بخش 02

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The Carriadin

Emma woke once during their journey to find that darkness had fallen and the wizard had hung a lantern from an iron spike in the front of the boat. They were still moving at the same steady pace, and, raising herself up, Emma could see other lights, presumably of other rowboats, strung across the water and fuzzy in the misty darkness.

She listened for the sound of the metal ship’s engine, but heard nothing.

Emma felt woolly-headed and heavy-limbed, as if she were somehow still asleep, or dreaming, and she lay down again and fell fast asleep.

She woke once more—it must’ve been hours later—and saw cliffs ahead in the darkness, a shoreline, and there was a break in the cliffs, the mouth of a river, and it seemed they were heading toward it. She felt anxious and tense, and was sweating, though the night was cool.

“What is troubling you?” the wizard asked.

“Nothing.”

“I don’t think you’re being completely honest with me.”

“Fine. What do you know about the book?”

“The what?”

“That’s great. You’re real helpful. Row the boat.”

In truth, she hadn’t expected much. And what, really, did she need to know, besides that they were getting closer? And they were; the tugging at her chest was stronger and more insistent with each stroke of the wizard’s oars. So why did she feel so unsettled? She let her mind wander, and soon found herself thinking of something Michael had said the night before, when they’d all been gathered around the fire. He’d said it almost in passing, while talking about the Reckoning, what it did, why it was called the Reckoning. He’d said there were two meanings to the word. One was something you owed. The other meaning was judgment.

Emma had no problem with the idea that the book could kill someone—in this case, the someone being the Dire Magnus. But the idea that she’d have to judge a person (and judge them for what, on the basis of what, she had no idea) made her deeply uneasy. Killing someone felt fast and full of fury; it was over in a moment. Judging someone, you had to think about stuff; there’d be things that weren’t clear. She didn’t want that responsibility. That kind of thing was more for Kate. Or even Michael.

But didn’t she want to be their equal?

Yeah, but not like that. There had to be some, well, easier way.

And was that even really it? For as she sat there, swaying with the movement of the boat, Emma found herself remembering the dream she’d had that first night in the land of the giants. In the dream, she had come upon the book only to be attacked by thousands of shadowy figures. Then, as now, she had woken trembling and sweating. Why? What was it about the book that scared her so?

“You should try to sleep,” the wizard said.

“Oh, be quiet,” she muttered, then lay back down and was asleep in an instant.

When she woke again, there was a hand on her shoulder, the boat wasn’t moving, and it was light. The wizard was leaning over her. She pushed his hand away and sat up.

The boat was moored at a wooden dock at the edge of a brown-green river. There were a few other boats tied up nearby, but they looked neglected. She could see a path going up the bank and, in the distance, sloped roofs and the gray stone walls of houses. It was very quiet, and the light was oddly muted. Emma didn’t see anyone else around. The wizard climbed onto the dock and she followed, adjusting Michael’s dwarfish knife so that it was tucked snugly into her belt.

“What is this place?”

He shrugged. “It’s very curious. I’m not sure where this is, or why we’re here, I only know that I am taking you where you have to go. And we are not there yet. Come, my dear.”

In so many ways—how he tilted his head slightly to the side when he was thinking, how he called her “my dear,” how he seemed to feel no need to explain anything and just assumed she would follow along, which, of course, she did—he was Dr. Pym. And yet without his memories, he wasn’t. It confused her and made her uncertain about how to approach him.

Emma let herself feel the pull of the book; he had indeed brought her closer. Then she coughed, and realized that her eyes and throat were burning and that what she’d taken for cloud cover was actually a low, thick ceiling of smoke.

“What’s burning?”

The wizard said he didn’t know; he began walking up the pier.

“Where’re you going?” Emma asked.

“You must be hungry. We will get you something to eat. Then I will take you the rest of the way. That is my charge.”

Somewhat grudgingly, Emma followed him down the dock and into the village. It looked like she was stuck with him for a while, and though she never would have admitted it, part of her was glad.

—

“Where is everybody?” Emma said. “What happened to this place?”

They were walking through the center of what could have been a charming village. There were stone houses, people had kept gardens, trees lined the streets. But the houses were empty, the gardens brown, the trees leafless or burned and broken at the trunk, and there were small fires burning seemingly everywhere. It was like the aftermath of some war or devastation.

“I do not know,” the wizard said. “Something terrible.”

“Yeah,” Emma said. “Duh.”

She said nothing more, but she felt an uneasiness, a sense of following a path that had been laid out for her long before, of walking into a trap.

They came to a square lined with dark-windowed shops.

“Come on,” she said, taking command, and led him to a small grocery.

A bell tinkled as she stepped through the door, and Emma waited but no one emerged from the back. There were loaves of bread (stale, she tried to break one on the counter and failed), several kinds of nuts, some sawdust-tasting chocolate, fruit—apples and what looked like plums, all wrinkled and sour—and though none of it was that fresh or good, it helped quell the gnawing in her stomach.

“I don’t get it,” she said, through a mouthful of mealy apple. “There’re apples and bread and nuts. How can they grow all this stuff here? Do they have farms?”

“And what did you imagine the world of the dead would be?” the wizard asked. “A featureless desert where spirits float about, moaning for all eternity? This world is as solid and complete as the one above. There is water here; you have seen it. The air nourishes you with each breath. The land is fertile. If you can live here, then why not a tree? Or—” He looked away sharply. “We should go. Now.”

He was already heading to the door. Emma followed, shoving more apples in her pockets. A few minutes later, they were outside the village, striding down a dirt road. The wizard took her arm.

“We must leave the road. Which way do we go?”

She realized he was asking her. She allowed herself to grow quiet, to feel the pull of the book, then pointed off through the burned-out forest that stood close by. Soon, they were out of sight of the road, and soon after that, they heard voices and the stamp of feet. They froze, listening, until the sounds had faded away.

“They’re looking for me, aren’t they?”

“Yes.”

“It’s the Dire Magnus.”

“I do not know who that is. But there is a great evil in this place.”

“Yeah,” Emma said, fear giving an angry edge to her voice. “It’s the world of the dead! ’Course it’s evil! Look around!”

The wizard shook his head. “The world of the dead is not evil. Indeed, it could be a paradise. Imagine that village we passed through, full of noise and people. Imagine this forest green.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding.”

“You do not believe me. But the fact remains that those who hunt you brought their evil with them. This world itself is blameless. It exists only as the place where the dead wait.”

“What’re you talking about? Wait for what?”

“To be reborn.” He spoke in the same automatic way he had in the shop, like someone who’d been taught a thing by rote. “The universe has been created and destroyed, over and over. It’s happened before and will happen again. The spirits of the dead bide here until the time of rebirth. It could be a thousand years or a day. To the dead, it is all the same. They exist in an eternal present.”

Emma thought she understood what the wizard was saying, that the dead just hung around here till the universe started over. But she couldn’t get past the idea that when you died, you forgot everything you had built up in your life, including the people you were closest to. No wonder all those people walking on the road had looked like zombies. Everything that had mattered to them had been stripped away.

“But why do they have to forget who they were? It’s not fair!”

The wizard shrugged again. “That’s death, child.”

With her eyes watering from the smoke, Emma gazed out at the burned and blackened forest. The wizard could say what he wanted about its being a paradise; as far as she was concerned, this place was hell.

“Let’s just find the book so I can get out of here.”

—

The farther they walked, the more difficult it became to breathe. When they reached a stream, the wizard wet a cloth, which Emma tied around her mouth and nose. The smoke grew so thick that she even let Dr. Pym take her hand so she could walk with her eyes shut, relying on him to warn her of roots and rocks.

Finally, she felt him stop.

“Open your eyes.”

They had come out of the woods, and Emma looked, half knowing what she would see.

“I’ve been here before.”

The wizard actually seemed surprised. “How is that possible?”

“The Dire Magnus pulled my spirit out of my body and sent it to look for the book. I saw things. This place, the fires. And I saw this.”

They were standing before a nearly vertical rock wall that rose thousands of feet into the air. A winding, twisting staircase was carved into the rock. High up, Emma could see dark clusters that she took to be birds.

“He sent my spirit into the world of the dead. I guess I should’ve known. I never really thought about it; I didn’t want to.”

Just then there was an explosion above, accompanied by a furious, collective cawing, and a black cloud swirled down toward them. Emma’s instinct was to duck, but Dr. Pym gripped her arm, silently commanding her to be still, and the swarm of birds swept over her head, once, twice, and then flew back up the cliff.

All except one. Emma saw that the bird—her mind supplied the word raven—had landed at the bottom stair. And then it was not a raven at all. The creature now before them had the body of a human, with a human’s legs and arms, but a raven’s head, with a great, shiny black beak. It was wearing a dark cloak with a hood.

It was the same one she had seen in her vision.

“A carriadin,” the wizard said. “A guardian of this world. It will guide you the rest of the way.”

“What?! You’re leaving me with that?!”

“My charge is ended. I can go no farther. And it will not harm you.”

Emma looked at the bird-creature, then up at the cliff. She could feel the book close by. The old wizard knelt, placing a hand on her arm.

“I do not remember you. Or your brother and sister. Or any of my life before this. But if I injured or betrayed you while I was alive, I can only ask for your forgiveness.”

Emma stared at him. She didn’t want to forgive him. She was still hurt and angry. But she found herself, against her will, thinking of all the things he had done for them, all the times he had been kind or patient or understanding, moments that had felt real, not planned or manipulative.

“Maybe…you thought you were doing the right thing or…you had some idea how to save us. I don’t know. But you weren’t always terrible.”

“Thank you.”

And before she could stop him, the wizard hugged her, and before she could stop herself, she hugged him back.

“Goodbye,” he said, then stood and turned away into the trees.

Wiping the tears from her eyes, Emma looked at the bird-creature, and though its beak did not open, she heard the words in her head:

Come, Emma Wibberly.

It began walking up the stairs, and Emma had no choice but to follow.

—

The creature’s cloak was ragged at the bottom, almost like the feathers of a very old bird, and its bare feet were blackened and callused.

They climbed, winding back and forth over the face of the cliff, the steps so steep that sometimes Emma had to go on all fours, and as they climbed, the other ravens flew about, as if daring her to step out into the air.

Finally, she stopped. “I have to rest.”

She sat on one of the steps and looked down, trying to see if she could spot Dr. Pym, but either she was too high or the smoke was too thick or the birds circling through the air blocked her view. Then she looked farther out. Perhaps a mile or so distant, past a steep, rocky ridge, rose a column of black smoke thicker and wider than any other, and she felt a tension and nervousness in her breast. What was happening there?

Unconsciously, she inched forward, as if to gain a better view; her foot slipped, and then she was sliding, falling, nothing below her, nothing to stop her—

A hand grabbed her shoulder, roughly pulling her back. She was shaken, trembling. She looked at the creature on the step above her.

“Thank…thank you.”

Again, she heard its voice in her head. “Come.”

They kept climbing, up into the thickest part of the smoke. Emma’s vision was blurry with tears, and she was hacking almost constantly when they finally stopped on a small ledge. Before them was a cave, tunneling back into the rock wall. Emma stared into the darkness. The pull of the book was like a second heart straining against her chest.

The creature began to turn away.

“Wait!”

Its black eyes stared at her, inhuman and unreadable.

“It was you, wasn’t it? Or someone like you, that the Countess gave the book to? Michael said she gave it to a spirit or something. It was you.”

The carriadin said nothing.

“And you sent Dr. Pym to get me, didn’t you? You made him bring me here. He said you’re a guardian of this world. You think me taking the book away will help fix things.”

Emma didn’t know how she knew this, but it was all suddenly so clear. She could feel the intelligence thrumming within her, stirred by her proximity to the book.

Then she heard the voice in her head:

Goodbye, Emma Wibberly.

And she gasped as the creature launched itself out into the air and, while still keeping the shape of a man, giant black wings opened from its back, and the carriadin soared down and out of sight.

“If he could do that,” Emma muttered, “why didn’t he just fly me up here?”

Then she turned and walked, alone, into the cave.

—

The air in the cave was cleaner, more breathable, and Emma’s eyes stopped watering and she coughed less. She had switched on Michael’s flashlight, and she felt a kind of giddiness and was soon hurrying forward, almost recklessly, as the tunnel curved deeper into the rock, and then, abruptly, she was at the end, and there, resting on a ledge carved into the back wall of the tunnel, was the book.

For a moment, Emma stood there, her chest heaving, as if unable to believe what she was seeing. She had actually done it. She had come into the world of the dead all alone—she didn’t count Dr. Pym, she hadn’t asked him to come, and really, a monkey could’ve rowed the boat—and she had done it. She felt a deep stirring of pride that she, the youngest, the one who everyone thought was only good for punching and kicking people, that she had done something no one else could have. And here was the hard proof that would put her on the same standing as her brother and sister in one leap.

All she had to do was reach out and pick it up.

But still, she hesitated.

For being the Book of Death, Emma thought the Reckoning could’ve been a little more impressive. Granted, its corners were rimmed with dark metal, but the book was both smaller and slimmer than either the Atlas or the Chronicle. It almost looked like a diary. Had it really sat here for two thousand years? Had it been waiting for her all this time?

Yes, Emma thought, without knowing how she knew, it had been.

“So pick it up, then,” she whispered, and her voice echoed back, urging her on. Her hand trembled as it came into the beam of light, and she lifted the book off the rock shelf.

It felt no different from any other book, the metal corners cold and slightly sharp at the tips, and she ran her fingers over the pebbled black leather of the cover. Her heart was beating fast. She set Michael’s flashlight on the ledge so its light shone out into the cave, and, taking a deep breath, she opened the book.

It was blank, but she had expected that; the Atlas and the Chronicle had also been blank. Despite the coolness of the cave air, Emma could feel herself beginning to sweat. She knew she didn’t have to go any farther. She had the book now; she could just take it and find her way back home; she’d already accomplished what she’d come here to do.

She laid her hand, palm down, on the open page.

It felt like the top of her head was ripped open.

She cried out and staggered backward, the book tumbling to the ground. She stood there, gasping, trying to process what had just happened. The book had fallen closed upon the floor. For a long time, she didn’t move.

She must’ve done something wrong, or triggered some kind of alarm or trap set to scare people off. She just had to try again.

She thought she could hear something in the cave, whispers, circling about, growing closer; she ignored them.

Quickly, before she could change her mind, Emma reached out and placed her palm on the page.

It was the same as before, but worse because she kept her hand pressed down. A million voices, shouting, crying, desperate to be heard, clamored inside her head; she could feel her own self being trampled on and torn apart.

She fell backward again, her head ringing, her heart shuddering in her chest.

Whose voices were they? What did they want? What were they doing in the book?

A memory came to her, of her dream that first night in the land of the giants. In the dream, shadowy figures had crowded around her, pleading, shouting.

She took a deep breath and tried to pull herself together. She just had to get help. She would take the book back to the world of the living and get someone to show her how to shut off the voices so she could use the book to kill the Dire Magnus.

Then she looked up, and froze. Words were appearing on the open page:

Release them….

—

Emma raced down the rocky stairs, two steps at a time, hardly seeing where she was going. She held the book clutched to her chest. She had to find Dr. Pym! Or that bird-creature. They would know where to find the portal to the world of the living.

Then she was at the bottom of the cliff.

“Dr. Pym! Dr. Pym!”

No answer; her throat burned horribly.

She shut her eyes. She could still hear the voices, whispering, nipping at the edges of her mind.

“Hello.” A man with a hairy gut sticking out of his black leather tunic stepped from the trees. “Who’re you, then?”

Emma turned to run and collided with another man, who shoved her to the ground, took the dwarfish knife from her belt, and quickly and expertly tied a cord around her wrists. She struggled, but he knelt on her, patient, as if he had done this many times before. Then the first one returned with a line of men and women, their wrists bound like Emma’s, and the tall man pulled her to her feet and tied her to the others.

“What’s this?” said the fat man, picking up the black book from where Emma had dropped it. “Little bit of light reading? Mine now.”

He shoved the book into the top of his pants.

“Don’t,” Emma said. “That’s my—”

The other man struck her hard across the mouth.

“Shut it.” Then to his companion, “We’re late. Come on.”

And Emma, tasting blood, was pulled away. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The Thing on the Beach

Kate woke, rubbed her eyes, and looked about, trying to remember where she was….

She was in a narrow, canvas tent. Sunlight streamed through a gap in the front flap. She had slept in her clothes, not even bothering to remove her boots, and she could feel how her body was covered with a grimy film of sweat. Michael lay with his back to her, on a cot a few feet away. From outside, she could hear voices, footsteps, hammering, the clinking and scraping of metal; and she could smell breakfast, eggs and bacon and coffee and what she would’ve sworn were pancakes, and suddenly her stomach felt like a great hollow pit inside her. She couldn’t go back to sleep.

And by then too she had remembered the night before, the meeting with King Robbie, and what he had told them about Emma and the portal.

“Hello?”

There was a voice outside the tent. It belonged to a dwarf.

“Yes?”

“Ah, you’re awake? The King would like you both to come to a Council. Not a moment to lose. Though I’ve brought you something to nibble on. Nothing fancy. Just a dozen or so scrambled eggs, poached eggs, fried eggs, four or five rashers of bacon, pancakes, toast, marmalade, currant scones, blueberry scones, this little frittata I whipped up…”

After Kate had woken Michael, told him about the Council, and the two of them had crammed in as much food as they could as quickly as they could, they followed their escort—an old dwarf with a wispy gray beard and very large, floppy ears—across the camp to King Robbie’s tent.

In the daylight, Kate perceived that the island was in the shape of a large, stretched-out horseshoe, the whole thing set on an incline. Downhill lay the various tents and encampments, and Kate could see hundreds, perhaps thousands, of men and dwarves moving about, making their breakfasts, checking their weapons, while beyond them lay the beach and blue water of the marina, where she and Michael had arrived the night before, and where the small fleet still sat at anchor.

Looking directly ahead, past the green tent of the dwarf king, was what looked like a field of enormous wildflowers. In fact, they were brightly colored tents and pavilions, blues and greens and pinks and yellows; and moving among them, Kate could see hundreds of elves. Some of them must’ve been playing music, and the tune seemed to Kate to somehow be a part of the morning sunlight, to echo the distant sound of sea, the movement of the breeze, and it calmed her. She could see a few elves polishing swords and making arrows, but most of them were simply combing their hair or, it appeared, giving advice to others about combing their hair, demonstrating technique and so on.

“They’re keeping away from each other,” Michael said.

“What?”

“The three camps. The dwarves, humans, elves. None of them are having anything to do with each other.”

He was right; each of the camps had clearly marked its own territory, and none of them—humans, dwarves, or elves—were to be seen among the others.

This did not, Kate thought, bode well.

Kate then briefly turned her gaze uphill, toward the camp of the refugees. These were the families who had lived on Loris—she could see them, husbands and wives, old people, children. The Dire Magnus is hunting us, she thought. We’re responsible for what happens to them.

As they approached the entrance to Robbie McLaur’s tent, Kate and her brother could hear raised voices, all talking, or rather shouting, at once.

“Our goose is cooked, we might as well admit it—”

“Perhaps if we hadn’t given up Loris—”

“We had no choice, you know that—”

“An assault on the Dire Magnus now would be suicide—”

“It’s suicide if he gets his hands on the Reckoning—”

“Perhaps if a few of those elves at home doing their nails were to come help us—”

“They won’t follow a dwarf. I’ve said that. Perhaps if you cleaned your ears. Or any part of your body—”

The old dwarf pulled back the flap and said quietly, “Good luck,” and Kate and Michael walked inside.

—

“Oh, yes, well, it’s good to see you too, lass.”

Haraald patted Kate on the back as she continued to hug him tightly.

Haraald was alive; that had been the first and best surprise to greet the children when they’d entered the tent, and Kate had raced over to throw her arms around him. In truth, her joy at finding the red-bearded dwarf alive surprised even her, as she didn’t really know him all that well. But when it felt like they were losing people left and right, having Haraald come back against impossible odds meant there was hope for all of them, hope for Emma. The dwarf’s face was still streaked with smoke and blood and dirt, and his right hand was wrapped in a clean bandage, but he was here, he was alive.

“When did you get back?” Kate asked, finally letting him go.

“Just before dawn.” He coughed. “Captain…um…Captain…well, you see…”

“Captain Anton went back and rescued him,” King Robbie said. “Found him swimming along, a mile or so from Loris. For which we are indebted to our allies…” And he nodded at the elf king, who waved his hand breezily.

“That’s the size of it,” Haraald said. “Though I could’ve swum here if I’d had to.”

“Really?” the elf king said. “Thirty miles of open ocean?”

“You’ve never seen me swim!” the dwarf all but roared. “I’m a veritable guppy!”

“Well,” Kate said, “thank you again. You saved our lives.”

“Nothing to it, lass.” And the dwarf’s weathered face softened to something like an actual smile.

Kate and Michael were given chairs on the right side of King Robbie, and in many ways the Council was a reprise of the one they’d attended in the Rose Citadel a few days before. Around the table were Magda von Klappen, the stern Austrian witch; Master Chu, the plump Chinese wizard; Hugo Algernon; Captain Stefano, the bald commander of the Guard of Loris; the silver-haired Lady Gwendolyn; King Bernard, Wilamena’s father; and Haraald and King Robbie. The differences were that this time there was no Dr. Pym, several of the Council members displayed wounds (Captain Stefano had a bandage around his head and one arm in a sling), and from the glares being passed around, any pretense of civility was gone. Kate suspected it was all Robbie McLaur could do to keep them from attacking each other.

When the children were seated, the dwarf king addressed himself to Kate and Michael. “So then, I’ve told the Council what happened to you all, where your sister has gone to get the Reckoning, and where she might appear. We’ve been discussing what we can do about it.”

“Find a well-stocked bar and wait for the roof to cave in,” grumbled Hugo Algernon.

“Dr. Algernon,” the dwarf king warned, “I told you, none of that.”

“Before we go further, I have some distressing news,” King Bernard said. “I’ve spoken with our colony back in Antarctica, and they inform me that the gateway to the world of the dead has inexplicably closed itself off.”

Kate said nothing, but she could feel panic beginning to stir inside her.

“Right,” King Robbie said grimly. “Then that leaves the portal on the Hebrides—”

“I’m afraid,” Magda von Klappen said, “that I just received word that that portal has sealed itself off as well.”

There was a long, heavy moment of silence. Kate reached out and took Michael’s hand even as he was reaching for hers.

“I see,” the dwarf king said. “And any idea why?”

“The Books,” Hugo Algernon growled. “You need another answer? And what’s it matter? It is what it is. There’s only one portal left and we all knew it would come to that, didn’t we?”

“But could that one…”—Kate’s voice trembled—“close too?”

“Doubtful,” said Master Chu, in his calm murmur. “It is the oldest of the gateways, and the strongest. It forms part of the axis between our world and the world of the dead. Were it to close, then the entire universe would most likely come to an end.”

“Well,” King Robbie said, after no one else had spoken, “I suppose that’s reassuring.”

But in fact, Kate was reassured, and she felt Michael squeeze her hand.

“I’ll ask a stupid question,” Haraald said.

“By all means,” King Bernard said magnanimously, “that is your right as a dwarf.”

Kate saw Haraald, his face flaming as red as his beard, whirl toward the elf king, but Robbie McLaur put a hand on his arm.

“Go on, Haraald.”

“It’s just that, say this child comes through the portal with the Reckoning, why don’t she just kill the Dire Magnus right then and there? End this whole thing. Ain’t that what this is all about, getting this fancy book so we can kill him?”

“I think that’s an excellent question,” Kate said, and she looked hard at the elf king (but only for a moment, for the elf king looked at her with eyes of such unparalleled blue and with such sweetness of expression that she found herself having the odd thought I bet he’s a wonderful dancer. And the elf king even gave a tiny nod as if to say, I am, I’m a wonderful dancer).

“Unfortunately, it is not so simple.” Magda von Klappen’s stern, clipped voice spoke from across the table. “The fact is, these Books are fantastically complex magical instruments. They require time and skill to master. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it was some time before either of you could fully use your Books, was it not?”

“Yes,” Michael said. “That’s true.”

And Kate found herself nodding as well.

“So the wee lass might come through with the book, having endured who knows what horrors in the world of the dead”—the dwarf king paused and looked apologetically at Kate and Michael—“though probably nothing too, too bad.”

“Oh, it will be horrible,” Magda von Klappen said. “Count on that.”

“But as I was saying, she won’t even be able to use its power to kill the fiend. She’ll need help from you lot.” Robbie McLaur nodded at the wizarding contingent.

“Exactly so,” Magda von Klappen said.

“Ha!” barked Hugo Algernon.

“You’ve something you want to say, Doctor?” the dwarf king asked wearily.

“Yes, I have something to say. First off, Magda von Klappen here wears old-lady underwear. I know because I saw her washing it this morning—”

“This is ridic—”

“I thought she was washing a bedsheet or maybe a tablecloth, but they were her knickers all right. Second, even if the girl could use the Reckoning, haven’t any of you realized that she probably won’t get the chance?”

This silenced everyone, even Magda von Klappen, and Hugo Algernon glared around triumphantly.

“Yes,” Michael said quietly.

The entire Council turned to look at him, even Kate, who wondered what Michael knew that he hadn’t shared.

“What do you mean, lad?” the dwarf king asked. “What’s he getting at?”

“Well,” Michael said, adjusting his glasses, “you have to question the coincidence of the Dire Magnus attacking Loris and taking control of the portal right before Emma is going to come through it with the Reckoning.”

“You mean,” Robbie McLaur said, “he knows she’s in the world of the dead?”

“Possibly. If so, he’ll be waiting for her. So even if she could use the book, like Dr. Algernon says, he wouldn’t give her the chance. He’ll have some trap set up.”

“But how would he know?” King Bernard said. “You think he has spies here?”

“Maybe,” Michael said. “Though there is one other explanation.”

Hugo Algernon was nodding. “At least two people at this table aren’t total morons. Bright lad. Like his dad in that. ’Course I taught his dad, so I get most of the credit.”

“What do you mean?” Kate asked. “What other explanation?”

Michael looked at her. “That the Dire Magnus planned it all. Our escaping from his fortress, discovering the Countess’s remains, bringing her back to life, finding out where the Reckoning is hidden. Think about it, if he knew where the book was, then he would’ve also known that only the Keeper of the Reckoning could pass into the world of the dead, so he would’ve made us think we were doing everything ourselves, and all the while he knew Emma would be bringing the book right to him.”

“But how,” Kate said, her throat so thick she could scarcely speak, “how could he have done that?”

Michael shook his head. “I haven’t figured that out. He would’ve had to ’ve been pushing us along somehow.”

Michael was still staring at her, and for an instant Kate thought, He knows, he knows Rafe has been appearing to me….

But even if Michael did suspect, what did it matter? He was wrong about at least one thing; it had been Rafe, and not the Dire Magnus, appearing to her!

And yet, a voice inside her asked, could she say that for certain? When it came down to it, what did she have that she could point to, besides her own belief, that it had been Rafe, and not their enemy, who’d come to her on Loris, and then again in the land of the giants? And did she truly believe it, or, as she’d wondered before, did she just want to believe it? Wasn’t the very fact that she had avoided saying anything to her brother and sister proof that she had her doubts?

She felt her heart beginning to race and gripped the arms of her chair to steady herself. For if it had been the Dire Magnus manipulating her all this time, that meant she had done the one thing she’d never thought possible: she had chosen someone else over Michael and Emma; and in the process, she had doomed them all.

She could see Michael looking at her, trying to read in her face what was happening, and when Lady Gwendolyn, the silver-haired elf, began speaking, it was with immense relief that Kate turned from him and looked across the table.

“If we may speak of practical matters,” Lady Gwendolyn said, “we cannot open a portal into the Garden of the Citadel. We all know there are wards to prevent such a thing. But what of the Atlas? Its power could override any such defense. It could take a band in to rescue the girl and bring her back here, where we could instruct her in using the book.”

“Maybe. It’s just…something’s happening with the Atlas.” Kate had had to swallow before she’d been able to speak, and her voice was far from steady. She hoped the others—mostly Michael—would hear it as nervousness about using the Atlas. “I can’t control it the way I used to. Leaving the Dire Magnus’s fortress, I tried to take us to Loris and we ended up in the giants’ land. Then last night…” And she thought again of the pain she’d felt when she’d used the magic. “I mean…I’ll do whatever you think best. I just don’t know if we should count on it.”

“I’m guessing you’ve felt the same thing, haven’t you, boy?” Hugo Algernon was almost glaring at Michael from beneath his bushy eyebrows. “When you used the Chronicle?”

Michael nodded. “Yes. I’ve felt it.”

“Well, that’s that,” the man grunted, and crossed his arms, as if he’d definitively proven some point that only he understood.

“So,” Robbie McLaur said, in the tone of someone trying to keep things on track, “what we’ve got is that the Dire Magnus might or might not have planned this whole thing—I vote for he has, though I’ve no idea how he managed it—might or might not be waiting for the lass—again, I go with he is—and we’ve no way of simply magicking ourselves into the Garden. Fine. But still, we have to get in there and get the girl and the book before he does or our collective goose is bloody well cooked! Is that about the size of it?”

“There is also the very tricky issue of timing,” King Bernard said—the elf had, Kate reflected, the longest eyelashes she’d ever seen. “When will the girl come through? Tonight? Tomorrow? She could be appearing right this very moment while we sit here bathed in dwarfish body odor—”

“Hey now!” Haraald started to rise, but King Robbie’s hand on his shoulder forced him back down.

“And before anyone raises the prospect of a small band sneaking into the Garden to rescue the girl, consider, they would have to remain there, undiscovered, until such time as the girl appeared. A proposition, I think, with little hope of success. The fact is, the only sure way for us to protect the child and keep the enemy from gaining control of the Reckoning is to retake Loris and the Rose Citadel and hold it ourselves till she comes through. But seeing as we just abandoned Loris—”

“Unnecessarily,” muttered Captain Stefano, the first words he’d yet spoken.

“—and our forces are weaker now than they were then, that would seem an impossibility. What are we, therefore, to do?”

“I told you,” Hugo Algernon said. “Make our way to a well-stocked bar. I know a couple if anyone’s interested.”

“Everything King Bernard says is correct,” Robbie McLaur said, anger burning in his eyes, “except in regard to retaking Loris. It ain’t impossible. All’s we need is a bigger bloody army. And we’ve got one, just waiting to be snatched up!” He jabbed a stubby finger at the elf king. “How many elf clans are there spread around the world? Dozens. How many a’ those elves, not counting the ones you brought yourself, have shown up to help us? Zero!” He whirled on Captain Stefano. “And you, Captain, despite all your grumbling about abandoning Loris, you’ve yet to call in the oaths from the other humans in the magical world! As I recall, each one of them is sworn to protect the island and the Citadel. But we’ve not seen hide nor hair of any of them! So don’t tell me it’s impossible, because it’s not!”

“The other elf clans will not come to fight under a dwarf,” King Bernard said crossly. “Even though I’ve told them that for a dwarf you are almost completely unobjectionable and rather clean.”

“And I have tried contacting the other fiefs,” Captain Stefano said. “No one will be the first to move. They say they pledged their oath to the city of Loris. Not to a dwarf king—”

“So I’ll step aside!” King Robbie cried, slapping the table. “You can be the bloody general! Or you! I don’t care!”

Haraald shook his head. “Your Majesty, you know well that the dwarf battalions who’ve answered your call wouldn’t follow an elf—”

“And I,” Captain Stefano said wearily, raising his wounded arm, “am in no state for the job.”

Michael pushed his chair back and stood. The action was abrupt enough that it silenced the table.

“What is it, lad?” King Robbie said. “You have something to say?”

“What? Oh, no. Just…” His face was red, but Kate saw that it was not anger; he was blushing. “The princess is here.”

Kate and the rest of the table shifted about and looked toward the entrance of the tent. Wilamena stood there, wearing a dress the color of the desert sky. Her hair shone as brightly as if she’d been dipped in the sun.

Perhaps having been embarrassed by Michael, Robbie McLaur, Haraald, Master Chu, and even Hugo Algernon all stood.

“Welcome, Princess,” King Robbie said. “There’s a chair next to your father—”

“She can sit here,” Michael said, indicating a chair beside him. “I mean, if she wants to.”

“Thank you,” Wilamena said.

The dwarves and the two wizards remained standing while Wilamena floated around the table to the chair Michael was holding. Then, after pushing it in and asking if she wanted anything to drink (she didn’t), Michael glanced around, saw everyone staring at him, and turned even redder. It was as if he’d forgotten they all were there. But then Kate saw a change come over her brother; it was as if he had said to himself, “Well, so what?” and he stood up a little straighter, and when he spoke, his voice was clear and strong.

“There’s something I’d like to say: while you sit here arguing, my sister has gone into the world of the dead alone, something no one else has ever done. She’s risking her life to save all of us, not just me and my sister, but all of us. And she’s twelve years old. So, no disrespect, but you need to grow up.”

He sat down and, as Kate and the others watched, the elf princess, her eyes shining with pride, took his hand, and Michael, though he blushed even redder, did not pull it away.

The first person to speak was King Robbie.

“Hold now, hold now.” A smile was creeping at the corners of his mouth. “I believe I’m getting an idea….”

But they were not to hear what it was, for right then, Captain Anton rushed in to say the island was under attack.

—

“Where?” King Robbie roared.

They were in the sunlight outside the tent. There were screams, people running around, pandemonium. King Robbie was holding an ax, as was Haraald, and Kate saw that King Bernard and Lady Gwendolyn both had their gleaming swords out and by their sides.

“On the northern shore. It looks to be a single raiding vessel, perhaps a scout. They came up over the cliffs.”

“The northern shore? Bloody—Princess?”

“I left my bracelet in my tent.” And then Wilamena was gone, a flash of gold streaking away.

King Robbie looked at Kate and Michael. “You two stay back.” Then he shouted for the others to follow, turned, and began running up the island’s hill.

Kate threw one glance at Michael, and they both took off after King Robbie, Captain Anton, and the others.

As the island sloped gently uphill, it meant that Kate and Michael had a clear view of what was happening. They could see, perhaps half a mile away, the dark shapes streaming over the edge of the cliff and toward the families and children from Loris.

But Kate and Michael had run only a short way when both were roughly grabbed by the backs of their collars. “Right. Hold it. You heard the king.”

It was Hugo Algernon.

“What’re you doing?” Kate demanded. “We can help.”

“You can help more by not being dead. Oh, hello—”

Throngs of people were pouring toward them, running away from the attackers, while from behind rushed a wave of their own soldiers.

“We’re gonna get sandwiched,” Hugo Algernon said, and he lifted them in his arms and turned sharply to the left. After a minute of huffing and rough shaking, he’d reached the edge of the island and set them down atop a small cliff.

“There,” he said. “Safe enough.”

“But how did they find us?” Michael said. “I thought this island was invisible.”

“The Dire Magnus has dozens of ships out looking for us. Get close enough, it’s not hard to see the enchantment. Now you two be good kiddies and wait here, and maybe I’ll buy you an ice cream later. Stay here! I mean that!”

Then he turned and ran toward the battle that was now going on at the upper end of the island. The air was thick with cries of fear, the clanging and crashing of metal, and the shrieks of morum cadi.

“This isn’t right,” Michael said. “We should be allowed to help and—”

He was cut off by a scream, a child’s scream, and both he and Kate turned. Thirty yards below them was a rocky beach. A pair of children, a boy and a girl, perhaps seven and eight years old, stood on the beach as a creature—an Imp, Kate saw—climbed out of the water toward them, a black mace in one hand.

“Kate!”

The Imp grabbed the boy, lifting him up in the air. There was no one else around, no one to help. As the creature lifted the mace, Kate seized Michael’s hand, reached inside herself for the magic, and stopped time.

“Kate—”

Michael’s voice was strangely flat and toneless, and yet it was the only sound in the world. Kate tried to speak, but she felt a great, crushing pressure on her chest.

“You stopped time, didn’t you? You—are you all right?”

“We—have to—get down there. I can’t—hold it long.”

There was a narrow path winding down the cliff, and Michael took the lead. Kate followed, every muscle in her body shaking with effort. She felt that every second she kept time suspended, she was doing terrible damage, to the world and to herself.

When they reached the beach, Michael ran forward and yanked the boy from the Imp’s grasp. He bent to pick up the girl as well, but he couldn’t carry both.

“Kate, we have to—What’re you doing?”

Kate had rushed past Michael and stopped a foot from the Imp. She was too weak to carry the girl, and if she restarted time, the Imp would catch them. She pulled a short, ugly sword from the creature’s scabbard.

She heard Michael say her name again.

Bracing the sword with both hands—her vision seemed to be clouding over—she held the blade, trembling, tip out toward the Imp.

“You have to run,” she shouted. “I’ll hold it here as long as I can. Get help!”

“Kate! No!”

She let time restart.

And she had just said, “Don’t move—” when the Imp rushed forward, impaling itself on its own sword and knocking Kate to the ground.

The last thing she remembered was the back of her head hitting a rock. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The Lost Tribe

The boy who’d given them a ride from the village stopped his truck and told them he could go no farther.

“Okay,” Clare said, speaking, as the boy had, in Arabic. “We’ll get out.” And she called out the window to Gabriel and her husband, who had ridden in the truck’s bed. “This is as far as he’ll go.”

It had been a four-hour trip, and the truck, a rusted-out, loosely bolted scavenge job of three or four different trucks, had seemed at the point of rattling apart with every bump and pothole; indeed, Gabriel was surprised they’d made it this far. Now, lifting his pack and sword, he climbed out, the whole truck tilting sharply as he swung himself over the side. The children’s father climbed out next. Like Gabriel, he was covered in red-brown dust, and he unwrapped the scarf from his head, took a sip of water from his canteen, swirled it around in his mouth, and spat to clear the grit. He gave his wife and Gabriel a smile.

“So, that was awful.”

The boy had maneuvered the truck around and was already headed back the way they had come. Alone, the group turned and looked about. Gabriel had been to many places in the world, but never anywhere quite like this. Narrow, stony mountains lurched upward all around them, tilting this way and that at odd, almost impossible angles. Richard had explained that thousands of years before, the land here had been lush, and rivers had carved strange formations in the rock. But now there was no water, and the landscape was all burnt-red and brown. Even the sky, thick with dust, was lit red by the setting sun, as if the air itself was on fire. The sound of the truck had already faded, and the silence was complete.

The rutted path they had been following snaked upward over the rocks.

“He said there’s nothing up here,” Clare said. “Just more mountains.”

“Well,” Richard said, “let’s find out.”

And the trio began walking uphill.

It had been almost a day since they had left the small town on the Adriatic in the plane flown by Gabriel’s friend, hopscotching their way across the Mediterranean, landing on splinters and shards of the magical world, first in Greece, then Cyprus, and lastly in Lebanon, refueling each time, before flying out over the endless desert of the Arabian Peninsula. The pilot had landed at the base of the mountains on the southern coast, next to a village of mud and concrete houses. It was there that they’d found the boy with the truck.

Gabriel’s shoulder was stiff from the blow he’d received the night before, and he adjusted the strap of his pack, which carried food and water for him and the couple. The man and woman were still weak, but they were tough and kept on, uncomplaining. Gabriel gauged that they had three hours till nightfall, and then the temperature would drop quickly.

“It is time,” Gabriel said, keeping a steady, tireless stride, pausing only now and then so he did not overtake the couple, “for you to tell me what we are doing here, and how you hope to uncover the rest of the prophecy.”

He had not pressed them during the previous legs of their journey, the noise of the airplane and the rattling of the truck having rendered conversation impossible, and during their brief breaks, the couple had needed all the rest they could get.

“Of course,” Richard said, breathing hard. “Tell me, though, how much do you know about the prophecy and the prophet? What did Pym tell you?”

Gabriel confessed that, in truth, he knew very little about the ancient prophecy that had so ruled his and the children’s lives—only its essence: that the children would find the Books, unite them, and then perish.

“That’s not surprising,” Richard said. “Most people, if they know about the prophecy at all, don’t know more than that.”

But the couple explained how, years before, when Dr. Pym had told them who their children were destined to be, they had devoted themselves to learning everything they could about the Books and their history, and this had included the prophecy.

“We didn’t learn everything, obviously,” Richard said. “We only found out about the predictions of the children’s deaths when Rourke told us a few months ago.”

“But we still know quite a bit,” Clare said.

“Right. So more than a thousand years ago, there was a famous seer among one of the nomadic tribes of the Sahara. He made hundreds of predictions, about wars, famines, plagues, disasters both natural and magical. And they weren’t your usual vague, mumbly sorts of prophecies that could be yanked to fit almost any situation. They were specific. Like ‘Everyone in this particular village should get out by this date because there’s going to be a plague of killer bees.’?”

“And he was right,” Clare said. “Again and again.”

“And the last prediction he made,” Richard said, “was about the children and the Books. Then he vanished.”

“You mean he died?”

“No, vanished. Along with his whole tribe. Just disappeared out of the desert. There’re plenty of mentions in contemporary accounts. He was famous, after all; people noticed he was gone. Maybe he got tired of people always hunting him down and asking him to predict the future. Or maybe he was in some kind of danger, so he disappeared and took his people with him. No one knows.”

“Only the tribe didn’t really vanish,” Clare said. “It wasn’t long before reports began popping up, of people seeing the tribe in the South American jungle. In Papua New Guinea. On the Russian steppes. The Faeroe Islands.”

“And this is one of the places,” Gabriel said, “these mountains?”

“Yes,” Richard said. “We found an account in the memoirs of a fourteenth-century spice trader who stumbled onto the tribe. That village where we left the plane, that was an old trading post. The trader went east from there, into the mountains, same as we are, and that’s where he found them.”

“And are you simply hoping this tribe is still here?” Gabriel said, suddenly afraid he had been mistaken in trusting the couple’s judgment.

“No, no, of course not,” Clare said. “We studied this. We went through all the accounts we could find, plotting out the places they’d been seen, and eventually a pattern emerged. It turned out the tribe was still nomadic. Only instead of migrating hundreds of miles, they migrated thousands, all across the globe. And they went to certain places at certain times. Rotating on a fifty-year cycle. It was very clear once you saw it. We never had a chance to tell Pym because we only discovered all this just before we were captured. But they should be here now.”

“If our theory is right,” Richard said quietly.

Which, Gabriel thought, was a rather large if.

But he did not voice his doubt. Nor did he question how, even if they did find this lost tribe, they expected that to lead to the revelation of the rest of the prophecy. Did they think the prophecy would be written down in the village library? That the prophet’s old tribe would remember it verbatim? He didn’t ask because he already knew the answer. The couple didn’t know. They were here because they had nowhere else to go. And slim as this hope might be, it was their only one.

—

“I don’t understand,” Clare said. “This isn’t right.”

They had followed the path up around the side of the mountain till they reached a cliff and were now staring out at more desolate red-brown peaks in the distance. The path wound down the face of the mountain away from them.

“In the spice trader’s account,” Clare said, “he followed the eastern road from the village, the same as we did, but he said there was a bridge to another mountain, and he followed it to the village. Where’s the bridge? Where’s the village?”

Her voice was tight with panic and frustration.

“Maybe we missed a turn,” Richard said. “Or we’re on the wrong road.”

“But there are no other eastern roads! It’s just like the boy said, there’s nothing up here!”

As the couple debated, Gabriel glanced back at the path they had come up.

“The trader’s account, it is very old?”

“From the fourteenth century,” Clare said. “But it was incredibly detailed. Even if the bridge had fallen, there should be some evidence—”

“So it was written before the Separation,” Gabriel went on, “before the magical world pulled away. What was clear then would now be hidden.”

Without waiting for the couple to respond, he walked back along the path. Sixty yards from the cliff, he found what he was looking for, a watery glimmer in the air. In the dying light, he had walked right past it. He heard Richard and Clare behind him.

“Focus on the shimmer,” Gabriel said as he stepped into it, feeling the tingle and the world widening around him, and then he was through, and the air still tasted the same, the sun hung at the same place in the sky, everything was the same but also different, for he was now in the magical world.

He heard Clare gasp, and Richard say, “Whoa.” They were looking, he knew, at the mountain not a hundred yards away, the mountain that had not been there moments before and was connected to the peak on which they stood by a long rope or hemp bridge that hung suspended over a thousand-foot drop.

“This is the bridge in the trader’s account,” Richard exclaimed. “The village should be just on the other side.” He started forward, but Gabriel put out a hand to hold him back.

“What’re you doing? We have to hurry! We—”

“We are not alone,” Gabriel said.

Four or five large boulders studding the top of the mountain stood between themselves and the bridge, and the couple was silent now, for they could see the shadows disengaging themselves from the boulders and becoming men cloaked in the same hues as the rocks, holding short, curved bows, and with long daggers stuck in their belts.

“They were here the whole time, weren’t they?” Richard whispered. “In the magic world. Waiting to see if we would come through.”

“Yes.”

“Let me talk to them,” Clare said. “I’ll tell them we’re not here to hurt them.”

“I doubt they’re worried about that,” Richard said.

One man, tall and lean with a thick black beard and skin the color of the rocks, stepped forward. He looked at Gabriel, then held out his hand. Gabriel hesitated, then unslung his sword and passed it over, giving the man his knife and pack as well.

Jamming Gabriel’s knife in his belt and slipping the pack and sword over his shoulder, the man turned and motioned for them to follow. They fell into a line, Gabriel, Clare, and finally Richard, with the band of men behind, and they made their way to the bridge and then across, the bridge swinging beneath their feet.

The next peak was narrower than the one they had left, and the tall man led them through a passage in the rock, a short tunnel that Gabriel hadn’t seen from the other side. A minute later they stepped out and the village lay before them, thirty red-brown houses of compacted mud terraced into the concave face of the mountain. Gabriel could see figures moving about and hear the bleating of goats and the dull clanking of bells.

As they entered the village, women and children came out to watch them pass, all of them dressed in the same long cloaks as the men, and they stared at Gabriel and the couple with large, dark eyes. Gabriel looked up the narrow path between the mud and stone huts and he saw a figure move aside a rug that hung over the doorway of the last hut and step into the path. It was an old man, stooped and bald, and Gabriel was not surprised when the bearded leader of the band stopped before him.

The old man looked more like a tortoise than anyone Gabriel had ever seen, with his skin both wrinkled and yet strangely smooth. He was leaning on a crooked cane, and he peered closely at Gabriel and at the couple.

“Tell him who we are,” Richard said.

Clare said something, and the old man nodded, murmuring a reply.

“He says”—Clare’s voice was quiet—“that he’s been expecting us.”

The old man pulled back the blanket and gestured into the darkness of his house. Richard and Clare exchanged a glance and stepped through. Gabriel moved to follow, but the bearded man barred his way.

Then the old man stepped into the house, dropping the blanket behind him.

—

The old man led Richard and Clare to the back room and gestured to them to sit on the floor, which was covered with overlapping rugs. He sat facing them, on the other side of a small oil stove, which he quickly and deftly lit, and began heating up a pot of water. The old man had a weathered and leathery skull, heavy-lidded dark eyes, and as he manipulated the stove, his fingers stayed locked together, giving his hands the appearance of flippers. He was adding various things to the pot—herbs, roots, powders—and stirring them with a stick from the floor.

“Ask him,” Richard said, “what he meant when he said he was waiting for us.”

Clare spoke, then listened to the old man’s response and said to her husband, “He says that we must be the parents of the Keepers. That it was foretold we would come.”

“Who is he?” Richard asked. “Is he…the prophet?”

Clare translated, and the old man made a dismissive noise before responding.

“He says the prophet has been dead for a thousand years. He is merely the one who sits in his place.”

“Look”—Richard leaned forward—“not to be rude, it’s just that time is kind of an issue. The reason we’re here—”

But the old man was already speaking. Clare listened, then translated. “He asks if we wish to hear the prophecy concerning the children and the Books. Is that not the reason we have come?”

Clare responded herself.

The old man shook his head, and Clare said:

“He says he doesn’t know the prophecy.”

“But—” Richard began.

“He says,” Clare went on, “that we must hear it from the prophet.”

“But the prophet’s dead!” Richard nearly shouted. “He just said so!”

The pot on the stove was now bubbling, and the old man went to a small wooden box against the wall, undid the latch, and opened it. He took out an object bound in cloth, carefully unwrapping it to reveal a cloudy, whitish crystal in roughly the shape of a cube.

He began to speak quickly, and Clare asked several questions, nodding if she understood or frowning if she didn’t.

“What is that?” Richard asked.

“He says it is a moment of frozen time.”

The old man dropped the cube into the boiling pot and began to stir.

“He says”—Clare was translating as the man spoke—“that if we wish to hear the prophecy, we must hear it from the prophet. We must go back in time.”

“But only the Atlas can take you through time,” Richard said. “Pym told us—”

“He says the cube was a piece of that time long ago. We will take it inside ourselves. It will be a part of us. We’ll see and hear as if we were there.”

Then the old man took two slender glasses and poured in the dark, steaming, oddly thick liquid. He held them out in shaking hands.

“I’ll do it,” Richard said to his wife. “Only one of us has to.”

The old man seemed to understand, for he clucked his tongue.

“He says we both have to,” Clare said. “That is what was foretold, and that is what has been prepared. Both or neither. That we came here seeking the answer, and this is the answer. Will we take it?”

—

It was dark now, and the temperature was dropping rapidly. Gabriel stood staring at the hut and the man who guarded the doorway. It seemed to Gabriel that he could feel each second ticking by. He had no idea what was happening on Loris, or to Emma in the world of the dead. But if the couple did not emerge soon, he would force his way in.

Then Gabriel noticed a strange thing. Villagers—men, women, and children—were moving up the path toward the top of the mountain. They moved in ones and twos, sometimes whole families. They were going into what looked like a temple of some kind that had been carved into the stone at the mountain’s peak, some fifty or so feet above the rest of the village. They were all carrying bundles. Two young boys herded a dozen bleating goats up the path, disappearing as well into the mouth of the temple.

In less time than Gabriel would have guessed possible, the village was empty and silent. It was just him and the tall guard. Then the blanket over the door moved, and the old man emerged.

He looked at Gabriel and said, in English, “You must protect them till they return. All depends on that.”

Then the bearded man took the old man’s arm, and they headed up the path. Gabriel’s pack, knife, and sword had been left on the ground.

Gabriel immediately stepped into the small house, ducking for the low ceiling. He found the couple in the back room, stretched out on the floor, a pair of empty glasses on the ground beside them. Both were breathing, but their pulses were faint. He sniffed at one of the glasses but couldn’t identify the smell.

He hurried out to see the old man and his companion entering the temple above.

“Wait!”

Gabriel raced up the hill. As he got close, he saw that the temple was just a columned façade that had been carved into the rock, giving way to a shallow cave. He stepped into the darkness. The cave was only ten feet deep. He was alone; there was no sign of the villagers, the goats, the old man.

They had moved on.

Gabriel stepped out into the chill night air, and as he did, a distant flickering caught his eye. From the steps of the temple, he could see past the rope bridge and across to the mountain they had climbed that afternoon. A line of torches, far down the mountain, was climbing slowly upward. He could not make out the figures, but on some deep, instinctual level, he knew who they were. And he understood the old man’s parting words.

Their enemy had found them. CHAPTER NINETEEN

The Prophecy Revealed

Peering over the side of the mountain, Gabriel saw what he was searching for—a small cave, thirty feet down the face—and he went back to the house and carried first the woman, then the man, up to the edge of the cliff. He tied a rope around each in turn and lowered them down. Then he fixed his rope to a large boulder and climbed down himself.

The cave was just deep enough that Richard and Clare would be invisible from above. The question was, if he himself were killed, would they be able to climb up without a rope? But to leave a rope in place would negate the whole point of their being hidden. He debated the point for a few seconds, then climbed up the cliff and took the rope from the boulder. He would have to make sure he survived.

Before hiding the children’s parents, Gabriel had first assured himself that the grass bridge was the only way on or off the mountaintop, and indeed, there were only steep cliffs on all sides. The simplest thing would be to cut the bridge. But that would only strand him and the couple while doing nothing about the enemy, who would, sooner or later, find another way across.

In the end, he sawed through half of the grass cables that held the bridge in place, then hurried over to the other peak and along the path to take up a position that gave him a vantage point on the trail below. He counted twenty-eight torches, and thought he could see more figures that were not holding torches. Perhaps forty in all.

Gabriel had found a bow left behind in the village, as well as a dozen arrows, and he now identified two places higher up the path where he could retreat and continue firing. He settled in to wait, and as he did, he found himself remembering how, over the past decade, he had made yearly visits to whatever orphanage had then housed the children. The first time had been five years after the adventure in Cambridge Falls, and the orphanage was a grand old building on the banks of the Charles River in Boston. From across the street, he’d seen Emma, still an infant, being rocked in her sister’s arms. By the second year, Emma had been staggering around with the drunken, fat-legged gait of a toddler. And so it had gone, year after year, orphanage after orphanage. He never stayed long; he was never seen. Over the course of a decade, those ten visits had added up to what? An hour? But however brief, they had given him strength for whatever missions and trials awaited him in the year ahead.

Richard and Clare had never had that. They had not seen their children once during all their years of captivity, and yet they were still willing to go to any length, to take any risk, to ensure their safety.

The old man’s admonition to protect the couple had been unnecessary. Gabriel would protect them just as he would have their children.

He heard a shout from below, and a curse, and he looked and saw, in the midst of the group, a bald head rising above the rest, reflecting the glare of the torches.

He notched an arrow on his string and got ready.

—

Clare opened her eyes and was blinded. As she blinked, letting her eyes adjust, she heard what sounded like the flapping of a tent in the wind. She sensed Richard beside her.

When she could finally see, she caught her breath. She and Richard were on the rug-covered floor of an open-air tent, encamped beside a small oasis in a sea of endless white dunes. More tents dotted the sand. Cloaked figures moved about.

“Richard…”

“It’s like he said.” Her husband’s voice was filled with awe. “We’ve gone back in time. We’re in the Sahara. Back when the tribe were desert nomads. But I don’t think we’re really here. I think this might be a memory—”

He cut himself off. A few feet away, a man was sitting with his eyes closed. He had white hair and a white beard and a face made up almost entirely of wrinkles. He was so quiet and still that he seemed a part of the landscape.

“You think he can hear us?” Richard said.

“No. It’s like we’re ghosts.” Clare knelt before him. “I wonder if he’s—”

The old man’s eyes snapped open, and Clare fell backward in alarm.

“Clare—”

“I’m fine. But look—”

The old man’s eyes were all pupil, but then, slowly, they changed, the pupils shrinking, the whites and irises appearing.

Clare now turned to follow the old man’s gaze. A tall figure in a dark cloak and hood was approaching the tent. Clare and Richard both moved back and waited.

The hooded figure entered and sat down before the old man.

“You’ve come,” the old man said.

It was only later that the couple would wonder how it was that although the two men had not been speaking English, or any language Richard and Clare recognized, they had understood every word.

The hooded figure said, “You know why I am here?”

“Yes. But you must say it.”

“I wish to know about the Books. Who will find them? When will they be found?”

“I must see your face.”

The visitor pushed back his hood. He was a man in middle age with close-cropped dark hair and severe features. But Clare found herself staring at his eyes, which were the most startling emerald green she had ever seen.

—

With his twelve arrows, Gabriel managed to down eleven Imps and Screechers. His first arrow had been for the bald giant, but somehow—could his hearing be so sharp?—Rourke had dodged out of the way. Gabriel didn’t waste any more time on Rourke, but with a new arrow on his string every second, he drew and released, drew and released, while on the slope below, Rourke cursed and struck at the Imps and morum cadi and struggled to maintain order.

After firing his last arrow, Gabriel didn’t wait to see what would happen next. The trail his attackers were on skirted the edge of the cliff till it reached the bridge and for nearly sixty yards was no more than two feet wide, with a plunge of a thousand feet on one side and a steep rocky slope on the other. Gabriel planted himself in the middle of the trail, drew his sword, and waited.

A Screecher was the first to appear; Gabriel saw its yellow eyes glowing in the darkness, and the creature ripped forth one of its awful cries and charged. Gabriel had chosen a spot where the ground gave way, a fact he hid with his body. He stood utterly still, and when the morum cadi was a yard or so from him, he leapt backward, and the Screecher, rushing forward, lost its footing and, with a kick from Gabriel, tumbled off the cliff.

His next attacker was hard on the heels of the first, the next right behind him, with yet another following. Gabriel fought with every ounce of skill and strength and cunning he had, blocking, striking, thrusting, kicking, punching, shoving, cutting down some of his attackers while doing his best to hurl others off the cliff, and all the while he was being pushed backward step by step. Several times, his enemies tried to rush him, but they got jammed up on the path, with one invariably grabbing at another and sending both into the void.

By the time he’d reached the grass bridge, he’d cut their numbers by another thirteen. Then a crossbow bolt whizzed out of the darkness and buried itself in his left shoulder, the same shoulder that had been wounded by the Imp the night before. The impact jerked him back, and a moment later, pain exploded across his chest and neck. He yanked the bolt out and jammed it into the eye of an Imp that was rushing forward—then, seeing Rourke’s bald head round the edge of the path, and feeling the throb of the poison in his shoulder, he turned and ran.

When he reached the far side of the bridge, he looked and saw only six—four Screechers and two Imps—rushing across. Rourke had held the others back.

An Imp was nearly to him when Gabriel cut the bridge. The creatures tumbled into space, a few clinging to the bridge till it whiplashed down and struck the side of the mountain. He heard Rourke’s laughter from across the chasm.

“Well played, lad! Though seems to me you’ve treed yourself! How are you expecting to shimmy down from there? Never you fret. We’ll be over soon enough!”

But Gabriel had already turned away to begin planning the next stage of the fight.

—

“That cannot be.”

The old seer opened his hands. “It is as it will be. Three children will come. They will find the Books. They are the Keepers.”

“And then what?” the green-eyed man sneered. “Speak! What happens when they find the Books?”

The old man closed his eyes again, shaking his head. “The path from there is not yet determined. If the Keepers bring the Books together and no more, then they and the Books will be destroyed.”

“But there is another path,” the man said, leaning forward. “A way the Books will not be destroyed. The power cannot be lost! What is the other way?”

After a moment, the old man nodded. “I see two paths. In one, the Keepers bring the Books together, and they and the Books are destroyed. In the other, the three become one.”

“What do you mean? Three become one?”

“Three Books into one Book. Three Keepers into one Keeper. If this happens, the Final Bonding will occur.”

The green-eyed man was silent, his head bowed. Then he looked up and smiled. “Another Keeper. That is what you are saying. A Final Keeper for the Final Bonding. One who can control the power of the Books.” He reached into his cloak. “Thank you, old man.”

Clare saw the knife and screamed, but only Richard heard her.

—

They used crossbow bolts, the ends of which were tied with light, strong ropes, and they fired them across the chasm so that the bolts buried themselves in the dirt and rock on the other side. Gabriel tried to leap out and cut the ropes, but Rourke was ready, and more bolts and arrows drove him back.

At that point, there was nothing he could do but wait.

Finally, when there were more than a dozen of the narrow ropes suspended across the chasm, one of the morum cadi took hold of the bundle of cables and scuttled across upside down. Once on Gabriel’s side, the creature secured the ropes around one of the posts that had held the bridge. At that point, only Rourke and five others, three Screechers and two Imps, remained, but Gabriel’s left arm was nearly useless, and he could feel the poison spreading through his body. He knew that if he didn’t treat the wound properly, and soon, the poison would find his heart.

Gabriel got lucky when one of the Screechers simply fell off the improvised rope bridge. That left four. Rourke himself started across last of all, the posts on either side bowing under his weight. There was still one Imp on the ropes, but two Screechers and another Imp were already on his side, and Gabriel rushed down upon them, howling. The ground where they fought was rocky and sloped, and Gabriel cut down all three, but the last Imp, leaping off the ropes, slashed him viciously down his back before Gabriel kicked him in the chest and sent him over the cliff.

Gabriel was gasping with pain and using his sword as a cane to steady himself.

“Ah now, lad, I do hate to see you in this sad state.”

Gabriel turned to see Rourke stepping over the smoking body of one of the Screechers as he pulled out his long twin knives.

“But you must’ve always known it would come to this.”

Gabriel looked at him for a long moment, then straightened, ignoring the pain in his shoulder and back, and said, “Are we going to talk or fight?”

—

“Clare—”

She had fallen to her knees beside the old prophet, who was bleeding out on the rugs.

“That can’t be all!” she cried. “There has to be something else! Some way to save them!”

Figures had come running when the seer had cried out, but the green-eyed man had already vanished. Three men had laid the old man down, and one was pressing a bundled scarf onto his wound. The old man grabbed at the man, and Richard heard the prophet ordering the man to take their people away, warning that the green-eyed sorcerer would return. They had to run, and keep running.

Then the old seer reached out and grabbed a handful of sand, brought it to his lips and seemed to breathe into it, whispering. He held out his hand.

“They will come. The parents of the Keepers. One day they will come. Give them this. Keep it safe.”

He opened his hand, and Richard saw the milky white cube fall into the hand of the other man. The scene before him began to dim.

“Clare—”

But she was leaning toward the dying prophet, sobbing.

“Tell me! Tell me how to save the children!”

Then the old man said, his voice failing, “He did not let me speak the end….”

“Tell us! We’re here! Tell us!”

“After the Final Bonding…” The man’s voice dropped below a whisper, and Richard saw his wife place her ear next to the man’s lips, straining to catch the words, her tears falling unfelt upon the old man’s face. Then Clare wrenched back, shouting, “No!” and the world vanished before them.

—

“This is so disappointing.”

They were battling along the edge of the cliff. Gabriel was fighting one-handed, and, whether out of sportsmanship or contempt, Rourke was doing the same. Gabriel had attacked with all his remaining strength, but it did no good. He remembered their fight in the fortress and, before that, in the volcano in Antarctica. Somehow, the giant Irishman was stronger and faster than ever, as he blocked or dodged every one of Gabriel’s blows with ease.

Gabriel swung his sword in an arc, but Rourke ducked and punched him in his wounded shoulder with the butt of his knife, causing Gabriel to cry out.

“Come now, lad. I scarcely touched you. Don’t be going soft on me.”

Gabriel lunged again, and Rourke again slipped inside and this time thudded an elbow into Gabriel’s face. Gabriel went blind for a moment and stumbled backward over the rocks. He knew that the edge of the cliff was near, but he caught himself in time, even as he felt the emptiness only feet away.

Rourke was walking slowly forward.

“So where are the kiddies’ parents? I don’t imagine they’ll be too hard to flush out. There can’t be too many places to hide around here.”

Gabriel attacked again, and this time, when Rourke slipped inside his intentionally clumsy attack, Gabriel was ready and ran his shoulder into the man’s stomach. Rourke let out a grunt and grabbed Gabriel by the hair and smashed his head against a boulder before tossing him away as one might a cat.

“You know all this is pointless, yes? The children are doomed. It’s fate. Stronger than any of us.”

Gabriel glanced toward the edge of the cliff. He needed to lure the man closer.

Rourke feinted, feinted again, and then struck with his knife. Gabriel felt the tip slide across his chest and stomach. He staggered back, his hand going to his sliced-open stomach, as if to hold himself together.

But he saw that he was, finally, at the lip of the cliff. He raised his sword feebly, but Rourke struck it away, and the sword went spinning out of his hand into the void. Rourke thrust again, and Gabriel twisted so that the blade only went through his side instead of killing him.

He dropped to his knees. Rourke was above him.

“Your whole life, lad, and it’s all been for naught. Just a grand waste.”

Gabriel felt himself seized by the neck and lifted so that his feet came off the ground. He was staring into the black pits of Rourke’s eyes. Was he right? If Gabriel died now, if the children died, had it all been for nothing?

“Time’s up, lad.” Rourke drew back his knife.

“You are wrong,” Gabriel said, his voice choking under the man’s grip.

“What’s that?” Rourke asked, pausing. “You say something?”

Gabriel knew there was no way he could make the man understand, even though, in that moment, it was so clear to him that to love someone, and to live your life guided by that love, could never be a waste. Indeed, it was the only life there was.

“Are you smiling? Have you gone daft on me, lad?”

Gabriel repeated, “You are wrong.”

Rourke snarled, and his knife drew back again. Then Gabriel thought of his sword, of Granny Peet’s gift, and it was not at the bottom of the cliff, but in his hand, warm and solid, and with one thrust he drove the blade through the giant man’s chest. It seemed to take Rourke a moment to understand what had happened. Then, almost carefully, he set Gabriel back down on the ground. The stunned expression never left his face, and Gabriel watched the man’s eyes as the light went out of them.

“Well now…,” Rourke said.

He pitched forward and lay still. With difficulty, Gabriel turned him over, then drew his sword from the man’s chest and used it to walk to the top of the hill. He passed out once on the way, but he got to the place where he’d hidden the rope, secured it again to the boulder, then threw the coil over the cliff so that the rope dangled over the mouth of the cave.

He called down, “It is I.”

A moment later, the silhouette of Richard’s head appeared in the darkness below.

“Thank goodness.” The man’s voice sounded very small in the empty air. “We didn’t want to shout. We only just came to. What happened?”

“Rourke found us.”

“Rourke—”

“He is dead. Did you learn the rest of the prophecy?”

“Yes. I mean—I think so. Clare heard it. She…hasn’t been able to tell me yet.”

And Gabriel heard the sound of sobs coming from deeper inside the cave.

“Listen,” Richard said. “We’d better come up. Then we can talk about it.”

Gabriel sat down at the edge of the cliff to wait. There were bandages and herbs in his pack, but he had no energy or strength to go and get them. He would wait for the couple. He found himself thinking about Emma. For fifteen years, he had traveled the world, and she had been with him every step of the way. Just as she was with him now. He saw the rope go taut, and he heard the scrape of the couple’s feet on rock as they began to ascend. Then he looked up at the stars and thought that his heart had never felt so full. CHAPTER TWENTY

The Prison

Emma tried to keep up, but, her legs being by far the shortest, she invariably fell behind; then there’d be a hard yank on the cord binding her wrists, curses, perhaps a kick, and she’d be dragged forward. She tried whispering to her fellow captives (three men and a woman) to find out where they were being taken, but they only stared at her with the blank expressions of the dead and said nothing.

She told herself she just had to get free, get the book, find the portal back to the world of the living, and then it would all be okay. That was it; she could do it!

But even if she did all that—which, she knew, was a pretty big if—the thought of touching the book, of letting all those voices back into her head, filled her with a terrible, throat-clenching panic.

And the book had spoken to her. Release them, it had said. Release who? Did it mean the voices? She’d be happy to. But how? And release them where?

She sucked on her lip, swollen where the man had hit her, and for the hundredth time she wished that Gabriel was there. She’d like to see what he’d do to that guy who’d hit her. He’d kill him—that’s what he’d do! Or kill him again, since technically, the guy was already dead. But if he and the fat one were dead—which they had to be, didn’t they, if they were down here?—how come they weren’t all zombied out like the other dead people?

The small train stopped once so the guards could fill their canteens in a stream, and Emma approached the fat one, the one who had the Reckoning jammed into the top of his pants.

“Hey,” she said. “What’s your name?”

Her thinking was that she would act nice, like she wasn’t angry at being made a prisoner, and somehow convince him to return the book. At least then she would have it when she escaped. But on being asked his name, the man simply stared at her, his expression empty, and Emma had the sudden realization that he no more knew his name than did anyone else in the world of the dead, that the two guards might talk and act like living people, but scratch the surface, and it was just that—an act.

As she and the others were pulled onward, Emma’s mind continued to spin. If the guards were the same as the rest of the dead, then who or what was controlling them? Was it the Dire Magnus? Neither guard had mentioned him. They also hadn’t given any sign that they knew who Emma was. She told herself that as long as she could keep it that way, she had a chance.

Time passed. They trudged on. Then at one point, Emma looked up and gasped.

Their group had come over the ridge she’d seen when she’d climbed the cliff with the carriadin, and they were heading down to a wide plain that stretched away to more mountains or hills in the distance. There was not a tree or blade of grass in sight. A stinking gray-green river, thick with sludge, slithered across the plain. Trash littered the landscape. But what drew Emma’s attention, and what had caused her to gasp, was a vast shantytown directly ahead of them that was clustered around an enormous circular structure, from the center of which a tower of black smoke—the tower of smoke she had seen from the cliff—rose into the sky.

Emma had no doubt that was their destination.

Soon enough, Emma and the other prisoners were being pulled along the dark, mud-slick passages that twisted between the shacks. The shacks were made from sticks and dried mud, and Emma could see through gaps in the walls to the people moving about inside. As their captors dragged them deeper into the maze, the sky was blotted out by overhanging roofs, and Emma kept close to the back of the woman before her, certain that if she fell she would be dragged by her wrists through the filth. Several times Emma saw what she took to be scrawny gray cats, but when she looked closer, she saw they were rats, giant ones, with long, curving claws and needle-like fangs, and the creatures hissed and spat whenever a person came too near.

Then Emma and the others were yanked to a halt. The sky was still blocked by the ramshackle roofs of the shantytown, but they had come to a sort of indoor arcade or forum. Grim-faced men were moving about, leading bound-together groups of men and women. Half a dozen or so wooden tables had been placed in a line, and at each table sat a man with a notepad and pencil.

Emma’s tall captor, the one who’d struck her and stolen Michael’s knife, moved off without a word while the one with the hairy stomach—Emma could see the top of the Reckoning sticking from the waistband of his pants; she would need to give it a good scrubbing when she got it back—led her and the others to a table where a bald man sat squinting at his notepad and writing.

“You’re late,” the man said. “How many is that?”

“Five.”

“Your quota’s ten.”

“You try finding that many! Lands are empty. Miles and miles, there ain’t a soul. We’re gonna run out of the dead soon.”

“Ha! He’ll just make more then, won’t he?”

The bald man looked up, and Emma felt his eyes go over her, with no feeling, before returning to his notepad. She’d worried that someone more in charge would identify her, but apparently she was safe. And as she was thinking this, she glanced over and saw a red-robed figure approaching. It was the same rat-faced man from the beach the day before, and she quickly dropped her head and turned away. As she did, the name that had eluded her, the name Rourke had used for the wizards who served the Dire Magnus, came to her—the necromati.

“Hurry up,” snapped the rat-faced man. “The master is impatient.”

“Yes, sir,” the bald man replied. “Going fast as we can.”

Emma didn’t look up till the red-robed figure had moved off.

“Place is busy,” her fat captor said.

“Been working nonstop for days. And all the ones we’re still holding are to go tonight. Something big is happening up above. What’s that, then?” The bald man aimed his pencil at the top of the Reckoning protruding from the other’s pants.

“Just a book. Took it from the girl.”

“Give it here.”

“It’s mine, though.”

“Not anymore. Not unless you want me to put down you didn’t make quota.”

Emma’s captor grumbled but pulled the book from his pants. Emma acted without thinking, the brush with the necromati having made her panicked and desperate, and reached for the book as the man held it out. For one brief moment, she and the man were both holding it. Even if she’d managed to wrench it away, she had no plan for what to do next, and in any case it didn’t matter. The moment her hand touched the book, she felt the magic stir.

And the rest of the world fell away.

In her mind Emma saw an image of an old woman with thick gray hair, sun-spotted skin, and watery blue eyes; her name was Nanny Marge, and she held Emma’s hand in her large, soft one, only it was not Emma’s hand being held, it was the fat guard’s hand, his hand when he’d been a child; and Emma experienced a sudden overpowering love for the old woman; it filled her up—

“Off!”

Emma was shoved hard in the shoulder, lost her grip on the book, and tumbled to the ground. The bald man was standing at the table, red-faced with anger. He seized the book from the dazed guard and jammed it in the pocket of his coat.

“Lock ’em up. Now! And watch that one!” He pointed at Emma.

The guard—with a shock, Emma realized that she now knew his name: it was Harold Barnes; though that was all she knew, that and his love for the old woman—came out of his stupor and pulled Emma to her feet. Emma tried to catch his eye, but the man wouldn’t look at her. Dragging on the cord that bound Emma and the others, he led them past the man at the desk and into a dark passageway. Emma stumbled along, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Ever since passing out in Willy’s room, back in the land of the giants, she’d known that some of the Reckoning’s magic was within her. But this was new. And why had the book shown her that old woman? What did it mean?

Then they came out of the tunnel, and every other thought was driven from her mind.

Traveling through the maze of the shantytown, Emma had lost all sense of direction and progress, and so it was a shock to find herself in the middle of the enormous circular structure she’d seen from across the plain. The thing had an arena-like quality, with its large, open central space. But this was not a place for spectators, at least not willing ones, for the circular building—now that Emma was close to it—revealed itself to be made of hundreds of wooden cages, each the size of a boxcar and stacked on top of one another. And in the cages, Emma could see people.

It was a prison for the dead.

And that wasn’t all. For in the center of the open area, not far from where Emma and the others had emerged from the tunnel, was a pit, perhaps fifty feet across and twenty feet deep. There was no fire that Emma could see, but black smoke rose up from the pit as if the bottom was covered in smoldering ash.

Why were the dead being held captive? What happened here? What did the Dire Magnus’s minions do to them? The bald man who’d taken the book had said they were all to go tonight, but go where?

She remembered Dr. Pym saying that there was some evil in this land, and she felt as if she’d penetrated to the heart of that evil only to find that she understood even less than before. And did she want to understand? Emma had never been anywhere that felt so utterly hopeless and foul. She wanted just to get the Reckoning and escape.

A lattice of scaffolding connected the cages, and with shouts, kicks, and shoves, Harold Barnes drove Emma and the others up a ladder to a cage on the second level. There was a crude metal lock he had to work at for several moments, then there was a clank and he jerked open the door, cut the cords that bound their wrists, and pushed them inside. Emma landed hard on her knees and heard the door slam shut.

“Wait!” Emma turned and threw herself against the door. “You saw her! Nanny Marge! You saw her!”

The man stopped on the ladder and looked back, and for one instant his face changed. Quite simply, it came alive. And Emma saw the change and knew for certain then that he’d seen what she had, and what was more, he still remembered.

There was a shout, someone from below calling the man.

“No!” Emma cried. “Don’t—”

But Harold Barnes had already hurriedly climbed back down.

Emma stood there, gripping the bars. Okay, she thought, think for a second. When she and Harold Barnes had touched the book at the same time, the magic had opened a window into his life. Then, somehow, either she or the book had given him back his memory; he knew who he was!

Great. And that helped her how, exactly? She was still a prisoner; she still didn’t have the book; she still didn’t know how to get back to the world of the living.

One thing at a time. She just needed a plan. Emma knew that planning wasn’t really her strength, but Michael was always coming up with plans; how hard could it be?

Night was beginning to settle in, but Emma could see that there were maybe twenty people in the cage, including the four she’d arrived with. They were men and women, both young and old, though she, it seemed, was the youngest. Most of the other prisoners were sitting on the floor with their backs against the wooden bars. All of them had the vacant expressions of the dead.

As to the cage itself, the floor and ceiling were solid, but Emma could see through the bars into the open arena and smoking pit in one direction, and in the other, out over the roofs of the shantytown to the plain and mountains in the distance. She could also see into the cages on either side. One was filled with people, while the other appeared to be empty, save for a pile of dirty rags in a corner. Emma walked to that wall and sat down with her back against the bars.

How she wished she had someone to help her! Or just to talk to! Kate, Michael, Gabriel, even Dr. Pym! He should be here helping her instead of running a water taxi for dead people! And it was pointless trying to engage the dead trapped with her. As it was, just being around them depressed her.

If only Gabriel were here! Her mind kept coming back to that one thought. She knew that only the Keeper of the Reckoning could pass into the world of the dead, but such was her faith in him, and in his love for her, that some small part of her still clung to the hope that he might somehow find a way.

Stop it, she told herself. It’s just you, and you need a plan.

Then a voice behind her, from the cage she’d thought was empty, spoke:

“I wondered how long it would take them to find you.”

Emma leapt up and whirled about, staring into the shadows of the other cage. The pile of rags was starting to move, and she watched as the thing dragged itself into the light, revealing twisted and mangled bones, sagging, mottled skin, black nails, and, finally, a pair of blinking, bloodshot, violet eyes.

“But where’s the book?” the Countess sneered. “You found it, didn’t you? When I first came here, the first time I died, I tried to force the carriadin to give it back to me. But they refused! ‘Only the Keeper! Only the Keeper!’ So where is it, child?”

Emma clung to the bars of the cage. She felt as if she might pass out.

She heard herself answering, “They…took it. The men who brought me here.”

Emma couldn’t stop staring at the Countess’s broken body. Was she that way because Willy had stomped on her? It crossed Emma’s mind to wonder how someone could look like that and be alive, but then she remembered that the Countess wasn’t alive.

“You lost it!” The woman grabbed the bars of her cage as if she intended to rip them free. “You can’t have lost it!”

“I couldn’t help it! They—”

Emma stopped herself. The witch’s head had dropped, her shoulders were shaking, and she was making little whimpering sounds. She was crying.

“Hey,” Emma said quietly, squatting down, “are you all right?”

The Countess looked up; tears streamed down the thick grooves of her face. “Do you have any conception of what I have been through? I died more than two thousand years ago. The dead do not feel the passage of time; I do. I felt every day as I waited for your brother to restore me to life. But I never gave up hope.

“Even forty years ago, when the Dire Magnus himself came to this world and began all this”—she waved her gnarled hand to indicate the prison, the shantytown—“I did not doubt but that I would one day succeed. And then I did. I came back—”

“And Willy squashed you like a bug.”

The Countess’s already twisted face contorted even more. “Yes. And I was returned to this hell as the warped creature you see. Captured instantly by the Dire Magnus’s minions and brought here. But still I clung to hope. Of what? That you would come and retrieve the book. That if nothing else, even if I spent the rest of time trapped in this wretched place, in this wretched body, that you would carry out my revenge and destroy the Dire Magnus. But you lost the book! You failed! Utterly and totally. So no, I am not all right!” And she spat, disgusted, on the floor of her cage.

Emma said nothing for a moment. She had no idea what waiting for something for two thousand years and not getting it might feel like, but she guessed it would feel pretty bad. And after giving the Countess’s words the amount of silent consideration they seemed to deserve—Emma accorded them three seconds—she said:

“So how do you remember me? Even Dr. Pym couldn’t remember me. How is it you can?”

The Countess stared at her. She seemed exhausted by her tirade and to be debating whether to answer Emma’s question or simply retreat to her corner. Finally, she said, “I once wielded the Reckoning, girl. Not for long, I grant you, but it left its mark. Death could not touch my memories. Now, leave me alone.”

She started to crawl away.

“Hey! Wait!”

“It is over.” The witch sounded merely tired now, not even angry. “You’ve lost your only chance. Our only chance.”

“Wait! I don’t understand any of this! Just tell me, I get why you can remember me. But those creeps who brought me here. They’re not like other dead people either.” Emma wasn’t quite sure why she was pursuing this point, but she sensed it was important. It was related somehow to the Reckoning; and the Countess knew the answer. “They talk and act almost like real people. Evil people, yeah, but—”

“Shut up! Just stop talking!” The Countess shook her head, but it was more in resignation than anything else. “They are but tools of the Dire Magnus. They remember no more of their lives than these fools.” She jerked her chin toward the men and women in Emma’s cell. “But his power here is very great. He finds weak spirits and forces them to do his bidding. He winds them up like dolls and sets them into motion. The men who brought you here, they may have given a semblance of intention, but they are empty inside.”

Emma thought of Harold Barnes and the tall man who’d captured her, of the bald man at the desk, how they moved with more purpose than the rest of the dead, but there was still a vagueness in their eyes. Everything the Countess said matched Emma’s own observations.

Only Harold Barnes had been different after she’d given him the memory of his Nanny Marge; she’d seen it in his face.

“What about those wizard guys in the red robes?”

“The necromati?”

“Yeah, I know what they’re called,” Emma said testily, wishing she had said the name, since she had actually remembered it. “What about them?”

“Their master shares with them some of his power. But in the end, they are no different from the others. Since the beginning of time, only two have ever come to the world of the dead and managed to keep their memories. Myself and the Dire Magnus.”

And me too, Emma thought, though she didn’t say it.

“So what is this place? Why’re all these people locked up? You’ve gotta tell me that!”

The Countess looked at Emma, and a leering, wolfish grin spread across her face. “Yes, child, I will tell you that.” She edged closer to the bars. “You’ve stumbled onto the Dire Magnus’s great secret. The source of his newfound power. And he is stronger now, is he not? In the world above?”

“Yeah. Rourke said this whole war was something he never could’ve done before.”

“And did Pym ever tell you how the Dark One lived as long as he did?”

Emma knew that he had, in the elfish forest at the bottom of the world, after she and Michael had escaped from the volcano. But Emma had hardly listened; Kate had just returned from the past and died, Gabriel had been hurt, and, well, who could really pay attention to everything the wizard said anyway?

“You don’t remember, do you? What a waste. I actually feel bad for Pym, having to deal with such a blockhead.”

Emma started to say something along the lines of how funny it had been to watch Willy stomp the Countess like she was an ant, but in an act of self-control that would’ve surprised anyone who had ever met her, she kept her mouth shut.

“You see,” the Countess said, “the universe has been—”

“Blown up and put back together over and over,” Emma said. “I remember that part.”

“Aren’t you a bright penny! Well, long ago, the Dire Magnus reached into those previous versions of the universe and pulled out nine different incarnations of his spirit, his essence, his soul, whatever word you like. And he spread them out across time so that he would be reborn again and again.”

“He can do that?” Emma said.

“He has done it, child! Is that not proof enough?”

Emma acknowledged that this was a fair point.

“But the question”—the Countess brought her sagging lips even closer—“is what happens at that moment when one Dire Magnus dies and the next is born?”

“Do you want me to guess?” Emma asked. “?’Cause Dr. Pym always asks questions like that but then just answers them himself.”

The witch looked annoyed. “A transference. The spirit of the dying Dire Magnus is grafted onto the spirit of the new, along with all the old one’s memories and powers. You’ve met your enemy, have you not? And he seemed to be one being? One person? The truth is that inside him were the spirits of each previous incarnation quilted together into a patchwork soul.”

Emma thought about Rafe, the boy Kate had known in the past, who had saved her life and in so doing become the Dire Magnus. According to the Countess, the spirits and memories of each Dire Magnus had basically latched on to his own. No wonder Kate believed Rafe was still alive in there. Maybe he actually was.

The Countess went on, “And one’s spirit—pay attention now—is the seat of magic in all of us; its very substance is magic, and so each time he’s taken on a new spirit, his own store of magic, his power, has grown.”

Emma shook her head. “That doesn’t explain how he’s so much stronger now. He would’ve been just as powerful a hundred years ago or whatever. And Dr. Pym—”

“I’m coming to that. So forty years ago, Pym and his companions bested him. Killed him. They thought their battle won. But the Dire Magnus had prepared, burying his memories where death could not touch them. Like me, he intended to return to the living world….”

There was a commotion in the arena; Emma stayed where she was, listening.

“Yet if he did return, he needed power. Power to wage war against the magical world, power to defeat Pym and his allies, power to finally seize control of the Books. Only, where to find it? Especially now that he was trapped in this wasteland? The answer was all around him.

“For it is not merely witches and wizards whose spirits are infused with magic; all beings claim this gift. And the Dark One reasoned that if his power had grown each time he’d taken on the spirit of his former self, then would it not also grow if he consumed the spirits of others? Say, a hundred others! Or a thousand! Or ten thousand! You see, in killing him, Pym sent his enemy to a world of spirits ready-made to be devoured.”

“But”—Emma’s voice was beginning to shake—“why did he have to wait till he was here? Why couldn’t he just eat the spirits of people when they were alive?”

“Think, child: each time he consumed another spirit, it brought with it all the memories of that person’s being. And on the scale he intended, he would have had thousands of memories swarming and shouting inside himself.”

Emma remembered touching the Reckoning and the voices clamoring inside her. She said, “He would’ve gone crazy.”

“Exactly. And in the world of the dead, the spirits have no memories. They are empty vessels.”

Emma turned and looked at the listless figures in the cage. Did they know that they were basically food for the Dire Magnus? She hadn’t been able to imagine a worse fate than having the memories of the people you’d loved taken from you, to be so awfully, terribly alone, and yet, here was such a fate.

“The fire serves as a portal,” the witch said, “for him to call up the souls of the dead.”

“Uh-huh.” Emma was thinking of how, when Rourke had taken her to the Dire Magnus’s tent, she’d seen the boy Rafe kneeling in the fire. She remembered thinking she saw shapes in the flames. Had those been the spirits of the dead?

“I think he made one of those portals for me too. When he tried to bond me with the Reckoning, he pulled my spirit out of my body and sent it through a fire. He sent it here.”

“He collected the dead for years,” the Countess went on, as if Emma had not spoken. “Housed them in this prison. And since he’s returned to the world above, he’s been using them to feed his power. Of course, soon he will have the Books. Power that dwarfs even this.”

Emma was still trying to process all this when the shouts and curses from outside rose sharply. The Countess gave a ghastly smile.

“But see for yourself.”

Emma rushed to the front of her cage and peered down. Six or seven guards—Emma looked, but did not see Harold Barnes—were using whips and sticks to herd fifty or so men, women, and children up to, and then over, the edge of the pit.

Then Emma saw three of the red-robed sorcerers, the necromati, emerge from a passage under the cells. One of them leaned on a gnarled wooden staff, and Emma felt a shiver of recognition as, in the dying light, she made out an all-white eye in the shadows of the man’s face. The figures in the pit were just visible amid the clouds of black smoke, and Emma could hear them choking, see them struggling for air. And although Emma had expected more ceremony, the old white-eyed sorcerer simply gestured with his staff, and flames shot across the bottom of the pit and exploded upward. Emma raised an arm to protect her eyes, and when she looked again, the flames had already died, and there was only a great black cloud billowing into the air. The pit was empty.

“They’re gone.”

“Not gone,” the witch said. “With him. As you will be soon.”

“You’re gonna tell them, aren’t you? You’re gonna tell them who I am.”

The Countess smiled the same wolfish grin. “And why would I do that? If I told the necromati who you were, they would take you across the plain to the portal to the world above and send you through to their master, carrying the book and yourself like an offering. I did not lie, the last thing I want is for the Dire Magnus to achieve his goal. In this, you and I are together. No, child, I will not tell.”

Then she crawled back to the shadows on the far side of her cage and was quiet.

Emma stood there, very still, saying nothing. Something was happening in her mind. It took her a few moments to realize what it was, the experience was so novel, but finally she had to admit that it was a plan taking shape, the pieces slowly fitting together. It was a dangerous plan, incredibly so, and she clenched her fists and willed another, less risky plan to emerge. But there was no other; this was the only way, and if it succeeded, the Dire Magnus would not survive.

But probably, she thought, neither would she. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Judgment

The cage shook from the impact of footsteps on the ladder, and then the guard’s head came into view. It was the tall one, the one who had hit Emma in the mouth and taken Michael’s knife, which was there, still tucked in his belt.

Night had fallen, but Emma could see, thanks to the torches burning in the arena, the constant reddish glow from the pit and the dozens of small fires speckled across the dark expanse of the shantytown.

Since early that evening, the grim-faced men who served the Dire Magnus, directed by the necromati, had been removing cage after cage of prisoners, and forcing them, men, women, and children, into the pit. Emma had watched it all, horrified. For though she knew they were already dead, and though she had observed many times that existence in the world of the dead would be akin to hell, it sickened her to know they were being consumed by the Dire Magnus.

Not to mention that each spirit that went into the pit made their enemy stronger, and she couldn’t think of that without thinking of Kate and Michael and Gabriel in the world above, and what they might be facing.

“What is it?” the tall guard demanded of the Countess. She had been hurling down abuse and curses for several minutes. “Or do I have to shut you up?”

“You’re a fool,” the Countess hissed. She was on the floor of her cell, as her legs were unable to support her. “Don’t you know who this child is?”

This was her cue, and Emma gripped the bars of her cage and shouted, “Shut up! Shut up!”

“She’s the one your master is looking for, the living girl. The Keeper of the Reckoning. You locked her up with the others! You were going to feed her to the fire! What would your master have done then?”

“She’s lying! She’s a liar! Don’t listen to her!”

The Countess ignored her. “She brought you the Reckoning itself and you didn’t even realize! She said some fool of a clerk took it! She laughed about what idiots you all are! Ha!”

“Shut up!” Emma wailed. “Please! I—I’ll—Just shut up! You promised!”

The tall man stepped across the scaffolding, reached between the bars, and seized Emma’s arm. He pressed two fingers against the underside of her wrist. Emma struggled and made protesting noises, but there was no breaking his grip. It seemed she could feel her own pulse pounding against the man’s fingertips. Then, still holding her, he took a key off his belt.

“The Dire Magnus must learn what I did!” the Countess shouted. “He must reward me! He must forgive me!”

Emma didn’t look at the witch as the man pulled her from the cage and carried her down the ladder. She fought, punching, kicking, scratching, but soon they were on the floor of the arena, engulfed in a scene of chaos: shouts and cries of anger, smoke, heat, people being struck and driven about. Emma guessed there were maybe thirty guards, along with five of the red-robed necromati. She’d already spotted the rat-faced, black-haired man she’d seen earlier.

Emma looked but did not see Harold Barnes.

With his hand on her arm, the tall guard dragged her over to the pit, stopping a few feet from the edge. A single red-robed figure stood looking down into the smoke and flames. The tall guard said nothing, and after a moment, the figure turned, still leaning on his gnarled black stick. The old man’s one gray eye studied her. But it was his blind white eye that unnerved Emma. She imagined it saw more clearly than the good one, as if it could see into her mind and heart, see her entire plan. Despite the heat from the fire, she shivered.

It will work, she told herself, it has to work.

If it didn’t, she had just doomed herself, her brother and sister, everyone.

—

It had taken some time to coax the Countess out of her dark corner, but Emma had persisted, as there were things only the witch could tell her.

“I mean it—I have a plan!”

“Oh, you have a plan! Oh, we are saved!”

“Shut up! Do you want your stupid revenge or not?”

Finally, the witch had dragged herself back across her cage.

“Well?”

“First, you gotta tell me, when I get the book, how do I kill someone? I know you know, you used it to kill all those giants.”

The Countess had chuckled. “Yes, I slaughtered those fools. You should have felt the earth buckle when they fell! Timmmberrr! He-he-he.”

“Yeah, yeah, so how’d you do it?”

“Do you know what a reckoning is, child? The meaning of the word?”

Emma had opened her mouth to reply—she knew this because Michael had told her—but the Countess was too quick.

“A reckoning is a debt. And there is one debt that every living being must eventually pay: death. When you engage the magic of the book and fix your mind upon a person, the Reckoning calls that debt due, and the person’s spirit is severed from their body and brought to this world. Even the Dire Magnus is not exempt from this.”

“What about the voices?”

“What voices?”

“You know, the ones that start screaming when you touch the book.”

“I heard no voices.”

Emma had studied the other’s face. The woman had seemed to be telling the truth. Could it be that despite allowing the Countess to kill the giants, there were things the book revealed only to its Keeper?

Lucky her.

“What is it you intend, girl?”

Emma had hesitated for an instant, then reasoned that if the woman was going to betray her, she could’ve at any time. There was no point in holding back now.

“According to you, all I have to do to kill the Dire Magnus is call up the magic and think about him. Only first, I’ve got to get one of those necromati guys to give me the book. Well, I know how to do that!”

And she would just put up with the screaming voices. She had to; there was no other option.

The Countess had sneered. “You arrogant little fool. You cannot trick the necromati into simply giving you the book!”

“I’m not going to trick them. One of them’s going to help me.”

And then she’d told the witch about the old white-eyed sorcerer, and how he’d once been a friend and ally of Dr. Pym, and about Harold Barnes and what she’d done to him. Finally, the witch had started nodding, murmuring, “Yes, perhaps it could work….” and had even suggested that she call for the jailers, saying it would be less suspicious than Emma calling them herself.

—

After hearing the guard’s report, the old man spoke to the black-haired, rat-faced necromatus, who then scurried away across the arena. The white-eyed sorcerer stepped closer, the point of his staff stamping dully in the heat-cracked mud. Emma guessed he was taller than she was, but he was so stooped over, like someone who had spent his life hunched at a desk, that their eyes were level.

As she stood facing him, Emma was aware of another cage’s worth of people being herded toward the pit, and she glanced toward them without thinking. It was like being struck in the chest. One of the figures, his face blank and confused, was Wallace. Emma had met the dwarf just once, during the Christmas party at the mansion in Cambridge Falls—he’d been more Kate’s and Michael’s friend than hers—but he had given his life trying to rescue her, and now he was being pushed over the edge of the pit, and she could only watch, powerless.

She looked back at the old man and ordered herself not to be weak. The tall guard stood several feet to the side; Emma kept her voice low.

“I know who you are. You used to be Dr. Pym’s friend. You helped him fight the Dire Magnus. You’ve got to remember!”

The old man stared at her, then said, “Your words mean nothing to me.”

He waved his staff, and flames exploded from the pit. When Emma was able to look again, Wallace was gone. She felt sick to her stomach, and her plan suddenly seemed childish and flimsy.

It came down to this: Emma knew that when she and Harold Barnes had touched the Reckoning together, she’d restored at least some, and perhaps all, of his memories. That had started her thinking: All those voices shouting in the book, what if they were the memories that had been taken from the dead? And if she’d given Harold Barnes his memory back, couldn’t she do it again? She just had to manage it so that she and the old sorcerer were both holding the Reckoning at the same time. Then she’d restore his memories, he’d realize who he was, and he’d help her kill the Dire Magnus.

The rat-faced necromatus was hurrying forward, clutching the book to his chest, the bald clerk trailing behind. There was no more time for doubt. Emma took a step closer to the sorcerer, to be next to him when he received the Reckoning.

Then the old man said, “Hold her.”

A pair of large, strong hands seized her wrists, pinning them behind her back. Panic swept over her, and she screamed and struggled.

The old sorcerer ignored her and spoke to the necromati and guards gathered about. “After all these years, our master will finally possess the Books. But only beings of pure spirit can pass through the fire, and the Master wishes the book and Keeper complete. We will go to the last portal, the one in the mountains across the plain.”

He began to give orders. They would leave immediately. The rat-faced necromatus would stay and finish herding the dead into the pit.

A voice whispered in Emma’s ear, “You saw Nanny Marge?”

She jerked her head around. It was Harold Barnes who held her wrists. He was leaning close, and there was a desperate, searching look in his eyes.

“You really saw her? You saw my Nanny Marge?”

Recovering from her surprise, Emma nodded, and the man, without making a sound, bit his lip as tears welled in his eyes.

“Please,” she whispered, “you have to let me go. Please.”

And for a moment, it seemed that it was just her and Harold Barnes, alone in the arena. Then he nodded, and his hands opened.

The old man was still giving orders when Emma leapt forward and grasped his hand, her fingers stretching to touch the hard leather of the book—

Instantly, the magic rose up, filling her, and she was overwhelmed with relief and gratitude—

Then the arena, the fire, the guards, the necromati—all fell away.

Emma saw a brilliant blue sea, felt salt air against her skin, and saw a man with a tanned face, thick hands, and a quick smile. She saw him in a boat, teaching a boy, teaching her, how to care for his nets. He was the sorcerer’s father, a fisherman, and he was the boy’s entire world. And the day he disappeared at sea, Emma felt the hole it left in the boy’s life…and then she saw a young woman, with dark hair and dark eyes, and felt the old man’s—the young man’s—love for her…and then she saw another boy, the sorcerer’s son, with hair like his mother’s and his father’s gray eyes, and Emma felt how the wound made by the death of his father had finally begun to heal—

Emma was knocked back by the rat-faced necromatus. She landed on her side, close to the edge of the pit. A stillness had descended on the arena. The old man’s head had dropped forward. He sagged against his staff. Emma was scarcely breathing. She willed the old man to look up. One glance would tell her if he remembered who he was.

Seconds passed. Still, no one moved.

The thought came to her that touching the book, being in the old man’s memories, hadn’t been anything like how Michael described using the Chronicle, how he experienced a person’s whole life in an instant. She’d only seen the people the old sorcerer had loved. The same thing that had happened with Harold Barnes. What if the sorcerer only remembered those three people and not the rest of his life? Her plan was doomed to fail! How could she have been so stupid! Who was she to try and plan anything!

Then the old man raised his head, and everything inside Emma turned to ash. His face was just as blank as before.

He said, “Bring a table. We will perform the Bonding here.”

Emma froze. What did that mean? Why would he say that? She lay there, tense, hoping, telling herself it was stupid to hope—

“But,” the rat-faced man said, “the Master—”

“Has spoken to me,” the old man said. “He needs her power. Once she is bonded to the Reckoning, we will throw her into the pit, and her spirit and the magic within it will be consumed by his. Her body will perish in the flames. Now, bring a table.”

So she had failed after all. Emma knew she should jump up, snatch away the book, and try to use it before they stopped her. But she couldn’t even summon the strength to rise from the ground, so crushing was the weight of her failure. And it would’ve been pointless anyway. Her enemies would’ve been on her in an instant.

The rat-faced man rushed off. Then hands, Harold Barnes’s again, lifted her to her feet, and the old man, still holding the book, stepped closer. He made a gesture, and Harold Barnes moved away, eager, it seemed, to distance himself.

The sorcerer’s face was in front of hers. When he spoke, it was in a whisper only she could hear:

“Child…”

And in that instant, Emma saw that he’d remembered who he was.

She was on the verge of letting out a cry of joy when the old man held up his hand, still whispering:

“Quiet. Others are watching. If they suspect what you have done, you are doomed.”

Emma glanced past him at the three red-robed sorcerers standing nearby; they were indeed watching closely. With effort, she forced her face into an expression of defiance and struggled to speak through the emotion choking her throat and chest. “You—you really remember? That you’re a friend of Dr. Pym and hate the Dire Magnus? He kept you like a slave, you know!”

The old man moved his body to shield her as much as possible and allowed himself a sad smile.

“I remember everything. Pym, our friendship, our fight against the Dark One, even my years being bent to the enemy’s will. Though what I remember most is my father, my wife, my son.”

And perhaps it was the mention of the old sorcerer’s loved ones, the memory of whom was still so fresh in Emma’s mind, but the tide of feeling inside her could no longer be denied. She had been scared and alone and exhausted for too long. She finally had an ally, someone to bear part of the burden. Her body began to shake with sobs.

She wiped at her tears, whispering, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’ll stop. It’s just…”

“Have no fear, child. It is reasonable you might cry. The others will not perceive the true cause. But every moment now is crucial.”

Emma took several deep, trembling breaths and gathered herself.

“Right…so give me the book, and I’ll kill him!”

The old man gave a small shake of his head.

“The Dire Magnus is no mere man. If you attempt to kill him and fail, we are finished. You will have only one chance, and you must be able to command the full power of the Reckoning. That is why I have to complete the Bonding. The book will then acknowledge you as its Keeper.”

“But the Countess killed a bunch of giants, and she wasn’t bound to the book! Why do I have to be?!”

It surprised her that he actually intended to complete the Bonding, that it hadn’t been simply a ploy to gain time. And it surprised her as well how much the idea scared her. Though the truth was, for days now, whenever she’d thought about the Reckoning, she’d felt a shiver of fear. In her typical fashion, she’d done her best to ignore it. But then she’d touched the book, heard all the voices trapped inside, and her fear had grown a hundredfold. What would it mean to be bound to such a thing? What might the book demand of her? Take from her? Emma didn’t know, and she didn’t want to know.

“The Bonding is necessary because there has never before been a creature like the Dire Magnus. He wears the spirits of his former selves like armor. The book’s full force must be brought to bear. You must trust me!”

Emma knew that she had no choice. She gave him a short nod.

Abruptly, the old man leaned on his staff, tears welling in his eyes.

“Forgive me, child. It is the memories. You have given me back those I loved most in life, and I am undone.” He reached out and laid a hand on her arm. “I am thankful you judged me worthy.” He stopped, looking at her. “What is it?”

For the old man’s words, seemingly innocent, had called back something the Countess had said after Emma had first explained her plan. The witch had asked if Emma knew there was a second meaning of the word reckoning.

“Yeah. It means a judgment.”

“Exactly,” the Countess had said, “and there is a legend, whispered through the centuries, that the Keeper of the Reckoning will judge the dead. But how? What if, as you seem to believe, some remnant of the dead is stored in the book—their voices, their memories—and it falls to you to separate the just from the unjust, the good from the evil? I do not say your plan will not succeed. But I suspect there is more to mastering the Reckoning than you imagine.”

At the time, Emma had brushed aside the notion; she’d only been concerned with what could help her kill the Dire Magnus. What did she know, or care, about judging the dead? But the old man had thanked her for judging him worthy! Why? She hadn’t done anything. At least, she didn’t think so.

The old sorcerer had already moved on, his voice a dry whisper.

“Remember, child, all is lost if the others suspect I am with you. During the Bonding, I must be as brutal as the Dark One himself.”

“But what did you mean about judging you worthy?”

His gray eye stared at her, searching. “Pym didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what? He didn’t tell me anything!”

“Child”—he gripped her arm fiercely—“you must judge them! That is the task of the Keeper! The Bonding will unite you with the book, but to truly wield its power, you must judge them all! Pym should have told you!”

“But he didn’t! What’re you—”

That was as far as she got, for just then the rat-faced necromatus arrived carrying a short-legged table, and the old sorcerer forced her roughly to the ground.

The table was placed before her. The tall guard stepped behind her and gripped her shoulders. Things were moving fast now, too fast. What did he mean, she had to judge them? Judge who, the dead? How? And why hadn’t Dr. Pym told her? Had he not known? Or had he planned to tell her but died before he’d gotten the chance?

The old sorcerer laid the Reckoning open on the table, and Emma stared down at the blank page and imagined she saw the words appearing, as they had back in the cave, Release them, and imagined too that she could hear the millions of clamoring voices.

You must judge them.

The old man held out his hand, and the tall guard passed him Michael’s knife.

“Wait,” Emma said, alarmed now. “What’re you doing with that?”

“The actual Bonding is simple,” the sorcerer said. “Though painful. We must ensure your hand stays on the page.”

He gestured, and the tall guard grabbed Emma’s wrist and held her hand poised over the book. The old sorcerer gave the knife to the rat-faced necromatus, who took it, smiling, and stepped to the table.

“Wait!” The fear was rising fast inside her. “Just—just wait!” She looked at the old sorcerer, but his face was empty, a mask.

The rat-faced man raised the knife. “Yes,” he sneered, “scream.”

And before Emma could cry out, before she could utter a word, the guard forced her palm onto the page, and the knife plunged down, through the back of her hand, and pinned it to the book.

—

Emma scarcely felt the knife going in. Partly, that was because of the sharpness of the blade. But more so, it was because the moment she touched the book, the magic surged through her, and millions of voices, millions of lives, threatened to tear her apart. Second by second, she could feel herself losing touch with who she was, as if she stood on a beach and the sand was disappearing beneath her feet, and there was nothing but emptiness below….

Then, abruptly, she was back, on her knees in the dust of the arena. She had somehow managed to pull her hand off the page, though she’d done so only by sliding it farther up the blade of the knife. She could see the blood dripping down.

Then the rat-faced man struck the pommel of the knife with his fist, driving it deeper into the wood of the table so that the knife’s metal guard pinned her hand to the page, and again she felt the magic rising up, and along with it the voices, overwhelming her, drowning her. She tried to push them back, to fight them, but it was too much. She could feel herself breaking apart—

Then—again—she was back, on her knees beside the pit. Acting on simple animal instinct, she’d managed to loosen the knife by jerking her arm back and forth, though doing so had made the gash in her hand even wider.

The rat-faced necromatus cursed and lunged forward.

In the moment before he reached her, Emma looked up, searching for the face of the old sorcerer—she didn’t care who knew that he was helping her; she needed him to do something, say something to stop this—and she saw, stepping from one of the passageways with Dr. Pym at his side, Gabriel.

She had to be dreaming; it couldn’t be Gabriel, the living couldn’t enter the world of the dead! But it was him! Which could mean only one thing—that he had somehow found a way in! Wasn’t this exactly what she’d hoped and prayed for since she’d arrived in this terrible place? He wasn’t dead, she knew that; he couldn’t be dead! Gabriel, her friend and protector, had found a way to enter the world of the dead so he could come to her when she needed him most, and seeing him—as the rat-faced man hammered the top of the knife, forcing her hand to the page—Emma’s heart filled with love.

The magic rose up, the millions of voices and lives crashed over her, but she held on to her love for Gabriel the way a person falling from a ship might cling to driftwood; she held on to it knowing that she had to, that it was her only safety, and the wave passed and she was still there, still herself; and she found herself thinking of Kate, as if her love for Gabriel had led her naturally to it, and from there, she thought of Michael, and how much she loved him, loved everything about him, and the voices still howled, but the ground below her was solid now and secure, she could stand on it, she knew who she was, and the love she had for those three was the very basis and bedrock of her life.

She opened her eyes and saw the handle of the knife sticking out of the back of her hand, the dark red blood pooling over the page and running onto the table, and the pain didn’t matter, and the thronging, shouting voices didn’t touch her.

Gabriel and Dr. Pym were still standing at the mouth of the tunnel, not moving any closer. The old white-eyed sorcerer was leaning forward, watching her intently. She sensed motion above her and saw huge black birds landing around the arena.

She understood then why the book had shown her Nanny Marge; understood why it had shown her the old man’s father and wife and son, and why both Harold Barnes and the old sorcerer had been judged worthy. She understood how she was to judge all the lives contained in the book.

It was a question she had to ask; she had only to shape it in her mind, and the fate of each life would ride on the answer.

And she thought again of the message the book had given her: Release them.

She looked at Gabriel, and he stood there, his eyes dull, not knowing her, and she knew the truth then, the truth she wanted so badly to push away; and she felt his love for her, for it was there in the book, among all those millions of other lives; and she felt how that love had been the cornerstone of his life, and more than anything, more even than killing the Dire Magnus, she wanted him to remember that.

Go, she thought, and the memory flowed out of the book and through her.

And she felt the storm of voices raging, stronger than ever, all clamoring, begging for release.

She heard the rat-faced man shouting:

“Something’s happening. We must throw her in the pit! Now!”

The knife was yanked out, but she kept her hand pressed down flat and hard, the blood wet and thick between her hand and the page, and even as the tall guard reached down and seized her wrist, she formed the question in her mind, and somewhere deep inside the book, a key turned in a lock.

The memories poured forth, out of the book, out of her, and though it felt like an eternity, she knew it only took an instant, and then her hand fell away and she collapsed on the ground. She could hear screaming and shouting, the sounds of cages being broken open. She sensed the rat-faced necromatus dragging her toward the pit; then something knocked the man down. It was the old white-eyed sorcerer; he was wrestling with the man. She saw the other necromati fleeing as the dead broke free from their cages, and many of the guards were now joining the prisoners as the crowd flooded the arena; and Emma realized she was cradling the book in her good hand while the other throbbed and bled, and then Gabriel was there, lifting her into his arms, just as he had so many times before, and Emma wanted to tell him that it was love, that was the standard on which the dead were judged, that was the reckoning, but she didn’t say it because she couldn’t speak, because the truth she’d realized moments before was that Gabriel hadn’t found some secret way into the world of the dead, there was only one way into the world of the dead, one way his memories could’ve gotten into the book, and she pressed her face against his chest and sobbed. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Michael’s Army

Kate opened her eyes and sat up. Both proved to be mistakes. Pain shot through her skull, and she groaned.

“Easy now, girl. Easy.”

She was back on her cot in the tent. It was dark outside, but a small lantern on the floor gave up a dim, yellow light. On Michael’s cot, leaning forward and offering her something in his hand, was the burly form of Hugo Algernon.

“Drink this.”

“What is it?”

“Whiskey.”

“What—”

“Kidding. It’s water. You’ve had fever. Drink.”

She did; the water was cool and tasted marvelous.

“Those children on the beach…”

“Both fine.” He chuckled. “More than you can say for that Imp you skewered. That was a good one. Like something Clare would’ve done.”

“Clare…”

“Your mother. She always had a spark in her.”

Kate nodded, but wondered if he was just saying that to make her feel better. As it was, it did make her feel better.

“What about the others? In the attack?”

“All taken care of. There was only a single raider. How’s your noodle?”

Kate felt the back of her head. It was still tender from where it had struck the rock, though she knew that wasn’t why she’d passed out. “Fine.”

“So,” Hugo Algernon said, “how much have you told your brother about what’s going on?”

Kate looked at him sharply. The lamp on the floor cast shadows across his face, and she couldn’t see his eyes. How could he possibly know about Rafe appearing to her?

But he went on, and she realized what he actually meant:

“The boy knows you’re having trouble controlling the Atlas. You said as much yourself. Have you told him the rest? What it feels like?”

Kate shrugged. “A little. He feels some of it too.”

“But not like you do.”

Kate shook her head.

Hugo Algernon grunted. “It’ll get worse. For both of you.”

“Why? What’s happening?”

Kate hadn’t forgotten what Rafe had told her in the land of the giants, his warning about the damage the Books were causing, but she found she needed to hear it from someone else.

Hugo Algernon pulled a small bottle from his pocket, uncorked it, and poured some into a cup. The biting, sour smell of spirits filled the tent. He took a sip and grimaced before speaking.

“There’re things you need to know. You and your brother. I talked to von Klappen and she agrees.”

Kate was surprised to hear him refer to the witch with such apparent lack of venom.

“Yes, yes, I know. She’s an insufferable, humorless know-it-all, but she’s good at what she does.” Hugo Algernon leaned forward. “Did Pym ever caution you about not using the Books unless it was absolutely necessary?”

Kate nodded.

“Ever say why?”

“Not really.”

“What do you know about quantum mechanics?”

“Nothing.”

“Good. Load of rubbish.”

“What’s that got—”

“Not a thing. Don’t interrupt. First off, you have to understand that when it’s working right, the universe is this perfectly balanced mechanism. All the pieces fitting together just so. Only, it’s fragile. And when Pym and his buddies pulled out the magic that went into the Books, they upset that balance. That’s for starters.” He leaned closer. “But this is where it becomes tricky. Because yes, the Dire Magnus is the enemy, no doubt about it. He gets hold of the Books, the Reckoning especially, he’ll wreak havoc and probably destroy the entire world. So that’s bad, and we should do something about it. But in the end, he’s not the real threat.”

“Who is?” Kate asked quietly.

Hugo Algernon looked at her. “You are, girl. Your family. See, the magic in the Books is still connected to the magic responsible for all this.” He made a gesture to indicate the world outside the tent. “So every time you and your brother, and soon your sister, use the Books, things get more and more out of whack. The reason you passed out is that you’re feeling how much harm you’re causing. And it’s getting worse. The universe is breaking apart at the seams.”

“So we’ll just stop using the Books!”

“Too late for that.”

“But there has to be something we can do!”

He nodded. “There is. The Books have to be destroyed.”

“And that would fix it?”

“Yes. The problem is that the Books themselves are pretty much indestructible. I mean, the Chronicle was in a pool of lava for a thousand years and it doesn’t have a scratch on it.”

“But there’s a way around that, isn’t there?” Kate’s voice was no more than a whisper.

The man sat back, poured himself more whiskey, and took a sip. “Yeah. There’s a way.”

And now it was Kate talking, her mind rushing forward, as it all suddenly made sense, the tearing she’d felt every time she used the Atlas, both in the world and inside herself, the true meaning of the prophecy.

“If the magic were in something that could be destroyed—like in a person, like me, or Michael, or Emma—and we were to die, that would do it. That would fix things.”

Hugo Algernon nodded. “The magic of the Atlas is already in you. If the Chronicle’s not inside your brother, it soon will be. And the same for the Reckoning once your sister gets it.”

“And then we die, and the universe is fixed.” Kate felt nauseous from the closed tent, the smell of the man’s whiskey. She wanted to get away but she couldn’t, not yet. “Then…why’s the Dire Magnus even matter?”

“I told you, he’ll try to control the power. Like turning a nuclear reactor into a nuclear bomb. And he’ll be able to, for a while. Even if it means destroying this world to create another. So we have to stop the Dire Magnus. But we also have to destroy the Books.”

“You mean you have to kill me and my brother and sister,” Kate said coldly.

“I didn’t say that. Von Klappen and Chu and I’ve been talking—”

“I need to find Michael.”

And she rushed out of the tent, into the night air, and stopped.

She heard Hugo Algernon come out behind her.

“Yeah, I was gonna tell you about that next.”

The island was nearly empty. The campfires were out. The encampments, gone. The few soldiers who were still there were busy helping the refugee families load onto ships. And Kate realized that she’d been aware, the whole time she’d been talking to Hugo Algernon, of how quiet it had been outside the tent.

“What happened? Where is everyone?”

“We’re moving the families. Just in case that scout ship reported our location to the enemy. But the army’s gone to Loris. Left just before sunset.”

“But they’re outnumbered! It’s suicide! Everyone said so.”

“Well now.” Hugo Algernon scratched his beard. “You’ve been unconscious a while. That attack sort of pulled everyone together. Made those nitwits remember who the real enemy was. And then King Robbie had this idea—for a dwarf, he’s not completely thick—he appointed a new commander, one that was acceptable to all three races. It’s mostly a ceremonial position, of course, but soon as word got out, new recruits started pouring in from around the world. Von Klappen and Chu and I must’ve had a dozen portals going nonstop. From noon to sunset the army doubled, then tripled in size. They’ve got a chance. Not a big one. But a chance.”

Kate turned to face him. “Who’s the new commander?”

Hugo Algernon grinned and actually looked sheepish. “Well, imagine there was a human who was also an honorary dwarf and who just so happened to be the boyfriend of an elf princess. If you can, try to see the humor in this….”

—

Michael stood on the deck of the ship. There was no moon, which was a good thing, but the stars were clustered densely overhead. The air was warm and heavy with salt. He was wearing the chain mail tunic King Robbie had given him, which was remarkably light and supple, and he also had on dwarfish battle leathers, which were thicker and stiffer than he would have liked. A sword and a knife, both given to him by King Robbie, were strapped to his waist. He stared out at the fleet—his fleet—spread across the dark water.

(Michael knew it was silly to think of any of it—the ships, the soldiers—as his, that he was commander in name only, but he couldn’t help himself.)

As all the ships were sailing at the same speed, they hardly seemed to be moving, but Michael could hear the sluicing of water across the hulls, the snapping of ropes, the creak and whine of wood.

All afternoon, as Kate had lain unconscious in their tent, watched over alternately by him or Hugo Algernon or Magda von Klappen or Wilamena—soldiers had arrived to swell their ranks. The first to arrive had been the fighters from Gabriel’s village, two dozen stern-faced, dark-haired men whose presence in the camp had filled Michael with confidence. Then there were dwarves from Lapland, who came with icicles hanging from their beards and axes as long as they were tall; river elves from Thailand, who spoke a language that even the other elves couldn’t understand; more elves from the mountains of Morocco, who dressed in long, colorful robes; human fighters from the Badlands….

So many, Michael thought. But would it be enough?

Magda von Klappen stood on the foredeck conversing with Master Chu. She had already had the same conversation with Michael that Hugo Algernon had had with Kate.

“But we still have to deal with the Dire Magnus,” Michael had said. “And we still have to rescue Emma.”

“Yes. If he gains control of the Reckoning, we are all dead anyway.”

“And if we beat him, then just me and my sisters have to die.”

“We’re working on that,” the witch had said.

Even now, Michael marveled at his own calmness. It was as if he’d split himself in two. There was Michael Wibberly the head of the army, who knew that the only way of keeping the world safe was to defeat the Dire Magnus. Then there was Michael Wibberly the thirteen-year-old boy, who’d do anything to save his sisters and who felt death and disaster breathing down their necks.

His hand rested on the shape of the Chronicle in his bag, and he wondered how much of the magic was in him. How long did they have?

With effort, he pulled his mind back to the present.

He glanced up to the outline of Captain Anton in the crow’s nest, the elf peering through the darkness for the first sight of Loris. All about Michael, men and dwarves were quietly checking their kits. He noted how, apart from the usual weapons and equipment, they had all been outfitted with an odd-looking metal apparatus fashioned by dwarf blacksmiths on the island. Michael had examined one of the objects, but could not figure out what it was or what it was intended to do. He’d asked King Robbie, who’d only smiled and said, “Let it be a surprise, lad. For you and for the enemy.” Then he added, “Besides, it may not even work.”

“Rabbit?”

Wilamena stepped toward him. She was wearing a dress the color of midnight and had a dagger at her waist attached to a silver belt; her hair, which shone faintly in the darkness, was in two thick braids down her back.

“What troubles you? Are you worried about Katherine? She will recover.”

“No. I know.”

“Then what is it?”

Michael thought of telling her what Magda von Klappen had told him about what the Books were doing to the world, about his and his sisters’ deaths being the only way anyone knew of that would fix the damage. Did she already know? No, he decided, she would’ve said something. Or written a poem about it.

“Nothing. I mean, we’ve got a plan. We’re all going to do our best and—”

Michael felt her hand, cool and soft, take his. He stopped rambling and looked into her eyes. As always happened, he was pulled into a private magical space that belonged solely to the two of them.

He spoke so only she could hear.

“I know this is necessary, that if we’re not at the portal when Emma comes through, the Dire Magnus will get the Reckoning, and life as we know it will end. But even with all these new soldiers, we could still fail, and…” He paused, feeling embarrassed by the chain mail and sword. He wished he was wearing his own clothes. “It’ll be my fault. Our fault. Mine and my sisters’. Because everyone here’s thinking we can defeat the Dire Magnus. I’m scared we’re just going to get them all killed.”

The elf princess put her finger under his chin and lifted his face till his eyes met hers again.

“This fight found us. What you and your sisters have done is to give them hope. That is magic in itself.”

“But…what if we lose?”

“Then we lose. There are things worth dying for. Friendship. Loyalty. Love. And if in fighting for those, this is the last stand of the elves, then so be it.”

Michael found himself struggling to hold back tears. “Thank you.”

She kissed his cheek. “Now come see what I’ve brought you.”

She led him down the deck to where a large object was covered with black cloth. She drew the fabric away, and at first Michael could make no sense of what he was seeing. It was made of leather, but he found it to be a leather of such softness and suppleness that he thought he was touching silk. Then he realized:

“It’s a saddle!”

“Indeed.”

“But we don’t have any horses!”

“Oh, it’s for something much larger than a horse.”

“You don’t mean—”

“There is no one else whom I trust to protect my Rabbit. We will fight this fight together.”

She kissed him again, not his cheek this time, and Michael felt a warmth spreading through his body and sensed he was on the verge of saying something extremely embarrassing when a sound as quiet as the footfall of a cat made them turn.

Captain Anton had leapt down to the deck.

He said, “Something is coming.”

—

Carrying the lantern from her tent, Kate made her way to the beach where she’d killed the Imp. The island was emptying out, the families from Loris almost completely loaded onto the boats. Hugo Algernon had already disappeared, saying he had a matter to see to. “No doubt a fool’s errand, but as Pym is not here to do it, I suppose I have to.” He’d told her to get on one of the boats transporting the refugees, and she’d promised she would.

But she had something to do first.

She’d discovered when she’d woken that her jacket had been taken from her. Apparently, it had been covered in Imp blood and burned. That was fine. But her mother’s locket was also missing. Kate surmised that the chain must’ve been broken when the Imp had fallen on her. So now she had gone back to the beach alone, in the dark, to find it.

The beach was empty, and the tide had come in a long way. Kate searched carefully, holding the lantern down low, and she found the locket along the water’s edge, nestled among the stones. The chain had indeed been broken, but both locket and chain were still there, and Kate lifted them with trembling fingers. She had lost the locket once before, in New York, and Rafe had recovered it and the chain and returned them to her.

She slid the locket and chain into her pocket.

She said, “You’re there, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

She turned. Rafe stood just behind her. The lantern at her side lit only part of his face; his eyes remained in darkness. She tried to ignore the pounding of her heart.

“You think Michael and the others have a chance?”

He shrugged. “I guess we’ll see.”

“I had that dream again.”

“What dream?”

“When I was in the church. In New York. You were there.”

“Did I say anything?”

“No.”

“Sometimes a dream is just a dream.”

Kate found herself wishing she’d been able to talk to Michael before he’d left with the army. She would’ve finally told him about Rafe appearing to her. She would’ve apologized for keeping it secret and would have asked him to forgive her.

She said, “Can we stop pretending?”

For a moment, nothing happened. Then he smiled.

“When did you figure it out?”

And that smile, the confirmation it held, was like a hammer blow. She swallowed and managed to speak.

“Just today. I think…I’ve known for a while, but I didn’t want to.”

She dropped her gaze to the stones at her feet. She couldn’t look at him, for to look at him was to see Rafe, and he wasn’t Rafe. Rafe was dead. He had died a hundred years ago, the night he had sacrificed himself so that she could live. The thing next to her was the monster that had killed him. That was what she had to remember.

“Why did you do it? Just to torture me?”

He actually managed to sound hurt. “Of course not.”

“So from the beginning, that first time in the Garden, that was…”

“It was me, yes.”

“But why?! Why appear to me at all?! Why trick me?!”

It was taking all of Kate’s will and strength to hold herself together.

“Because I needed you at the fortress, you and your brother. I already had Emma. And if I’d succeeded in bonding her to the Reckoning, I could’ve fulfilled the prophecy and my quest then and there.”

“But you didn’t! Michael pulled her spirit back, and Dr. Pym, he—”

“Sacrificed himself. It just made things more difficult. And anyway, I’d planned for the chance my first attempt might fail.”

“What do you mean?” She glanced up at him and had to bite her lip to keep from crying out. She felt as if she was being ripped in two. She wanted to run to him, hold him. And at the same time, she wanted to kill him. Why did he have to look like Rafe? Why couldn’t he look like the murderer he was?!

“It’s difficult, I know.” He sounded almost sympathetic. “You’ll get used to it.”

She turned away, her arms tight across her chest, staring across the black water.

“To answer your question: I hadn’t waited thousands of years to risk everything on a single chance. I knew there was a possibility you three might escape. And I knew if you did, it would be by using the Atlas. So I took precautions. When I came to you in the Garden on Loris, I placed the image of the giants’ land in your mind. I made it so it would be the first thing the Atlas seized on when you tried to escape. From there, I hardly had to do anything. The three of you found the giants’ city and the Countess all by yourself. You brought her back to life—as I knew you would—and discovered where the book was hidden.”

“How long have you known where it was?”

“A thousand years or so.”

“I don’t—You couldn’t have planned it all!”

“It really wasn’t that hard. And now we’re almost done.” Then he said, “Come to me.”

“No.”

She felt him step closer, so close he could whisper in her ear.

“You believed I was Rafe because you wanted to believe. I am still him. But so much more. I told your sister, the only fight you’ll never win is the one against your own nature. I stopped fighting that battle long ago. I’m who I was always meant to be. A new world is about to be born, Kate. I want you there with me.”

Kate could feel the magic of the Atlas stirring within her. She could call it up, command it to take her somewhere, anywhere. So what if she wasn’t able to control it like she used to, so what if it hurt her. She would be far away from him.

But she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

You’re weak, she told herself. You’re weak and an idiot. And you betrayed the two people you love most in the world.

“Kate…”

She shook her head.

“Then I’m sorry about this.”

She was still staring across the water when she heard the roaring, and then the screams. She didn’t look at him; she just dropped the lantern and ran.

In no time, she was back on top of the cliff, and could see down to the harbor and beyond, to where the families from Loris were escaping, a jagged line of boats stretched across the water.

A pair of waterspouts, giant whirling funnels of wind and water, had sprung up and were tearing toward the line of boats. Kate saw the tip of the first funnel cleave its way through a boat carrying more than thirty people. She heard wood splinter and break, she heard screaming—

“Stop it! Stop it!”

“It’s your choice, Kate.” He was standing beside her. “Just say the words.”

Kate saw the second waterspout heading toward a boat carrying dozens of families. Despite the distance and the darkness, she could see the children aboard; she could hear their terrified voices.

“Yes! Fine! Whatever you want!”

Instantly, the winds died, and the waterspouts sank into the sea. Kate stared at the bay, at the other ships moving to rescue those who had been thrown from the boats, the water now littered with broken bits of wood and the luggage of the refugees, with people.

“But…how am I supposed to get to you? I can’t control the Atlas! It—”

He made a calming noise. “It’s okay. I can help.”

She felt the tingle as he reached up to touch her temple, just as he had in the Garden, days before. He said, “It’s almost over. Now. Come to me.” CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Fog and Ice

It was fog. That was what the elf captain had seen, a gray mass in the distance where the island of Loris should have been, and moving toward them at a completely unnatural speed. Before long, Michael was able to see it himself, as the stars along the horizon began to disappear. At King Robbie’s order, the soldiers started to prepare themselves while a dwarf with a shielded lantern flashed a complicated staccato to the other ships.

“He’s trying to cut us off from each other,” the dwarf king explained.

“What can we do about it?” Michael asked.

“Master Chu?”

“Already working on it,” the wizard said.

That should have been reassuring, but as far as Michael could see, Master Chu wasn’t doing anything but standing there and smiling and fiddling with his beard.

Soon, the first tendrils were reaching over the prow of the ship, long gray snakes of cold, damp air. It was almost like sailing into a dream. Michael watched the other ships vanish, one by one, as their keel continued cutting steadily through the water, propelled by the enchanted wind that Magda von Klappen and Master Chu had summoned. Now and then, there was the muffled sound of a bell or a shout. Otherwise, silence. Michael felt Wilamena take his hand.

On they went, and time too seemed to be lost in the mist. Then the wrinkled dwarf helmsman said, “We must be no more than a thousand yards from Loris, I’d bet my beard.”

King Robbie muttered something, a curse, perhaps, then: “Master Chu?”

“Almost there.”

To Michael, Master Chu still appeared to be doing nothing but smiling and touching his beard, and he was about to ask why didn’t they stop until they got rid of the fog, when Captain Anton stepped in front of Michael and the elf princess, an arrow notched on his bowstring.

“What is it?” King Robbie said, and the words were scarcely out when the elf captain loosed an arrow up into the mist—another instantly on his string—and a swarm of black shapes swept howling down out of the fog, and King Robbie cried, “Cover!” and threw Michael to the deck. Michael’s breath was knocked out of him, but he could still see the creatures raking across the ship, tearing at dwarves and men with their claws and disappearing upward into the fog.

“Archers!” King Robbie roared, his ax gripped in his right hand. “Watch the captain! Follow his lead!”

There was movement everywhere now, shields were up, swords and spears at the ready, men and dwarves scoured the mist for any sign of attack.

“There!”

The elf captain shot his arrow into the fog, Michael heard a distinct, muted thud, and instantly a whispering hail of arrows followed it upward as the creatures swooped down. Three of the creatures fell clumsily onto the deck, more splashed into the water, wounded or dead, but others made it through the rain of arrows, and all around them dwarves and men were struck down or knocked into the sea. One of the creatures was flopping about on the deck just in front of Michael, an arrow sticking from its chest. The thing was the size of a vulture, with batlike wings, claws as long as Michael’s hands, a body that was all leathery skin and bone.

King Robbie swung his ax, and the creature’s head leapt from its body. The dwarf king heaved the carcass over the side.

“Princess,” King Robbie said, “any help, I’d appreciate it.”

Wilamena took the golden bracelet from her pocket and looked at Michael. “Get the saddle.” Then she turned and dove over the side, disappearing into the fog-covered water. Michael ran to the saddle and swung it onto his shoulder. It weighed almost nothing. King Robbie bellowed, “They’re coming round again!” But just as Michael looked up to see the dark shapes rushing toward them, there was an explosion of gold from the water, a great rippling jet of flame, and Michael saw four of the demon birds fall burning into the sea as the dragon seized another and literally ripped it apart.

“Ha!” King Robbie shouted. “That’s the way!”

The dragon hovered next to the ship, and Michael felt, as he always did in the dragon’s presence, a thrilling wildness in his breast, a sense of being desperately, dangerously alive.

“Are you ready, Rabbit?”

“Yes! How do I—”

“The saddle knows what to do. Throw it.”

Michael obeyed, and watched as the saddle settled perfectly on the dragon’s back, the straps fastening themselves underneath her torso.

“You’ll have to leap. I cannot hold to the ship without swamping it.”

Michael didn’t hesitate, but climbed immediately to the railing. They were still cutting through the water, and Wilamena was flying to keep pace, the beating of her wings taking her up and down, up and down.

“Whoa, there!” King Robbie said, catching sight of Michael. “What’re you—”

Michael jumped, landing askew in the saddle, his arms grasping uselessly at the scales of the dragon’s neck, and for one terrifying moment, he thought he might tumble into the sea, but then the saddle seemed to grab hold of him and pull him into place, the straps lashing themselves around his legs.

“Never fear, Rabbit. Once on my back, you will not fall!”

Then Michael heard Master Chu clap his hands once—twice—

A powerful gust of wind swept over the sea, almost pushing the ship onto its side. The fog cleared. Silence.

The island of Loris was not six hundred yards distant, the city and harbor lit by hundreds of fires. But between themselves and the island was a solid mass of ships, at least twice as many as the attackers, and each one larger and taller than Michael’s ships and bristling with Imps and Screechers and trolls and who knew what else. The sky above was thick with the demonic birds. Their enemy had been waiting for them.

Then, as if on cue, all the Screechers on all the ships let out a single, shattering cry.

—

“Open your eyes.”

Kate felt fingers at her temples. And it was not the tingle of ghostly fingers, but the pressure of real ones, and she looked up into a pair of green eyes. He was leaning over her; she was lying on the floor, a pillow under her head.

“How do you feel?”

“Fine.”

He moved back as she sat up. She was in the Rose Citadel. She knew that, though she had never been in this room before. It had a stone floor, a long wooden table, paintings and maps on the walls. There were candles about the room, more hanging from a pair of iron chandeliers, and there were three curtained archways that gave out to a wide balcony, past which she could see the glow of fires. And she could smell smoke and burning metal and tar. There was the shrieking of morum cadi, but it sounded far away.

The patched pants and shirt and jacket that he’d worn when he’d appeared to her—Rafe’s clothes—were gone, and he was dressed in a long black robe. His dark hair, his slightly crooked nose, his eyes—all that was the same.

She tried not to look at him, and forced herself to stand.

“Has anyone told you what the Books are doing?”

“Yes. They’re tearing apart the world; and the only way to stop it is for me and Michael and Emma to die.”

“Then lucky for you, I’m the one person who knows how to save you.”

She looked at him now, unable not to.

“I’m not lying,” he said. “Why would I? I’ve already got you here.”

“Tell me how.”

He smiled. “Patience.”

Frustrated, Kate turned away, and her eyes fell on a sword that was lying on the table. It was three feet long and sheathed in a beaten leather scabbard, and had a bone handle. She knew she had seen it somewhere before.

He reached over and picked it up. “This belonged to your friend Gabriel. He used it to kill Rourke, which was a blow, I’ll confess. Rourke was a faithful servant. Perhaps after I’ve got the Chronicle, I’ll bring him back.”

“Where’s Gabriel now?”

“Dead.”

He threw the sword carelessly onto the table. Kate sensed he was telling the truth about Gabriel, and struggled not to show how much it upset her.

“Come here.” He took her hand and started to draw her toward the balcony.

“Emma—”

“Not yet. I’ll know when she’s close. I want to show you something.”

Holding his hand caused a shiver to run through Kate’s entire body, the same as it had on a street in New York a hundred years ago. And though she hated herself for it, she did not try to pull away.

But this isn’t him, she told herself. This isn’t Rafe.

He led her to the edge of the balcony, to where they could look out over the city to the harbor and the sea beyond.

The Loris that Kate had first come to, days before, had been calm, peaceful, beautiful. Terraced houses and narrow stone streets, groves of olive and lemon trees, and even at night, the white stone that the city was built from seemed to make everything glow. What she saw now was a hellish version of that city. The houses torn down. Olive and lemon groves burned. The white stone scorched with smoke. The city swarmed with Imps and Screechers and other creatures that Kate couldn’t identify, and she could see huge engines of war gathered behind the walls, great boiling vats of tar and oil. And the noise rising up—the shrieking and shouting, the steady and terrible beat of drums—was both deafening and jarring, and it battered at the remnants of her courage.

But that wasn’t the worst.

Just past the arms of the harbor, she saw the two fleets, the one massive, the one so much smaller, and the smaller she knew contained Michael and King Robbie and all their friends—

There was no way they could win; they were doomed.

“Please—”

“No, not this time.”

“But—”

“It’s up to them. If they surrender, I won’t harm them. It’s their choice.”

“But they’ll never surrender! King Robbie, the others, you know they won’t!”

And he said, “Then they’ll die.”

—

For the first few minutes, though Michael told himself the elfish saddle would keep him firmly on the dragon’s back and he was in no danger of falling off, he found he could do nothing but hold on and try not to vomit as Wilamena spun and flipped and dove through the air. It was still hours till dawn, but Michael could see, thanks to the showers of flaming arrows, the fires aboard the ships, and the glow from the distant lights of Loris. He could see how the two fleets had moved in among each other, the enemy throwing out chains and hooks to grapple onto King Robbie’s ships, pulling in close so that their Imps and Screechers could swarm over the sides. And even with the wind rushing past, he could hear the cries of the morum cadi, the horns and drumbeats, the swoosh of arrows, the thud of spears striking wood: none of it escaped him.

And there was something else, apart from the battle raging on the water, that engaged Michael’s attention. He’d always—at least since he’d known who the dragon was—been able to detect Wilamena in her. Now, as she ruthlessly tore through and burned and ripped apart the flying creatures of the enemy, she seemed somehow more dragon, and less elf princess, than ever before.

Fortunately, this new viciousness meant that soon enough, the sky was clear. But Michael didn’t celebrate. For, looking down, he could see that their side was still greatly outnumbered.

“Go back to the ship!” Michael shouted. “We need to talk to King Robbie.”

To his distress, Wilamena flipped backward and dove straight down.

They found the dwarf king’s ship trapped by a much larger ship and in the process of being boarded, with Imps and Screechers storming across planks and King Robbie’s soldiers struggling to fight them off.

“We have to help them!” Michael cried.

The dragon growled, “How long can you hold your breath?”

“What?”

And Michael just had time to grab hold of his glasses and take a deep gulp of air as the dragon plunged into the water beside the enemy ship. All around them was darkness, and the water was very cold, but Michael could feel the dragon wiggling like a great fish, her tail whipping behind them; then she grasped on to something and, a moment later, there was an explosion of light. By the time he dared to look, he saw the dragon unleashing a concentrated stream of fire into the wooden bottom of the ship. Michael could feel the water heating up around him, then the fire stopped, and the dragon began ripping out the charred planks with her claws, creating a bigger and bigger hole in the bottom of the ship, and Michael pounded against the dragon’s back to tell her he had run out of breath, but she kept ripping out planks, making the hole ever bigger, and just as Michael reached the point where he truly knew he couldn’t take any more, the dragon let go, thrusting up to the surface.

The air was the sweetest thing Michael had ever tasted.

“Forgive me, Rabbit. I had to make sure the hole was large enough.”

“Wa—was it?”

“Look.”

And Michael put his dripping glasses on in time to see the enormous ship disappearing below the surface of the sea, the Imps and Screechers jumping into the water, where they were being picked off by Robbie McLaur’s archers.

Okay, he thought, one down. Fifty to go.

Then the dragon dove toward the dwarf king’s ship. Robbie McLaur was at the rail to meet them.

“That was well done, Princess! We’re in your debt—again!”

“But how’re you gonna get past their ships?” Michael shouted, looking out at the still-massive fleet that stood between them and the harbor.

The dwarf king smiled, and Michael could see that in his own way, he was loving this.

“We just had to get close enough to shore. Remember the surprise.” He raised his shield, and a crossbow bolt thudded into it. “The fact is, dwarves fight better with something solid under their feet.” Then he turned to where Magda von Klappen stood with Master Chu and shouted:

“You ready?”

“We are!” Magda von Klappen snapped. “Though this is complex and—”

“Right! Get a move on!” And Michael saw the dwarf king signal a trumpeter, and four short blasts sounded through the din. There followed more shouts and bursts of activity on all their ships, and Michael could see the human and dwarfish soldiers doing something to their boots.

“What’s going on?” Michael asked. “What’s happening?”

For already he felt the temperature dropping sharply, and the dragon said:

“Look at the water.”

Michael glanced down and saw ice forming across the surface of the sea, spreading at an incredible speed as the black water turned white and hard, and all the ships were held fast. Then wooden ramps and iron poles shot down out of their ships, biting into the ice so that the ships were held upright, and Michael saw dwarves and men running down the ramps, and he waited for them to hit the ice and slip, but they didn’t. And he saw that each one had affixed a kind of sharp-toothed metal bracket to the bottoms of their feet—and Michael recalled all the dwarfish smiths on the island so hard at work—and the soldiers’ feet gripped the ice, and this was happening all over, their boats held in place while their armies poured down onto the ice. He noticed that the elves did not wear the crampons, and at first he thought they must not like how they looked, but then he saw that they didn’t need them, the elves ran lightly and surely across the ice.

The enemies’ ships, meanwhile, were sprawled on their sides, many of the Imps and Screechers trapped within, and the ones who could scramble out were slipping and falling and no match for the sure-footed dwarves and elves and humans.

In a moment, the tide of the battle had turned.

There was another blast from the horns, and Michael heard the dwarf king’s voice, booming, “To the wall! To the wall!”

“Shall we help them?” the dragon purred.

“Yes,” Michael said. And he felt a new strength rising inside him.

The dragon tore over the now-chaotic enemy, scattering them further while King Robbie and the army raced into the rocky arms of the harbor.

Before them, the white walls of Loris rose up, and Michael could see the ramparts bristling with figures, and as Michael’s army charged toward shore, arrows rained down from above. Wilamena swerved upward, and Michael could hear the steel tips clattering off her mailed stomach.

The dragon checked her climb, just out of bowshot, and Michael, his heart hammering, looked down and saw the army—his army—gathering on the strip of beach before the walls of the city, and he knew that King Robbie would be forming them into units, but the crampons that had helped them cross the ice were now hindering them—

“We have to do something,” Michael shouted. “We have to—”

“We have our own problems, Rabbit.”

Following the dragon’s gaze, Michael looked up, past the town, and saw a shape rising out of the Citadel. His heart skipped a beat. Then another shape rose up. And another.

“Oh no,” Michael breathed.

The three dragons wheeled about in the air, unleashed jets of flame, and dove directly at them.

—

For a moment, seeing the ice spread across the harbor, and watching the dwarves, elves, and humans race toward the city—seeing the distant flash of gold she knew was Wilamena—Kate had felt a spark of hope.

But when she glanced at Rafe, he was smiling, and she took in the size of the army massing behind the walls, and then the three dragons rose up into the air, and Kate whirled on him, tears lashing her eyes, wild with fear and anger.

“Why did you bring me here? Just to watch all my friends die?! To watch you murder them?!”

In a flash, his hand was around her neck and he was leaning forward, his voice a passionate hiss:

“I brought you here because I need you. Don’t you see that? I need you to keep me human. I told you I know myself and I do. Without you, I’m only the monster! I’m only that!” He swung his arm toward the battle, and Kate understood that it was not hatred fueling him, but desperation. “That’s not the world I want! You believed I was still alive in your enemy. Believe in me now. All this will be over. We’ll be together!”

“You deserve to die!”

The words sprang out of her, surprising both of them. His hand relaxed. Kate choked back sobs, but she kept her eyes fixed on his.

“Henrietta Burke told me to love you. She said that would make all the difference. But she didn’t have to tell me, I already did love you! And I kept thinking, all this time, that Rafe was in there somewhere, that he’d come out if I just believed in him.”

“And now what do you think?” His voice was suddenly, eerily cold.

“I don’t know if you’re still Rafe or not, if he’s in there or not, but you need to die.”

He pulled her closer; she could feel his breath against her face. “And will you be the one to kill me, Kate? Can you?”

Kate stared at him, wondering the same thing.

Then, without warning, he cried out and fell to his knees.

On instinct, Kate dropped beside him.

He gasped, “How…”

Unable to stop herself, Kate asked, “What is it? What happened?”

“She…gave them…back their memories.”

“What…”

“Your sister—I can’t hold—”

He let out another cry of pain, and then light began streaming out of him. Kate stumbled backward, blinking at the explosion of brightness, and the light rose up from him in a great rush, higher and higher, till it disappeared into the night.

Kate stared in wonder; this was something Emma had done.

She heard a crashing and looked out. A huge part of the city wall had collapsed, and it seemed to her that some power or force had gone out of the hordes of Imps and Screechers and trolls; they looked disorganized, lost.

She glanced once more at Rafe, the light still streaming out of him, his eyes shut tight. Then she turned and ran.

Emma was coming. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The Plunge

The prison was being dismantled, the cages smashed and tossed into the pit. A massive bonfire now raged there, throwing its flames high into the sky. For a while, pandemonium had reigned as the prisoners had clambered down the rickety scaffolding to the ground. Now the arena had mostly emptied out, and things were calmer.

During the most chaotic moments, when the arena had been thronged by freed men, women, and children, Emma had clung to Gabriel’s side, clutching his large, rough hand in her good one (How was it that he could be dead? He was so real and solid), while she held her other hand tight against her chest and above her heart to minimize the throbbing. The first thing Gabriel had done had been to bandage her wound, kneeling before her and wrapping a strip of cloth tightly around and around her hand. It had helped stem the bleeding, though dark red irises had appeared on both the front and back of the dressing.

But Emma scarcely noticed the blood, or felt the throbbing.

Her attention, when she wasn’t thinking about Gabriel and how she was going to save him, how she would correct the terrible mistake of his presence here—that’s what it was, a mistake—had been drawn by the liberated host of the dead.

Since her arrival in that world, she had grown almost used to the blank expressions, the dull emptiness of people’s eyes, their listlessness and silence—perhaps the silence and hush most of all. And so it had been dizzying when a thousand people had all started speaking at once, calling to one another, crying, shouting, laughing even.

And that was just the beginning.

Emma had watched a child reaching for a woman and the woman lifting him in her arms.

She’d watched two old men, hugging each other and sobbing.

She’d watched groups of people all talking at once, all trying to make sense of what had happened, all telling their stories.

Everywhere, she’d seen men and women, young and old, comforting each other with touches, with words.

It had seemed, from what she could overhear, that they were like people waking from a long sleep. Again and again, Emma heard, “It was like I was dreaming….” To her surprise, no one railed against the fact of being dead, and it was not long before she heard people saying that they were going off to find their loved ones. They seemed to believe this was possible, that they and those they’d loved in life could somehow find each other in the vastness of the world of the dead. And perhaps they could, perhaps they would be drawn together by some strange magnetism. Emma was aware that, just days before, she would have scoffed at the idea, but now she thought, Why not?

Slowly, the crowd had drifted out through the passages and avenues that had been created in the torn-down prison and vanished into the night.

And the thing that Emma kept reminding herself of was that this was happening all over, that millions were waking up, an entire world.

No, she corrected herself, not an entire world.

A few figures stood idly about the arena, gazing at the ground, all of them wearing the familiar, vacant expressions of the dead. Of these, some had served the Dire Magnus, like the black-haired, rat-faced necromatus who stood at the edge of the pit, staring dully at the fire; he seemed to be almost daring Emma to go and push him in, but she wouldn’t; she was better than that, though he deserved it, he really did. And there were guards as well—though, obviously, not Harold Barnes, who’d already gone off to find his Nanny Marge, saying, “She’ll be worried sick about me.”

The others, the former prisoners whose memories had not been restored, Emma could not help but feel pity for. But it was what it was. She had made the judgment the book had required, and the judgment stood. And now the Reckoning belonged to her.

She held the book, tucked between her elbow and chest, as her hand throbbed with each beat of her heart.

Dr. Pym had assured her that those who’d been sent into the fire, the ones the Dire Magnus had devoured, would already be returning to the world of the dead.

“Once their memories were restored,” the wizard had said, “the Dire Magnus will not have been able to hold them. They will return here, and thanks to you, most will remember who they are. I suspect he has released even those who did not have their memories returned. In the moment, he will not have been able to pick and choose. You have dealt him a grave blow.”

As evidence, he’d pointed to the red-robed sorcerers and former guards wandering about.

“Their master has deserted them. Now they have nothing. No memory of themselves. No connection to his power. They are lost.”

Emma had merely nodded and said nothing. Even then, her mind had already been moving on, thinking, planning, discarding everything that was not related to one goal: how she was going to save Gabriel.

In those first minutes after his arrival, when the prisoners were escaping from their cages and she had found herself in Gabriel’s arms and realized what his presence in this world must mean, she had been sobbing so furiously that she’d been unable to hear or see much of anything. He had held her and made reassuring noises as one might to a small child, finally saying:

“I must bandage your wound.”

By then she’d gotten blood all over his neck and chest and arms, but he paid that no mind and knelt beside her, ripping a long strip from his cloak and wrapping it about her hand. Calmly, as if this were just another meeting between them, he’d begun to tell her about finding her parents, how he and Richard and Clare had gone searching for the prophecy as a means of saving her and her brother and sister. It had been loud in the arena, with the shouts of the freed prisoners and the crashing of the cages being destroyed, but Emma had heard every word he’d said, his voice anchoring her, as his love had anchored her during the Bonding, and her sobbing had subsided.

She had even asked questions, some about their parents—how they’d looked, what they’d said, had they mentioned her—and some about Michael and Kate, which he couldn’t answer, as he had not seen them since he’d sent them back to Loris. The one thing she didn’t ask, and he didn’t offer, was how he’d died.

And all the time, her mind was racing forward.

Dr. Pym had moved off to one side, speaking to the old white-eyed sorcerer and one of the carriadin. It might have been the one that had led Emma up the cliff earlier; she couldn’t tell them apart. The other carriadin, perhaps a dozen in all, were systematically destroying the prison, tearing it down level by level.

Emma had asked the wizard what had led him and Gabriel to show up at the prison when they had, and Dr. Pym had replied that just as he’d felt compelled to guide Emma to the book, so he’d felt compelled to bring Gabriel here. He couldn’t explain it further, besides to nod toward several of the carriadin, saying, “I suspect they had something to do with it. This is their world, after all.”

Now Dr. Pym approached to say that it was time to go.

“We must return you to the world above, and the portal is some distance away.”

“Uh-huh,” Emma said, clutching Gabriel’s hand more tightly than ever. “I’ve been thinking. As soon as I kill the Dire Magnus, I’ll get Michael to use the Chronicle to bring Gabriel back. You too,” she said to Dr. Pym, “though I’m not totally sure you still have a body. We’ll have to, you know, work on that.”

She nodded several times after she said this, as if to emphasize that Gabriel’s returning to life was to be an accepted fact, and she failed utterly to notice the look that passed between Gabriel and the wizard.

Then the old gray-haired, white-eyed sorcerer stepped forward, leaning heavily on his staff. He seemed more exhausted, somehow even older, than before.

“I am sorry about your hand.”

“Don’t be. You had to do it.”

“Still.” And he touched, lightly, her wounded hand. “Forgive me. And thank you.”

Emma hugged him once, fiercely, then let him go.

The last thing that happened before they left that place was that one of the carriadin landed near them, having half flown, half jumped from a cage above, and it was holding the Countess in its arms. The witch’s face turned toward Emma and the others, and in an instant, Emma saw that the woman’s memories were gone.

“What happened to her?”

“When you bonded with the book,” Dr. Pym said, “the last remnants of the magic were taken from her. The same thing happened to me when Michael became Keeper of the Chronicle. The Book of Life kept me alive for thousands of years, but after he became Keeper, even had I not been killed, I would have lived out whatever days were allowed me and then died.”

The Countess’s violet eyes were dull and dimmed, and Emma watched as the bird creature carried her from the arena. Emma felt a knife edge of hatred for the Countess that would never go away—the witch had done too much to try and hurt her and her brother and sister—but in the end, the woman had helped her, and Emma would remember that too.

“Now,” Dr. Pym said, “it’s time.”

Emma sensed movement behind her and felt rough hands under her arms; she was lifted off her feet, and her hand ripped from Gabriel’s. In moments, she was high in the night sky, looking down at the prison and the bonfire below. She let out an involuntary “Whaa—hey!” and looked up at the carriadin holding her.

“Stop! What’re you—”

She heard the voice in her mind:

Be calm, Emma Wibberly. You are safe.

And she felt herself, in fact, becoming calm, and she peered down, the wind whipping past, and saw two more dark shapes, the great wings silhouetted against the bonfire, and she knew, without being able to make them out, that Gabriel and Dr. Pym were being carried upward as well.

The carriadin flew away from the prison and the shantytown and out across the dark, empty plain toward the mountains in the distance. The air was cold, but clean, and after the smoke and reek of the prison, it came as a relief. Emma was reminded of flying on Wilamena’s back, when the elf princess had been in the form of a dragon; there was the same rise and fall with each beat of the creature’s wings, the difference being that this time Emma’s legs and feet dangled over nothingness, and she was filled with equal parts excitement and terror.

Soon, the mountains were surging up out of the plain, and Emma was looking down at the thickly nestled peaks and saw, winding through them, the long, silvery band of a river. Then the carriadin banked sharply, going into a steep, spiraling dive, and Emma clutched the Reckoning against her chest as the wind roared past and the jagged peaks rushed toward them, and they were coming in too fast, there was no way they could slow down in time, but at the last moment, the carriadin turned upward, suspending its momentum to hang in the air, then beat its wings twice to land and set Emma gently on the ground.

Her heart was pounding wildly, and she stood there as if not quite trusting the earth beneath her feet. They were on a rocky outcropping beside the river, just before it plunged over a cliff. The roar of the waterfall filled the air, but Emma heard the thick, muscular rustle of feathers and turned to see the carriadin launching itself back into the sky. She thought of shouting a thank-you, but already the creature was gone, into the night.

Emma crept out as far as she could, to where the river plunged over the cliff, and stood there, letting herself be soaked by the spray blowing back off the water, peering down to where the river disappeared into mist and darkness. The only other waterfall she knew was the one in Cambridge Falls, which she had thought enormous. She guessed that this one was at least twice that size, and doubted she could have seen to the bottom even in the daytime. But why were they here? Where was the portal?

She heard the rustle of wings, and she turned to see Gabriel landing, sure-footed, on the ledge, his carriadin not even stopping, but continuing past, over her head and away. And even though Emma had only left Gabriel minutes before, she ran to him and hugged him, and he, again, folded her in his arms.

“It’ll be okay,” she said. “I’ll make it okay.”

Then she stepped away, wiping her eyes, as the wizard landed, the carriadin who’d brought him also hardly stopping before climbing into the sky.

“Well,” Dr. Pym said, smiling like his old self, “here we are.”

“Here we are where?” Emma demanded. “Where’s the portal?”

The last portal she had gone through had been a tunnel under a spider’s nest. Obviously, there was nothing like that around here.

Still, what the wizard said next surprised her.

“Over the waterfall. About halfway down.”

“What?! How’m I supposed to get there? You gotta call back those bird things!”

“That will not be necessary; I have a plan. But first, now that we three are alone, I must know how exactly you returned the memories of the dead.”

Emma didn’t respond right away. She knew that what she’d done, she’d had to do, and she knew too that she had made the right decision, but it was still hard to talk about.

“There’re two different meanings to the word reckoning.” She did not try to speak over the roar of the falls, sensing that Gabriel and the wizard could hear. “One’s like something you owe. Like we all owe a death. That’s how the book kills people. But the other meaning is judgment. And when people died, their memories were stored in the book. Waiting for someone to judge them. Waiting for me. You probably knew that, didn’t you?”

The wizard nodded.

“You could’ve told me.”

“I foolishly thought there would be time. And then there wasn’t. I am sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

She couldn’t be mad at him now, not after everything. And she had figured it out, hadn’t she? With almost no help from anyone. The more she reflected on it, the more Emma felt a kind of pride in what she’d done, and it was not the same pride that she’d felt in the cave, when she’d first come upon the book. In that case, she’d done something difficult and dangerous and been brave and strong. But to do what the Reckoning had asked of her, she’d had to accept the responsibility that came with deciding whose memories would be restored to them and whose would not.

Even now, Emma could feel the weight of the decision on her shoulders, and a part of her wondered if this was what Kate had felt for the past ten years, knowing that she was responsible for her and Michael.

“Only, like, how do you judge everyone who’s ever been alive? There’re so many people and they’re all so different. And who was I to judge? I mean, really. But then I saw Gabriel, and it made me feel so good and strong, and it was so clear that that was the best part of me, that I loved him, and that I loved Michael and Kate, and even you, though you kinda lied to us. And so that was the question I made the book ask:

“?‘When you were alive, did you ever love someone?’?”

She had been afraid that when she said it out loud, it would sound silly, this one question that she, a twelve-year-old, had come up with to decide the fates of everyone who’d ever lived. But it didn’t; it sounded right.

When you were alive, did you ever love someone?

It didn’t matter if you’d been loved in return, or if the love had foundered and died. Had you ever given love? If the answer was yes, your memory flowed back to you. But if you hadn’t, or if you’d only loved yourself, or money, or power, or objects, or nothing, then you remained as empty as you’d been in life.

And the book itself had given her clues. Like when she’d touched it the same time as Harold Barnes and seen his Nanny Marge. Or when she’d seen the old sorcerer’s father and wife and son. The book had been telling her, this is what matters, this is what you must look for, and finally, she had listened.

Release them, the book had said. And she had.

“It’s like, when I first got here, I thought this place was a hell. You’re the one who told me it could be a paradise. It turns out we were both right. It could be either. It depends on who you are. Because the world of the dead shouldn’t just be a place where you wait around like some kind of houseplant; it should matter what you did when you were alive. And if you spent your life living only for yourself, then yeah, maybe this should be a hell. But if you ever forgot yourself enough to love another person, then you should be able to remember that.”

“And there is no heaven or hell but of our own making.” The wizard’s eyes glistened, though whether from the mist or his own tears, Emma couldn’t say. “Emma Wibberly, all the hopes I had for you, all the faith I placed in your wisdom and bravery, you have exceeded and repaid. In one stroke, you created a new foundation for both life and death. And that foundation is love. I have never been more proud.”

He placed his hand, trembling with emotion, on her shoulder, and there was nothing Emma could do to stop the tears from tumbling down her cheeks.

“Now it is time you returned to the world above. I do not know what is transpiring there, but the Dire Magnus certainly knows you have the book. Every moment counts.”

Emma gripped the Reckoning even more tightly, sniffled twice, and found her voice. “Yeah, like I said, as soon as the Dire Magnus is dead, I’ll get Michael to bring you back—”

“You will not bring me back,” the wizard said.

“But maybe there’s a way! Don’t give up just because you don’t have a body. I’ll bet Michael can build something. Maybe a robot or something, I don’t know—”

“I was alive for thousands of years. I stayed alive for one purpose. To have my great mistake in helping to create the Books rectified. To see them finally destroyed—”

“What?! What’re you talking about?!”

The wizard looked down at her. “The Books must be destroyed. That is the only way this all ends.”

“But—but we need the Books to kill the Dire Magnus!”

“Yes. And once the enemy is no more, the Books must be destroyed! Their very existence upsets the balance we depend upon. The bonds that hold the universe together are being ripped apart. To fail to destroy them would spell the end of everything.”

Emma felt herself relax. For a moment, she’d thought the wizard had actually gone crazy. But as long as she got to kill the Dire Magnus—and Michael was able to bring Gabriel back—she didn’t really care what happened to the Books afterward. And though she still wanted to argue with the wizard that he was being stupid, that he should let Michael bring him back as well, she could understand what he was feeling. He’d done what he had to.

“We are close to the end,” the wizard said. “Soon, I will rest. And because of your actions, I will do so with the memory of you and your brother and sister.”

Then Dr. Pym bent down, and Emma, knowing it was the last time, hugged him with all her might.

The wizard released her and stepped back, and Gabriel knelt before her.

“You must find your parents,” he said. “They will know the end of the prophecy, the secret to how you and your brother and sister will survive. They were not able to tell me, but our plan was always to go to Loris. They should be there by now.”

Emma nodded. “And I’ll see you soon, okay?”

Gabriel took her good hand in his and opened his mouth to speak, but she could sense what he was going to say.

“No! Don’t tell me you’re staying too! I’ll find out what my parents know and I’ll kill the Dire Magnus and Michael will bring you back! He can do it! He brought back Kate! He brought back the stupid Countess! He can do it!”

Gabriel waited for her to be silent. Then he said, “There is an order to life and death. We have altered it to meet our own needs and desires, and the universe has paid the price. The damage must end here.”

“So we’ll bring you back and that’ll be it! Then we’ll destroy the Books!”

Gabriel shook his head. “It is too late.”

“But—”

“Listen to me—all I have done since I met you, I would do again. I regret nothing. But if you have your brother bring me back, then everything, every sacrifice I have made, will be meaningless. Your destiny is to restore order and peace. You must let me stay.”

Emma was gripping his hand as hard as she could. He was wrong; she knew he was wrong; she just had to convince him!

He lifted her chin so her eyes, blurry with tears, met his.

“Remember, no matter the distance between us, you will always be with me.”

The sobs broke from her chest, and Emma threw her arms around his neck. He was wrong! He was wrong! She knew he was wrong! And yet, even as she thought that, a voice inside her, a voice that hadn’t even existed just days before, told her that he was right, that the order of the universe was that people died, and you lost them. Today she would say goodbye to Dr. Pym and Gabriel. One day, years and years from now, she would lose Kate and Michael or they would lose her.

Death was the reckoning all had to pay.

But the love you gave was yours. That, you got to keep.

And even as her heart broke, she could feel her love for Gabriel like a flame burning inside her.

“She must go,” Dr. Pym said. “Now.”

Still clutching him around the neck and sobbing, Emma whispered, “I love you.”

And he whispered back, “And I, you.”

Then Dr. Pym took her hand and led her to the edge of the cliff. She drew her arm across her eyes to wipe away the tears. She could see out over the mountains to the endless space open before them. Gabriel stepped to her other side. She took several deep, shaking breaths. She didn’t look at him. It was enough to know that he was there.

“So…how do we get to the portal? Can you fly me there or something?”

“Not exactly,” the wizard said. “Hold the book tightly.”

“What—”

“I am sorry about this.”

And then he pushed her off the cliff. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The Reckoning of the Dire Magnus

Of the three dragons diving toward them over the roofs of the city, all were black and two were roughly the size of Wilamena, while the third was half again as large.

“I’m going to put you down with King Robbie.”

“No!”

“It’s too dangerous.”

“It’s just as dangerous down there! I’m not leaving you!”

“Very well, Rabbit.”

And Wilamena drove herself forward, aiming them directly at the trio of dragons.

Michael shouted into the wind, “Are you sure this is the best course of action?”

But the golden dragon only beat her wings harder. As they passed over the city gates, Michael glanced down and saw King Robbie and the army of elves and men and dwarves as they began to lay siege to the walls. King Robbie had already erected bulwarks to protect the fighters from the arrows and spears and boiling tar being poured down from above, while behind them the ice was cracking as the last of their soldiers reached the shore.

Then the three dragons were upon them. Wilamena unleashed a jet of flame, and the trio spiraled out of the way as the flames licked at their wings.

“Why didn’t they try to burn us?”

“Because of you. You are too precious. That is the only advantage we—”

Wilamena shrieked in pain and lurched to the side. One of the smaller black dragons had spun about and sliced her belly with its claws. The dragon grappled with them, its jaws snapping at Wilamena, who was biting back just as fiercely. Michael, in desperation, had drawn his sword, but there was nothing he could do. Then he heard a shriek behind him and whipped about to see the second of the smaller dragons coming directly for them.

“Wilamena!”

He didn’t know if his voice would carry over the shrieking and hissing, but the golden dragon thrust herself away and dove. She banked across the top of the wall, beating her wings furiously, but Michael could see the two black dragons close behind.

“Where’s the other? Where’s the third?”

But Wilamena didn’t respond.

In seconds, they were away from the city, out over the cliffs, and all was strangely silent and dark. Wilamena flew lower, skimming the water, and Michael could feel the spray cool and wet against his face as the sea threw itself against the rocks.

“There,” Wilamena growled.

Before them, the cliffs curved, and in the rock was a kind of natural archway.

“I don’t understand. What’re you—”

But Wilamena was already through the archway and banking to follow the curve of the island. The moment she was out of sight of the other dragons, she climbed hard, looping back as she gained altitude, and Michael looked down and saw the other two dragons heading into the archway, the first one already through, and then he and Wilamena were plunging straight down, and this time she didn’t have to tell him. Michael put a hand to his glasses and took a deep breath.

She slammed into the back of the second dragon, driving it underwater, forcing it down to the rocky floor of the sea, and it was impossible to see anything with the darkness and the thunder of bubbles, and Michael’s lungs were soon screaming for air. He was aware of a great ripping and tearing, a terrible violence happening very close by; then Wilamena launched herself upward, breaking the surface of the water, and Michael took deep, gulping breaths, and he looked to see Wilamena throwing aside a pair of huge, batlike wings.

Then the first dragon was on them.

This time, amazingly, it was Michael who helped.

His sword was still drawn, and he turned with it raised, and, thanks to the sharpness of the dwarfish steel and the force of its dive, the other dragon impaled itself on the point.

Michael felt as if his arm had been wrenched from his body and he cried out and let go of the handle, leaving the sword embedded in the dragon. The two-and-a-half-foot sword was not long enough to kill the creature, but the beast fell away, shrieking.

The wind was now whipping all around them, and clouds gathered overhead. A shard of lightning broke across the sky, and Michael saw what looked like a large cave, high up the cliff.

“There!”

A moment later, they were flying full tilt into a deep, wide cave in the side of the island.

“Do you know where this goes?” Michael asked.

“No.”

Michael said no more, but he glanced back to see the other dragon entering the cave behind them.

—

“But there must be someone who can take us! Please! We—”

“Maybe you didn’t hear so good,” said the boat owner, whose face was the shape and texture of a paper bag that had been left in the rain. “Loris belongs to the Dire Magnus now. He’s the baddest of the bad. And it ain’t just him. Monsters. Trolls. Whole island’s overrun.”

“Worse than that,” said a sailor at the next table. “I was talking with Giuseppe. He saw a fleet heading toward Loris. Warships and the like. Gonna be a heavy squall. Better steer clear.”

“Exactly,” the first man said. “Forget about Loris. Drop anchor here.”

“You don’t understand!” Clare was frantic. “Our children are there!”

But the men in the tavern were through talking and turned away from the couple.

Angry and frustrated, Richard and Clare walked out into the night air. They had arrived here, in San Marco, an island at the edge of the Archipelago, perhaps an hour before, flown by Gabriel’s friend, the old pilot. The pilot would’ve taken them farther, but there was nowhere to land on Loris, which meant the couple needed a boat. For that, the pilot had directed them to the tavern where the boat captains congregated. Then he’d left, intending to retrieve Gabriel’s body from the village on the Arabian Peninsula. There had been no way for Richard and Clare to carry his body across the ropes that Rourke had strung over the chasm; indeed, they’d barely made it across themselves. Still, the decision to leave Gabriel’s body behind had been heartrending, all the more so because of his sacrifice.

But the time to reflect on that, and mourn his loss, would come later.

“What’re we going to do?” Richard said as he and his wife stood outside the tavern.

“Maybe we could steal a boat.”

There was a sound behind them, and they turned to see that the waitress had followed them out. She was a thick-shouldered woman in her fifties.

“You say your children are in danger? That’s why you want to get to Loris?”

“Yes,” Clare said. “Can you help us?”

“There were two fellas trying to get there a while ago. No one would take them either, so they ended up buying a boat.” She looked toward the harbor. “The jetty there. Fourth berth. You can just see ’em. Careful, though. They seemed a bit strange.”

Richard and Clare thanked her and hurried down to the water. They found a small boat, not more than twenty feet long, with a rickety-looking motor that a pair of extremely old men were arguing about how to start.

“I thought you said you knew how to do this. The battle’ll be over by the time we get there.”

“Well, if it is, I promise I’ll clobber you on the head with a club. Can’t have you missing all the carnage.”

“I’m gonna take a nap. Wake me when the motor starts or the world ends, whichever comes first.”

“Excuse us,” Clare said. “Are you going to Loris?”

The two old men stopped what they were doing and looked up. Richard would have guessed they were both a hundred years old if they were a day. And there was also something about them that made him think instantly, Wizards.

Neither old man spoke; they just went on staring at the couple.

“I’m afraid we can’t pay you,” Richard said. “At least not right now. But we really need to get there. And yes, we know about the battle.”

One of the old men nudged the other. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“That I’m a handsome devil?”

“No.”

“That she looks exactly like you know who.”

“Yep.”

“Spitting image.”

“Spitting image.”

Richard realized that they were looking at his wife.

Then, all by itself, the engine roared to life. The two old men let out yelps of joy.

“Get in! Get in!” cried one of them. “No point standing around! The battle ain’t gonna go on forever!”

“That’s right,” cried the other as the couple climbed down the ladder and into the boat. “That’s unless you’re thinking of opening a shop, the Standing-Around-on-the-Dock-While-We-Save-the-World Shop.”

“Let me introduce myself,” said the first old man after they’d cast off the ropes and were speeding out of the harbor. “My name is Beetles; this is my butler, Jake.”

—

“You’re bleeding.”

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not; you’re bleeding.”

The second black dragon was dead. Wilamena had lain in wait for it past a bend in the cavern, clinging to the ceiling till it was right below her; then she’d fallen on it, the same as she had with the other dragon. This time, though, the dragon had been prepared, and the fighting had been savage. Michael had found it the more frightening for being difficult to follow in the darkness, though it was illuminated now and then by blasts of fire from both dragons.

Michael had felt useless, and even more than useless, an encumbrance, for in trying to protect him, Wilamena was leaving herself more open than she should. Finally, he’d taken his knife and sliced the straps that held him in the saddle and leapt off, bouncing and rolling down the rocky wall, and it was a testament to his dwarfish armor that he hadn’t broken every bone in his body.

Once at the bottom, he’d turned over, groaning, just in time to see an enormous shape falling toward him. He’d barely managed to roll out of the way as it had landed with an earthshaking crash. The shape had come down so fast and the cave was so dark that he hadn’t been able to tell which dragon it was. Then he’d looked and seen the black scales. He’d waited, hardly daring to breathe, but it hadn’t moved.

Finally, he’d ventured, “Wilamena?”

A long, terrible moment. Then, from the darkness above: “Yes, Rabbit. I’m alive.”

Michael had watched her moving down the cave wall, slow and careful, clearly favoring her right side. Then she’d tried to glide the rest of the way, and he’d seen that her wing was injured as well. She’d landed heavily beside him. Up close, and with the glow coming off her golden scales, he’d seen wounds crisscrossing her body.

“Come. We will fly back to the city.”

At first, Michael thought she was not going to be able to fly at all, but she found her balance, pumping harder with her left wing, and soon he saw flashes of lightning that told him they were nearing the cave mouth.

“You should not have leapt off like that.”

“I had to; you were getting hurt trying to protect me.”

She said nothing, but he heard, and felt, her deep, rumbling purr.

Then they emerged from the cave into the open air, and the largest of the black dragons fell on them from above. Michael saw the movement from the corner of his eye, but by the time he yelled a warning, one of the dragon’s talons had ripped a gash, the deepest yet, in Wilamena’s side. The dragon’s dive took it past them, and Wilamena jerked herself in the direction of the city. She beat her wings frantically, but she could muster no real speed, and when Michael turned, he saw the black dragon circling above them.

“It’s not attacking!”

“It knows I’m as good as dead. It’s savoring the victory.”

Suddenly, Michael felt a searing pain, and he looked down to see that fresh blood, bubbling up from the wound the dragon had given Wilamena, was scalding his leg. He reached into his bag and gripped the Chronicle, then laid his body flat, placing his hand directly on the gash. The dragon’s blood burned his skin, but he kept his hand where it was. For one fleeting instant, he thought of Magda von Klappen warning him not to use the Chronicle; then he closed his eyes and called the magic forth.

For the second time, Michael shared the elf princess’s life, her joy in the living world, the way she could feel the hush of moonlight across her skin, or remember, perfectly, a birdsong she’d heard a hundred years before, and as he shared her memories, he learned that she had transformed herself into the dragon too often and for too long, that Pym had warned her when he’d refashioned the bracelet, telling her that if she wasn’t careful, she would find herself trapped forever as the dragon, but she had taken the risk, and kept taking it, for Michael’s sake.

Then came a tearing deep inside him, and Michael cried out and collapsed against the dragon’s back.

“Rabbit!”

Gasping, Michael couldn’t bring himself to respond. But he thought of Kate collapsing on the beach after using the Atlas to stop time, and told himself that whatever damage he’d done to himself, or to the world, Wilamena had been hurt, and he’d had no choice.

Then there was a scream behind them, and the black dragon attacked.

“Hold on, Rabbit.”

Wilamena dove hard for the island, and Michael, even in his pain and confusion, noted that she still flew unevenly, swerving about as if she had no control. He saw the ground rushing up and scrambled to grip the saddle as Wilamena crashed face-first into the beach. He went flying head over heels, but landed unharmed on the sand. When he finally had managed to stand and his vision righted itself, he turned to see the black dragon crowing over his foe, letting out long triumphant roars as Wilamena cringed before it. Wilamena herself was covered with blood and sand and favoring the side that had been wounded. Her left wing lay crumpled beneath her. Michael didn’t understand; why hadn’t the Chronicle worked? Why wasn’t she healed?

Then the black dragon threw back its head to let out a belt of flame, and Wilamena leapt upward, snapping her jaws tight around the other’s neck. The jet of flame was cut off. But the black dragon was bigger and stronger, and it fought back, clawing at Wilamena’s chest and torso, sending cascades of golden scales shimmering into the darkness. Only Wilamena refused to let go. With her jaws locked tight, she yanked this way and that, till with one great, vicious, twisting wrench, she ripped the other dragon’s head clean off. The black dragon stood for a moment, blood and fire shooting from its neck, then fell over on the sand.

The golden dragon let out a thunderous roar and shot flame hundreds of feet into the sky. For Michael, it had been like watching dinosaurs battle, creatures from some savage, primeval past, and Wilamena was one of them.

She walked toward Michael, limping slightly.

“You tricked him. You made him think you were still wounded.”

“Yes. But you used the Chronicle when you should not have. I felt it.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Though the truth was, Michael sensed that something inside him had been broken, something beyond even the Chronicle’s power to fix. His hand trembling, he pulled the red book from his bag and leafed through the pages.

“It’s just a book now. The magic’s all in me.”

He said it woodenly, both knowing and not knowing what it meant. Then he opened his hand and let the book drop onto the sand; he didn’t need it anymore.

“You saved me,” the dragon said. “But at great cost to yourself.”

“I’d do it again.”

The dragon lunged forward, seizing him by the collar of his tunic and lifting him, like a mother cat might a kitten, then depositing him on her back.

“Come.”

In less than a minute, they were over the city. Michael saw that several large holes had been blasted along the walls, and the fighting there was close and intense as their army surged forward. The golden dragon landed on the beach, where there seemed to be a command area of sorts. As Michael leapt down, King Robbie rushed up and hugged him.

“You’re alive! I was worried when I saw those three worms—no offense, Princess! But now you’re back! And just in time! You see we knocked a few holes in the city wall—buggers didn’t know I’d mined it before we abandoned the island! We’ll break through their line soon enough and rush the Citadel. We may just do this after all!”

Michael looked at Wilamena. “Take off the bracelet.”

“What?”

“Take off the bracelet.”

“Don’t be foolish. You need me.”

“I know what it’s doing to you. If you wear it much longer, you won’t be able to turn back. Take it off.”

Michael waited, not entirely sure how this was going to go.

Then, after what seemed a very, very long moment, the dragon bent her head and flicked the clasp on the bracelet. Instantly, the giant lizard began to shrink, the wings vanishing, the great scaly arms transforming into slender, delicate limbs, the blood-red eyes turning the blue that Michael had always remembered but could never describe, and Wilamena collapsed against him.

Without Michael’s having said a word, a pair of elves appeared at his side.

“She’s wounded,” he told them. “You have to get her to a doctor.”

After the elves had carried her away, Michael picked up the bracelet, which had shrunk as well to human size, and placed it on a stone. He turned to King Robbie; he was working hard to stay on his feet and keep his voice steady. “Can I borrow your ax?”

The dwarf king handed it over; Michael dropped it.

“I can get you a lighter—”

But Michael, using both hands, lifted up the ax as high as he could, then let it fall, cutting the bracelet in half.

“Hope you know what you’re doing,” the dwarf king said. “Having a dragon around is awful helpful.”

“I know—” Michael began, and he tried to hand the ax back to King Robbie but dropped it again, and almost fell himself, stumbling against the dwarf.

“Hold on, lad. What’s wrong? Are you wounded?”

Before Michael could respond, there was a sound that drew the attention of everyone on the beach, and they turned to see the dark water of the bay beginning to churn and boil as an enormous—Michael didn’t know what it was, a something—rose out of the sea.

“What…what is that?”

“No idea,” Robbie McLaur said. “But I have a feeling this is one of those times you’d want a dragon on your side.”

—

Running through the Rose Citadel, Kate had expected at every turn to find the Dire Magnus—Rafe—waiting for her. But she hadn’t. And somehow, despite the way her mind had been spinning with questions—What had Emma done? Was she hurt? Was she really coming?—she’d been aware enough to avoid the troops of Imps and Screechers stomping through the halls.

And she had been racing along for some time, with no direction in mind save down, when she’d exploded out of a doorway and into the Garden, crashing through branches as lightning broke across the sky.

She’d stumbled forward blindly and abruptly come out into the clearing, and there before her were the tree and the pool.

She’d stopped.

Half the tree’s branches had snapped off and lay about the clearing. Dead leaves littered the ground; they covered the surface of the pool. There’d been more lightning, and she’d felt the rippling shock of thunder.

It had occurred to Kate that no one had told her where to go; she’d simply known. But where was the portal? Where was Emma going to come from? She screamed her sister’s name again and again, even as the sound of her voice was swallowed by the storm. At one point, she glanced back the way she had come, into the darkness of the Garden, half expecting to see Rafe stepping from the gloom, and it was then she heard something behind her, a splash, the sound of someone gasping for air, and she turned to see Emma pulling herself out of the leaf-clogged pool. For a moment, Kate forgot everything else—the Books, the battle, Rafe—and rushed forward, clutching her sister to her breast and sobbing.

“Emma! Emma! I thought we lost you! I didn’t know—”

Emma dropped to her knees, hacking up water.

“Are you okay? Emma?!”

“I can’t…I can’t believe he pushed me!”

“Who pushed you? And what happened to your hand? Oh, Emma!”

Emma shook her head. “It’s all right. I’m…I’m okay.”

Kate stared at her. Perhaps it was because she was sopping wet, but Emma had never seemed so small and thin and tired, as if she had not eaten or slept in days.

Emma looked up and met her sister’s eyes. “Gabriel’s dead.”

“I know. I’m so sorry. But how did you find out?”

“It doesn’t matter.” She stood slowly, shakily, still holding Kate’s arm.

“Wait—you have to tell me what happened. You did something, didn’t you? Ra—the Dire Magnus, something happened to him. It was like this light was streaming out of him.”

“I gave the dead back their memories. He couldn’t hold on to them.” Then Emma said, “I’ve got the book.”

And Kate saw that Emma’s bandaged hand, which she had kept pressed against her chest, clutched a small black book.

“Good.”

Both Kate and Emma turned to see the figure stepping from the shadows.

Rafe said, “Then we can finish this.”

—

Robbie McLaur shouted, and thirty archers ran from the wall to take up positions along the beach and begin shooting arrows at the monster.

The creature had a huge, rounded back covered with barnacles and seaweed and black sludge. Along its sides there were a dozen long tentacles waving through the air. The creature was still rising out of the water, and Michael saw a pair of glowing eyes, each as large as he was tall, and then its great mouth was revealed, with rows of teeth furrowing back into its throat.

“It’s a kraken.”

Michael turned and saw Wilamena’s father, the elf king, beside him.

“But it can’t come up here, right?” Michael said. “It can’t come up on land.”

In answer, the creature stepped forward on legs as thick as tree trunks, and its tentacles began snaking out and snatching up soldiers and either throwing them into its mouth, bashing them against rocks, or tossing them far out to sea.

Michael ducked as a tentacle swung toward him, and he felt the whoosh as it passed overhead. But his escape was short-lived, for the tentacle whipped back, wrapping about Michael’s body and pinning his arms to his sides. He was lifted into the air, high over the beach, and he struggled to reach his knife, but the tentacle held him fast. Then it was carrying him toward the gaping, razor-fanged mouth, and just as he was about to scream, Michael saw a shimmering off to his right, almost lost in the darkness and the rain, and something incredibly large came charging toward him. There was a heavy, wet thud, and he was dropped.

Michael fell, and fell, and then—

“You okay, Toadlip?”

Michael found himself staring into the enormous, grinning face of Willy the giant. He had caught Michael in midair.

“How…how’d you get here?”

“Come through the portal, of course.”

He hooked his thumb, and Michael saw that a portal had been created just beyond the mouth of the harbor—that was the shimmer he’d seen, and one giant after another was stepping out of it. They were wearing armor and carrying clubs and maces, and they were now, as a group, pounding away at the kraken, which was keening and shrieking and doing its best to crawl back into the water.

“Your friend, the hairy, rude one, told us you needed help.”

“Who?”

“Who’d you think?” barked a voice, and Michael saw Hugo Algernon clinging to the giant’s shoulder. “I heard your story and thought having some a’ these great lumbering clods around would be useful! Magda von Strudel-Brain said I couldn’t make a portal big enough! Looks like I was right and she was wrong! As usual—”

And then he tumbled forward. But Willy caught him, then bent down and placed both Michael and the unconscious Hugo Algernon on the beach beside a stunned-looking Robbie McLaur and the elf king.

“He tuckered himself out bringing us here,” Willy said. Then he noticed the elf and dwarf staring up at him. “How do? You all friends of the little wee children?”

Both King Robbie and the elf nodded silently.

“Right, so we’ll just sort out this sea slug, then we’ll help you with your whole battle thingy. Perhaps we could throw some boulders at those monster-looking fellows. We do like throwing boulders.”

“Throwing boulders,” King Robbie said hoarsely, “would be fine.”

The giant then bent toward Michael and did the thing where he made an attempt to lower his voice, though the volume still boomed. “You notice the armor? It’s King Davey’s; I had it polished up. It fits nice, don’t you think?”

It seemed to Michael that the armor was several sizes too large, but he said, “It looks great.”

“Thanks. Okay, now I’m gonna go hammer that big fish beasty.”

And he strode off through the harbor, sending up great plumes of water with each step. King Robbie put his hand on Michael’s shoulder.

“Lad, you know how to make the right friends, I’ll give you that.”

Before Michael could respond, he heard voices shouting his name, and he turned and saw two figures running toward him along the beach. As they came closer, Michael saw they were a man and a woman.

Then he saw their faces, and he felt something break loose inside his chest.

And he was still watching when there was a hiss of arrows, and both figures jerked about and fell onto the stones. Even from where he was, Michael could see the feathered shafts studding their bodies.

—

“Congratulations.”

Rafe walked toward Kate and Emma. He was carrying a long, unsheathed sword, Gabriel’s sword, loosely in one hand. The rain came down in thick sheets. Above them, the branches of the tree swayed and creaked in the wind. It was a storm in which the very screws and bolts that held the world together seemed to be coming undone.

“You gave the dead back their memories. I never thought you’d manage it.”

“Emma,” Kate said, “take my hand.”

“No.” Emma held the Reckoning tight against her chest. She felt anger, pain, the memory of Gabriel, all roiling inside her. And here was the reason she’d suffered everything she’d suffered; she was going to make him pay. “Not before I kill him.”

Rafe smiled, planting the sword in the wet ground. “You can’t kill me. You do, and you and your brother and sister are doomed.”

This threw Emma, but she managed to spit back, “What’re you talking about?!”

“Ask your sister.”

“It’s the Books,” Kate said. “They’re tearing apart the world. They have to be destroyed—”

“I know! Dr. Pym told me!”

“And the only way that happens,” Kate said, “is if the magic is in us and we die.”

“Which means,” the boy went on, “that if you kill me, then all those people you think of as your friends, they’ll come after you next. They won’t want to, they’ll hate themselves for it, but what are the lives of three children weighed against the entire world?”

Emma could scarcely speak. “That’s—that’s not right!”

Rafe let out a short, bitter laugh. “And what does that matter? It will happen. But I can save you. You and your brother and sister. The magic coursing through each of you is a death sentence. I can take it away.” He shrugged. “Or you can kill me.”

Emma saw it all then, the way everything had narrowed to this one moment; and her and Kate’s and Michael’s lives would hang on what she did next.

She could hear the tree’s branches creaking and groaning above her. The rain stung her cheeks. She wished more than anything for her mother and father to appear with the answer that would magically save them. Hadn’t that been the point of their finding out the end of the prophecy? The point of Gabriel dying? Why weren’t they here when it really, finally mattered?!

But the thought only lasted a second. Maybe their parents had gotten delayed or been captured or killed—the fact was, they’d been gone for ten years. And for ten years, she and Kate and Michael had been saving themselves. Why should it be any different now?

“Emma,” Kate said, “let’s go. Please. We’ll find some way out of this!”

Emma knew that if it had been possible, her sister would have gladly sacrificed herself so that she and Michael might live, but that wasn’t an option.

The boy watched her, waiting.

She said, “How?”

“Emma! No! You don’t know what he’ll do!”

Emma whirled on her sister. “There’s no more time! You can’t see it, but I can! It’s hanging over you!”

“What do you mean? What’s hanging over me?”

“Death,” Rafe said. “The Reckoning lets her see it.”

And so it was: from the instant Emma had climbed out of the pool, she’d seen the shadow over her sister, a shadow darker even than the night, and so close—it was almost touching her.

“I’m sorry, Kate. I can’t lose you and Michael. I won’t.” She said to the boy, “Tell me how.”

He smiled. “Please. You know how.”

And Emma realized it was true.

“You’ll take on our spirits. Just like you took on the spirits of the dead. It’ll give you the power.”

“This is the end of the prophecy. Three shall become one. Three Books in one. Three Keepers in one. Once the power of all three Books is concentrated in me, the Final Bonding will occur. The magic will transfer to me. I am the Final Keeper.”

“And what about us? What happens to our spirits?”

“I’ll release them once the Bonding is complete. Just as I released the spirits of the dead when you returned their memories. You really think I want you jabbering in my head for the rest of eternity?”

Emma hesitated; she could see the boy becoming impatient.

“There’s something you’re not telling us! There must be something—”

He waved his hand, annoyed. “There’s a great deal I’m not telling you. You know what you need to know. What’s your answer? Do you kill me, and in doing so doom yourself and your brother and sister? Or do you save your family?”

“Emma, please! Don’t do this!”

Kate moved closer, and for one moment, Emma was blocked from the boy’s view. She looked at Kate, willing a lifetime of love and gratitude into her eyes, sending her sister the message that though she had cared for and protected them all for so long, now it was her turn.

She mouthed, Trust me.

The rain lashed down, the wind howled.

Kate gave a small, imperceptible nod.

Emma looked past her sister. She said simply, “Do it.”

—

Michael’s father had been struck by two arrows, his mother by one. The elf king carried his mother while King Robbie lifted his father—though his father was almost twice the dwarf’s size, King Robbie showed no sign of strain—and they raced down the beach to one of the fortified shelters while Michael ran behind and arrows skittered off the rocks around them.

Michael was shaking. He felt stripped of everything he had been just moments before: Keeper of the Chronicle, leader of the army, commander of dragons and giants; he was suddenly only a young boy, trembling and uncertain.

By the time he arrived at the shelter, his parents had both been laid on cots, his father’s eyes were closed, and his breath was fast and shallow. An old bald man was leaning over him while another man, equally bald, equally old, examined the arrow protruding from his mother’s side.

And his mother reached toward him. “Michael…”

It was such a simple thing, hearing his name spoken by his mother, but it answered a need at the core of Michael’s being, a need that had gone unanswered for so long that he felt his heart swell and break in the same moment.

The shelter was a lean-to that was open to the harbor and lit by lanterns strung from the top beam. There were some two dozen cots where the other wounded had been laid. The rain blew in, drenching both the wounded and those tending to them, while the air was charged with the sounds of battle and the fury of the storm overhead.

Michael dropped to his knees in the space between his parents’ cots and grasped his mother’s outstretched hand.

“I can heal you!” His voice shook with sobs. “I can—!”

He began to reach for the Chronicle, remembering only then that he no longer had the book, that he no longer needed it; the magic was in him. The old men were muttering as they snapped the feathered shafts protruding from his parents’ bodies, their hands moving with surprising speed and steadiness as they drew out the tips of the arrows and placed bandages on the wounds.

“Wait,” his mother said, gasping from the pain. “There’s something you need to know….”

His father groaned, and Michael turned to see him, his eyes still closed, wincing as the old man removed the second arrow.

“Michael.” His mother clenched his hand, bringing him back. “He can’t die.”

“He won’t! I won’t let him! I can heal you!”

“No! I mean the Dire Magnus. He can’t die.”

“But—I don’t understand! What’re you talking about?”

Her voice was growing weaker. “Not until…the Final Bonding…only then…That’s the only way….”

Her eyes closed, and before Michael could shout or react, the old man leaning over her said, “I made her sleep. She needs to rest.”

“I can heal her!” Michael sputtered. “I can heal them both!”

“There’s no need,” the other old man said. “They will both survive.”

“No!” He was insistent! He felt that this was why he’d found the Chronicle to begin with, to do this one thing, to save his parents. “I’m going to heal them!”

But as he took his father’s hand and reached for the magic, he sensed something happening to him. It was almost as if he were being pressed on all sides by some invisible force, tighter and tighter, and then he gasped as a thing he’d never known existed, but now realized had always been a part of him, was taken away.

“What the…,” he heard King Robbie say.

And Michael looked and saw something shimmering in the air before him, and then it rose up, vanishing through the roof of the shelter.

“Beetles…,” said the old man beside him, “was that…”

“Yes,” replied the other, “it was his spirit.”

But Michael scarcely heard them; for he’d realized something else.

“The magic,” he said, still gripping the hands of his mother and father, “it’s gone….”

—

Emma stood there, clutching the Reckoning, staring at the boy as he looked skyward, his arms outstretched as if he were beseeching the storm. Emma had already watched as Kate collapsed into the drifts of sodden leaves, and a shimmering had passed from her to the boy. Emma knew what having your spirit pulled from you felt like, and she would have done anything to spare her sister the pain; but there was nothing for it, and she watched as a shimmering she knew was Michael’s spirit floated down into the clearing.

There was a kind of glow too around the boy, as if the energy and magic he’d absorbed was pulsing at the limits of his skin. She imagined that behind the boy’s face she saw a skull’s head, staring out, and she wondered if it was the Reckoning that allowed her to see that, or if she was just imagining it.

“Life and time,” he said as Michael’s spirit disappeared into him, and the glow around him became brighter. “And now, death. The Bonding is nearly complete.”

“No,” Emma said, opening the book so that raindrops splattered against the pages. “This is when you die.”

He stepped closer, and Emma felt a familiar thickening of the air around her.

She went on, her voice trembling but determined: “And because the Chronicle and the Atlas are in you, they’ll be destroyed too. Kate’s and Michael’s spirits will go back to their bodies, and this whole thing will be over.”

“What about you?” the boy said. “The Reckoning’s power will still be in you. Your friends, the people you trust, they’ll hunt you down.”

“Maybe,” Emma said. “But that’s my problem.”

For who was to say that Hugo Algernon or some other witch or wizard wouldn’t find some way to destroy the Reckoning without killing her? Or maybe her parents would finally arrive with the secret that solved everything.

But it didn’t really matter. What mattered was that the moment the Dire Magnus was dead and the Atlas and the Chronicle destroyed, Kate and Michael would be safe. They would get to live their lives. Be reunited with their mother and father. And if it turned out there was no way to destroy the Reckoning without her dying, at least Emma knew that Gabriel would be waiting for her in the next world.

She placed her hand on the book, the power rose up through her, filling her, and she saw the look in the boy’s face, the understanding, and she imagined she could see the shimmering spirits of each Dire Magnus clustered around him.

Then, as she reached toward him with her mind, the words of the old white-eyed sorcerer, spoken in the world of the dead, returned. “He wears the spirits of his former selves like armor.” Suddenly, Emma could see in a way she never had before, and in place of the physical boy, she saw a throbbing, glowing mass. It was the spirits of each of his former selves, grafted one onto the other. She could feel the different voices, the different selves, of each Dire Magnus; she could sense too the spirits of Michael and Kate, and how they had been sucked into that terrible, cancerous mass.

Emma felt the air around her becoming more and more solid, trying to press her spirit from her as it had in the fortress days before. She was running out of time.

She reached out with her mind, fixing upon one of those former selves, and stripped it away from the others. It was like peeling tar off tar; the spirit fought to stay connected. And as she pulled it free, the life of a Dire Magnus who had existed hundreds of years before passed through her and through the book, and there were no memories of love. It was an empty, cold, hungry thing, and Emma held the spirit for a moment in her mind, then cast it into the world of the dead.

She went quickly then, scarcely feeling the force pressing against her from the outside, pulling the spirit of each Dire Magnus away from the mass. Some of them fought harder than others, but none had a single memory of love. And Emma could hear, as if from a great distance, the boy screaming for her to stop, vowing to kill her, but she paid him no mind, holding each spirit for a moment, then casting it into the world of the dead. And the magic was still filling her, pulsing through her, and Emma realized how terrified she’d been for so long, and how in the end there was nothing to fear, that the only thing you could control was the love you gave or withheld, and that was all that mattered; and finally there was only Rafe’s spirit and one other, which clung like a spider to his own, and she knew it was the first Dire Magnus, the one who had set it all in motion, and she reached out toward it, but as she did, the magic rose up, stronger than ever, and something inside Emma was torn apart.

—

Kate lay without moving, having woken to the sound of Emma’s voice. She knew her spirit had been taken from her and that the magic of the Atlas was gone. She knew because she had never felt so empty and desolate and weak. Finally, calling upon all her strength, she had managed to open her eyes and see Emma place her hand on the book and the Dire Magnus fall to his knees.

Then Emma cried out and collapsed.

For a time, nothing happened. Then she watched as the boy, their enemy—she couldn’t see his face—slowly pushed himself up and walked to where Emma lay. He seemed to be moving stiffly, as if in pain. Emma had fallen forward, on top of the book, and he rolled her over and picked it up.

Then he knelt, holding his hand just above her body, and after a moment, Kate saw a shimmering rise out of her sister and begin to pass into him.

She was on her feet before she knew it, seizing the sword still planted in the ground, and racing toward the dark figure crouched over her sister. Unlike with the Imp on the beach, her hand did not tremble. There was no hesitation. The sound of the rain muffled her footsteps, but perhaps he sensed her approach, for he rose and turned just as Kate reached him, having time only to hold out his hand, for her to meet his eyes, and hear him say—

“Kate—”

—and she drove the sword through his chest. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

A Promise Kept, a Promise Made

Michael stood on the jetty, waving at the ship that was carrying away the last of the expanded army, in this case a clan of burly Bavarian cave dwarves, several of whom, Michael had noticed, had thick green moss growing from their beards.

Well, that’s it, Michael thought. So much for my military career.

It had not taken the army long to disperse; it had only been a day since the battle had ended, a day since the Dire Magnus’s forces had scattered and been destroyed, and already all the various factions and clans and races had drifted away, and the first of Loris’s displaced families had begun to return. Even now, boats laden with homeward-bound refugees were maneuvering past the two giants who stood waist-deep in the harbor, clearing away the ships that had been sunk during the battle.

Behind him, King Robbie’s dwarves were busy rebuilding the blasted-out sections of the city wall. The dwarves were providing their work and masonry expertise free of charge, which Michael thought was very generous of them, though he’d privately cautioned King Robbie that if you simply gave away high-quality craftsmanship, people would start to take it for granted. “Well, lad,” the dwarf king had said, “I think this time we’ll let that pass.”

Fair enough, Michael thought, I warned him.

Michael knew too that Wilamena, having been returned to perfect, glowing health by a team of elfish physicians, was going around the damaged city on a personal “beautification program,” which basically entailed her walking around and smiling at people.

The air was warm, and Michael took a deep breath, grateful that the towers of black smoke from the fires that morning, when the army had incinerated the bodies of the dead Imps and trolls (apparently necessary for public health reasons), had been carried away by the sea breeze.

A new day. People were getting on with their lives.

It was probably good, Michael thought, that so few of them were aware of the truth.

“Michael!”

He turned, knowing whom he would see coming down the jetty. But it made no difference; the earth still seemed to shift under his feet. It was the same every time he saw his father, or his mother, for that matter. Like Wilamena, they were both fully recovered from their wounds—the two old wizards, Jake and Beetles, despite spending most of their time insulting each other, had turned out to be remarkably capable healers. But it wasn’t his parents’ magically restored health that so unmoored Michael; it was the simple fact that they were here with them, that this was real and not a dream.

“She’s awake,” his father said. “Emma’s awake.”

—

Emma had woken to find herself in a bed with cool, clean sheets, in a light-filled room, and her first realization had been that she was alive, and the way she had known this was that her entire body was one giant, aching bruise.

So that was the first thing. The second realization was that someone was sleeping in the chair beside her bed, and she’d almost said Kate’s name before she saw that the person was not, in fact, her sister. Not unless Kate had suddenly aged twenty-five years.

This had led to her third realization, of who the woman in the chair had to be.

Then her mother had opened her eyes.

Throughout her childhood, Emma had imagined, just as Kate and Michael had imagined, what the reunion with their parents would be like. As Emma had had no memory of her parents, her mother and father had always presented themselves as generic, loving blobs. But she’d imagined what they would say. The various gifts they would bring. How she would wring from them the promise of a dog. There were a million different scenarios, most involving cake, tears, and a mountain of presents.

In the end, what happened was that she and her mother had simply lunged for each other at the same moment, sobbing. And then her mother called, “Richard!” and her father ran in from the balcony and joined the hugging. After a few moments, and after all the expected exclamations and queries—“It’s really you!” “We were so worried!” “Are you sure you’re okay?”—and her mother explaining how Jake and someone else (Bug? Was that right?), a pair of old wizards they’d befriended, had fixed the wound in her hand—there were only faint, matching scars on Emma’s palm and the back of her hand as evidence—her father had kissed her and hurried out to find Michael.

Alone with her mother—who continued to alternate between hugging Emma and holding her back to look at her—Emma had finally been able to register the fact that the magic of the Reckoning was gone. On some level, she’d known it the moment she’d woken, but the appearance of her mother and father had pushed the knowledge to the edges of her mind. Only, something about it didn’t make sense. But before Emma could put her finger on what that something was, her father returned with Michael.

Emma was sitting there, letting her mother hold her hand, and she almost laughed, seeing her father and brother together, they looked so much alike.

“Michael!” she cried, and ran and threw her arms around his neck. “Look! It’s…” And though she couldn’t quite say “Mom and Dad,” he understood.

“But where’s Kate?” she asked. “Why isn’t she here?”

Emma saw Michael glance at their mother, who shook her head.

“You’d better sit down,” Michael said. “I can tell you the whole story.”

—

Michael began at the moment of their parents’ appearance on the beach, saying how he’d seen them both struck down by arrows. They’d been carried to the convalescent tent, and Michael explained how he’d followed them there and had been about to use the Chronicle’s magic to heal them, only before he could, both his spirit and the magic were taken from him.

“I know,” Emma said. “I mean, I know why.”

“You do? That’s great. I was hoping you would.”

“But tell your side first.”

So he went on, saying how he was there in the tent, their parents both unconscious, and how everyone, King Robbie, King Bernard, everyone was yelling and arguing about what to do, when he’d felt his spirit return.

“It was like I was all empty and cold inside; I’d never felt so awful. And then, I don’t know, I was filled almost with light or something.”

“Yeah,” Emma said. “I know that feeling.”

And there’d been a great cry from near the city wall, and King Robbie had shouted that all the Imps and trolls were fleeing, while the morum cadi were simply dissolving where they stood, as if the power that had fed them was cut off. And Michael said he had known, instantly, that Emma was back. Michael had left their mother and father with Jake and Beetles and told King Robbie that he had to get to the Citadel, and the dwarf king had shouted for guards and they had joined the army that was streaming through the hole in the city wall, the Dire Magnus’s army evaporating before them, and Haraald and Captain Anton had been at his side as well, and together, they had run from the harbor all the way to the Rose Citadel, and they hadn’t stopped running until they’d reached the center of the Garden.

“And that was where we found you. Just lying there, unconscious.”

“Can you tell us what happened, honey?” Clare said. “Or are you hungry? Do you need to eat something first?”

“I’m okay. But didn’t Kate already tell you everything?”

“We’d like to hear it from you,” Richard said.

“Sure,” Emma said, though she was now wishing she’d asked for a cheeseburger or something; she was starving. “I probably can tell it pretty good, leave out the boring bits. But when did you get here?”

“It’s a long story,” her mother said. “Gabriel found us. He told us where you were. But he—this will be hard to hear—”

“He’s dead,” Emma said quietly. “I know.”

“He died defending us,” her father said, “while we were hunting down the end of the prophecy.”

“That’s what we were bringing here,” Clare said. “Pym thought it was the secret to saving your lives.”

“But we didn’t need it! We did it on our own! We killed the Dire Magnus!” Emma paused, struggling to recall exactly what had happened in the Garden. “I mean—it’s over, right? The Reckoning isn’t in me anymore! Is the Chronicle in you?”

Michael shook his head. “No.”

“Without a doubt, what you all did was incredible,” her father said. “But we’re still putting together the pieces. We need to hear your story. From the beginning.”

Emma gave in; she didn’t want to fight. Indeed, she didn’t think she wanted to fight ever again, and she started telling them how she had returned from the world of the dead, carrying the Reckoning with her—“What was it like?” Michael said. “The world of the dead?”

Emma opened her mouth to answer, to tell him about the walkers, about Dr. Pym, about the carriadin and the cave in the cliff, how the Dire Magnus had been consuming the souls of the dead, about Gabriel, and found she couldn’t. She wasn’t ready.

“It’s okay,” their mother said. “Just tell the parts you can.”

So Emma told about finding Kate in the Garden, and how the boy, the Dire Magnus, had come upon them, and he’d offered her a chance to save her and her brother’s and sister’s lives by taking on their spirits, and she’d agreed, but once he’d taken Kate’s and Michael’s—

“That’s what I felt,” Michael said. “That’s what happened.”

—she had tried to kill him with the Reckoning, which she guessed made her kind of a liar, but you’re allowed to lie to totally evil people, right? And she’d started peeling away the spirits from all the other incarnations of the Dire Magnus and sending them back to the world of the dead, and then…

“What?” Michael prompted.

“I don’t know; it all went black. But I must’ve killed him. I mean, we won the battle. And now everything’s fine!”

“Not exactly,” her mother said. “You see, the Books—”

“Were tearing apart the world! But we destroyed them! I destroyed them! They were in him, and I—”

Emma fell silent. It had occurred to her why the magic of the Reckoning being gone didn’t make sense. While it was logical that Michael wouldn’t have the Chronicle, as both it and the Atlas had been transferred to the Dire Magnus, the Reckoning had stayed in her. She’d held on to her spirit. So what had happened? Where had the magic gone?

“That’s the thing,” her father said. “It seems that whatever the Books were doing, it’s just gotten worse. I hate telling you this after everything you’ve done, but Hugo Algernon, Magda von Klappen, all the magicians assure us it’s so. They feel the tearing in a way that we don’t.”

“You can see the effects,” Michael said. “Down by the water, there’ve been dead fish washing up all morning. Dozens of them. People think it’s because of the battle, but Dr. Algernon said it’s the Books.”

“But I killed the Dire Magnus!” Emma cried, clinging to the idea that this should’ve somehow fixed everything, even though it didn’t explain what had happened to the Reckoning. “I know I did! I killed him!”

“Well,” Richard said slowly, “we’re not completely sure he is dead.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“He’s gone,” Michael said. “Vanished.”

Emma stood up. She had a terrible, awful, sick feeling. “Where’s Kate? I want to see her now. Where is she?”

“Emma”—her mother took her hand—“when Michael found you in the Garden, you were alone. Kate and the Dire Magnus, they’re both missing.”

—

Kate knelt beside the stream and tilted the bucket till it was full, the gurgling of the water the only sound to be heard on the mountainside. Then she leaned down and drank, mouthful after mouthful of cold, clean water. When she was done, she stood and looked out over the mountains. The sun was setting. Soon, it would be dark, and much colder; she would make a fire. She hadn’t during the day for fear that someone might see the smoke.

Kate searched the sky, but there were no birds to be seen.

As she walked back along the path, she wondered again why she had chosen this place of all places. But there had been so little time to decide. Everything had happened so fast. She kept replaying the scene in her mind….

Sword in hand, she had been charging forward when Rafe had turned, and then the tip of the sword had been at his chest, her momentum carrying her relentlessly onward, the blade so sharp there’d been almost no resistance. He’d staggered back, collapsing against the tree. Instantly, all her anger had melted away. She’d screamed his name, the sword dropping to the ground, and rushed to his side, pressing her hands against the wound in his chest, sobbing—

And she’d seen a shimmering rise from his body and she saw and felt it pass into her, filling her up, warming her, and she knew it was her own spirit returning, that it was returning because Rafe was dying, and she’d watched two more shapes rise from his body and one drift toward Emma and another—Michael’s spirit, it had to be—rise up out of the Garden, vanishing into the darkness.

“Please,” she’d begged, “please don’t die.”

And then she’d seen another shimmering form, and there had been something about it, some emanating malice, that had made Kate shrink back in revulsion and fear, and then it too rose up and was gone.

And Kate had still been staring after it when she’d felt a hand touch her own.

“Kate…”

He’d sat up, getting slowly to his feet, and she’d risen as well, too stunned to speak, and they’d stood there, she looking at him, he at her, the rain drenching them, and she’d known, with every fiber of her being, that it was him, only him, and then he’d stepped forward and kissed her.

He’d said, “I’ve waited a hundred years for that kiss.”

“Rafe…how…”

“Your sister stripped away the spirits of each Dire Magnus that came before me. All save the first one. He wouldn’t let go. Till you stabbed me through the heart. I should’ve died, only the Chronicle wouldn’t let me. It had bonded with my spirit. But he couldn’t hold on. His spirit was pulled into the world of the dead. It’s over.”

Then he’d looked off, as if seeing beyond the confines of the Garden and Citadel. “Your parents are here. They’re in the harbor with Michael.”

“Are they okay?”

“Yes.”

“What is it?” For there was a strange expression on his face.

“Your parents discovered something and told your brother. I learned about it when I took on his spirit. I wouldn’t have known otherwise. Though it makes sense.”

“Tell me.”

“Not now.” His eyes were closed. “It’s amazing, the power of the magic, the sweep and depth of it. And it’s all in me. Even this”—he’d held up the small black book—“is just a book.” Then he’d lowered it, saying, “Your friends are near. I have to go.”

“But it’s over!”

“The others won’t trust me. They don’t…”

He hadn’t said it, but she’d known what he’d meant: they didn’t love him.

“I’m coming with you.”

“No.”

“Yes. I’m coming with you.”

“Kate—”

She’d glanced at Emma on the ground, still unconscious. “Is she okay?”

“Yes. So’s your brother. He and the others will be here any moment.”

She’d stepped closer. “I believed in you when no one else did. You owe me this.”

He’d stared at her then as the rain sheeted down. Finally he’d nodded and taken her hand. “Think of somewhere safe.”

And the ground had disappeared beneath her feet.

—

Kate found Rafe sitting on a bench in front of the cabin, gazing out over the valley. He had on a set of well-worn clothes he’d found in the cabin, and as she approached, he rose, took the bucket from her, and placed it on the ground.

“It really is beautiful here. I’m glad you chose this place.”

Then he took her hand and drew her down beside him.

When Rafe had told her to think of somewhere safe, she’d known he’d meant somewhere they could hide, and the first place that had come to mind had been Gabriel’s cabin, outside of Cambridge Falls. Perhaps she’d thought of it because of Gabriel’s sword, lying in the clearing under the tree. But whatever the reason, the cabin turned out to be the perfect choice—alone on the mountainside, with no one nearby to disturb them. At least, she hoped that was the case. They’d found the cabin well-provisioned, making Kate suspect that it was now used by people from Gabriel’s village. So far, though, no one had stopped by.

They had arrived just after dawn, one moment standing in the darkness and storm in the Garden on Loris, the next here, the sun rising over the mountains, the air cool and still and heavy with mist. Then the release that had been building for days had finally come, and Kate had collapsed against him, sobbing. He’d half led, half carried her into the cabin, and they’d lain together on the bed where she’d slept with Michael and Emma years before, and he’d held her as she cried. Neither of them had spoken, content just to lie there, long after her tears had stopped.

It had been midday when they’d finally risen, impelled by hunger and thirst, and they’d found food in the cabin, and Kate had made her first trip to the stream. Alone, she had allowed herself to think about her brother and sister, about her parents, to wonder if they were okay—Rafe had promised they were—and to hope that they weren’t worrying about her, though she knew they must be.

Neither had yet mentioned the future, as if by not doing so, the future wouldn’t exist, and there would only ever be this present. They had spent the day wandering together in the woods, never straying far from the cabin. Kate had imagined they looked like any normal boy and girl, and there were moments, like now, sitting beside him, his hand solid and warm in hers, that she could almost convince herself that was true.

If only it hadn’t been for the birds.

She and Rafe had been returning to the cabin when they’d heard a great rushing that had grown louder and louder. They had climbed a large rock in a clearing and looked out over the trees to see a dark curtain being drawn across the sky. As the massive flock had come overhead, the sun had been blotted out, and all around them, birds had launched themselves out of the trees to join the migration.

It had taken more than an hour for the flock to pass, but even that had only been the beginning. All afternoon, they had watched animals—bears and deer and foxes and raccoons—moving through the forest in the same direction as the birds, as if heeding some silent alarm.

Kate knew what it meant, and knew Rafe knew, but neither spoke of it.

We’re together now, she told herself. That’s all that matters.

After the sun had set, the temperature dropped quickly, and she and Rafe rose from the bench and went inside. Rafe lit the fire, and together they made a stew out of the carrots and onions and salted meat they’d found in the cabin’s hutch, adding in sliced bits of ginger and sprigs of parsley from jars in the cupboard. While it cooked, Rafe asked her to tell the story of the first time she and Michael and Emma had come to Cambridge Falls, and she told about leaving Baltimore on the train, arriving at the house, finding the Atlas, being captured by the Countess, escaping, fleeing from the wolves, how Gabriel had saved them and brought them here through the rain….

She stopped and looked at him.

“You must already know all this.”

“I like hearing you tell it.”

They ate sitting on the hearth, shifting as the heat from the fire became too great. When she finished the story, she was silent for a moment, then looked at him, the shadows and light moving over his face.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“What was it like?”

She didn’t explain what she meant, but he understood.

“It was like I was pushed down deep inside myself. Like I was watching the world through someone else’s eyes.”

“Like you were a puppet.”

He shook his head. “No. I mean, partly, yes. But I was also the Dire Magnus. It’s important you know that. Those other voices in my head, they urged me to do things, pushed me, but they played on things that had always been there: anger, bitterness, hunger for power and revenge. All that was in me already.”

Kate looked down for a long moment, and when she lifted her gaze, her eyes glistened in the firelight. “But love too. That was in you.”

He nodded. “Yes. That too.”

He set his bowl on the hearth and leaned toward her. “I can’t stay much longer.”

She shook her head, not so much arguing as refusing to listen, as if by talking about what was coming, he had broken some compact between them.

He took her hand. “You know what the Books are doing. The fact that the magic is in me instead of in you and your brother and sister hasn’t changed what’s happening to the world. You saw the birds. The animals. They sense it too. Things are coming apart.”

“Hugo Algernon said that maybe there’s a way—”

“There isn’t. Remember I said that your parents had found out the end of the prophecy?”

Kate looked up; she couldn’t help herself.

“I told you in the Garden, I learned about it when I took on Michael’s spirit. The prophecy says that three will become one. Three Books in one; three Keepers in one. And it says the Final Keeper must die to heal the world. Otherwise…”

“Otherwise what?!” Kate said furiously. “The world’s going to end?! I don’t believe it! And I don’t care! It’s not fair! Not after everything!” She stood, flinging her bowl across the cabin. “I don’t care! I can’t—I can’t…”

But she couldn’t even finish her statement.

Kate let him hold her then, and time passed. All day, she’d tried not to think about the power of the Books being inside him, and how that included the power of the Reckoning. Did that mean all he had to do was wish himself dead, simply think it, and it would be so? She hated the idea of him having that power.

“Kate…”

She sat up, turning to face him. He was staring at her intently.

“Do you understand what Emma did in the world of the dead?”

“She…gave the dead back their memories.”

“But do you understand what that means? Now, when someone dies, they carry with them all the love they had in life. Forever. It’s a great, great thing.”

“Why’re you telling me this?”

“Because it’s important you know it. What happened to your locket?”

“The chain broke. But—”

“Show me.”

She paused just a second, then reached into her pocket and pulled out the locket and chain. Rafe pressed the broken links between his fingers, and when he opened them, the chain was whole again. He slipped it over her head, and she felt the familiar weight settle on her chest.

“Do something for me,” he said.

“Anything.”

“That locket, it always made you think of your mother, the promise you made?”

“Yes.”

“And you kept your promise. Your brother and sister are safe with your parents. So maybe now, when you wear it, you can think of me.”

Kate turned away. Tears ran down her cheeks and fell into her lap.

He took her hand. “Promise me.”

And she nodded and said, quietly, “Yes, I promise.” Then she gripped his hand with all her strength and looked at him, her vision blurry with tears. “Isn’t there anything I can do? There has to be something!”

“There is,” he said. “You can live.”

—

All day, there had not been a cloud in the sky, and so when the storm came, it came without warning. Rain beat against the side of the cabin, the windows and doors shuddered in the gale, the wind screamed down the chimney and scattered ashes across the room. It had seemed to Kate that this was the same storm that had been over Loris the night before, that the storm had somehow followed them here.

She’d resolved not to fall asleep; she would stay awake as long as she had to, she would not lose a single moment, and she wondered later if Rafe had done something to make her sleep, or if the days of struggle and strain had finally caught up to her. She had a vague memory of being carried to bed.

When she woke, the cabin was filled with sunlight, the storm had ended, and all was still and peaceful. She looked at Rafe beside her, then rose and walked outside, glancing on her way at the black leather book on the table.

She sat down on the bench. The morning was cool, and she closed her eyes and listened to the birds, all across the mountainside, calling the new day.

It had been his choice in the end; the power had been his, and he’d used it to save them all, to save her. She tried to keep that thought in mind.

But inside her was an emptiness she had never imagined possible.

She was not surprised when, a while later, she heard noises and looked to see Michael and Emma emerging from the trees. She stayed where she was, waiting till they got to the cabin and she could take them inside and show them where Rafe’s body lay. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Goodbye, Farewell

Kate chose to bury Rafe close by the cabin, in sight of the bench where they had sat on that last day and watched the sun sink below the mountains.

And she stayed with him all night in Gabriel’s village while Granny Peet prepared his body for burial, cleaning his hands and face, combing his hair, whispering blessings. It had been Granny Peet, of course, who had sensed her and Rafe’s presence at the cabin and spread the word that had drawn the others. In the end, Kate was glad that she was not alone, and Emma, Michael, her mother and father, they all took turns sitting with her throughout the night. In the morning, with the help of Robbie McLaur and his dwarves, they carried Rafe back up the mountain to where the grave had already been dug. The only ones in attendance were Kate and her family, Granny Peet, Hugo Algernon, King Robbie and his dwarves, and Princess Wilamena, who was dressed almost demurely in black silk.

Once he was laid in his coffin, Kate placed the Reckoning on Rafe’s chest, beneath his folded hands. Then she stepped back as the lid was settled into place and the nails hammered home. With her mother and Emma beside her, she watched as the coffin was lowered into the ground.

They spent that night as well in Gabriel’s village, eating dinner in the tribe’s main building. Michael knew many of the men to nod to, having fought alongside them during the battle. They slept—though Kate did not sleep—in a cabin given over to their family, and though no one said anything directly, it felt strange to Kate, and she knew it must’ve been strange for Michael and Emma, to be spending the night under the same roof as two adults they scarcely knew, even if they were their mother and father. But her mother seemed to sense it, for as she kissed her good night, she whispered:

“I’m sorry about this. It will get better.”

“What will?” Kate asked.

“Everything.”

The next day, Hugo Algernon left, as did Wilamena, though she promised to return as soon as possible, and so there was only Kate, her family, Granny Peet, and King Robbie, who came dressed in his finest armor, and a few attendant dwarves when they climbed the mountain to bury Gabriel in the grave that had been dug alongside Rafe’s.

Gabriel’s body had been recovered from the village on the Arabian Peninsula, and Emma placed his sword, brought from the Garden on Loris, in the coffin beside him. After the coffin was lowered into the ground, Granny Peet asked Emma if there was anything she wanted to say.

“No,” Emma said, “I already told him.”

And King Robbie himself filled in the grave, and it was done.

Their parents and Granny Peet and the dwarf king all moved off, and Kate stood with her brother and sister beside the pair of fresh graves, and though none of them spoke, Kate thought—and she imagined Michael and Emma thinking the same—of how both Gabriel and Rafe had died for them, and that was a thing impossible to repay.

That afternoon, after saying goodbye to Granny Peet and thanking her for everything, they followed Robbie McLaur over the mountains to the house in Cambridge Falls, the house where they had first found the Atlas, where they had met Dr. Pym. It was perhaps a strange place to return to, but none of them, neither the children nor their parents, were quite ready to reenter the real world.

Once in sight of the house, the dwarf king said his farewells, hugging each of the children and kissing them on both cheeks, assuring them they would always be welcome in his kingdom and inviting them to return as often as they liked and more often still. Then, shaking hands with their father and bowing to their mother, he walked off into the woods and was swallowed by the gathering dark.

Kate, Emma, Michael, and their parents walked on to the house, where they found Abraham, the old caretaker, and Miss Sallow, the cook, waiting for them on the front steps. After having been hugged and exclaimed over by Abraham and nodded curtly to by Miss Sallow, who had to rub her eyes with her apron because “the blasted stove’s so smoky,” though she was outside at the time and nowhere near the stove, the children and their parents were brought inside, where they found a hot and bountiful dinner already waiting.

It was the first time they had felt truly alone as a family, and as such, it was a vision of the future. Their parents talked nervously throughout the meal, as if trying to fill the silences, but in truth, the children hardly noticed the awkwardness. Being in the house and eating Miss Sallow’s food, they had realized how utterly, deeply, bone-crushingly tired they were. They found they could hardly chew, and soon they were being led upstairs, almost dropping with fatigue, to their old room, which Abraham had made up hours before.

The children and their parents stayed in the house for more than two weeks, eating, resting, and getting used to the idea of being a family. At first, it was strange for Kate to no longer be the one responsible for her brother’s and sister’s safety and well-being; but she couldn’t deny that every day she felt lighter, as if she’d set aside a little more of the weight she’d carried for ten years. She sensed, however, that the day would come when she would miss the weight and wish it back.

Beyond that, those first days were trying for everyone. For as much as the children had yearned to be reunited with their parents, and as much as Richard and Clare had yearned for and missed Kate and Michael and Emma, no one could pretend that the years apart had never happened. They had to get to know each other, and that would take time.

It was easier at meals, which Kate partly attributed to Miss Sallow’s cooking, which was as mouthwateringly delicious and nourishing as always, so much so that Kate wondered if the woman wasn’t just a little bit of a witch. But they couldn’t always be at meals, and after all the years of looking forward to being together, it was hard when things weren’t immediately perfect.

“It’s okay,” Clare assured Kate. Not surprisingly, Kate and her mother found their footing first, and soon the two of them were taking walks in the woods around the house. “Your father and I understand. It’s going to take time.”

It was on one of their walks that Clare told Kate how this was not her and Richard’s first visit to Cambridge Falls. They had been there once before.

“It was just after your adventure here, though before any of you were born. Stanislaus had told us who you were destined to be, what you would do. Imagine not having any children, and then hearing that you’re going to have three, and they’re going to be at the heart of this ancient prophecy. We talked him into bringing us here. And we saw them, all the children you’d saved. We were so proud of you, and you hadn’t even been born yet. That day, Richard and I both knew that whatever life had in store for you, we had to trust that you would be strong, you would stand by each other, and you would survive. And you have.”

It was also during one of their walks that her mother pointed out the locket Kate was wearing, the one she’d given her the night they’d been separated.

“You held on to it all this time.”

“Yes.”

“I’m glad. I’ve always imagined you wearing it.”

“I’m going to keep wearing it,” Kate said, and her hand went to it, clutching it, as if her heart lived not in her chest, but in the small, golden chamber.

And if her mother sensed there was something Kate wasn’t telling her, she let it be.

Soon enough too, Michael and their father had begun to find their way toward each other. It started when Michael apologized about losing his Dwarf Omnibus, and his father had told him not to worry; in fact, he’d heard that G. G. Greenleaf had put out a new edition, and Robbie McLaur had promised to send him one, and he and Michael could read it together. From there, they seemed to be talking about dwarves whenever Kate saw them, and their comfort with each other, their sense of being two kindred souls, only increased. Though once, Kate heard Michael admonishing his father, telling him, “Well, the truth is that elves aren’t silly at all. It’s a common enough misconception, but you should try and get past it. It’s very small-minded.”

Then one day, in the middle of the second week, Kate saw Michael entering the house and his eyes were red and swollen.

She asked if something had happened.

“Oh,” he said, pulling out his handkerchief and blowing his nose with a loud honk, while making an offhand comment about summer allergies (though it was nearly autumn), “Wilamena was just here. She couldn’t stay. Her people are looking for a new home. Now that the Chronicle’s gone, their valley in Antarctica has frozen over, and with the portal to the world of the dead closed, there’s kind of no reason to be there. They’re thinking about moving to the magical quarter of Paris, but apparently, it’s really expensive.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And we decided, you know, after talking it over, that we would just be friends. I mean, I’m probably going to be really busy with school soon, and it turns out her dad’s retiring as king, something about the stress being bad for his hair, so she’ll have to take over…. It was a mutual decision, of course.”

“I guess it’s for the best,” Kate said. But she hugged him tightly, and he let her, while muttering something about wartime romances burning brightly but not long.

It was Emma who had the hardest time with their parents. Following that first morning after the battle, when Emma had seen her mother and hugged her and cried, she had pulled back. It was almost, Kate thought, as if Emma wasn’t convinced that her parents were there to stay, as if she thought that she and Kate and Michael might wake up one day and find their parents gone, and the three of them on their way to the next orphanage. She even avoided calling them Mom and Dad, referring to them instead, when she was alone with Kate and Michael, as Him and Her.

Her mother insisted that she and their father understood. “It’ll take time; that’s all. We’ve just got to prove to her we’re not going anywhere.”

They were more concerned about what else might be weighing on Emma, the ordeals and trials she had gone through, which she refused to discuss.

“We’re not saying she has to open up to us,” Richard said. “It could be to you or Michael. It would just help her to talk.”

But Kate, who knew her sister, insisted that no one pressure her. “She’s been through a lot. She lost her best friend. She’ll tell her story when she’s ready.”

The truth was, Kate herself was worried. Every day, she waited for Emma to come to her, to tell her all that had happened, and every night they went to bed, and Emma turned her back to Kate and curled away, as if closing herself around her grief.

Then, a few days after Wilamena’s visit, as they were all sitting down to dinner, their mother set aside her knife and fork, reached for their father’s hand, and said:

“It’s been wonderful being here. Abraham and Miss Sallow have been very kind—”

“Well,” Richard said, “Abraham has.”

Clare gave their father a look, then went on. “But we’ve been talking, and maybe it’s time we thought about going home.”

“Home,” Emma said. “Home, like where?”

“Home,” their father said. “Our home. Your home.”

Kate wondered what reaction their parents had expected. Probably not total, stunned silence. But the fact was neither Emma nor even Michael—they’d both been too young—had ever really thought of themselves as having a home. Their only memories of the places they’d lived had been years of being bounced from one orphanage to another. And the news that they did have a home waiting for them, and they would be returning to it soon, was almost too large and strange a concept to process.

“Okay,” Kate said, answering for all of them.

“Yeah,” Michael said.

Emma said nothing. But the next morning, she woke Kate up and said she wanted to go back to Gabriel’s cabin, just the three of them, to say goodbye.

When asked, Abraham said he knew the way and could draw them a map, which was fortunate, as none of the children had paid much attention when walking with King Robbie. Abraham also said that if they left after breakfast, they could be back before dark, and Miss Sallow agreed to pack them lunch, though she said that on such short notice there was no way she could prepare foie gras pastries or truffle galettes, so their Highnesses might as well chop off her head now, shoot fireworks at it, and be done.

“Whatever you make will be fine,” Kate told her.

“You’re sure this is okay? I mean, it’s safe?” their mother asked when Kate explained their plans. But she immediately corrected herself. “What am I saying? Everything you all have been through—you can take a walk in the woods alone. Just, now that we have you back, I guess I’m feeling protective.”

“We’ll be fine,” Kate said.

So the following day, after a breakfast of poached eggs, lemon curd pancakes, bacon as thick as sausage, and crispy, buttery potatoes, and after Michael rechecked his map several times with Abraham and double- and triple-checked his equipment (which was more suited to a three-week journey than a daylong hike), they set off.

As soon as they began walking—it was a cool, early-fall morning, the air was clean, the pine needles and earth slightly damp from a drizzle the night before—Kate knew that this was a good thing they were doing, that it was important and necessary, to be out and alone, the three of them, in the place where it all began. And more than that, it was just good to be tramping through the forest; magic or not, Kate could feel something working on her, on all of them.

The children walked in silence, and there was no sound but the calls and whistles of birds, the skittering of squirrels along branches, and the muffled thuds of their own feet. Michael diligently made corrections to the map that Abraham had drawn so that he could show the caretaker his mistakes when they returned. “He’ll appreciate it,” he assured his sisters. After walking for an hour, they stopped on a ledge that looked out over the mountains. They’d gotten hot and stuffed their sweaters into their packs, and they sat there in the sun, drinking water and eating apples.

And it was then that Emma began telling her story.

She began simply, with no preamble or warning, describing what it had been like to arrive in the world of the dead—the hours, or what had felt like hours, of hiking through the mist, her coming upon the walkers. She told them how she’d met Dr. Pym but he hadn’t remembered her, how they’d traveled across a sea and then through the burning, wasted landscape; she told about the carriadin and how they’d guarded the book for thousands of years, and how the first time she’d touched it she’d been overwhelmed by the voices of the dead. She told about being a prisoner and discovering how the Dire Magnus had been consuming the souls of the dead, about encountering the Countess, her body twisted and mangled, and how the witch had helped her; she told how the necromatus had pinned her hand onto the book with Michael’s knife, bonding her spirit to the magic—

(Kate and Michael both noticed her unconsciously rubbing the scar on her palm as she said this.)

—and she told them about Gabriel appearing and how it had saved her, how she’d given the dead back their memories with the question she’d posed and how that question would judge the dead from now till the end of time. She told them how she and Gabriel and Dr. Pym had gone to the last portal, and how both of them had chosen to stay in that world rather than let Michael bring them back, and how she’d said goodbye to Gabriel, standing there on the cliff, and how he’d promised that he would never forget her.

“Anyway,” she said, after she had been silent for a moment, “that’s what happened. And now he’s gone.”

When Kate reached for her sister’s hand, Emma didn’t pull away.

Then Michael said, “So the dead will remember us? Dr. Pym and Wallace and Gabriel, they’ll remember us?”

“Yes,” Emma said.

Kate felt her heart tighten in her chest, and her hand went to her locket. She saw Emma looking up at her.

“I’m okay.” Then she said, “We all are, aren’t we?”

And Emma, squeezing her sister’s hand, said, “Yes, we are.”

Then they lifted their packs and continued on.

The sun was not quite at the top of the sky when they came around a bend in the path, and there, tucked into the shoulder of the mountain, was Gabriel’s cabin. They ate on the small bench beside the front door, and though Miss Sallow’s lunch was no doubt exquisite, afterward none of them could quite remember what it had been. Then they walked over to the two markers, and already the ground had been tamped down and trodden on by animals and looked little different from the rest of the mountainside, which was as it should be, the children felt.

Kate and Michael left Emma alone to say goodbye to Gabriel, while they went and loaded their packs. Emma came back several minutes later, wiping her eyes, and, knowing it was her turn, Kate walked over to the graves. She stared down at the patch of earth that held Rafe’s body while her fingers worried the golden locket. She tried to think of what to say, but none of it sounded right. Finally, she knelt, placed her hand on the still-damp ground, whispered, “I love you,” and walked away.

Michael and Emma had already shouldered their packs, and Michael glanced at her, questioning, and she nodded, not yet trusting herself to speak.

“We’d better get going,” Emma said. “Mom and Dad will worry if we’re not back by dark.”

Kate and her brother both stopped what they were doing and looked at her. Emma smiled awkwardly.

“I know. Feels weird calling them that. And weird knowing that there’re people out there who worry about you. But I guess it’s good.” She was silent then, and Kate and Michael waited, knowing she wasn’t done.

Finally, she said, “I thought giving the dead back their memories would make everything better. But really, it doesn’t change anything. At least not while you’re alive. The people you love are still going to die. You’re still going to lose them.”

Kate watched Emma closely, seeing shades of the sister she’d known, brave, reckless, thoughtless, and this new person who’d grown up in her place, who was working through what she was feeling, piece by piece.

“Then I realized, maybe that’s okay, maybe it’s even okay loving someone knowing it’s going to end, that either you’re going to die or they’re going to die, or you’ll move away and never see them again, because that’s what it means to be alive. That’s the whole point of life. To love someone.” And she looked up at her brother and sister, her eyes wide and shining with tears. “Don’t you think?”

And Kate took her hand and said, “Yes. I do.”

The End