Eternity's Wheel (InterWorld 3)

“You would die.”

“Yes.”

“You would willingly die?”

“To save everything? Yes.”

He stared at me, then finally shuddered and looked away. “I don’t believe you,” he whispered. “It’s easy to say you’re willing to die, but to actually do it . . . to simply not exist . . . to miss out on everything . . .”

“I’ll prove it,” I said, holding out my hand. “Take me.”

He looked up. “What?”

“Take my power. Absorb me.”

He looked at my hand like it was a trap, hesitating.

Hue, I thought at the presence in the back of my mind. This is your chance to get out now, little buddy. Tell the others it’s okay, and I’ll miss them. Tell them Joeb’s in charge.

There was the general feeling of negation from somewhere inside my head. Hue, do you understand what I’m about to do?

Acceptance.

You’ll die, bud. I don’t want that. Go on.

Negation.

Hue, go on! You have to tell them for me!

Negation, sympathy, acceptance.

You’re one in a million, buddy.

Agreement. It struck me that Hue, despite being of a race many of us feared, had proven himself time and again to be a valuable teammate. I almost laughed out loud, and I wondered suddenly if Hue might actually be one of us, too. Joseph Harker, multidimensional life-form edition. Hell, it didn’t seem that unlikely.

“Absorb my power,” I said again to Joaquim, still holding out my hand. “I have Hue with me right now, I can see and understand a lot more than if I were by myself. Let me join with you, with FrostNight, and I’ll stop it. I’ll destroy it from the inside. You won’t have to do a thing.”

“I’ll still die,” he whispered.

“And so will I, and so will Hue. But everyone else will live, and that’s more important than anything.” He hesitated again, and I took a breath, grasping at straws.

“You have the memories of a hundred different Walkers, Joaquim—you said that once. Right?”

He nodded.

“You have the memories of their deaths, right?”

He hesitated again. “Some of them . . .”

“Can you honestly tell me that none of them went into this knowing and accepting that they might die?”

He flinched. Some of the lights within him grew dimmer, others brighter. “They were so afraid . . .” he whispered.

“Of course they were afraid. I’m afraid. I don’t want to die,” I admitted, feeling my stomach tighten into a knot with the truth of it. “But if it’s the only way to save everything, I will. You know I will. Come on. You and me, Joaquim. The saviors of the Multiverse.”

He snapped his head up, looking into my eyes, then at my hand. He moved, translucent and shimmering and glowing with the memories of a hundred lives. He took my hand.

“I, Joseph Harker,” I said. He looked at me.