Resonance (6 page)

CH
APTER TEN

N
OW?” MY MOM'S VOICE JUMPED
an octave. “She needs time to prepare.”

“Delancey's made her decision. Nothing will be gained by waiting,” Crane said.

“What are we supposed to say to him?” Mom asked.

Crane's wrinkles deepened in confusion. “You and Foster won't be accompanying us. Montrose's demands are quite clear—he'll speak with Delancey, and only Delancey.”

“You can't seriously expect us to let her deal with him alone,” my dad said.

Crane drew herself up. One of the benefits of absolute power is that nobody questions your decisions. The downside is that nobody points out when you're being an idiot, and it was clear the councilwoman didn't like the sensation.

“You have my personal guarantee no harm will come to her. I trust that's enough to satisfy your concerns,” Bolton said smoothly, leaving no room for disagreement.

“Of course,” my mother said, but she clutched her pendant and edged closer to my father.

I bit back the urge to remind all of them I was standing right
there, perfectly capable of speech and forming my own, very definite opinions about my safety. In my experience, however, adults only ask your opinion if they think it matches their own.

“Delancey.” Crane's inflection was perfectly neutral. No hint of a question, only a prompt.

What would Ms. Powell want me to do? Assuming the Free Walkers had a weapon, they didn't need details about their own weapons—they needed to know what the Consort was planning. But what people
don't
know reveals as much as what they do. The Consort's questions were as important as Monty's answers. I could pass along both.

“I'm ready,” I said.

My mom hugged me. “Remember, he can't hurt you.”

No, Monty couldn't hurt me. Not any more than he had already.

“Later,” I said, and waved halfheartedly.

A pair of guards stood at attention next to the elevator. One of them—a woman with long, blunt-cut black hair and a thick fringe of bangs—looked familiar. At first I couldn't place her, and then the memory clicked. She'd escorted me to my disciplinary hearing. She probably thought I was being taken into custody. They followed us inside and positioned themselves on either side of me.

Crane withdrew her ID and slid it through the reader, then pressed an unlabeled black button.

The light changed from red to green, and the elevator sank smoothly. “Where are we going?”

“Sublevels,” Crane said crisply.

“I thought those floors were parking.” The Consort Building had assigned parking spaces in an underground garage—using public parking, where people had to choose their spaces every day, raised too many opportunities for change—but not many Walkers used them. Our kind traditionally lived near train lines, so most people didn't bother driving into the city.

“The first level is,” Crane said. “The rest are restricted.”

“Guess I'm special,” I said. The display above the doors had stopped at
B
, for basement, but we were still sinking. My chest tightened, and the elevator car felt increasingly small.

When we stopped, the doors opened on a sterile, echoing corridor. Two more guards were positioned at the short end of the hallway, a few feet to my left. To my right, the corridor stretched at least a hundred feet, windowless doors spaced evenly along both sides. Unlike the regular security force, the guards here wore unrelieved black. Everything else here was blindingly white—white tiles, white walls, white doors. The only sound was the buzz of fluor­escent lights overhead. The icy, overprocessed air stung my nose.

Lattimer appeared through the door opposite the elevator. Upstairs, his suit had appeared black—here it seemed to absorb light, an aura in reverse.

“Randolph,” Crane said. “I believe everything is in order.”

He closed the door behind him. “It is.”

“I'll leave her to you,” Crane said. She and her escorts stepped back onto the elevator, departing swiftly and silently.

“Hello again, Delancey. I'm so glad you came,” Lattimer
said, with a smile that was meant to be warm but only made cold sweat bead along my spine. “Let me take your things.”

I handed over my coat and bag to one of the guards, who took them into the control room while I inspected the hallway. The corridor stretched away from us in an unbroken line—no intersections or corners, every door visible. I counted eight on each side, a total of sixteen. Small, for a prison. “These are the oubliettes?”

“In a manner of speaking. The oubliettes are located in an Echo; we've manipulated the fabric of the target world, unraveling all threads not directly related to the cell itself. Then we create a single pivot in and out, leading to the room you're about to enter. It allows us to transfer food and other necessities between the oubliette and the Key World, and we can remove the prisoner if we need to converse with him. Each Echo is monitored to ensure that no further pivots are created. It's the perfect prison.”

I'd known oubliettes were Echoes, but I hadn't realized they'd physically altered the world itself. I couldn't fathom that kind of precision, but Eliot might. I'd have to ask him.

“Don't the prisoners get frequency poisoning?”

“We choose Echoes with a pitch similar to the Key World, for minimal exposure. But to be perfectly honest, most inmates aren't here long enough for frequency poisoning to become an issue.”

Apparently a lifetime sentence meant a short lifetime, not a lengthy sentence.

“Which one is Monty?”

Lattimer pointed at a door halfway down the corridor. Suddenly I was grateful I hadn't had dinner yet.

“Each cell is outfitted with recording equipment. I'll be monitoring it from the control room,” he said, as if this was a comfort. “I'll be able to see and hear everything that happens while you're inside.”

Since I'd come here to make sure Monty didn't tell anyone about Simon, I was less than comforted. “What do I do once I'm inside?”

“Be encouraging. Empathetic. Let him unburden himself to you, no matter how outlandish his claims.”

“Outlandish?”

“He's a cunning old man, Delancey. His confession will be short on remorse, and long on excuses.”

“It's all going to be lies? You said this was urgent.”

“It is. But if he knows that, he gains the advantage. For now, let him talk. Let him believe you forgive him. He'll be more receptive to your questions.”

“What questions?”

“Ask him about the Free Walkers. What they're planning, where they're hiding. How they communicate. Ask about Rose, and the weapon they were working on before she vanished. Even the smallest detail helps.” He handed me a tiny beige earpiece. “This will allow me to feed you more questions during the interrogation.”

So much for pleasant conversation. I slipped the earpiece in and let my hair fall forward. “He's not going to tell you anything.”

“Not me. You.”

“What are you going to do with those details?” I asked. “Chase Free Walkers?”

“If that's where he leads us, certainly.”

I wound my fingers together, trying to keep from shaking.

“He's already inside and restrained,” Lattimer added, escorting me to the cell door. “There's nothing to fear.”

People kept telling me not to be scared, but the more they insisted, the more I doubted. But I wasn't going to let Monty see it. I lifted my chin and opened the door.

The room was as white as bleached bone and smelled like fear. Monty sat on the far side of a long, narrow steel table. His face split in a broad smile, though his lips were chapped and raw-looking. Gray cotton scrubs hung limply from his frame, and his arms looked spindly. But his eyes were keen as ever as he watched me cross the room.

“Del,” he rasped. “I'd get up, but . . .” He lifted his hands, and I saw the metal cuffs circling his wrists, the chain that looped through one of the rings soldered to the table edge.

My feet squeaked on the tile floor. It slanted ever-so-slightly to one side, angling toward a drain set in the floor. I shuddered.

“Are you okay?” I asked without thinking.

“I'm better now.”

This wasn't what I'd expected. I'd imagined him in a jail cell, wearing prison orange, tired and remorseful and lonely—but not shattered. I'd imagined feeling smug. Vindicated. Instead, horror crawled from the base of my spine to the nape of my neck on countless tiny feet.

Had Gil Bradley endured this too? Thinking of Simon's father reminded me of Simon, and the pity welling up around my heart receded.

“Why am I here?”

“I've missed you,” Monty said. “I want to make amends.”

“It's too late.” The words felt sharp as blades in my mouth. Even so, I wondered: If it was too late for Monty, was it too late for me? Cemetery Simon hadn't thought so.

“Keep him talking,” Lattimer's voice in my ear was so close, I flinched. Monty's eyebrows lifted at the movement.

“Nothing's done,” Monty said solemnly. He glanced up at the camera embedded in the corner of the ceiling. “I've had time to think about what happened. I didn't understand before, but now I do. It's not too late.”

He'd said that before, as the Consort had dragged him away.
It's not too late. He's more important than you know.
A warning prickled along my scalp. I had to steer him away from mentioning Simon in front of the cameras. “You can't undo this,” I said. “You betrayed everyone. You used me.”

“I wanted your grandmother back,” he said petulantly. If this was Monty's idea of making amends, the Consort's plan would never work, because I'd strangle him before he gave up any real information. “You never knew her, or you'd understand. Rose and I are two halves of a whole. Montrose and Rosemont. We were meant to be, she always said. The universe itself wanted us to be together.”

He'd said the same about me and Simon, but only to manipulate me. “The universe doesn't want anything,” I said. “This is all your fault. Don't try to make it sound grand and important.”

“But it
is
important,” he said. “If you'd lost your other half, wouldn't you do anything to get him back?”

I didn't want to answer. Didn't want to think of Monty
and me having anything in common. I had limits, didn't I?

“Not if it meant destroying the multiverse,” I finally said, my voice rusty as an old hinge.

He placed his hands flat on the table, fingers spread wide. “I didn't know the anomaly was going to be such a problem. There were factors I didn't account for at the time.”

I stared at him, translating his ambiguity. He hadn't known about Simon's flaw, he meant, that his frequency would unbalance entire worlds.

“I understand now,” he said softly, urgently. “I know what I did was wrong, and I want to help set it right again.”

“Who needs your help?” I said. “I'm managing fine on my own.”

“Are you, now?” His shoulders slumped, but his eyes flickered to mine, sharp and curious. “I suppose so. Moving on, then?”

“I'm not living in the past,” I said. “Or chasing ghosts, the way you did.”

“Rose isn't a ghost,” he snapped.

“No. She was a Free Walker, like you. And she left. Did you ever think about that, Monty? She took off and left you to take the fall. You always say that you two were halves of a whole, but . . . she didn't seem to think so. That's just a story you tell yourself.”

“The past is prologue,” he replied, rapping the table sharply. “Shakespeare said that, and he was right. It's important that we learn from the stories of our past, Del. Our roots—who we were—determine who we are now. Our roots tell us where to go.”

Lattimer's voice crackled in my ear. “Ask him about the Free Walkers. I want names.”

I nodded understanding. “The Free Walkers are your roots. Who did you work with, back when you actually did your own work instead of manipulating teenagers?”

“You already know all the names you need to.” He settled back in the chair as comfortably as if we were sitting at the kitchen table. “The only one that matters is Rose. Isn't that right, Randolph?” he called.

“Fine. What was Rose doing for the Free Walkers?”

“What needed to be done.”

“That's not an answer.”

He grunted and ducked his head. I knew this stage. This was the ornery phase, soon to be followed by the muddled phase. I was losing him.

“The weapon,” Lattimer ordered. “I want to know what it does.”

“Was she working on something specific?” I watched Monty's face for any twitch or droop that might give away the answer. “A weapon, maybe?”

He chuckled. “Anything can be a weapon, depending on who controls it. Look in the mirror.”

I gripped the edge of the table to keep from throttling him.

“Where is it?” Lattimer pressed, and I repeated the question.

“No one person would be entrusted with information like that,” Monty scolded. “Besides, a weapon's no use if it's hidden away. You only hide what you need to protect.”

His fingers began twitching—not reaching into the strings of the world, but something far more innocuous. A melody played on an imaginary keyboard. “Let me tell you a story. I think you'll like it.”

“I've heard enough of your stories,” I said. “They haven't done me any good.”

“That's because you don't listen. A story has more to offer than words on a page, if you pay attention. That's why things slip by you, Delancey. You're slapdash,” he said dismissively. “You'll never get what you want if you're sloppy, you know. And you'll have no one to blame but yourself.”

My cheeks burned at the accusation. I hadn't paid enough attention to the signs—Simon's flaw, Ms. Powell's name, Monty's deception—and it had cost me.