They were given leave around the December holidays to return home if they wished, which Reina firmly did not.
“Shouldn’t someone stay behind to tend the wards?” she asked Dalton privately.
“Atlas and I will be here,” he said. “It’s only a weekend.”
“I don’t celebrate Christmas,” she said, displeased with the inconvenience.
“Most medeians don’t,” he agreed, “but the Society hosts its annual events during the mortal holidays.”
Reina frowned. “We’re not invited to the Society events?”
“You’re potential initiates, not members.”
“But we’re the ones who live here.”
“Yes, and one of you,” Dalton said neutrally, “will not remain by the end of the year, so no. You’re not invited.”
The idea of going home (a meaningless concept by now) was unfathomable. Detestable, even. She was currently in the middle of a fascinating manuscript she had seen Parisa with; a medeian work on the mystical study of dreams by Ibn Sirin, which led Reina to a curiosity about the concept of realms within the subconscious. Nico had expressed some interest in it as well, which she considered a point of distinct significance. As with the runes he had asked her to translate, there was no telling what he wanted a book on dreams for; he had no interest in historical psychology, or in anything he couldn’t turn into a miracle of physics (Nico was very sulky when he was not permitted to be incomprehensibly astounding), but regardless, it was nice to have someone to discuss it with. The others were usually very private about their research, guarding their theories as secrets.
Nico was always the most open with her, going so far as to invite her to New York for their winter recess. “You’ll loathe Max,” he said happily while they were sparring, referring to someone Reina gathered to be one of his flat mates. “You’ll want to kill him and then five minutes after you’ve left you’ll realize you actually love him. Gideon is the opposite,” he added. “He’ll be the best person you’ve ever met, and then you’ll notice he’s nicked your favorite sweater.”
Reina faked a hard right, which Nico read like a book. He slid backwards, one hand on his cheek, the other falling with inconceivable arrogance to match the quirk of his smile, and gave her a little beckon of uh huh, try again.
The idea of staying in a place occupied by boys in their early twenties gave Reina an unpleasant itch. “No thanks,” she said.
Nico was not the type to be insulted by these things, and predictably, he wasn’t. “Suit yourself,” he said with a shrug, ducking a wide hook as Reina caught Libby glancing over at them, a little half-frown on her lips. She was looking forward to seeing her boyfriend, or so she said, though Reina wasn’t convinced. Libby’s boyfriend (none of them could remember his name, or perhaps Libby had never actually told them what it was) seemed to exclusively call at unwelcome times, leading Libby to make a face of irritation when she glanced at her screen. She denied her annoyance, of course, most vehemently to Nico, but as far as Reina could tell, Libby’s Pavlovian response to any mention of her boyfriend was to quickly stifle a grimace.
In anticipation of their brief leave, the others mostly shared Reina’s reluctance. Tristan appeared to dread the prospect of leaving, probably because he had burned such a wide variety of bridges in order to come in the first place; Parisa was irritated about being temporarily deposed, prissy as always; Callum, true to form, didn’t seem to care much either way. Only Nico seemed to have any genuine interest in going home; then again, Nico was so adaptable in general that Reina suspected he could make anything comfortable enough to stand it for a time.
The past few months had been relatively peaceful ones. They had all fallen into a rhythm of sorts, and the disruption of their fragile peace felt especially inconvenient, even troubling. True, they hadn’t bonded, per se, but they had at least warmed enough to exist in each other’s physical space without persisting tension. Timing, Reina thought, was a sensitive thing, and the house plants made no secret of mourning her impending absence.
In the end, Reina decided to stay in London. She had never ventured beyond the grounds of the Society’s manor house, so now she was ostensibly a tourist in her own city. On her first day, she toured the Globe Theatre, then wandered the Tower. On the second day, she took a brisk morning walk through the Kyoto Garden (the trees shivered cheerfully, thrumming with frosted whispers as they recounted their origins), followed by a visit to the British Museum.
She had been looking at the Utamaro painting of the Japanese courtesan when someone cleared his throat behind her, causing her to bristle with impatience.
“Purchased,” said a South Asian gentleman with thinning hair, addressing her in English.
“What?” asked Reina.
“Purchased,” the gentleman repeated. “Not stolen.”
His accent didn’t sound entirely English; it had a mix of origins.
“Apologies,” he amended, “I believe the technical term is ‘acquired.’ The British do hate to be accused of theft.”
“As do most people, I assume,” Reina said, hoping that would be that.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t.
“There is some service to it, at least,” the gentleman continued. “Here the treasures of the world are on display, not hidden away.”
Reina nodded vacantly, turning to leave, but the gentleman turned after her, falling into step at her side.
“Every five years, six of the world’s most talented medeians disappear,” he remarked, and Reina’s mouth tightened. “A few of them emerge two years later in positions of power and privilege. I don’t suppose you have any theories?”
“What do you want?” Reina asked impatiently. If that was considered rude, so be it. She didn’t feel any particular need to be polite.
“We expected you to be in Tokyo,” said the man. A continuation of his earlier thought, as if she had not interjected at all. “We’d have been here sooner, in fact, but you’re not easy to track down. With a family like yours—”
“I am not in contact with my family,” Reina said. “Nor do I wish to be bothered.”
“Miss Mori, if you would indulge me for just a moment—”
“You clearly know who I am,” said Reina. “So shouldn’t you know, then, that I have turned down every offer I receive? Whatever you imagine I accepted, I did not. And whatever it is you plan to offer me, I decline it as well.”
“Surely you must feel some obligation,” said the man. “A scholar like yourself, you must think it valuable to have access to the Alexandrian records.”
Reina stiffened; Atlas had always said the Society was known among certain groups, but still, she hated to think the place she prized so mightily could be referenced with such open disregard.
“What good are the archives,” the man pressed, catching the look on her face, “when only a small percentage of the world’s magical population can ever learn from them? At least the artifacts contained in this museum are offered to the whole of the mortal world.”
“Knowledge requires caretakers,” said Reina flatly. “And if that’s all—”
“There are better ways to care for knowledge than to hide it away.”
Another version of her might have agreed with him. As it was, though, she spared him half a glance.
“Who are you?”
“It’s not who I am, but what I stand for,” said the man.
“Which is?”
“Freedom of information. Equality. Diversity. New ideas.”
“And what do you think you will gain from me?”
“The Society is inherently classist,” said the man. “Only the highest trained medeians will ever reach its rank, and its archives only serve to secure an elitist system which has no oversight. All the world’s treasures under one roof,” he prompted, “with only a single organization to control its distribution?”
“I,” Reina said, “have no knowledge of anything you speak.”
“True, you are not a member yet,” the man agreed, dropping his voice. “You still have time to make other choices. You are not bound to the Society’s rules, nor to its secrets.”
“Even assuming any of this were true,” Reina muttered, “what would you want from me?”
“It is not what we want from you, Miss Mori, but what we can offer you.” The man slid a card from his inside pocket, handing it to her. “Someday, should you find you are trapped by the choice you’ve made, you may contact us. We will see to it that your voice is heard.”
The card read Nothazai, either the man’s name or his pseudonym, and on the back, THE FORUM. A reference, of course, to a subversion of everything the Society was. The Roman Forum was a marketplace of ideas, the most celebrated meeting place in the world. It was the center of commerce, politics, and civility. In short, where the Society cloistered itself behind closed doors, the Forum was open to all.
But there was a reason the Library of Alexandria had been forced to hide in the first place.
“Are you truly the Forum?” Reina asked neutrally. “Or are you simply the mob?”
When she glanced up, he—Nothazai—had not looked away. “It is no secret what you can do, Reina Mori,” he said, before amending, “At least, it is no secret what you could do. We are citizens not of a hidden world, but of a global economy; an entire human race. It is a troubled world we live in, ever on the brink of progress and regression, and very few are given the opportunity to make true changes. Power like the Society’s does not elevate this world; it only changes hands, continuing to isolate its advantages.”
It was an old argument. Why have empires and not democracies? The Society’s version of an answer was obvious: because some things were unfit to rule themselves.
“You think I can contribute nothing from where I stand, I take it?” Reina prompted.
“I think it is obvious you are a blend of broad dissatisfactions, Miss Mori,” said Nothazai. “You resent privilege in all its forms, including your own, yet you show no desire to unmake the present system. I think someday you will awaken to your own conviction, and when you do, something will compel you forward. Whoever’s cause that will be, I hope you will consider ours.”
“Do you mean to accuse me of some sort of tyranny by proxy?” Reina asked. “Or is that an unintended consequence of your recruitment tactics?”
The man shrugged. “Is it not a proven fact of history that power is not meant to exist in the hands of the very few?”
“For every tyrant, there is a ‘free’ society which destroys itself,” said Reina, who knew enough ancient history to grasp the faults of hubris. “Power is not meant for those who misuse it.”
“Is not the worst tyranny that which perceives itself to be noble?”
“Greed is greed,” said Reina flatly. “Even if I accepted your perception of the Society’s flaws, why should I believe your intentions any different?”
Nothazai smiled. “I only suspect, Miss Mori, that you will soon change your position on the matter, and when you do, know that you will not be left to your own devices. Should you require an ally, you have one,” he offered, and bowed low.
The symmetry of the moment reminded her of something.
“Are you some sort of Caretaker?” she asked him, thinking of Atlas Blakely’s card. Inexplicably, she remembered what Atlas had said about the others who might have taken her place; a traveler, as he had specifically mentioned, whatever that meant.
Were the members of the Forum merely Society castoffs?
“No, I am nothing important. The Forum cares for itself,” said Nothazai, and turned away before pausing, doubling back half a step. “By the way,” he added in an undertone, “perhaps you know already? The Tokyo billionaire Sato has just won parliament’s special election, displacing the incumbent candidate.”
The mention of Aiya was startling, though Reina tried not to let it show. “Why should Aiya Sato matter to me?”
“Oh, she doesn’t, I’m sure. But it’s very interesting—she was the one who uncovered the incumbent councilor’s corruption. Almost as if she had information the government itself did not. The incumbent denies it, of course, but who to believe? There is no other evidence aside from Sato’s own dossier, so perhaps we’ll never know.”
Briefly, Reina recalled what Aiya had summoned during their brief interaction in the reading room: an unmarked book. Reina quickly blinked it away, obscuring it. Even if this man were not a telepath, there were other ways to prod inside her head.
“Assassinations,” Nothazai said. “Development of new technology that enters mortal copyrights, but never public domain. New weaponry sold only to the elite. Space programs developed in secret for warmongering nations. Biological warfare that goes unreported; illness that wipes out the unmentionables, left to the fringes of poverty.”
“You blame this on the Society?” Broad claims, and as far as Reina considered feasible, unknowable ones.
“I blame the Society,” Nothazai clarified, “because if it is not its job to cause such atrocities, then why not undertake the effort to prevent them? Inevitably, it must stand to gain.”
Somewhere in the administrative offices, a small fern dying of thirst let out a thin, wailing scream.
“Someone always gains,” said Reina. “Just as someone always loses.”
Nothazai gave her a brisk look of disappointment.
“Yes, I imagine so. Good day, then,” he said, and slipped back into the museum’s flow of traffic, leaving Reina to look down at his card.
An odd thing, timing. She’d had a feeling, hadn’t she? That something would disrupt the peace she’d found within the Society the moment she stepped outside its walls. It was a narrow window to reach her without the Society’s wards; only a matter of hours remained before her return, which was much too specific to guess.
Could this, like the installment, have been another test?
The idea that anything would keep Reina from initiation into the Society was enough to reflexively curl her fingers, crumpling the card within them to a stiff, unwelcome ball.
The others could do with power what they wished. She tossed the card into the bin and strode out into the cold, ignoring the seedlings that sprouted up between cracks in the sidewalk. The argument itself, that she should turn on the Society in order to save the world, was ludicrous. Look at her talents, for instance. Wouldn’t the Forum be the first to have her sacrifice her autonomy, all to sustain a planet that had irresponsibly overpopulated itself? There was such a thing as asking too much, and she had known the demands of others all her life.
Depending who viewed it, Persephone had either been stolen or she had run from Demeter. Either way, she had made herself queen. The Forum, whatever they were, had misjudged Reina poorly for being free of principle, when in fact her principles were clear: she would not bleed out for nothing.
If this world felt it could take from Reina, so be it. She would gladly take from it.
