35
THE CHOICE
To change the world, change first a heart.
THE GARDEN LADY
Jason rode on Delightful Glitter Lady’s back through the crowded streets of Far Seeing, like a king. “Are you sure you don’t want to ride up here?” Jason asked Baileya.
“I do not wish to be so conspicuous,” Baileya said, but Jason had already seen several people take note of her Kakri clothing and her double-bladed staff and give her a wide berth.
“It’s not every day you get to ride a rhino,” Jason said absently, watching the tower. “Unicorn, I mean.” They were at the bottom of the stairs, quite a way from the massive garden at the base of the palace. They were supposed to wait until Madeline, Shula, and Yenil reached the main entrance. If they entered without any trouble, Jason and Baileya would follow a little way behind. If there was a problem, they’d make some noise and see if that helped them slip inside the tower.
An Elenil guard stopped them. He glanced at Baileya, who had hidden her staff in her sleeves. “You cannot bring weapons into the courtyard unless you are Elenil.”
Jason flexed his biceps. “You talking about these guns?”
The guard clearly had no idea what Jason was talking about. Baileya gave him a quizzical look too. Whatever. That was comedy gold. Fine. He went back to the original plan. “I don’t have any weapons, sir.” That was true. Jason wasn’t carrying a single weapon.
The guard gestured to Dee. “This unicorn is a war beast.”
“Ha!” Jason shouted. “THIS IS A PEACETIME UNICORN.”
“I do not know what that means.”
“It means she is retired from military service and is now a civilian unicorn.”
The guard’s hand fell onto the hilt of his sword. “You cannot go farther unless you shrink your unicorn to its smallest size. And where is your Elenil guide?”
Jason pulled the magic dial off the saddle. “I’ve got the embiggenator right here. The only problem is, I also have this.” He held up a small, smooth stone.
The guard looked at it dispassionately. “A stone? Why is that a problem?”
“Well, you know how magic works, right? If something gets small, something else has to get big. I accidentally brought along the stone that gets big when Delightful Glitter Lady gets small.”
“I see,” the guard said.
“There’s Madeline,” Baileya said.
She wore a tightly bound Elenil sheath dress. Another Elenil woman he didn’t recognize stood beside her, a small Scim body in her arms. A guard had stopped her and was saying something, but they were too far away to be heard.
A flurry of birds flew into the square, squawking and calling out as they delivered messages to their various recipients.
The guard Madeline was talking to drew his sword. Jason didn’t know why, but he knew what it meant. It was time to shout the secret phrase he had taught Baileya as their signal. It was time for them to make their loud, impressive, over-the-top distraction.
He cleared his throat and shouted at the top of his lungs, “It’s morphin’ time!”
With her hair pinned up and the Elenil dress on, Madeline barely recognized herself.
“The eyes give you away,” Shula said. “We should remove the neck.”
The high neck of the dress could be unpinned. Fernanda stood in the mirror across from them, watching closely. They weren’t in the knight’s upper room, so she couldn’t speak, only make motions to them. Another side effect of her curse. She made it clear, though, that she agreed with Shula.
With the neck removed, however, the silver tattoos that had been spreading across Madeline’s body were visible. They coiled up from her collarbones, working their way up her neck and toward her chin in the front, the nape of her neck in the back. “No one ever shows their tattoos, though,” Madeline said.
Shula pulled Madeline’s hair back, pinning it up. “Only the Elenil have access to this much magic. It’s rare to show it off, especially if someone other than Elenil are around. But it would be unthinkable for a human to have so much magic, and it will distract them from your eyes.”
Fernanda nodded her approval from within the mirror.
Madeline studied her reflection in a different mirror. Her skin was not pale enough to be Elenil, and her hair had too much yellow in it. Most of the Elenil had blonde hair that leaned toward silver. Her eyes were definitely a distraction, the wrong blue. But she might pass if no one studied her too closely.
Shula opened her knapsack. “Now this,” she said. She held up the shining, mirrored Scim artifact known as the Mask of Passing. She held it up to her face and tied the ribbons behind her head.
Her clothing —jeans and a long-sleeved shirt —flickered, then became a light-violet Elenil dress. Her face reappeared, only not dark any longer . . . It was similar to Madeline’s own skin color. Her hair was golden blonde rather than black.
“You look . . . surprisingly like me.”
The woman who was not Shula nodded. “The mask causes you to see someone like yourself. That’s how it works. Anything that might make you think I’m ‘the other’ goes away, so you know I’m the same sort of person you are.”
“You look human still, though.”
“To you. To the Elenil I’ll look like an Elenil. To the Scim, a Scim.”
“We should test it on the way,” Madeline said.
“That would be wise.”
They stopped at a market stall a few hundred meters from the main tower. Shula hailed an Elenil soldier and told her to send a message to the wall, asking if there was any danger. The soldier sent a bird without hesitation.
Yenil had tried to walk, but it had been too much. Madeline carried Yenil, perched on her back. Shula would take over when they reached the tower, they decided, and carry her in her arms. They planned to say, if stopped, that they were looking for a healer.
They were stopped. Of course. It wasn’t Yenil who was the problem, at least not at first.
“Is that a sword, miss?”
Madeline hesitated. The Sword of Years, wrapped in cloth and rope, hung from her shoulder like a purse. “Yes,” she said. She did her best imitation of Gilenyia. “We Elenil are allowed to walk armed wherever we please.”
“Of course,” the guard said, his eyes lingering on her neck. “The archon has requested, though, that we catalog the weapons as they come through.”
Would he recognize the Sword of Years? She didn’t know. If he did, they wouldn’t make it into the tower, let alone to the top. They wouldn’t get the Heart of the Scim.
“This girl is in distress,” Shula said smoothly. “We seek a healer and do not have time for pleasantries.”
The guard frowned. “To call the archon’s order a mere pleasantry is a grave insult.” He glanced at Yenil. “Is that a Scim girl? She looks almost like . . . a human.”
“She is gravely wounded,” Shula said.
“Gilenyia herself has ordered us to bring her,” Madeline said, taking a chance.
The guard looked over his shoulder. “Gilenyia is at the ceremony within,” he said.
“As is any Elenil of consequence,” Madeline snapped.
The guard stepped backward as if she had struck him. She could see the truth of her own words in the shocked look on his face. The guard started to step aside, but just at that moment a flurry of birds circled the tower. Hundreds of them flew past in a great swarm, knocking the Mask of Passing from Shula’s face. It clattered to the ground. The guard unsheathed his sword despite the storm of birds.
“What trickery is this?” he shouted. His gaze met Madeline’s eyes, and his own widened. “You’re no Elenil.”
A small yellow bird perched on his shoulder. “Lieutenant,” it said, “the Scim have breached the walls again.”
“It is full daylight!” the soldier cried.
“They pour through the walls like water. Pray they do not drown us. Break Bones rides at their head upon a grey wolf, and the Black Skulls ride beside him.”
“May the Majestic One protect us!”
Shula bent for the mask, but the guard stopped her. “I do not know what game you play, but none of you three may enter.”
“She will die!” Madeline shouted, pointing at Yenil.
“Scim die,” the guard said. “Such is their fate.”
The sudden bellowing cry of a runaway rhinoceros echoed across the square. Shula hoisted Yenil onto her back. Madeline grabbed Shula’s hand, and they ran past the terrified guard and into the tower.
Whatever message the cloud of birds had brought, the Elenil guards had taken a sudden interest in Jason and his rampaging unicorn. He burst past fifteen or so guards without any trouble. He pulled Dee up short when a row of Elenil appeared ahead, each on one knee with a spear shaft pushed into the ground, the points ready to pierce the rhino’s chest. He couldn’t see Baileya . . . She had slipped away into the crowd somewhere.
“Halt!” one of the guards shouted.
“We already halted,” Jason said.
“Don’t come any closer,” another shouted.
“We’re not moving.”
Madeline and Shula had made it into the tower already. That was the main point of the distraction, but it would be better if he and Baileya could get into the tower too, to help them get to the top and retrieve the Heart of the Scim.
Another flurry of birds sped through the crowd.
One of the guards shouted, “The Scim have breached the outer walls!”
A howling sound came from the west, just before a monstrous wolf loped into view, Break Bones on his back. “Wu Song,” he called, pulling his wolf to a stop. “The Elenil have invaded our territories and murdered our people for the last time. We have come to destroy them and retrieve the Heart of the Scim.”
“I am pretty sure we called dibs,” Jason said. “Only we’re gonna do the opposite. We’re here to destroy the Heart of the Scim and . . . retrieve the Elenil?”
The massive Scim dismounted from his wolf. “You must not destroy the Heart. It is ours! It is not yours to do with as you please!”
As he spoke, the Black Skulls arrived.
“Hey,” Jason said. “Good to see you all. Before anyone kills anyone, I just want to remind you that I go to the same high school with at least one of you, and I think school spirit should count for something.”
The antelope-headed Black Skull spoke, and despite the magically modulated voice, Jason could recognize Darius’s voice beneath it now that he knew who it was. “Return the Scim artifacts and no one need die.”
“Hi, Darius!” Jason said. “I feel like we’re basically on the same team here.”
Break Bones laughed. “Unfortunately for you, Wu Song, I have made a blood oath to murder you.”
“Um. There’s no time limit on that, though, right? I mean, you could wait until I’m 130 years old.”
An arrow blossomed in Break Bones’s shoulder. Baileya appeared from behind a column. She didn’t say anything clever. She wasn’t one for talking needlessly in battle. She did, however, unsling a massive bag from her shoulder and throw it to Jason. It fell open, revealing a huge collection of weapons. Jason felt intimidated by the fact she could throw it. He pulled out a sword, his magic flowing into it, and shouted a battle cry. The Elenil and Scim met like competing waves, with Jason and Dee between them.
“These plates fly,” Madeline said, placing her feet on the floating panels that had taken her to the top of the tower the last time she had been here.
“You dare to bring a Scim here? On this, of all days?” It was Rondelo, dressed in beautifully brocaded white clothing from head to toe. Evernu, the stag, stood beside him.
“She’s ill,” Madeline said.
Gilenyia peeled off from the crowd of elaborately costumed Elenil. “This is a funeral,” she said firmly. “A rare occurrence for us Elenil. A certain solemnity is encouraged. Not only that, but it is the funeral for Vivi, the father of Hanali. You, of all humans, should respect his loss. I will attend to the Scim girl, if only to keep you from interrupting.” Despite Madeline’s protests, she tried to take Yenil from Shula’s back. Shula stepped away from her, refusing to let her touch Yenil. Gilenyia studied the girl more closely, tracing the lines of the tattoos. Her eyes widened, and her face snapped back toward Madeline. “What is this? How did you come to find this girl?”
“How did the Elenil come to find her?” Madeline said fiercely.
Shula spoke in a quiet, calm voice. “Go back to your funeral and leave us be. We don’t want to harm you.”
Gilenyia looked at them more carefully. “Why, Madeline. You’re dressed like an Elenil. Shula appears to be —ah, but what’s that? The Mask of Passing?” It hung from Shula’s hand. “What mischief are you two up to?”
Madeline’s jaw clenched. She slung the package on her shoulder to the front and unwrapped it. Rondelo and Gilenyia watched in curious silence. When the cloth fell away, Rondelo gasped. Madeline took the rusted, nicked, dull blade and slid it into the scabbard. When she pulled it out again, the blade vibrated like a tuning fork. Bright, polished, and sharp, the Sword of Years sang for the blood of those who had benefited from the death of Scim people.
Rondelo’s sword flashed, and the point fell toward Shula. “Madeline, do not try anything. That blade —”
Gilenyia had backed away from Yenil. “This is a magic blade, Rondelo. It is called Thirsty, among other names. If there is a healing spell to counteract that blade, I do not know it. Even at the height of my powers, if Madeline were to cut an Elenil with this blade, I would not have the powers to reverse it.”
The sword hummed in Madeline’s hand, the edge of the blade pulling her toward the Elenil. She felt its rage, felt its desire to drain them, to drain all of them. “Stand on the plates,” she said to Shula. Shula edged away from Rondelo and toward the hover plates.
“You will have to take the stairs,” Gilenyia said. “Archon Thenody is no fool. He’ll not speed your way to assassinate him.”
Assassination was not the plan, but Madeline felt the sword hum with glee at the thought. Still, it made sense that the archon’s magic would not help them to the top.
“Let me help you,” Gilenyia whispered. “There are those of us who would see the current archon replaced with someone . . . younger.”
Shula stepped behind Madeline. “Perhaps as a hostage,” she said quietly.
“Good idea,” Madeline said. “Rondelo, give Shula your sword or I’ll run Gilenyia through. That’s right. Good. Now —Gilenyia. Up the stairs.”
Gilenyia tipped her head slightly. “A pleasure.”
The Sword of Years pulled in Madeline’s hand. She hoped she had the strength to keep it from striking.
Delightful Glitter Lady frolicked among the warring Scim and Elenil with joyous abandon, and Jason shouted and tried not to fall off. The Elenil fought with the terrifying certainty that no wound given them was permanent, and the Scim with a desperate anger. Baileya struck among them like lightning, wounding Elenil and Scim alike if they came too close to Jason.
The Elenil were confused about whose side Jason and Baileya were on. A Scim came up behind her as she nocked her bow, and Jason brained him with the hilt of his sword. The Scim went down hard, and Baileya gave Jason such a warm smile he almost lost his grip and fell from the rhinoceros.
Just as they fought their way through the tower entrance, a wind kicked in. It howled through the palace compound, blasting them with sand. Jason covered his face. If they had broken into the tower a moment later, he might well have been blinded by the sand, but as it was, the walls of the tower had protected them. “Sandstorm?” Jason called. “Baileya, what is going on?”
Everyone stopped fighting.
Floating like monstrous columns through the melee were fifteen-foot-tall creatures covered in wings. They did not turn, and they each had four faces, each one directly facing one of the cardinal directions on a compass. To the east, a face like a lion. To the west, an ox, and to the north, an eagle. The southern face was that of a human being. The wings sparkled. Or, on closer examination, they didn’t sparkle —they blinked. The wings were covered in jeweled eyes, and as they blinked, the patterns on the wings moved like a school of fish.
“Kharobem,” Baileya said, wonder in her voice. “They come to watch some story that is about to unfold. The last time they came in such numbers . . . it was the fall of Ezerbin.”
Jason let out a war whoop. “That must mean we’re about to win!”
“The people of Ezerbin did not win,” Baileya said. “Even now their city is a haunt for jackals.”
“Oh,” Jason said. “Good point.”
A barefoot girl in clothing that was little more than a sack limped into the center of the battle.
The Kharobem did not move or speak or make a sound, but Jason knew with a deep certainty that the Kharobem knew the girl. That they were, in fact, here because of the girl.
She stood at Dee’s feet and looked up at Jason. “There was a cactus,” she said, “born in a city. It lived in a pot upon a counter. It did not grow large. It did not flower. Until it returned to the desert. There it lived a long and happy life, and the desert and the cactus and the sun and the moon and the water and the sand lived happily together for many a year.”
Jason shrugged. “Okay, thanks, I guess. And now we fight some more?”
There was silence from the assembled warriors. Jason slid off Dee’s back and stood in front of the limping girl.
Break Bones stalked among the warriors, moving toward the tower entrance.
Baileya stepped toward him, her double-bladed spear at the ready.
“Wait,” Jason said. “I have a better idea.” He snatched the pebble out of his pocket and threw it into the tower doorway. He grabbed the embiggenator and turned Dee all the way to kitten sized. She let out a plaintive squeak as the tiny pebble became a door-blocking boulder.
Baileya squeezed his arm, just below the gold armband she had given him. “I would rather a clever warrior than a strong one,” she said.
Jason blushed. In the middle of a battle. How embarrassing. He leaned toward her.
“They are working to move the stone already,” she said.
She was right. The stone shuddered, and he could hear the shouting of the Scim outside, Break Bones’s voice piercing through.
“Let’s get up those stairs,” he said, running ahead of Baileya.
She called his name, and he stopped to find her pointing at the ground. Delightful Glitter Lady struggled to get over the first stair, her tiny war cry lost in the cavernous room. But she squeaked again, scrambling for the next stair.
“Aw,” Jason said. “So cute! C’mere, Dee.” He scooped her up and settled her into his pocket. The sword and the bag of weapons Baileya had thrown to him were all discarded on the ground now. He sorted through it, searching for a lighter sword. He found one and tried to lift it over his head with one hand. He almost fell, and the sword went clattering to the ground. He dug through again until he found —well, he wasn’t sure if it was a small sword or a long knife. He lifted it above his head and shouted, “TO WAR!”
Baileya followed him up the stairs. The strange limping girl followed too, silent and watchful.
The Heart of the Scim.
They stood in the glass room at the top of the tower. The stone was on its pedestal. It was the true stone, not the ship-sized stone that hung outside.
Their journey had been easy —suspiciously easy. The Elenil had fallen out of Madeline’s way when they saw the Sword of Years in her hand. Gilenyia had helped, shouting that there would be no healing for any who opposed the sword. No doubt it also helped having an Elenil funeral taking place at the base of the tower. Near immortals being reminded of their mortality turned out to be cowards in battle.
Madeline put her hands on the stone and lifted, but it wouldn’t move. “Why can’t I pick it up?”
“Only certain of the Elenil can remove it,” Gilenyia said.
“You’re one of them,” Shula said. It wasn’t a question.
“It would be an act of treason for me to put the Crescent Stone in your hand,” Gilenyia said.
The black and purple energy moved inside the stone, almost like water trapped in crystal. Madeline strengthened her grip on the Sword of Ten Thousand Sorrows. She lifted the blade. “I don’t need to hold it,” she said.
“You don’t understand,” Gilenyia said, falling in front of Madeline, blocking the stone. “Killing the archon, that makes sense. Let someone else take his place. Perhaps someone more . . . understanding of the Scim. Perhaps that would be wise. But Madeline, if you destroy that stone, you destroy the Elenil. If you destroy the Elenil, my dear —believe me, this is true —you will destroy the Scim, the Aluvoreans, the Pastisians, the Maegrom, and all the people of the Sunlit Lands. I do not claim the Elenil to be without fault, but you must understand we are the foundation of this society. All else is built on top of our work, our city, our magic.” Madeline’s tattoo was pulsing now, linked to Yenil in a way she hadn’t felt before. She could feel the magic guzzling, pulling at Yenil, siphoning her breath away and into Madeline. The Scim girl slid from Shula’s back and stared at the source of all their trouble, her hair disheveled and half covering her face.
From where they stood, in the glass room at the apex of the tower, Madeline could see the chaos at the base. Fire had broken out somehow, and the strange creatures Gilenyia called the Kharobem hovered unmoving all around the tower floor, some of them on the stairs, a few floating in the center of the tower. She could see Jason and Baileya running up the stairs, Scim close behind them. They were almost to the top.
She hesitated, and lowered the sword.
A Scim came slowly across the glass bridge toward Madeline. It was one of the servants of the archon. She remembered meeting him but not his name. He was dressed like an Elenil. Madeline understood now that he was wearing his war skin, but it had been modified to make him look powerless, like less of a threat. He could have merely taken on his other form, like Yenil’s. Instead they had kept him in his fierce battle skin and humiliated him. They had cut off his tusks. Even in war he would be unimpressive now. She did not remember his name because he was not someone to be remembered or to be seen. He was a decoration in the living quarters of the archon.
“Miss,” he said, and his voice was raw. “My lady Gilenyia says all will be lost, but they have taken everything from us. What more is there to lose? They have even taken our language.”
“Taken your language? What do you mean?”
“Does it not seem strange that we diverse people speak the same tongue? We are all speaking the Elenil language, through means of their magic. When you break that stone, those who have known their mother tongues will speak them again. But my children and grandchildren will know only Elenil. I speak it only through magic. We will not be able to speak to one another. You are not speaking your native tongue, either. Nor are your friends. When magic ceases, our language will be all but dead, with only the elders knowing it well.”
Madeline, wide eyed, turned to Shula. “You’re not speaking English?”
“I don’t know English,” she said. “Only Arabic and French.”
Madeline turned back to the Scim. “Are you saying to destroy it or not?”
The Scim bowed his head. “Perhaps once all has burned, my grandchildren will rise from the ashes.”
Madeline lifted the sword over her head. “Yenil?”
The girl nodded, a fierce look on her face.
“You don’t understand,” Gilenyia shouted again. “The magic of that sword cannot be sated. It will destroy the Heart of the Scim completely. Madeline, please, listen to reason!” Shula grabbed Gilenyia and pulled her from in front of the stone.
The sword came whistling down, and a fierce joy radiated from it. It smashed into the stone. The Heart of the Scim shattered into a hundred thousand shards, which flew like shrapnel through the glass room.
Nothing happened.
Nothing changed.
Madeline took a deep breath. Yenil struggled for oxygen.
“It was a fake,” Shula said. Above them, the giant facsimile of the Crescent Stone still hung over the tower, crackling with power.
Madeline gripped the sword tighter. She knew, somehow, where the true stone must be. The archon. He would be carrying it on his person. She had a sudden memory of the first time she had seen him without his sheet. She remembered the choker he’d worn, with what she had thought to be a miniature facsimile of the Crescent Stone. Of course he would keep it on him. Now that she knew, it seemed so obvious. She spoke to the old Scim servant on the bridge. “Take me to him.”
The Scim bowed his head and shuffled across the bridge into the quarters of the archon.
Being shot with an arrow hurt. Not in a stubbing-a-toe sort of way, but in a screaming, burning, let-me-faint-now sort of way. The arrow came in through Jason’s shoulder, from behind, at a high angle so it only caught flesh and muscle. One moment he was running up the stairs, the next an arrowhead appeared, sticking out of his shoulder. It was the worst pain he had felt in his life: a throbbing, burning, pulsing nightmare of excruciation.
“A lucky wound,” Baileya said.
“Lucky?”
“Clean through, the arrowhead on the other side, no bones damaged, no major bleeding.” She glanced back down the stairs. Some Elenil guards had engaged with the ascending Scim, giving them a moment.
Baileya steadied him and, without warning, broke the head of the arrow off, then yanked the shaft out. Jason’s vision swam, and he put his hand against the wall. Baileya pulled out a handful of leaves, chewed them, then pasted them over the hole in his shoulder. “Bloodsop,” she said. “To stop the bleeding.”
It had a strong, almost minty smell. “You should probably carry more of that if we’re going to be hanging out.”
Baileya grinned. “Wait here,” she said.
“Where are you going?”
“To throw any archers I can find off the stairs.”
She slipped down into the battle.
Jason set Dee down, and she explored a few different stairs. Jason sat, putting pressure on the wound. It had been several minutes, he thought, but the blood had already stopped, and the chewed-up leaves had hardened. There must have been some sort of painkiller in the leaves too, because although his shoulder felt hot, the pain had lessened considerably. The limping girl stood below him, watching, but she did not speak or intervene in any way.
Across the tower, Jason noticed a single Scim sneaking up the opposite stairway. “Dee,” he said. “Come here.” The little rhino trotted to him, and he slipped her into his pocket. Jason had seen the Elenil swinging across the center of the tower to reach the opposite side. He found a rope tied alongside the edge of the stairs. He tucked his tiny sword into his belt.
“Okay, shoulder,” he said, “don’t kill us.”
He swung. Shooting pain fired through his whole body, and he screamed as the rope spun him onto the stairs on the other side, landing a full flight up from the Scim. It was, of course, Break Bones.
Break Bones curled his lip in disgust, shifting his grip on the massive stone ax in his hand. “Thou hast no weapon, Wu Song.”
“Break Bones. Hey. How’s it going?” Jason pulled his tiny sword out. He regretted its size now. He wasn’t sure it could even get through Break Bones’s thick skin. Dee climbed out of his pocket and scampered off to the side, and Jason lost sight of her.
“Thou art in my way, human child.”
Jason shrugged. The sudden pain in his shoulder made him regret it. “I get that a lot. Here’s the thing, though. I feel like if I let you pass, you’re going to murder my friend.”
“The Heart of the Scim is ours. She must not be allowed to destroy it.”
“Why do you want it so bad?”
Break Bones spit on the floor. “Fool! They have enslaved us with it for centuries. The balance is shifting. I would take it back so that we can enslave them. Without the Heart of the Scim we cannot use the Heart of the Elenil. We will reverse the flow of the magic. A few hundred years of justice should make things even. We shall live in towers of glass, they in mud hovels. Our children and grandchildren will rule over them. Your friend Madeline would break our chains and deny us our crown.”
“Just to be clear,” Jason said. “You’re planning to kill her. Instead of talking things out?”
“The Scim have talked to the Elenil for decades, and what has changed?”
“Obviously I can’t stop you,” Jason said. “I only have this tiny little sword.” As if on cue, Delightful Glitter Lady leapt down the stairs toward Break Bones, letting loose a full-throated kitten-unicorn war cry. She crashed into Break Bones’s foot. “And a tiny unicorn.”
Break Bones chuckled, ignoring Dee completely. “Then stand aside. Run if you can. When I have finished your friend, I will come back for you. Let no one say Break Bones breaks oaths.”
“But first,” Jason said, “Delightful Glitter Lady: ATTACK!” Dee trumpeted and hit Break Bones’s foot, smashing into it over and over again.
Break Bones caught her easily and lifted her to his face. “Wu Song,” he said. “Your perseverance is to be commended. But this little beast is no threat to me.”
Jason pulled out the embiggenator. “Heh. That’s what you think.” He turned the knob all the way to the right, and Delightful Glitter Lady went from kitten size to the size of a Labrador, to the size of a rhinoceros, to the size of a juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex. Break Bones fell backward, pinned beneath her.
Delightful Glitter Lady scurried to her feet and trumpeted so loud Jason could feel the stones vibrating through the soles of his shoes.
Break Bones stumbled away, rushing down the stairs.
“Dee,” Jason said. The rhino’s enormous head swiveled toward him. “Fetch!”
Dee bellowed her delight and charged down the stairs after the retreating Scim warrior.
Jason raced up the stairs, laughing, his wound momentarily forgotten.
They found the archon, at last, sitting in a three-acre garden built, somehow, on a balcony of the tower. He was sitting at a small metal table, sipping tea with Hanali. Both of them were dressed in the extravagant head-to-toe white mourning clothes of the Elenil. The archon raised his eyebrows when he saw Madeline and Shula, Yenil and Gilenyia, and the old servant. Madeline looked up. The crescent-shaped crystal at the top of the tower could be seen from here, glinting in the bright sunlight, still emanating the power of the Crescent Stone.
“So,” Thenody said. “You are the ones causing the ruckus below and interrupting poor Vivi’s funeral. Now you interrupt me while I have tea with his grieving son. What have you to say for yourselves?”
Madeline still held the sword. It shook in her hands, eager to decapitate the archon of the Elenil. She could feel its attraction, could see the generations of bloodshed and murder and pain that had given him so much power, so much wealth. Her breathing quickened, and as it did, Yenil swayed, her breath rattling in her lungs. “You would kill this little girl so I can breathe,” Madeline said.
The archon rubbed his earlobe. The network of golden tattoos that covered his visible skin shimmered. The choker with the small crescent crystal crackled with power around his neck. “I believe your friend Hanali made that particular deal. I was not aware of it until this moment, though I cannot say I am surprised, nor that I disagree with his choice. How do you find these dirty little things, Hanali? Do you scout the Wasted Lands yourself?”
“Many of them come to me, my lord,” Hanali said. “Indeed, this young girl’s family needed food and offered her service for . . . well, for whatever we had need.”
“How clever of you,” the archon said. “Did they understand the terms?”
Hanali held Madeline’s eyes for a moment, then looked back to Thenody. “The Scim did. Their child did. The human girl did not.”
“She’s dying,” Madeline said.
The archon stood and walked lazily to them, apparently unconcerned about the magical sword in her hands. He looked carefully at the Scim girl. “Not for several weeks at least,” he said. “Would you agree, Hanali?”
Hanali didn’t move from his seat. He sipped at his tea. “Two weeks at least, sir. Beyond that it is hard to say.”
An owl the size of a hang glider flew to the edge of the garden, and a Black Skull dropped to the ground. He carried a sword, and his white robes were covered in blood. “Stay back,” Madeline said. Darius hesitated, then stopped.
“I see,” the archon said, looking at Darius with interest. “You’re going to save the world, is that it?” He tugged on the fingers of his left glove, letting it fall to the grass at his feet. “The Scim obey your orders now? Hmm. Curious.” The network of golden tattoos on his hand glowed with a bright, almost blinding intensity.
Jason came running into the garden, a large knife in his hand. He stopped when he saw Thenody. A young girl dressed in rags limped in behind him. “Oh,” Jason said. “You again.”
The archon’s lips turned up in amusement, but his eyes were hard and cold. “Indeed.” He turned to Hanali. “Who are we waiting for? The Scim rabble-rouser, yes? What was his name? Break Stones?”
“Break Bones?” Jason asked.
“Ah yes. Charming. Break Bones. We can wait for him, I think.”
Shula balled up her fists. “Why are we all standing around like we’re at a tea party? Let’s get him.” She ran at the archon, letting loose a savage war cry.
The archon gestured toward her, palm up, and she fell to the ground, frozen in midstep. She skidded across the ground and came to a halt near his feet. “But you are at a tea party, my dear. Children like yourself should sit quietly.”
Baileya slipped in beside Jason, breathing heavily. She had her double-bladed staff in hand. Then Break Bones came loping across the garden, a sinister look in his eye.
“Hey, where’s Dee?” Jason asked.
Break Bones sneered. “She could not fit through the doorway. She is not pleased I escaped.”
“Oh dear,” the archon said. “It has become much too crowded. The garden looks positively cluttered.” He spoke to Break Bones. “I have soldiers in your village. I have but to touch a certain mark on my left wrist and they will receive the orders to kill. So be silent. Or at least polite.”
Break Bones did not speak in response to this but tightened his grip on his ax. Madeline could see Shula breathing, so she knew she was okay. Yenil leaned against Madeline, breathing hard. Still . . . they had Baileya and Darius. She thought Hanali would help them. Break Bones would at least work to get the stone, even if he wanted to do something different with it. She thought that, even with his magic, together they might be able to take Thenody down.
Hanali said, “I would advise all of you to remain still. The archon is powerful, and if he sees you coming, he will easily stop you with his magic.”
“True,” the archon said. He seemed unconcerned that Hanali was warning them to bide their time. “The question you are all asking yourselves, however, is whether I have the Heart of the Scim. Of course, I do.” He put his hand to the choker at his neck. He unfastened it and held up a small stone . . . shining black, oblong, with a great chip in one side. “It is not so dramatic as my decoy. Amazing, is it not, that all our magic flows through such a little thing? The great crystal above the palace, your bracelets, all of Elenil magic —powered by this bit of stone. But that is the way of magic, I suppose.”
Hanali looked down at his feet. “Forgive me, Archon Thenody, but I have always understood none but the Elenil should know they have seen the true Heart of the Scim.”
Gilenyia said, “Why have a decoy at all if you are going to tell such a large assembly the truth?”
Thenody laughed. “Not one of them will leave this balcony alive, so what does it matter?” He turned the little stone in his fingers, holding it up to the light. He glanced at Hanali. “I see the hunger in your eyes, Hanali.”
Hanali said nothing, but for a brief second his eyes flickered toward Gilenyia.
“Yes, I know about her, too,” the archon said. “Though I am surprised she allied with you given her understandable hatred of the Scim.” He must have noticed the surprise on Madeline’s face, because he laughed and said, “Do you mean to say you have not told your human pets? How wonderful. You brought them to this place with no knowledge. I underestimated you, I think, Hanali, son of no one.”
“Son of Vivi,” Hanali said.
“Yes, but Vivi died when you and the Maegrom let the Scim into the city, didn’t he? It is quite a price to pay.”
“Whoa, hey what?” Jason said. “When Hanali did what now?” Birds had begun to settle in all the trees and bushes around them. Large and small, brightly colored and drab. All silently perching. A few flew overhead, watching.
Thenody inclined his head toward the birds, as if greeting more guests. “I have invited the messenger birds to come see what will happen next. I would like everyone in the Sunlit Lands to see and hear what happens in this little garden.”
“I don’t understand,” Madeline said quietly.
“It is simple enough, my dear. Hanali has always been . . . unorthodox. It has been ascribed to his youth. His recruiting of humans has become more and more . . . eccentric. A violent girl from Syria I can understand. Those two boys Jason fought alongside, perhaps. But then he chose you. A rich girl with power and privilege who would require a great deal of unjust magic simply to walk among us. A girl who would be horrified to know the price she paid, if she could be made to see it. The kind of girl who would be used to power and privilege enough to believe that she could change things. Who would have hope and confidence, not shrink away and accept her lot in life. Someone who would speak up.”
Jason nodded. “It all makes sense. Then Hanali needed someone who really loved pudding. Someone who wasn’t afraid to eat it every day. For breakfast most days, but maybe he would be willing to eat it for lunch sometimes. Or even for dinner, even though that would mean saving it all day and that the next meal would also be pudding.”
Hanali smiled, his eyes never moving from the stone in Thenody’s hand. “I needed Madeline,” he said, in an almost dreamlike voice, as if he was remembering something. “An activist.” His eyes moved to Jason. “I did not think I needed you at first. I do not know who put you in my path. I realize now I needed a truth teller. A prophet. To help her see, and to stand beside her.”
“It is not the first time you have tried,” the archon said.
“Some have shied away from the truth. Others have despaired rather than taking action,” Hanali said. “This time . . . some unseen hand aided me in my choice of champions.”
“All this so you could be archon in my place.”
“Perhaps,” Hanali said. “Though only to undo our centuries of injustice. I did give the Scim entry the night of the Turning. They were meant to take the tower, not raze the city. And not to kidnap Madeline or try to take the Scim artifacts, which I would have returned to them when I took power.”
The archon laughed at that. “Oh, you are young, Hanali. How delightful. I suppose they were not meant to murder your father, either.”
Break Bones lunged for the archon. Thenody gestured, a look of disgust on his face, and Break Bones crumpled to the ground, groaning in agony. The archon twisted curled fingers toward him, and Break Bones tried to stand but couldn’t. Thenody released him, and Break Bones got to his knees, panting, but could rise no farther.
“Do not approach me without permission,” Thenody said, his face returning to the placid calm of a moment before. “Is that the Sword of Years you carry, Madeline? Yes? How lovely.”
“It is magic,” Madeline said, tears burning her eyes. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. She couldn’t get near him, couldn’t strike at the stone or Thenody.
“Indeed. I know it well. It could shatter the Heart of the Scim, destroying the Elenil connection to those filthy creatures. It would undo centuries of progress and beauty. You know this, of course. Your world is no different. I am no scholar, but I understand your own injustices have brought progress.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Jason cleared his throat. “He’s saying that the White House was built using slave labor. Or that computers and cars and planes and . . . and rockets were made better, made possible because of World War II. That if it weren’t for the Holocaust, we would never have made it to the moon. That America would never have had a black president unless we had slavery first.”
Thenody sipped his tea with his left hand, the right still holding the Heart of the Scim on display, mocking them. “The gears of an empire grind without respect for individuals. One does not throw away progress because a few people die along the way.”
Madeline struggled to get her words out. “But . . . but that’s such a narrow, strange way to say it. It’s not worth killing Jewish people so we could get, I don’t know, so we could get iPhones. Some people got rich off of slavery, but that’s not an argument for it, that’s a sign of the sickness.”
“Nonsense,” the archon said. “This city —this beautiful city —would be impossible without sacrifice. The Scim entered into our agreements willingly. Who are you to say you know better? Who are you to end an agreement made by our two sovereign nations?”
“I am Madeline Oliver,” she said. “I hold the Sword of Years, a magical weapon created by the Scim people. It has fallen to me to choose how to use it, and I will do the right thing. The prophecy said I would bring justice to the Scim, and that is what I am going to do.”
“Who am I to stand in the way of prophecy?” Thenody said, turning to smile at the messenger birds. “Step forward then, girl, and I will give you a choice.”
Madeline stepped toward him warily.
“Look back at the tower,” he said.
Madeline did. It rose above them, shining in the sun. Despite everything, that white tower framed against the cloudless blue sky, the giant crystal crescent glowing with power, was strikingly beautiful.
“My archers are in the tower. I do not need them, of course, but they have trained their weapons upon your heart and the hearts of each person on this balcony.”
“Including you?” Jason asked.
Thenody ignored him. “Hanali has wagered everything on you humans. He thinks you will make a decision to upend our entire society, to create chaos, to bring suffering to all the people of the Sunlit Lands, all for your simplistic notions of justice.”
“And what do you say?” Madeline asked.
“Not that we care,” Jason said.
“I say that you are selfish little things and that you will leave it all in place.” He set his tea on the table. “I will let you choose. You may have three options. One, you may raise your sword and kill me, allowing Hanali to take my place.”
“Tempting,” Jason said.
“Two, you may destroy the Heart of the Scim, eradicating all Elenil magic. The Scim will be released of their bargains, as will you and the other humans.” Thenody smiled. “I believe your own self-interest will prevent this choice.”
“I do like pudding,” Jason said, and Madeline saw that he had been edging closer to the archon.
“Or three, I will allow all of you to leave. Alive.”
“We could kill you and leave alive,” Jason pointed out.
“Ah yes,” the archon said. “I should have explained that more clearly. If you choose to kill me or destroy the stone, my archers have been instructed to kill all of you save Hanali and Gilenyia, as I do no harm to the Elenil people.”
“How many archers?” Madeline asked her friends.
“I count twenty,” Shula said.
“Five more in the garden itself,” Baileya said. “Twenty-five.”
Thenody wasn’t bluffing, then. At least, she didn’t think so.
She examined her three options. Kill the archon and let Hanali be in charge . . . although Madeline was unclear if it were even certain that he would be the next archon. Or destroy the stone and free them all from the Elenil magic. She looked to Darius, trying to read what was in his eyes, but he only gave her a firm, supportive nod.
Break Bones said, “Kill him.”
“No,” Madeline said. She was not going to kill anyone. She had decided that, at least.
“To destroy the stone will kill thousands,” Break Bones said. “It will be a catastrophic failure of magical systems across the Sunlit Lands. And it will deny us the power we deserve! It will destroy injustice but deny us justice!”
“It’s the right thing to do,” Madeline said.
“It is the right thing to do,” Hanali said. “You are correct. But is it for you to do? Or should the Elenil and the Scim figure it out together? Is it your place to choose for us?”
She looked to Jason, but he only said, “I’ll back your play, Mads.”
“Me, too,” Darius said.
She raised the sword. She could almost feel the archers taking aim, preparing to loose their arrows when she made her choice.
She couldn’t kill the archon. She knew that for certain. Night’s Breath was dead because of her. She had failed to save Inrif and Fera. That was already three deaths too many on her conscience. She couldn’t add the archon’s. Not even if it was just. What had the Peasant King told her? Stopping injustice with violence was like throwing gasoline on a fire.
So it had to be destroying the stone. It seemed right and good to destroy it, but at what cost? Would it really mean the death of thousands to so suddenly alter the magical landscape? Could she live with that, even though she wasn’t the one who had built the unjust system? And was that any different, really, than killing Night’s Breath?
Yenil was gasping for breath. She sank to her knees.
Madeline couldn’t accept that. Maybe she couldn’t destroy the whole system, but she couldn’t participate in it anymore. She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t let Yenil pay the price, not if she could help it. The Garden Lady’s advice rose in her mind. To change the world, change first a heart.
She was about to force the Elenil to change their system, but would it matter if they hadn’t changed their hearts? Wouldn’t they just find a way to rebuild it, to replace it? Was it possible to change both? She knew this much: she was still benefiting from this unjust system. She was forcing everyone else to change when she hadn’t changed herself. It was her heart that needed to change, her heart that could change the world.
She dropped to her knees and put her left arm on the ground.
“What are you doing?” Thenody said.
She raised the sword high.
“That was not one of the choices,” he said, reaching toward her.
“There are more choices than those,” Madeline said.
She brought the blade down with all her strength, smashing it into the center of her bracelet. An intense flash of light burst from her arm, and her tattoo burned so brightly she could see it even with her eyes closed. Crippling pain shot through her body. She fell backward into the grass, her arm smoking. She felt the magic draining from her tattoos like molten lava coursing through causeways in her body.
She couldn’t breathe. Her back arched, and she inhaled with all her might and only got a half a breath, a quarter of a breath. Darius was by her side, his arms beneath her, trying to cradle her, to comfort her.
The archon was laughing. “Hanali, how delightful! She surprised me after all. What strange and creative creatures they are. It won’t change much in the scheme —”
Yenil leapt to her feet with a feral scream. Madeline turned to look at her, wanting to tell her it was going to be okay now, that she would be able to breathe and live a normal life, but she couldn’t say a word, could only gasp for air and watch in horror as Yenil snatched up the Sword of Sorrows.
Jason lunged for her and missed. Baileya shouted but was too far away. Gilenyia did not move, and a smile twitched to life on Break Bones’s face.
The archon turned from Hanali, startled to find the Scim girl directly before him, already swinging the Sword of Sorrows. The blade met flesh, and the archon’s left forearm flew from his body, bright golden light seeping from it and from the stump of his arm.
He fell beside Madeline, his face white with shock.
Gilenyia stooped over the archon, shouting instructions to people Madeline couldn’t see. The garden they were in wilted immediately, turning brown. Trees cracked and fell. Flowers dropped to the ground, dead. The garden must have been powered by the archon’s magic. The balcony began to crumble. A screeching noise came from the tower, and the massive Crescent Stone above listed to one side, then shattered, great chunks of it smashing into the garden and taking pieces of the tower with them as they careened to the square below. There were screams and shouts.
Madeline felt Darius lift her in his arms, heard him whisper, “To the ends of the earth.” A hummingbird zipped through the garden, its high-pitched chirp standing out, somehow, from all the panicked sounds around her.
Then it all went still.
It was dark. Black and silent as night. She could no longer see the garden, the people running, the tower. She lay on her back, staring up into darkness.
The Garden Lady stood over her, a gentle smile on her face. “Hello, dear. What a day. What a day.”
“Can’t . . . breathe . . .” Madeline said.
“No, child, I expect you can’t. Do you want me to change that? Your friend Jason, he might pay the price if you asked. He’s loyal, that one. And brave.”
“No,” Madeline said firmly.
“You have two more favors to ask,” the old woman said.
Madeline thought of her parents. She was so tired. She didn’t want to die here, in the Sunlit Lands. She wanted to go home, and she couldn’t do anything else here, could she? She couldn’t even breathe. She knew she wouldn’t be well again. She was past hope. She had come to acceptance. She needed only courage. “Take me home,” she said. “Please.”
“That I can do. And one thing more. For a few minutes. Just a few. I will let you speak to your friends before you go. And I’ll give you the breath for it.”
She was standing in front of Darius. He wasn’t in his Black Skull outfit, just his regular clothes. “I’m going home,” she said.
He wrapped her in his arms. “I’ll come with you,” he said.
She leaned her head against his shoulder. “Darius. When Lily said, in the books, there must be something better, she knew it in her heart, do you remember?”
“Of course.”
“You’re different here, in the Sunlit Lands. Back home you always pretended everything was okay, but here . . . you’re changing things. You’re trying to make that better place.” It was true. The passion with which he protected the Scim, the way he helped her understand what had happened . . . he had opened her eyes. Without him she wouldn’t have figured it all out, would have just lived out her year serving the Elenil, completely unaware of the injustice she was participating in. She would have had her breath, but Yenil would be dead. “You have to stay and help them.”
“I won’t leave you, Mads. I can’t.”
She took a deep breath. “Darius, when I broke up with you, it was because . . . How do I say this?” She tried to think of another way to say it, to make him understand, but she couldn’t. How could she tell him how hard this all was for her? How could she make him understand that her heart was breaking to leave him, but not just him . . . everyone and everything she loved in the whole world? “Having you by my side every day, it’s making it harder for me to leave. Harder to say good-bye.”
“I would follow you to the ends of the earth,” Darius said, his voice catching. He grabbed both of her hands in his.
Her lips quivered, and tears welled up in her eyes. “I’m going past the ends of the earth,” she said. “You can’t walk this path with me. It’s impossible.”
He leaned his forehead against hers. “The only impossible thing is that I would leave you,” Darius said, quoting the book again.
She almost smiled. Impossible had never been a word that held much meaning for him. “When you’re with me . . . it’s making it harder, Darius. Harder to walk these last few steps.”
She could see that he understood now. The most loving thing he could do was to say good-bye, to let her go. Darius said, “These last months without you, Mads . . . I’ve been so lonely.”
Tears fell down her cheeks. “Darius, even when we’re apart, we’re together, because you’re in my heart. And if we’re together . . . if we’re together I won’t be afraid.” She was quoting from The Gryphon under the Stairs, so she knew what he would say next.
He took both of her hands in his own. “Then let’s see what beautiful things await.” His face hardened, and he wiped the tears from her cheeks. “I’m going to fix things, Mads. I’m going to save the Scim, fix the broken system here.”
Darius was starting to disappear. She could see through his hands. She didn’t want him to go, didn’t want this to be the end. “If I go —if you come home, and I’m gone —know that I have always loved you.”
“I love you,” he said. “How can I go on without you?”
He faded away before she could answer.
Break Bones stood before her. “What trickery is this?” He grunted. “The old woman in the garden. Is this her doing?”
Madeline wiped the tears from her eyes. “She said I could say good-bye to my friends. I’m not sure why you’re here.”
He frowned, his wide face contorted in displeasure. “I made a vow to my people that whoever returned the Sword of Years to the Scim, I would be in their life debt. You gave the sword to the girl, Yenil. I am at your service.”
Madeline grinned in spite of her sadness. “What does that mean?”
“I am at your service,” he repeated through gritted teeth.
“Take care of Wu Song,” she said. “Help him. Don’t kill him. Be a friend to him.” And the Scim faded away.
Jason appeared. “The Garden Lady said you’re going home. Shula and Yenil, they’re going with you.”
“They are?” She was shocked but pleased. It was right for Yenil to come. She didn’t have any parents now, and that was because of Madeline. She could have a home and a family. It should be Madeline’s. And it was good for Shula to come too. Yenil would need another familiar face if —when —Madeline wasn’t around anymore.
“I’m, uh . . .” Jason blushed. “I’m engaged. To Baileya. By accident.”
Madeline laughed and hugged him. “That’s amazing. She’s wonderful.”
“She’s . . . she’s terrifying, mostly.” He gripped her forearms. “Madeline, I made a promise to stick with you. To protect you. It’s because . . . well, it’s a long story. I lost my sister, and I don’t want to lose you. But I’ve come to realize that I can’t protect you. I can’t save you. That’s not in my power.”
She squeezed his arms. “That’s true.”
He looked down. “I need to let what happened to my sister go. It wasn’t my fault.”
She didn’t know what had happened, not exactly, although there had been rumors around the school. “That’s true.” She put her hand on his cheek. “You need to let me go too. There are things for you to do here, in the Sunlit Lands. Right?”
He nodded. “Something keeps pulling at me. The stories here. I’m not done. I think . . . I think you did the right thing, not destroying the stone. It was too violent. It would force people to do the right thing. We need to teach them to want the right thing. I see this story, or a thread of a story. I think if I pull on it, see where it goes . . . I think I might be able to find the right words. Do you understand what I mean?”
She did, somehow. She saw a flash, a vision, of Jason standing in the middle of a city, weather beaten and worn. He was telling a story, and people were weeping all around him. “The Peasant King,” she said. “Is it his story?”
He looked at her, startled. “Yes. I keep seeing it in Night’s Breath’s memories. I need to find the rest of the story, and . . . and I need to go and see his family. I need to tell them what happened.”
She held him for a long time. “Wu Song,” she said. “If I die before you come home —”
“I’ll see you before you die,” he said, with a strange firmness in his voice. “You know I never tell a lie.”
Tears crowded into her eyes. She wanted to believe him, wanted to think they would see each other again. He looked so certain, so sure. And it was true, she had never known him to tell a lie. “I know you don’t,” she said, smiling as the tears rolled down both of their faces.
Then Wu Song was gone, and she struggled for another breath, and she felt the branches of the hedge slapping against her face, and Shula’s strong arm holding her up, and Yenil on her other side, and they appeared in her backyard. It was nighttime. She couldn’t breathe. She fell to the grass, sobbing. A light came on, and Sofía came running across the grass. Shouts came from the house.
She was home.