For better or worse, hiding, hiding from everyone gave him time to…well, think.
For better or worse it meant he could take stock of what he’d learned, though in truth he wanted to put the word ‘Learned’ into quotations, because everything he used to think he knew seemed well…

What was that phrase? “The only thing I know…is that I know nothing.” – how much more apt could it be?

What did he know?

The book that Heliodora had been reading for school, matched up with a book, at least in general overview, with the town’s history. The princess, the… ‘Indian girl’ there in the same book as well. That chain of information was too much to be simply coincidental, too much to just be something that just ‘happened to be’. What it meant though, he didn’t know, only that it –was.

The princes, the Indian Princess, may or may NOT have been sunny. There was no really good way to tell that he could think of, at least not unless you counted ‘The Library’ – not HIS library, not the familiar one… Rather, the library in OTHER Ashdown. If he ever tried to get back there, he swore to himself. He was going –alone. He didn’t want others to suffer for his choices if he could help it.

But… - BUT, there was a chance he’d need to go back, for answers. Everything seemed to lead back to ‘Other’ Ashdown, the secretive rain slicked flip side to the town that had at one time seemed safe, normal, and welcoming.

He could… infer perhaps, though it didn’t quite feel like the right word, that Sunny was in some way tied to the town itself, or at least to the land on which the Town was Built. The pictures of her in the history book, the painting in the house… the photo of the ‘Boston Wife’ that was her, in mourning attire… her room in the attic, at least, he was fairly certain it was her room. It –seemed- like everything pointed to her perhaps being…stuck here, in this town, though he could not swear to it.

He scrubbed at his face and sighed, trying to rattle information into patterns in his head.

He could be…so very, VERY wrong, but it felt more and more like the strangeness was, increasing. He wondered if it was that the more people who could somehow cross to ‘Other’ Ashdown, the more strangeness leaked into the one time ‘Normal’ Ashdown. Hard to quantify that, it was ultimately little more than speculation.


He knew… he knew that Heliodora, while she had gone missing for them rather recently, felt that she had been in ‘Other’ Ashdown for a lot longer. That she was there for… well, far too long, far far too long. He knew too that she was missing a foot, and that she had ice growing out of her chest. Her companion was ‘Pax’ – and Pax of course meant peace…but Pax called -Autumn- peaceful, kindly… she was at that… but he also knew now he was not suited to whatever roll Fate, or magic had given her.


Sickness churned in his stomach at that thought, he should message her, he should ask someone if they knew if she was all right, if there was any improvement.

He knew…

He knew there was a painting that shared a first name with his Guardian, and something of a resemblance but little more.
He knew there were many more paintings, but he had no way to access them, as important as they seemed he didn’t know where to start.
He knew the artist who painted them… was, very probably using a false name… but he didn’t know if that held significance, or if his observation about the name being similar to Aleksey’s… was a coincidence. He didn’t know either if maybe, A, stood for Algeron, which would tie back to his Guardian.


He knew that his Guardian’s heart was on the line should they fail to save Heliodora and the others.

He knew that something, something that smelled like ash and burning had offered an exchange, his heart – to prevent Sunny from taking Jer’s…but to what –end.
Worse…. Was it stronger than Sunny whom already seemed, strange and both human and inhuman? What if…

The book, the book he’d paged through in Other Ashdown, Sunny speaking to… something, something other. “He made me do it’ – hadn’t she said something to that effect? It seemed both so recent and so long ago that that strange memory that was not his own had been added.

He rubbed his temples and tried hard to think.

He knew there were screams in what passed for that ‘Other’ Library…
But who’s and why?

He knew there were chants as well, but again, no reason or explanation.

Ice… there was fire when that thing spoke to him, offered him answers and deals, fire… Fire and smoke, fire and brimstone, but Heliodora was… Ice. He didn’t know if that meant something. He wondered if that was significant, in that… Ice was the opposite of Fire. Was…. Was the smoldering shadow, some part of what was bound?

But then ice… he’d had that… memory that was ice. Ice in his chest, splinters and shards pushing their way out like they were alive, breaking –ribs- and remembering pain that he had never experienced.

But…
But Autumn had said something in Other Ashdown before it appeared, A journal she had written, but that she never wrote. She said the memory might have been his own memory. Not a… memory picked up from Heliodora with all her ice and injuries. HIS memory… his…

Death.

He couldn’t imagine another outcome to the feeling that he had ‘remembered’. Perhaps that was part of what terrified him that this might have happened before, that there was a history of failure, and that he was doing no better this time around.

Perhaps that he might even… even be doing worse.

Everything…

Everything felt like –his- fault. And what if it was? Ok…no he hadn’t made the other students go to ‘Other’ Ashdown, but He’d asked questions, gone looking, and then Jer had made a deal, and the heart, and then….

And then…

More than that he knew too that whatever the reason, Sunny hadn’t been able to get him ‘Back’ once she sent him. That was strange, terrifying. It meant that maybe he was kept in ORDER to sent the chain of events that happened in motion. Which meant that it –was- his fault because he’d gone and asked questions that he should have left to other people.

He made in half inarticulate sound of frustration. Half a scream into his hands and took a breath.



Bits and pieces, scraps and toys of information and he still, with all this didn’t know… a damn thing.

The only thing he could do, the only thing he felt he COULD do...was to keep digging.