And these are the secrets.
Turn around.
Canto 3
ONE
The ocean is dark and still, the sky starless; there is no horizon.
A shaft of light violates the void, a sword thrust into the darkness’s heart that swivels my way, etching into my eye the afterimage of a colossus bestriding the harbor. A hundred feet tall, impregnable as a fortress, older than the foundations of the earth.
There is no darkness too deep, no storm too violent, no earthquake nor floodwater nor fire that the colossus cannot endure. It has bestridden the harbor for ten thousand years and will for ten thousand more.
The light draws close; the dark recedes. I feel the ship lolling in the gentle waves, drawn into the light.
And leaning over me, the colossus.
“Yes, it is Warthrop. Yes, you are back in our rooms at the Plaza. Yes, it is late—later than you may imagine. Nearly three o’clock in the morning, the devil’s hour, if you place faith in such things. This is the eleventh day of your impromptu holiday in the land of the Lotophagi. You are dehydrated and very hungry—or you will be once the nausea subsides. Not to worry; I’ve ordered up a full platter once the kitchen opens.”
“Eleven days?” I had trouble forming the words. My tongue felt as large as a sausage.
“Not the longest stretch anyone’s spent in an opium den.” He lowered himself wearily into the chair by the bed. He looked terrible. Unshaven, hollow-cheeked, his eyes red from lack of sleep, cupped in charcoal gray. He poured himself a cup of tea that had long since gone cold.
“How did you find me?”
He shrugged. “It was no complicated matter. Nothing that a dozen or so monstrumologists and half the New York City police department couldn’t resolve.” He sipped his tea, dark eyes sparkling above the rim of his cup. “My greatest concern now is avoiding another crisis: between the loss of T. cerrejonensis and you, I have used up all the favors owed to me.”
“I was not lost,” I said.
“I beg to differ. In fact, I am still not certain if you have been found.”
“I don’t owe you an explanation.”
“I didn’t ask for one.”
“I owe you nothing.”
He nodded. I was surprised. He said, “But I owe you something. An apology. You are quite correct, Will. You did not ask for . . .” He searched for the word. He waved his hand vaguely. “This. But here you are and here I am. Troy is in ashes and somehow you must find your way home, though I am not certain where I stand in the conceit—am I the mainmast to which you tie yourself or am I the faithful Penelope?”
I turned my head away. “You’re not Penelope.”
He laughed gently. “Well, good. I thought you were going to say I was the Cyclops.”
“I think I’m going to be sick.”
“There is a bucket there beside the bed.”
I closed my eyes. The feeling passed. “Your analogy is flawed,” I pointed out to him. “I have no home to return to.”
He did not argue. “Of course, you are always welcome to stay with me.”
“Why would I do that? I am a burden, a hindrance. Everything was perfect until I came along, down to this latest instance.”
“Well, I shan’t pretend it has been the most congenial of arrangements. Ha! Besides tearing the city apart looking for the lost sheep, I have had to bury my surrogate father and make peace with certain elements of the criminal underworld.”
I looked at him. “And did you? Make peace?”
He set down the cup and rubbed his eyes, so hard his knuckles turned white. “Let us say the truce talks are still ongoing.”
“What is their price?” Then I answered my question: “Me. I am the price, aren’t I?”
He dragged his fingers over his cheeks, tugging down the lower lids. “The killer of their padrone and the padrone’s bodyguard are the price—but Mr. Faulk has vanished into the blue.”
I turned away again. He went on: “One thing in our favor is that Competello’s untimely demise has created a vacuum inside their ranks—they are as much concerned with who seizes control as with balancing the scales of justice. It buys some time, at any rate.”
“Time to do what?”
“My vote will be to move our Society’s headquarters to another city—preferably to another continent. Vienna, perhaps. Or Venice.” He grew wistful. “I have always been fond of Venice.”
“There are no more Camorristi in Italy?”
He held up his hands. Did it matter?
I said, “Mr. Faulk did not kill Francesco Competello.”
“That is something that will never leave this room,” he answered.
“Too many secrets,” I murmured.
“What did you say?”
I cleared my throat. It felt as if I’d swallowed a hot coal; the flesh was raw. “You should have told me. If you had, his nephews would be alive and so would he.”
His face had drained of what little color it had. He studied me for a long moment, motionless, expressionless.
“Who would I have confided in?” I asked. I was becoming annoyed. “I have no friends. No family. The grocer or the baker? You know me better. Lilly? Is that it? You were afraid I would tell Lilly? Why would I tell her? She is nothing to me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He forced a smile, the tight-lipped, painful, perfectly Warthropian one. “Opium can be quite pleasant, I understand, but it can also produce hallucinations and paranoid delusions.”
I watched him pour another cup of cold tea. No one else on earth would notice the slight quiver at the ends of his fingers, but I noticed.
“The last of its kind,” I said. “More valuable than a king’s ransom. What might be done with it? You cannot kill it. It goes against everything you believe in. But you can’t keep it secret, either. It very well may be your last, best chance at glory, the immortality you crave because it’s the only sort of immortality you believe in. So you are faced with an impossible choice: kill it, or hide it away somewhere and sacrifice all personal glory.”
He was shaking his head, impassively studying my face. “That is a false choice.”
“Exactly! And you found your way out of it. You had to have an accomplice—well, two. I’m fairly certain you needed Meister Abram on this end, to arrange the Italian guards and the Irish thieves. I don’t think he was Maeterlinck’s ‘client.’ I think that was another monstrumologist—probably Acosta- Rojas.”