Page 50 of Atlas of Unknowable Things

“I need to find Charles,” I say, and yet I don’t move. I stare into the darkness beyond the fence. There are more out there now, moving, crawling on all fours between the trees.

“Charlie’s dead,” she says flatly. “You killed him.”

“No,” I say, but my negation falls equally flat.

“It’s time to remember,” she says.

Tears spring forth as I fall back to that night, as I stand there with Isabelle, watching it all play out before me like some horrible dream.

We were out near the pillar. The sun hung low and red in the sky like a throbbing pustule, and yet it was just beginning to snow, coming down in flat, heavy flakes just as in my dreams of New York.

And then the sirens. The breach. The look of abject horror on Charles’s face as he understood. Someone had opened the gate, and they didn’t know how to close it again.

I tried to run. I had to get to the control room. But he grabbed my arm.

It happened so fast, my world came undone in an instant.

Me trying to pull away again, yanking my arm, but he wouldn’t let go.

Me pushing. Pushing too hard. Me reaching for him to undo what I’d done.

The fall. His head colliding with the marble sundial—no, the marble pillar.

A skull splitting; there’s always so much blood from a head wound, isn’t there?

Me holding him while he bled out, whispering words of love as his blood soaked deep into the soil, nourishing the plants from which we’d derived our greatest potential, “feeding the crops.” And all the while, the snow falling silent and bright.

“You let him die out there in the snow,” Isabelle says. We’re back at the fence now, back in the dark.

“It was an accident,” I say through my tears.

“You let him die and then you let Symon take you. You wanted to forget as much as he wanted you to.”

With everything laid bare before me, I can finally see the truth. They’re not going to let me seal the breach. As much as Finn and the others might want me to, there are powerful shadows standing behind them, just outside of the frame, that are going to make sure I don’t.

I think back to the bitter water Symon had given me in the car. It had been drugged, hadn’t it? That’s why I’d slept so long, that’s why I’d been so sick when I woke up. Had he been planning on killing me? Had he changed his mind when he realized I still thought I was Robin?

Through the darkness I can see more of them now, slipping between the trees with jittery, arachnoid movements.

“Are we in danger?” I ask.

“We’re always in danger.” She gestures beyond the fence. “There are only so many of them we can contain. If that’s even what we’re doing.”

She turns and faces me, her brutal beauty searing into me, her features sharp as icicles. “You’re not going to let me come back, are you?”

“Not all the way,” I say. “No.”

“You’ll never be able to do what I do.” It’s a threat. “You’ll never be able to be me.”

“I … don’t want to be you.”

Suddenly she slaps me hard across the face. “You need to wake up now.”

With a scream, I surged awake and found myself alone somewhere dark and cold. Scrambling to my feet, I realized I was in the cabana basement. But where were the others? Had I lost them during my hallucinatory sojourn? Or were they somewhere just out of sight?

I held my aching head as I tried to gather my senses.

Whatever I’d just experienced, it wasn’t a dream.

It wasn’t reality exactly, either, at least not reality as I knew it.

I’d been somewhere else, some in-between space, and in it I’d learned the truth I’d been blocking all along.

Charles was dead. I killed him. I never meant to, but I had.

And although a grief tore at me, eviscerating me with its filthy talons, I now knew what I had to do.

Like Isabelle said, I was the code. I just had to get to the control room.

Still somewhat unsteady on my feet, I managed to climb the stairs to the patio garden.

The stars were still shining, but the moon was sinking into the western horizon as I walked through the French doors to my cabana.

As quickly as I could, I changed, pulling on some sturdy boots, and then I set out.

But if I expected to make this last leg of my journey alone, I was to be sorely disappointed.

They were all out there, standing on the path outside my cabana door.

They looked awful. Aspen’s eyes were red and swollen.

Finn was holding her tightly and seemed to be crying himself.

Lexi looked pale, almost like she was dissociating, and Dorian just stared at his feet, clutching a travel mug.

“You know,” I said.

Finn nodded, grief infusing his every movement. “You were rambling, pretty disoriented, but we could make out most of what you said. We know about Charles.”

I bit my lip to try to stanch the flow of tears. “I was wrong about him,” I said. “He never betrayed me. He never betrayed anyone. He was trying to broker a deal to save us.”

I knew if I kept going, I was going to break down. I missed him terribly and knew that pain would never leave me. He was the only person I’d ever really trusted, and now that he was gone and I was truly alone in the world, I didn’t want to pretend otherwise.

“I need to get to the control room,” I said, and I surprised even myself with the coldness of my tone. “I think I should go alone.”

“No,” said Finn quickly. “We should stick together.”

I tried to resist, but Aspen pulled away from Finn and wiped her eyes. “He’s right. At this point, there’s safety in numbers. This is our one goal. We can’t let something happen to you right before we accomplish it.”

I had a bad feeling about it—the part of me that was Isabelle preferred to work alone—but I nodded and was turning to go when Dorian touched me gently on the shoulder.

“Here, drink this. It will help,” he said, and he handed me the travel mug.

Together we made our way out into the woods, out to the temple. When we were almost to the steps, I went to take a sip from the mug, but paused and sniffed. I stared into the liquid, my heart breaking just a little, and then dropped my arm to my side without drinking.

As we were entering the temple, I reached out and placed my hand on Aspen’s arm, stopping her.

Silently I held out my tea for her to smell.

Shock swelled in her eyes, and she glanced at Dorian.

A silent communication passed between us, and then I set the tea on the edge of a display and caught back up with the group.

We made our way through the rest of the great hall and down to the observatory. A key card and thumbprint let us into the control room, but when the door buzzed open and we saw what lay before us, my heart leapt into my throat and a small scream escaped me.

It was chaos, annihilation. It looked like someone had taken a hatchet to the control panels. Screens were smashed; wires had been wrenched out like intestines splayed out mid-autopsy. It no longer mattered that I had the code, not if the system it enabled me to access had been destroyed.

“Oh god,” Lexi said, looking around at the absolute orgy of destruction.

“Fuck,” whispered Dorian.

Aspen’s mouth hung open in horror.

Finn’s eyes were wild. “What do we do now? What the fuck are we gonna do?”

Lexi was starting to hyperventilate. “Oh my god. Oh my god. How did this happen?”

“It must have been Symon,” Dorian said.

“No, Finn and I were just down here,” I said, searching the room for something to use as a weapon.

“And Symon’s been gone for days,” said Finn.

“He must have come back,” said Dorian.

Again, a whiff of the acrid scent of that extinguished candle, the traitor in our midst. My gaze flitted to the strange-looking tools on the wall. Slowly I walked over to the harpoon instrument and lifted it off the wall.

“What are you doing?” asked Lexi.

I pointed it at Dorian. “It’s him,” I said. “It’s Dorian.”

He took a step away from me, holding up his hands. “Don’t act crazy.”

“Holy shit, Isabelle,” said Finn. “What are you doing?”

“You did this,” I said to Dorian. “You’re working with them, aren’t you?”

“What are you talking about?” asked Finn, his tone more curious than frantic now.

“You’re being hysterical,” Dorian said.

“You never wanted me to remember the code,” I said. “You don’t want the breach repaired. You want it opened wider. And once it became clear that I was the code, your instructions were to kill me. Isn’t that right?”

“Isabelle, please,” said Lexi. “Put that thing down.”

“No, she’s right,” said Aspen. “He put oleander in her tea.”

Lexi shuddered, moved toward him, and then pulled away. “Dorian, is this true? Tell us it isn’t true.”

But he just smiled, his canines slipping below his lip line. “It’s going to happen no matter what you do. If not me, it will be someone else.”

“No.” Lexi fought back tears. “Please tell me this isn’t true.”

“Whatever they’re paying you, it’s not worth it,” said Finn, rounding on him, but Dorian seemed completely calm.

“You think I did this for money? I did this because I’m not an idiot. I saw which way the power was shifting and I went with it. There’s nothing you can do now,” he said. “You might as well join me. I don’t want to turn you in. I really don’t. And I don’t want to have to kill you.”

Finn squared on him and nodded to the harpoon. “It doesn’t look like you’re in a position to negotiate right now, Dorian.”

“Neither are you!” he laughed, almost maniacally. “There is now no way to fix the breach. There’s nothing you can do, so let’s just call it a draw.”

“And what?” I asked. “Let a plague of monsters descend upon the earth? Let them ravage mankind?”

“We have no other option,” he said. “It’s no longer a choice for us to make. Now it’s destiny.”