wearing a helmet each time we saw them,” she reflected, with growing excitement, “to keep himself from getting lost There.”
“To get whatever the Middle was hiding, you needed the coordinates, the directions—two hundred paces—and you needed a focal.”
Quin felt parts of the mystery resolving for her as well. “That’s why my father so badly wanted to get his hands on the Watchers’ focal.”
“Briac wanted to find whatever the Middle had hidden, and he wanted to take over where the Middle left off.”
“But what does that mean? What will we find if we follow these instructions? And there were different instructions in that cave in Scotland—still two hundred, but a different pattern of steps. Why?”
Shinobu picked up a small knife from among the Middle’s scattered possessions. With it he scratched a circle into the floor of the loft.
“What if this circle is all of the space There,” he said, “and this”—he stuck the knife straight down, making a dot within the circle—“is where you go if you follow those coordinates on his skin? And from that point you can walk different ways to find different things.”
Quin’s mind was catching up with his now. She took the knife and scratched a steplike path with the blade to represent the paces inked on the Middle’s body. She said, “These paces, from his tattoos, get you here.” She made an X at the end of the line she’d drawn. Then she drew another path, going a different way from the original starting point. “The paces written in the cave in Scotland might get you here.” She made an X at the end of the second line. The two X’s were quite far apart, despite having the same point of origin.
“Exactly,” he agreed. “They’re all little pirate maps, pointing to something hidden There.”
“So which set of paces should we follow?”
“Every set we can find—eventually,” he answered. “But this one…he tattooed this set on his body. It must be the most important.”
“But…what could be there?” she whispered, feeling jittery at the thought of following in the Middle’s footsteps. So far, his footsteps had led them into all sorts of trouble.
“I—I don’t know,” Shinobu answered seriously. “We might find whatever he was going to use to get rid of Seekers.”
Quin bit her lip and stared at the Middle’s tattoos and his tools and weapons. Her mind was reeling. The Middle had been planning so much and causing so much harm.
“Do you not want to go look?” he asked softly, nodding at the inked instructions on the Middle’s body.
She pulled her thoughts together. There was still so much they didn’t know; the Middle had left an intentionally complicated trail. But they were, it seemed, on the cusp of understanding. Quin felt an excitement that was close to terror.
“No, of course I do,” she told him, embracing the feeling. “We have to look.”
He put a hand to her cheek and smiled at her. “If we’re going to go, one of us will have to wear the focal to make it through the two hundred paces,” he told her softly.
Quin watched a strange expression pass across his face. “You don’t want to wear it?” she asked.
“No.” He hesitated. “But I also don’t want you to wear it.” He picked up the helmet and turned it around and around, regarding it much as a soldier might regard an unexploded grenade. “It did something to my thoughts—and I—I don’t want it to do that to you. I made you wear it earlier, but that was for a short time. This would be much longer.”
“I might be better at clearing my mind first than you are,” she pointed out, moved by his worry. “Maybe it won’t be so bad for me.”
“You are better. That’s part of what I mean. You keep your mind so clear, Quin, without the focal. When we were fighting the Watchers There, you didn’t slow down. You held your focus. And when you work as a healer, I can see how intense your concentration is. That’s why I don’t think you should use the focal. I don’t want to risk it damaging your mind.”
She thought about that. It was true, she’d managed not to lose herself when they’d fought those boys inside the anomaly, though she considered she’d been more lucky than skilled in that instance. Still, there might be some truth to what Shinobu was saying. Eventually she nodded.
He looked relieved.
“Good,” he said. “I’ll wear the helmet for the two hundred steps, and you’ll keep your eyes on