THE WESTLANDS

It took a few long seconds to realize I was on grass, not pavement. And I smelled pine trees and plants, not car exhaust or battle smoke.

In front of Addam and I was . . . a Westlands compound? No. My old Westlands compound—a residence I’d leased out for funds since the year I bought Half House. Why the hell had I appeared back there?

Across a huge lawn, I heard raised voices verging on screams. There were a lot of excited people, and I knew them all.

“Oh, shit,” I whispered to Addam, and maybe exhaustion made my words slur a little. “Are we presumed dead?”

And then everyone was running at us, and no one was as fast as Brand. He crossed the length of an American football field in a dead sprint. A few yards shy—tears streaming down his face—he stopped and leaned over, hands on his thighs.

I started to speak and he said, in a congested voice, “Don’t. Don’t, it won’t be as funny as you think, and I deserve a moment of fucking silence. Just nod. Is this you? Is this happening?”

I nodded.

He launched at me and put me in a full-body hug. Quinn slammed into Addam. Max slammed into me. And then things got confused as everyone else refused to pick a favorite, so we became one massive ball of arms and legs and sobs.

But at the heart of it was Brand and me. His forehead was against mine. I whispered, “We always come back.”

“We always come back,” he repeated. He craned his head to look at me. “You look like you’re about to faint. Are you going to fucking faint? Right now?”

As I slid into unconsciousness, my family kept me standing.

* * *

I slept for a very long time.

Every now and then a rational thought scurried within arm’s reach. I trapped the intruding idea like a small animal and told it to fuck off, then sank back into dreams.

Eventually the questions I had became more important than the answers I was ignoring. My eyelids opened, and I saw the same thing I remembered first in life: the face of my Companion.

Brand was asleep in a chair pulled up to my bed. I was in my old room at the Sun Compound in the Westlands, uncomfortably and implausibly and literally. There was even a Wham! poster on the bloody wall.

Brand opened his eyes and stared at me.

“The kids,” I said. “Anna and Max and Quinn. They’re back? All of them?”

As if bored, Brand said, “Yes, they’re okay. Yes, we’re in our old West-lands compound. Yes, we’re all here, all safe, all together.”

“Why are you talking like that?”

“Because you ask this every time you almost wake up.”

“Oh,” I said. “What if I’m really awake this time?”

“You always say that too.”

“Well, what haven’t I said that would convince you?”

Brand’s sleepy gaze sharpened, and he sat up in the chair. “Rune?”

There was a hollowness to his cheeks that hadn’t been there before. “I scared you,” I said softly. “You look like shit.”

“I look like shit? Me? Jesus fucking Christ, you look like the tree that Charlie Brown dragged home.” He put a hand on my forearm and gently squeezed. For a moment—only a moment—his expression cracked open into something raw and hurt. He whispered, “Rune.” Then his gruffness fell back into place and he withdrew to pull out his phone. “I need to text Addam. He’s been freaking out too.”

“How—” I cleared the dust from my throat. “How long?”

“You and Addam vanished for two days. And you just took another two-day nap.”

“You let me sleep for two days? Why didn’t someone heal me?”

“Rune, I swear to God, I am trying to be nice to you, but you need to not say stupid things. Heal you? Layne used their immolation magic. Addam has stored and used so many Healing spells that he’s practically pissing sunburns. Ciaran used his magic, the Tower used his . . . Yes, we tried to heal you. You just needed time. Addam said you used the Majeure a lot.”

“Oh, shit. Does the Tower know I told Addam about the Majeure?”

“He kind of figured it out when Addam wasn’t asking questions on how you pulled a miracle out of your ass. He didn’t get mad. He just wanted you to wake up.”

“What—”

“No,” Brand said. “Start small. New Atlantis doesn’t exist, as far as you’re concerned. We can debrief on that soon enough.” He cracked open a bottle of water and poured a few inches into a glass.

My father’s seal was on the glass. My seal? My seal now, but his old stemware.

I was able to take two sips before it felt like I’d start coughing. I nodded gratefully and sank back into the pillows.

“How can there still be a Wham! poster on the wall?” I asked.

“Because you’ve always had shitty taste in music.”

“I object, and you know what I mean.”

“Turns out,” he said, “that the Tower was the one paying the lease. All this time. He was keeping the compound ready for when you needed it again. It . . . worked out. It worked out well. We needed a place to be together.”

I opened my mouth and he glared, so I didn’t ask why that was. I said, “What did Addam tell you? About where we were?”

“He told us about the loops. Which still sounds batfuck crazy. And he said Lady Time tried to trap you . . . then. Back then. But you destroyed it and found us and came back.”

“I found you.”

His cheeks got a little red as he shrugged. He hid his expression in his phone, typing a message.

I pulled myself up against the headboard, spotting more details in the room. A purple octopus with singed arms wrapped in old bandages sat on the nightstand. A sleeping bag was laid out on the carpet in the corner.

He always did that when I was in really awful shape. A sleeping bag always appeared near my room. And he looked every inch of two nights on a hard floor.

“The corner?” I said. “Last time I was this bad, you slept across the threshold so the door couldn’t open without hitting you.”

He lifted narrowed eyes.

“Did you use the bathroom at least? Or are there water bottles filled with pee in the closet?”

He held the narrowed gaze another second, then a small smile flitted across his lips. He shook his head, because he knew what I was doing. “I’m okay, Rune. I’m okay now.”

Salt bit at my eyes. I blinked the tears away. “I think I need to be okay now, too. I need to find out what’s happened. Is Lord Tower here?”

“Yeah. He and Ciaran spent the entire two days you were gone trying to find a way to bring you back, because he still doesn’t understand how fucking stubborn you are about doing it all yourself.”

The voice in the light. She’d called me stubborn.

I’d forgotten about that. About her. But that wasn’t the first time it had happened, either, right?

That was not today’s mystery, though. And it scared me more than a little to even imagine understanding what it meant.

“Is your brain going soft again?” Brand demanded, more concerned than angry.

“No. I’m awake.”

“Can we talk about the fact that you didn’t tell me Ciaran was an Arcana?”

“It was his secret to share. Are you mad?”

“Yes I’m mad. Do you know how rich the Hex Throne is? What if something happened to him before he put us in his will?”

I grinned, picked up his hand, squeezed it. My smile sobered. “I really need the debrief, Brand. I have to know what’s happening.”

“You need to get better,” he said firmly.

“But she hasn’t been stopped yet. Has she?”

Grim faced, Brand shook his head in a no.

“I know how to stop her,” I said.

Brand swore into his palms and began growling.

“And I’m in the best position to do it,” I added.

It took longer than I would have liked to get out of bed and dress. At least my clothes had been cleaned and aired—though I caught a whiff of London’s industrial-age pollution on my leather jacket.

I couldn’t point to any one part of my body that hurt; it was just a general feeling of marrow-deep exhaustion. Brand suggested three times that I give up and rest until I finally threw my shoes—with the annoying laces—at him.

Barefoot, I opened the bedroom door, and immediately faced a small child on the ground.

Corbie blinked at me, jumped up, and wrapped his tiny arms around my leg. Then he backed away and stared at the ground, while making occasional furtive glances at the room behind me.

“You really want that octopus back, don’t you?” I asked.

He nodded so hard his teeth clicked.

“It did its job. I’m better now. He’s all yours.” I ruffled his hair as he ran by.

“The others are in the common room,” Brand said. “Addam is waiting for us.”

“Is there food?” I asked.

Brand opened the backpack he’d brought with him and snagged a plastic chip bag. Or at least it made reassuring crinkle sounds like a chip bag. But there was a picture of salted and dried seaweed on the front.

“You need vitamins,” Brand said. “This shit will help you get better quick.”

“Not when I break my leg searching every top cabinet for a packet of sugar,” I said, and ignored his hand.

There were only two wings to the compound—living space was often kept modest in the Westlands, with the strongest design elements going toward perimeter wards that kept homes safe. Considering that, plus the fact that it had been over thirty years since I’d last been here, it was a good hiding spot if we needed one.

“Are we on the run?” I asked. “Are we hiding here?”

Brand said, “Eh,” and tilted his hand back and forth.

We took a left, into an enclosed loggia that bridged the two wings. Heavy squares of canvas were folded on the ground next to uncovered furniture. The décor was sparse but striking. White paint, white plaster, and lots of crystals. My father had loved how light reflected off crystals.

“But . . . how long has the house been empty?” I asked. “Has someone made sure our defenses are all working?”

“I don’t know,” Brand said. “I try to make sure the windows are locked before I go to bed. Does that count?”

“Okay, you would have checked our defenses,” I said. “Is Lady Death here? Is she okay? Damn, I forgot about Judgment. Judgment died . . .”

“She’s fine, she’s with the rest of the Arcanum, just hold your fucking horses. You’ve got a lot to hear. There’s Addam.”

Addam had opened a set of interior French doors at the end of the hallway. His eyes were only on me. And if I had to be honest, my eyes were only on him, because our experiences in the timestream raced to my attention.

Brand left my side and said something to Addam, who agreed with a nod. Brand closed the French doors behind him as he left.

Addam walked up to me—stopping just within arm’s reach.

I didn’t know what to say. And yet, that wasn’t awkward. There were too many things to thank him for, so it all just got shuffled into staring at his face as he stared back at mine.

Finally he kissed my temple and said, “We will attend to sock drawers later.”

He opened the doors, letting me pass first. The room on the other side was a modest-sized ballroom, but informally laid with warm wood floors, brick-red walls, and lots of plush sofas. My father had prized comfort in his common areas.

I had all of two seconds to see where everyone was standing. The Tower and Ciaran and Diana at a wooden table. Layne trying not to eavesdrop from an eavesdrop-able distance. Max and Quinn hunched over a leather journal. Queenie putting a bowl of pretzels on a sideboard. Anna on a chair with Corinne planted right behind her. That girl would have a shadow for weeks. Brand always did the same thing whenever I snuck—

My knees almost buckled as dark thoughts swept over me. The Band-Aid I ripped off wasn’t going back on easily, and it’d taken more skin than I liked.

Then the two seconds ended, and I was swarmed with crying and laughing people rushing me, which helped push my shock away.

The reunion was short, and left me deposited on my own puffy sofa. Brand and Addam stood behind me, and the three of us faced the room.

Queenie was the only one who left—reluctantly, but someone needed to watch Corbie. I was a little surprised that Anna, Max, and Quinn were allowed to stay, but assumed they had information to offer.

“Aren’t they punished?” I asked Brand and Addam. “Did I miss the punishment? Because Quinn has donut crumbs on his shirt.”

“You should hear them out,” Brand said. “But call them by their new job titles. Part-time Gardener Number One, Number Two, and Number Three. It’s a six-month gig.”

Quinn, immune to anything but silver linings, said, “I’m going to plant a butterfly garden.”

“We should bring you up to speed,” Lord Tower said.

Brand had mentioned that Lord Tower and Ciaran had worked two days straight to save Addam and I. I could tell by the dark, heavy bags still under his eyes. Not so much Ciaran, who’d used liberal dabs of concealer.

Lord Tower rose from his chair and said, “The children—”, at the very same time that Diana rose from her chair, and said, louder, “I’ve prepared the details in a report, as any good seneschal would do for matters in her own court.”

Lord Tower looked at the back of Diana’s head. Diana didn’t even flinch. And damn if he didn’t give that a small, smiling nod of approval.

Diana continued, “The battle outside Farstryke ended shortly after you and Addam vanished. The barrier fell, and every Arcana present advanced. Lady Time took advantage of Lord Tower’s immediate concern over you, and fled.”

She continued. “The children were not harmed. They’ve been in our custody since the battle outside Farstryke, though there was an . . . incident at Magnus Academy. The children were escorted to Magnus to retrieve their things before being pulled from school, and Lady Time attacked. Ciaran saved their lives—and many others that day—but Magnus Academy was destroyed.”

“I want to be homeschooled,” Anna said immediately.

“Magnus?” I said in surprise. “Magnus was destroyed?”

Diana said, “Effectively. We believe Lady Time was specifically targeting our children. They returned with critical information that will help in whatever you decide to do.” Diana, finally, turned and gave Lord Tower a patient look.

Lord Tower cleared his throat. “In the days since, Lady Time has launched a series of increasingly dangerous guerilla attacks. There’s damage to the Convocation building. The subway lines were hit, and public transport is disrupted. The entire traffic grid has been compromised. There were separate attacks on the office holdings of the Dagger, Hex, and Chariot thrones—one building was destroyed in the small hours of the morning. And then, of course, the damage to Magnus Academy.”

I heard a pained sound behind me. Addam. “She was definitely after the kids. That’s why Brand relocated everyone to the Westlands. She must be aware that they learned far, far more in captivity than she realized. Their knowledge is dangerous to her.”

“But she must know they would have told you anything important by now,” I said. I looked over my shoulder at Addam. “Why would she continue to pursue them?”

“Lord Tower believes she thinks they wouldn’t understand the gravity of what they learned. And to be honest, if it didn’t match what you and I learned in the timestream, we may have missed it entirely.”

A slow, grim smile spread across my face. “Tell me.”

“We now understand the source of her extraordinary strength,” Lord Tower said. “And if our suspicions are right, we’ve neutralized it, at least for the moment.”

“The witch is running on fumes,” Ciaran said. “It was all smoke and mirrors. We so easily believed that ancient Arcana were a different and stronger breed. It never even occurred to us that her strength came from the oldest of sources. She cheated.”

“The chain,” Addam said. “What we learned in the cavern? We think the chain was a necromantic ritual. She exponentially added to her ability by draining the lives of others.”

“Disgusting,” Layne said.

That sort of necromancy hadn’t been permitted in settled memory.

It wouldn’t have even been allowed in Lady Time’s natural era. Powerful Arcana abhorred any magic that leveled the playing field. They didn’t need more power so much as they needed the teeming masses to be less powerful than them.

“We knew there was something important to her being moved into Farstryke,” Max said. “Something very expensive to build, and part of a ritual. And . . . she killed people. We know she killed people. We just didn’t realize she’d killed them for this.”

“I saved the boys,” Anna said.

“You found us and got captured too,” Max snapped back.

“How on earth did you find them?” I asked.

“Lady Time took our phones, but she didn’t take these,” Max said, and showed us a watch on his wrist. No—not a watch. It was a Magnus Academy communications device. It ran on internal servers, a closed network for school announcements and messaging.

“We have our units linked to find each other on campus,” Max said. “Anna kept an eye on her unit until we passed close enough to the surface to transmit a signal. We didn’t have one most of the time—we were in this bizarre underground compound in the Warrens. Nearly the Lowlands! But anyway, that’s how she found us.”

“I left a note!” Anna argued, when I opened my mouth to ask why, why, why she didn’t tell one of us this. “And you were all in the Warrens already looking for them!”

“Enough,” Corinne said, putting a firm hand on Anna’s shoulder.

“The point,” Diana said, “is that they came back with vital information on how Lady Time accrued such a reservoir of magic. Lord Tower, unknowingly, destroyed that equipment when he destroyed Farstryke Castle. Lady Time’s recent change to guerilla tactics suggests this assumption is correct. Her source of power has been compromised. Why else these hit and run attacks?”

“What does the Arcanum think?” I asked.

“They’re having the same discussions we’ve already had, now that we’ve passed them this new information,” Ciaran said. “Many are gathered at the Magician’s compound in the Westlands to prepare a battleplan.”

Ciaran immediately grimaced and sighed. “My compound, I mean. My compound with my fancy defenses and my silverware and my horrific houndstooth drapes that should have come with the eyeballs of the official who chose them.”

“Subways. Traffic. Office buildings.” Gears came to life in my head. “She’s isolating people. Targeting the symbols of scions? What reason did she give for destroying Magnus Academy? She wouldn’t have told everyone the truth.”

I saw a smile spread across the Tower’s face. “Well spotted.

Brand?” Brand’s cell phone edged into my eyesight. He’d queued up a video—Lady Time’s green lipstick frozen in a deflated O.

I pressed the arrow.

“—bring it down. All of it. Every symbol of their corrupt lives, their corrupt wallets, their corrupt compounds! We have burned their exclusive school. Pulled down their businesses. Buried their leader! The time has come to redistribute the fruits of what it means to be an Atlantean. Why do you have no sigils? Where is your protection? It lays ahead, for those who follow me!”

The video ended, and I handed Brand the phone.

“It’s all a lie,” Quinn said quietly. “That’s not how she thinks. She’s using them. And they deserve better. A lot of her followers are just hungry. And scared.”

“Do we have any idea where she is?” I asked. I looked straight at Quinn. “Do you? I mean . . .” I wiggled my fingers above my head.

Quinn shook his head No.

“She isn’t underground anymore,” Lord Tower said before I could ask what Quinn meant. “Mayan is running our intelligence operation from the Pac Bell. He’s convinced she’s hiding in the city. We can find no traces of her underground anymore.”

“But her followers are everywhere,” Ciaran said. “They have brought protests to the streets.”

“Please tell me the Arcanum isn’t moving against them,” I said.

“There was some discussion about that,” Lord Tower said, “but I persuaded the others that Lady Time’s propaganda effectively counters this move. We must not appear to be the enemy she describes.”

“That won’t last long,” I said. “Will it? They’ll want to attack someone.”

“The Arcanum meets tomorrow,” Lord Tower said. “With your permission, they’ll meet here, and decide on the next course of action.”

“There’s a here because of you. Thank you for that. For keeping this compound for us. I didn’t realize my tab was as big as it was.”

“There is no tab,” he said, and Brand was not exactly able to cover up a snort with a fake cough.

“Rune must eat and rest as much as possible until then,” Addam said.

“I’ll go light the grills,” Max offered. “Queenie has hamburgers and hot dogs.”

My mouth filled with saliva so quickly I barely caught a string of drool. I gave Brand as pathetic a look as I could muster. He dug around his backpack, produced an actual small bag of chips, and tossed it into my lap.

“Food, and then you nap,” he said severely.

“Who are you?” I asked.

He ignored me and ordered our new gardeners to go help Queenie.

We linked two picnic tables and a folding poker table on a lawn I barely remembered—tucked behind my father’s old wing. The reality of the compound challenged my height-disadvantaged memory from when I was younger than ten.

My energy was flagging by the time the meal was over, but I did walk Layne over to a bare-branched shrub that I thought they’d like. It looked dead, but if you broke a branch it sprouted fluorescent blue flowers, their fat petals heavy with sap. The sap was used to heal light burns. Layne was delighted, so Brand stomped over and insisted Addam also point out every plant on the other side of our wards that had teeth and digestive systems.

The strangest thing was the dynamic between Addam and Quinn. I hadn’t realized how thoroughly pissed Addam was at his brother. He barely gave Quinn a polite thank you when Quinn ran over with a plate of food, which got cooler with each nice thing Quinn tried to force on him between every bite.

Finally, Corbie provided accidental entertainment by eating a box of chocolate donuts when no one was looking. He got sick and ran around with his hand slapped over his mouth. Everyone shouted helpful, contradicting advice on where he could throw up, which led to the demise of the poker table. Corinne took him in for a nap, with Anna in firm tow.

“You need to sleep,” Brand said, dropping into the chair next to me.

“I’m fine,” I said.

“Not only are you out of breath, but what breath you do have smells like Doritos.”

“This sucks,” I sighed. “Can’t I just get back into shape with a montage? Start a thirty second timer and connect your Bluetooth.”

“Perhaps Brand is right,” Addam said. “I’ll walk you back to your room.”

“Saint Nicholas,” Brand said angrily.

“I will deposit him in his room,” Addam amended. “Rune, please. Rest now while you can. Tomorrow will be long.”

Which is how I got wrapped in a blanket and hustled off toward my bedroom. I acted grumpy about it, but as soon as we entered the loggia between buildings, I said, “We’re going to make out a little, right?”

“Or talk for a moment?” Addam suggested back.

“That is not the multiple choice answer I’m going with.”

He put his arm around my shoulder and squeezed. “Everyone was very worried as you slept. Lord Tower insisted the recovery was not unexpected, but . . . we were worried.”

“Is it weird that being forced to take a nap makes me want to exercise?”

“Yes, Hero.” Addam looked like he wanted to elaborate, but Anna ran up behind us.

“Where’s Corinne?” I asked, which earned an immediate sour expression.

“I told her I’d stay inside. I wanted to talk to you.” Usually she had no problem aiming her frown at me, but this time it sank to the floor.

“Am I about to get angry about something I already knew about, or is this a fresh source of sleeplessness?”

“Why don’t I leave the two of you,” Addam said. “Rune, we can talk later.”

I watched him reverse his path through the house, a little sadly. I didn’t really have the energy to fool around, but I was hoping he’d volunteer to be a pillow.

I opened the door to my room and ushered Anna in. “I can’t help but notice you didn’t answer my question,” I said.

“Maybe you won’t get angry,” she said, walking past me with arms stoutly crossed over chest. “Maybe you’ll be proud.”

“No, I’m pretty sure there’s going to be anger,” I said. “You snuck off the estate and ran straight toward our enemy.”

“Aunt Corinne already got mad at me about that. She’s already said everything.”

She jumped up on the desk to sit, and started kicking her legs. I took the bed, but stared at her, frankly, until the kicking stopped.

“She told you what you did was thoughtless, right?” I said. “And that you endangered others? That you divided attention during a dangerous moment when an enemy was moving against us?”

Anna let her hair fall over her eyes.

“But she probably didn’t tell you that you shamed her. You truly shamed her, Anna. She’s your Companion. You snuck away on her watch and humiliated her.”

“I—”

I raised my voice, but not angrily. “Don’t you know what that means to a Companion? How hard they are on themselves, when it comes to our safety? They deserve so much better. She deserves so much more from you.”

One of her hands went up, vanishing beneath the curtain of black hair. She made a wiping motion over her eyes.

“Did you use the Majeure in front of Max or Quinn?” I asked her quietly.

Her head jerked into a nod.

“Did you explain what it was?”

“No,” she said quickly, and finally met my eyes. “I promise. I told them it was just a trick I knew. And we were in trouble—or at least, it kept us from getting into trouble. And it helped get the information that Addam and Lord Tower were so interested in. I promise, Rune.”

The mattress was feeling very soft beneath my ass, just as the weight of all this began to lay heavily on my shoulders. “I feel like I’m failing you,” I said tiredly. “I don’t know how to make you understand. Anna, why would you put yourself in so much danger? Why?”

“Because I want—” Her mouth pressed shut, and furious tears filled her eyes.

“You want what?”

“I want to be your heir.”

“You are my heir.”

“You just said that to protect me,” she accused. “I want you to want me as your heir. I want to show you I can do it.”

Every now and then, insight sounded like a click. Like a puzzle piece firmly laid into place. This time? It sounded like a head slap. “You think I need you to be an heir. Now? Already?”

“Yes, and look what happened!” she said. “I heard the Tower and Ciaran talking. They were wondering if I’d be Lady Sun.”

That was when I realized how very, very badly I’d failed her.

All this time I thought she was resisting my exhortation to be young and happy, and she was the smarter one. She was worried what would happen if I wasn’t there. Why hadn’t that even occurred to me until now? What had the poor girl gone through, with me vanishing for two days, and her with the mantle of heir on her shoulders?

“I am so sorry,” I whispered. “I should have prepared you better. I’ll do better in the future, I promise, Annawan. But I’m not planning on leaving you anytime soon. And . . . do you have any idea how strong you are—how ridiculously strong?”

“But I’m not strong enough!”

“You will be. I promise. You are going to leave your footprints over this entire city someday. I’m not sure I’ve ever met anyone with your potential. But I don’t need you to be that person now. I need you to be a teenager. This will never, ever happen again. Not ever, Anna. You’ll be young again—you’ll rejuvenate and live a long, long life. But you’ll never, ever get to be this young again. I want you to enjoy this time in your life. I promise, someday, I’ll need you. And when I do, I’ll call on you.”

“But what if—”

I held up a hand. “But I will also train you. Just in case. I won’t fail you like this again. We’re going to start spending a lot of time together, you and I. Deal?”

She wiped her nose on her sleeve and her shoulder slid into a shrug—but the tension had left her.

“I sent some videos to your phone,” she mumbled.

“You need to stop taking pictures when Corbie hurts himself.”

“No, videos. I recorded Lady Time when she was acting like an asshole. Quinn’s right—she doesn’t care for anyone except herself. She’s using all those people from the Revelry, and the people who live in the underground. I was thinking maybe they need to see the videos.”

I stared at her as the cogs in my brain spun. Maybe indeed.

“I’ll look at them. But after I take a nap.”

She jumped off the desk and bolted for the door.

“Hey!” I shouted after her.

She froze, turned, regarded me nervously.

“Thank you for wanting to be my heir,” I said.

She stared at me, puzzling why I was thanking her. I held out my hand for a fist bump. She ran back over and hugged me.

“I knew you’d come back,” she whispered. “I told them you’d come back. Maybe later . . . if it’s okay . . . I can show you something? My Aspect, it’s . . . something. I mean, it turns into something. Is that okay?”

Her Aspect was already developing. I’d had glowing orange eyes into my thirties, and her Aspect was already developing form. Pride stuck in my throat like a lump. I could only nod.

She raced off.

I made very, very sure that Brand was asleep before I ventured out of my room, early the next morning.

He would not stop sending me back to bed to “take a nap.” Before supper. After supper. When I wanted a midnight snack. It was like a godsdamn monkeypaw’s wish.

Since my bedroom was on the first floor, I climbed out the window. It was very warm—the Westlands had settled on summer today. I didn’t put on shoes, and dew-covered, bioluminescent weeds in the lawn outside the south wing lit up in response to my footsteps.

It was so beautiful. The sun felt perfect. It was heavy and gold, not long after dawn. My entire, tired body seemed to drag through it like syrup.

Not far from my room was a series of stone benches facing a small, sunken amphitheater. My father had always filled his court with creative types—for centuries we’d been the throne of artists. I’d vaguely appreciated that when I was younger, though looking back, as an adult, I wondered how much of his true face my father showed the world. There had been a reason he was best friends with Lord Tower.

A half hour later, Brand sat down on one side of me, and Max sat on the other.

“Sorry,” Brand said. “I know I’m nagging a lot. Did you want to be alone?”

“No. You can stay. I miss my brothers.”

Max seemed confused for a moment until he realized I meant him, and the smile that broke through the frown was worth a fortune. Brand grunted his lack of displeasure—and handed me a hot coffee.

So we sat and relaxed. Above us, in the wet morning air, a rainbow formed. It was the sort of thing that could only happen in the Westlands. The colors were as thick as crayon strokes. Even as we watched, a bird flew through it, emerging on the other side dripping in yellow and green.

Then whatever the colors were made of hardened, and the bird thunked in a dead drop to the amphitheater’s basin.

“Fucking Westlands,” Brand said.

I sipped coffee.

“Are you guys still mad at me?” Max asked.

I took the question seriously, because I knew the answer would mean a lot to him. “The way I see it, you didn’t have much of a choice. Quinn did. Anna did. But you had to make a quick decision about whether to go with Quinn when he turned himself over to Lady Time, or stay behind.”

“So I did good?” he said hopefully.

“If it were 1876, sure,” Brand said. “Now there are fucking phones. You should have called us.”

“Quinn can be pretty unstoppable when he wants to be,” Max said. “That’s not an excuse! I know. But . . . thanks. I tried to do what I thought was right.”

“You don’t get points for trying,” Brand said. He leaned forward to look at Max. “You don’t get points because you’re willing to follow someone into the dark. You get points when you do it even knowing what’s waiting for you. I’m pretty fucking proud of you.”

Max started blinking quickly. “I’m going to see if I can clean the bird off.” He got up quickly and went down the amphitheater steps.

“That was a nice thing to say,” I murmured.

“It’s true. He has good values. He’ll have his hands full with those two, though.”

I leaned against his shoulder. “I need to tell you my plan.”

“You never tell me your plan in advance,” he said.

“I need you to understand what’s waiting in the dark this time.”