Albert on the Roof

On the fourth night, Albert Sterling came to find him.

It was past eleven. Cassian had been lying on his back with his eyes open, listening to Karl not-sleeping on the far side of the room. The breathing under the floor was steady and slow. He had trained himself to ignore it. He had counted Latin verbs until they meant nothing. Now, as he stared at the cracks in the ceiling, a hand touched his blanket, light as a moth.

He turned his head.

Albert crouched beside the bed in his nightshirt, with his hair standing up and no glasses. His face in the gloom was gray and drawn. He raised a finger to his lips, and then jerked his head toward the door.

Come.

…

They went up by the iron stair.

It was the same roof Leo had shown him, but the fog had gone, and the night was black and clear and ferociously cold. A half-moon stood over the valley. Far below, the school lay in rows of dark slate, silvered at the edges. The wind had dropped. The chapel was a huddle of shadow with a red wound in its flank.

Albert sat down in the lee of the chimney, drew his knees up to his chin, and took something from the pocket of his nightshirt.

A cigarette.

It was bent and crumpled. He held it between two trembling fingers, and then produced a match, and struck it three times before it caught. The flame lit his face from below. It was young and long and frightened. The tip of the cigarette glowed. He drew on it, coughed, and his eyes watered.

"Where did you get that?"

"Stole it from Dunmore's bag." He coughed again. "I've never smoked before. I thought... I don't know what I thought. That it'd be a thing a person did."

"It'll make you sick."

"Good."

They sat in silence.

Cassian had not been alone with Albert since September. He had watched him from across rooms, from the back of the hall, and had looked away. He had not known how to look at him. Albert had hated him, and then pitied him, and then, in some way that no one had named, depended on him. He had learned to walk behind Cassian in corridors. He had learned to sit where Cassian sat.

"I wanted to tell you something," Albert said.

"Go on."

"I don't think you'll like it."

…

"It was in the rehearsal."

His voice was thin. The cigarette trembled in his fingers.

"The week before. Silas was teaching us the hymns, the older ones, in the Chosen's room. He had a book on the stand. A big one, with a leather cover. They said not to touch it. Everybody knew." He closed his eyes. "I was standing next to it. I'd been standing for an hour. I was bored. I was so bored, Cassian. There was a page open, with writing on it, ink, very black, and I looked down and I saw it."

"Saw what?"

"A name. In the middle of the line. Just one word. It was in a different hand from the rest." He swallowed. "And I thought, what harm could it do? It's only a word. I didn't read it out. I just, I put out my finger. And I touched it."

His eyes opened. They were enormous and dry.

"The paper burned."

Cassian said nothing.

"Not a flame. Just a, a heat. Like touching a stove. It went right through my finger." He held the hand up in the moonlight, and Cassian saw it: a faint black print on the pad of the forefinger, like a smear of soot, that had not washed off. "And the page went dark. All of it. Black, from top to bottom. The whole room went cold."

"Silas."

"He was across the room. He looked up. He didn't say anything. He just looked at me." A hiccuping breath. "And then he said, Now you are the Seal."

"Just like that."

"Just like that."

He laughed, a small cracked sound, and put the cigarette to his lips and drew on it and let it fall from his fingers. It rolled a short way over the slates and went out.

"I'd have given anything," he whispered. "Anything. I thought it was a dream. And then I thought, no, it's real, and I'm going to die on the seventh night. That's what a Seal is. That's what it's for."

"I know."

"I know you know." Albert wiped his face on his sleeve. "That's the thing. I hate you. I hate you so much I can hardly stand it. You're the one who was supposed to be saved, and you're not even afraid. You have a, a plan. You've got that face. And you stand in the hall like a man made of rock, and you make me feel like a worm." He was weeping openly now, with his fists pressed against his eyes. "And I hate that you stopped me in the corridor. I hate that I'm alive. I hate that I'm still here to be afraid."

"Albert."

"But you did it." He lowered his hands. His face was a ruin. "You're the only one who ever pulled me out. In the whole of my life. Nobody else even tried."

Cassian found that he had no words.

He put out a hand and laid it on the boy's back. He felt the ribs rise and fall under the thin cloth. He left it there, and neither of them spoke.

…

When the sobbing had quieted, Albert sat up and blew his nose on his sleeve.

"There's something else. I was going to tell you, it's why I came." He sniffed. "I was in the Chosen's room two nights ago, to fetch a, to fetch something. And I heard Silas talking to the Deacon. He thought I'd gone."

"What did he say?"

"About the vault. About who has the keys." Albert looked up. His eyes had a hard bright spark in them. "There are two. The Deacon has one. It's black, on a cord. It opens the chapel and the vestry. And Silas has the other. The little iron one, on his belt. It goes to the door under the altar. The one to the vault."

Cassian went still.

"The Ledger's down there," said Albert. "In a cabinet. They said so. The Ledger is the bond. That's what Silas called it. If anyone should ever..." He stopped. "He sounded afraid. I've never heard him sound afraid."

Ledger.

The word fell into Cassian's head like a coin into a well. He felt a cold excited prickling run along his arms. Leo's whisper. Elias's red margins. The black cabinet.

"Albert," he said. "Why are you telling me?"

"I don't know." A bitter smile. "Maybe I want somebody to try. Maybe I want it to be you. I can't do it myself. I'm a coward. I'm a, I'm just a boy who touched a page." He drew up his knees again. "But you could. I think you could."

"I'll try."

"Don't tell me. I don't want to know."

Cassian nodded.

They sat on in the cold, and the stars wheeled slowly overhead, and neither of them said anything more.

…

Neither of them saw the shape at the foot of the iron stair.

It had been there for some time. It stood in the shadow of the open trap, pressed flat against the wall, a small round-shouldered silhouette with its head tilted to listen. It had come up quietly in its socks. It had crouched, and waited, and heard every word.

It was breathing very carefully, through its mouth.

When the two on the roof rose and began to cross toward the stair, it drew back, and back, and slipped down into the dark, light as a mouse, and the trap door settled without a sound.

In Room 104, a little later, Ronald Fisk lay down on his bed, and pulled the blanket over his head, and shut his eyes tight.

He lay awake till dawn.