Page 40

I woke up in a gorgeous suite that was more like a round pavilion perched on a mountainside overlooking the sea. Half of the walls were just columns draped with diaphanous white curtains, and sunlight glistened on the water far below. It reminded me of the triskelion spell so much that, for a minute, I was back there, in a soot-filled ruin of a library, staring death in the face.

And then Pritkin rolled over and pulled me close, mumbling something in his sleep.

I lay there for a while, feeling dizzy and trying to sort out what I was seeing from my memories. It didn’t help that my recall of the previous day was hazy, especially the period shortly after we’d returned from that other time. Separating from Father’s spell had been rough, and then our landing had been… disorienting.

We’d popped back into our time in the middle of a huge crowd of yelling and cheering people, half of whom were already drunk, and the rest were working on it. Maybe because we’d shown up just in time for the final challenge in the contest for the throne that the Alorestri were holding. Which, judging by the bets being placed, was about to begin.

It had been too much, too fast, fearing for our lives one minute, and being caught up in a happy, boisterous crowd the next, full of laughing people in colorful silks, with no scars on their bodies or trauma in their eyes. And no idea just how fast everything could fall apart.

It was like watching them dancing on the edge of a knife without even knowing it was there.

It was obscene.

I saw Mircea through the throng, staring around with something almost like horror on his face, while the witches huddled together and looked as weirded out as they had been by the murderous group of gods. Maybe more so, as they’d seen gods. I didn’t think they’d seen anything like this.

None of us knew what to do, and I’d been too exhausted to figure it out. The scene had been spinning around me to the point that it was all I could do to find a seat on the rugged cliffside we were standing on before I passed out. And stare stupidly down at the perilous obstacle course set up on a long stretch of beach.

I’d assumed we were all going to do that, just find a place to observe, since we couldn’t afford to win. But then I’d noticed ?subrand and Pritkin having an intense-looking conversation off to the side while the crowd gave them the stink eye. And I started to get worried.

Not about the crowd’s reaction, as our whole party was getting the same looks from those close enough to notice us. We were all dressed worse than servants, in dirty, blood-stained tunics that had definitely seen better days, and in ?subrand’s case, a few filthy pieces of armor that he’d concealed under a shawl. To say that we stood out in the sleek and perfectly coiffed crowd was an understatement.

But then I was back on my feet, bone-weary though I was, because—

“What are they doing? ”

“It’s alright,” Enid moved to my side.

“How is it alright? They’re going down there!”

And they were. Pritkin and ?subrand, instead of coming over and finding a seat, were jumping down the cliffside like two mountain goats and then running across the beach. Within seconds, I almost couldn’t see them anymore; just two stubborn heads, one bright gold in the sunlight and one a shining silver banner, joining the other contestants and getting booed by the crowd, who had probably thought we had dropped out, having missed the last two trials.

“Yes,” Enid agreed. “Mage Pritkin has offered to join Prince ?subrand’s cohort; therefore, both of his wins now belong to him.”

“ ?subrand is going to be king?” I said, understanding nothing.

“Well, he has to win first.”

I rolled my eyes. Because traversing a death-defying obstacle course that wound in and out of the water, featured beasts of sea and land, and doorways that were spelled to be fiendishly hard to open, might intimidate most people. But after what those two had been through?

This was a walk in the park.

But there was still a problem.

“What if the Alorestri won’t accept him, either? What if the same thing happens when he tries to lead them into battle?”

“It won’t.” Her lips quirked. “If I know anything about these fey, they are loyal to blood above all, and he has ancestors from all three royal houses. It is one reason Lady Bodil chose to back him. She knew that, of all people in Faerie, his right to rule could not be questioned.”

She looked teary-eyed when she said it, which I hadn’t understood at the time, but there had been no moment to ask before a row of massive conch shells sounded and the race began. And tired or not, traumatized or not, limping badly in ?subrand’s case or not, the two tore through the competition like a hot knife through butter. And Enid and I had screamed ourselves hoarse in support, because it was all either of us had had the strength left for.

It was only after the fact, when the fickle crowd was going mad and chanting ?subrand’s name, and fluttering bits of silk were raining down everywhere, because the Alorestri had to be extra even about their confetti, and horns were blaring and music was playing from five different orchestral setups, and I was wondering if this was finally going to be what deafened me, that I realized what Enid’s problem was.

She thought this was the end for them.

She thought this was where they became prince and scullery maid again, and it was to her credit that she was still applauding him even through her tears, as confetti showered her bright red hair and stuck to her wet cheeks.

I hadn’t known what to say, and fortunately, I didn’t try. Because there he came: climbing rapidly up the cliff face, looking cleaner than before thanks to all the water on the course, but no less beaten up, and finally surmounting the top and staring around frantically. For the only person in this whole crowd he gave a damn about.

And that was when I had what little remained of my mind blown. When he finally spotted Enid, he didn’t even hesitate. He pushed his way through the masses, picked her up, spun her around, and right in front of a crowd of thousands, kissed her full on the lips.

And then held up one of the shocked girl’s arms.

“ My queen! ” he yelled, loud enough for there to be no doubt in anybody’s mind what he’d said. And I’d found myself grinning like an idiot, because damn. I hadn’t thought he’d had it in him.

I found myself still grinning foolishly now, as I lay in bed, staring up at a dome painted with a school of jellyfish so realistic that they seemed to move. Or maybe that was me, as the bed also seemed to be rotating slightly. Not from any physical cause—for once, I’d returned from a mission without needing intensive care—but from the immense changes that had taken place in such a short time that my brain was still trying to catch up.

I’d been too tired to concentrate on much yesterday, barely managing to stay on my feet long enough to make it here before I face-planted. And the whole way, I’d stared at my mud-covered boots or the back of the obsequious flunky who had guided us here rather than the gorgeous scenery. It looked like pictures I’d seen of Greece, with sparse vegetation studding chalk white cliffs and with azure blue water visible from pretty much every vantage point. But I couldn’t enjoy it, because whenever I tried, I felt dizzy again, which was a problem for a palace built on a mountainside!

Falling asleep, I’d assumed I’d be better by today, but it still felt so surreal. As if I was trying to wake up from a very disorienting dream and not quite managing it. Or from one of the illusions the Alorestri crafted so well and so convincingly that, when I closed my eyes, I didn’t know what I’d see when I opened them: this, or that other time.

Because they both couldn’t be real, right?

It didn’t seem possible, even when I rolled over, reached out, and felt the suede of my filthy boots, stained with sweat and blood and soot from my ruined library. And still damp from the water that a senior god had used to try to flay me alive. I jerked my hand back, only to encounter the cool, pristine marble of the floor, and had a shudder tear through me.

For a moment, I genuinely wasn’t sure where I was or who I was, even with my eyes open.

“Cassie,” Pritkin mumbled, probably missing my warmth as I tried to breathe through an incipient panic attack.

“Go back to sleep,” I told him. “Just… getting a bath.”

It worked because he was still mostly asleep, and I managed to keep my tone neutral. And then decided to make a truth out of the lie because I was filthy. I found clothes in a chest that was bigger than me, and had another moment of crisis kneeling there, staring at gossamer stuff that I didn’t dare touch because the rough skin of my fingertips would catch on the fine material.

Finally, I found another tunic, mostly devoid of ornamentation, as I think it was supposed to be an undergarment. But it still had delicate pink coral embroidered along the bottom and was made of a pale, silvery stuff like shot silk, only finer. But it was literally the plainest thing there, so I took it and wandered around the extensive pavilion until I found an outdoor shower.

It was built of piled gray stones that looked like river rocks, worn smooth by long submersion in rushing water. And tastefully weathered wood that formed a stall allowing me privacy, not that anyone else was there. I cleaned myself up using toiletries that smelled like a seaside garden, faintly floral and bracingly fresh, then just stood there for a long time, staring out at the sea.

I didn’t like it here. It was too perfect, too fresh-smelling, too clean . I remembered the smells of that other place: rain and gunpowder from Stratford and the strange, spicy heat of the imps; dust and heat and adobe baking in the sun, along with the scent of frying tortillas and roasting corn from the incubus town; the biting taste of Gray Curl’s homemade hooch as we sat in the desert watching Pritkin sing it a song; Pigville smelling like a latrine, but better than elsewhere in Vegas, which had been highlighted by blood and spent magic and spilled intestines—

Excellent, you’re finally up , Bodil’s voice said.

I jumped, and almost screamed, just barely managing to hold it in, but not the litany of curses worthy of Alphonse that followed.

Oh, then you don’t want breakfast? I could almost see the raised eyebrow.

“We had better go,” Pritkin said sleepily from behind me, a towel thrown over his shoulder. “She doesn’t hear the word ‘no’ often.”

“Maybe she should get used to it!” I snapped, my heart still pounding. But then she sent an image, including smells, of the feast that waited somewhere nearby, and my neglected stomach rumbled plaintively.

“We have to eat sometime,” he told me, and hugged me close.

It helped a little.

Breakfast was waiting in another pavilion, built slightly lower on the side of the hill with a peaceful morning view of the sea. More columns supported more diaphanous, cloud-like curtains, and a gorgeous mosaic floor glimmered underfoot in greens, blues, grays, and golds, with a group of frolicking porpoises that were almost as realistic as the jellyfish. And the promised feast was every bit as lavish as everything else around here. I didn’t even mind that said tables were built so low that we had to sit cross-legged on some pillows to eat at them, or recline like an ancient Roman as Bodil was doing.

And she wasn’t alone.

The witchy contingent had cleaned up as well and looked good, if rather wide-eyed. Zara wore a multi-layered dress of cascading blue petals that fluttered in the slightest breeze. It suited her far better than the black thing she’d had on when I first saw her, or the blood-soaked tunic she’d been wearing yesterday. Her olive skin still looked a bit pale, and her voice was breathy when she spoke from blood loss, but someone had tamed the mass of grizzled hair into a sleek chignon that reminded me of Rhea’s—

“Don’t,” she said, seeing my face. “Your heir is on Earth, your Earth, with no knowledge of all those years of pain and suffering. I think that was one reason she stepped back in the library. She didn’t want to remember.”

“She won’t,” I said thickly.

“And neither will our counterparts,” she added, ripping into what looked like a chicken leg with a tad more viciousness than technically required.

“Counterparts?” I repeated before the reality hit me.

Because there were duplicates, 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 covens will fall 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.”

I almost choked, causing Alphonse to pat me on the back in what he probably thought was a gentle manner. “What?”

She nodded. “I suppose it’s hard to keep them in thrall when he’s about to marry one, although it’s going to be a mess for ages. Who will help me in the stables now?”

“Many will choose not to leave,” Bodil predicted, as Alphonse settled on Pritkin’s other side. “Although we will have to pay them, I suppose. My budget may never recover.”

Everybody started talking about who would stay, who would go, and how the covens would need to step up and help the returned integrate into human society. “As if most of them would know!” Odina said sarcastically. But I just sat there, with the disorientation I’d been feeling since I returned increasing rapidly, along with the knot of worry in my stomach.

“Something wrong?” Pritkin asked, but I just shook my head.

“Not to mention that you also missed the broadcast,” Alphonse added, watching me.

I blanked my face and tried to act less like a ball of nerves. “Broadcast? I didn’t think the fey had TV.”

“They do now,” he said, glancing at Bodil.

“What’s going on?” I asked, wondering if I wanted to know.

“Oh, nothing. It’s just, after she got a chance to rest, Lady Bodil here decided that repeatedly explaining everything that had happened to us wouldn’t be fun. So she did it all at once.”

“All at once?”

“She sent her memories of everything from the time we left Faerie until our return directly into the minds of everyone at court,” he said deadpan. “It caused a bit of an uproar.”

“Uproar?” Zara cackled. “I suppose that’s one way of putting it. You do know how to make an impression!” she said to Bodil, who gracefully inclined her head.

“And they believed you?” I asked.

“Feltin did not,” she said, speaking of Nimue’s old lover, who was currently in charge of the government—and in bed with the dark. “He was quite insistent on that fact. But I am not the only person at court with my gift, and others verified that I spoke the truth.”

“Yes, but—”

“And then there was this,” she added, parting the draperies over her simple lavender tunic and slacks ensemble. And revealing—

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, staring at the place where a beautiful, slender arm should have been. Instead, a healed-up stump resided there, almost back at the shoulder level. “I tried to heal you…”

“You did, or I would have bled out in that terrible lobby,” she said mildly. “But your abilities seemed to stop short of regrowing limbs.”

“I don’t think that’s something Mircea can—” I began, before belatedly realizing something. “Mircea! Where—he was here! I saw him on the hillside—”

“He was here,” Pritkin assured me. “He left last night to go back to Earth. He said reporting to the consul couldn’t wait.”

I flashed back to that look of almost horror I’d seen on his face amid all the laughing, oblivious people, and didn’t think reporting was his only motivation to get away.

“But he wants your help with something when you have time,” Pritkin added.

It didn’t take me but a second.

“He wants to go with Dory into Jotunheim,” because, of course, he did. I could still see his expression when telling us what had happened there. The gods had taken a great deal from Mircea, and the man I knew would never rest until he had taken it back.

“Yes.” Pritkin looked at me oddly. “And you’re going to let him.”

I nodded.

“Even though it requires taking him back in time?”

“He could take himself,” I pointed out. It would be an easy jump, as Dory must have just left, and Mircea still had our bond. Although I somehow didn’t think he would use it.

The man I’d met in that terrible future had seen how fragile our existence was, how delicate the balance, how easily it could all be overturned. I didn’t think this was a game to him anymore, or about power or pride or vengeance or whatever had once motivated him. It was about survival.

He would wait for me, and I would be there.

“What about your oath as Pythia?” Pritkin asked, watching me.

That took all of about a second as well.

“What oath? My elevation to the position was so weird that nobody ever got around to administering one. And frankly, having seen what takes place if we lose, I’m fine helping to make sure that future never happens.”

“Agreed.” He clinked goblets with me.

“It doesn’t have to,” Zara said. “Thanks to Rhea, we know the where and the how of the gods’ invasion, and before he left, Mircea gave us the when. Plus, we now know how to kill those bastards! No wonder they murdered everyone who had command over multiple elements. They feared we’d figure out that we had a weapon against them after all, one that actually works!”

I didn’t say anything.

But as usual, my poker face sucked.

“What is it?” Bodil asked, and I was grateful that, for once, she didn’t just pluck it out of my mind.

“It’s just… my plans never go quite like I expect.”

“As long as they work,” she said serenely.

“We’ll make them work,” Pritkin promised and squeezed my hand.

“Here’s to crazy plans,” Alphonse said, and everyone clinked glasses around the table.

Everyone but me.