We stop outside a decaying door leading to what must have once been a grand house. It is now mostly collapsed under the weight of modern-day Eclipse City above us. The older guard knocks in a pattern too complex for me to memorize in one hearing. After a moment, the door creaks open.
The space beyond is unexpectedly large—a once-grand parlor now cracked and crumbling. A couple is huddled in a corner, sleeping heavily. Another person tends to a makeshift kitchen that’s little more than a pot and flame. Supplies are stacked in corners: food, weapons, basic necessities. At the center stands a table. Seated at it is the man I presume to be their leader, and the last person I expected to see.
There’s no way…
“Vaduin. Fucking. Thornbrow?” I blurt, blinking, as though this is some illusion I might dispel.
He doesn’t look up from the papers spread before him. “I still prefer Head Professor Vaduin Fucking Thornbrow. But I suppose the formality’s dead.”
Vaduin Thornbrow. Head Professor of Wielding at Arcana Academy. The same man who chastised me for drawing my cards manually.Who taught me how not to. Who had me scrubbing away Kel’s blood for hours after a card reversed on her. Who gave me the impression he had no interest in me at best and outright disliked me at worst.
“You…You’re one of—”
“The Worldkeepers.” He finally lifts his eyes. “One of the last. Some might even call me their leader.”
I take in the scene anew. The crumbling sanctuary, the limited resources, the people who look more like refugees than a resistance. “This is it? The mysterious force that fights against the crown? That thought they could take down the king?This is it?”
“What we lack in numbers, we make up for in conviction.” Vaduin stands now, his eyes meeting mine. “Belief is sharper than any blade, stronger than even stone. It far outlives the trappings of mortal men. Even of fate itself.”
I’m not impressed by some fancy words, and I make no effort to hide it. My eyes scan for exits, and I note two—possibly three, if there’s one behind a curtain.
“I assume you have questions,” Vaduin says. I can’t tell if his obliviousness to my skepticism is genuine or feigned.
“A few thousand.”
He gestures to a chair opposite his. “Sit.”
I don’t move. “This isn’t a classroom,Professor,and I’d rather not.” I’m already outnumbered. The last thing I want is to make myself less mobile.
And there’s no sign of Arina.
“Clara,” Gregor says softly, “maybe we should hear them out.”
I cast a wary look his way. Gregor holds my gaze, urging me without words. With a sigh, I reluctantly take the offered seat. The wood creaks and threatens to give way as I sit heavily. Its perpetual dampness seeps through my clothes.
“The Worldkeepers,” Vaduin begins, wasting no time, “originated as guardians of the World card. When a wish is made with the World card, we are the ones who remember past versions of reality when others forget.”
“Past versions of reality?” I interrupt.
“When someone uses the World card to remake reality, everyone but the individual making the wish forgets the world as it was before the wish. But the Worldkeepers—those who have taken the oath and bear the mark of our order—are blessed with the ability to remember.”
I think of what Bristara showed me. The card she used to reveal a sigil on her forearm. But I pretend to be ignorant in an effort to gain more knowledge. “What mark?”
Vaduin rolls up his sleeve, revealing his forearm, just as she had. There’s nothing visible there.
“I don’t see anything.”
“You wouldn’t,” he says. “It can only be shown with a card unique to our order.” He places a seemingly blank, circular card on his forearm.
Like with Bristara, the card vanishes the moment it touches his flesh. A symbol glows in its place like a tattoo emblazoned with metallic rust-colored ink. The design is simple: a diamond with a starburst in its center.
“Fancy way to hide it,” I murmur, trying not to sound too impressed. Invisible ink on the card used to summon the mark, I assume. But the mark itself and how it’s made remain a mystery to me.
“It is survival. To be marked as a Worldkeeper while Naethor lives is to be marked as dead. He has hunted us for a generation in a bloody, almost-complete purge.”
“Was that Naethor’s wish on the World?” I ask.
“No.” Vaduin shakes his head. “His wish was for power. Or so I’m told. I wasn’t a Worldkeeper then. But he used the power he gained to continue to hunt the ten surviving Worldkeepers from the last iteration of the world, nearly succeeding. Only one managed to evade him long enough to begin rebuilding the order. The same Worldkeeper who harbored knowledge of how to ink the vessel—the card that the World is placed upon. Our former leader: Laylis Chevalyer.”
