Lillian sighed, her cheek pressing into the scratchy floor, and resigned herself to her inability to further aid the DIAO investigation. It seemed to have reached the point where she doubted the mystery could be solved without the help of Ashley or Beanie. How much they knew wasn't the issue, though; it was how much they were willing to tell.
Beanie had already told her that he would entrust "a great deal of information" to her, but she wasn't sure what exactly that meant. Obviously he knew at least something, but was his knowledge alone enough to solve the mystery? And would Lillian ever be able to convince him that she wouldn't tell the DIAO? She felt almost as if he would know she was lying, no matter how convincing she sounded. And beyond that, there was the trouble of finding him in the first place. And even after just two weeks in contact with the DIAO, she knew she wouldn't be able to conceal the truth from Galena.
She was lying on the floor near the closet door, her side pressed into the ground and her hair falling over her face. She moved as if to get up, but her ankle twisted and a twinge of pain shot up her leg. Wincing, she pressed her palms into the ground and brought herself to her knees, using her good ankle to rise off of the floor. She walked out of the closet and into the corner of the dorm room where her desk was, clearing papers off the surface with wide sweeps of her arm and finally flopping down into the chair.
Finding Beanie would prove difficult, if not impossible, but Lillian's hunger for answers was stronger than her fear of him. He could be the most powerful thaumaturge in the world, and he was clearly dangerous- he had been present at the explosion on the night of the Thaumatogenesis, he had clearly interfered with the burial of the dead vagrant, and he had broken into a government building to steal nothing more consequential than a key.
But beyond Beanie, Lillian had a more interesting question: What were the chances of Ashley's daughter being hired to the DIAO? Galena had admitted that although she had been mildly interested in getting a job at the DIAO, Ashley had pushed her to get her resume in and to apply for a job. Galena had already said that she thought the illusionist wanted to be noticed. Was any of this real?
Lillian reminded herself- of course it was real. They had seen Beanie on video before the Thaumatogenesis, and the vagrant as well. But beyond that, Ashley and Beanie may have been trying to get the DIAO to investigate them. Maybe other people were involved as well. She couldn't shake the hypothesis that there was a conspiracy behind the scenes of everything she and the DIAO had witnessed so far. She wasn't sure how much Ashley or Beanie actually knew about the Thaumatogenesis, or if there was anyone else they could question to find out more.
Conversely, none of this explained what was, at least for Lillian, the most confusing parts of the investigation. First, the fact that Beanie had managed to knock Galena unconscious with no traceable thaumaturgy. Second, the fingerprints from the vagrant on the key. And most disturbingly, the undeniably mysterious resemblance between the dead kid, arrested in 1978, and the man from the Thaumatogenesis.
❦
And yet after everything he's been through, all he can think about is the chair.
To be fair, it seems strikingly out of place, as if it should stand alone in the center of the room, not absurdly surrounded by eight smaller chairs, after all, it is not just the middle chair, but superior to them all, the opposite of everything he thinks a tiebreaker should be. And as she reclines in the chair, her eyes somehow boring into everyone in the room at once, as even in his shackles he stands ramrod straight, he imagines her followers, the purple-robed, pouring through those eyes: through the blue one, clear as a morning sky, and out of the other, the gray of an ominous storm cloud looming over the horizon; how those followers had brought clouds to his sky.
He isn't sure if it is the grief, or the fear, or the exhaustion, or a combination of the three, that makes him fixate on these tiny details. But as he listens to the swishing of thousands of royal purple robes, and sees the thousands of pairs of eyes staring him down, he nearly quails with fear, for all of those thousands of people, though they might seem separate, behave like one massive entity. Shuddering, he steels himself, and dares for the first time to gaze into those eyes, the gray one, just as she begins to stare back.
It is quiet for several minutes, while they search for any sign of friendliness in each others' eyes; all they find is fearful animosity.
He breaks the silence.
"Madam Tiebreaker." He bows his head.
She turns to one of her subordinates. "Tell the boy that he may address me as Supreme Guardian of Purity."
The man nods and tears his gaze from her eyes to look at the boy, chained, whose own eyes flit to him for a half-second, to show he's been acknowledged.
"Supreme Guardian of Purity," he corrects.
She lifts her head and gazes into his eyes, searching for something indicating sarcasm. Satisfied, she resumes.
"Octavian."
He knows she is wrong as well but doesn't dare to correct her. It could cost him his life.
He swallows and waits for her to continue.
When she doesn't respond, only staring him down, he continues.
"The guards killed my parents." He says this in the same emotionless tone he used to address her.
Her hand flies to her mouth and her eyes widen as she gasps. "Which?" she asks immediately.
"One had rings on his fingers and the other had robes that were soiled at the bottom." He takes care to keep his tone level and expressionless. He can't afford to fall apart in front of such an audience.
She makes a simple sign with her hand, and a murmur rises over the great arena, ripples of motion propagating through both sides of the crowd, until two men are pushed violently forward to kneel at the Guardian's feet. Both wear pleading, remorseful expressions. She regards at them for several seconds with those intense eyes, and though their faces flicker, their expressions do not change. When she finally speaks, it is only two words, spoken quietly but unshakably, directed at not the two men, nor at the boy in chains, but at the entire arena.
"Kill them."
And before the boy can speak, before he can even think, the two guards are sprawled lifelessly on the floor.
"No!" he shouts. "Don't..." But he is too late to save the guards, and the thin veil of politeness between him and the Guardian has been pierced.
"You didn't want them to die?" she asks coldly.
"They... they weren't..." But the boy had lost his composure, and he knows he wouldn't be able to explain why he had wanted the guards alive. We aren't like them, the voice in his head begins, but he knows he could never make such a statement out loud.
"They had no right to imprison you so cruelly or to harm any of you. They have suffered the consequences."
The boy only stares back.
"I would never treat you or your family so cruelly. I wish I could have prevented it, saved your parents, stopped those guards from mistreating you. You don't deserve what you've been through."
The boy's eyes flick for a split second to the short woman reclining near the Guardian. He recognizes her as one of his captors.
"We're better than them," the Guardian continues. "We have the power and the will to create a world where no one has to go through that pain. Where everyone feels both safe and free. An enormous community. None of this has to happen."
"Why am I in chains?" the boy finally bursts out. A wave of astonishment sweeps through the crowd.
"I haven't explained to you yet what our goal is," the Guardian answers. "You are powerful enough to destroy all of this-" she sweeps her hand around the arena- "and I want you to fully understand that we are not responsible for any pain you endured. They are." She indicates the slumped bodies of the guards at her feet. "If we let you free, it would be a concern for all of our safety. But make no mistake, we will let you go. When you have heard me out."
The boy gazes at his feet and nods.
"The old system was corrupt. That's the consequence of giving so many people so much power for so many years. They voted again and again and the one thing they finally agreed upon was to stop voting. They couldn't come up with the answer. And so people continued to condemn us for doing something that no one could say was wrong. It's a matter of opinion, not of objective fact. It's not something that we should be persecuted for.
"That's our vision, a world where no one needs to be persecuted and everyone can feel safe- their lives and their ideas. Everyone can help us make that happen, all of you-" she indicates the throngs of people clustered throughout the arena- "and you." She points to the boy. Murmurs of astonishment fill the air as she rises from her seat and begins floating along the center of the room, her bare feet pacing soundlessly towards the chained boy. When she is just a few steps from him, she holds up a hand, and the crowd instantly falls silent. She holds her other hand out to the boy, her fingers deftly curling outwards and revealing her rosy palm. He looks up into her eyes. The blue eye sparkles with excitement, the gray betraying her true anxious doubt.
Almost unconsciously at first, his hand begins to lift from his side. The strand of spider silk wrapped around his wrist trembles in the slight breeze.
But as he stares at those long, delicate fingers, a memory surfaces from somewhere deep within his mind. Trembling fingers, cold and thin, uncurling from within the mesh; a desperate face, thin with fear; broken words and a terrified tone of voice. Him, a young boy, longing to free her, reaching out to touch her fingers- and then his mother's hand on his neck, warm and firm, steering him away, into another room, where she explained, quietly and succinctly among the crowds of revelers, that there was nothing they could do, that it would never be banned. "They may look like us, but they aren't," he remembered her explaining. And as he gazes into the Guardian's eyes, he realizes: This is what they stand for. And he can never support it.
Shaking, he lowers his hand and brings it back to his side, still staring into her eyes. Though he is terrified, he musters his courage, knowing that what he is about to say could determine the fate of the world. If he refuses her, he might die. If he accepts, he will be granted unimaginable power, over more people than he can comprehend, possibly even on a level with the Guardian herself. But at what price?
The simple thought of what might happen to the world in such a situation made him shudder. He summons all his resolve and, blinking through his fear, embodies his choice in a single word.
"No."