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I watched Kalen’s strong hands brace the edges of the table, and noticed his fingers twitch. This was important to him, I realized, whatever he was doing, even if it all looked like pointless maneuvering to me.
“Speaking of why I am here,” I said and paused to allow him to pick up the conversation. He didn’t. He just sat there, leaned forward over his desk looking indifferent.“Why am I here, Kalen?”
“I told you, Gwynore.” His knuckles whitened on the table. I tried not to flinch. “You will know why you are here when Idecide you need to know it. Have you misunderstood?”
I shook my head once to the left and right in short spurts as Rebekah had done to me earlier this morning. The gesture that said,No. He seemed content with this and relaxed.
“Though I am interested in what you already know.” Kalen sauntered lazily around the oak of the desk and sat down in a grandiose chair on my right. He stretched and spread his thighs until he was comfortable and pressed his palm under his chin. The only sound in the room was the creak of the chair as it bore his weight. “Tell me.”
My face twisted in deep thought. What did I know?
“Well,” I hesitated, still unsure. “I know that I was in my World and everything was just as it was supposed to be.” Kalen leaned toward me, clearly vested in what I had to say for once. “And then the Auriel disappeared, and you took its place. And now I am here, in the Well. Armory of Leoth, the Light faction.”
I tried to repeat his words exactly as he had said them to me. For the past three days, I had been going over them repeatedly from memory, trying to organize my disarrayed mind.
“Where do you think you were?” he asked, surprising me. “The World you claim is yours, what do you know about it?”
I perked up in my seat. Kalen didn’t appear to be confused by the disappearance of the Auriel. Which meant he must know something. Then the answer to his question occurred to me, with a punch of sharp pain to my chest.
“I don’t know anything.”
It was true. However long I had spent in my World, I had truly no idea of where it had come from, the rules that governed it, or what else it may have had to offer up except for a mildly deranged girl, piddling around with no memories.Kalen regarded me with suspicion, his forefinger rubbing at his smooth jaw. I struggled to explain. “I have some issues with...I mean, I have a hard time remembering much about where I came from.Never mind the World that took me in.”
Saying it out loud, I couldn’t help but feel stupid. How many times had this emptiness inside of me ruined everything? I looked down at my lap and felt the shame of my shortcomings stinging my eyes. The rough calluses of Kalen’s fingertips pulled me out of myself immediately. He had touched me, gently lifting my chin.
“Do not ever think you failed because you could not control your own mind,” he said quietly. It was a soft reprimand, but not out of anger.When I didn’t say anything, he removed his hand. I watched him stretch his fingers and wondered if his palm ached.
“I can tell you about it if you would like,” he offered uncomfortably. I nodded, unable to speak. “You were in what’s called the Binding.”
The Binding. The name stuck to the back of my throat as I swallowed, and Kalen continued. “The Binding,” he said, “is a place between the folds of the universe. It’s quite literally like the saddle of a book.”
“A book?”
Jumping up, Kalen bolted towards the west wall of his office to grab a thick, box-like thing. He brought it over and laid it in my lap, allowing me to filter through the rough edges of papyrus. Admiring the delicate gold lines that were engraved on the outer shell, my pointer finger felt at the bold ink that dashed across the cream pages in between. I wasn’t sure what the collection of black splotches meant, but it felt important enough to appreciate.
Kalen took backthe bookand singled out two pieces of paper that lay next to each other. Carefully, he peeled them from one another, emphasizing the wide gap between the points they were sewn together. He prodded at a loop in the stitching.
“Just here,” he said. “That is where you were in the universe.”
Kalen watched me carefully, assessing. I could tell he wastrying not to overwhelm me, waiting for a sign that I was ready to continue.
I was but on my terms.
“How...” I began, but my voice faltered slightly, and I cursed myself for being so easily pushed around by my emotions. “How did I get into...the Binding?”
Kalen puffed a ball of breath from his cheeks as he thought deeply, being overly cautious with his words. “You were placed there,” he winced, bracing for my reaction. I tried not to give him one, knowing somehow that as soon as Kalen saw anything less than a collected arrangement of my features, the information would stop flooding out of him. He fiddled his thumbs anxiously in his lap. “It was for your protection. You are...valuableto the faction.”
I raised my eyebrows at him. The way he had locked me in my room and ignored me for the last few days had made me feel the complete opposite of valuable.
Holding up his hand, Kalen gestured to me to stay put. He walked to the far wall where a small table sat, and opened a drawer underneath it, scrounging around for something—I couldn’t tell what. When he’d finally found whatever it was, a whisper of elation passed from his lips.
“This,” he exhaled sharply, feeling the weight of the object in his hand as he rushed back over to where I sat. “This may explain a little better than I can.”
Kalen loosened his clasp around the object, no bigger than his palm, revealing a lump wrapped in a thick grey cloth. He took his other hand and lifted it gently, careful not to touch the bright emerald stone underneath. It flashed against the light from the window as he rotated his palm for me to get a closer look. Just below the stone’s surface swirled a molten cloud of dark matter. I stared at him for a moment, not understanding.
“Take it,” he instructed gingerly.
My eyes never left his, but I did as he said and moved my fingers toward the jewel. Still unsure, he gave me a nod as I brushed the fabric around it.
