place more secure than an oubliette. Even Montrose realizes there would be no point in trying to escape, and Delancey will be well looked after.”

“Why can't Addie do it?” I asked. I'd edged away until my hip bumped the wall, but it was useless. I was as trapped as Monty.

“Your grandfather is insistent on this matter: He'll speak only to you. He believes you're the one he's most wronged.”

I snorted. Monty was after something, and it wasn't redemp
tion. He'd taught me too well, and I knew, as surely as I knew the sound of the Key World or the feel of Simon's hand in mine, this was one of his schemes.

“Tell him to find some other way to ease his conscience.”

Lattimer flicked a piece of imaginary lint from his suit, as if brushing away my answer. “A Walker's duty is to protect the Key World, Delancey. It is our calling, and now you are being called. Unless you've decided you no longer want to be a Walker.”

My mom stiffened at the implication, my father frowning alongside her.

“Of course I do!” I twisted the hem of my sweater. Dealing with Lattimer was like playing an especially challenging violin piece, and I was out of practice—stumbling over passages I should have sailed through, missing the delicate shadings that gave a phrase its meaning, so focused on the playing that I forgot to perform.

I needed to hit the right note. Refusing to help would invite dangerous attention; caving too easily would make him equally suspicious.

Propping my hands on my hips, I asked, “What if I go in there and listen to his spiel, and he doesn't tell us anything?” Us. As if the Consort and I were on the same team.

“He's aware of the consequences if he reneges.”

“What if he lies? He does that, you know. A lot. It's kind of his specialty.”

“Let us worry about the accuracy of his information. Your only concern will be to keep him talking.”

As long as he wasn't talking about me and Simon. If I wanted to control the information Monty was passing along to the Consort, I'd have to get involved.

I bit my lip, glanced over at my parents. My father stood. “Could we have a few moments alone with Del?”

“Of course,” Crane said, before Lattimer could object. “We'll wait outside.”

“Thank you. We won't be long.”

“See that you aren't,” Lattimer said, keying in the code to open the door. “Time is of the essence, Foster, as you're aware.”

My mom scrambled to her feet as Crane and Bolton rose. We waited in silence as they filed out. I listened for the sound of the lock engaging, but it never came. Our privacy was a gift bestowed; it could be taken away at a whim.

“I'm not convinced this is a good idea,” my father said. “Are you sure, Winnie?”

“Del needs to think about her future,” my mom answered, like I wasn't standing three feet away. “The licensing exam is a few months away, and then she's off to her apprenticeship. This will boost her chance at a good assignment.”

“Is interrogating Monty the best way to do that? She should be focused on her training.”

“She needs closure,” my mom said, and turned to include me in the conversation. “We'll be able to put this whole episode behind us and start fresh. It'll be good for all of us. What's more, it proves your loyalty to the Consort.”

“Does it need proving?” I asked.

“People talk, Del. The rest of us have our reputations to fall back on, but you . . .”

My reputation wasn't great to begin with. Trust my mom to always keep an eye on the bigger picture.

“I thought this was about letting Monty make amends,” I said, and she had the grace to look ashamed.

“Forget about Monty,” Dad said. He wrapped an arm around my shoulder. “Do it for yourself. For your future. You can make a difference, kiddo.”

Amelia had thought so too, and it had cost her everything. Would I pay a similar price if I allied myself with the Free Walkers?

My father opened the door, and Crane and Bolton returned. Lattimer was nowhere in sight.

“I assume you've come to a decision,” Bolton said. She tipped her head to the side and waited for my response.

For the first time I felt a shift in power. The Consort needed me in a way they hadn't before, and the knowledge gave me confidence. I straightened my shoulders and met her gaze.

“When do I start?”

Crane sniffed. “Now, naturally.”