Work Text:
“He cannot see anything inside his own archives, and it is infuriating. Every hidden eye has been scratched out, every portrait defaced, every light extinguished. There’s not so much as a match to light his way.
He stumbles into something hard in the-where is he? Smarting with pain, he reaches out and feels a stack of books piled high on a table. They have protective jackets. This must be the library.
He’d call out, ask what’s going on, but the place is quiet as a tomb.
The books piled haphazardly on the table irritate him. There are enough things on his mind without having to tell the library staff to tidy up before leaving for the day. Well, he can find the reference desk at least. Leaving a stack of books there will hopefully be a pointed enough hint to do their jobs. He takes the books and moves forwards and-
Another table! That can’t be right. It’s utterly dark, but he’s maintained the same layout in the Institute’s library for over a century. The staff must have changed things. Without permission.
Moving more cautiously now, Jonah makes his way past more tables and chairs than the library should contain. He’s just beginning to think, with strange unease, about the dimensions of the room, when he finally touches the smooth oak of the reference desk.
He places the books down carefully. No chance of a flashlight, and he’s forgotten his cellphone. That’s unusual.
(Unlike some of the other longer-lived avatars, Jonah was delighted by the invention of the mobile phone. All those portable cameras and recorders, providing a banquet of shame and fear and knowledge.)
Jonah feels around for a desk lamp, finds one, and clicks it. Nothing. A power outage? Perhaps he’s left his phone in his-
There is a soft thump from the shelves.
Jonah whirls in the direction of the noise, then listens. He must have partially dislodged a book while he was knocking into those wretched tables. He needs to get to his office and find his cellphone. Or anything, really, that could provide just a little bit of light.
(He recalls the lighter John kept in his coat. After a few weeks in his possession, Jon began to fidget with it in the middle of conversations without realizing it. Jonah graciously let him keep the Web’s gift, as an acknowledgement of their seemingly mutual desire to see his project through.)
“Well then,” Jonah mutters to himself. He reaches out to know where to start looking, then sags against the desk in shock.
There’s nothing.
He tries again, summoning his painstakingly-cultivated connection with his god, and feels...it’s like grasping at air. There is no sense of his surroundings, no sudden knowledge descending from on high. Nothing.
Jonah’s breath rasps. For the first time in centuries, he is afraid. The darkness now presses down on him with tangible weight. Or perhaps he should call it The Dark, for no doubt it’s the Fear at play.
He hears another thump from a different corner of the library. A little closer. Is that a creaking floorboard? He needs to run, surely he can figure his way out of this place. Jonah tries to reach the Eye again, fails. The Dark must be obscuring it somehow. The next thump comes just down the aisle to his left, so Jonah moves in the opposite direction-
A churning mass of feelers swipes across his flesh as the thing lying in ambush attempts to embrace him, ice-cold tendrils wrapping around his wrist.
Jonah rips free with a cry, pelting down the room, thrusting aside chairs, barrelling into shelves he can’t see. He must get away, for pity’s sake, the exit should be here, where is it, the door can’t have vanished. Why is there a corner here? Is this one of the Spiral’s cheap tricks? Are they here as well? Where’s the bloody-there!
The knob, just as a whipping tentacle slices at his neck. Jonah cries out but is through, slamming the door behind him. He holds it shut against a terrible pounding as he fumbles out his keys, this would be so much easier if he had some light, but finally he jams the right key in and turns and with a click the thing is trapped.
Panting, Jonah touches his neck, and his fingers come away wet. He must find his office. It’s only one turn past this hallway and then up a few flights of stairs. There, in his sanctum, he will patch himself up, take control of this situation, and send these intruders on their way.
***
Jonah Magnus is lost in his own institute, and it is terrifying. He knows he took the correct route out of the library, one hand trailing on the wall so he could find his way. But then there was an unexpected branch with a nook, and he is now...somewhere near artefact storage? The wallpaper changes to paint there, and that’s what he feels with one hand, but surely he should have arrived there already.
He tries again to summon the Eye’s blessings. He would be happier if he tried and met some sort of resistance cast up by the Dark and the Spiral. Instead, a total lack of response. There is no mental friction whatsoever.
Yet ever since hearing a noise in the library, Jonah cannot shake the feeling he is being watched.
His hand touches a rougher texture on the wall, and he moves in that direction. These are the back hallways, utility corridors for delivery of large items. There’s an elevator there that will take him to the floor where his office is.
His other hand bumps against the wall. Reaching out, Jonah finds that the corridor has narrowed. He brushes his fingers against both of them as he continues. It’s subtle, at first, but in a few minutes undeniable: the corridor is still narrowing, to the point where he’ll soon have to turn sideways.
Swallowing a suddenly dry throat, Jonah attempts to go backwards, but the corridor tightens even further.
His heart hammers. Jonah has never thought of himself as claustrophobic, but in combination with the absolute darkness, it’s becoming difficult to keep his breathing steady.
He moves back towards what he hopes is the elevators, and does indeed have to turn himself sideways. (Was this better or worse than that coffin of the Buried John dove into? Was it this all-consuming?) After a while, the back of his head is scraping the side of the wall. Is that the hum of machinery ahead?
Jonah now needs to suck in his chest to move forwards. The noise gets louder. It is the thrum of the elevator! The old industrial lift sounds so close, but the ceiling is sloping down. If he ducks he can get that last few feet, can’t he? Ducking turns to crouching, and then Jonah is crawling on his side.
(This must be worse than The Buried’s coffin. At least John had company there, in the end.)
Things are so tight, he has to use his his hands to pull himself forward, skin scraping against the rough stone. His breaths are increasingly shallow. He stops before he can’t breathe any longer, and tries to think of how to get through the squeeze.
Then a new sound: behind him, echoing in the corridor, is the patter of crumbling masonry hitting the floor as the ceiling starts to fall.
Jonah thrashes. He moves an inch. He expels all the air in his lungs and struggles as he suffocates. The tidal wave of falling stone sounds nearer. He chokes, dizzy, chest burning, and frantic for air. I will not let it end this way, I cannot, he screams inside, but his attempt at righteous anger gutters to nothing in the overwhelming fear.
Then his fingers grasp an edge, the lip of the corridor, and with an agonizing surge he is through and pulling himself out and gasping just as an avalanche of rock falls behind him. The air is fouled with dust, causing Jonah to cough for minutes after.
But he is out. He made it. The head of the Magnus Institute shakily feels for the edges of the elevator, presses the call button, and steps inside.
***
Jonah pads down the carpeted corridors leading to his office without incident. (The carpets deaden any sound. He liked people to think they could sneak up on his doors without him knowing.) He keeps only the lightest touch on the marble walls, fingers still raw and stinging.
The silence here, instead of a relief, feels ominous. He bangs a knee on Rosie’s desk (why isn’t it to the right?), then feels the brass handles of the doors to his office. He flings them open, shuts them, and locks them with a firm click.
Jonah makes a slow, careful circuit of the room. Its proportions are normal. His desk is where it should be. Jonah Magnus sinks down into his chair and, for the first time since the library, has time to think.
Why is the Buried here? It’s barely self-aware, even by the uncertain standards of the Dread Powers. Who coordinated this attack? And how long until the night is over?
(His neck has stopped bleeding. He thought it had been a much deeper cut than that.)
Jonah picks up the telephone. Dead, of course, as is his computer. No help that way. He closes his eyes, for the sake of the gesture, and concentrates on breathing.
It’s comforting. Jonah feels more himself. Until, after a few minutes, an ache starts in his chest. There’s a warmth there, more blood. When did that happen? Perhaps while escaping the collapsing tunnel? The longer he sits, the worse the pain. Restless, Jonah opens the desk’s drawers, hoping for his cellphone. Nothing. He reaches across the top of his desk, searching for it, moving aside reports he cannot see and notes he cannot read. Still nothing. Jonah stretches a bit further and-
Raw flesh is draped across his desk.
He jerks back, heart pounding. In the dark, there is no way to understand what is in front of him without touching it. Despairing, he tries to know, to simply gather the knowledge like normal. Again, nothing.
Jonah reaches out a slightly shaking hand. The flesh, cold but intact, yields a slick of blood. This feels like an arm, a fold of cloth on the shoulder, the line of a neck-it’s a body. But whose? He is seized by the irrational fear that it’s Leitner or Gertrude. A mute accusation, a corpse thrown into his office to throw him into disarray.
Or-and this thought comes from a strange vault indeed-what if it’s the other body that resides here? Barnabas Bennett, his old friend and colleague, returned and draped in gruesome Flesh to taunt him?
Jonah stands and makes his way to the right cabinet. After a moment of probing, he finds the correct drawer, and unwraps the protective cloth holding ancient bones.
“There you are,” he says, and it feels unexpectedly good to speak out loud. Jonah draws out Barnabas’ skull. He is undeniably relieved to learn his old friend’s remains are intact. He places it on his desk (nowhere near the corpse,) turning the skull so that it faces him.
“At least they’ve left you some dignity, Barnabas. That does bring me some comfort, though you may not have believed me.” Jonah gives a small sigh, in the privacy of his study. “I still think of all our colleagues, from time to time. All those ambitious dreams. I will not ask forgiveness for what I have done. But it brought me no pleasure to find myself the only one of our group moving forward into the next century, and the next.”
Jonah sits silently, feeling a returning ache in his chest. Despite the presence of things in his institute, it feels keenly deserted by any other human soul.
(He had played somewhat coy when John, wracked with fear, asked him if they were monsters. But deep down, Jonah Magnus has never truly ceased considering himself human.)
“If you had only realized, Barnabas,” Jonah continues, leaning forward, “the power these dread beings wield. Your banishment was only one of the horrors they can bestow on the unlucky.” He sweeps an arm across the desk, towards the corpse. “And their agents now attempt to carve up my institute, as if it were theirs to-”
The corpse is not on his desk anymore.
Jonah’s hackles rise. He probes again, just to be sure, but there is only a slick of blood where the body was. He searches his desk for a weapon. There is not even a letter opener or a pen. Trembling, Jonah gets down on his hands and knees and feels the carpet around the desk for a puddle of gore, or sticky footprints. There’s not so much as a drop of blood.
He stands, and for a moment, looks to the ceiling, and whispers: “Ceaseless Watcher, look upon your servant with favour. Grant me but a portion of your sight.”
There is not the faintest contact. Jonah puts one hand on the desk for balance. With three of the entities...or more...inside the building, with the Dark smothering all light, he has no choice. He must go where the centre of his power lies. Perhaps his master will finally hear him, in the heart of the Panopticon.
But to get there...
Jonah reaches out to grasps Barnabas’ silent skull and its illusion of companionship.
“I can promise you very little, Barnabas,” he says, as he moves towards the door. (Is that a gap in the books now? Slim enough for a body to fit through?) “But be of good cheer. If nothing else, you will no longer be alone.”
***
The tunnels contain multitudes of hell.
There are fat worms burrowing into the rock, which he only finds out when he touches one of them, letting out a scream as it bites. Jonah tears it out, pulling flesh with it. He feels another worm fall off his shoulder, luckily brushing it off before it can burrow, but then they are raining down and he is running as fast as he can, stumbling and crashing into walls, anything to get past this fecund nightmare.
(Jonah recalls the statements from John and his assistants about the Corruption’s maggots. There will, of course, be no one to coming to his own rescue.)
There is a room with the comforting scent of old documents. Personal diaries, old letters, particularly cherished books. But there is also a strange smell here. Touching a page causes it to burst into flame, and Jonah screams once again, more ragged this time, as his life’s records become smouldering ashes. He clutches Barnabas’ skull as he flees, air searing his lungs.
(Damn them. Damn them. He will find every single one of the Desolation’s servants, and when he is done they will pray for a death that will never come.)
Jonah is not surprised when he reaches the metal bars of the cell blocks, and finds the doors all open. A baying approaches. Raging men cry out his name. The hands of long-dead prisoners try to grab him and tear him apart, a singular fused mass of limbs and biting mouths. Jonah slips through its grasp, bruised and bloody, but he cannot shake the thing. The stairs leading up are almost impossible to find.
(Perhaps the Spiral would be even more present if John and his friends hadn’t prematurely ended the Unknowing, but he knows this part must be its revenge.)
At last, a familiar grate, a stumble on a step. Jonah flings the door behind him closed, and bars it. The mad hunter’s chorus snarls and shakes, but it holds. He grabs the handrail, and shuffles quickly as he can up the stairs.
(There are no spiders, no webs. The Mother if Puppet’s lack of an appearance is suspicious, at this point, but what about it isn’t?)
The stairs are far too long. Or perhaps his body, sore and bleeding (but not as much as it should be) is running out of reserves. How long has this night lasted? When will someone, security, his staff, even the archival assistants, return to the Institute? Where has everyone gone?
Jonah almost trips as he reaches the last step. He knows where he is. He knows where everything should be. But he does not feel the presence of the Ceaseless Watcher. Perhaps it requires physical contact.
Jonah Magnus turns towards where his first body should be, and creeps forward. His hand brushes an old, old coat. He feels the silk of a cravat, delicately touches the dry, parchment-thin side of one cheek.
It collapses. Inwards, like rotten wood or brittle glass or a thousand other useless things. Jonah grabs frantically, trying to preserve his skull at least, a fragment, anything. His own body runs through his hands like ash.
He slowly folds, kneeling, keening. He silently begs his god for anything, anything, to explain this dismissal. Have I not been thy good and worthy servant? Was I not thine earthly avatar?
Then he hears them. From the cellblocks level with the panopticon, there is the slow, wet surge of worms. The blocks of a ceiling grinding in anticipation of collapse. The slap of bloody meat on stone. The breath of something in the dark. And an intense sense of being scrutinized.
Their combined regard sends him reeling. (A sliver of him, under the grief and terror, is giddy.) He still staggers to his feet, meaning to run back down, but a frenzied scream rises up the stairwell.
Jonah Magnus freezes, helpless. Everywhere he turns, he hears terrors. The bloodlusted thing sounds nearer. He bumps up against the rail. The breeze coming up from the void below is freezing.
He can either stay here, and be ripped apart by monsters. Or...
The Vast beckons.
It will be terrible. So, so terrible.
Jonah closes his eyes, makes a strangled laugh, and jumps.
***
The fall takes hours. The terror does not abate.
The wind is too sharp, eroding skin, sanding him down even as he plummets.
Then sound the air makes changes, and all too soon he knows he is about to hit the ground, the death he never wanted that he did so much to avoid how can he feel so much fear thank god he at least has Barnabas at the-
***
Every joint hurts. It is a pain so deep it makes him nauseous. Jonah sits up once it subsides, gasping deeply. It is still utterly, utterly dark. He gropes at the floor. Tiles, smooth and cold. He moves his fingers. Marble. This is-
Jonah makes a short, breathy chuckle of disbelief. This is the ground floor. He’s in the ballroom, of all places. It’s a short walk from here to the front doors of the institute.
Hope surges. He can take a taxi home, reassess the situation, find someone else to talk to. There must be some esoteric bit of knowledge to explain why he’s fallen out of favour. God knows he still has enough blackmail and resources to call on.
He gives Barnabas a pat, and walks through the echoing dark of the ballroom.
He has thrown so many fundraisers here, under so many names. God, how different it had been when he was Jonah Magnus, and the Institute’s staff had been eager to attend a lavish reception with some of the finest minds in their field. The modern world has turned evenings of rich conversation and fine entertainment into painful corporate obligations. As ‘Elias’, he’d needed to persuade and apply pressure to get some of his more eccentric staff members to even consider attending.
Especially John.
It wasn’t as if the presence of the Head Archivist truly mattered, but there was something so pleasing about showing off John at those soirees. There he would stand, awkward in his stiff suit of faded black, lips pressed together as Jonah introduced him to chatty donors and their endless staff. The Archivist, instrument of their future destruction, right under everyone’s noses.
John would play along for a while, nod at the small talk, then slip into a corner as soon as possible. Jonah would usually have to wrangle him back into the press of the party multiple times an evening. He was always polite, even slightly pleading, asking John to be a little more social, just this once, just a little longer. Just for him.
(That wet ache in his chest was back. Perhaps the fall had jostled something loose? Best not to touch it, lets he aggravate it any further.)
A memory surfaced. One of the last times he’d thrown one of these affairs. It had been around Christmas, and the hall had been decorated with wreaths and sweeping boughs, and they’d actually lit a fire in that old brick monstrosity of a fireplace.
It had kindled a strange nostalgia for the winters of his youth. Perhaps that’s why Jonah had indulged in a little more wine than usual, felt slightly more expansive than his normal state of reserve.
He’d had to track down John once again, this time hiding in a small room off the main festivities. The Archivist had looked particularly forlorn. The party wasn’t to his liking, but the Institute would be shut down for the Christmas holidays, and what did John have to look forward to? Dark nights in an empty flat. Turning down party invitations from his assistants, sure they had only been sent out of obligation. A cold and cheerless end of the year, all by himself.
For once, John’s moroseness actually moved him. Perhaps that’s why, when Jonah cajoled him back to the party, he’d gently touched the boy’s delicate-thin shoulder. Nothing inappropriate. Just a light, paternal pat.
But something about the angle and the closeness and the touch stoked panic in John; for a moment, he was terrified that Elias-fussy, bookish, slightly aloof, blandly patrician Elias-was lonely enough to fancy him.
Jonah flinched at the unexpected recoil. He quickly removed his hand, and snapped back his mind, but not before he felt the sting of John’s terror changing to disgust.
The moment passed. John relaxed, sure he’d misunderstood. They returned to the party. Once he was back at work, the Archivist, buried in his statements, didn’t recall the incident at all.
(The wound throbs.)
The echoes in the room change, and Jonah’s outstretched hand hits the doors leading out. But he lingers, and looks down to where the skull is nestled in his other hand, and whispers:
“I never completely forgave John for that.”
***
The preternatural dark lingers in the foyer, but plaques on the walls guide him to the doors. Jonah grasps the cool metal and pushes down, and they open. His shoulders slump in relief, as he realizes he half-expected the doors to be locked and barred.
But no. Here it is, his escape, his release. He will leave and find answers and make things right. He moves to go-
Then the quiet strikes him. London outside is still, silent except for a slight wind. A terrible smell washes over him next, burned plastics and metal and something fouler. Chemical. There is not a hint of rot or blood. Everything he smells is ruined, manufactured material, and absolutely unnatural.
The Extinction.
It rings his institute like one final plague. And beyond it stretches something that, even in the darkness, presses down on his eyes like weights. A sense of utter totality. Leaden fear deforms his thoughts.
If he crosses the threshold and wades through the debris of the Extinction, he knows that no matter what direction he goes, he will meet the End.
Jonah’s grip on the door falters. His mind skips blankly again and again to the absolute horror of awaiting oblivion. You will die out here, you will die out here, you will die out here, you will die...
He steps back. He lets go. As the door swings shut, the pain in his chest doubles him over, unbearable. In the searing ache, for a brief moment, he knows things again. But only the way one does in a dream or a nightmare.
He has not been abandoned. This place is not a trap or a punishment. This is his reward.
The Fears have somehow escaped Jonah’s world, let out into a multitude of universes to find new prey. But the Fears themselves will change, inevitably, as they spread, and their old worshippers will be rendered mortal.
So the Eye-god, no, all of them, all the Dread Powers-have taken their favoured servant, the man who made their ascension possible, and plucked him from death. They have given him his home, so that he might wander it forever. They will populate it with their wildest terrors, so that he might be entertained. And he will have the pleasure of feeding the First Fears for posterity.
(He cannot keep his old powers; those are for avatars, and Jonah is the sole victim of his own Domain.)
He will not be marked like the Archivist was. That is an honour they will not give him, for it is needed no longer. And during any respite, he will always feel where John plunged the knife into his chest. That wound they cannot heal.
But a final gift, the true show of their generosity: they have left Jonah a way out. They will not stop him. He simply has to make his way to the Institute’s entrance, open the doors, and he may end things forever.
Jonah trembles as the enormity of it washes over him. Tears stream down his cheeks. He hasn’t cried in...in...he cannot remember, and that adds fresh sobs to this holy, crushing terror.
He clutches the insensate skull, which he knows, truly, isn’t listening. It isn’t filled with any lingering spirit, and it possesses no magic or vitality or spark. It is a silent victim. Left behind. Forgotten.
Jonah Magnus turns, and walks back into the silent, waiting halls of his institute. For he has been granted a ruined kingdom, and now he will never die.
Statement Ends.”
***
John leaned back at his old desk, blowing out a shaking breath. For a few minutes his gaze wandered.
When he came back to himself, he examined the desk. Strange, how all the little details, the scratches and bumps in the wood, felt both familiar but as if he’d never really seen them before. Part of the nature of this place, he supposed.
God, John was glad Marin hadn’t stayed for this statement.
After the...tower...the collapse...the knife in his own chest...they’d found themselves in a confused tangle of paths. A sort of nexus, he supposed, where he and Marin-or what remained of them-had been caught in the Spider’s webbing.
They had decided to travel, looking for a way out. Time didn’t seem to really pass in their nowhere space, but they did encounter things. Leftover dreads, little pockets of terror. All deserted or falling in on themselves.
Until they’d come upon the distant facade of the Institute.
“I know you’ll be back, John, but I wish you didn’t feel like you had to go in there. Be safe, all right? Not exactly a load of good memories waiting for you inside.”
Martin was right. John still hadn’t been able to resist. It was almost the Institute of old. Same layout, the same lights, the same furniture. But something subtle twisted it, making the ceilings taller, the walls a bit longer.
It was still strangely affecting to walk into the Archives and imagine, for one moment, he’d meet Tim or Sasha coming along the corridor, or spy Daisy quietly sitting with Basira, or even see Melanie scowling at him. When he’d come to his own office, and opened the door to find a tape recorder sitting on his desk, John had nearly been nostalgic.
Then the statement bubbled up. John had rolled back into the old compulsion, but a chill went through him once he realized whose it was. What lone figure walked this domain, keeping it from collapse.
It made sense, of course. He and Martin had survived, and so had...
Well. There was nothing to do about it, even if he’d wanted to. John’s own powers were reduced these days, at best. And while he could freely enter and leave a domain, he’d never known how to free someone from it.
Perhaps Martin had been right, he should have stayed away, but that statement had been-
The door swung open. John jolted up, standing to the side of his desk on some instinct. A figure stood there, swaying slightly, hand on the door frame. Then it came slowly into the light. It stopped a few steps into the room, looking around uncertainly.
The man’s suit was surprisingly intact, considering what he’d been through, but dusty and a little threadbare. His face was gaunt. There was a slight patina of dust there too, cut by tear-tracks. His dull-grey eyes skipped over John, pupils focused on nothing. Utterly blind, despite the light.
“John?” Jonah’s voice quavered. “Is that you?”
John stepped back, opening and closing his mouth without making a sound.
Jonah shuffled forward, hand out tentatively until he hit the desk. He felt around until he found the object that John suddenly realized had been playing, the noise that had drawn him inside. The tape recorder. Of course.
Jonah hit stop, and rewound the tape. There was a look of terrible hope on his face. The tape jarred to a stop. Jonah put down something-an old skull-on John’s desk, then hit play.
Nothing but quiet static poured out.
Jonah listened to it in its entirety.
There was a thudding click once the tape reached the end and stopped. Jonah stared ahead for a minute in silence. Then, voice breaking: “No. Of course not.”
He turned to leave, reaching for where he’d placed the skull. It wasn’t there. Jonah began to feel around for it, but John could it had been moved. Placed on a shelf above Jonah, cruelly positioned where he would never think to search.
“Barnabas?”
The terror coming off of Jonah was...John had no words. He was entranced. He could only watch.
“Barnabas, wh-where are you?”
The man had happily done unspeakable things to the world.
“Barnabas?”
Marin would be appalled.
“Barnabas, please.”
Then John found himself holding the skull, and placing it in front of Jonah Magnus’ reach, and for a moment both their hands were on it.
“There you are!” Jonah said, relieved, staring right through his former Archivist.
John withdrew his hand just as Jonah took up the skull.
“We really must be more careful next time.” Jonah said, attempting a smile at the remains of Barnabas Bennett. “Now, come, let’s try artefact storage next. Perhaps there’s something in there to...to help us? Yes.”
He paused at the door, and forlorn, added: “Besides. I don’t believe there’s anyone here anymore.”
***
“So he’s...what, going loony from running around the Archives getting chased by every Fear that ever was?”
“That about sums it up.” John said, as he helped Martin up a path of tangled threads.
Martin snorted. “Still better than Elias deserves.”
“Jonah,” John said absently.
“Mmm, right.”
A few steps later, John noticed Martin looked askance at him.
“Martin, what is it?”
“Just, you keep looking back.”
“At what?”
“At the Institute.” Martin squinted. “It’s sort of further away, but not really? God, I hate the way this place wobbles about.”
“Missing our simple trip from a cabin in Scotland down to London?”
“John,” Martin stopped. “I’m serious. You’ve got that look on your face like you’re distracted by some big, cosmic revelation you’re forgetting to tell me.”
“It’s just...” John looked down, at his chest, where a bandage covered a stain. “Jonah. I think, when I killed him, and you stabbed me-we have the same wound. His is still bleeding too.”
“And?” Martin asked, wary.
“I’m sorry, Martin. I know my knowing isn’t what it used to be. But I have a, a suspicion.” John’s mouth twisted. “All three of us died in that tower. I think, in order to escape this place, and find somewhere real to live...it has to be all of us leaving. Together.”
“No.” Martin said, voice flat. “John. No.”
“It’s only a theory-”
“We are not letting Jonah bloody Magnus-”
“I didn’t say-”
“Come with us, escape with us, or do anything but rot away in that stupid Institute he used to destroy the world! God, John! You can’t be serious!”
“Forget it!” John scowled. “Maybe I’m wrong. I often am, these days, aren’t I? Can’t even find us a path through this...nowhere. Right then. Let’s go.”
They trudged along in silence for a while. Then Martin, softly “John?”
“Mmm?”
“You’re staring at it again.”
“Sorry.” John rubbed his face, turned away from the Institute. But he knew, he would know, where it was now. Always. With every ache in his chest.
“John?” Martin hesitated, then held his partner’s hand. “There’s something else bothering you. If you don’t want to tell me it’s fine, I mean it, but I’ll listen if you want. I promise I'll try to-I won’t get mad. I just want to understand.”
John squeezed Martin’s hand back in mute gratitude. He took a breath.
“The statement was...I haven’t had one for a while. I supposed I don’t need them, anymore, and I supposed that was why a new one was so overwhelming. But then I saw Jonah and...” John bit his lip, awe creeping into his voice. “God, I can’t describe it. He was so afraid. Every part of him, every corner. The terror in the man!”
Martin looked, sad but understandingly, at the rapture in John’s face. “Was he still human then? Elias...Jonah? He didn’t look like a monster?”
John blinked. Martin felt a shiver go through his hand, and John sounded almost wistful as a dreamy smile crept over his face. “Martin, he looked like a saint.”