a little surprised. He hadn’t been sure he’d been able to do it until it was done. And afterward, in the tower, when she’d reached out without thinking and soothed him like she’d always soothed Gavin—he’d been surprised, then, too. You can just...do that, he’d said, astonishment at war with envy in his voice.
If it could happen anywhere, it would be in this tower.
A memory came to her, as clear and sharp as Work: climbing the stairs. The stairs were broken, impassable—but the gaps between the stones had been smaller than she’d expected, the stones themselves bigger. Like she would in the Work, she held the memory, unfolded it, watched as Memory-Judah lifted a foot.
The stone of the step stretched of its own accord to meet her.
The magus hadn’t been there, then. The tower had moved the steps, or the power bound inside it had. And if her mind was dull—if her memories were empty—maybe the tower was doing that, too.
The tower. She needed to leave the tower.
But the moment she stepped through the door, the stone steps spiraling down in front of her, a crushing sense of anxiety welled up in her chest and she couldn’t breathe. She would fall. The stairs would collapse beneath her. The staircase itself would come to life and swallow her like a snake. Stupid. So stupid. Descending stairs was not a complicated skill and staircases never ate people and all she had to do was keep moving, but the animal part of her was convinced that downstairs lay mortal peril. Even if she didn’t fall and wasn’t eaten by the tower, even if she made it all the way down, she would die. There was no air down there. There was fire down there and flood down there and the earth would open up and swallow her if she didn’t get back where she belonged, and that part made her angriest of all because alongside this irrational nonsense was the equally irrational certainty that the only safe place for Judah in the entire world was a tower with half its roof blown off. She could feel it behind her, waiting to hold her and protect her and never let anything hurt her, ever.
She fled backward, slamming the door closed and pressing her back against it, staring out at the wide expanse of sky. She couldn’t leave. She wasn’t brave enough. Her lungs were open again and every breath was delicious, but she could not physically leave the tower and as her pulse slowed, as her mind calmed, she felt herself sinking back down, into that dull place where she knew she would no longer want to leave.
All right. If she couldn’t leave physically, there were other ways. After all, hadn’t the magus been teaching her, for who knew how long, to do this very thing? All she had to do was close her eyes, fight tooth and claw against the tower’s dullness, and slip away into the Work.
It was surprisingly easy. And the easiest path of all was the one that led out of the middle of her chest, straight to Gavin. He was in the kitchen yard: overgrown, now, with their chickens pecking in the tall grass. In front of her was the stump of a tree, its surface scarred with countless axe cuts, where a block of wood stood on end. As she watched, a pitted axe blade swooped down from somewhere over her right shoulder and she thought, Right through your neck, Seneschal, you scheming bastard.
Or rather, Gavin did. Then he sensed her and the blade went wild, knocking an awkward splinter off the top of the wood and sending the rest flying. The world tilted wildly as he jumped out of the way of his own axe and Judah slid quickly sideways, so that she was beside him instead of in him. When he saw her, his eyes widened. He dropped the axe with a clatter. Not on his foot, luckily.
She looked down. Her body seemed solid; her feet rested on the ground, the wind moved in her hair. She cast no shadow, but neither did Gavin. The sky was gray.
“Jude.” Gavin’s face—thinner now—bloomed with joy and relief. “You’re back.”
I did it, she said, amazed.
But the words came out of her head, the way they did in the Work. Gavin’s relief died. “You’re not back. You’re a hallucination. I’m finally going insane.”
You’re not going insane.
“Obviously, the hallucination would say that. It’s okay. It’s sort of a relief, actually.”