The Starless Sea
“It’s true.”
“It’s nonsense,” Simon declares. “You’re playing at something. One does not simply disappear for moments and claim to be vanished for months on end. Here, I’ll show you.”
Simon turns to the door with the heart and steps into the hallway, book in hand.
“Come and see,” he says, turning back to the room, but it is empty. “Lenore?”
Simon steps into the room but there is no one. He looks at the book in his hands. He closes the door and opens it again.
He could not have imagined a girl.
Besides, if there was no girl, where did the book come from?
He turns it over in his hands.
He reads because the reading soothes his nerves.
He waits for the d
oor to open again, but it does not.
ZACHARY EZRA RAWLINS finds Sweet Sorrows exactly where Dorian said it would be, inside the pocket of his paint-splattered coat, thrown over the back of a chair in his room where he had left it after he arrived.
He didn’t even notice. The book is small enough to be slipped into the pocket of a coat without its wearer noticing, especially if said wearer were cold and confused and intoxicated. Zachary feels he should remember. The missed intimacy annoys him.
It’s the first chance he’s had to check, returning to his room after who knows how many hours watching Dorian though he didn’t say another word while Zachary sat and read his book of fairy tales, growing more confused by mentions of the Starless Sea and what seemed like several different Owl Kings. Rhyme relieved him from his watch but he couldn’t follow her explanation of where Mirabel had gone and he now thinks he should have asked her to write it down and wonders if that’s allowed.
His own room feels comfortable and familiar, the fire burning merrily again. He thinks maybe the bed has been made but it’s so fluffy it’s difficult to tell. The Kitchen has sent back his clothes, including his suit, folded and spotless.
He sends his forgotten coat down to see if they can help with that and decides he should probably eat something.
Moments later the bell dings and he finds the Kitchen has taken his request for “all the dumplings” literally but the assortment proves as delicious as it is intimidatingly vast. Single dumplings in countless varieties are presented on individual covered dishes, some accompanied by dipping sauces. Each ceramic cover has a painted scene: a figure going on a journey, the same simple figure repeated on each piece surrounded by a different environment. A forest full of birds. A mountaintop. A nighttime city.
Zachary cannot manage to visit even half of the dumpling destinations so he leaves the rest covered, hoping they will maintain their respective temperatures.
He starts a collection of the blue glass sparkling water bottles along a shelf. Maybe he can find candles to put in them. He’s not opposed to making himself comfortable. He’s already comfortable. The kind of comfortable that involves occasionally lying on the bathroom tile and reminding oneself to breathe.
With his bag back he has his own clothes again but they are not as nice as the clothing from the room. Even comparing his regular glasses against the borrowed ones gives a slight advantage to the newer pair, so Zachary continues wearing them as well.
He finds an electrical outlet by one of the lamps and plugs in his phone, though the effort feels futile.
He sits by the fire and pages through Sweet Sorrows again, relieved to be reunited with it. There are more missing pages than he remembers. Maybe he should show the book to Mirabel. He pauses at the bit about the son of the fortune-teller. Not yet. Well, he’s here now. He’s made it to the Harbor even if he hasn’t found the Starless Sea. Now what?
Maybe he could trace the book backward. Where was it before? He remembers his long-ago library clue. From the library of…somebody. He closes his eyes and tries to picture the piece of paper Elena gave him after Kat’s class, donated by…something foundation…dammit. There was a J, he thinks. Maybe.
Keating. The name comes back to him but he can’t remember the initials. He can’t believe he forgot to bring the piece of paper along.
One thing is certain: He’s not going to find his next move here unless his next move is a nap.
Zachary tucks Sweet Sorrows in his bag, sends his dishes back to the Kitchen and asks for an apple (it sends a silver bowl filled with yellow apples touched with spots of soft blushing pink), and sets off into the wilds of the Harbor again.
He tries not to use his compass but he has no idea what direction he’s moving in at any given time. He finds a room filled with tables and armchairs, some set in individual alcoves around the room and a large empty space with more chairs and a cascading fountain in the middle.
In the bottom of the fountain there are coins, some he recognizes and others are unfamiliar, piles of wishes resting under softly bubbling water. He thinks of the fountain full of keys and the key collector from Dorian’s book and wonders what happened to him.
No one ever saw him again.
He wonders if anyone is wondering what happened to him yet. Probably not.