“Simon’s the man lost in time,” Dorian says.
“He must be. The man lost in time from Sweet Sorrows even has the coat with the buttons.”
Dorian picks up Sweet Sorrows, flipping back and forth between both books.
“Who do you think is the pirate?” he asks.
“I think the pirate is a metaphor.”
“A metaphor for what?”
“I don’t know,” Zachary says. He sighs and looks back at the man in his painted cage surrounded by so many keys.
“Who is the painter?” Dorian asks at the same time that the voice in Zachary’s head poses the same question.
“I don’t know,” Zachary says. “I’ve seen a bunch that are probably by the same artist. There’s one with bunny pirates in my room.”
“May I see it?”
“Sure.”
Zachary puts Sweet Sorrows and The Ballad of Simon and Eleanor in his bag and Dorian replaces Fortunes and Fables in his pocket and they set off down the hall, one that Zachary sort of recognizes, a tunnel-shaped one where the bookshelves curve with each turn.
“How much have you seen?” Zachary asks as they walk, watching Dorian slow and stare at their surroundings.
“Just a few rooms,” he responds, looking down past his bare feet. The floor in this hall is glass, revealing a room below filled with movable panel screens with stories printed on them, though from this perspective it is a story about a cat in a maze. “The only people I’ve seen are you and that fluffy-haired angel girl in the white robes who doesn’t speak.”
“That’s Rhyme,” Zachary says. “She’s an acolyte.”
“Does she have a tongue?”
“I didn’t ask, I figured it would be rude.”
Dorian pauses at an ornate telescope resting next to an armchair. It is aimed at a window set into the stone wall next to it. He undoes the latch and opens the window. The view beyond it is mostly darkness with a soft light in the distance.
Dorian returns to the telescope and looks out the window through it. Zachary watches as a smile tugs at the corner of his lips. After a moment he steps aside and gestures for Zachary to look.
Once Zachary’s eyes have adjusted to eyeglasses-plus-telescope-lenses he can see into the distance, through a cavernous space. There are windows into other rooms, in some other part of the Harbor, carved into a wall of jagged rock that descends into the shadows, but on the expanse of illuminated stone there rests the remains of a large ship. Its hull is cracked in two, its sea stolen from beneath it. A tattered flag hangs limply from its mast. Piles of books are stacked on the sloping deck.
“Were there sirens here, do you think?” Dorian asks, his voice very close to Zachary’s ear. “Singing sailors to shipwreck?”
Zachary closes his eyes, trying to imagine this ship on a sea.
He turns from the telescope, expecting Dorian to be next to him but Dorian has already moved farther down the hall.
“Can I ask you a question?” Zachary says when he catches up with him.
“Of course.”
“Why did you help me, back in New York?” It is something Zachary has not been able to figure out, thinking that there must be more to it than simply getting his own book back.
“Because I wanted to,” Dorian says. “I’ve spent a great deal of my life doing what other people wanted for me and not what I wanted myself and I’m trying to change. Impulse decisions. No shoes. It’s refreshing in a terrifying sort of way.”
A few turns and a hall filled with stained-glass stories later they reach Zachary’s door. Zachary goes to open it but it is locked. He had forgotten that he locked it and retrieves his keys from beneath his sweater.
“You’re still wearing it,” Dorian remarks, looking at the silver sword and Zachary doesn’t know how to respond to that beyond the terribly obvious affirmation that yes he is still wearing it and rarely takes it off but as he opens the door he is immediately distracted by the indignant howling of the Persian cat that he has accidentally locked inside.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Zachary says to the cat. The cat says nothing, only weaves its way through his legs before heading off down the hallway.