Chapter 93: Chapter 38: Star's end

> “I debated with myself for many days about whether I must go with the expedition. There is a part of me that still remembers what happened the last time I was caught unaware, and I hate to admit it, but I am afraid of it happening again.”

The less said about my first (and hopefully last) helicopter ride, the better. After chasing Dalia down to the heliport, we soon found ourselves airborne and with a glass of champagne in hand to boot. And even though I was now no stranger to small aircraft travel, soaring over the city low enough to count the individual cars backed up on the LIE was an altogether different experience. But when we finally reached the northern edge of the borough, a new problem popped into my head.

“Where are we going to land?” I yelled over the whirring blades. “There doesn’t seem to be any helipad nearby.”

“Don’t worry,” replied Dalia. “Frederic has done this many times. He’s very good at using available space. If only my bill to reinstate rooftop helicopter pads in Manhattan would go through the City Council, he’d be having the time of his life.”

We flew slowly toward the fort—and a little too close to the Throgs Neck Bridge for my liking— until we were perched over an enormous expanse of green that my map told me was several soccer fields. Which was all that our pilot needed, for five minutes later, we were scrambling away from the helicopter’s blades while Dalia greeted the rush of EMS cadets from the nearby training academy with a flourish and a stack of paperwork apparently giving her the right to land her aircraft wherever she chose.

We trekked onward, until we passed by a castle-looking red brick building, which Dalia scoffed at.

“Gothic revival, a terrible style,” she said.

“Like the Guild’s headquarters is any better,” said Beatrice. “It looks ridiculous next to all the Madison Avenue brownstones.”

Dalia shot me a glare, but I tried to brush it off like I didn’t care, except my stomach was busy turning itself in two. Beatrice may have negotiated herself amnesty with the Guild, but that didn’t mean that I was in the clear.

“Our building is perfectly suitable,” said Dalia. “If you don’t like it, you don’t have to come inside.”

“I thought we agreed to no more bickering?” I interjected. “We’re out in the hinterlands of New York City. Let’s just get to it.”

“Fine by me,” said Dalia. “Although I am quite enjoying the greenery out here. And the smell of the river is not as nauseating as I had expected.”

“Glad you’re having a wonderful afternoon,” said Beatrice. “Now, this next part is a little tricky. Let me do the talking.”

A small visitor’s center loomed at the end of the path and Beatrice jogged ahead and scurried inside. By the time we reached the front, she was back outside, her cheeks flush.

“We’re good,” she said.

“What happened in there?” I asked. “You didn’t…”

“… kill the park attendant? Let him cop a feel? Remind him of the command I had given him? Take your pick.”

“Got it,” I said. “I’ll mind my own business.”

“Yes, you will,” she said. “Now, let’s go.”

She pointed to a series of bay doors built into the hillside behind the visitor’s center, and we followed her around a half-completed fence toward the structure.

“What is this?” I asked. “It looks like a stable for very short horses.”

“Storage bays for the fort’s cannons,” said Beatrice. “General Lee designed this place to protect against anyone sailing through the Long Island Sound.”

“The head of the Confederate Army?” I asked. “Why was he designing a fort in New York City?”

“He was good friends with Joseph Totten. They were in the Army Corps of Engineers together and-”

“Are you actually a tour guide here or are you going to show us where the Compendium is?” Dalia scoffed.

“Fine. I thought it was interesting history,” said Beatrice.

“Some history is,” said Dalia. “This is just boring.”

“Suit yourself,” Beatrice replied. “The tunnel is up through here.”

We walked past more bay doors until reaching an arched opening that extended down into the hillside. Beatrice hurried us along, and we walked in silence through the near darkness, as the lightbulbs flickered on and off overhead. Random graffiti and words adorned the sides of the tunnel and I wondered who had bothered to come all the way out here to tag such moving sentiments as “Remember the Maine.” Finally we reached the end and emerged onto a wind-swept promenade lined with stone arches.

“Now this is something worth taking in,” said Dalia, who ran her hand over the granite with approval. Inside the arches were small windows that looked out to the water, and in one of them the back of an old cannon blocked all light from coming in.

“This place is eerie,” said. “What made you come all the way out here to begin with?”

“It seemed fitting, I guess,” said Beatrice. “It’s weird. Even though I remember why I chose it, in my head, it still feels like I’m watching a movie when I think about it.”

“Yes, well, that’s the danger of that particular branch of memory storage,” said Dalia. “The entropy involved never results in a perfect refitting. Now, behind what cranny did you stash the Compendium?”

“It’s not that simple,” said Beatrice. “Follow me.”

She directed us up a nearby stairway, and we walked to the second level of the fort, which looked like a crumbled Roman ruin. At the far end was a pair of red-rusted doors that were set against the hillside. A little padlock barred our entry, but before Beatrice could try to pick it, Dalia had withdrawn a morsel of golden thread from the embroidery on her shirt, tied it around the shackle, and pulled. The metal dissolved like a stick of butter, causing the lock’s body to fall to the ground with a thud.

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Dalia beckoned us to open the doors, which, lacking handles, was slightly difficult. Beatrice and I each grasped one of the slots set toward the bottom and pulled, the resulting metal-on-stone scraping noise besting cat claws on a chalkboard for the most excruciating sound I had ever heard. When we were finished, we were greeted with yet another barrier: a chain-link gate. This thankfully swung open without alchemy to reveal a small dark arched chamber inside. More importantly, it was completely empty.

“There is nothing here,” said Dalia. “You have several seconds to explain yourself, or I will most likely rip one of those blocks from its foundation, tie it to your ankles and toss you into the river.”

“I didn’t realize you were that strong,” said Beatrice. “But if you would calm down for just a minute, I’ll show you where I hid the book. And then you can carry out your drowning.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Dalia, as Beatrice walked to the back of the chamber toward a little red door set in the corner of the back wall. She crouched down and inserted the green stone from what had been her key necklace into one of the gaps in the wood, and the door somehow disappeared and the rest of the back wall with it. In its place was the real back wall, with a metal slab that ran from floor to ceiling, outfitted with a familiar brown doorknob.

“Where does that door lead?” I asked.

“Open it,” said Dalia. “Now.”

Beatrice complied, grasping the vervorium knob we had liberated from the Met and turning it to the right, before dragging the door slowly backwards. Inside was the black nothingness we were so familiar with.

“Where is the matching knob?” asked Dalia. “How far did you travel to hide the book from me?”

“Nowhere,” said Beatrice. “That’s the point. I knew that even if I journeyed to Antarctica and hid the tome in a filing cabinet in Orcadas Base, that you’d still be able to track it down. And I knew if I destroyed it, I’d lose my leverage. So I devised a third option.” She pointed to the other side of the slab and that’s when I saw it: another brown mottled knob.

“I don’t understand,” I said. “The portal just leads back to itself? So where’s the book?”

“In there,” said Beatrice. “In the nothingness. Perhaps if you walked through this singularity, you’d pull yourself back out. Eventually. But a book…”

“It’s gone then,” I said. “We came all the way out here so you could show us how clever you are? Well, mission fucking accomplished!”

“I didn’t know!” said Beatrice. “And did it look like I was happy to find out?”

“No. But why? Why is this any better than just burning the damn thing?”

“This wasn’t your original plan,” said Dalia. “You did want to hide it far, far away, like you said. And you came here to establish the first portal. And then you were going to figure out a place that no one would ever want to find. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes,” said Beatrice, dryly. “How did-”

“But once you attached that first knob, the enormity of everything overwhelmed you, didn’t it? Then, when you held the second one in your hand, you saw a way out. You created this anomaly and tossed the book inside. And you didn’t care if the thing ever came back out.”

Beatrice crouched down on the ground and began to sob into her hands, utterly destroyed by Dalia’s simple deconstruction.

“It’s true. All of it,” she said after a minute. “I just wanted it to be over. And then right after, when the enormity of what I had done hit me, I hated myself for being so weak.”

“And that’s why you pulled the memory from your mind. And everything else,” I said.

“Get up,” scoffed Dalia, as if she was chiding a tantruming toddler.

“Why? Because it’s more honorable to kill me on my feet?”

“No. Because this is not becoming of an alchemist of your standing. And I need your help.”

“With what?” asked Beatrice, who slowly sprung up to face her would-be nemesis.

“With retrieving my property.”

Dalia pulled up the back of her shirt to reveal a black square of fabric taped just below the clasps of her sports bra. She pulled it off with a yank, sending the small objects that had been pressed between it and her skin falling to the stone floor.

“Those are…” said Beatrice.

“Yes, the Compendium,” said Dalia. “The rings of knowledge pulled from its pages. It’s what you found in the cave. And it’s what will help us pull the book out of your never-ending circle.”

She bent down to pick up the scattered treasure and then handed each of us ten rings.

“What are we supposed to do with these?” asked Beatrice.

“Do you make it a habit of asking stupid questions? They’re rings. You put them on your fingers.”

We both complied, slipping one silver circle onto each of our fingers, while Dalia was busy fussing with the rings on her own fingers.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Getting ready,” she said, as she detached the tree sigils and threw them to the ground, revealing her own panoply of matching Compendium rings. “Now, this is going to be slightly uncomfortable, but do as I say, and you’ll probably make it out with most of your hair unsinged.”

Dalia walked over to the portal and extended her palms, before nodding to herself.

“Now what?” asked Beatrice. “Are we going to hold hands and make a wish?”

“Not exactly,” said Dalia. “Put your hands as close to the door as you can without falling through.”

Again, I did as I was told, but Beatrice held back, still not entirely trusting Dalia or her motives. I brought my hands up to the darkness, and when my fingers reached the edge of the precipice, I felt a minuscule tug pull them forward.

“I felt something,” I said. “Is it…”

“Yes, the Compendium,” said Dalia. “The rings are tethered to the book, even in there. We’ll pull it out. Together.”

I nodded and Beatrice looked at me like I was crazy, before bringing her own hands to the edge to confirm for herself.

“There are hundreds of pages in there,” she said. “And we’ve only got 30 rings. I barely feel the auragen link. It won’t work.”

“If I wanted your opinion, I would have asked for it,” said Dalia. “You’re the one who tossed the Compendium away like a ratty phonebook. Now step aside and watch your better fix your mistake.”

She strode up to the portal and stuck her hands straight out in front of her, before curling her fingers downward and pulling on the invisible auragen strings.

“Jen, on my left. Beatrice, on my right.”

We complied and took our places next to her, mimicking her stance.

“Pull!” shouted Dalia.

I balled my fingers and tried to imagine myself yanking a tractor stuck in the mud. But instead, it felt like we were trying to reel in a kite miles up in the sky. I looked over at Dalia, whose eyes were now closed, and saw her muttering under her breath. Were they words of encouragement or some sort of magic spell? As far as I was aware, there was no such thing in alchemy, but my reservoir of knowledge was so shallow that maybe I had missed something.

“Back up two steps and keep pulling!”

We did, until we found ourselves at the front of the chamber 20 minutes later, sweaty and tired, but with no book to show for it.

“Stop,” said Dalia. “We need to try a different tactic.”

I unclenched my hands and felt the book, however far away it was, drift off even further into the abyss. Beatrice had done the same before collapsing onto the ground. Dalia, meanwhile, began fiddling with the embroidery on her shirt, and a minute later, had not only completely removed the rest of the golden thread, but had also fashioned the end into a loop. Which she was in the process of slipping around her waist.

“What … what are you doing?” I asked.

“What does it look like I’m doing? Getting my book back.”

“You’re joking, right?” said Beatrice. “You can’t go in there. You won’t come out.”

“I don’t joke. And I’m coming back out. The rings, please.”

Neither of us were in any position to stop Dalia, so we quickly pulled the silver off of our fingers and gave them to her. A minute later and her fingers were three deep in rings and she had tied the other end of the thread to the metal gate. What had formerly been a magnificent tree was now unwound into a surprisingly long reel of string, sufficient perhaps for a 20-foot dive into the East River, but would it be enough for the paradoxical void Beatrice had created?

“When I tug three times, that’s your signal to pull me back out. Understand?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Beatrice, who started raising her hand up to salute, before I yanked it down.

“And whatever you do,” said Dalia, getting into a runner’s stance, “do not let that thread break, or so help me when I emerge from that portal in a hundred years, I will hunt down your descendants and toss them inside.”

With what, she pushed herself up and sprinted off into the darkness.