He retrieved it from inside the cab and said, “I almost have it figured out.”
“Show me.”
He demonstrated the sequence: twist, turn, tap. Then he said, “Wait! I get it now!” and added another tap and twist. The compartment popped open, revealing the wax-papered cinnamon candy I’d hidden inside.
He beamed up at me. “You got my favorite!”
“I’m going to need you to eat that candy,” I said, feeling the prick of tears forming behind my eyes. “Empty it as fast as possible, because I have something else you’ll need to keep in there.”
“Right now?” he asked, brightening.
He was so sweet, this brother of mine. Sweet and smart and kingly and kind. “As soon as possible.” I smiled wanly, knowing what was ahead for him, and hoping to distract him from the blood on my shirt and the pain in my eyes. “And then I’m going to tell you a story about a brave little king who hid an army of children in an ancient prophet’s crypt to save them from a wicked queen, then led them on a journey of a thousand miles to freedom and safety.”
“Does this story have a happy ending?” he asked.
I said, “Yes. Because you’ll make it that way.”
34
The bells were still humming when I returned to the tower.
Arceneaux was still moving in on me, seemingly unaware that anything had changed in the lightning-strike second that had passed since I first took hold of the bell. The Malefica’s overtaking of her body was almost complete: only a thin sheen of black smoke still wafted around her body. Below the bell tower, the maze’s portal spell knot was still open, but it would remain so without help only for as long as the eclipse lasted. And already, the red was fading into orange; in mere moments, the shadow would have passed and, with it, my chance.
Instead of fighting off Arceneaux’s attack, I locked my arms around her and pulled her with me out the tower window. Together, we fell down, down, down, through the portal and into the reflected world of the Gray beyond it.
We rolled to a stop, and I pinned Arceneaux’s hands to the ground. “What are you doing?” the voice that was not hers demanded.
“Manere,” I said. Stay.
Then I lifted the bell and rang it over her head. “I declare that you, Isobel Arceneaux, daughter of Onal, descendant of Nola, the Ilithiya’s true daughter, are now Warden of the Ninth Age, the Age of the Crone.”
If the Empyrea wanted me to be the next warden, it meant I should not become the next warden. And that meant there was only one other candidate for the job.
“Isobel Arceneaux, Warden of the Ninth Age, you are now responsible for maintaining the balance between the planes, for ensuring the continuation of the Ilithiya’s work, for the protection of all living things, large and small.”
Isobel Arceneaux was gone now, fully erased to make room for the entity now occupying her body. Underneath her translucent skin, black veins writhed, straining to hold the spirit of a goddess never meant to exist in the material plane.
And now she never would.
She screamed incomprehensibly as I crossed through the portal one more time, making it back to the material plane just as the earth’s shadow disappeared from the moon’s surface.
* * *
Zan stirred as I pulled him down from his chains. “No,” he said deliriously, trying to push me away. “You can’t. Don’t touch me.”
“It’s all right,” I said. “Look at me.” I brushed his hair back from his forehead, cradling his chin in my hands. “I’m choosing my own ending. I have to go one way or another. Why can’t it be like this?”
I kissed his eyes, his jaw, his mouth. Each
kiss was a drop of honey, a sparkling star. And each one revived him just a little bit more.
Zan pulled me into his arms as I weakened, clinging to him with my failing body even while knowing he was causing it to fail. In his eyes, impossible love warred against inevitable loss: He wanted to hold me tighter. He wanted to push me away.
He dropped his head down to my shoulder and said, voice breaking, “Don’t leave me here without you. I can’t do it. I can’t.”
I smiled weakly, feeling another wave of my life ebb away. “I know you can,” I said. “And you’ll have to. But not for long. Not forever.” I touched the firebird charm, returned to its place on his leather cuff. “The frustrating thing about a firebird is that death never seems to stick.”
His breath was coming fast, his eyes full of fragile hope.