Malakai's footfalls echoed in the deserted passageways of the upper Spires. The Key felt like a chunk of frozen masonry in his pocket, the heft a constant reminder of what he might—had better—do. He climbed upward, past the half-lit gardens that seemed to be levitating above him and the levels of merchants below, till he got to the part of the city where it stopped coasting along the lip of the world and started shooting up into the twilight sky. At this hour, the Archives ought to have been bustling. They should have been filled with scholars hurrying to and fro, clutching their scrolls; apprentices skimming the hallways; and the not-so-usual buzz of ancient knowledge being cataloged and studied. Instead, in what should have been the peak hour of the Archival day, silence hung in the air like a shroud.
Something was wrong. The great doors that had guarded the Archives for centuries stood wide open, their surface of frozen time dulled and lifeless. The Chronographic Knights who normally stood watch were gone, though Malakai spotted their abandoned timepieces scattered across the marble steps. Each one had stopped at 3:33.
"Well, that's not ominous at all," he muttered, picking up one of the timepieces. The metal was cold to the touch, colder than it should be. He'd read about 3:33 in the old texts – the witching hour, when the walls between worlds grew thin. Of course his brother would choose this moment to make his move.
The entrance hall was worse than he'd imagined. Bodies lay twisted on the floor, but not in any natural way. It was as if someone had taken the Archivists and rearranged them like pieces of a puzzle, folding space around them until they barely looked human anymore. But their eyes – their eyes still moved, following him as he passed. They were aware. Conscious.
"Gods," he whispered, kneeling beside one of them. It was Archivist Chen, who had helped him research the Old Ones just last week. Her form spiraled in on itself in ways that made his head hurt to look at, but her eyes were pleading, desperate.
"Don't waste your pity on them," said a familiar voice. "They knew the risks of keeping such knowledge."
Malakai stood and turned. A figure emerged from the shadows at the far end of the hall, and for a heart-stopping moment, he thought it was Elara. But no – the features were similar but softer, the voice less commanding. Verin. Their middle brother, who had always claimed he wanted no part in their conflicts.
"Verin? What are you doing here?"
His brother looked terrible. His usual perfect appearance was gone, replaced by torn robes and wild eyes. Something dark stained his sleeves, and it seemed to shift color in the Archive's strange light.
"Same as you, little brother." Verin smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Trying to stop our family from unraveling the universe. Though I'd say I'm doing a pretty poor job of it so far." He gestured at the transformed Archivists. "I was too late to stop this."
"Elara did this?"
"Not exactly. It's more complicated than that. The knowledge he left behind in his research – it's like a disease now. It spreads through understanding. The more you study it, the more it changes you." Verin ran a hand through his disheveled hair. "But that's not even the worst part. Show him," he called out to the empty air.
The space between them rippled like heat waves over desert sand. A woman stepped out of nothing – Lysandra, the Archivist Supreme herself. Malakai had always found her intimidating, with her perfect posture and razor-sharp mind. But now...
Her form was mostly unchanged, but her eyes were wrong. They were like windows opening onto an endless void, the same terrible emptiness he'd seen in Elara's gaze before his brother disappeared.
"The Old Ones have a message for you, Key Bearer," she said, and her voice hurt to hear, like fingernails on glass and breaking bones and screaming stars all at once.