Weavers (The Frost Chronicles) (18 page)

“We need to talk more about this,” I said finally, in another burst of words that I hadn’t planned to say. They leaped from my lips when we reached the door of the barracks. “I cannot...I don’t want to...I don’t know what I feel. Not anymore.”

“We don’t have to decide anything now,” he said, and his eyes were luminous in the night. “Just let it be, Lia.”

Before he left, he touched my face again and said my name. I shivered. I couldn’t speak. I watched him walk away until he was gone and all that remained was the darkness of the streets and the sound of the wind in the trees behind me.

When I tried to sleep that night, I could not.

~

The mop in my hands rasped as it slipped over the tiled floor, and the steady sound of it had lulled me into a state of nervous tranquility as I worked in the Labs the next morning. Outwardly, I worked evenly and without expression. Inwardly, a jumble of things wrestled for my attention. The thought of the remaining days until the mission was complete ticked in my mind like a clock too loud in a silence. Ann and Adam were an ache in my chest whenever their faces crossed my mind. Jonn and Ivy were a fear that pressed against me like the blade of a knife whenever I thought of their safety. And the kiss...

The kiss was a flutter of hope, a rush of heat, a trickle of shy longing. Every time I remembered the moment I’d spent in Gabe’s arms the previous night, I felt hot and cold all over. Part of me wanted to allow myself to smile like a fool, and another part of me wanted to shake myself for such a silly impulse.
You mean nothing to him
, my mind whispered to me.
He is lonely. He simply wants comfort. He lied to you
.

But when I remembered the look in his eyes and the gentleness of his hands, those words were the ones that felt like lies.

Footsteps clipped against the tiles. Automatically, I pushed the bucket out of the way with my foot and pressed my back against the wall to give the approaching person room to pass. But instead, the footsteps slowed.

“Lila, is it?”

I raised my head and let my gaze slide up the figure of the person before me. I saw a white robe, a wrinkled mouth, a pair of shrewd, blue eyes. Doctor Borde.

My heart skittered.

“Yes,” I said, the word a quiet admission in the stillness of the hallway. I glanced around. We were alone. No other stationaries, scientists, or even swabbers were visible the corridors. No other sounds floated down the passages to meet my ears.

“I’m Doctor Meridus Borde,” the doctor said, accompanying his words with a nervous gesture of his hands. He looked at my face carefully, as if seeking any signs of recognition when he spoke the words. I gazed back evenly. I was frightened, but I wouldn’t let him see that. I had looked Watchers in the face. I had watched men die in front of me. I would not flinch before this white-coated scientist from the past.

“So I’ve heard,” I said.

The evenness with which I spoke seemed to focus him. He rubbed his chin with two fingers. His eyebrows pulled together. “We need to speak.”

My pulse quickened at my opportunity, but I refused to be too eager. He had approached me. What did he want? What did he know? I kept my expression neutral, and I raised an eyebrow as if to say,
isn’t that what we are doing
?

Borde chuckled nervously and shook his head. “Privately. Not here. It’s not...safe.”

“Safe?” My voice was calm, almost puzzled, as if I could not fathom how it could be unsafe. But my heart began to thud a rhythm against my ribcage, and sweat broke out across my back.

“I understand you have clearance at the Security Center,” he said. “There is another building not far from it. If you follow the path past the field and through another stretch of forest, you’ll find it. It’s my personal lab, my place of private study. If you met me there tonight after your shift...” He paused. “There are things we need to discuss.”

“Why should I come meet you somewhere all alone with no idea of what you want?” I said. My palms were almost too slick to hold the mop. “You could have inappropriate intentions. You could have ulterior motives. I don’t know you. I have no reason to trust you or meet you somewhere alone.”

He made a sound that was halfway between a laugh and a cough. “That is very wise of you, girl. But I have no intentions of that nature. Please. This is a very delicate matter.”

“Give me some indication of what you want, then,” I said.

His eyes narrowed slightly with sudden decision. He leaned close, so close I could smell the scent of soap on his cheeks and mint on his breath. “Perhaps you know this phrase,” he said, and the next words he spoke turned my blood to ice.

“What woven secret will keep you warm?”

THE WALLS, THE floor, everything faded away. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. The throb of my heart, the hiss of my breath—every detail crystallized as I stared at him in shock.

What woven secret will keep you warm
? It was my father’s riddle. The one he’d told me and my siblings when we were children, and the secret that had ultimately been the key to finding the PLD’s secret location. How did this scientist from hundreds of years before my family’s existence know of our riddle? Our specific riddle that referred to my mother’s quilt—something that wouldn’t be sewn into existence for another several centuries? Something that couldn’t even exist as an idea, because the Frost it represented did not yet exist either. Our farm did not yet exist. How was this possible?

Meridus Borde drew back. His lips twitched in a wry smile as he observed the shock on my face.

“I take it by your expression that you know this phrase.”

I couldn’t speak.

“I’ll see you tonight,” he said. “Tell no one.”

And then, he was gone, leaving me reeling in the wake of his words.

~

That night I slipped along the path through the forest to meet him, moving through the shadows to the sound of my own pulse in my ears.

I was alone.

I hadn’t told anyone about what Doctor Borde had said to me. I hadn’t seen Gabe, and of course I didn’t trust Claire or any of the others. Even Jacob had been missing when I’d performed my nightly chores at the Security Center. The halls had been nearly empty, and as I worked and quietly panicked, I’d heard only the hushed murmurs of a few sleepy workers at their posts as they talked among themselves.

I moved through the darkness as I followed the path Borde had described. Around me, the trees reached out their tangled limbs like grasping fingers. The world looked so strange without its blanket of glittering white, even after a week of seeing it this way. The air was too hot, too close, too smothering. Sweat glistened across my forehead and beaded on my neck.

I’d only walked for a few minutes when I saw the lights in the distance. I rounded a curve in the path and there it was, a squat, rounded building huddled against a hill and shadowed by trees. A single light glowed from one of the windows.

I took a deep breath and let it out as I approached the door. I lifted my hand to knock, but it hissed open before I could, and a figure emerged.

Doctor Borde.

I squinted against the glare of light as my heart twisted with sudden apprehension. What if this was some kind of trap?

He motioned me inside. “I heard your approach because I have sensors along the path. No one can sneak up on me here,” he explained, a note of pride in his voice.

I barely heard him, because I was gazing at the room we’d entered. It was surprisingly cozy, unlike nearly every other building on the compound. The walls were painted brown and covered with shelves that held boxes and books in heaps. Tables lined the room, similarly cluttered with objects that I couldn’t identify by sight. A workshop.

“Can I get you anything?” Borde asked. “A drink, something to eat?”

My lips were dry, my hands damp. I brushed my fingers nervously down the front of my garment, and then realized I was showing my apprehension. I crossed my arms to keep from betraying myself further. I wanted to look strong, stoic. I wanted him to think I felt no fear. “Why don’t we skip the pleasantries and get down to why I’m here?”

He motioned at a chair, but I was too nervous and anxious to sit, so I stood behind it. He sank into the one opposite, studying my face with an expression that looked almost like reverence.

“I don’t know who you are,” he said finally. “But I’ve been waiting for you.”

“What do you mean, waiting for me?”

“How long have you been working here?” he asked instead of explaining.

“A week.”

“Then you must have heard of the things we’re struggling to decipher now. The Sickness.”

Apprehension prickled my spine. I watched his face carefully, looking for clues of what he meant, what he wanted from me. Was he trying to trip me up, lure me into making a mistake? Was he trying to get me to reveal some vital clue, some piece of information? What did he even want from me? I needed to proceed carefully. And as soon as I saw an opportunity to twist the situation to my advantage, I needed to take it.

“I don’t know much about the Sickness,” I said finally. “I have only heard a few stories.”

“I’ve only seen manifestations once or twice myself,” he admitted. “We are isolated from it here, and we are safe, mostly. But the Sickness. It...changes people.”

I waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t.

Borde studied my face again. “It’s incredible,” he murmured, almost involuntarily.

“What’s incredible?” I asked.

He came to himself and shook his head. “Nothing. I ramble sometimes. It’s one of my most endearing qualities.”

He flashed me a cheeky grin, but I was not amused. He waited a beat and then sighed. “I have questions I want to ask you, but I cannot. Not yet. I am not sure I can trust you.”

And I’m not sure I can trust you
, I thought, but I didn’t say that aloud. I simply waited for him to continue while my heart hammered in anticipation of what he might reveal. What could he possibly want from me? Why did he need to trust me? What questions did he have?

“Don’t you have any questions for me?” Borde asked after a long pause in which we simply stared at each other, silently challenging each other to each reveal their hand first. “I’ve invited you here in the dead of night, under utmost secrecy, and now I cannot bring myself to even say anything. Surely you are baffled.”

My lip curled slightly. So that was his game. Put the burden on me to make conversation, and see what I revealed? Clever, clever. I would not fall for such a trap.

“Perhaps you are lonely,” I said. “And you are ashamed to admit it.”

“Ah,” he said. “A sound theory, maybe. But you are forgetting our conversation earlier. It would suggest that you know something else. That we both do.”

The riddle. My heart sank. He’d known the riddle—how could he know the riddle?—and he’d seen my face when he spoke it to me. He knew it meant something to me, but I didn’t have to tell him
what
.

Borde waited, but I said nothing else. Finally, he sighed. “I am in a terrible position, my girl,” he said. “I am not sure who I can trust anymore.”

I raised an eyebrow. First Gabe, now him. Was not a single person in this place trustworthy?

“So,” he continued, “I am not sure what I can tell you. I must proceed with caution, because my work is of the utmost importance.” He waited again, but still I said nothing. Finally, half his mouth quirked in a wry smile. “You’re a cool one, aren’t you?”

“So I’m told,” I said.

He shook his head and muttered something under his breath, and then he rose with a grunt. “I’ve taken up enough of your time, my girl. We shall talk more later. Thank you for humoring me with this visit, unproductive as it may be.”

Protest stirred inside me. I’d come, but I’d discovered nothing. What about the riddle. “Wait,” I said quickly. Borde froze. Hope gleamed in his eyes and danced along the lines of his body as he turned.

“Yes?”

“The—the thing you said before.” Tension knit into my muscles. I didn’t want to say this, but I needed to know. I needed to find out something. “Where did you hear that?”

He gazed at me a long moment, making a decision. “In a journal,” he said finally, and then paused again. “I...wait here.”

He left the room, moving quickly, and I noticed he had the faintest limp. I sank into one of the chairs and looked around. Most of the objects spread across the tables were gadgets, strange pieces of technology that defied categorization or understanding on my part. On the table closest to me lay a slender metal pole with buttons running up and down the sides. Across the room, different colored liquids simmered in glass containers. The whole room smelled like pipe smoke and dust and something sharp and acrid.

Most of the shelves in the room were filled with loose papers or boxes, but one shelf in the far corner held a collection of dusty books. I rose from my chair and approached it, casting a quick glance over my shoulder to see if Borde was coming back. He wasn’t.

I reached the shelf and peered at the titles. Most sounded ponderous and academic, and some were simply unfamiliar fictions, but one snagged my eye. My heart thumped painfully as I stared, absorbing what I saw.

The Winter Parables
.

My heart tumbled. My parents had owned the same book. Gabe had found and read it during his stay at the farm, and he’d left me a letter in it after he left. It was in my room now, back in the farmhouse in the Frost. It was buried beneath my woolen socks in the top drawer of my bureau.

I reached out one finger to touch the spine. The words glittered on it, taunting me.
The Winter Parables
. The title seemed almost prophetic, given the future of snow that awaited this place.

Footsteps echoed behind me. Borde was returning. I stepped away from the bookshelves before he entered the room.

In his hands, he carried a leather notebook. He carried it close to his chest, almost as if it were a baby or some other fragile, precious object that he didn’t want to relinquish. He sank into the chair opposite me and held the book on his lap. I could tell he wanted me to demand answers, but instead, I waited for him to explain.