or Fitzgerald?” Zachary asks as Mirabel picks them up.
“Little bit of both,” she says, handing him the smaller cup. “C’mon, let’s brave the poetry again.”
Outside the light is dwindling, the air colder. Zachary clings to his cup and takes a sip of too-hot green foam.
“What did you really order?” he asks as Mirabel starts walking.
“It’s basically an Earl Grey tea with soy milk and honey and vanilla,” Mirabel says, holding up her cup. “But this is why I ordered it.” She lifts it higher so Zachary can see the six-digit number written in Sharpie on the bottom of the cup: 721909.
“What does that mean?” he asks.
“You’ll see.”
The light is fading by the time they reach the next block, leaving a sunset glow.
“How do you know Dorian?” Zachary asks, trying to sort through his questions and thinking maybe he should get a notebook or something to keep them in, they fly in and out of his head so fast. He takes another sip of his quickly cooling latte.
“He tried to kill me once,” Mirabel says.
“He what?” Zachary asks, as Mirabel stops in the middle of the sidewalk.
“Here we go,” she says.
Zachary hadn’t even recognized the tree-lined street. The building with its Collector’s Club sign looks normal and friendly and maybe a little ominous but that’s more to do with the lack of people on this particular block.
“Are you done with that?” Mirabel asks, gesturing at his cup. Zachary takes a last sip and hands it to her. She nestles both empty cups into a pile of snow by the stairs.
“There’s another place that’s also called the Collector’s Club not far from here,” she remarks as they approach the door.
“There is?” Zachary asks, regretting not asking if Mirabel has a plan of some sort.
“That one is for stamp collectors,” she says.
She turns the handle on the door and to Zachary’s surprise it opens. The small antechamber is dark, save for a red light on the wall next to a small screen. An alarm system.
Mirabel punches 7-2-1-9-0-9 into the alarm keypad.
The light turns green.
Mirabel opens the second door.
The foyer is dim, only a purplish light filters through the tall windows, making the ribbons with their doorknobs appear a pale blue. There are more of them than Zachary remembered.
He wants to ask Mirabel how she managed to order the alarm code at Starbucks and also what precisely she meant by tried to kill me once but thinks silence might be better. Then Mirabel pulls one of the doorknob ribbons, tearing it from wherever it was hooked to the ceiling high above, and it falls in a clattering sound of doorknobs hitting other doorknobs, a cacophony of low tones like bells.
So much for silence.
“You could have rung the doorbell,” Zachary observes.
“They wouldn’t have let us in if I did that,” Mirabel responds. She picks up a doorknob—a coppery one with a greenish patina—and glances at its tag. Zachary reads it upside down: Tofino, British Columbia, Canada, 8.7.05. “And they only set the alarm when no one’s on duty.” They walk farther down the hall and she runs her fingers along the ribbons like the strings of a harp. “Can you imagine all the doors?” she asks.
“No,” Zachary answers honestly. There are too many. He reads more tags as they pass: Mumbai, India, 2.12.13. Helsinki, Finland, 9.2.10. Tunis, Tunisia, 1.4.01.
“Most of them were lost before they were closed, if you know what I mean,” Mirabel says. “Forgotten and locked away. Time did as much damage as they did, they’re tying up loose ends.”
“This is all of them?”
“They have similar buildings in Cairo and Tokyo, though I don’t think there’s any order to which remains end up where. These are decorative, there are more in boxes. All the bits that can’t be burned.”
She sounds so sad that Zachary doesn’t know what to say. They start to climb the stairs in silence. The last of the light sneaks in through the windows above them.
“How do you even know he’s here?” Zachary asks, suddenly wondering if this is a rescue mission or if Mirabel has other reasons for being in this space under cover of darkness. The emptiness is starting to feel conspicuous. Too convenient.
“Are you concerned that this might be a trap, Ezra?” Mirabel asks as they turn onto the landing.
“Are you, Max?” he retorts.
“I’m sure we’re much too clever for that,” Mirabel says but then she stops in her tracks as they near the top of the stairs.
Zachary follows her eyes upward to something ahead