“Very well, dear. Come along.”
Ms. Chancellor walks ahead of me then turns back, holds her arms out wide, and sweeps them across the massive space that sprawls before us.
“What do you think?”
I think I’m still in a nightmare. A very elaborate nightmare. But I don’t dare tell her that.
I just follow her onto a balcony that is old — no, ancient. But it doesn’t creak beneath my weight. The walls are solid stone. Below us, the floor is composed of glossy white tiles that gleam beneath the massive gaslight chandeliers hanging overhead. A huge stained-glass window shines from high on the wall to my left, its light slicing through the cavernous space, showing the symbol that I have been seeing for days but never really stopped to study until now. We are at least a hundred feet beneath the streets of Valancia. How the light reaches that piece of stained glass I do not know and do not ask. There are far more important questions on my mind.
“What is this place?” I ask, knowing the answer must matter but having no idea exactly how.
“It is the headquarters,” Ms. Chancellor says.
“Headquarters for what?”
But Ms. Chancellor doesn’t answer. Instead, she starts for the steps that spiral down to the floor below. “Come with me, Grace. There is a lot for you to see.”
When we reach the bottom of the stairs, I touch the heavy wooden tables that sit in the center of the room. They’re covered with books that are so old their pages have actually grown thin. I think I could probably see through them if I held them up against a light.
“It’s like a library,” I say, reaching out for one of the old books.
“Not without gloves, dear,” Ms. Chancellor chides. I pull my hand back. “And it’s not like a library, Grace. It is a library. Of a sort.”
That’s when Ms. Chancellor walks by the weapons — rows and rows of them lining one wall. There are spears and swords, daggers and arrows — bows so large they look like they must have been wielded by giants. It makes me think of empires and gladiators and the battle between good and evil. I’ve lived on army bases my whole life, but I’ve never seen anything like this.
“Are those real?” I ask.
“Of course.”
“How old are they?”
“How old is Valancia?” Ms. Chancellor glances over her shoulder and eyes me. She doesn’t wink, but she looks like she might want to. “Come now. There is something in particular you need to see.”
I follow Ms. Chancellor through an arching doorway, down a stone corridor that twists and curves. The ceiling is low, and gaslights burn at even intervals, but even so, the light is dim as it bounces off the old white stone.
There is no sound here, a hundred feet beneath the city. No honking buses or ringing trolley bells. No tourist has ever set foot in these hallowed halls — I’m sure of that. I’m walking in important footsteps, but I have absolutely no idea whose.
Finally, the corridor opens into a large circular room. The ceiling rises, dome-like, above us. And in the center of the room stands a woman, carved from wood. She looks toward a sky that she can’t see, reaches out for a sun that she can’t touch. One wing is unfurled behind her, its tip long since rotted away. Her other wing is broken. And I know this poor angel will never fly again.
“What is this?”
I hold my hand out tentatively, asking for permission, and Ms. Chancellor nods.
“Go ahead, dear,” she says as I touch the old, smooth wood. “It was the masthead of a ship a very long time ago. One of seven ships, to be precise. This is the angel that guided the Grace.”
I spin on her. “The what?”
Ms. Chancellor grins as if to say You heard me. Then she just brings her hands together and asks, “Do you know the story of Adria, dear?”
My grandmother was Adrian. My mother was born here — raised here. I came here every summer for the first twelve years of my life. I’m fluent in Adria’s language, but I don’t know this country, I’m starting to realize. It’s my home, but I still feel like an invader, someone who should be cast outside its walls.
“Mom used to tell us the story,” I say. “But somehow I think it was the wrong one.”
Ms. Chancellor chuckles. “What you and most of the world have been told is true. It is simply a tad bit incomplete. As much of history is wont to be.”
My blood is pounding harder now, like I’ve been running. But am I running to or from? I honestly don’t know.
A chandelier hangs overhead, but the gaslight is dim — a fluttering, flickering thing. So Ms. Chancellor lights a candle and holds it up, walking toward the wall that circles around us.
In the glow, I realize that the wall is covered in canvas. A mural stretches all the way around. Several arching doorways stand at regular intervals, breaking up the scenes.
When Ms. Chancellor raises her hand, her light shines upon sand and ancient strongholds and a scorching sun that reflects off the shining armor of an army riding into battle.
“At the end of the twelfth century, the Third Crusade was coming to an end,” Ms. Chancellor says, beginning the story that every child in Adria learns in the cradle.
On the next panel, sand blends into sea as seven white sails set out for the horizon.
“Sir Fredrick and his knights left the holy land. They took their seven fastest ships and made for England, but a massive storm blew them terribly off course. They couldn’t see the stars. They had long since lost sight of land. Day after day the storm beat on, until these men who had survived years of battle began to fear that they would die there, swallowed by the sea. But then — as the story goes — on the seventh morning, Sir Fredrick saw it.”