The Starless Sea - Erin Morgenstern Page 0,149

starting to calm, trying to take in everything in front of him and around him and above him.

There are dozens of giant statues. Some figures have animal heads and others have lost their heads entirely. They are posed throughout the space in a way that looks so organic that Zachary would not be surprised if they moved, or perhaps they are moving, very, very slowly.

Hung between the outstretched limbs and crowns and antlers there are ropes and ribbons and threads tying the statues to the balconies and the doors and strung with book pages and keys and feathers and bones. A long sequence of brass moons hangs down the center of the atrium. Some of the ropes are strung on gears and pulleys.

Two of the statues are so large that the balconies are built around them, one on either side. They face each other, over all the other dramas unfolding in stone and on paper and in person.

The nearest one has such detail in its form and likeness that Zachary recognizes the Keeper even though part of his face is obscured by fluttering paper and the curve of a crescent moon. His hands are held out in a familiar-looking gesture, raised as though he is expecting a very large book to be placed in his open palms but instead there are red ribbons, long strips of blood-colored silk, draped across his fingers and around his wrists and then stretching outward, binding him to the balconies and the doors and to the other statue that he faces.

The figure opposite doesn’t look like Mirabel but it’s clearly meant to be her, or someone she used to be. Red ribbons are tied around her wrists and looped around her neck, trailing down to the ground and pooling around her feet like blood. Hey, Max, Zachary thinks, and the statue turns its head ever so slightly to stare at him with empty stone eyes.

“Are you injured?” Simon asks as Zachary stumbles backward, catching his balance on an altar behind him. Its surface is soft beneath his hand, the stone covered in layers upon layers of dripped wax. Zachary shakes his head in response to the question, though he isn’t certain. He can still feel the heaviness of the darkness in his lungs and in his shoes. Maybe he should sit down. He tries to remember how. The ribbons fluttering nearby have words written on them that Zachary cannot read, prayers or pleas or myths. Wishes or warnings.

“I’m…” Zachary starts but he does not know how to complete the statement. He does not know what he is. Not right now.

“Which one are you?” Simon asks, scrutinizing him. “The heart or the feather? You carry the sword but you do not wear the stars. This is confusing. You should not be here. You were meant to be somewhere else.”

Zachary opens his mouth to ask what Simon is talking about, exactly, but instead he says the only thing that his thoughts keep returning to: “I saw a bunny.”

“You saw…” Simon looks at him quizzically and Zachary is unsure he spoke properly, his thoughts feel so separate from his body.

“A bunny,” he repeats, slowly enough that the word sounds wrong again. “A big one. Like an elephant only…bunny.”

“The celestial hare is not a bunny,” Simon corrects him before turning his attention to the ropes and gears above their heads. “If you saw the hare that means the moon is here,” he says. “It is later than I had thought. The Owl King is coming.”

“Wait…” Zachary starts, grounding himself unsteadily with a question he has asked before. “Who is the Owl King?”

“The crown passes from one to another,” Simon answers, preoccupied with adjusting ropes with well-practiced single-handed motions. “The crown passes from story to story. There have been many owl kings with their crowns and their claws.”

“Who’s the Owl King now?” Zachary asks.

“The Owl King is not a who. Not always. Not in this story. You confuse what was with what is.” Simon sighs, pausing his tinkering and returning his attention to Zachary. He explains haltingly, searching for the right words. “The Owl King is a…phenomenon. The future crashing into the present like a wave. Its wings beat in the spaces between choices and before decisions, heralding change…change of the long-awaited sort, the change foretold by prophecies and warned of by omens, written in the stars.”

“Who are the stars?” It is a question Zachary has thought before but not yet asked aloud, though he remains confused as