They were no longer in Avalon. The winter here was harsher, more unforgiving. and yet far better than the destruction they’d left behind. Loki had gone off to scout and soon returned, their eyes still red-rimmed from crying. “I don’t know how Alex did it,” they said heavily, “but he ported not just the castle but the whole city of Lyonesse right to Nibheis. He even managed to port in the Jolly Roger along with it, and that’s no small feat.”
Nibheis. Cole’s ancestral home. Another friend they hadn’t been able to save. Tala forced her mouth to move, ignoring the dryness to her lips, the starchiness of her tongue. “Do they—does his family know about—”
“I don’t know how, but I think they do. They’re asking for Gravekeeper. Tristan has it, but he’s with Alex right now.”
Tala couldn’t bear it. Cole’s death and Ken’s. How many more?
It felt strange not to have the adarna’s familiar weight on her head. Her only consolation was that she knew the Snow Queen needed it alive for the moment to carry out her plans of opening Buyan. She should have tried to rescue it, even though it had spurned her offer. It had saved her life. She should have—
Should have, could have, would have. The worst words in the world.
Loki was right. Tristan was with Alex. The king was strapped to a medical bed, an IV line hooked to his arm. His breathing was deep but even. He was all right physically, the doctor in charge told her, but they didn’t know when he would wake up.
The firebird was in no better shape than its owner, collapsing at the same time as Alex. The doctor couldn’t say what was wrong with it any more than he could the Avalon king. The firebird had often been an indicator of Alex’s health in the past, so it had been wheeled beside his bed, placed in a small nest there, and carefully monitored.
Avalon’s command center had caved in just before Alex successfully ported them away; the Snow Queen had known where to target, and she had nearly succeeded. Heavy injuries had been reported among the personnel there and at least two fatalities. Tala’s heart nearly stopped inside her chest when she was informed that Dexter was among those seriously wounded. Parts of the roof had landed on him, and they had had to amputate part of his leg to save his life. The brave little tailor will lose his leg for you, Tala thought, remembering the Dame of Tintagel’s warning. It took all she had not to cry.
She’d been prevented from visiting. The boy was doing well and was expected to recover despite everything, but the doctor’s orders limited anyone but family from seeing him, and Severon Gallagher was already there.
She’d been granted leave to visit Alex. Tristan was sitting at his bedside, face stricken. “I shouldn’t have left him,” he said, looking down at Alex’s hand, which was clasped against his. “He kissed me,” he added disbelievingly. “And I…I didn’t turn into a frog.”
“In shifting ice a prince you’ll kiss, and the first shall be forgiven.” Tala said. It was the first evidence of his doom being proven right, though she wasn’t sure what that signified yet. After all, what use would Alex’s ability to kiss be if he could not be roused? “The whole place was shifting, all right. He always thought his true love was tied to whoever he’d kiss if that could break the curse.”
“Ha,” Tristan said bitterly. “I don’t know if he’d told you this, but we’d already kissed, before he ever told me about his spell. It took hours before I learned how to stop catching flies with my tongue once I turned back into human form. I’m not his true love.”
“Maybe it just meant that you weren’t worthy enough to be with him then.”
“And I am now? Doesn’t feel like it. I should have known he would push himself. If I’d been there with him, maybe I could’ve…”
“If you’d been able to stop him,” Tala said, “Maidenkeep would have been overrun, and the Snow Queen likely would have destroyed the city. He saved all our lives.”
“I know.” His grip on Alex’s hand tightened. “But still…I should have found another way.”
I should have found another way. The words followed Tala back down the hallway and back to the medical center. Nya was still with Ken, in a separate area to give them privacy; she had refused to leave his side ever since they’d brought him there. Ken’s parents had been secretly ported into Nibheis hours ago, soon after news of Avalon’s defeat had circulated in the media. Ken’s mother had thrown herself on top of her son’s body, and her wails were the most heartbreaking sound Tala had ever heard.
Horse had gone mad. It had taken nearly a dozen soldiers to tranquilize the poor beast, and the castle veterinarian had told them she intended to keep Horse incapacitated for the meantime for everyone else’s safety.
The Katipuneros crowded around the body of General Luna in quiet mourning. The man looked like he could have been sleeping. Tala wished he was.
“Paalam, Heneral,” Tita Baby said, weeping. “Magkita tayo muli.”
Lola Urduja was two beds over, staring down at Lola Corazon. The latter was so heavily wrapped in bandages that it was almost difficult to recognize her. Tala neared, her heart breaking. She didn’t know her grandmother well, but she knew how much the old woman had done for her sake even if she disagreed with how.
“Why?” Lola Urduja asked heavily. “Why did you save me, Corazon? We were never friends to begin with. Foolish as your life has been, why choose to waste it on me?”
The old woman’s eyes fluttered open at the sound of her archrival’s voice; her eyes were warm, far from the sometimes condescending way she looked at Lola Urduja in the past. “We fight together in battle,” she whispered, so low and so soft that it was hard to make out the scratch of her words. “That is enough. I do not like you, Urduja, but it was an honor to fight with you all the same.”
“Bilisan mong gumaling, Corazon. We have many more battles to fight together.”
The injured woman’s gaze stole back to Tala, and her fingers twitched.
Understanding, Tala moved to the other side of the bed and gently took her frail hand in her own.
“Nay,” Lumina said softly from the door, hesitating to enter.
Lola Corazon’s eyes twinkled. “Ah, there she is. My favorite child.”
“I’m your only child,” Tala’s mother said, taking up position beside Tala, reaching out to fold her hand over both Lola Corazon’s and Tala’s.
“I do not want to say that I regret,” Lola Corazon said weakly. “I know that we have not always seen eye to eye, anak. But I am proud of you. Proud of how you fight. Proud of how beautiful you are now and of how Tala takes after you. I wish…” She let out a long, soft sigh, and her eyes closed. Her breathing slowed down, then stilled.
Urduja clutched at Corazon’s arm in disbelief, pain across her austere features. Lumina gathered her daughter and her mother close to her, and Tala cried.
Kusanagi had disappeared. So had the singing bone. Lumina had the whole city searched, only for her soldiers to come up empty-handed. No one had seen either of them disappear from Ken’s body. But Juuchi Yosamu and Yawarakai-Te had been found in Lord Inoue’s room when he’d returned for a change of clothing, both leaning against the wall like someone had left them there for him.
Tala rejected the idea that the singing bone had come into the Snow Queen’s possession. She had seen how badly Ken had fought to regain the bone, literally at the cost of his own life. He had not wanted the woman to have it. He had seen a vision in one of the mirrors at the Ryugu-jo that had predicted his death. He’d died knowing he’d succeeded.
Tala didn’t care where any of the artifacts were at the moment. Their other losses had cost more.
There were wolves waiting together with the Nottinghams when they approached—not the Snow Queen’s ice wolves but much like the ones that had greeted Cole near Ikpe when they’d still been stuck at the frost, or the wolves he and Zoe looked after at the sanctuary. They seemed to know what had happened, and the air was filled with quiet, mournful howls.
The Nottinghams accepted Gravekeeper in silence. Cole’s grandfather stood in heavy black, looking older than Tala remembered, with more white in his hair and a grayer cast to his chin. Cole’s mother stood like an alabaster statue, pale as the snow around them and only a slight tremble to her hands as she folded them before her. Her husband stood quietly beside her, a dark sentinel. The Dowager Nottingham was a small form beside her and even stiller. Only Adelaide Nottingham, Cole’s young sister, gave them all away. Her slim form shook, and her eyes were bright with tears.
They knew. The Dowager Nottingham was one of the great seers. She herself had foretold Cole’s doom.
“I am sorry,” Tristan Locksley said. A lifetime ago, he and the Nottinghams would have been enemies, split by politics and old history. Now Tristan held the sword carefully, like it was the most precious thing he’d ever had to touch. Meeting Cole’s family was the only reason he had left Alex’s bedside.
He held Gravekeeper out to Lord Nottingham. The old man shook his head. “I am no longer the bearer of the sword,” he said, lifting his arm. “I can no longer hold it.”
Tala saw the deep webbed scars, the overlapping crisscrosses of raised white lines and red splotches that ran up his wrist and disappeared underneath his sleeve, knew that they would reach all the way to his shoulder, like Cole’s did. Cole’s mother and grandmother had borne similar marks the way every wielder of the sword had. Only Cole’s father bore no injuries, without the shared blood capable of wielding it.
Tristan hesitated. Adelaide stepped forward, but her voice was strong. “Thank you for bringing Gravekeeper back to me, Sir Locksley,” she said in a soft commanding tone that Tala knew would have made Cole proud. “I’ll take it now.”
Tristan stared at her. “I—you can’t,” he said, his tone incredulous. “Surely you know what it—”
“I am a Nottingham just as much as my brother, Sir Locksley. Just as my great-grandmother, my grandfather, and my mother. Let me carry out my duty, like you carry out your duties to the king.”
Tristan bowed. He held Gravekeeper out to Adelaide. She seized the sword and lifted it easily, like she’d wielded it before. Her arm was smooth and unlined, and Tala knew it was only a matter of time before she, too, would be made to suffer the family legacy.
“I wish I could wield it for them,” Cole’s father said quietly. He had been estranged from the family, Tala knew, and had only recently reconciled. Cole had been sparse with the details, only that the man had been opposed to the family segen, the grief it brought to the family line. He was correct in his assessment, but there was no anger or accusations in his gaze now, only loss.
“We have ample room in our castle should anyone prefer to stay there while we find a way to repair parts of Maidenkeep,” Lord Nottingham said. “Our home is open to whomever asks, Sir Locksley.”
The lord’s voice was stern and intimidating as always, but there was no mistaking the olive branch being extended. Tristan accepted by bowing low again.
“Wait,” Nya said. She, too, had left Ken’s side only to insist on meeting with the Nottinghams. “I hope I am not speaking out of turn, milord, but I have a request to ask of you.”
“Anything, milady.”
“I want you to bury Sir Inoue in your graveyard.”
The Nottinghams were silent, studying her. “Do his parents give you leave?” Lord Nottingham finally asked.
“They do. I am speaking on their behalf as well. They have agreed to sign any necessary papers to make it possible.”
“You know that our graveyard is not an ordinary one. It is for sinners.” The Nottinghams were, according to their own customs, buried there as well, but Lord Nottingham didn’t mention that.
“I know that, sir.” Nya was perfectly composed now, though her expression was carefully and deliberately neutral, like she was stopping herself from showing any more emotion than desired.
Lord Nottingham let out a slow, drawn-out exhale. It carried into the early morning air. “I will make the preparations,” he said. “I am sorry for your loss as well.”
Tala thought about how they couldn’t even bring Cole’s body back to bury.
Nya had insisted on speed. Tala didn’t know if it was her way to mourn, but the Nottinghams didn’t question it. Surprisingly, neither did Ken’s parents.
They gathered an hour later to watch the gravediggers bury Ken. The villagers at Ikpe who’d stayed at Maidenkeep to fight also attended the event. Nya’s grandmother greeted the Dowager Nottingham; they stood apart from the rest, talking in low, quiet tones.
It hurt to see them lower Ken into the hard snow-covered ground. Nya was dry-eyed, hugging her pouch like it was the most precious thing she had left. Ken’s mother made up for them both, her face buried against her husband’s chest while he stared ahead, unable to tear his eyes away from the shroud that held his son’s body.
It hurt to see the Nottinghams bury Ken while Cole was still at World’s End. Loki was silent and Tala held fast to their hand. West had shifted into hound form and had refused to shift back, as if he could take grief better in this shape.
The last pile of dirt was heaped onto the grave, adding Ken to the tens of thousands within the graveyard, without even a marker to his name. Adelaide walked toward it, stopping beside the fresh mound to draw out her sword. Another feature of the Nottinghams’ graveyard—as doomed sinners, anyone who bore Gravekeeper was to fight the demons that would inevitably come, seeking to claim the deceased’s souls. It was their duty to keep them safe within whatever peace these burial grounds offered.
Adelaide waited. They all did, but no shades appeared. No demons came to fight for Ken’s soul.
“He was worthy,” Adelaide said and, finally, could not hold back a sob.
“He was,” Nya said softly and traced the outline of something that lay inside her pouch.
Zoe had gone missing from her hospital bed. Lumina had wanted to call for a search, but Tala had asked her mother to let her find the girl first. She knew where Zoe was likely to be.
She was right. They hadn’t used the secret room within Maidenkeep’s gardens for some time now, the meeting place they’d used to test the Gallaghers’ more advanced looking glass. Alex’s abilities were such that he had brought the whole estate grounds with him when he had transported the city to safety. The last time they’d been inside was during Zoe and Cole’s escape from the Royal States, unsuccessful at preventing Abigail Fey from casting her terrible curse. Tala suspected that the room had held bad memories for Zoe ever since. No one protested when she had stopped using it as their meeting place.
The room was nearly bare, save for a whiteboard that stood against one wall. It was where Zoe was most likely to be back then, forever writing out ideas and plans, pros and cons lists.
The girl was there, just as Tala had thought. But the room looked like it had been taken over by a conspiracy theorist. Manila paper had been put up on nearly every inch of wall, and theories filled every surface. “By winter, by fire, by madness” headlined most tracts, followed by scenarios and hypotheses listed underneath.
The prophecies regarding both Cole and Zoe had been written out on the whiteboard itself. “You will save her,” it read, “once from frogs and once from fire and once from winter, and she will save you, once from poison and once from sword and once from madness.”
Zoe was staring at it, a marker still in her hand.
With any other person, this would have looked like the ramblings of some madman, some afflicted brain. But even surrounded by the chaos, Zoe remained precise, methodical. Her neat handwriting listed the pros and cons of every possible situation, arguing whether it fit the part of the prophecy she had highlighted to compare it to or why it didn’t.
Structured, orderly, and methodical. Zoe could have been a university professor working through a complex mathematical formula. But the crumpled balls of paper on the floor that showed she had been at this for a while had discarded even more theories than what was already on the walls. That and the cold blank look in Zoe’s eyes—
Tala felt tears prickling at her own once she realized what the other girl was trying to do.
“I’m missing something,” Zoe said. Her tone was crisp as always, like everything was normal. “I’ve been going about this all wrong. There has to be a reason why Cole’s doom would have given such precise instructions. There has to be a reason why I was a part of his prophecies. Why would it go through all that trouble instructing us how to avoid death when the end result would be simply to leave him at World’s End to die?”
The cool inflection, the calm tone. It was like Cole’s death had no immediate bearing on the current riddle she was trying to solve.
Zoe lifted her hand as if to write something else down on the board. She let it hover in the air for a few seconds, then dropped it instead.
“If these prophecies are real,” she said, “then I’ve left something out. He saved me from frogs and fire and winter. That’s the marsh king, and then the harpoon, and then World’s End. And I saved him—from letting his wounds fester while we were stuck in the frost, and then from the ice maiden’s sword, and then from joining the Horned One’s hunt. Why would the prophecy list them all down in such detail if it ends with him at World’s End? What would have changed? Adelaide would have received Gravekeeper no matter how he died. Why did he have to die specifically at World’s End, then? I don’t understand it. We did everything right.” She shook her head and then spun to a nearby wall, reaching out to tear down more paper. “I’ll figure it out.”
“Zoe, no.” Tala grabbed at her wrist. “You’re going to drive yourself mad doing this. We just—” Her voice broke over the words. “Zoe, we just buried Ken. We can’t let this destroy us. We have to find a way—”
“Tala.” Zoe found her hand and patted it, like she was the one giving her comfort. “Please let me solve this,” she said, and the kind, mellow way she said it made Tala know that Zoe was not all right. But there was nothing she could do but to wait for the other girl to process Cole’s death her way.
It was the singing that called out to her soon after leaving Zoe, and it sounded so much like the adarna that Tala was convinced for a moment that it had somehow escaped the Snow Queen and had returned to her. She followed the music back toward the courtyard, where a cleanup crew was already moving some of the fallen trees and doing their best to clean up the rest of the ruins. Several of the Filipino delegates were on hand to help, as were some of the staff from Simeli Mountain. None seemed to hear the melody.
The anvil had survived both the carnage and the transport. It lay untouched among the broken pavement and the fallen trees. But the barrier spells Lumina had placed to keep it at arm’s length from curious visitors fizzled out at a touch from Tala’s fingers.
The sword was once again embedded in the anvil like it had never left. It had not been there the last time they looked.
The Cheshire stood beside her. Tala didn’t even need to look to know it was him, his presence a quiet comfort. “And how are you holding up?”
“Badly,” Tala said and stared at the Nameless Sword. It felt like every problem and every heartbreak she’d ever had to go through in her young life could be tied back to this sword and all the miseries that followed in its wake. “I wish you could disappear forever,” she whispered. “I wish that no one else would ever have to raise you.”
“So many times have I stood before this sword and said the same thing,” the Cheshire said. “But in the end, the fates move as they always have. Sometimes it is hard not to feel insignificant.”
“We lost Ken,” Tala said. “And it should have been me. I was supposed to take up the sword, and I was the one who was supposed to die. Maybe things would have changed. Maybe my father wouldn’t have become Deathless. Maybe we wouldn’t have to lose Cole or Ken or Lola Corazon or General Luna or anyone else. Maybe we could have saved more people. Maybe—maybe there could have been something—”
“That’s always been the case, isn’t it? Always thinking you could do better. Thinking you could be better, like hindsight in itself is a magical spell you can but master.”
It was the old woman from Simeli who’d spoken up, the one who had ferried Tala so many times out of the mountain, who always had encouraging words to say when she failed. She was sweeping up the debris around the anvil.
She looked at the sword, sniffed. “You never would have thought it could break kingdoms in half.”
“It didn’t do anything for Ken,” Tala said, suddenly angry. “It didn’t protect him. It didn’t protect Alice Liddell. It didn’t protect anyone else who wielded it. It’s all about protecting itself and its legacy. Anyone else using it is only a vessel to further its ends and nothing else. In many ways, it’s almost as bad as Koschei. At least you know he was in it for himself. This sword only ever pretends to be on your side.”
“My goodness. I have never heard the sword talked about in such a manner. But perhaps you are right.”
The Cheshire was staring hard at the woman. “And why are you so curious about it, milady?”
“You can say that I made a bet on it, once upon a time.”
“And did you win?”
“It is far too early to say. It’s only been eighteen or so years ago since I made it.”
There was no spark of magic at all that Tala could sense within the woman, unlike the Cheshire, who was a heat signature composed of spells. But something about the nice old lady standing before her now made her think of old curses and prophecies.
The Baba Yaga entered the courtyard. Their eyes widened as they took in Tala and the Cheshire and the cleaning woman beside them. “I knew it,” they said. “I thought I was imagining it at first, but it really is you.”
“I?” the Cheshire asked. “I have been spending my time pulling in favors from the other kingdoms, though they have still been reluctant to voice their support so openly. I have made progress, only to return back here to find ice dragons breathing at Maidenkeep’s—”
“I’m not talking about you, you dolt.” The Baba Yaga turned to the old lady. “You were gone for so long,” they said. “We all thought you’d croaked, Messinda. And then to find you out of the blue, cleaning Avalon’s courtyard of all places!”
Tala knew then, long before the elderly lady turned back to her, smiling.
“I wanted to see if this was all worth giving up my foresight,” the old woman from Simeli, the former Baba Yaga, said. “How nice to see you again, young Makiling Warnock. And thankfully no longer in the fowl form you were so accustomed to taking back when you were running the mountain gauntlet.”