meet him, but what are the odds of two who know each other arriving in my care in my moment? Surely astronomical. Your look tells me that you remain confused, which is as it must be, and no matter, for you’ll lose this conversation shortly. The ride, the smells, the caterwauls, the beast that draws us—all will fall away. For now . . . you have but to choose.”
“But what am I choosing?”
“What everyone chooses. What your Diverus chose.”
Frustrated, she folded her arms. He shifted on the seat and his forehead furrowed, giving her the impression that if he had known more, he would have told her, but the larger picture was as obscure to him as it was to her.
She asked, “How do I make the choice?”
“You say stop. The carriage stops. You pick your prize, whatever it might be, and this all comes to an end.”
Leodora said, “I see,” although she didn’t. His explanation explained nothing. She was to decide without knowing. How could Diverus have chosen when he had no mind to think with? And yet he had—had chosen the divine gift of music. There really wasn’t anything she wanted, except perhaps shoes for her feet, which had almost gone numb on the pavement. If Diverus had taken this same carriage ride, how would he have known when he’d arrived at the thing he wanted? Or had they healed him first? There seemed to be no point in asking if she wasn’t going to remember the answers anyway.
She closed her eyes and listened to the carriage, the creak of wood and leather. The roll and jounce traveled through her, the steady rhythm of the hooves of the beast pulling her down into reverie or dream, a senseless state that was neither alertness nor slumber.
Then all at once she cried “Stop!” and the carriage drew to a halt so fast that she lurched out of her seat and back again.
Her companion, his eyes half lidded, remarked, “Excellent choice.”
“What?” She had said stop. She had come alert. But she had no idea what had provoked the response.
“Go,” he said, and opened the carriage door. “Quickly now. Once you choose, you’ve only a brief time to retrieve.”
“Don’t you—”
“No, I do not,” he answered as if he had known her question before she even spoke. “I give you a golden string, but I await you here.”
He gestured with the stick, and she climbed down from the carriage. The humid fog was as thick as before, the bricks of the street slick and fetid. She stepped up onto a raised walk, which proved smoother underfoot. Crossing it, she came upon wide steps going up and, beside them, a smaller set that descended beneath the level of the walk.
Up or down? She’d called out, chosen this spot, but didn’t know why nor how to proceed. Up or down? It would matter. It must. Yet how was she to proceed when she didn’t know what had prompted her, what compelled her now? Up or down?
She stared at the arrangement of the stairs, railings, the wide blank doors just visible at the top of the steps. Uncertainly, she started up, her hand on the cold iron rail. She looked over the side of it. The lower stairwell curved beneath the steps, leading to a doorway that was upside down as she viewed it. The arrangement reminded her of the inverted world she’d glimpsed under Colemaigne and of the underworld of Vijnagar. There were secret worlds enfolded in her world. And Diverus was from the secret world, sent to it after he’d stood upon the Dragon Bowl. These thoughts, notions, observations interlaced, although why they should she couldn’t say. She had to operate on instinct and nothing more. Instinct instructed her to descend, just as it urged her to hurry.
She ran down the lower steps, which were black and worn as from a thousand years of use. Inset in the wall to her right was a window, its other side framed in lace. She peered in upon a chamber beneath the sidewalk where a rose-red lamp glowed warmly. Farther back in the room were people—a family, two parents and three children. They looked happy, contented, affectionate, oblivious of her presence, though she must have blotted out the light as she pressed to the glass. Tenderness for them consumed her—a longing to be in that room, part of that family, to be so loved. The ache of that desire drove her from the view and down the