the Blessed were long gone, presumably scattering to the bridges, ready to run across and start new lives of havoc in the outlying boroughs and beyond. Prospero and Daniel were walking in the direction of Central Park.
I put my legs to work. Crow soared alongside, visible only to me. When I caught up, I wasn’t even breathing hard. Thank the Blessed for borrowed strength.
Prospero strolled without seeming to have a care in the world. His gaze traveled fondly over the Upper East Side buildings. “You would not think,” he said, “having been trapped here so long, that I would miss this place.”
“My Lord, what exactly is happening?” I asked. “Why are you not coming back?”
“Never before have you had so many questions, Jessica,” Prospero said. “Have patience. All will be revealed.”
Then, a voice buzzed in my ear: Zelda, this is Aunt Belinda. If you can hear me, touch your crown.
I touched it.
Good. I heard everything so far. Everyone’s closing in. You want ’em to jump that guy?
Having Prospero jumped sounded appealing. But if I stopped him now, I’d never know his plans. Never know if there was a connection to the Forest of Emeralds. Never find a key to undo whatever had been done—and it was possible I’d never have a better chance.
I had to keep going.
I gave my head a tiny shake.
Okay, girl, Aunt Belinda responded in my ear. Your call. You be careful. Your mama’d kill me if anything happened to you.
I almost smiled. With family, you spend at least half of your time reminding each other to be careful.
We were almost at Fifth Avenue, the eastern border of Central Park. We stood at the crosswalk, waiting for the light to change, Upper East Siders streaming past in either direction studiously pretending there was nothing weird about three people dressed in full costumes in the middle of summer.
Déjà vu. I’d done this all before: the Upper East Side, a royal costume, a party. That one ended in flashing knives and vampire bargains.
The stoplight changed, and the white pedestrian symbol lit up. Magic everywhere, and still we obeyed technology.
Now—into Central Park.
Prospero gestured toward a sign. “To the North Woods."
To the North Woods, where a field of star fruit-scented flowers waited for sunrise.
Where the Arcade waited in her ice field.
The Arcade.
I’d been right all along. There was a connection. Prospero had made some kind of deal—a deal he didn’t expect to walk away from—in exchange for releasing the Blessed into the wider world.
The paved sidewalks gave way to footpaths through ferns. With Prospero ahead of us, Daniel and I shared another uneasy glance.
Prospero began to whistle.
The forest opened up to the small clearing I had visited once before with Victorine. We approached the white flowers, which glowed innocently like starlight.
“One last adventure, my friends. One last adventure. Shall we?” Prospero said. His fangs showed: white ivory, sharp as fileting knives. He nicked his finger, and let a drop of blood fall. It spattered the white flowers with dark dots. The ground rumbled, he stepped forward, and he was gone.
I turned to Daniel. I’d been unable to speak this whole time, and now the words were bursting to come out. “This is your chance. Get out of here. If the spell falls, you can at least escape Manhattan.”
“And let you go in there alone? What do you think I am?” His fangs elongated. He held my gaze as he slid the tip of his little finger against a point. “Manhattan is home.” Blood welled, but he held his finger so it wouldn’t fall. Waiting for me.
I hesitated. I wanted him to come. I wanted him to run.
Not so very different from our entire relationship, really.
But the moment was interrupted by a familiar voice behind us. “Ugh, so messy,” Berron said. He stepped out of the woods, spotless despite traveling through the North Woods just like we had.
“Get out of here, man,” Daniel said. “He’ll know the jig is up if you come through with us.”
Berron smirked. “Poor, simple Danny. Not if you put a sword to my heart when I get there.”
“Just let him come, it’s faster than arguing,” I said.
Daniel frowned. “Fine.” He paused, pointed a finger at Berron. “And it’s ‘Lord Daniel’ to you.”
Great time for a joke. I almost laughed.
Then Daniel and I held our hands over the white flowers, and at last, the blood fell. We took the small step into the flowers together, leaving Berron behind, but knowing he was—as he said at the church—right behind me.
The ground shook, and changed places with the sky.
I landed harder than when I’d dived onto that table to save Patty Melt from Aloysius the crazy owl. As dark as the summer night had been, it was darker now. And cold—so cold. Adrenaline and my real clothing were the only things holding in warmth. The ghostly costume was still in place.
I lifted my head, saw Daniel beside me, looking winded but whole. Still with it enough to be wary. Around us, the snowy field littered with boulders, the unfamiliar stars overhead a reminder that this was no ordinary place. Ahead, Prospero’s cape thrashed in the icy wind. He barely seemed to notice, his head back and his arms open as if welcoming it.
Daniel and I got to our feet, brushing away snow. We flanked Prospero.
Prospero’s hair glittered where ice had already crystallized. He lowered his arms. “It is time.” His eyes glowed redder than usual. I wanted to call it evil, to keep it in the realm of something I could hate, but it wasn’t. It was the fervor of doing what he believed, with all his heart—bag of dust or not—to be right.
“Not so fast.” Berron’s voice rang out.
Prospero, Daniel, and I turned, a united front of vampires, or so it seemed.
Of course, if Berron were really trying to be sneaky, he wouldn’t have issued a verbal warning. He would have simply impaled Prospero on one of those sharp sticks without a word. But Berron was playing the same game I was: not to kill Prospero, but to find out what magic had been done to tangle the dimensions and sicken the Forest of Emeralds.
Daniel drew the sword from the cane, and rushed Berron.
It took half a second to realize that I—Jessica—should be doing the same thing. I ran at Berron, too, hoping no one got too sword- or stake-happy and turned me into a kebab.
Berron threw me off with far too much enjoyment, but let Daniel take him down, putting on a good show of struggling mightily until Daniel pressed the tip of the blade under Berron’s rib cage, where it threatened to slide all the way to his heart.
Prospero approached, and gazed down upon Berron. “Prince of the Fae,” he said. “You, of all beings, understand. You would do anything for your people, as I have done for mine. It is only that what you want, and what I want, cannot coexist. Know this, in the moment of your defeat: it was well-fought. But you have lost all the same.” He pivoted away, toward the opposite horizon, as if catching a scent on the frigid air, Berron entirely forgotten. “Do you hear them?” he said. “The bells!”
Laughter made musical. So sweet. So light. So pretty.
Pretty doesn’t always mean good.
Swirls of light danced across the landscape, an aurora borealis of magic, more powerful than an elemental witch, or the Blessed, or the Gentry. Pure, uncut power. The kind of power that could create artifacts from nothing, bend dimensions, fulfill wishes like an arctic genie. I didn’t know, when I accepted one of the Arcade’s gifts, that the price was so high.
I knew better now.
“I am ready, Arcade,” Prospero called into the rising wind. “I have done as you asked. I have given you the power you require. The realm of the Gentry fades away even now. Take what I have given you. Use it. Break the spell.”
The light coalesced, and the Arcade appeared, sparkling crystal ice in a female form, draped in icy robes that covered her hands, great lengths of glassy hair that drifted, weightless, through the cold air. Beautiful. Inhuman. So bright it was hard to look at her directly.
Her blowtorch eyes fixed on me.
I flinched. I knew, in an instant, that she saw through me. She had given me the mask, after all. My costume was no better than a child’s plastic Superman cape.
She would reveal me to Prospero. We would never find out what had happened. All would be lost. Yet as this terrible reality loomed—unbelievably—her gaze shifted away.
To Prospero.
She wasn’t going to reveal me. And it couldn’t be because she didn’t know. She knew. But she wouldn’t risk revealing me, for fear of him changing his mind. Whatever it was, she wanted it that much.
She hovered closer, her glowing gaze still on Prospero. You give yourself up willingly?
“I am willing.”
To become my host, that I may escape this dead world?
“Take me and walk free. I ask only that you free my people in return.”
To take him and walk free! So that was the bargain, the unholy bargain he’d made to release the Blessed from their island prison: to be taken over by a creature of magic, and unleash her into a world entirely unprepared for a goddess to walk down Broadway. The magic of the Forest of Emeralds? Berron’s sister, and the rest of the Gentry? Gone, fuel for the Arcade’s escape.
And what would become of my new home when the Arcade was unleashed?
This couldn’t happen. I had to stop it. Yet as powerful as I felt in my world, here, versus the Arcade, I felt powerless. Fire wouldn’t harm the Arcade. No wind I could conjure would blow as strong as hers. Berron’s magic with plants wouldn’t work in this wasteland, and I didn’t much rate Daniel’s speed and strength against a being who swallowed magic from entire dimensions.
The Arcade’s drifting hair curled and uncurled like octopus tentacles. Long and long have I been imprisoned, yet I heed the old ways. Say it a second time, Lord Prospero, that your intentions be without a doubt.
“I am willing.”
Her eyes narrowed as she floated directly in front of Prospero. One of her long tresses curled around his neck. Thrice is the charm. Say it once more.
Prospero hesitated.
Time slowed.
Time stopped.
And then, from another dimension altogether—from the dimension of memory, nudged forward by a little fire mouse rummaging in the files—
My grandmother’s voice.
From the carefree days I played in Central Park. From when we stood over a cutting board and I learned the right way to wield a knife. From when she taught me to be like her. To be the conduit to others’ magic.
Strong and sure: Let the magic in.
I saw the Arcade before me, a being of crackling energy, a live wire. It’s too much, I thought. I’ll die.
Prospero stood before the Arcade, one sentence away from being obliterated, an old-fashioned gentleman facing the firing squad. Facing his own sacrifice and saying, Yes. The same Prospero that stepped around a dying Daniel in his Gramercy Park apartment. Great generals are rarely understood by the rank and file, he’d said.
I finally understood Prospero. I didn’t have to like him, but I understood. Giving himself up completely.
He loved the Blessed.
And when it comes to love, there’s really no choice at all.
I loved, too. Daniel. Berron. Berron’s sister, trapped under the apple tree. Poppy and Lily and Aunt Belinda; Victorine; even Jessica, who didn’t deserve to have an ancient fury unleashed.
But mostly—
Jester. Because I couldn’t look him in his sweet, dumb face and tell him Mama hadn’t tried to save the world.
Maybe it wouldn’t work. Maybe I didn’t have a chance.
Hell with it.
I was going to try.
“I am willing,” Prospero said, for the third and final time.
The bells that rose were shriller than laughter, more piercing than a siren. They would have shattered glass. White light poured from the Arcade’s eyes, from her mouth, and wrapped Prospero in glowing ropes. Her embrace enveloped the two of them and shined until the brightness made me close my eyes. Still the fire burned on my eyelids.
They were lost in their own spell, and I had no time to lose.
I turned away, to Daniel and Berron, who had already given up the pretense of fighting, Daniel helping Berron to his feet. “You have to help me hold on,” I said.
“To what?” Daniel said.
I jerked my head at the blinding light. “To the Arcade.”
“Zelda, no!” Berron lunged at me.
He missed. I was already gone. My speed was Victorine’s, Daniel’s, and Jessica’s. I ran at the Arcade and threw my arms around her glowing form.
There was just enough time to smell a fine cologne, and the scent of meadows and rain; feel their arms around me, bracing me, crushing the corsage against my shoulder—and I smiled, knowing at least I wasn’t alone, when the world blew apart.
Magic had always crept onto me, before. Thorny vines from the Blessed. Silver flames from Poppy, icy lace from my brother or Aunt Belinda. Green and gold vines from Berron. Prickly or smooth, hot or cold, they were—manageable.
This.
This was something else.
Electricity from the spinning planets. Songs in the key of the bones of the earth. Lightning splitting pine trees. All of it blazing through me until I thought it would stop my heart.
Still I held on.
More, I thought. Is that all you got?
And for the first time in my life, I didn’t just wait for the magic. I grabbed and pulled with everything I had. I was as tall as the clouds. As tall as the sky. Looking down with eyes that saw into other worlds: the Shadows; the Forest of Emeralds; this blasted ice field—
And home.
I squeezed the Arcade tighter, feeling my arms become the arms of galaxies, my skin dotted with stars brushed from Jester’s coat, sparkles of luck that never went away.
More.
What I held in my embrace changed. It wasn’t the Arcade anymore.
It was draped in old-fashioned velvet and shaped like a man. Prospero—but not Prospero.
Prospero was gone.
The Arcade had taken him over completely.
My arms were galaxies, and I held him—the shell of him—and wept tears for Prospero from the cracked moons of my eyes.
More.
Magic overflowed. I was magic itself, shedding stardust waterfalls onto the Forest of Emeralds, so much that it ran off the side like water spilling off a dinner plate. Doors flew open and eternity spun through me, the stars going out, one by one, candles in an abandoned church, finally exhausted.
The last sparks pulled Daniel, Berron, and I out—home—slamming the door on the Arcade, and Prospero, forever, with a blast of smoke like star fruit on fire.
Something, somewhere, shattered with a sound like falling chandeliers.
Before everything went black, I might have seen God.
And he may have been a little black poodle.