“I don’t remember. I don’t think I had time.”

“Hold my hand,” Ginny said, and held it out.

He didn’t hesitate. Her fingers were hot and her skin seemed to glow a faint cherry-red like the iron stove in the next room. “You’re burning up,” Jack said, but did not let go.

“Sometimes I do that. It’ll pass,” Ginny said. “I survived, didn’t I?”

“You sure did.”

“I know why they want to catch us,” she said. “Whoever they are.”

“Whatever they are,” Jack added.

“They’re afraid of us.”

He squeezed her fingers and the heat subsided. “Makes you wonder about Bidewell. What are we getting ourselves into?”

“Bidewell’s not afraid, not of us,” Ginny said. “That’s why I came here. No knots, no fear—just quiet and lots of books. The books arelike insulation. I still feel safe here. My stone is safe, too—for now.”

Jack let out a low whistle. “Okay,” he said.

“You’re not convinced.”

“It’s quiet—that’s okay. But I’d like for everything just to get back to normal.”

“Was it ever normal—for you?” Ginny asked.

“Before my mother died,” he said. “Well, maybe not normal—but fun. Nice.”

“You loved her?”

“Of course. Together, she and my father were…wherever we ended up, we had a home, even if it was just for a day.”

Ginny looked around the warehouse. “This feels more like home than anyplace I’ve ever been. What about you? What’s your story?”

“My mother was a dancer. My father wanted to be a comedian and a magician. My mother died, then my father. I wasn’t much more than a kid. They didn’t leave me much—just a trunk, some tricks and some books on magic—and the stone. I didn’t starve—I had learned how to play guitar and juggle, do card tricks, that sort of thing. I fell in with a tough crowd for a while, like you, got out of it…learned the streets, started busking. Managed not to get killed. Two years ago I moved in with a guy named Burke. He works as a sous chef in a restaurant. We don’t see much of each other.”

“Lovers?” Ginny asked.

Jack smiled. “No,” he said. “Burke’s as straight as they come. He just doesn’t like living alone.”

“You’ve met those women before?”

“I know Ellen pretty well,” Jack said. “I met the others a few days ago.”

“Did you do those sketches that Miriam found…in your apartment?”

“I’m a lousy artist. The other one did them. My guest.”

“Where’s he from, do you think?”

“‘The city at the end of time,’ of course,” Jack said, trying for sarcasm, but his voice cracked.

“Mine, too,” Ginny said. “But the last time I dreamed about her, she’s not there. She’s outside, lost somewhere awful.”

“The Chaos,” Jack said.

She looked down at the floor. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“All right,” he said.

“Jack, do theyhave stones like ours?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“Maybe we’re supposed to bring them.”

“I don’t see how. They’re there—we’re here.” He pushed back, then looked down at a large cardboard box labeledVALDOLID , 1898. “What kind of books does Bidewell collect?”

“All sorts,” Ginny said.

Jack pulled up the interleaved flaps and lifted out a dusty volume. The book’s hinges had cracked and the leather left powder on his fingers. The gold-embossed words on the spine still did not mean anything. He looked up. “Gobbledygook Press,” he said. “I guess the stones aren’t finished.”

“A lot of his books were like that before. Bidewell seems to know the difference.”

“Makes as much sense as everything else.” Jack was about to put the book down, but something tugged in his arm—the faintest pull on a hidden nerve—and he turned to a middle page. There, surrounded by more nonsense, a paragraph poked up that he could (just barely) read: Then Jerem enterd the House and therei found a book all meaningless bu for these words: Hast thou the old rock, Jeremy? In your pocket, wihyou?

Ginny watched him closely as his face flushed, as if he had been prancing around naked. Tongue poking the inside of his cheek, Jack slowly flipped through more of the book. Nothing else made sense.

“What is it?” she asked.

He showed her the page. She read the lines and her jaw fell like a child seeing a ghost. “All the books are different,” she said. “I’m not in any of them.”

“Have you looked?” Jack asked.

She shook her head. “There wasn’t time.”

FOURTEEN ZEROS

CHAPTER 55

Tenebros Flood Channel

Pahtun had grown accustomed to living in the perpetual tweenlight of the outer reaches of the old flood channels. He seldom went up into the Kalpa and was content performing his duties on the wide flats, away from the wakelight glow over the Tiers—he called them by their old name, the rookery. Pahtun had been training marchers for longer than there had been breeds. A lofty, slender man with an experienced brown face, he strode along the channel floor, eyes silver-gray with caution. He knew the city was dying. It had been dying by degrees since before he had been made. Now, it was likely to finish its dying quickly.

Wakelight grew fitfully over the distant ceil. Red rings pulsed and flickered around the cracked and battered patches left by the intrusion that had blown through the lower levels of the first bion, directly over his head, and nearly claimed them all.

He finished his walk of twenty miles from the camp up the Tenebros channel, to the rendezvous between the first and second isles, and waited for the brown wardens to descend with their half-conscious burdens.

This time there were only nine rather than the usual twenty. “Great destruction,” the lead warden explained. “Many lost. These may be the last.”

The young breeds crawled into the shade of the low channel trees, moaning softly. Pahtun examined them one by one as the wardens flew away. He lifted their heads, using his flower-finger to sense their vital levels, and found them fit—the wardens never delivered injured or incapable breeds. As they recovered, he helped them to their feet, soothing with low crèche songs. His three cohorts had walked across the channels to the sandy stretch by then. More obviously jaded, with much less time on the job, these younger Menders still attended to the recruits with patience and skill. They soon had them walking in a single column toward the dark outer wall and the training camp that had waited there for as long as there had been Tiers or marchers—too long to contemplate, as far as Pahtun was concerned. Six males and three females. He watched the dazed breeds and, as always, both envied and pitied them—they were few, they were small, they were confused. He wondered what they would see on their journey.

Only young breeds were ever sent on the marches—grown of primordial mass, cultured in the Tiers, and afforded the best instincts, some of which would truly awaken only in the Chaos. Personally, this version of Pahtun had never ventured beyond the middle lands. If these nine made up the last march to be delivered to his expert care, he might never learn the whole truth about the Chaos and the Typhon. He showed the breeds to their tents and made sure they were comfortable. Soon, they were sound asleep.

The cohorts made their own camp nearby, away from the breeds and away from Pahtun’s solitary tent. They held the trainer in some awe—but considered him old and peculiar. After all, what was the point of all of this?

Perhaps there was no point. None of the other Pahtuns, sent into the Chaos in violation of the rulings of the Astyanax, had ever reported their discoveries. And none of the marchers he’d trained had ever returned.

CHAPTER 56

The Broken Tower

As requested, a living breed, crèche-born of primordial matter, for whatever purpose the Librarian might devise.

Ghentun stood on one side of the high, empty chamber, a dozen yards from the nearest soaring window, surrounded by a slow, enveloping shimmer. At his waist floated the young male, curled in anesthetic oblivion, injured but already healing—treated and protected by Ghentun’s cloak. The Keeper of the Tiers could only feel numb. He could not conceive of any action that would make any difference now.