"An estate?" Aldric asked, leaning back in his seat.
It was early morning now, hazy yellow light sparkling across the water beneath the riverboat, and Zuri was grateful that the previous day's rest seemed to have done wonders for Aldric's recovery. Some of the color had returned to his face, and he could move about now with only the smallest wince of pain.
Chike, standing with his back to the boat's railing, elbows propped against it, nodded his head. "Mulaim Chateau. Zuri and I found a man here who said he used to be the estate's housekeeper, while the owner was away. To make a long story short, one day he went to make the rounds and found Schmitt camped out there."
Jem stood beside Chike, facing the water, the wind making dark ripples of her hair. "It must have been before he went to the mill, then."
Zuri nodded. "I looked into his memories, and based on what I saw, that's the sensible timeline."
"After Schmitt was caught, he left, and the estate's owner let the housekeeper go. They've tightened the security since then," Chike went on, and frowned. "So obviously there's something there worth protecting."
"That doesn't mean it has anything to do with Schmitt," Kalindi argued. She was sitting in the seat across from Zuri and Aldric, her back straight, arms folded. Sequins glittered on her bodice each time she moved. "Chances are they threw out anything Schmitt may have left there. What reasons would they have to keep it?"
"We should still search around," Zuri argued, calmly. "Just in case."
"This owner," Jem asked, glancing sideways at Chike. "Who are they anyway?"
"A lawyer, I think. Omari Effiong," Chike answered, his eyes meeting Zuri's briefly. "The deed's been passed around quite a bit, though. Some terrible murder happened there a few years back, and needless to say, it hasn't done wonders for the property value."
"Murder schmurder," Jem mumbled. She pivoted sharply on her toe, stomping over to the bench and taking the empty spot beside Kalindi. "I agree. We should go look. It's not like we have anything better to do, anyway."
"True," Aldric agreed with a glum sigh, sinking low against the lacquered wood. "But just how are we planning to get in if the security's so tight?"
"You're the wanted assassin, Finck." Chike bugged his eyes at him. "You tell me."
Aldric jutted his chin. "Actually, I've been pardoned."
"Conditionally," Kalindi said, coughing politely into her fist. "It's very much a conditional pardon."
"Well, I'm currently meeting the conditions, am I not?"
"It won't be official until you find Schmitt."
"I did find him. He just got away from me. Does that count?" A pause. "I think technically it counts."
"Aldric," said Kalindi. "You're annoying me."
He gave a grand roll of his eyes, so overdramatic Zuri had to stifle a laugh. "And what else is new."
Once she'd calmed her laughter, Zuri cleared her throat sharply. Beneath them, the boat slowed to a halt, the busy dock running up beside it. Sinje's center district flourished and bloomed in full color around them. "One or two of us should head to Mulaim tonight, just to scope it out. Once we have an idea of what we're up against, we can figure out the rest."
Aldric turned, a smile sneaking across his lips. "Sounds like a plan to me."
Murmurs of agreement passed between the group, Kalindi's a lot more quiet than the rest, and together they dismounted from the boat, stepping onto the familiar broad, bustling streets they'd left behind a day before. The fact it had only been one day startled Zuri—the mental and physical exhaustion still lingering within her made it seem like longer, like she'd been wandering away for weeks.
She was still so far from her true home, of course. But the sight of people haggling over woven baskets and fresh squash, of children playing with spinning tops outside their front stoops, of waitresses balancing on mop buckets to clean the pubs' windows, settled everything the events of the mill had stirred within her. Maybe they were back on square one, but at least she had been here before. She knew where to go.
After one stop for more water and canned food, and another for chive cakes because Aldric kept staring so longingly at them, they returned to the warehouse. At first it seemed that nothing had changed—the brick and glass monolith sitting like a manmade mountain among the overgrown weeds—until Zuri heard the music.
She thought it was coming from a street performer somewhere behind them, but the closer they grew to the door, the louder the music swlled. Violin notes, singing in lovely crescendos and decrescendos, like the rhythmic rise and fall of a sorrowful tide. The melody trembled like a tear-stained voice, and something inside of Zuri tore loose at the seams.
Jem was staring at the cracked door, her eyes wide. "Is that coming from...?"
Zuri stepped forward, her voice a whisper. "I'll go in first."
"Zuri," Aldric said. "Wait—"
The second she appeared in the doorway, the music stopped. Bow lifted from the string. Beauty and then utter silence.
For a moment, Sorin froze where he stood beneath the skylight, violin still tucked beneath his chin, tiny motes of rosin floating around him like early winter snow. His eyes met Zuri's. They glittered like topaz jewels, and for once, she wasn't afraid of them.
"Sorin?"
"Nice place you've got here," he said, slowly, his gaze sliding away from hers. "The acoustics are lovely."
Zuri started to reply, but she was cut off by a flurry of footsteps as the others joined her, barreling through the door and stopping short when they recognized the intruder.
Aldric gritted his teeth, hands tensing at his sides, the temperature of the air plummeting. "You—"
Sorin lowered his violin. "Kill me if you want," he said, his voice the softest Zuri had ever heard it. He stooped, depositing the violin into its case, before he straightened and raised his hands in surrender. "All I ask is that you at least listen to what I have to say first."
They did listen, but only after Aldric had restrained Sorin's hands and ankles with a generous sheeting of ice.
Chike knelt before the violin case, clicking the latch free. Jem scoffed and reached over, lifting the instrument from its bed of velvet. "What is this, anyway?" she asked, resting it on her shoulder. Zuri didn't think she was imagining the way Sorin's eye began to twitch. "A fiddle? An arsonist and murderer who fiddles in his free time. Who would've guessed?"
"It's a violin," Sorin hissed through gritted teeth. He winced, though it was hard to tell if it was from his gelid confines or from Jem's brutish manhandling of the instrument. "And for Kiro's sake, please keep your grubby hands off of it. If you get your greasy fingerprints all over the wood, I will cut your fingers off one by one."
Jem blinked. "He just threatened me. Violently. Everyone else heard that, right? Can we get rid of him now?"
"Wait, Jem," said Zuri with a sigh, gently plucking the violin from Jem's hands. She kept her gaze low, trained on the dusty floor, afraid to look too closely into Sorin's face. She had thought, when she saw him standing there beneath the skylight, that maybe people like Sorin really could change. But what if he hadn't? What if she looked into his eyes, and saw the beginnings of another trick?
Then I'll have no one to blame but myself.
Zuri cradled the instrument close to her chest. The wood was warm as a living thing against her palms. "We haven't given him a chance to explain himself yet."
"I'm not sure there's much to explain," Kalindi muttered. "If you're looking for some sort of solace here, Sorin, you're not getting it. Zuri let you live; that was a blessing. Don't come here expecting any more from us."
Aldric folded his arms, huffing his agreement. He tossed his gaze from Sorin, literally frozen there against the floor, to Chike. "Chike? Is anything there?"
Chike straightened up again, shaking his head. "No weapons," he answered, but lifted a hand, a small, yellowing piece of paper caught between his fingers. "Just a picture."
Aldric's brow furrowed. "Of?"
"It looks like..."
Sorin closed his eyes, turning his face away.
"A picture of Liesel," Chike answered at last.
A sorrowful hush fell over the room, which Zuri didn't dare to break; she didn't know the right words to fill it.
Finally, Sorin exhaled, hanging his head, sheaf of blond hair like a flicker of candlelight in a sea of dark. "My knives are on my person. Two on my belt, another strapped to my ankle. Take them from me if you want to. I have no intention of hurting any of you."
Jem started, "But you just said—"
"I know what I said," Sorin snapped. "I mean I have no intention of hurting any of you at the moment. Keep testing me and that could change."
"Seriously," Jem said, pointing at Sorin, who lifted his head again, cat's eyes aglow with the beginnings of frustration. "He keeps threatening me and no one else seems concerned. Are you guys not concerned?"
Zuri was concerned, but hope was enough to fight it back for the moment, hope that the vulnerability she thought she'd seen within Sorin wasn't just a facade. If there was even the slimmest chance it was more than a delusion, she simply had to chase it.
She lowered herself to her knees, settling the violin back in its case, closing the lid and deftly flicking the latch. "Sorin," she began, and because she had no choice, because none of this would ever work if she didn't, she looked up, meeting his eyes again. "Tell us why you're here. Really."
Sorin closed his mouth, let out a sharp breath through his nostrils. His eyes were starlight, enchanting and dangerous. "Because I have to catch Vernon," he said gruffly, "and I've realized I can't do that alone. I tried, and that's why Liesel ended up dead."
Zuri swallowed. She could still hear the gunshot, echoing forever in the back of her mind, the moment all of her foolish expectations had shattered. "If you work with us, you won't be able to kill Vernon. We have to hand him over to the Queen alive. Do you understand that?"
Animosity bled into his every word, a stringent venom that made Zuri's stomach churn: "The way I'm going to make him suffer before then, death would be merciful."
"Say that all you want, but you still tried to kill me," Chike said, glaring at Sorin with narrow eyes. Zuri had never seen Chike look so ruffled. "You nearly blackmailed us, and I believe you attacked Zuri and Aldric on at least two separate occasions. Why in the hell would we trust you after all of that?"
"I'm not asking you to trust me, but you might want to. I know things about Vernon you don't," Sorin said, tilting his head. His eyes skirted towards Zuri and away again. "The mindreader here may have pried into my past against my will, but I doubt she remembers every detail. There are things about him, about his ability, you'd never know if you didn't hear it from me. I can help you. You know I can."
Kalindi gave a grand roll of her eyes. "You're underestimating us. Just what is it that you think we can't figure out ourselves?"
Sorin paused a beat, something flickering across his face that looked, oddly, like fear.
"Vernon wants to bring Wendell back to life," Sorin began steadily, his chin slightly raised. "Do you know just how he would do that?"
The five of them exchanged looks, but no one answered.
"You have to go backwards," Sorin continued after a moment, mouth twisted into a grim frown. "There is no way to weave a dead person back into existence—death is too substantial of an event. The only way to do it is to unmake the original reality and fabricate a new one."
"To unmake—what?" Jem pinched the skin between her eyebrows. "What does that mean, exactly?"
"It means he'd have to destroy the world and build an entirely new one from the ground up. Everything you know, everyone you love, would be lost," Sorin said. He met all their gazes in turn. "Unless we get to him first, he'll create an armageddon."
Zuri froze, letting the words sink and settle into her being like dye slowly permeating a garment. So this, she thought, was the source of her unease, the seed from which the tangled vines of her anxiety had sprouted. It was much bigger than this one mission, than this one war.
If what Sorin said was true, the fate of the whole world very well rested on their shoulders. Was she strong enough to carry that?
"He's lying," Aldric said, nose wrinkled in a scowl. "Obviously he's just trying to trick us so we'll let him stay."
"I'm not a liar," Sorin shot back, bearing his teeth like a predator preparing to pounce. "If anything, that's more your speed, isn't it, assassin? You lie about your name, your occupation. Only a coward shrouds their name in mystery, Finck. At least when I attacked you, you knew exactly whose hand the blade belonged to."
"You know nothing about me," Aldric seethed, and started forward, another gust of cold air blowing through the room that made them all shiver. Chike was there in a moment, holding him back.
"Enough. We're not fighting here," Chike said, and though Aldric fought him, wriggling like a caught fish, Chike only tightened his grasp. "Sorin. How exactly do you know all of this?"
Sorin let out a shuddering breath. "When Liesel first took me in, I lived with Vernon for a few months before he disappeared the first time. We didn't get along very well. He wasn't over Wendell; apparently the kid died in some freak accident while he was studying abroad in Naino, and Vernon seemed to think I was supposed to be some stand-in for the guy."
Zuri winced, remembering Vernon's vicious words back in the mill. "Yeah. I might have guessed that."
"He used to talk to Liesel about bringing Wendell back quite often, not that she ever wanted to hear it. I got tired of hearing them argue in the other room all the time and not knowing what was going on, so one night I..." He exhaled, cheeks tinged pink. "Used my resources. I hid in the vent over Vernon's office."
Jem snorted, her lips sneaking up into a smirk. "Guess your ability's good for something."
"It's good for a lot of things, you—" Sorin stopped, groaning. He looked away, towards Zuri and Chike. "Is this one always this annoying?"
"This one's name is Jem," Jem said, beaming. "And according to Kali, yes. Yes I am."
Kalindi rolled her eyes. "Keep going, Sorin."
Sorin sighed in dismay, but did as he was told. "Vernon told Liesel he was on his way to figuring it out—how to bring Wendell back to life, I mean. That though it hadn't worked before, he knew how to pull it off this time. How to unmake the world."
"This time," Zuri echoed. "So he's tried it before? What happened the first time?"
Sorin shook his head. "I'm not sure. Whatever it was, it was most certainly a failure, and Liesel didn't want another one, so she told him no. He didn't seem happy about it, and the next morning, he vanished."
Aldric, now free of Chike's grasp but still clearly fuming, rose an eyebrow. Zuri could see the wheels turning in his head, a stubborn iron gate finally pulling open. "I'm still not buying it."
"I can check," Zuri said, before she could tell herself not to. She paused, wondering if she really meant that, and then nodded. "I can see if it's a real memory or something he just made up. Would that convince you, Aldric?"
Sorin cringed. "I'm not very excited about letting you inside my head again, but I don't have anything to hide. Be my guest."
"We didn't ask for your permission," Aldric said, and nodded at Zuri. "Fine. If you're lying, Sorin, just know I'll freeze your heart right here."
Sorin scoffed. "So I can't threaten anyone, but he can threaten me?"
"Yes," said Jem and Aldric in unison.
Sorin actually looked hurt.
"Okay," Zuri said, scooting closer to him. The faintest scent of river water seemed to emanate from his direction. "This'll just take a second. And I'm, um...I'm sorry."
Sorin closed his eyes. Despite his words, Zuri noticed his body tense as if bracing for a blow. "Just do it already. You're wasting time."
She hesitated, her hand hovering in the space between them for a moment, before she pressed a hand to Sorin's shoulder and plunged herself into the dizzying abyss of his memories.
When she resurfaced, gasping, shaking the thoughts from her head like she would cold water from her hair, her heart seemed heavier in her chest. Sorin, too, was dazed, his pupils dilated, eyes trained at nothing.
Zuri got to her feet, whirling. "It's true," she said. "Everything he said is true. Vernon is—he's going to undo everything."
Aldric blanched, his arms falling to his sides. The news bored into each of them until the air was brimming with an uneasy weight: the realization striking the group that not only was the world as they knew it doomed to end by Vernon's hand, but that the only way they had a chance at saving it was with the help of the murderous man in front of them.
Jem let out a dramatic sigh, pacing to the back of the room, her shoulders hunched. Kalindi hid her face in her hands.
Chike and Aldric looked at each other, then at Zuri. Finally, Aldric cleared his throat, grabbing a grease-stained paper bag from where he'd left it against one of the windowsills. He held it out to Sorin, pointedly not looking him in the face. "Chive cake?"
Sorin grimaced. "No thanks. Chives make me sick."
Aldric looked betrayed. "Rude," he said, dropping the bag to the floor. "I guess I'll get to the point then. Any chance you know something about the Mulaim Chateau?"
Sorin blinked, blatant surprise passing his face for a moment before it dissipated again. "I know plenty," he said, and suddenly his voice sounded faraway, as if he was no longer entirely present. "I used to live there."