Nothing left to fight or save. Quibble need not rip holes to traverse from Here to there anymore. He is Ascended beyond it. I can See him. See the mountain of him stretch into the future, into the sky above. So, so far. And the contours, the crags, of his sadness, too. Here falls around him like rain on glass. He and Artemis are grounded now. Their feet on cobblestone instead of resting on his Power. They are back in the material world, staring at each other’s tear-stained faces.
It is quiet here. People laugh in the street, recounting what they thought they saw. Wondering if it was a prank, or if Boston was suddenly becoming Berkeley. Robots everywhere. The Unawakened shake their heads, laugh.
A sudden spat of rain begins. Streaks down from the sky, an immediate drenching. A few college girls shriek, smiles on their faces, and run for awnings. No umbrellas pop into existence; there hadn’t been any warning or sign of this shocking precipitation. Both Artemis and Quibble turn their faces upward, let the water caress their lips, eyebrows, foreheads.
They retreat into the doorway of Rakhil’s apartment building. They clutch at each other. Artemis and Quibble rarely touch and they sink deeply into the curve of each other’s shoulders, knees shaking and they weep quietly, grateful that their wracking sobs are masked by the drum and patter of pouring droplets.
The Magpie trots in front of Rakhil and Mia, who now hold hands and walk in a haze. Both surprised by Mary Margaret, in awe of her. And of course, astonished by their own connection, still robust enough after betrayal to pick up where they left off. They stare startled and longing at each other as they move forward, as if in a trance.
Mary Margaret is proud. Her chin tilts up and chest puffs out. She jogs up to the pair, flourishes her fingers and holds out her hands. She displays in her palms five compact metal cubes the size of six-sided board game dice.
“Look,” she says. “I crushed five of them. Maybe I’ll make something out of it! A souvenir! I—” It dawns on her, she notices over her own adrenaline, that someone is missing. “Where—” She clears her throat, ragged and deep with an onslaught of emotion. “Where’s Wilder?”
Artemis looks into the Magpie’s face. Her eyes hit Mary Margaret like a wall of forest fire. This grief is blazing, tall, and it pulses with the heat of failure, failure, failure, poured into a crucible and melted, white-hot, into a pain so profound that Mary Margaret steps back, one step, two, three. Artemis is a crone, a hag. No longer a mother. Purely a witch. Artemis is sure she has sent Wilder to their death; her and her alone. Every press, push, yell—and oh, what it means for Quibble. Mary Margaret’s eyes flick to him. He is in a deep, dark hole. His eyes are wells, drilled deep and empty. They both turn to her, and she can feel the hot breath of responsibility, the falling-stone weight of agony and the overwhelm of flame and fury. Her entire Self is buzzing with Power still, and she cannot take it, cannot take more of it.
“No,” she says, in denial that Wilder is dead. But they are. She refuses. Pushes off the crushing collapse of adults. She has already taken on too much for her years today. No. She turns on her heel and she runs away.
Artemis can see the child’s Ascension. With her Sight it is impossible to miss. Power crackles between her teeth and on her tongue as she smiles and shows her trophies proudly; crackles between her fingers as she spreads them wide. And Artemis doesn’t even get to name her. To witness her. To say, “I See you are the Magpie.” To say, “I knew it. I know you so, so well. You are Visible to me and you always have been.” The Magpie runs too fast for any of this to happen, though it is there, behind the burning of guilt, the enveloping dark of what feels like limitless sorrow. It is there, too, this pride and generosity and celebration, but it is too far away to be accessed this fast. And so. She never gets to share it.
Rakhil makes to go after her. “Shouldn’t we, I don’t know, chase her? She’s just a kid—” But the thing she wants to say next, that it seems like a dangerous day, rings hollow. Mary Margaret saved them, after all. Mia smiles kindly and Artemis snorts.
“I doubt,” Artemis says through tears, “that anything can hurt Mary Margaret at this point. The only real threat to her is gone.”
“So you won?” Mia asks gently. Artemis and Quibble both nod. Mia smiles genuinely. It is all over.
Quibble swallows hard. It doesn’t feel like winning. But he supposes it’s true. “Yes. It’s—he’s—gone.”
“And the other one?” Rakhil asks, tactless. “The other person?”
Artemis shakes her head. Then she grabs her hair in her hands. “Oh God,” she shouts, and the Unawakened turn their heads. “Oh God, it’s all my fault.”
And I reach my Hands in, as dispersed as I am. Grab her by both her Shoulders, what little I can grab, and am surprised when she doesn’t, even for one second, try to shove me away. I watch her surrender. Fall into the waiting arms of Mia, of Rakhil stepping up and catching even when she has no context. Quibble melts as well. Loses consciousness. The two women carry them inside.