Extraits

La prison était aussi morose que dans mes souvenirs, lorsque je m’y étais brièvement retrouvé détenu pour meurtre. Cela avait été l’une des pires journées de ma vie. Tout d’abord, Whyborne avait mis un terme à notre relation naissante à cause de ma propre sottise. Et j’avais ensuite été arrêté pour le meurtre de Madame Rosa, l’une de mes informatrices qui avait connu une fin atroce. À ce moment-là, je n’avais aucun véritable ami à Contresens en dehors d’Ival, et tous mes anciens collègues de l’époque Pinkerton m’avaient tourné le dos à mon internement dans un asile.

Je m’étais assis dans cette cellule, seul et effrayé, chacune des terreurs de mon séjour chez les fous se rejouant en boucle dans mon esprit. Jusqu’à ce que le parrain de Whyborne, Addison Somerby, vienne payer ma caution et me libère de cet endroit. J’avais ressenti un bref espoir.

De là, les choses n’avaient fait qu’empirer de manière exponentielle.

- Si vous avez d’autres questions, n’hésitez pas à m’appeler. Peut-être pourrais-je vous répondre en vous retrouvant dans un lieu plus convivial que ce bureau ?

Le pauvre bougre ne semblait pas particulièrement expérimenté, ce qui ne rendait sa suggestion que plus flatteuse, car il ne proposait visiblement pas régulièrement de tels rendez-vous.

Je ne le trouvai pas, mais je finis par repérer Christine près des reliques de Nephren-ka. Iskander était à ses côtés, plongé dans une conversation sérieuse avec mon père.

Mon cœur se serra. Dieu seul savait ce que Père pouvait bien leur raconter.

« — J’ai fait installer le téléphone, pour rester en tout temps averti des événements à New York.

L’objet était posé sur une petite table dans un recoin jadis réservé à un buste romain.

— Je demanderai à Fenton de vous expliquer son usage la prochaine fois que vous nous rendrez visite, proposa-t-il.

— Je ne vois pas ce que cela apporte de plus que le télégraphe, lança Whyborne en fixant l’objet d’un air méfiant. Pourquoi diable nous faudrait-il parler aux gens quand on peut simplement leur écrire un bref message ?

Niles et moi nous échangeâmes un coup d’œil désespéré. Whyborne le remarqua et nous fusilla du regard. »

WIDDERSHINS :

A thousand flickers of life.

Mr. Quinn stands panting, staring at the bridge, his heart in his mouth. He is afraid, as he has never been afraid before.

A young woman watches the last glass fall from a shattered window. It’s summer now, but in the winter, the wind will be bitter with nothing to block it.

Miss Lester waits outside the mortuary, her eyes unfocused, feeling the magic she cannot see. Something has changed. Something terrible. Her kin are from the dry deserts, gnawers of bones, but the fear that touches her is cold indeed.

A Ketoi gasps, dying, and his body slides into the river.

They are all Widdershins.

And none of them are.

But this is : a tiny fragment of myself running across a bridge, screaming for its other half.

This day would always have come. But knowing this, I prepared for it, as best as Icould. So many little sparks of life, collected and woven together, until just the rightbodies formed.

A fragment of myself split off, then split again. One spark for the land, and one spark for the sea.

And now one of those splinters has been inadvertently set free. It hovers above our heart, caught between remaining the separate thing it has become, or rejoining the whole.

Griffin looks at it. At me. I am the most beautiful thing he has ever seen. Umbrae touched him years ago, so I drew him here.

Just as I drew them all here.

So many little sparks of life, so many little pieces, but each one of them beautiful in their own way. Each transforming with every passing moment, emerging from the chrysalis of the past but not quite the shape of the future. A kaleidoscope, made from a broken prism; each fragment perfect in its flawed self, and yet adding to the whole.

And still it was not enough, all the beautiful, ugly, perfect, broken parts. We failed,despite everything. The battle lost.

This little splinter that is me (but become its own self, too; both at the same time) turns my attention to the hole in the sky. The fulfillment of my purpose, the reason the Masters twisted the lines of arcane fire and created the maelstrom. Created me.

My sole reason for being, and the last thing I ever wanted. Does the edge of steel wish to cut flesh? The hammer wish to crush bone ? Or is it enough to merely exist ? To be.

The umbrae and the ketoi were created to be tools as well. I have no more desire to exist as a slave than they.

Mr. Quinn weeps, although he does not entirely understand why. Miss Lester nods grimly, for no creature of the Outside will ever claim her allegiance; her desert-born ancestors came here, to me, to be free. Iskander closes his eyes and whispers a prayer.

Griffin does not close his eyes, doesn’t weep. He is wonder and awe. It may have been accident that brought him across the path of the umbrae, but this... this is no accident. There are others I might have brought here, and did not.

So beautiful, like sunlight shining through a cracked glass. I can taste his belief, his hope, his need, just as I can that of all the others I gathered. They believe that even if the battle has been lost, the war has not.

They will fight on. And I can do no less.

I reach out, and the hole in reality closes. It is not enough to stop what is coming, but at least it is something. The veil will rip no farther open tonight.

We are safe. There is still hope.

But I will need this splinter. This fragment, this imperfect piece that is its own thing and yet isn’t. I made it for a reason, to have eyes and ears and a vulnerable heart,because these things have a magic beyond the mightiest arcane vortex. I—we—cannot do this without it.

Its body is injured, but it came into this world dying, as did the other body that carries my essence. Then it took only a bit of a push to sustain their lives.

This time will require a more direct intervention.

Its clothing and mask is gone, burned away. The spark of the sorcerer who stole this body from me is gone as well : a shadow on the wind, crying out, then lost forever in darkness. So I pour energy into the empty flesh, heal skin, and knit muscle.

Then I/we/this fragment slip back inside."

GRIFFIN :

"It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

I stared up at the figure within the heart of the maelstrom, unable to look away even though it burned so very bright. Tentacles writhed about its head like a crown, and its eyes blazed like suns. It reached one hand up, toward the sky, and the very heart of the maelstrom bent to its will.

The hole in reality vanished, sealed off as if it had never been.

It bent its head, its features too bright to make out. Whyborne’s lifeless body lifted from the brick pavers of the bridge, hovering a bare inch above them in the air. His clothing burned away, flaking to ash, as did the blood drying on his pale skin. Therecame a spark, and the wound on his chest sealed away. Leaving behind not even a scar.

Then the creature—the light—the being—slipped back inside his skin. Where it belonged. Where it was the fire in his blood."