BE HAPPY FOR THIS MOMENT. THIS MOMENT IS YOUR LIFE.
—Omar Khayyam
Elsa waded through the rubble that was all that remained of Montaigne’s house. It had rained at least once since the fire, and the runnels of ash-dirty water had dried in patterns of swirled black and gray. Another section of roof had collapsed since last she’d seen the ruins, which added to the difficulty and disorientation of trying to navigate her way back to where the study once had been.
She spun a slow circle, getting her bearings. Yes, the bookshelves had stood over there on the right, and the big windows were behind her—one broken, one warped by the heat. So this section of empty air used to be the wall where the Veldana worldbook was hidden.
Her stomach flip-flopped with anxious nausea. She lifted a shaky hand, holding it up to the air. How would she know exactly where to place her palm, with the wall gone? Slowly, she swept her hand back and forth, tracing over the nonexistent surface where she estimated the wall had once stood. Nothing.
Barely breathing, she pulled her hand back a little and tried again at a different depth. At shoulder height she felt a sort of gentle tug, as if the air had turned the consistency of honey. She leaned into the feeling.
The air shimmered and dissolved, revealing a dark compartment floating where the wall had been. The rectangular opening was visible only from the front, making the whole compartment appear two-dimensional, but when Elsa stuck her arm inside she confirmed it had depth to it. She laid her hand gently upon the cover of the worldbook inside and stood there for a moment before lifting it out.
Veldana. Untouched by flames. She could go home.
* * *
Elsa had worried about how she would manage to relocate her mother, but her concerns proved to be unfounded. In the end she had more help than she knew what to do with. Faraz and Porzia brought Jumi to Casa della Pazzia while Elsa retrieved the Veldana worldbook, and then they all went through—not just the three of them, but Gia and several of the children besides.
Everyone wanted to see Veldana. Burak and Porzia’s brother Sante ran ahead down the path to announce their arrival, and so the villagers met them partway. Elsa and Jumi’s homecoming became something of a carnival procession, dozens of voices chattering in Italian and Veldanese, children shouting with excitement and chasing one another. It felt like centuries since Elsa had last laid eyes on them all.
Then there he was, striding like a shark through a school of minnows: her oldest friend, Revan. He cut a line straight for her and fell into step at her side, and she felt suddenly, unaccountably shy. He had to be angry she’d disappeared with no explanation.
“Hi,” Elsa hazarded. “How’s … how’s things?”
He shook his head, half-disbelieving. “That the best you can do?” he said, but when she looked at him, there was amusement crinkling the corners of his eyes.
“You’ll have to cut me a little slack. I was rather occupied, saving the world and all.”
He laughed. “We’ve never been very good at cutting each other slack, have we?”
Elsa showed a tentative smile. “I suppose not.”
Impulsively, she stopped walking and pulled him into a hug. He froze for a second, surprised, then hugged her back fiercely.
“I’m glad you’re not dead,” said Elsa.
“Same to you, dummy,” he replied. “Same to you.”
When they all arrived at the village, Baninu—Revan’s mother and Jumi’s oldest friend—helped Elsa make up a bed in the main room of her mother’s cottage. It might be a while before Jumi could manage the ladder to the loft. With Faraz’s supervision, they disconnected Jumi from the stasis machine and tucked her in, and Elsa settled down to wait for her mother to wake.
When the sun dipped low in the sky, the villagers built a bonfire and brought out the drums and reed flutes. Elsa watched from the open doorway, her own people and the Italian guests making joyful attempts at communication. Faraz slipped away from the light of the fire, and as he approached, Elsa recognized him only by the height of his rail-thin silhouette.
“Hey,” he said, his voice pitched low. “Has your mother woken up yet?”
Elsa shook her head. “Still unconscious.”
“Ah, well. Slow victories are still victories.”
“I’d prefer not to tally our gains and losses,” she answered wryly. “I doubt we’d come out ahead.”
“Your fellow Veldanese seem to think there’s reason enough for celebrating,” Faraz said with his usual tone of careful neutrality.
Elsa watched the festivities while she puzzled over his words. Was this what victory felt like? On the far side of the bonfire, Porzia was attempting to converse with Revan, a feat that apparently required much wild gesticulation.
“How’s she doing?” Elsa said.
Faraz followed her gaze to Porzia. “She’s angry. She tries to hide it, but she’s angry.”
“And you?”
“I’m…” His jaw worked as he struggled for words. “He’s like a brother to me, you know? Disbelieving is how I am. I cannot accept this.”
“I’ve been such a fool.” Elsa clenched her fists against the turmoil inside her; it felt as if denial and fury were two snakes wrestling inside her gut. “I was warned, and still I didn’t see it.”
Faraz tilted his head to look at her, his eyes catching the firelight. “What do you mean?”
Elsa shook her head. Leo had worked so hard to earn her trust, only to leave in a spectacular act of betrayal—just as Jumi had always warned her men would do. A part of her wanted to tell Faraz, I will never trust again. Lesson learned.
Instead she told him, “Nothing, I … I was thinking of the Oracle. That’s all.”
Behind her in the cottage, Jumi coughed and groaned. “Elsa? Where are you?”
“Oh!” Elsa said with a start. “I’d better…”
“Yes, of course,” Faraz said, motioning for her to go back inside.
Elsa bid him good night and moved to her mother’s bedside. Jumi’s complexion was still wan and her forehead damp with sweat, but her eyes were clear. Relief swept through Elsa like a new tide, washing away the hurt and confusion. Her mother keeping secrets, hiding the editbook, even scribing it in the first place … none of that seemed to matter now.
She said, “You’re awake.”
Jumi coughed again, and when she spoke her voice grated in her throat. “What in the world is all that racket?”
Elsa sat on the edge of the cot and took her mother’s hand. “The whole village is celebrating your safe return. Welcome home, Mother.”
* * *
The festivities wound down and the Italians went home, but the next day Elsa looked outside to see the lanky, familiar form of Alek de Vries picking his way slowly down the path. She could tell even at a distance that his hip was bothering him. When was he going to give in and start carrying a walking cane?
When had Elsa become the one who took care, and Jumi and Alek the ones who needed taking care of? Strange.
“Darling, where are you going?” her mother said.
Jumi hadn’t called her darling since she was a little girl. The word—and the raw need with which her mother said it, so uncharacteristically defenseless—made her heart ache inside her chest.
“You’re not going back for that boy, are you? The one who betrayed you,” Jumi said disapprovingly.
“I never would have found you without that boy,” Elsa snapped. The phrase irritated her, as if Leo in all his complexity could be reduced to that boy. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Though even as the words left her mouth, she knew Jumi wasn’t really the one she wanted to yell at. She was just mad at Jumi for being right, and mad at herself for being so gullible.
Jumi sighed and leaned back against the pillows. Her voice softer, she said, “I don’t know how it started, but I was with you at the end. When I was sick, I could still hear things.”
Elsa wanted to say, It’s not over yet, but the doubt twisting in her gut kept the words from forming. What if Leo truly was beyond her reach? He’d chosen a side, after all, and it wasn’t the same as hers. She should never have trusted him.
“I was only looking,” Elsa finally said, by way of explanation. “Alek is coming down the path.”
She left the door standing open and returned to Jumi’s bedside.
Jumi took her hand in a firm grip. “I know you, daughter. I didn’t raise you to give up so easily. But this is my fight, not yours, do you hear me?”
“You can’t go back to Earth,” she said. “The restorative properties only function in Veldana—if you went back, you’d fall ill again. Mother, you could die.”
Jumi looked as if she wanted to argue, but instead she released Elsa’s hand and said, “Tell me, what became of Montaigne?”
“The Order of Archimedes has him in custody.”
“So he’s to be locked up. As traitors ought to be,” Jumi said suggestively.
Elsa gave her mother a sidelong look. Were they still discussing Montaigne, or had they returned to the topic of Leo? But she never got the chance to clarify—that was the moment when Alek came shuffling up to the open door, and his arrival ended the argument.
Elsa tried to step aside, not wanting to intrude on their reunion, but Alek drew her in and they all huddled close, talking much longer than they should for Jumi’s sake. Three generations of scriptologists, mentors and students to one another but also something more. Family. Elsa had more of it than she’d once thought.
Later, when it was time for Jumi to rest, Elsa drew Alek aside to speak with him privately. “Will you stay with her? She needs time to recover, whether she likes it or not. And she won’t like it—you know how difficult she can be.”
Alek gave her a wry look. “How difficult she can be?”
“She needs someone to look after her,” Elsa persisted.
“And who’s going to look after you?” he said.
She wanted to snap, I can look after myself, but that would hardly be the reassurance he needed. Instead, she settled for saying, “There’s Porzia and Faraz. I believe I can still count on them, even with…” She swallowed the words, Leo gone. “In any case, my work’s not done. We must retrieve the editbook.”
Alek frowned, and for a moment she thought he’d argue with her. Perhaps insist that the Order take over the battle with Garibaldi after her spectacular failure. But he voiced no words of criticism, only nodded. “Very well. I’ll stay.”
She nodded. “And I’ll go.”
* * *
Elsa took the shortcut up the steep hill, weaving her way around rocks and trees. She didn’t want to be seen on the main path, didn’t want the villagers making a production out of her departure. After weeks of fearing she might never return to her world, it would be hard enough to leave Veldana without a reminder of the people staying behind. Her people—she saw now that they truly were.
At the Edgemist, Elsa paused to check her supplies: doorbook and laboratory book, revolver in its holster, stability glove, portal device. The instruments of her craft. She suspected she would need them all.
She set the dials and flipped the switch. The portal irised open before her—cold as betrayal, black as uncertainty, edged in swirling chaos. The portal, so like the future that lay beyond it.
Elsa stepped through.