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Despite his warning Vanitas guided me among the shelves and display cases, muttering instructions as I drew closer. “Left,” he said, “down that way,” and “nearly there,” until I found the blade.
It was just sitting out there in the open, the dagger with its gold and greenish tinge, set with a gem that looked very much like an eye in its pommel. I remembered that gem flashing in the candlelight the night that dagger plunged into my chest. I remembered how the skin of my palms ripped to ribbons when I held up my hands to ward it away, when the delicate spines along its hilt and guard tore into my fingers.
I stumbled over my own feet as I approached. My heart raced, and I knew sweat was breaking out across my forehead, my arms. You’ll pardon the reaction but I wasn’t exactly prepared to see my own murder weapon staring me in the face. It wasn’t even under glass, like the other artifacts.
“Herald?” I just managed to say his name out loud. “Herald. Where’s this from?”
“Hmm?” His voice was distracted at first, but maybe he detected the distress in my tone because I heard movement from his end of the room. “What are you talking about?”
I found myself scoping out the archives for its shadows, an instinctual desire to run already bubbling up inside of me. My hand was clenched into a fist, the other splayed open with fingers against my chest. And my scar, it was hurting.
Herald clapped a hand over my shoulder. “What’s up? Is everything all right? You’re looking kind of pale.” He followed my line of sight to the counter, and his body went rigid, his fingers digging into me.
“That.” I didn’t need to point. Herald knew exactly what I was referring to. “Where is that from?”
“I thought I put that away,” he said. That wasn’t the answer I was hoping for.
I shrugged his hand off and backed away. “What do you mean? Isn’t this part of the archives? Aren’t you supposed to file it like the others?”
Herald held his hands up, his eyes darting left and right, the way someone’s eyes do when they’re searching for an answer – or making one up.
“They said not to let you see it.” He adjusted his glasses again, his hand faintly trembling as he did. “You weren’t supposed to see it. I put it away.” His voice was trailing off.
“They?” I was aware that my voice was rising to an unreasonable pitch and volume, and I willed myself to calm down. Whoever “they” were, I didn’t want them knowing that I’d discovered the very thing they wanted to keep hidden from me.
“Dustin, I can explain. That’s why we needed to keep it away from you, because they thought you’d react like this.”
“You knew,” I said, grunting when I bumped harshly into another display case, my fingers clutching at the counters like I was trying to claw my way out of there. “You knew this thing was right here and you never told me. You knew what happened.”
“I can explain,” Herald said sternly. “Please. We’re trying to find who did this to you.”
“No. You’re trying to hide. You know, and you’re not telling.”
“Dust. Please. It’s me. You know I wouldn’t do that.” Herald had come close enough, one hand reaching for my wrist, like he was trying to console me. Or maybe restrain me. I dodged his fingers and stepped into the shadow of a bookshelf.
As the darkness swallowed me up I could hear Herald shouting behind me, and Vanitas pulsing in my head. I couldn’t make out their words, not that it mattered anymore. What was going on? It never occurred to me that the Lorica would hide the investigation of my murder from me. Didn’t Thea say that they wanted to help bring my killer to justice? What did they know, and why was Herald involved?
I emerged in one of the pathways radiating out from the Gallery, Herald still speaking to thin air, whirling to find where I had gone. I knew I had scant minutes, maybe seconds to make my move, so I shadowstepped again, far enough as I could see to make my way back to my room.
The Lorica was mercifully empty by then, but moving within the shadows let me bypass most of the corridors anyway. I only hoped there was no one waiting for me in my bedroom. I threw the door open and ran straight for my duffle bag, picking up what essentials I could find. I patted down my jeans, relieved that I had apparently forgotten to give Bastion back his knife, or, alternately, that he’d forgotten to take it from me. I didn’t know how to use the thing, but at least I had an option.
I turned for the door. Herald would know to find me here, but I had a head start on him, and if I hurried I could deactivate the failsafes at the entrance and head the hell out of HQ. And go where? I ran a hand through my hair, gritting my teeth in frustration. Somewhere I could clear my head. Someplace I could think. I began to head for the door, but something on the floor drew my attention. Something glimmering.
I stepped closer, then bent down for a better look, and frowned. It was that spider that Thea had killed, the one she swatted off my shoulder earlier. And I wouldn’t have noticed it at all if it hadn’t been for the gem embedded in its back, a bright green stone the size of a penny.
Arachne. It was one of her children, the ones she trusted with secrets, with harvesting and conveying information. It was perched on my shoulder when Thea had killed it. Was the spider trying to tell me something? Did Thea know?
The door flew open. Herald burst through, hands held up as if to calm me, but it only made him more threatening. The tips of his fingers glowed violet.
“Dustin, please.”
No way out. My friends, hell, my own boss had betrayed me. I’d never done so before, but I knew there was only one option for making my way out of this predicament. I’d have to risk a blind jaunt through the shadows, from inside the building, all the way out to the street.
“Dustin.”
I gave Herald one last look and shook my head. I felt hurt, and confused, but more than that, I felt fear, of him, of the Lorica, and of the fate that awaited me if I failed to correctly move through the shadows.
Herald’s eyes went wide as I sprinted towards him. I leapt into his shadow, and I stepped.
