Zachary’s relief is temporary, realizing how far they have to go as they enter the giant hall.
“Now we get him checked in,” Mirabel says. “Then you and I are having a real drink, we’ve earned it.”
The walk to the Keeper’s office attracts the attention of a few curious cats who peer out from behind stacks of books and chandeliers to watch their progress.
“Wait here,” Mirabel says, shifting all of Dorian’s weight to Zachary’s shoulder and again it is surprisingly heavy and more something than Zachary would care to admit. “Straight flush, right?”
“I don’t think that term applies to dice.”
Mirabel shrugs and heads into the Keeper’s office. Zachary can’t make out most of the conversation, only words and phrases that make it clear it is more argument than conversation, and then the door swings open and the Keeper marches in his direction.
The Keeper doesn’t even glance at Zachary, focusing his attention on Dorian, pulling his head up and brushing the thick salt-and-pepper hair back from his temples and staring at him, a much more thorough visual exam than Zachary received himself.
“You rolled his dice for him?” the Keeper asks Zachary.
“Yes?”
“You rolled for him, specifically, you did not simply let them fall?”
“Well, yeah?” Zachary answers. “Was that okay?” he asks, half to the Keeper and half to Mirabel who has followed him out of the office with Zachary’s bags slung over her shoulder and a compass and a key dangling from chains in her hand.
“It is…unusual,” the Keeper says but does not elaborate, and seemingly finished with his perusal of Dorian he releases him, Dorian’s head settling on Zachary’s shoulder. Without another word the Keeper turns and walks past Mirabel, and goes back into his office and closes the door. They exchange a pointed look as they pass each other but Zachary only sees Mirabel’s side and her expression doesn’t give away enough for him to interpret.
“What was that about?” Zachary asks as Mirabel helps him with Dorian again, after adding his satchel to the bag collection.
“I’m not sure,” Mirabel answers but doesn’t meet his eyes. “Rule-bending combined with a low-probability roll, maybe. Let’s get him to his room. Don’t trip over cats.”
They make their way down halls that Zachary hasn’t seen before (one is painted copper, another has books hanging from loops of rope) and some too narrow to walk three abreast so they have to pass through sideways. Everything looks bigger and stranger than Zachary remembers, more looming shadows and more places and books to get lost in. Hallways appear to be moving, trailing off in different directions like snakes and Zachary keeps his eyes trained on the floor in front of them to steady himself.
They come to a hall strewn with café tables and chairs, all black, piled with books with gilded edges. One table has a cat: a small silver tabby with folded ears and yellow eyes who regards them curiously. The floor is tiled in black and gold in a pattern like vines. Some of the tiled vines climb the walls, covering the stone up to the curving ceiling. Mirabel pulls out a key and opens a door between the vines. Beyond it there is a room quite like Zachary’s but in blues, the furniture mostly lacquered and black. Not quite art deco blended with the sort of room that looks like it would smell like cigars and kind of does come to think of it. The tiles on the floor are checkered where they’re not covered by navy rugs. The lit fireplace is small and arched. A number of filament bulbs hang unshaded from cords suspended from the ceiling, dimly glowing.
Zachary and Mirabel put Dorian on the bed, a pillow-covered pile of navy with a fanned headboard, and Zachary’s dizziness returns, along with the realization of how much his arms hurt. From the look on Mirabel’s face as she massages her shoulder she likely feels the same.
“We need to have a rule about unconsciousness around here,” she says. “Or maybe we need wheelbarrows.” She goes to a panel near the fireplace. Zachary can guess what it is though this one is a thinner, sleeker door than his own dumbwaiter. “Take off his shoes and coat, would you?” Mirabel asks as she writes on a piece of paper.
Zachary removes Dorian’s scuffed wingtips revealing bright purple socks with individually knit toes and then carefully untangles him from his coat, noticing the paper flower, partially crushed, in the lapel. As Zachary puts the coat down on a chair he tries to uncrush the flower, realizing that he can read it though he remembers that the words had been in Italian.
Do not be afraid; our fate cannot be taken from us; it is a gift.
He starts to ask Mirabel about translations without using the m-word but as the text swims from English to Italian and back again the dizziness intensifies. He looks up and the room is undulating, like he’s underwater and not just underground. He loses his balance, putting a hand out to the wall to steady himself and missing.
Mirabel turns at the sound of the falling lamp.
“You didn’t drink anything while you were tied up, did you?” she asks.
Zachary tries to answer her but crashes to the floor instead.
The girl in the bunny mask wanders the hallways of the Harbor. She opens doors and crawls under desks and stands stock-still in the middle of rooms, staring blankly ahead sometimes for long stretches of time.
She startles those who stumble upon her, though such occasions are rare.
The mask is a lovely thing, antique and likely Venetian though no one recalls its origin. A fading pink nose surrounded by realistic whiskers and gold filigree. The ears stretch above the girl’s head, making her appear taller than she is, a soft pink-gold blush inside giving the impression of listening, catching every sound that breaks the silence resting like a blanket over this place in this time.
She is accustomed to it now, this place. She knows to walk softly and lightly so her footsteps do not echo, a skill she learned from the cats though she cannot make her steps cat-silent no matter how hard she tries.
She wears trousers that are too short and a sweater that is too big. She carries a knapsack that once belonged to a long-dead soldier who never would have imagined his bag ending up on the narrow shoulders of a girl in the guise of a rabbit as she explores subterranean rooms that she has been expressly forbidden to enter.
In the bag there is a canteen of water, a carefully wrapped parcel of biscuits, a telescope with a scratched lens, a mostly blank notebook, several pens, and a number of paper stars carefully folded from notebook pages filled with nightmares.