But then what? She didn’t understand everything about this building, certainly—she doubted anyone, even Richard, could ever truly know everything there was to know about the building—but she’d gathered enough from her time here, from the words of Jamie and Richard and, of course, from the thoughts of all the former Wardens, to understand that it did need their energy to exist. That hadn’t been a lie, at least. And for the past several decades, the testing had fulfilled that role. In the absence of testing, the building would be deprived of the energy it so hungered for. And then what? It vanished? And what about them? Would they then vanish along with it? What would a vanished existence look like, Everly pondered. Would they even be aware of it if they were to disappear, right that very moment, along with the building they stood in?
Everly shook her head briskly, stepping closer to one of the walls in the office. There had to be another way. It couldn’t just be about . . . pain. That seemed too crudely simple, too barbaric for a building such as this.
The thought surprised her, and she realized that somewhere amid being trapped and tortured and bombarded with many people’s memories, she’d begun to form a strange affection for the building it all occurred in. She wasn’t sure how much of that was also residual sentiments from former Wardens, but she thought probably this was mostly coming from herself. It wasn’t the building’s fault she was trapped here, she knew. In a twisted way, it wasn’t even Richard’s or Jamie’s fault, or her predecessor’s. By some tragic fluke of existence, she’d been born with the fatal genetic anomaly, and she knew in her heart this was another truth that had been buried in all the lies and misdirects: she would already be dead out there, if she had never found the building.
Which raised the question of which was worse: a life trapped forever in this building, or no life at all?
Everly studied one of the smooth, black walls in the office, laying a hand gently over the surface. Maybe it didn’t have to be so bad here, she contemplated. Maybe, together, they could all find a way to change it. To make it less of a prison and more of a home. If they were all going to be stuck here together forever, the least they could do was find a way to make it a more bearable life. Even maybe, someday, a happy one.
But still there was the question of energy. Of finding a way to keep the building alive along with themselves.
Huffing out a frustrated breath, Everly tilted her head so that it was pressed against the wall. Through the wall, she could feel the minute vibrations that rolled through the building.
The Eschatorologic’s energy.
I wish I could just give it to you, she thought. I wish you could take what you needed, and it could be as easy as that.
Almost as soon as the thought had left her mind, Everly felt a warmth in her skin where her forehead was pressed against the wall, where her hand was still held up on the wall next to it. Surprised, she jerked back, holding up her hand and staring at it.
Could it really be that easy? Could she really just . . . choose to gift the building the energy it needed, without the necessity for painful testing and flashy boxes?
Her mind strayed back to earlier, when she’d touched the door to the office. She’d felt that same warmth where her palm touched the building then, too. It hadn’t hurt, hadn’t even drained her—but she did remember feeling slightly more tired right after, though she’d been too caught up with other things at the time to make note of it. But it hadn’t been the deep fatigue of having your life drained away from you; it had been more the satisfied sort of tired, like when you’ve finished a long day of work or accomplished something you’re proud of.
It was like that now, too. She hadn’t realized it before, but now she thought she was beginning to see.
Tentatively, Everly reached out her arm again, putting her hand back in the same place on the black wall. She waited, holding her breath.
Nothing happened. No warmth, no tingling sensation. Just the cold surface of the wall against her skin.
Biting her lip, Everly closed her eyes, keeping her hand where it was. How did one give of one’s energy? She thought back to the sensation of the former Warden’s energy flooding down into her. Thought of what it had been like to have her energy unwillingly stripped from her in a testing room. Thought of the warmth she’d felt just moments before, when the smallest amount of her energy had spread from her hand into the building.
The energy was a piece of her, so surely it shouldn’t be that hard to offer.
You can have some, she thought to the building. I offer it freely to you. So you can live. So we all can.
Slowly, the same warmth from before began to spread through Everly, starting with her spine and spreading out to the tips of her fingers, which rested against that office wall, bleeding from her flesh into the fabric of the building itself.
She let out an almost involuntary sigh, and it might have been her imagination, but she thought she felt the building sigh beneath her touch, too.
When it was done—when her skin had again gone cold—Everly removed her hand, gazing in awe at the wall, this small piece of a building that they were all connected to. Would always be connected to.
Her fingers flexed at the memory of the energy that had just flowed through them. They had a lot more to figure out, Everly knew. So much.
But this was a start.
A very good start.
Chapter Sixty-One
On the lowest level of the Eschatorologic, in a dark, sweltering room sheathed in metal and hidden away from the rest of the building—for protection, supposedly; to keep all the rest from burning away to ashes just yet—was an incinerator. Large enough to fit a single body.
Inside was the broken body of a man. His arms were twisted over his chest, forming an off-center X. His head was bent to the side with a bloody gash near the temple that no one had thought to clean away.
He was going to be burned.
From across the room, a very tall man dressed in red pushed a button, then stood to the side as a low thrum sounded from within the incinerator—the old contraption gradually groaning to life. The first sparks of heat began to flicker—sparks that were meant to grow until they were hot enough to, well. Hot enough to incinerate a body.
For a moment, they continued to flicker beneath the platform that the body rested on.
But then.
Before the sparks could ignite more properly into flames, the man inside the incinerator twitched. Shifted. Took in the barest of breaths.
He opened his eyes, and the building stared back.
This, the building mused. This is new.
And interesting.
The man heaved a hacking cough, rolling over sideways, until he collapsed to the floor, just beside the incinerator. Gripping his head, the man elicited a bone-shaking groan.
“Welcome back to the world of the living,” a voice spoke over him. Hearing the voice and remembering the distinctly unpleasant heft of a lamp being crushed into his skull not long ago by a woman wielding that same voice, the man flinched. He was crouched down now just beside the incinerator—which, he distantly noted, was quieting down, as though someone had turned it off.
The woman turned to face the man dressed in red, who stood stoically across the room. “Leave us,” she said calmly, tilting her head toward the door. And without a word, he obeyed.
Without lifting his eyes, the man on the floor sensed as the woman came over and knelt in front of him, so that out of the blurry peripheral of his vision he could see her auburn hair hanging loosely around her face.
“Luca.” The woman spoke the word softly, almost like a prayer. She released a heavy breath that trailed warmly over his skin. He still refused to look at her but felt as her fingers reached out to trace gently over the welt on his head, brushing against the dried blood she had caused. “It shouldn’t have happened that way.”
