FAUSTUS: Come, I think hell’s a fable.
MEPHISTOPHELES: Ay, think so still, until experience change thy mind.
—Doctor Faustus, CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE (pre-Crossing Angl.)
When Kelsea broke free this time, Mace was with her. Both of his arms were locked around her waist, dragging her back, and Kelsea saw that she’d been heading toward the great double doors at the far end of her audience chamber.
“Was I going somewhere?”
“God knows, Lady.”
I was. But where?
The answer came: her mother’s face, beautiful and thoughtless. Mace released her and she gestured toward the door. “Come on, Lazarus. Let’s go down to the portrait gallery.”
“Now?”
“Now. Just you and me.”
Pen’s face stiffened, but at a nod from Mace, he faded back toward the hallway. Kelsea couldn’t afford to worry about Pen’s feelings now; she checked her watch and found that it was past one in the morning. She was running out of time.
By unspoken consent, they did not take Mace’s tunnel this time. Instead, Kelsea marched out her front door, down the long hallway that fronted the Queen’s Wing, and into the Keep proper. They had run out of extra rooms long ago, and now even the corridors were lined with people, most of whom seemed to be wide awake. The smell of unwashed bodies was dreadful. As Kelsea went by, they bowed, murmured, reached to touch the hem of her dress, and she nodded in acknowledgment, barely seeing them, secure in the knowledge that if anyone tried anything, she could end him in an instant. An old woman blessed Kelsea as she went by, and Kelsea glimpsed an ancient rosary wrapped around her gnarled fingers. The Holy Father would scream if he knew that one of those was still knocking around; no one in the Arvath wanted sinners to be able to tell their own grace. Seeing the milky cataract that covered one of the woman’s eyes, Kelsea reached out and grasped her hand before moving on. The flesh there felt bone-dry, like scales, and Kelsea was relieved to let go.
“May Great God protect and keep you, Majesty,” the woman rasped behind her, and Kelsea felt something turn over inside her. Did they not know that she was going to die today? How could they not know that? She quickened her steps, determined to reach the portrait gallery before Lily took her again. She could feel Lily’s need now, Lily’s pain, eating into the edges of her mind, trying to drag her back, and for a moment she resented Lily, wondered why she couldn’t pile her sorrows on someone else.
“Has there been word of Father Tyler?” she asked Mace.
“No. All I could find out is that he and a brother priest vanished from the Arvath several days ago, and the Holy Father is livid. He’s offering a thousand pounds for Father Tyler, alive.”
Kelsea halted for a moment, leaning against the wall. “If he hurts Father Tyler, I’ll kill him, Lazarus.”
“You won’t need to, Lady. I’ll kill him.”
“I thought you didn’t like priests.”
“Why am I here, Lady? You no longer need protection. I could drop you in the middle of the Dry Lands and you’d likely walk out unscathed. These people are no danger to you. Why have you brought me along?”
“We started out together.” They rounded a corner and began to descend a new staircase, this one smaller than the Main Stair and circular where the Main was square. People had crowded onto both the top and the bottom of the staircase, but they scrambled out of the way as Kelsea approached.
“You started off with all of us.”
“No. That morning with the hawk, you remember? That’s when I first knew I was the Queen, and it was just you and me.”
Mace glanced sharply at her. “What are you planning, Lady?”
“What do you mean?”
“I know you. You scheme.”
Kelsea veiled her thoughts, willing them out of her face. “When the sun comes up, I mean to go down to the bridge and try to parlay.”
“The terms were nonnegotiable.”
“Nothing is nonnegotiable, Lazarus, not if I have something she wants.”
“She wants this city and all of its goods in plunder.”
“True, it may not work. But I have to try. I’ll take only four guards with me, including yourself and Pen. Choose the other two.”
“Perhaps not Pen.”
She halted, turning to face him. They were near the bottom of the staircase now, only a few turns to go, and Kelsea lowered her voice, mindful of the people who were undoubtedly below. “Something to say, Lazarus?”
“Come now, Lady. A besotted man makes a poor close guard.”
“Pen’s not besotted.”
The corners of Mace’s mouth twitched.
“What?”
“For a woman with remarkably clear vision in most areas, Lady, you are stone-blind in others.”
“My private life is not your business.”
“But Pen’s professional life is, and just because I’ll tolerate some things in the safety of the Queen’s Wing doesn’t mean I’ll tolerate them elsewhere.”
“Fine. It’s up to you whether he comes or not.” But Kelsea winced at the thought of Pen’s reaction to being left behind. Was Mace right? Was Pen in love with her? It seemed impossible. Pen had his woman, and although Kelsea had her occasional possessive moments, the woman served a purpose, allowed Kelsea to feel as though she was doing no harm. She didn’t want Pen invested in their arrangement. She wanted it to be private, something that never needed to be dragged into the light of day. She wished Mace had not said anything.
No point in fretting over it, she reminded herself. Everything ends in a few hours.
The portrait gallery was full of people, at least several families sleeping on the stone floor. But a few sharp bellows from Mace did the trick; parents scrambled to their feet, grabbed their children, and were gone. Kelsea shut the door at the far end of the gallery, and then it was just the two of them again, Mace and Kelsea, the way it had been at the beginning.
Kelsea went to stare at her mother’s portrait. If her mother had been standing before her, Kelsea would have grabbed her by the throat, torn her hair out by the roots until she screamed for mercy. But how much of their current nightmare was really her mother’s fault? Kelsea thought longingly of those early days in the Keep, days when blame had been clear-cut.
“Why did she give me away, Lazarus?”
“To protect you.”
“Bullshit! Look at her! That’s not the face of an altruist. Sending me away for fostering was utterly out of character. Did she hate me?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“What is the point of this little expedition, Lady? To whip yourself with your mother?”
“Ah, hell, Lazarus,” Kelsea replied wearily. “If you’re not going to talk to me, then go back upstairs.”
“I can’t leave you down here.”
“Of course you can. As you pointed out yourself, no one here can harm me.”
“Your mother thought the same thing.”
“Queen Elyssa! Nothing but trash in the finest silk. Look at her!”
“Call her all the names you like, Lady. She still won’t be the villain you wish her to be.”
Kelsea whirled to stare at him. “Are you my father, Lazarus?”
Mace’s mouth twisted. “No, Lady. I wish I was. I wanted to be. But I am not.”
“Then who is?”
“Has it ever occurred to you that you might not want to know?”
No, that had not occurred. For a moment, Kelsea pondered the worst people it could be: Arlen Thorne? The Holy Father? Her uncle? Anything seemed possible. And did blood really matter so much? She had never cared about her father’s identity; her mother was the important one, the one who had wrecked a kingdom. Kelsea stopped pacing, looked up, and found the portrait of the Beautiful Queen staring down at her. The favored child sat on her lap, smiling brightly, no dark corners, and behind the Beautiful Queen’s skirts was the other, the dark child, the bastard, not loved and not special. Parentage did matter, Kelsea realized, even if it shouldn’t. Pain stabbed into her vitals and she cried out, doubling over. It felt as though someone had kicked her right in the guts.
“Lady?”
Another blow, and now Kelsea shrieked, cradling her stomach. Mace reached her in two steps, but he could do nothing.
“Lady, what is it? Are you ill? Injured?”
“No. Not me.” For Kelsea suddenly knew: somewhere, centuries away, Lily was paying the price for her silence. Lily needed her now, but Kelsea shied away, cowering inside her own mind. She wasn’t sure she could face Lily’s punishment. She didn’t know how she would come out of this thing on the other side. Would she have to feel Lily die? Would she die herself?
“Lazarus.” She looked up at Mace, seeing both sides balanced in equal measure: the angry boy who had emerged from the unimaginable hell beneath the Gut, and the man who had given his life in service to two queens. “If something happens to me—”
“Like what?”
“If something happens,” she overrode him, “you will do several things. For me.”
She paused, gasping. Bright, searing pain scorched her palm and Kelsea screamed, clenching her hand into a fist and pounding it against her leg. Mace moved toward her and she held up her other hand to halt him, gritting her teeth, fighting through it, blind with tears.
“What’s doing this to you, Lady? Your sapphires?”
“It doesn’t matter. If something happens to me, Lazarus, I trust you to look after these people and keep them safe. They fear you. Hell, they fear you more than they fear me.”
“Not anymore, Lady.”
Kelsea ignored his comment. The pain in her palm had lost its sharp edge now, but it still throbbed hotly in time with her pulse. Kelsea closed her eyes and saw a small metal rectangle gleaming in the bright white light, recognizable only through Lily’s memories: a cigarette lighter. Someone had held Lily’s hand to the flame.
Not someone, Kelsea thought. The accountant. A man of whom Arlen Thorne would have thoroughly approved. And Kelsea wondered suddenly whether humanity ever actually changed. Did people grow and learn at all as the centuries passed? Or was humanity merely like the tide, enlightenment advancing and then retreating as circumstances shifted? The most defining characteristic of the species might be lapse.
“What else, Lady?”
She straightened and unclenched her fist, ignoring the mouth of seared flesh that seemed to open up in her palm. “If he’s still alive, you will find Father Tyler and keep him safe from the Arvath.”
“Done.”
“Last, you will do me a favor.”
“What’s that, Lady?”
“Clean out and seal off the Creche.”
Mace’s eyes narrowed. “Why, Lady?”
“This is my kingdom, Lazarus. I will have no dark subbasements here.” Through Lily’s eyes, Kelsea saw the warren of fluorescent hallways inside the Security compound, the endless doors, each of them hiding agony. Her palm throbbed. “No secret places where awful things go on, things that no one wants to acknowledge in the light of day. It’s too high a price, even for freedom. Clean it out.”
Mace’s face twisted. For once, Kelsea read his thoughts easily: what she was asking would be terrible for him, and he didn’t think she knew. She put a hand on his wrist, clutching the leather band that held several small knives. “What’s your name?”
“Lazarus.”
“No. Not the name they gave you in the ring. Your real name.”
He stared at her, stricken. “Who—”
“What’s your name?”
Mace blinked, and Kelsea thought she saw a bright sparkle in his eyes, but a moment later it was gone. “My first name is Christian. I don’t know my surname. I was born in the Gut, to no parents at all.”
“Fairy-born. So the rumors are true.”
“I will not discuss that phase of my life, Lady, not even with you.”
“Fair enough. But you will clean the place out.” The room wavered before Kelsea’s eyes, torchlight becoming electric for a moment before fading back. She wanted to see . . . she didn’t want to see . . . she heard Lily screaming. Kelsea clenched her fists, willing the past away.
“You talk like one condemned, Lady. What do you mean to do?”
“We’re all condemned, Lazarus.” Kelsea’s head jolted as a blow landed across her face. Lily was beginning to lose hope; Kelsea could feel despondency creeping in, a deadened numbness that echoed all through her mind. “You might need to take me back up, Lazarus. I don’t have long.”
“We can go back through the tunnels.” Mace played with the wall for a moment, opening one of his many doors. “Where do you go in your fugues, Lady?”
“Backward. Before the Crossing.”
“Backward in time?”
“Yes.”
“Do you see him? William Tear?”
“Sometimes.” On her way through the door, Kelsea reached up to touch her mother’s canvas, the painted hem of her green dress, feeling rogue regret surface in her mind. No matter how hard she tried to hate the smiling woman in the portrait, she would have liked the chance to speak to her, at least once. “You knew my mother well, Lazarus. What would she have thought of me?”
“She would have found you too serious, Lady. Elyssa wasn’t one to feel anguish on behalf of others, let alone of circumstances that couldn’t be changed. She surrounded herself with similar people.”
“Was my father a good man?”
A pained expression darted across Mace’s face, then was gone, so quickly that Kelsea might have imagined it. But she knew she had not. “Yes, Lady. A very good man.” He gestured into the darkness. “Come, or I’ll end up carrying you. You’ve got that look about you.”
“What look?”
“Like a drunk about to pass out.”
With a last glance at her mother’s portrait, Kelsea followed him into the tunnel. Through the walls, she could hear the murmur of many voices, even in the middle of the night, people too worried to sleep. They were all in equal danger now; lowborn or highborn, the army outside the wall would not make distinctions. Kelsea tried to picture the coming dawn, but could get no further than the end of the New London Bridge. Something was blocking her vision. Burning fire spread through Kelsea’s arms, a tingling pain that moved on to her chest before attacking her legs. The pain intensified, and Kelsea halted in the darkness, unable to move. She had never felt anything like this; each nerve in her body seemed to have opened up wide, become an infinite conductor.
“Lady?”
“Make it stop,” she whispered. She squeezed her eyes shut, feeling tears leak beneath the lids. Mace fumbled for her in the dark and Kelsea grabbed his hand, clung like a drowning man. “I don’t want to see.”
She couldn’t hold herself up; it felt as though her nervous system had collapsed. All muscle control had gone from her legs. Mace grabbed her, lowering her softly to the ground, but the pain didn’t stop. Every cell seemed to be on fire, and Kelsea screamed in the darkness, writhing on the rough stone.
“Take them off, Lady!”
Kelsea felt him tugging at the chains around her neck, and she slapped his hand away. But she didn’t have the strength to fight him off. None of her muscles were working correctly, and the pain controlled everything. She tried to roll away, but could only wriggle helplessly on the floor.
“Quit, dammit!” Mace dug a hand beneath her neck and lifted her head from the floor. Strands of hair ripped from her scalp.
A warning, the dark part of her mind whispered. That’s all he needs.
She concentrated on the hand that held the sapphires, first pressing, then digging. Mace grunted in pain, but did not let go, so Kelsea clawed at him now, opening up scratches.
“I know how valuable your hands are, Lazarus. Don’t make me take them from you.”
Mace hesitated, and she pressed even harder, digging inward toward the muscle until he swore and scrambled away.
Kelsea pulled herself into a sitting position, then rested her head on her knees. The pain had begun again, in her legs this time, and she realized now that she had no choice. Lily’s time was an open doorway, and there was no going halfway through.
“Lazarus,” she croaked into the dark.
“Lady?”
“I’m going back. I can’t stop it.” She stretched out on the floor, feeling the blessed coolness of stone against her face. “Don’t try to take them off while I’m gone, either. I’m not responsible for what might happen.”
“Keep telling yourself so, Lady.”
She wanted to snap at him, but now Lily was upon her, Lily’s mind slipping inside her own the way a hand would slip inside a perfectly fitted glove. The pain had faded again; Lily had taken refuge in her own imagination, her vision of the better world, fields and a river seen from atop a hill. Kelsea recognized the view: the Almont, as it looked from the hills of New London, and the Caddell stretching into the distance. But there was no city yet in Lily’s dreams, only the wide-open land running toward the horizon . . . a clean slate. Kelsea would have given anything for that land, that opportunity, but it was too late.
“Had enough yet?”
Kelsea barked laughter, a helpless doglike sound. She looked up and saw the grinning, sharklike face of the accountant, and the laughter died in her throat.
I said, have you had enough?”
Lily blinked as sweat ran into her eyes, stinging and blinding. She had found that once she answered an innocuous question, it became that much easier to answer a question that mattered. Now she held silent.
“Ah, Lily.” The accountant shook his head sadly. “Such a waste of a pretty woman.”
Bile collected in Lily’s throat, but she swallowed it down, knowing that if she got sick, it would make everything hurt more. She blinked the sweat from her eyes and shot a glance at the assistant who controlled the box, a tall, bald man with dead, watery eyes that seemed to focus on nothing. The assistant had come and gone many times, bringing pieces of equipment, or notes which the accountant would read quickly, his eyes advancing and then returning in a precise typewriter fashion before handing the note back. Then the assistant would leave again. But now he appeared to be here for good, his finger on the console that made agony travel all over Lily’s body. Tiny wireless electrodes seemed to be strapped everywhere; they hadn’t put one between her legs yet, but Lily felt certain that they would get there in time.
She had no idea how long she had been in this room. There was no time, only the lulls that the accountant gave her, she felt sure, to contemplate what he might do next. She could have asked him for the date, but even that seemed like it might alert him that something was going on, that time mattered somehow. She was trying to hold on until the first of September, but in truth, it could already have been the fifth or the sixth for all Lily knew. Her muscles throbbed, her hand throbbed. They had stitched the wound in her scalp, but no one had tended to her hand, and the burning hole in her palm had blackened and then crisped over with pus, like a crust on a filthy pie. The assistant’s comings and goings were the only way to mark the passage of time. Sometimes the accountant would leave the room as well, shutting off the lights. Another purposeful maneuver, Lily was sure, leaving her alone in the dark.
And yet she was not alone. With every hour that went by, Lily became more aware of the other woman. She came and went, sometimes merely flickering on the edge of Lily’s consciousness and sometimes right there. The feeling was nothing Lily could explain to anyone, even herself, but nevertheless the woman was there, just beyond a thin veil, feeling Lily’s pain, her fright, her exhaustion. And this woman was strong; Lily could sense that strength, like a great lamp shining in the darkness. She was strong the way William Tear was strong, and that strength buoyed Lily up, kept her from opening her mouth and screaming out the answers the accountant wanted to hear. As the hours went on, Lily became more and more certain of something else: this woman knew about the better world. She had seen it, understood it, longed for it with all her heart.
Who are you? Lily wanted to ask. But then the assistant pressed the button again and it was all she could do to cling to the other woman, like a child to its mother’s knees, begging for solace. When the electricity was on, Lily forgot all about the better world. There was only pain, white-hot agony that flared beneath her skin, wiping everything else away . . . except the woman. Lily tried to think of Maddy, Dorian, Jonathan, Tear, but she could feel herself wearing down. Several times, the pain had ceased just when she was at the point of begging them to stop. She thought of her old life, when she used to be afraid of bee stings, and the thought made her giggle, a dark and senseless giggle that died on its way to the walls of the room, this room that was the only thing left.
“Keep on laughing, Lily. You can end this at any time.”
The accountant’s voice betrayed irritation. He was growing tired, Lily thought, and this gave birth to new hope: at some point, wouldn’t he have to go away and sleep? They could give her to someone else, of course, another interrogator, but the accountant didn’t strike her as the sort who would let go. He was a hunter, waiting patiently for the moment when she would break, and he wouldn’t want the satisfaction of that moment to go to anyone else, not when he had done so much to loosen the lid.
The pain stopped, and Lily’s entire body sagged with relief. Earlier, she had been trying to think of positive things to cling to, and at this odd moment, one occurred to her: she didn’t have children. If she had, these people would certainly have made use of them by now. She wondered whether Mom was in some kind of custody, whether they had come to the nice suburban neighborhood in Media and hauled Mom away.
“Come on now, Lily. You know you’ll give it up sooner or later. Why prolong this? Wouldn’t you like some food? Wouldn’t you like me to let you sleep?”
Lily said nothing, noting with relief that the assistant was standing up and leaving the console. The accountant was a busy man; his assistant was constantly fetching him messages, and Lily thought he must have many other projects. But God help her, she had his full attention now. Behind the glasses, those round, birdlike eyes pinned her where she sat.
“Tell me a little something, Lily, and I’ll give you a break for a while. Just tell me why you went to Conley Terminal the other night.”
Lily felt her consciousness beginning to waver. Her vision had blurred again. There could be no harm in answering the accountant’s question . . . after all, he already knew, didn’t he?
Focus!
Lily’s mind sharpened for a moment. Those words were not Dorian’s, not Maddy’s. And now she realized that she was actually hearing the other woman, her thoughts inside Lily’s mind, so tightly wrapped that Lily might have mistaken them for her own.
The other night.
It definitely wasn’t August 30 anymore. Had William Tear and his people gotten away? Lily would have given her life for the correct date, but she couldn’t ask.
The assistant left the room, the door booming closed, and for no reason at all, Lily suddenly thought of her father, who had died years ago. Dad had hated President Frewell, hated the proliferation of Security offices in each city and town. But there was no organized resistance then. Dad had been a fighter with nothing to fight for, no one to fight with.
Dad would have liked William Tear, Lily realized now, her eyes stinging with tears. Dad would have fought for him.
“Last chance, my girl.” There would be no respite; the accountant had moved over to the man to console himself. Lily clenched her toes in preparation, grabbing the arms of the chair. The accountant sat down and smiled pleasantly at her, a predator’s smile in a bureaucrat’s face, then clucked in mock concern.
“Tell me, Lily . . . whatever turned a nice woman like you into a cunt like this?”
He reached for the console, and the lights went out.
For a long moment, Lily could only hear her harsh, frightened breathing in the darkness. Then she heard shouts and cries in the hallway outside, muffled by the metal door. Beneath her feet, the ground trembled, and Lily was seized with joy, a fierce joy that bordered on ecstasy in the dark.
September first! her mind exulted. She knew, suddenly, that it had come, the end of the old, diseased world. September first!
Somewhere, far away, an alarm began to squawk. More muffled screams echoed from the hallway. The accountant’s chair scraped back, and Lily drew up into a ball, expecting him to find her at any moment. She could hear the grating crunch of his feet on the concrete floor, but whether he was near or across the room, Lily couldn’t tell. She began to feel her way around the arms of her chair, looking for a sharp edge, a nail, anything, tugging as hard as she could against the short reach of the handcuffs. This was her only chance, and if she didn’t take it, if they managed to get the lights back on, the pain might go on forever.
The door thrummed, a deep metal gonging sound, and Lily jumped, banging her head against the back of the chair. Several sharp beeps punctuated the darkness: a gun being loaded. Lily could find no sharp edges on the arms of the chair—of course not, she thought, of course there wouldn’t be—and so she began to work on one of the handcuffs that bound her to the chair’s arms. She was fine-boned, with thin wrists, but no matter what she did, the cuff wouldn’t slip off the protrusion below her thumb. She continued to pull at it, not stopping even when she felt the first trickle of blood. Sometime in the last forty-eight hours, Lily had discovered the great secret of pain: it thrived on the unknown, on the knowledge that there was a greater pain out there, something more excruciating that might yet be reached. The body was constantly waiting. When you took away the uncertainty, when you controlled the pain yourself, it was infinitely easier to bear, and Lily yanked at the handcuff, gritting her teeth, hissing the pain away through pursed lips.
The door boomed again, a much deeper sound, metal hitting metal, and a moment later the hinges burst apart, emitting a silver rectangle of light from some sort of halo device. When Lily was little, they used to take such lights camping, but this one was infinitely brighter, turning the door into a rectangular sun in the darkness. Lily threw up a hand to cover her eyes, but it was too late; she was already blind, her eyes burning, leaking salt. The room was full of gunfire, quick sharp clicks and the metallic ping of bullets bouncing from metal walls. A thin slice of pain tore across Lily’s bicep. The backs of her eyelids seemed to be on fire.
“Mrs. M.!”
A hand clasped her shoulder, shook her hard, but even when Lily opened her eyes, all she could see was white fire.
“Jonathan?”
“Hold still for a minute.”
Lily held still. There was one sharp crack of metal, then another, impacts that reverberated all the way up her arms.
“There, you’re out. Come on.”
“I can’t see.”
“I can. But I can’t hold you up. You need to walk.”
Lily let him pull her to her feet, though pins and needles awoke roaring in her feet and calves. She stumbled along, Jonathan’s arm tucked behind her shoulders. To her left, she heard a gagging rattle, the sound of someone choking. She could see shadows now, bright beams of flashlights in the darkness. The choking intensified, becoming a loud gargling sound that made Lily wince, and then it ceased.
“We have to go!” a voice squealed, so high and panicky that Lily couldn’t tell whether it was a man or a woman. “They’re bringing the secondary backups online! The power’s already on in Building C!”
“Keep your pants on,” a woman drawled, and Lily swung toward the voice, though all she could see was another bright blue shadow.
“Dorian?”
“Come on, Mrs. M.” Jonathan took her arm, pulling her along. “Gotta move, time is short.”
Is it September first? But there was no time for her to ask. They hustled her out the door—Lily skinned her elbow on the busted frame on the way out, but said nothing—and down the hallway, which was still dark. Lily blinked continuously, trying to force her sight back. Scattered light arced across the hall—flashlights—and Jonathan’s hand urged her to go faster. Lily heard pounding on the doors as they passed; people were still trapped in there, behind magnetic locks, and now Lily understood Jonathan’s urgency. All Security facilities were supposed to have several sources of emergency power in case of a failure; Dorian and Jonathan must have sabotaged more than one, but they had not killed them all. Beneath her feet, buried deep in the stone, Lily felt intermittent thumps as someone tried to bring the building back online.
A figure stepped into the flashlight beams, some ten feet in front of them, and Lily halted, recognizing a Security uniform. The man was big and rangy-looking, and he held up a huge black machine rifle, one that could fire either bullets or darts; Greg used something very similar whenever he went deer hunting with his cronies in Vermont.
“Where are you going with her?”
Behind Lily, someone snarled, a soft sound that made the hairs stand up on the back of her neck.
“She’s being transferred to Washington.”
Lily knew that voice: it was the accountant’s assistant, the bald man who had spent most of the night with his hand on the console. He was on Jonathan’s other side, still in his uniform, but when Lily screwed up her eyes to focus, she saw that his face was a grotesque white mask of panic. She was beyond surprise now, beyond reaction; the presence of the assistant merely registered, poking the bubble of her mind with a soft finger, then retreating.
“On whose orders?”
“Special orders from Major Langer.” But the assistant’s voice was unsteady, and the guard wasn’t buying it, even Lily could tell. Dimly, outside the glow of their flashlights, she spotted someone moving down the hallway wall, a sliding shadow in the darkness.
“Where is Langer?”
“He’s writing his report.” The assistant licked his lips, and Lily heard the dry rasp of his tongue. “I’m supposed to take her outside to the car.”
“Who are these others?”
The shape on the wall launched itself onto the guard, knocking him to the ground. The gun chattered as the guard went down, bullets pinging off the walls and floors. Jonathan’s arm dropped away from Lily’s back, and she heard the thud of his body hitting the ground. Jonathan’s flashlight had fallen to the concrete, and in the dim light she saw William Tear, his knee planted in the guard’s stomach, both thumbs jammed into the man’s eyes. Lily grabbed the discarded flashlight and shone it around until she found Jonathan’s feet. The guard screamed, making her jump, and the light jigged crazily around the hallway. For a moment Lily was back in her nightmares, in that other hallway with its endless doors.
“Shine it up.” Dorian grabbed the flashlight from her, focusing it on Jonathan’s stomach. “Ah, damn.”
A narrow trench of blood, sparkling almost black, stained Jonathan’s shirt just above his belt buckle. Lily’s vision crystallized, the warm bubble around her mind evaporating.
“Help me pick him up.”
Lily wrapped an arm around Jonathan’s waist and helped Dorian haul him from the floor. Ahead, in the darkness, the guard’s screams ended suddenly, a strangled sound that cut off in a grunt.
“Move!” William Tear shouted.
“Jonathan needs a doctor,” Dorian panted. “Gutshot.”
“There’s no time. Parker’s people will already be started.”
“I’m fine,” Jonathan wheezed, his breath whistling against Lily’s neck.
“Come on, South Carolina.” Dorian hauled him forward and Lily followed suit, trying not to jostle him.
“You, Salter!” Tear snapped. “Get the door open!”
The assistant rushed past Lily, his flashlight bobbing with each stride, toward the door at the end of the hallway. Just as he reached it, the lights came back on in a bright flash, blinding them all. Lily stumbled, nearly pitching Jonathan forward to the floor.
“Move!” Tear roared. “We’re out of time!”
The assistant had the door open. Lily and Dorian hauled Jonathan forward, out into the cool night, and up the long metal staircase. It seemed like years since Lily had arrived at this place, and for a moment she wanted nothing so much as to sink down and fall asleep on the steps, better world be damned. But then she felt resistance, even from her own limbs: the other woman was there, pushing her up the steps.
At the top was a parked car, a sleek silver Lexus with the Security shield on the hood. The rest of the buildings in the compound were still dark, but even as Lily watched, one bank of lights came back on, far across the pavement.
“Boss,” Dorian muttered. “She’s still tagged.”
“We’ll deal with it in the car. Get Jonathan in.”
The assistant, Salter, was waiting by the open passenger-side door, his face both terrified and pathetically eager. As they approached, he bugled, “The better world!”
“Shut up!” Tear hissed.
“I helped!”
“So you did.” Tear passed Jonathan to Lily. She saw the glint of murder in Tear’s eyes, but said nothing, merely opened the rear door and helped Dorian maneuver Jonathan into the backseat. “You helped us at the eleventh hour, wanting to get to the better world.”
“Yes!”
In one quick movement, Tear grabbed the back of Salter’s head and smashed his face into the hood of the car. When he pulled Salter back up, the man’s features were nothing but a bloody mask.
“Think on them, Salter,” Tear murmured. “All of my people you’ve helped to break over the years. I wouldn’t let you within a hundred miles of the better world.”
He flung Salter away. Lily looked across the compound, at the miles of fencing that seemed to surround everything. If the power came back on, how were they going to get out?
“This was going to be a trick, even with Jonathan behind the wheel.” Tear shook his head, biting at the inside of his cheek. “I need to work on Jonathan, take out her tag. Dori, can you drive?”
“I’ll get us there.”
“Get in.” Tear slipped into the backseat. Lily opened the passenger door, then froze as an explosion ripped through the tree line on her left, several miles beyond the Security compound. An orange fireball bloomed in the dark, illuminating the silhouettes of infinite trees before they were consumed in flame.
“Into the car, now!”
She got in and slammed the door. Dorian floored it, and the Lexus roared forward across the pavement. Tear turned on the overhead light.
“Twenty degrees left, Dori. The fifth segment from the end.”
“I know, boss, I know.” Dorian nudged the wheel to the left. Another bank of lights came on above them, and Lily saw that they were heading toward the perimeter fence, doing forty now, their speed still increasing. Lily thought of electrocution, then dismissed it from her mind. Tear would take care of these things, the way he seemed to take care of everything. Metal hammered behind her: bullets, puncturing the trunk and back bumper. The car skewed, and Dorian fought with the steering wheel, cursing, a steady slew of profanity that would have made Maddy proud.
A groan came from the backseat. Tear had produced his little black bag and was kneeling on the floorboards, bent over Jonathan’s midsection. Lily was glad she couldn’t see the wound, for she already sensed how things would play out. Jonathan had saved her—twice now—and in return, she had gotten him killed.
“It’s bad.” Tear shook his head. “Have to wait until we’re on the highway, until we’re steady.” He moved Jonathan’s legs and perched on the seat. “Lily. Lean forward.”
Lily started, realizing that he had used her first name, carelessly, just the way he would speak to Dorian or Jonathan. She wanted to smile, but then she felt Tear rip her shirt down the back.
The car hit the fence. All Security fences were supposed to be titanium, but this section seemed to crumple away from the posts, as though it had been weakened somehow. Dorian yanked the wheel left and the car peeled sideways, skidding, and then they were on the egress road, speeding away. Lily turned and saw the compound through the rear windshield, a wide wash of light and stone and steel, shrinking behind them. Then she jumped, startled, as something cold was smeared across her shoulder blade.
“I usually give a local for this, Lily, but I’m going to need my whole supply for Jonathan. Can you be brave?”
Lily giggled, but it came out as a croak. Brave had been many, many hours ago. She didn’t know where she was now, wandering in uncharted territory. She gritted her teeth, readying herself, and tried to think of something else. “Why did you kill the assistant?”
“Salter? You know men like Salter, Lily. He’s the sort who can think of an excuse for almost anything he’s done. Salter thought that one good deed could make up for a lifetime of terrible acts.”
“Can’t it?” Lily shut her eyes, tight, as something thin and cold pierced the skin of her shoulder blade. She didn’t know why they had rescued her. Would they let her come with them to the better world? She hadn’t even done one good deed, not really. The pain was bad, but she pursed her lips—what if even a small wrong move could tip the balance?—holding them shut.
“Depends on the deed and the lifetime. In this case, no. Salter’s been Langer’s right-hand man for nearly twenty years.”
Major Langer, Lily realized. The man in charge. The accountant.
“No roadblocks yet,” Dorian remarked, her gaze pinned straight ahead. “That’s something. But there’s a lot of fire.”
“Parker,” Tear replied dismissively. “That bunch is ridiculously impressed by loud noises.” The sharp instrument worked inside Lily’s shoulder. She couldn’t stop a small moan from escaping her throat.
“Not much longer, Lily.” A spray can hissed, and burning cold spread across her open shoulder. “Thank Christ Parker and his crew never knew what else we had. But I’d bet a hundred quid most of the eastern seaboard’s on fire before the night is through.”
“Why?” Lily gasped, as another sharp point sank into the muscle of her shoulder. “Why would you let him do that?”
Tear grunted. “Hold very still, Lily. Tricky fucker.” Lily thought he had ignored her question, but a moment later he replied, “This country is diseased. The fortunate celebrate on the backs of the starving, the ill, the terrorized. The law affords no recourse to the disadvantaged. That’s a historical sickness, and there’s only one cure. But I won’t lie to you, Lily; we need the diversion as well.” Tear left her shoulder for a moment, and there was a clink of metal. “Little fucker’s buried deep in the muscle. Inept doctor . . . must have hurt like mad when they put it in.”
Lily blinked in surprise, realizing that she didn’t remember having her tag implanted. It had been done sometime during her childhood, she knew, but now the tag seemed like something that had always been there, a natural part of her anatomy. She had learned to be tagged, in the same way they had all learned to be under constant surveillance, not to speak of the disappeared.
A historical sickness.
“Why did you get me out?”
“The better world’s not free, Lily. I test my people. Dori, keep it steady here.”
“Sir.”
There was a final deep stab into Lily’s muscle, and she screeched against her clamped teeth. Another cold tug, and the invasion finally withdrew. Tear presented the tag for Lily’s inspection: a tiny piece of metal, so tiny that it would have fit comfortably on her pinkie fingernail. Marveling, Lily held out her hand, and Tear dropped the tag into her palm.
“Controls your whole life, Lily. Do us a favor and toss it out the window.”
After staring at the tiny metal ellipse for another moment, Lily rolled the window down and threw her tag into the night.
“Feel better, Mrs. M.?”
She turned to stare at Jonathan, ignoring the fierce pain in her shoulder. He was smiling, but his face was pale beneath its dark skin, and his entire shirtfront gleamed with blood.
“I’m so sorry.”
Jonathan waved his hand. “I’ll be fine.”
But Lily knew better. Saying sorry again seemed ridiculously inadequate, and so she didn’t repeat it, only turned to stare out the windshield, hating herself. The night landscape bloomed with fire from horizon to horizon, many towns burning behind their walls. Something else was different, but it wasn’t until they got on the freeway, heading south, that Lily was able to pinpoint the difference: she hadn’t seen a single electric light since they’d left the Security compound.
“You shut down the power.”
“Every cell,” Tear replied, digging in his medical bag. “It’s not coming back on, either. The east is dark, all the way from New Hampshire to Virginia. How’s our time, Dori?”
“Ten minutes ahead of schedule.”
“Stay on public highways. With any luck, Parker’s people will be looking for bigger game on the private roads.” Tear began to bandage Lily’s shoulder, applying some sort of salve. It stung, but Lily barely noticed. She was too busy staring out the window, her eyes full of orange flame.
Carnival, she thought. She didn’t want to imagine what was happening out there, in the world beyond this car. Everyone she knew lived behind a wall, her mother, her friends . . . Lily suddenly felt that she was staying afloat atop a pile of corpses, that this guilt would stay with her, with all of them, even Tear, poisoning what it touched . . . poisoning the better world.
None of us escape, Lily realized bleakly, then shut her eyes, wincing at the sounds from the backseat, as Tear went to work on Jonathan.
None of us is clean.
Kelsea woke to find herself in the dark, lying on a cold stone floor. Her shoulder was aching, but whether it was Lily’s memories or her own old wound, she didn’t know. She felt cheated. How could she be here now, without seeing the end of the story?
“Lazarus?”
There was no answer. Kelsea scrambled to her feet and then fell down again, scraping her knees on the stone. The darkness felt as though it stretched forever around her.
“Lazarus!” she screamed.
“Thank fucking Christ!” Mace shouted. His voice was distant, muted by dead space. “Keep talking, Lady!”
“Here!”
The glimmer of a torch appeared, far off, and Kelsea pulled herself to her feet, wandering toward it, her hands outstretched against obstacles. But there was nothing, only the vast dark space around her. As Mace approached, she saw that his face was white and strained, his eyes wide in the torchlight.
“I thought I’d lost you, Lady.”
“What?”
“One moment you were on the ground, making a racket, and the next you were just gone. I’ve been looking for you for at least half an hour.”
“Maybe I rolled away in the dark.”
Mace laughed bitterly. “No, Lady. You were gone.”
Then why am I back? she nearly asked, but held quiet, recognizing the selfishness of the question. She was back because there were things to do before the morning, before she walked into death.
“Only crossing,” she whispered, taking comfort in the words, though she didn’t know what they meant.
It was time to talk to Row Finn.
All was quiet as they approached the Queen’s Wing. Kelsea hoped that everyone had gone to bed, for it would make this easier if she only had to say good-bye to the night guard. But here she was mistaken, for when the double doors opened, she found her entire Guard, more than thirty of them, still awake, with Pen in front. Andalie was waiting, too, as neatly put together as though she’d had a full night’s sleep. Even Aisa was there, though Kelsea noted that she did not stand with her mother. She stood with the Guard.
Kelsea took a deep breath. The rest of them would be easier to lie to than Mace, but she worried about Andalie, who always saw through everything.
“At dawn, I’m going down to the bridge, to try and open negotiations with the Mort.”
“With what, Lady?” Coryn asked. “You have nothing to offer.”
“Lazarus will decide who comes with me,” she continued, ignoring him. “Four guards, no more.”
“Elston,” Mace announced. “Myself.” His eyes roamed the room for a moment before fixing on Aisa. “And you, hellcat. The Mort are tricky bastards. I want your knife.”
This was nonsense, but seeing the way Aisa’s face lit up in the torchlight, Kelsea said nothing, recognizing Mace’s words as a gift, a kindness, just as she had shown to Ewen. She scanned the rows of guards and found Ewen stationed near one end. She had been prepared to send him back down to the dungeon if Mace demanded it, but he had not. The Guard could have reacted to Ewen in many different ways, but they had taken him in, much in the manner of a mascot, giving him responsibility in minor matters, innocuous errands where he could do no harm. Venner clapped Aisa on the back and murmured in her ear, and she scampered off down the hallway.
“And Coryn.”
Several guards gasped. Pen stared at Mace, his face turning pale. Kelsea’s heart ached for him, but she understood that she could not get involved in this. More, as Pen began to argue with Mace in furious whispers, she saw that she was being handed an opportunity. She turned and hurried down the hall to her chamber, relieved when no one tried to follow, and bolted the door shut behind her.
The fire in her chamber was still going; Andalie, thorough as ever, had tended it throughout the night. Kelsea sat down on the hearth, staring into the flames, willing Row Finn to come. But where would he come from? Kelsea wished she understood, for it seemed like it might matter. She felt exhausted, as though she had traveled countless miles, the weight of Lily’s life on top of her own. She longed to go back to Lily, to see the rest of the story, but there was no time. It was four fifteen, and dawn was coming. Kelsea balled her hand into a fist, digging the nails in until thin blood emerged beneath their crescents, until she felt vaguely awake.
Tear heir.
She looked up and found him standing beside the fireplace. He was not so pale as she remembered; now his cheeks were ruddy and his eyes gleamed with a sparkle that seemed unnatural. Her earlier dreams recurred: this man, buried inside her, while all around them the fire burned and burned . . . Kelsea stood up, wiping her bloody hand on her dress.
“You want your freedom.”
Yes.
“Speak!” she snapped. “I’m tired of silence.”
“I want my freedom.”
“How do I kill the Red Queen?”
“Are you ready to bargain, Tear heir?” His eyes gleamed redly. A trick of the light, Kelsea had once assumed . . . and now she remembered Marlowe’s old fool, who had decided to make a bargain with the devil. But even the lessons of a good book could not stand up against the weight of the tide that stood outside the city walls. The Mort were the only issue; all other considerations had become secondary.
“I’m ready to bargain.”
Finn approached, and Kelsea saw hunger burning in his eyes, a great excitement held in check. Whatever freedom meant to him, he had waited a long time.
“What do I do?”
“Take your sapphires in your hand.”
Kelsea did.
“Now say, ‘I forgive you, Rowland Finn.’”
“Forgive you for what?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
“You are difficult, Tear heir.”
“How is it true forgiveness, if I don’t know what I’m forgiving you for?”
Finn paused, his face thoughtful, and Kelsea felt a moment’s satisfaction. For months she had been flying blind in regard to her sapphires. Finn might know more than she did, but he didn’t have all of the information either.
“Perhaps you’re right,” he admitted. “I will tell you, then: long ago, I did your family a great wrong.”
“What wrong?”
Finn blinked, and Kelsea realized, astonished, that each word was costing him something. Was it possible for this creature to feel remorse?
“I betrayed Jonathan Tear.”
This wasn’t what Kelsea had expected. “The Fetch said you were a liar.”
His eyes narrowed. “Let me tell you something about the man called Fetch, girl. I see your wish to wound him, and believe me, he is vulnerable. Ask him about his role in the Tear assassination. See if he has any defense.”
Kelsea recoiled.
“I grow weary, Tear heir. Do we have a deal, or not?”
“You first,” she replied, forcing the Fetch from her head. “How do I kill the Red Queen?”
“Give me your word that you will set me free afterward. I have watched you for a long time, Tear heir. I know your word is good.”
The words reminded her of Thorne. There was something wrong here, something Kelsea was missing. If Finn had been involved in the Tear assassination, what did that have to do with Kelsea? All of the Tears were dead.
The Mort! her mind insisted. Think of the Mort! She needed time, time to make a good decision, but all time had run out. If there was even a possibility of killing the Red Queen, didn’t that outweigh whatever threat this creature might represent? Kelsea wondered if it had been this way for her mother: two terrible options, the Mort at the very gates, and Elyssa, blinded by the immediate danger into making the worst decision possible.
I see, Kelsea whispered silently, the words falling into some dim corner of her mind. I see, now, how it was for you.
“I promise to set you free.”
Finn smiled, vulpine. “A good bargain, Tear heir. Your Mort Queen came to me a long time ago, nearly a century now. She was not seeking me, but found me by accident, and once she realized what I was, she begged me to help her.”
“Help her do what?”
“Become immortal. She was a young girl then, barely a woman, but already her life had been terrible, and she wished to be so strong that nothing could harm her again . . . not man, not fate, not time.”
Thorne had been right, Kelsea realized. “You helped her, then?”
“I did. She has distant Tear blood, and for a long time I thought she was the one I was looking for. But she is . . . flawed. Her early years left too deep a mark on her, and she focuses only on her own safety and her own gain. Your heritage is much clearer, undiluted. Sometimes I can even see him, just there, in the expressions of your face.”
Who? Kelsea wondered. But she could not afford diversions. “You said she could be killed.”
“So she can. She has a bit of your family’s talent, and I taught her to refine it: to manipulate flesh, to cure herself when her body failed her. You know these lessons, Tear heir; you have been teaching them to yourself. But the Mort Queen is still vulnerable. Her mind is vulnerable, because deep inside her mind will always be that young girl who came to me, frightened and starving and alone. She cannot eradicate her childhood, as hard as she might try. It defines her.”
Kelsea twitched, suddenly angry. She did not want to think of the Red Queen as a vulnerable child, like Aisa. Kelsea wanted her to be the figure of great power and terror that she had always imagined. She felt as though Finn had made everything more difficult.
“How is this useful to me?”
“The woman cannot be killed, Tear heir, but the child can. She knows this, and so she must have your sapphires.”
“What do they have to do with it?”
“Time, Tear heir, time. Surely you must have realized by now that you hold much more than two pretty necklaces. There are many magic gems out there, but Tear’s sapphire is unique. You must have discovered this, no?”
Kelsea said nothing.
“There are many things the Red Queen would like to change in her own history. She believes your jewels would allow her to do so, to wipe away the past that makes her weak. She wants them very badly.”
So Thorne had told the truth about that as well. For a moment Kelsea pictured the bleeding man, writhing in agony at her feet . . . then she thrust the image away. “How would someone else make use of that past, though? Surely anyone she might fear from childhood is dead now.”
“Not necessarily, Tear heir. She fears me. But even more, she fears you.”
“Me?”
“Oh, yes. She may not admit it, even to herself, but she fears you, and fear is a monstrous weakness that an industrious woman like yourself might use. The Red Queen has many defenses, but if you find the child, you find the vulnerability.” Finn splayed his hands. “Have I fulfilled my end of the bargain?”
“I’m not sure. What if you’ve lied?”
Finn chuckled bitterly, his handsome face twisting. “Believe me, I learned a long time ago not to play at truth with your family. The lesson came at a bitter cost.”
“All right.”
“Your end of the bargain, Tear heir.”
“What do I do?”
“Let me see your sapphires.”
Kelsea held them out, but he recoiled. “No closer. I can’t touch them.”
“Why not?”
“Punishment, Tear heir. The worst punishment imaginable.”
The worst punishment imaginable. Someone else had used those exact words with Kelsea, not long ago. The Fetch, of course, standing in almost the exact spot where Row Finn was standing now.
“Take both sapphires in your hand—”
“Wait a minute,” she interrupted. “You said you had done my family a wrong. The Raleighs. What wrong?”
He smiled. “The Raleighs, the grasping Raleighs . . . you may have their blood, but you’re no Raleigh. You’re a Tear.”
“The Tears were slaughtered. None survived.”
“Are you so dense, child? Look in the mirror!”
Kelsea turned and looked. From old habit, she expected to see a girl there, but instead she found a woman, tall and lovely, her expression grave, her face prematurely lined with sorrow.
Lily.
For a moment, Kelsea thought it must be a trick, some illusion concocted by Finn to sway her. She raised her hand, watched her reflection do the same. She might have been Lily herself, standing in front of the floor-length mirror that stood in the front hallway of the New Canaan house. Only Kelsea’s eyes were still her own, deep green rather than Lily’s cool blue.
“Was my mother one of the Tear line, somehow?”
“Elyssa?” Finn giggled, a sound that chilled Kelsea.
“Do you know who my father was?”
“I do.”
“Who?”
He shook his head, and in his eyes, Kelsea saw the most alarming thing she had seen during this entire nightmare evening: a thin vein of pity. “Believe me, Tear heir, you don’t want to know.”
Mace had said the same thing, but Kelsea pressed onward. “Of course I do.”
“Too bad. That isn’t part of the bargain.” Finn gestured toward the sapphires. “Keep your end, Tear heir.”
She clasped both sapphires in her right hand. So bad that she wouldn’t want to know . . . which of the rogue’s gallery in her mother’s generation could it be?
“I forgive you, Rowland Finn,” he prompted.
Kelsea closed her eyes. Her mother’s face swam up before her, but Kelsea ignored it and spoke clearly. “I forgive you, Rowland Finn.”
In the dark of her tent, less than five miles away, the Queen of Mortmesne woke screaming.
Finn smiled wide, showing bright, sharp teeth. “Do not even consider revoking your forgiveness, Tear heir. You gave it on your sapphires, and oathbreakers are punished, badly.”
“Ah.” Kelsea sat back, staring at him. “I see. What was your punishment, then? Different, I’d imagine, from that of the Fetch.”
Finn stared at her for a moment, then shrugged. “I am going to pay you a great compliment, Tear heir. Always, I come to the women with this.” He circled his perfect face with one hand. “It pleases them, and flatters them, and muddles their thinking. But you’re too clever to be distracted, and you’re too honest to be flattered.”
Kelsea wasn’t sure of that. Her pulse had elevated, as it always did when Finn was near. But if he had been fooled, then so much the better.
“You asked, so I will show you my punishment. See who I really am.”
Finn’s face began to change, the color bleeding away. His hair thinned, became a ragged patchwork on his scalp. His skin whitened, the lips reddened, the eyes grew their own dark hoods. The face was that of a clown, perhaps the joker in a deck of cards, but there was no humor in those eyes, only a killing joy that embraced everything and nothing. Kelsea nearly screamed, but she clapped her hand over her mouth at the last moment, realizing that it would only bring her entire Guard running.
“It burns,” Finn rasped. “All the time it burns.”
“What happened to you?”
“I have been alive for more than three centuries. I have wished for death many times, but I cannot inflict it on myself. Only on others.”
Kelsea had backed up until her knees met the bed, and now she sat down, staring at him.
“Do not be frightened, Tear heir. I am dangerous, infinitely so, but I have no immediate business with you. My hatred lies east, with the Mort Queen. If you fail, I will succeed.”
He moved toward the fireplace, and Kelsea felt relieved, but just at the hearth, he turned back to her, his red eyes burning.
“I have no feeling, Tear heir, not for any living thing in this world. But at this moment, you have my gratitude, and perhaps even respect. Do not get in my way.”
“That depends on where your way leads you. Stay out of the Tearling.”
Finn’s smile widened. “I promise nothing. You have been warned.”
He retreated back into the fireplace, damping the flames, and Kelsea’s stomach knotted in anxiety as she watched him go. Finn’s form faded until there was nothing, only the sinking sense that she had not avoided Elyssa’s Bargain after all, that the deal she had just made might turn out to be even worse.
Too late now. It was nearly dawn. Kelsea wondered where Lily was now, what she was doing. Had they launched the ships? To where? How had Tear been able to protect his tiny kingdom of travelers from the collapsing world around them? The pre-Crossing earth had held more than twenty billion people, but no one had followed them to the New World. How had Tear gotten away?
“Only crossing,” Kelsea whispered again, savoring the words like a talisman. Finn had said that Tear’s jewel dealt in time; had Tear been able to see the future, anticipate obstacles? No, that was too simple. An undiscovered landmass in the middle of the Atlantic? That seemed unlikely, if not impossible. Yet they had sailed thousands of miles, crossing God’s Ocean to land on the western shores of the New World.
Time, Tear heir, time.
Finn’s voice echoed in her head, and Kelsea looked up, startled, as a vision took shape before her. There were no certainties here; there never were where her sapphires were concerned. But she thought she understood, if only dimly, what had happened. Tear’s people had traveled thousands of miles across the ocean, yes, but the real journey was not in distance.
The real Crossing was time.
An hour later, cleaned up and dressed, Kelsea went to Arliss’s office, where he handed her a sheet of paper without comment. She turned it over and found, charmed, that Arliss had taken some pains with his handwriting, pushing his normally straggling letters into upright legibility. He hadn’t waited for her approval of the language; beside him was a steadily growing stack of copies.
Bill of Regency
Her Majesty, Kelsea Raleigh Glynn, seventh Queen of the Tearling, hereby relinquishes her office and places it in the hands of Lazarus of the Mace, Captain of the Queen’s Guard, his heirs and assigns, to act as Regent of Her Majesty’s Government. Should Her Majesty die or become incapacitated while this Bill of Regency is in effect, the aforementioned transfer of office shall become permanent and the Regent shall be declared ruler of the Tearling. All acts by the Regent will be taken in Her Majesty’s name and according to Her Majesty’s laws—
“That’s good,” Kelsea muttered. “I forgot to tell you that.”
—but any such acts may be repudiated by decree of Her Majesty upon resumption of her throne.
Kelsea looked up at Arliss. “A resumption clause?”
“Andalie told me to put it in.”
“How did Andalie know?”
“She just knew, Queenie, same as she always does.”
Kelsea looked back down at the bill.
At such time as Her Majesty may return and resume her throne, this Bill will be declared null and void. The Regent will relinquish all powers of office to Her Majesty, or Her Majesty’s heirs upon sufficient evidence.
Kelsea shook her head. “A resumption clause is a bad idea. It weakens Lazarus right out of the gate.”
“You need one, Queenie. Both Andalie and that little sibyl of hers say you’ll come back.”
She looked up, startled. “They do?”
“The little one seemed particularly sure of it. Vastly changed, she said you’ll be, but you will come back.”
Kelsea didn’t see how this could be. If she tried to kill the Red Queen, she would either succeed or fail, but either way, it seemed unlikely that she would live long after the attempt. But it was too late to change the bill now; they needed enough copies to distribute throughout New London. Kelsea sat down in the chair opposite Arliss and began to sign her way through the stack. The work was soothing, but monotonous, and Kelsea’s mind wandered back to the conversation with Row Finn. Again, the nagging question recurred: who had fathered her? If the Tear line had survived somehow, it could only be because someone had been hidden during the bloody period after Jonathan Tear’s assassination. A secret that old would be nearly impossible to discover . . . but Kelsea’s paternity might provide a start.
“Lady.”
Mace was in the doorway. Kelsea straightened automatically, drawing her arm over the bill she was signing. But Arliss was far ahead of her; he had already whisked the entire stack of copies out of sight.
“What is it?”
“I need you to weigh in on something.”
Kelsea got up from the desk, heard a slither of paper behind her as Arliss made her bill disappear as well. “What is it?”
Mace closed the door behind him. “Pen insists on accompanying you this morning. I’ve said no, but he won’t listen. I could have him restrained when we leave, but I don’t wish to do that.”
“What’s the question?”
“Do you think he should come?”
Kelsea nodded slowly. “It would be cruel to leave him behind.”
“All right.” Mace lowered his voice. “But when we get back, Lady, you and I will have to talk about Pen. He cannot be your close guard and your paramour, all at once.”
Paramour. It was such an antiquated concept that Kelsea almost laughed, but after a moment’s thought, she realized that Mace had chosen the right word. Paramour . . . that was exactly what Pen was.
“Fine. We’ll discuss it.”
Mace looked over her shoulder. “What goes on here?”
“We’re going over the tax situation.”
“That so?” Mace fixed his keen glance on Arliss. “Taxes a crucial issue right now?”
“Whatever Queenie wants to talk about is the issue on my desk, Mr. Mace.”
Mace turned back to Kelsea. He stared at her for a very long time.
“Spit it out, Lazarus.”
“Why not tell me what you’re planning to do, Lady? Don’t you think I could help?”
Kelsea looked down, blinking, suddenly near tears. He would not understand, she thought, not until it was all done, and at that point it would be too late to ask his forgiveness. But Mace was a Queen’s Guard right down to his core. He would knock her unconscious, if necessary, to keep her from her intended course, and so she could not explain to him, nor to the rest of the Guard. She would not be able to say good-bye to any of them. She thought of the day they’d all ridden up, tired and impatient, to collect her from the cottage. That departure had been terrible, just as this one would be. And yet the world had opened wide, from that day onward. She remembered riding down the length of the Almont, farms all around her, the Caddell still a blue twinkle in the distance. How she had been struck by the land, its vastness, its sweep . . . and remembering, she felt a tear slide down her cheek.
I can’t fail, or everything is lost.
“Get the other three together, Lazarus. It’s time to go.”
Later, thinking on that ride, Aisa would only remember that it should have been raining. Rain would have been fitting, but instead the sky was a deep, clear blue, blushed with pinkish-orange clouds in the coming dawn, the light just bright enough to reveal the ocean of people on either side of the Great Boulevard. New London was bursting at the seams, and although it wasn’t yet six in the morning, the entire city seemed to have crowded into the streets.
Despite the three guards with her, Aisa felt very small and alone, and she was frightened, not of death but of failure. Last month the Mace had given her a horse, a pretty young stallion that Aisa had named Sam, and Fell had been teaching her to ride. But riding a horse was much more difficult than working with a knife or sword, and Aisa did not deceive herself that she was proficient. At any moment, she felt, Sam might throw her, and she would rather die than have that happen now, in front of all of these people, in front of the Mace, who had chosen her to come along on this dangerous errand. Aisa’s weapons were currently stowed in her belt, but if anyone so much as made a move in the direction of the Queen, she could be off the horse with her knife ready in two seconds flat.
The Queen rode tall and straight between the four of them, the dim light of dawn gleaming dully off her silver tiara. She looked very regal to Aisa, very much as a Queen should when going out to negotiate with her enemy. But the Queen’s hands were clenched on the reins, her knuckles fiercely white, and Aisa understood that all was not as it seemed. Before they left the Keep, the Mace had drawn the three of them aside, speaking in a low voice.
“She’s up to something. Watch her close. You see any sign that she’s going to bolt, raise the alarm and grab her. She can’t take all four of us at once.”
Aisa didn’t know what to make of this order, or, truly, of the Queen herself. She knew from Maman and the Guard that the Queen sometimes went into a trance, but nothing could have prepared her for last night: the Queen shambling from one room to another, her eyes sometimes closed, sometimes open, as she staggered forward, holding conversations with no one, even bumping into walls. The Mace had cautioned them not to worry, to simply let her be, and left her in the care of Pen. But Aisa did worry. In her own way, the Queen reminded her of Glee, who would wander in the same manner, following things that weren’t there, tormented by some other world that none of them could see. Sometimes Glee herself wasn’t entirely there, and Aisa had thought more than once that one day Glee might simply disappear, vanishing into her unseen world. Perhaps the Mace was worried that the Queen might do the same.
“Queen Kelsea!” a man shouted, and Aisa swung that way automatically, putting her hand to her knife. But it was only an old man standing near the front of the crowd, waving at the Queen. His was the first voice they’d heard raised above the murmur of the crowd; the city seemed to be stunned, all of them staring at the Queen with wide, lost eyes. After perhaps ten minutes of riding, Aisa also noticed another anomaly: they had passed many thousands of people, but she had not seen a single glass of ale, not even when they passed the Cove, New London’s notorious run of pubs.
Why, they’re scared sober! Aisa realized. They didn’t know that the Queen was going out to parlay, but Aisa suspected that it would have made no difference. She, like everyone, had seen the massive force spread across both banks of the Caddell. What could the Queen offer to counter? Aisa thought this was a fool’s errand, but she was proud to be chosen, proud to be with them. When the Mort came, she would not stand there defenseless, her eyes lost. She would fight to the end to keep them from reaching the Queen. As the Cove ended, her heart froze; for a moment, she thought she had seen Da, his tall form and black eyes burning, in the center of the crowd. But when the people shifted again, he was gone.
The Boulevard took its final turn and the New London Bridge appeared, a long stretch of stone before them. The vast crowds of people on either side began to melt away, and Aisa finally relaxed as the five of them guided their horses onto the bridge.
Ahead reared the barricade. Aisa was no engineer, but she saw the problem immediately: the barricade was nothing more than a hastily constructed mess of furniture and what appeared to be planks of lumber piled on both sides of the bridge. A thin aisle ran down the middle, so narrow that it would allow passage only in single file. But the entire structure was unwieldy; the low walls that bordered the bridge would not support the barricade’s height. The Mace said that the Mort had brought battering rams, and from the look of things, one good blow from a ram would send half the barricade straight over the sides of the bridge and into the Caddell.
The Queen had clearly come to the same conclusion, for she chuckled darkly at the mess before them. “Not going to hold, is it?”
“Not a chance, Lady,” the Mace replied. “There’s only one way to properly defend a bridge. Hall’s done his best with what he had, but a stiff breeze will take his barricade down.”
Aisa wondered what the one way could be, but General Hall had emerged from the barricade now, and she kept quiet. Hall had been in and out of the Keep several times in the past week, and Aisa liked to hear him speak: businesslike and to the point, with no nonsense or extraneous words. The Mace said that Hall had done hero’s work to hold the Mort back until all of the refugees were inside the city. For a moment, Aisa worried that the general would ask what she was doing here with the Guard, but his eyes merely noted her before moving on to the Queen.
“Majesty.”
“General. I’ve come to open negotiations with the Mort.”
“There’s a contingent of them waiting on the far end of the bridge, but they’re not dressed for embassy. They have two rams and they’re ready to begin.”
“Is Ducarte there?”
“Yes. He commands.”
The Queen nodded for a moment, her face deep in thought, then turned and looked back over the city walls behind them. Following her gaze, Aisa saw that every available surface of the boundary wall was packed with people, all of them staring at the bridge. The Queen scanned the wall for a long moment before looking down again, and Aisa knew that she had been searching for someone, a face she did not find. The Queen sighed, her eyes full of sorrow, a sadness that Aisa recognized: she had seen it in Maman’s eyes more times than she could number.
“I’m sorry.”
The Mace jerked at his horse’s reins with one hand, reaching out for the Queen with the other, but then they both froze, horse and rider. A moment later Aisa felt her own muscles seize, an odd, sick feeling, as though a mild cramp had spread across her entire body. From the corner of her eye, she saw that Pen and Elston too had frozen, Pen already off his horse and in the very act of charging forward. Aisa had been part of late-night discussions among the Guard, had heard their recountings of the strange power the Queen wielded; each guard seemed to have his own conjecture on what the Queen’s magic meant, how far it could go. But Aisa had never heard of anything like this. She tried to speak, found that her throat would not even allow her to make a sound.
“I’m sorry,” the Queen repeated. “But none of you can protect me where I’m going.”
She dismounted, walked over to Mace, and looped the reins of her mare around his outstretched hand. The Mace stared down at her, immobile, but his eyes were terrible, twin pools of hurt and fury.
“Forgive me.” The Queen grasped the Mace’s motionless hand for a moment, smiling sadly. “I’m the Queen, you see.”
The Mace’s mouth twitched, but nothing came out.
“You’re my Regent, Lazarus. It’s been arranged. I trust you to look after these people and keep them safe.”
The Queen stared at the Mace for another long moment, then turned to the three of them, Aisa and Elston and Pen. “You can’t guard me any longer. So do this for me: guard my Regent.”
Aisa stared at her, bewildered, for the idea of anyone guarding the Mace seemed laughable. The Queen moved over to General Hall, and for a moment Aisa thought that the general might be able to stop her, but then she spotted the cords standing out on his throat and understood that he was held immobile as well.
“Retreat from the bridge immediately, General, and prepare for siege. If the Mort don’t come, you will know that I succeeded.”
Now she moved toward Pen, whose pleasant face had frozen in a rictus of agony. The Queen placed a light hand against his cheek for a moment; Aisa saw her shoulders heave with a single deep breath, and then she turned and darted into the shadows of the barricade.
In the Queen’s wake, the guards could do nothing but stare at each other. Aisa thought that she was the only one who remained calm; the eyes of the other three were wide with panic. Pen appeared to be the worst of all; he would have followed the Queen anywhere, Aisa knew, and the Queen had known too. There were other soldiers in the barricade; surely they would be able to stop her . . . but then, staring at the maze of debris, Aisa realized how foolish that hope was. The Queen was powerful, more powerful than Maman, maybe even as powerful as the Red Queen herself. No one would stop her, not if she didn’t want to be stopped.
Beneath Aisa’s feet, the ground began to shake. A moment later, she realized that she could move again, that the strange hold on her muscles had released. But the ground was now heaving so violently that she lost control of Sam and fell from his back, landing with a painful thud on the cobbles.
“We can still catch her up!” the Mace shouted. “Come on!”
Pen was already gone; he had left his horse behind and charged into the barricade. Aisa pushed herself up from the ground, aware now of a deep, distant cracking, like thunder, to the east. She followed the Mace and Elston into the barricade, trying to keep up with the grey of their cloaks, pulling her knife as she went. As always, the knife was a cold comfort in her hand, and only now, in her extremity, did Aisa realize where that comfort sprang from: the hope that she would meet Da. She hated Da, and she loved him, but someday, somehow, she hoped to meet him with a knife in her hand.
Another deep roll of thunder slammed the bridge, jarring the stone beneath Aisa’s feet. She passed soldiers, tucked into crevices in the debris, but there was no time to really see them. They were not important, not in the way the Queen was important. Aisa pushed through, dodging the outthrust points of wood and chair legs. At last she emerged from the shadowy overhang of the eastern end of the barricade to find Mace, Pen, and Elston standing at a flat halt. Aisa drew up beside them and gasped.
At least a hundred feet of the New London Bridge had vanished, leaving a cracked lip of rock, then nothing. Peering over the edge of the precipice, Aisa saw several massive chunks of white stone far below, partially submerged in the rich blue waters of the Caddell. Their edges were ragged, as though a giant had torn the stone off in pieces with his bare hands. There was now an enormous gap in the bridge, stretching from the jagged edge at their feet all the way to the last column of support.
Aisa spotted the Queen, standing on the eastern edge of the precipice. Aisa had good vision, and even from here, she could see that the Queen’s face was bone-white, that she looked ready to faint. The sun was just beginning to rise behind her, a nimbus of light playing around her head, and the Queen seemed very small. Aisa wasn’t a real Queen’s Guard yet, but she thought she could understand, if only dimly, how the other three must feel. She hated seeing the Queen standing across that gulf, unprotected and alone.
“Damn you, Lady!” Pen shouted. Aisa gasped, but the Mace didn’t say anything, so she knew she was supposed to pretend that she had not heard.
“I am damned, Pen!” the Queen shouted back.
Aisa snuck a cautious glance at the Mace, and winced at his expression. For the first time she thought he looked old, old and used up. Only three days ago he had taught her how to take a sword to an attacker’s knees, and applauded when she got it right. How could everything change so quickly?
“I had no options, Lazarus!” the Queen called across the chasm. “I never had any! You know that!”
She splayed her hands, then turned and walked away toward the eastern toll gate, beyond which a wave of black uniforms stood motionless and waiting. The Queen strode into the middle of them, as though into a hive of bees, and was engulfed. The four of them could do nothing but watch silently, and a few minutes later, when the Mort lines reformed, the Queen was gone.