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Mal gazed down at Gizelle. So much of what she did was instinct, in sharp contrast to his own carefully learned, orderly methods. “I think I can help you,” he offered. “I need a physical anchor. Something that means a lot to you would be best, but anything will do.”
Gizelle’s glance flickered up to the bar deck, where Conall’s body lay half-covered in rubble.
“What about this?”
Mal turned to find that Bastian and Saina had climbed from the crumbling pool, and the dragon shifter, looking rather worse for the wear and leaning heavily on his mate, was holding out an ugly, battered piece of metal.
“I found it when we were fleeing back from Scarlet’s tree,” the lifeguard explained. “My treasure sense went nuts and I had to pick it up.”
Gizelle gave a sigh. “Yes,” she said.
Mal took it, hefting it in his hand. It was a big chunk of metal, clearly a mechanical lock of some kind that had been badly damaged. A hole had been drilled in it, and a carabiner was looped through that hole. A lock had good symbolism, and when he cast his power sight on it—wincing at the effort it took—he was stunned by the emotions it had captured: Neal’s anger and helplessness, Gizelle’s fears and confusion... and Conall’s deep love.
“This is perfect,” he agreed. He put it in Gizelle’s hands. “I want you to picture a large door.”
She closed her eyes obediently.
“Now imagine a deadbolt—do you know what that is?”
Gizelle nodded.
“Good. Imagine that you’ve closed the door, and now you’re locking it. The lock is heavy, like this, and you can hear it shooting home. You might have to press on the door to make the lock fit. And then nothing can get in or out, forever.”
“It’s the end,” Gizelle said quietly.
Mal didn’t need to cast his power sight to confirm her success; Gizelle’s hair suddenly shimmered to pure white and the feathered wyrm bleached of color as if it had turned into pale marble.
Forever.
“You did it,” Mal murmured to Gizelle.
Scarlet, the same exhaustion in her shoulders that Mal felt on his own, let the vines and trees wrapping the creature go slack and turned to account for the rest of her staff. They began to emerge from the rubble they had used as cover as the storm, no longer powered by the wyrm’s wrath, began to die. It was still raining, but was a gentle rain, warm and apologetic.
Two bears, one white and one golden brown, rose to four feet and shook rubble and rain off of them as staff who had sheltered behind them dazedly dusted themselves off.
Gizelle lifted a face tracked with tears and raindrops to look at Mal. “Why am I still here? I don’t remember this...”
“The door is closed,” Mal said wearily. “You’re locked to one time now, like all of us. No more whispers from the future, only memories of the past.”
She made a wordless noise of agony and turned away. “I don’t want to be here. I thought it would end when the door shut.”
She slipped around Mal and climbed up the shattered stairs to where Conall’s body lay crumpled, her white hair a tangled cloak behind her. Jenny let go of Travis to follow her, and after a moment, Lydia gave Wrench a squeeze and trailed after.
Slowly, weary and battered, they all picked their way one by one and two by two through the rubble, standing in a stunned group on the broken tile to gather around Conall.
Mal, feeling empty and exhausted as never before, stood alone for a moment on the bar level.
“Can you heal him?” Scarlet demanded quietly, suddenly at his side.
“He’s dead,” Mal told her. “I can’t do anything about that.”
“I know that,” Scarlet said impatiently. “Can you heal him?”
“It wouldn’t do any good,” Mal said gently. Should he be flattered that she thought him capable of that? He was too tired to feel flattered.
“You have got to stop making assumptions,” she replied with a sigh. “I do not have dominion over earth, Mal.”
“You’re a dryad...” he started.
“And do you see me throwing rocks around or making mountains move?” Scarlet asked scathingly. “Was I even slightly comfortable underground? Did I have any luck controlling dirt? Just because my roots are in earth doesn’t mean I don’t need air, or fire from the sun, or water from the rain. I don’t have any power over dirt or rocks, I make things grow.”
Mal scowled at her in confusion, trying to make sense of what she was trying to tell him.
“My dominion is life, Mal. I can bring Conall back, but it won’t do more than make him suffer needlessly and die again if he can’t also be healed.”
“You can...”
“I can bring him back to life,” she said calmly, as if she was not offering the impossible.
“You’re sure?”
“I caught him as he died,” Scarlet explained. “And I have only been able to hold him here this long because of his bond with Gizelle. We have to hurry, or I will lose him entirely.”
“I can heal him,” Mal said, testing his wells of power cautiously. They were badly drained, and his ability to control it was nearly burned out completely. He had never strained himself like this before, never even dreamed of controlling so much energy. There were a few swirls of magic left and just enough strength in his mind. “I can do that much.”
“Do it then.” Scarlet took his hand and they walked slowly up to where Gizelle was lying curled against Conall’s still side. Lydia and Jenny were sitting on either side of her, offering mute comfort and the rest of the staff was in a loose, grieving semi-circle around them. They had pulled most of the rubble off of Conall, and tried to lay him out in a less unnatural position.
Scarlet took her hand back, but didn’t gesture or chant. She only looked at the fallen shifter and Mal didn’t understand that she was using her power until Conall suddenly took a shuddering breath, groaned, and began to die from his injuries once more.
Gizelle gave a frightened squeak of alarm, shrinking away in shock. “Conall!”
Jenny stood and stepped back, nearly colliding with Scarlet, and Lydia reached for Gizelle and clasped her hand, murmuring a prayer.
The rest of the staff gasped and whispered and swore in surprise.
Mal cursed and brought his scattered thoughts to bear, naming the runes as he gestured to them. Conall’s body arched as the last tattered remains of Mal’s magic knit his bones back together and mended crushed organs. He had underestimated the amount of damage the man had taken, and for a bad moment he feared he wouldn’t be able to do as he’d promised.
Then Scarlet’s pure power was bolstering him again, flowing into him like water after terrible thirst.
Life, her power was life.
Her entire forest, now both sides of the island, gave her a deep wellspring of energy without even trying.
Mal would have laughed, if he had the energy left for it. It all made so much sense.
Then Conall began to cough and rolled to one side with a moan of pain. Gizelle reached for him, weeping and shaking.
“I can’t... hear...” he said breathlessly, when her hands were on him. “No, I can... but it’s so quiet.”
“The door is shut,” Gizelle said simply, laying her head on his shoulder. “I only hear things that are now.”
Mal couldn’t stand any longer, every muscle in his body trembled as badly as Gizelle ever had, and he felt like he had worked his brain into the same kind of weak exhaustion. He could not have managed the most basic of portals or simplest of power sights. He could barely handle the effort of his own thoughts.
He sat down in his tracks, and he might have fallen over on his side, but Scarlet was suddenly behind him, holding him cradled in her arms. The scent of her damp hair swirling around him made him feel utterly, completely safe.
We are safe, his dragon told him, feeling equally stretched thin. We are safe and we have fulfilled our destiny and our mate will protect us while we rest.
It wasn’t the destiny that Mal had come to Shifting Sands expecting, and he didn’t have answers for their future: Would he move his hoard from New York? Would she agree to marry him, or was she too independent to accept such an earthly conceit? Would there be children? Could there be? Would her staff ever accept him as one of them? Wasn’t there something else he had to tell her...?
Blackness darker than the sky of Gizelle’s place took him at last.