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Because therewereduplicates, weren’t there?Of all of them.Zara—my Zara—was a fashionable witch and coven leader back on Earth, with no clue about any of this.

I plopped down beside this version, feeling stunned, and realizing that yeah, I’d just screwed up the timeline, hadn’t I?

Royally.

She patted my hand.“Don’t worry,” she told me.“Miri, Odina, and I are going back to Earth as soon as possible to knock some sense into our younger selves, along with the rest of the covens!”

“What?”I asked, not sure we were talking about the same thing.

She indicated Topknot and Gray Curls, sitting on her other side, stuffing themselves with more food than they’d probably seen in decades, and wearing fluttering dresses of pale saffron and light blue, which put my simple tunic to shame.

“They’re being damned fools,” Topknot, or Miri I guessed, said around a mouthful of fish.“The whole lot of ‘em.”

“Not for long.”Odina agreed.“Wait until I get my hands on them!”

“We didn’t join in the war,” Zara explained, seeing my confusion.“Not a single coven.Too lost in bitterness against the Circle to see that, if they fell, we all did.This isn’t just their fight, and the covenswillfall in line.You have my word on that.”

“Thank you,” I told her sincerely.I did not envy her that challenge.But if anybody was up to it…

And I supposed the threat to the timeline was minimal, if there was one, considering that I hadn’t changed the past but the future.Something we were trying to do, to avoid the fate that lay in store for us if we didn’t.And if they could help… well, maybe this was a good thing.

I decided to go with that, since there wasn’t a lot I could do about it otherwise.

“What about the others?”I asked, after a moment.

“What?Oh, yes,” she said, following the direction of my gaze to the other end of the table, where Purple Hair and Butch Cut were wearing matching pale green dresses with a thousand tiny pleats, and staring at the sea as if they’d never seen it before.Which, if they’d both been born in the post-apocalyptic Vegas desert, maybe they hadn’t.“Elspeth and Cara were born after the Fall,” Zara confirmed.“So they don’t have younger selves to worry about.”

“It’s like a dream here,” Cara said, the crown of ribbons around her shorn head dancing in the breeze.

“Maybe for you,” Elspeth said, touching her lavender tresses, which somebody had braided with flowers.“My dreams aren’t this good.”She looked at me.“Is Earth like this?”

“Earth is… different,” I said, wondering what they’d make of it when all they’d known was ruins.“But you’ll see it soon enough.”

“Not so soon.We’ve agreed to stay here for a while and help with the transition.”

“What transition?”

“The new reality,” Bodil said, as the servant who had been making his way around the table reached her and refilled her goblet with wine.“Thank you,” she told him, causing the man almost to drop the pitcher.

“I—I—yes,” he said, wide-eyed, and fled.

I watched him go.“Did I miss something?”

Bodil grinned.And it was such a surprising expression on that stoic face, a look of pure joy, that, for a moment, I was almost weirded out.Then I noticed that those dark eyes weren’t on me, and I looked over my shoulder.

And saw her granddaughter, Rieni, leading Alphonse up the hill.

It was a little mid-twisting, as the last time I’d seen her had been in a ruined Faerie as a zombie being puppeted around by the goddess whose world this was.Although that was almost impossible to remember now, looking at the cheeky young girl in a pale-yellow tunic and trousers, the latter tucked into thigh-high brown leather boots, the kind needed for riding the sorts of steeds they kept here.

She’d started wearing her hair in multiple small braids like her grandmother.In a few years, she’d look just like her.And probably be as formidable, I thought, noticing how easily she led a scary-looking master vampire around.

Although Alphonse was less scary than usual today.He’d cleaned up in a dark-blue ensemble with draperies up top and tight-fitting trousers below.It looked a lot like the one Pritkin was wearing, except his was gray-green.

Thank you, Cassie, Bodil’s voice drifted through my head as she regarded her jewel, as she thought of her.I couldn’t blame her; Rieni shone like the sun.

“You missed the announcement,” Alphonse told me, grabbing a dish of little fish while Rieni sat beside her grandmother.

“The new king freed the slaves,” Rieni informed me.“All of them, just this morning.”