49 - FINN

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

A low hum reverberates through my body, waking me from a dreamless sleep. My eyes open, but everything is blurry. For a moment I can't remember who I am, or where I am, or what that noise is.

The first thing that comes back is Clara. It's a happy memory of us in my bed while the Choosing festival goes on in the city down below.

It's a comfortable feeling. Like sitting in front of a fire on a frigid night.

But then all the other things that have happened since that day come flooding back.

Father's dead. Mother's in a cult. Clara… oh, Clara . My eyes are closed but I squeeze them tighter, trying to make it all go away. I don't want to wake up. I don't want to feel the loss. I don't want this to be real.

But it doesn't end with Clara. The Looking Glass, the secret stairwells, the message from my father.

And Jasina.

This is what makes me open my eyes again. Her . Because she's still here.

I sit up, swing my feet over the side of the couch, and spend a few seconds rubbing my fingers against my temples. But that hum is still there and it's annoying. I stand up—shirt untucked, pants open—and pull myself together as I walk over to the massive windows and peer down.

The hum is a chant and the chant is coming from a riot of people down on the God's Tower stage. They have gathered in the very spot where Clara Birch was kissing a man who is not me inside a ball of spark last night.

Last night they were celebrating. So what the hell happened to transform this crowd into a riot?

I turn away from the window—I couldn't be more uninterested in the complaints of the common person of Tau City right now if I tried. Whatever they are angry about, they definitely didn't send the woman they love into the tower. Their father didn't leave a secret message, only to be murdered for it. When did that happen, I wonder? When did he make that message? A day before he died? Hours? Minutes?

It was recent, that's all I know. It set something off. Not the countdown, either. Something more than that. Everything started changing around here the moment he died. I felt it.

It was very hard for me to concentrate on details of the message while it was playing so I don't feel like I got the full significance of what he was saying.

Which should panic me, but Jasina was taking notes.

This is when I turn and find that she is not here.

"Jasina?" I wait, listening. Maybe she went downstairs? "Jasina?" I say it louder.

Nothing.

So I walk over to the stairs and peer down. "Mitch! Are you here?" He should be. All week he's been here before breakfast.

But I don't smell breakfast. "Is anyone here!" I shout it as loud as I can.

No one answers.

They must all be at the riot.

Blowing out a frustrated breath, I turn. And this is when I see that the hidden door leading to the Tower District is open a crack.

I quickly cross the room, open it all the way up, and look down.

It's dark. And when I step in, no lights come on.

"Jasina," I mutter. She went to the tower. She left me. "Oh, shit!" I say this right out loud, then rush over to the Looking Glass room, go inside, close the door, and when the triangles light up all around me, I read the countdown that's circling the room in bright, blinking blue numbers.

One hour, three minutes, thirty-two seconds.

One hour ?

How long was I sleeping? Which is a rhetorical question because all one has to do is count backwards to figure that out.

Better question is… when did Jasina leave?

And why? I mean, we had the whole ‘teamwork' thing going last night. Not to mention the hot sex. Did she really leave me here to die? Or might she have gone exploring and gotten herself in trouble?

Could go either way, I suppose. And it doesn't really matter. This tower is going to explode and if I'm still in it, so am I. I go over to the desk, grab a torch light out of the drawer, and then walk through the bookcase, closing it behind me.

I know it's going to be a long climb down because, clearly, I'm at the top of the tower, so I force myself to try and remember the basics of my father's message as I descend.

There were two parts to it and the first part was my mission. Get out of here, which I am in the process of doing so… check. Then destroy the Extraction Tower, which he initiated for me with the countdown so… check. And lastly, find the train underneath the Tower District, get on one, and do this all over again in the next city down the line.

A train that leads to another city.

This part of the message tripped me up for a good two minutes while I was listening to my father, so I missed most the details. But in my defense… trains that work ? And can take me to the next city ?

These things should not exist.

I'm about to get lost in my thoughts about all that once again, but then I remember the second part of his message.

" You might see things down there, Finn. Ignore it. Do not interfere with anything that is happening below the Tower District. Just get on the train, take it down the line, and cut all ties with the gods by destroying their Looking Glass in the Extraction Tower."

And then he said something so shocking I completely missed everything that came after. Because he said, "Do not, under any circumstances, talk to your mother."

My mother?

" She's the enemy ."

I'm ready to dismiss this last comment as absurd, but I can't. Because she's one of them. She's one of those culty Matrons. And the last time we spoke, she was walking away from me. Not just… like… moving to another building or whatever. Not just… going on a little retreat to pull herself together.

She was walking away from me .

Like I meant nothing to her.

Like I was a job.

And like, with the death of my father, that job was now over.

I stop my descent and stand in the dark stairwell dazed and confused. Shattered, maybe. With the realization that my life has been a lie.

Then something else hits me. An idea. An… explanation. An answer. One I wasn't particularly looking for, but which presents itself nonetheless.

The first thing my father started explaining was the opening of the god's tower doors. " The Looking Glass controls the tower doors ," he said. " It opens them. But more importantly, it communicates with the god's world, Finn. Without the Looking Glass, there is no connection ."

Which was pretty clever, now that I think about it. He told me the important part first, but then distracted me with the part about the connection to another world.

Another world ? I mean, in my defense, it's a life-altering thing to say. So it's no wonder I succumbed to his distraction.

But the real betrayal didn't come from my mother and her allegiance to a cult of dried-up Spark Maidens. It came from him.

If the Looking Glass controls the tower doors and the Extraction Master controls the Looking Glass, this means… the Extraction Master opens the tower doors.

I lean on the metal railing, looking down at the darkness. My head spinning with the realization that my father is the one who called Clara into the tower.

He took her from me.

I don't know how, but he did. He rang the bells. He called her in. And now that I think about it, this is probably why he was murdered. I mean, he made the message. He set up the countdown for the Extraction Tower's destruction. But that's not all he did. He set up another countdown. One that would ring those bells and force Haryet and Clara to enter the tower.

And someone killed him for these things.

There's a part of me that understands that something bigger than me and my love for Clara is happening here. That my father was doing something important. That he didn't call Clara in for no reason.

But there's another part of me that doesn't care about why he did it.

I just want to hurt him the way he hurt me.

Which is dumb. Because he's dead.

So I force myself to straighten up and continue my descent.

There was a lot of other stuff in the message but this is all I can remember. Jasina took notes, though. She also took them with her when she left, so I need to find her. I need those notes.

I pause, because I'm at the bottom of the stairs now and there's a faint glow up ahead. I shine my torch at it and find a sign that says ‘exit' in red letters.

But the tunnel splits here, right below this sign, leaving one uncertain as which way to go. Which is stupid and I spend a moment being annoyed because doesn't that defeat the whole fuckin' point of an exit sign?

Now I have to make a decision. And I'm not prepared because fuckin' Jasina has the notes. My father gave very explicit instructions on how to reach the trains, which is literally my only goal, and if she were with me, we could just look it up.

But noooo . She had to go exploring all by?—

My internal complaining screeches to a halt when I spy something small on the ground to my left. I shine the torch on it as I walk over and pick it up.

It's Jasina's slipper.

Which is another thing. Silk slippers? For a job like this? We should've prepared a pack or something. At the very least, she really needed a different pair of shoes.

Then again, if she did have a more appropriate pair of shoes, one would not have fallen off her foot. Which means I would not have a clue as to which direction I should go.

And now I do.

I turn left, looking for more clues. Who knows, maybe she's leaving a trail of clothing behind so I can find her? Maybe when I do find her, she'll be naked and we'll have a little tryst—which would be pretty exciting considering the fact that we've got like forty minutes before this whole place blows up.

Kind of a fun way to end things, but then again, I'm annoyed.

This is when I hear chanting. And at first, I'm thinking this is the riot of people on the God's Tower stage because I figure I'm pretty close to being right underneath it.

But it's too loud for that. And the words are all… weird. They make no sense.

I turn the torch off, shove it in my suit coat pocket, and then creep forward, sticking close to the wall, so I can peer around it when I get to a corner.

I'm a hundred-percent committed to stealth when I do this, but I don't know what I'm looking at, so I have to step out to get a better look.

There are women—Matrons, all dressed up in that crazy outfit my mother was wearing the day of the funeral, but this time their faces are hidden by hoods—and they are in a giant circle, lined up along the perimeter of the room.

They're the ones chanting.

But there are a lot more people in here than just Matrons. It's filled with Little Sisters. Some of them are standing in their tunics and aprons, looking nervous. Some are even crying. But most of them, like a good fifty girls, are sprawled out on the floor, moaning and gasping for breath.

I'm not understanding what I'm seeing. Nothing makes sense. Why are they chanting? Why is no one helping these girls?

Then I look at the far side of the room and it all starts to make sense.

The first thing I see is a glass partition separating this room from another one. Then I see Gemna, strapped to a circle standing on end with arms and legs open. Then I see Jasina!

She's strapped to another circle. And a third girl—one I certainly met, but don't recall her name—is also attached to one of these circles.

I can tell they are screaming, or crying, or maybe just talking because their mouths are moving. Especially Gemna's. But I can't hear anything. And it's not because of the loud crackling of spark that is being pulled out of a Little Sister and directed towards… I pause to squint. Is that Donal Oslin? The Tower District governor's son?

I'm confused, but that doesn't matter.

Because the cautionary part of the message my father left for me suddenly comes back to me. " You might see things down there, Finn. Ignore it. Do not interfere with anything that is happening below the Tower District. Just get on the train, take it down the line, and cut all ties with the gods by destroying their Looking Glass in the Extraction Tower ."

It feels like good advice.

I know Jasina has the notebook, but… I remember most of it. I don't need the notebook, not really. So I'm about to turn and take my father's advice.

But that's when I see my mother.

And again, my father's voice is in my head " Do not, under any circumstances, talk to your mother ."

What the… I blink. Take a moment, even though my moments do not number in the many right now, and try and sort out what is actually happening.

I look up, see that the ceiling is painted like the night sky, and then it hits me.

It's a Looking Glass. Like the one upstairs. But then again, not like the one upstairs at all—for obvious reasons, of course. But the one thing that separates this Looking Glass from the one in the Extraction Tower is… its location.

I look around, trying to orient myself, and realize that we are probably directly underneath the god's tower doors.

As in the very doors that Clara, and all the other Spark Maidens before her, walked through.

I suddenly understand what they are doing. They are opening the god's tower doors. Not the ones above and outside, but right here in this room. Somehow, some way, this thick glass can be turned into a door. And then they are going to walk through.

What will they find on the other side of that door?

A god?

A new world?

Clara?

I'm looking right at my mother when she turns and suddenly, we lock eyes. She smiles. Her whole face brightening up, like she's happy to see me. Like she didn't join a cult and walk out. Like maybe I wasn't just a job that ended with my father's death.

"Finn! You're here! Come." She beckons me with open arms. "Come, my son. Join us as we begin anew."