Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls - Jane Lindskold [59]
“King?” she starts to ask, then nods. “You think that we’ll find them in that building? Why?”
I smile bitterly. “I remember, I remember the house where I was born, the little windows where the sun came peeping in the morn.”
The other two are stirring, restless and curious at the reason for our delay. Abalone beckons them forward and explains.
“Shouldn’t we let Sarah lead?” Midline suggests. “She may remember something else, an’ the owl can scout for her.”
Abalone agrees, promising to be as close as my shadow, and now I lead the way across the park. The well-tended lawn springs beneath my soft-soled shoes and the night wind whispers through the new leaves on the trees. From the bag slung across my shoulder like a bandolier, I can hear Betwixt and Between muttering to each other, but I do not shift my focus to listen.
Ahead is the building and my memory fills in details that the darkness does not reveal. It is stone, rough and red, grainy to the touch, though not crumbly like sandstone.
The lower floor will not interest us. It is mostly offices and entertainment areas: a ballroom, a conference center, a lounge. The second floor is labs and test areas, some recreational facilities, but these are for the patients, not for the guests: treadmills to measure heart and respiration, rooms with walls of one-way glass, an Olympic swimming pool.
The third floor is our goal. Rooms for the resident patients. Dylan. Me. A kitchen and dining area. A playroom. Somehow it does not occur to me to wonder if this will have changed with the passing years. Maybe the place itself tells me. Change of that sort is not important to its purpose.
Purpose.
Something touches a buried memory, but eludes me like the moth Athena futilely snaps at as she soars just ahead of us. Then we have arrived in the building’s shadow and the others are waiting for me to tell them what to do.
The building’s flat roof makes an entry directly into the third floor seem possible, especially if we target one of the empty rooms. Holding a finger to my lips, I motion for the others to take cover behind some azaleas thickly covered with red flowers that smell faintly sour. Then I send Athena to look in each window, charging her to remember what was within each.
After a few moments, she returns. Her report does not take the form of anything as simple as words, but I manage to learn that most of the rooms are empty of all but dust and darkness. One or two show signs of human inhabitants, but none of these are a man with white hair and pale green eyes. More than this is beyond my limited ability to understand.
I reassure myself that both the second-and third-story windows above us are dark and the rooms untenanted before I turn to the others, who are waiting with nervous tension.
I gesture upward, motioning as if swinging a grapple.
Professor Isabella looks sharply at me. “You think we should climb up?”
I nod and Midline purses his lips, surveying the height involved.
“We can do that,” he says, pulling gear from his belt.
“Okay,” Abalone whispers. “Anchor a line to the roof and I’ll go first. I want to check if the upper windows are wired. The lower ones are.”
Midline steps just outside of the azaleas’ shelter and I fight the impulse to huddle small. If anyone sees him, we are all in equal danger. But the night remains quiet and the stretch of park is uninterrupted by guards or other hazards.
A nearly inaudible clunk announces that the grapple has found purchase and Abalone climbs upward with the primate grace of one of the Free People. She stops outside of the third-story window and wrestles out her tappety-tap.
Something troubles her. She hangs there, studying a reading. Then from a pouch at her waist she removes tiny tools, visible only as points of light in the shadows. After working for a moment, she presses up against the window frame.
I hear Professor Isabella intake her breath in apprehension, but no alarms go off and Abalone vanishes within. Midline gestures for me to go next and I scramble up, certain that I will be spotted. Yet, I