“I can’t believe you let me die!” Disdemona said, punching the Shadow Master hard on the shoulder. “You’re such a bastard.”
“It all worked out well in the end,” the Shadow Master said. Vincenzo stood with one arm protectively around Disdemona. The three of them were in a small shaded courtyard, with Signora Montecchi. A reunion of sorts.
“He promised me that if I wrote things anew then they would turn out like that,” said Vincenzo. “And I believed him. I really thought I was changing things – not that it was him doing it.”
“I still don’t understand how he left you here as children, and then returns to claim you as adults, and then is somehow going to do it all over again,” she said. “It is against any laws of nature imaginable.”
“You get used to it,” Vincenzo said.
Disdemona gave him a look, and then said, “Well, no. You never really get used to it.”
“How many times has he done this to you?” Signora Montecchi asked.
But the Shadow Master cut in. “You looked after her well,” he said. “You certainly taught her to speak her own mind.”
“As was my promise,” she said to him. “To let them choose their own futures because that was how it must be.”
She looked back to the young couple and then said, “I imagine these are not even your real names, are they?”
“What is in a name?” asked the Shadow Master.
“Everything and nothing,” she said. “But surely you have used them enough. Stolen their memories and made them pawns in your game until you were ready to claim them again. Surely they have now paid enough for whatever penance they have due to you?”
“We all have our penance to pay,” said the Shadow Master, and looked up at the distant sky.
Signora Montecchi watched him for some moments and then said, “Tell me once more about the possible future that exist around us.”
The Shadow Master looked back at her and said, “You need to believe that all possible futures can exist somewhere, and if you had the power to change the course of your world to that of a new possibility, you can effectively shape your destiny. Control your future.”
She nodded her head slowly as if almost grasping what he was telling her, before feeling it slip away. She shook her head. “I can only see how life has played out behind me, not before me. I will grieve for Giulietta though. She was a spoiled brat at times, but I was immensely fond of her.”
“She saved the city,” the Shadow Master said.
Her mother nodded. “At least I will still have one daughter when you’re all gone.”
“Yes,” he said. “And grandchildren too before long.”
She smiled. “That would be nice.” She turned to Vincenzo and Disdemona. “Do you two ever plan to settle down and have children?”
They looked at each other and grinned awkwardly. “I don’t know, do we?” Disdemona asked the Shadow Master.
“There are many futures that are not yet written,” he said. “But also many places to go and many futures to rewrite.” Disdemona and Vincenzo looked at each other and sighed.
“He is going to do it to you again, isn’t he?” Signora Montecchi said. “Take you to a new place and leave you there as children again, through his enchantment or whatever it is. And you won’t even remember each other until it is all ended, and then you’ll have such small time together before he takes you away from each other once more.”
“The bond of their love draws them together and enables greater changes to be made,” the Shadow Master said. “They are my power.”
“No,” said Signora Montecchi. “I don’t think you ever reveal your power to anyone. Nor who you really are. That will always be kept from us, won’t it?”
He bowed low to her, as if she had just succeeded in cornering him in a game of chess, and he was acknowledging the move. But he did not say if she was right or wrong.
“This time I won’t forget you,” said Vincenzo to Disdemona.
“No more than you will forget yourself,” said the Shadow Master.
“I hate working for you,” said Disdemona.
“I never promised you that you wouldn’t,” the Shadow Master said.
They all looked at each other until Signora Montecchi asked, “So what happens next?”
“Well, if I was writing the story, your husband would become Duca and bring a new era of prosperity to the city. Your golden age would be before you, not behind you. And he would be handed the great secret of the Floating City and would choose to destroy it.”
“And that secret is?” she asked.
“If I told you it wouldn’t be a secret,” he said.
“I will just ask my husband then,” she said determinedly.
“Well, I don’t suppose it really matters anymore,” he said. “The great secret of the Floating City was that the Seers were the ones causing the Djinn in the canals and the bringing of plague and turmoil. They believed they were saving the city, of course, but they were inadvertently creating these things out of the people’s fear.”
Signora Montecchi looked at him in disbelief. “We were creating the monsters?” she asked.
“Through your fear,” he said.
“A fear that the monsters and plagues and so on increased,” said Vincenzo.
“Exactly,” said the Shadow Master. “There is always a cost for the use of enchantment, and sometimes it can ultimately be such a great cost that it destroys those who wield it. But there are no more Seers now. No more enchantment.”
“Giulietta would have been the greatest of them, wouldn’t she?” said her mother.
“Yes,” he said. “And the most dangerous to the city.”
“So,” said Vincenzo, “I was thinking we should stay on a few more days, just to make sure that everything is all right.” He squeezed Disdemona’s shoulder and she bent her head back and kissed him.
“Light of my life,” she said.
“Light of my heart,” he replied.
“I didn’t say everything would be all right,” said the Shadow Master. “There is still going to be hardship and wars and diseases to battle. But the people of the city will rise to the occasion. Mostly.”
“Let them stay a few days,” said Signora Montecchi. “This city is for lovers. They deserve some time together after the way you treat them.”
“Well,” he said. “Normally I’d think it an indulgence. But Vincenzo does still have some work to do here.”
“I do?” he asked.
“Yes. You have to finish writing up the stories of the Montecchi sisters, and then leave them around for somebody to find and use in their own work.”
Vincenzo laughed. “I think it will take me at least a fortnight,” he said, and kissed Disdemona again.
The Shadow Master stood. “You can have a week.” Then he bowed and was gone.
Signora Montecchi watched him go and then leaned close to Vincenzo and Disdemona and said in a soft voice, “We tend to like our stories very short here, it leaves more time for – well, other things.”