“What do your friends in France make of all this, Mr. Pendragon?”
The Consistory. I shudder, thinking of the blank non-faces I'd seen under their robes, how they'd moved over campus like gliding ghosts.
I hadn’t even thought of them.
"They..." Kingston hesitates a moment. Even after I pulled away, he’s still got my hand in his. “They don’t know. Yet.”
Yet.
The single syllable makes me want to cry.
As if he can sense it, Kingston tightens his hand around mine. “It’s complicated,” he says to Emrys. “With my father?—”
“Of course,” Emrys says, waving the notion away. “That is entirely your prerogative. I only ask to be thorough.” He looks to me. “Take heart, Ms. Vale. All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”
Julian of Norwich. More words I used to repeat. Consciously. Willfully. Hopefully.
Now, I just shake my head. Look around at the unending night beyond the windows, the small radius of firelight just before us. “Will it?” I say darkly.
“Oh yes. Empirically.” Emrys smiles. “I do not have the faith of your mystic anchoress, Ms. Vale,” he says, apparently registering my confusion. “She made her assertion out of sheer belief. An assurance, deeply felt but materially unproven, unprovable, that Divine Love would, in the end, be a balm to all. I, however…I have simply seen. No need to believe when one has played witness. What is to come is what has already been, for me. And so I borrow those words that, for me, have not yet even been spoken, to tell you truly: all shall be well.”
“Then what do wedo?” Kingston asks. “Now?”
“That, I have told you, I do not know. I know that you emerge triumphant, in the most general sense. That the world continues and does not die--or else I would not have had anywhere to come from, would I? But by what means, or at what cost? I…” He blows out a regretful breath and spreads his arms wide.
As Emrys speaks, Kingston’s grip on me tightens further. “Do you know if anything like this ever happened before?" he says. “In history. Any analogues, or?—”
“You would know as well as I would, Mr. Pendragon," Emrys says mildly. "We've been reading the same texts. Apocalyptic visions. Wastelands. An earth made to slumber against her will. Not uncommon themes."
"Butyou'venever seen anything like this," Kingston presses.
"As I told Ms. Vale," Emrys says, "I have not. But my suspicion is the same as yours—well, yours singular, Ms. Vale,” he amends, "if Mr. Pendragon will not own the realization, despite the preponderance of evidence.”
Kingston says nothing.
"I'm afraid that it stands to reason that your quest has gone from theoretical to practical," he goes on, "urgent even."
Kingston snaps up. "What do you mean?"
"He means there's a deadline,” I say shortly, "Don't you?"
Emrys nods. "Of sorts.”
“It's not just about solving the puzzle anymore,” I say. “We have todosomething with what we know about me, or else…”
I can't finish the sentence.
"Or else," Emrys says soberly.
Both of us look at Kingston.
“I can’t make any decisions unilaterally,” Kingston says. “Wecan’t,” he amends, looking me in the eye. I nod.
“So we have to talk to the others.” About what, todowhat…I don’t really know. But Kingston’s right: they have to be part of it, whatever it is.
“Then talk you must.” Emrys nods. “I await your decision with trepidation and trust.”
Kingston stares into the middle of the room. Behind him, the fire crackles.
