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I like New Delhi. I don’t know it well, but my school took a trip here when I was fourteen. Fun fact: the reason for that trip scared the dickens out of my classmates, but I think it’s one of the reasons I eventually decided to run away.
New Delhi is what they call a “smart city,” which means the whole place is wired for optimal efficiency and communication. It has some of the best free city-wide wireless connectivity in the world. Their entire public transportation system runs on natural gas. Their metro is one of the most efficient on the planet, second only next to New York’s. Every public agency is synched up to the same smoothly-operating database.
It’s also one of the greenest cities on Earth, with more than twenty percent of its land still covered by forest—which means People of the Dream live there in large numbers, which also means the artistic and creative output of New Delhi’s citizens is second to none.
All this efficiency and brilliance took the Ever-Dying a while to build. They had to tear down and revamp and re-invent, but when they were through, they had a city that retained its ancient culture while reaching tall into the future sky.
I loved it.
Of course, the point of my school trip was not to love it. The point was that the Ever-Dying were catching up, and their technology and raw willpower (and the push to succeed, driven by their ridiculously short lives) would soon put them on par with magic-users, and when that happened, there’d probably be war.
I can’t argue with that. It might happen. I know how my people would feel if entire worlds we knew nothing about suddenly appeared and were like, Yo, we’re the creatures from all your scary stories and more powerful than you ever knew and sometimes we eat you, but hey, it’s all good, right?
Still, I saw New Delhi as hope for the future—that the Ever-Dying could fly with the rest of us. That we could all be as equal as we’re supposed to be, and finally share our worlds.
My teachers saw it as oncoming doom, terrifying and probably filled with weapons of mass destruction.
We’re both right. But that has nothing to do with the rest of my story, so on we go.
The actual trip through the Conflux was easy. We queued up, handed over our tickets, and stepped into the swirling, dizzying purple light of the goblin portal.
I really like Fey portals better. When Fey make them, you jump in and slide, like you’re skiing, and it’s all beams of light and prettiness. Goblin portals drop you on your ass.
There’s a sensation of falling—a rush, an upheaval of up-down sensation—and when you land, if you’re not careful, you tumble right off your game and onto your face—sort of like stepping off one of those automatic walk-ways in an airport.
Jonathan caught me so I didn’t perform a pratfall. Let it never be said I hold too tightly to my dignity.
We arrived late, after eight at night. Street vendors were still open with plenty of fruits and toys and tools and delicious fried foods, but I couldn’t even think of eating. We’d wasted enough time. “Where’s Bran?”
“We have to go this way,” said Jonathan, which seemed like a very carefully worded statement. I ground my teeth and followed.
The marketplace was busy, time of night be damned. Crowds of people—some native, some not, some human, some not—laughed and talked and shoved their way through, purchasing everything from fried potato cakes to furniture, and in such colorful company, Jonathan and I earned not so much as a glance.
No one seemed to be recognizing my face. I suspected Jonathan was carefully directing us. “You’re spooky, you know that?” I said.
“I know.” Resigned, that’s what he was, which didn’t really make me feel any better.
He dodged and ducked, avoiding piles of rolled-up carpets and noisy vehicles, pausing to pet a friendly elephant before slipping between booths into a dark alley I was pretty sure was supposed to be off-limits to customers.
“Here’s your next choice,” he whispered to me as I huddled close. “We can go to the dragon coronation, or we can go straight to where Bran is and try to get him out ourselves.”
I stared at him. “What, this is my choice all of a sudden?”
“It has to be.” He hunched his shoulders, and I swear no puppy I’ve ever seen could do those eyes better. “I’m sorry, Katie. Every time you make a choice, things ... shift. If I try to influence your decision, it’ll all change again, and then I won’t be able to see anymore. That’s how this works.”
“That’s how what works?”
“Seers. Prophecy. It’s not ... people think it’s like looking in a bowl or something and just watching what plays out, but that isn’t it at all.” He wrung his hands, hunching closer. “True seers like Cassandra actually know what’s going to happen—I don’t know how. The rest of us just see the possibilities.”
The possibilities at the end of each glowing, tangled thread.
“My uncle always called it ‘very good guessing.’” I sighed. “I guess that makes sense.”
“Doesn’t matter if it does or not. I can’t tell you what’ll happen. But you have to choose.”
He wouldn’t tell me more even if I bullied him. Dammit. “Fine. Fine. Let’s go and check out where Bran is. Then we can decide if we need help.”
And as it turned out, Jonathan had a tell: he chewed his lower lip.
Ah-ha! Maybe I could get info out of him after all. “Won’t work, huh?”
“It, uh. We won’t be able to get help? Maybe?”
He looked so caught that I couldn’t help laughing. “You’re terrible at this, Jonathan. Worse than I am.”
He shifted from foot to foot, looking both amused and caught.
“Fine. Take us to the coronation then.”
“That’s your decision?”
Why the hell not? “Yes.”
Relief relaxed his posture. “This way.” And we were back on the street, weaving between sellers and buyers, squeezing between people who had no idea that I was here to rescue a king, squeezing past beings who had no clue that inside me was something that might unweave time—and that I was following a dude who couldn’t possibly exist.
Hell of a night, am I right?
Jonathan filled me in as we walked. The dragon coronation was happening in the human world, which is very weird. Seriously; this kind of thing usually takes place where we’re safe—a magical place, filled with our own protections and our own people. Well, this occasion wasn’t following the rules. We were staying in New Delhi, and we were going to somebody’s house.
Okay, penthouse. Same difference.
I had plenty of human money from Bran—specifically American dollars—but nothing I could use for the Mythos without trying to go through an exchange service. I didn’t exactly know where the banks were here.
Fortunately, I didn’t have to. Jonathan’s never-ending supply of credit provided me with a colorful and formal saree, and we used a small charm to make my duffel bag look like a prim little lady’s clutch complete with fake diamonds.
I didn’t know how to put the saree on. Jonathan did.
“What exactly did you do in your former life, anyway?” I said, arms out, as he wrapped and tucked and flipped silk around me like he’d done it all his life.
“I cried in a dungeon,” he said.
I paused. “What? Are you serious?”
“Yes.” He shrugged.
My heart ached. Where could I even go from that? Had Ravena done that to him? “I’m sorry. Wow. For a long time?”
He said nothing.
When in doubt, snark. “Way to kill the conversation, Jonathan.”
Still kneeling, he flashed me his sneaky little smile. “Sorry. Ha, get it? Saree?”
He was okay. I don’t know how, but he was okay. I guess Notte made a good therapist.
I groaned. “Not funny.”
“Sure it was. Ready?”
“To march uninvited into a dragon coronation? Sure, no problem.”
And he grinned like a naughty cat. “But we are invited. I told you Father extended an invitation to me, and your uncle already left one for you at the door because you’re his.”
I wasn’t anybody’s, but if it got us closer to helping Bran ... “Why?”
“I might have told them to.” He looked defiant.
“And you can’t tell me what’s going to happen when we go in.”
“No.” And he was back to guilty.
I looked up at the night sky, at the spotlights sliding along the undersides of clouds, at the distant blinking lights of airplanes. “Fine.” Deep breath. “Let’s go.”
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● CHAPTER 18 ●
New Delhi