The Starless Sea

The time has come. They have waited so long.

They screech and celebrate until the sea is so high that they too must seek shelter.

The Starless Sea continues to rise.

Now it floods the Harbor, pulling the books from their shelves and claiming the Heart for itself.

The end has come.

Here now is the Owl King bringing the future on his wings.

ZACHARY EZRA RAWLINS tumbles through a curtain of cashmere and linen, pulling down sweaters and shirts as he and Dorian crash back through the wardrobe, the tunnel behind them collapsing, sending up a cloud of dust.

In Zachary’s chamber most of the books have toppled from their shelves. The abandoned bottle of wine has fallen, spilling its contents over the side of the desk. The bunny pirates are shipwrecked on the floor by the fireplace.

Another tremor brings the wardrobe crashing down and Zachary runs for the door with Dorian at his heels. Zachary grabs his bag and slings it over his shoulder.

Zachary heads for the Heart, not knowing where else to go, wondering where exactly one is supposed to go during an earthquake when one is underneath the earth.

The tremors cease but the damage is evident. They trip over fallen shelves and furniture, pausing to free a tabby cat from under a collapsed table. The tabby flees without thanking them.

“I didn’t think she’d actually do it,” Dorian says, watching the cat jump over a fallen candelabra pooling beeswax on the stone before disappearing into the shadows.

“Do what?” Zachary asks but then there is a crash ahead of them and they continue on, in the opposite direction from the cat, which Zachary silently notes as a bad sign.

Just before they reach the Heart, where someone is shouting but Zachary cannot make out the words because of a clanking metallic noise, Dorian pulls him back and puts his arm out against the wall, blocking Zachary’s path forward.

“I need you to know something,” Dorian says. From the Heart there is another crashing sound and Zachary looks off in the direction it came from but Dorian reaches up and turns Zachary’s face to his own, tangling his fingers in Zachary’s hair.

So quietly Zachary can barely hear him against the continuing clamor, Dorian says, “I need you to know that what I feel for you is real. Because I think you feel the same. I have lost a lot of things and I don’t want to lose this, too.”

“What?” Zachary asks, not certain he’s heard correctly and wanting way more information about what kind of feelings he’s referring to and also curious as to why, exactly, Dorian has chosen a particularly inopportune time to have this conversation but it turns out it is not a conversation at all, because Dorian holds his gaze for only a moment more before releasing him and walking away.

Zachary remains against the wall, dazed. More books tumble from shelves nearby as the floor trembles again.

“What is happening right now?” he asks aloud and no one, not even the voice in his head, has an answer.

Zachary adjusts his bag on his shoulder and follows Dorian.

As they reach the Heart the cause of the clanking sound is clear: The clockwork universe has collapsed, its pendulum swinging freely and tangling around large loops of metal, something above futilely attempting to move them and they rise and fall at irregular intervals, hammering against the floor, smashing already cracked tiles into dust. The golden hands are intact but one now tilts toward the cracking tile below and the other points accusingly at the pile of rock where the door to the elevator used to be.

The shouting grows louder, coming from the Keeper’s office. Dorian stares up at the collapsing clockwork and Zachary realizes Dorian never got to see the Heart the way it was and everything unfolding around them feels acutely unfair and upsetting and for a moment—just a moment—he wishes they had never come here.

The Keeper’s voice is the first one that becomes distinguishable.

“I did not allow anything,” he says—no, yells—at someone Zachary cannot see. “I understand—”

“You don’t understand,” a voice interrupts and Zachary recognizes it more because Dorian freezes beside him than he actually recalls what Allegra sounds like. “I understand because I have seen where this will lead and I will not let it happen,” Allegra says and then she appears in the office doorway in her fur coat, facing them with her red lipstick twisted into a grimace. The Keeper follows her, his robes covered in dust.

“I see you are still alive, Mister Rawlins,” Allegra remarks calmly, casually, as though she were not yelling a moment before, as though they are not standing amongst broken, clanking metal and fluttering pages liberated from their bindings. “I know someone who would be pleased about that.”

“What?” Zachary says even though he means who and the question is muffled by the din behind him and Allegra doesn’t answer.

For a second her eyes flick back and forth between him and Dorian, the one blue eye brighter than Zachary remembered, and he has an impression of being looked at, being truly seen for the first time, and then it is gone.

“You don’t even know,” she says and Zachary cannot tell if she’s speaking to him or to Dorian. “You have no idea why you’re here.” Or both, Zachary thinks, as she turns her attention squarely on Dorian. “You and I have unfinished business.”

“I have nothing to say to you,” Dorian tells her. The universe punctuates his statement with a clanging thud on the tiled floor.