Page 58 of The Darkening (The Darkening)

Izamal stands and paces, then pauses at the door with his hand on the knob. He turns and leans against it, watching me through half-lidded eyes. “My father isn’t like yours. He had no grand ambitions, no cleverness, no anything. He was all the things that people fear about stormborn, and he liked that people were afraid of him. He liked being a monster.” Izamal straightens. “He’s gone. And I’m glad.”

He leaves, and I gaze at the door for several long moments.

I knew he wouldn’t like me prying. I hoped he’d leave if I pushed. But now that I’m alone, I wish he was with me.

I scrub my hands over my eyes. What is wrong with me? I feel thin, like a globe of blown glass; a fragile bit of shine stretched over a hollow center. My head, my heart, my stomach—everything hurts. Everything’s all jumbled up together: fear and hate and fury and desire and longing and hope.

I pull Ma’s locket from my shirt and tip Pa’s shrunken journal onto my palm. From my pocket, I unfold my stolen papers, some blank but most covered in copied ikons.

Squinting at the miniature cover, I first carefully copy down the shrinking ikon he used. I half hope the notebook will regain its former proportions when I rub the ikon away, but it remains locket-sized.

I test the ikons I copied from Casvian’s book on the loose paper, pausing every time I hear footsteps on the floorboards outside.

It takes me a large part of an hour to find a combination that does anything, and it makes the scrap of paper as large as my pillowcase. As I watch, it keeps growing, though it grows ever more slowly. I don’t dare risk using that on the book. Another combination expands a sheet of paper nearly double, but when I lift it, the paper falls to ash.

Hours pass and all around me are the scattered ghosts of my failures.I try not to think about how Pa’s always so certain that I’d be no good at ikonomancy. Unbidden, a memory comes of Dalca in the courtyard, rising again and again. He won’t give up, and neither will I.

A bell tolls the midnight hour before I cobble together an ikon that expands the paper just enough. I wait, holding my breath, to see if there are any side effects.

A moment passes, and the paper holds.

I laugh and clap a hand over my mouth, listening for footsteps. I turn the paper over, running my fingertips along its smooth surface. No bumps, no holes, no imperfections.Look at me now, Pa.

I hold Pa’s book with trembling hands, and carefully write the ikon on the cover. The book expands in my hands.

I wipe my palms on my blanket. Pa would hate this, but he’s not here. He can yell at me after I save him.

The book crackles as I lift the cover. On the first page, I trace with a finger Pa’s lilting, precise handwriting:

The Notes of Alcanar Vale.

I flip the pages slowly, taking it in. It’s in code, but an easy one, similar to what Pa taught me as a child. There are pages of simple ikons, ones to meld things together, others to tear two things apart, ones to create ikonlight, ones to extinguish ikonlight... It goes on and on. I hope for something magnificent, something I can use not just to save Pa, but to make Dalca see me as an equal. I hope for a glimpse into Pa’s mind, always so closed to me.

Deeper in the book lie Pa’s experiments. Halfway through, amongst pages of theory that I struggle to understand, I find one ikon that seems promising. Pa’s notes sayTo uncover.

Footsteps sound in the hall, the floorboards creaking. They stop outside my door.

I scrawl the ikon on a piece of paper, then carefully reshrink Pa’s book and slip it back in my locket.

I draw the sheets up over my chin, clutching the scraps of paper in my fist. I’ll have to destroy them the first chance I get.

I wait for the doorknob to turn. I’ll count to a hundred, just to be safe, then enlarge the book again.

... Three, four, five. I have to be careful. Pa would rather I burn the book than let it fall into the wrong hands. But whose hands are the wrong hands? Dalca’s, surely. Izamal’s too?

... Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three... I have to search the garden. Tomorrow I’ll have to think of something, some excuse.

... Thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine... Five days. I’ve got five days to find it.

Sleep clutches at me, drawing me down into the dark. Behind my eyelids, the last thing I see before I go is a pair of blue eyes.