Pierce was over the moon.
“Brilliant! Aye, let’s do that! Oh, can I ask you something?”
The djinn nodded.
“Will you get rid of these scars of mine?” He raised his shirt to show the knife scars that both Coira and Taisia had made. “Mainly, this nasty one here. I think Taisia would like that very much. And this slash across my neck. I believe I’m through having this identification mark on me.”
“I shall remove all your scars,” the djinn generously offered.
“Sounds grand.” He looked down at the brand on his chest. “Er, maybe not this one, eh? This was a debt payment. If Waves of Strength notices it’s gone, she’ll most likely give me another—on my arse, no doubt.”
“Very well, Father. It shall be so. Are you ready?”
“Let me say goodbye to ol’ Rob, first.”
Pierce quickly found Robin and Maid Marian and bid them both farewell.
“Goodbye, Landcross,” Robin said. “May the life you are returning to, and those that follow, be filled with happiness.”
The djinn clasped Pierce on the shoulder. “Ready?”
“Aye. Here it is, then. I’d like for both you and Vela to go back to normal, and for me to return.” He looked at Robin and Marian. “Was that enough, you think? Should I be more specific?”
“Then let it be so,” declared the djinn.
Whether or not he had done it right, it did not seem to matter. The white glow of the djinn’s eyes once again consumed everything and before Pierce knew it, the glow was all he saw.
“Son, where can I find you?” he called out just before a force pulled him away.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Surprise!
Ron Wakefield sat outside in the garden, drinking tea, and waiting. He sorely wished his dog would return. Ran off scared during the ceremony, he figured.
He had performed it all precisely as practiced. Not a word was misspoken. Ron had done his bit and had done it well. And yet, they still failed. Freya died. He sensed it when the children vanished. He and Freya had always had a strong connection.
Now, that connection was lost.
He took another sip of tea. There was no point in trying to run. Whatever was coming for him would find him no matter where he went, even if he hid under a rock on the moon.
“Ron Wakefield,” called a voice off to the side of the house.
“And you are?” he asked the woman approaching him.
“I am Orenda, Mr. Wakefield,” she announced, stopping by the table. “It appears you have lost the game.”
“How did she die?”
“I killed her. With help, but I stomped her head in. In my opinion, she deserved worse.”
He nodded and sipped his tea. The tea tasted bitter, just the way he liked it. “What now? Are you going to kill me, too?”
“I could, for as an enchanter, you’re not under the Fate’s protection. I believe, though, that I shall grant you a more suitable punishment. I’m prepared to use most of my power to do it.”
“And what might that be?”
She gave no answer, only stared at him. He began feeling strange as if a part of him was being taken away. Not just taken, but ripped out of him as if someone he loved, but who did not love him in return, was pulling out his broken heart. He gasped and hunched over the table, wheezing as though he were suffocating. Ron felt himself changing, growing weaker. Aches and pains in his joints flared up, and his hair turned greyer.
“I have taken your powers from you,” Orenda explained. “You are no better than a mortal person. The signs of age that you have delayed won’t be ignored any longer.”
It was worse than death. For any enchanter, having their abilities stolen from them was no different from taking riches from the greedy, or stealing a child from a loving parent. The emptiness it left inside made him weak and trembling.
“I believe you have something that doesn’t belong to you,” Orenda added, reaching out.
Ron understood what she meant and reached into his vest pocket, shaking as he did, and pulled the Life-bringing Spell out. She seized it from him immediately, and in a flash, the parchment vanished.
“Go home and live out the rest of your wretched life, Mr. Wakefield.”
With that, Orenda turned on her heel and walked away. She rounded the corner of the house and was gone.
Ron gathered his strength and packed up his belongings.
He left Freya’s home, never to return ever again.
* * *
Not since losing his mother to suicide had Archie been so grief-stricken. He and Clover rode in a carriage to St. James’s Walk following Lord Javan on his horse.
It was a long, quiet ride. Every clop of the horses’ hooves drove a nail deeper into his heart. His body was numb, and his mind was a mixture of disbelief, anger, and sadness.
Clover kept her sights on whatever passed by her window.
After this gut-wrenching trip, he needed to go home to Reading and hope his wife was Eilidh again. He was unable to explain it, but Eilidh didn’t act like the woman he had fallen in love with, and he’d had little time to investigate what was going on with her before he left for London to find Clover.
Clover had already stated she was staying behind to find Kolt, which suited Archie just fine, for he could address this whole matter with his wife alone and try to sort it out.
They reached Clerkenwell Prison and a guard escorted them down to where the deceased prisoners were stored. It was a dark place with dirty tiled walls and bloodstained wood flooring. It was near freezing, which helped preserve the corpses, but it still reeked of decay.
They passed by a handful of bodies that were sectioned off by tiled walls. Some were alone on steel slabs with sheets covering them, while a few had weeping relatives surrounding them. Others were being auctioned off to physicians.
After passing by a fast-talking auctioneer with his small group of organ-harvesting buyers, the tall, oily prison guard escorting Clover, Lord Javan, and Archie said, “We’ve had the highest offers for Landcross’s corpse. A famous gent like him . . . everyone wants a piece, literally. We’ve been offered five hundred pounds alone for his heart, eyeballs, and cuts of skin. Twelve thousand for his entire skeleton!”
Archie worried about his sister being exposed to such vulgarity. Even after their talk on the ferryboat, he still felt protective toward her.
She displayed how she was not some fragile glass figurine when she demanded angrily, “Stop it.”
The guard halted and turned, crossing his arms. “I’m sorry, young lady. Did you say something?”
“I told you to shut your mouth,” she retorted in a fiery tone.
“Excuse me,” he demanded with shock and disgust. “Miss, I’ll not tolerate being spoken to that way.”
Clover moved Lord Javan aside, as he was in front of her, and stood face to face with the man. “Stop talking about our friend in such a cruel manner. You will simply take us to him and keep your filthy mouth closed while doing so.”
Her assertive demeanor amazed Archie.
The guard crumpled under the weight of her rage. “This way.”
He uttered nothing more.
At the end of the long, dreadful room, the guard stopped and held out his arm. Clover rounded the wall first. Her somber cry confirmed the devastating news. “No. Oh, Pierce, no.”
Archie went to see for himself. Pierce lay in a black coffin on top of the table. His head lay slightly askew from the hanging. His arms were folded over his chest and there were many flowers lying atop him.
“Landcross,” he gasped. “Christ, Landcross, it’s really you.”
“Let’s give them a moment,” suggested Javan.
“I have to return to my duties anyway,” the guard grunted with a sour look on his face.
Javan and the guard left, and Archie watched with a heavy heart as Clover stepped alongside the coffin. He went over on the other side and touched Landcross’s hand. He felt as cold a
s the room itself.
Clover sniffed and leaned over to kiss Landcross on the cheek. She then rested her forehead upon his. “He’s so cold and damp,” she whispered.
Archie said nothing, for he had no words.
After everything the man had gone through in his life, it was the rope that eventually claimed him. It seemed so banal.
Clover suddenly rose. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” Archie asked, wiping tears from his eyes.
Clover was still for a moment. “There,” she said, turning her ear toward Landcross. “Listen.”
Archie thought she had gone mad until he heard it too: a pop, and not a moment later, another pop, and then a crack coming from Landcross’s neck. Curious, Clover unbuttoned the shirt collar and spread it apart.
“Oh, my God!” she said with a start.
They stood motionless as the swollen side of his neck, where the bones had been broke, shifted.
“What’s happening?” Clover asked.
The scar across his throat thinned out to a thread before vanishing altogether. Landcross’s hand warmed under Archie’s.
“What is this?” he said, snatching his hand away.
“Is there something wrong?” Lord Javan inquired, appearing around the dividing wall.
No one said a word. Instead, they allowed the bizarre sight to answer his question.
“What the devil?” Javan gasped in shock.
With a final pop, the head jerked into its proper place. The paleness of death was washed away and his skin turned a warmer, darker color. The group leaned over as the body’s eyelids fluttered.
Pierce Landcross’s eyes snapped open.
“Bloody hell!” he shouted, sitting up inside the coffin, flinging flowers off him.
Everyone jumped back. Javan pulled his pistol and aimed it at him. Landcross breathed in a long gasp of air as if re-inflating his lungs.
He spotted the gun and threw up his arms.
“Oi,” he said, looking at his wrists. “You removed those bloody shackles. Grand.”
“You’re alive?” Archie said.
Javan was utterly slack jawed and offered no protest when Clover placed a hand on his pistol and slowly pushed it down.
Landcross stretched his neck sideways until it cracked. “Ow,” he groaned, rubbing it. “Aye, it appears so, lad. Ouch. Bloody hell, you don’t feel pain in the In-Between.”
“The In-Between?” Lord Javan said barely above a whisper.
Archie’s mind struggled to catch up to what his eyes were seeing. Only moments ago, Landcross lay stone-cold dead, his soul lost to the world. Now, he was as alive as ever and fully animated as if he had never died.
“How can this be?” Clover asked.
Landcross kept rubbing his neck as he looked over at her, flowers and some petals clinging to his hair. “My son and niece turned into a djinn. To make a long story short, they brought me back to life.”
“Your son, Joaquin?” Archie asked.
“No, the other one,” Landcross answered, looking down. “What the hell am I sitting in?”
“It’s your coffin,” Clover, who hadn’t blinked yet, spoke up.
“My coffin, eh? Don’t think I’ll be needing it.”
He grabbed the edges of the coffin ready to lift himself out, but then looked at Javan and his gun. “’Course, I reckon that depends on you, Darius.”
“Huh?” the Persian said.
“What are your intentions, mate? Send me back to prison?”
The gobsmacked lord only gawked at him. Clearly, this turn of events had made all three of them dumb.
“Darius,” Landcross said, snapping his fingers. “Oi, snap out of it!”
His harsh tone forced everyone out of their stupor, and they focused on what he was saying.
“What?” Lord Javan said, holstering his weapon. “No. No. I am to take you to the Sea Warriors.”
“Eh?” He cocked an eyebrow. “On whose orders?”
“The prince’s. He wants your body brought to their ship so they can bring you home.”
“The prince, eh?” Landcross said, obviously suspecting something. “Tell me, why does he want that instead of dumping my bones in some unmarked grave?”
“Queen Victoria woke up shortly after your hanging,” Archie explained. “She told them what really transpired at the theater.”
“Did she now?” he said blithely.
It seemed that after returning from the dead, nothing could surprise him anymore, not even when Clover suddenly wrapped her arms around him.
“Oh, Pierce. You are alive! I’m so happy.”
He embraced her back. “It’s good to see you, too, darling.”
“Pierce,” she said, prying herself off him. “Everyone knows you’re innocent. Do you realize what this means?”
“That I was telling the truth the entire bloody time?”
“You can go out there and tell your story to the whole nation. You’ll be a hero!”
“Nope!” He held up his hand. “If people believe I’ve gone belly up, I’m more than happy to let them continue to think that way.”
“Good idea, Landcross,” Archie agreed, finally coming to his senses. “Letting the world think you’re dead should keep you safe.”
“Aye. Oi, Darius, you’re ordered to take my body to the Sea Warriors’ ship, eh?”
Lord Javan nodded. “Yes.”
“Perfect. Then I’ll just stay in the coffin and you can haul me out in it. No one will be the wiser.”
“Right,” Javan said, also focusing. “I’ll go fetch some men to help carry you out.”
After he left, Landcross said, “Arch, after Darius gets me out, I need you to tell ’im to piss off.”
“Why?”
“I need to stop by Robert’s place before going to the Ekta. He has a couple of things of mine.”
“Tell me what they are and I’ll retrieve them.”
“Cheers, mate, but I wanna see the look on his face when I show up at his doorstep.”
Although he was grinning, and Archie had no doubt he wanted to scare Blackbird half to death because that was just the mischievous sort of thing Landcross would do, Archie also knew that he wanted to say goodbye to his old friend.
“All right, Landcross.”
* * *
Taisia stood on the beach, listening to the waves lapping over the shore. She stared at the crescent moon and the thousands of stars in the night sky. The warm weather didn’t keep her from shivering.
“Taisia,” Grandmother Fey called.
Taisia said nothing to her. She wasn’t even curious about how she was able to find her standing on the dark beach. Taisia remained frozen in her place as Grandmother Fey came up alongside her.
“Freya is dead,” Grandmother Fey reported. “And she will never return.”
Taisia nodded as if the other woman could see her doing so in the dark.
“I have become Mother of Craft,” Grandmother Fey also informed her.
“What does that mean?”
“It means my protection over this family is stronger than ever. Even after my death, its hold on each of you, and on those to come, shall always be.”
Although Taisia understood little about such things as magic, a great relief washed over her to know that the remainder of her family would be under her care.
“Pierce came to me,” Taisia uttered somberly. “Tonight. I . . . I think he was telling me goodbye.”
“I believe he did.”
“So, he is dead?”
“Oui.”
The wretched pain in Taisia’s heart felt like the stab of a jagged blade. The vision she’d had of her and Pierce growing old together, of him dying peacefully beside her, would never come to pass. Her beloved was gone forever, leaving her alone to carry on miserably without him. How was she going to do it? Why did she let him leave in the first place?
“At least he was,” Grandmother Fey added.
For a moment, she believe
d her mind had played a cruel trick on her. “He . . . he was? I don’t understand.”
“With my new insight, I can see many things. I saw Pierce, and he is alive.”
Taisia stared at the silhouette of Grandmother Fey. She wished she could see her face. “Are you sure?”
“I am. Very much so. Soon, Taisia, he will come home to us.”
A hitch in her throat caused her to gasp. There was no reason not to believe what Grandmother Fey was telling her. Her words poured into Taisia and blossomed with a sincerity that felt more real than the sand beneath her feet. Pierce was alive, and he was coming home!
She cried joyfully. “Oh, Grandmother!”
Élie wrapped her arms around Taisia, and the women held each other while Taisia and Pierce’s children kicked inside of her.
Chapter Thirty
I Think Everything Will Be All Right
Kolt snapped his eyes open and saw the same ceiling above him. He took an abundance of air into his lungs as if it was his first breath. He sat up. He was no longer restrained to the table. The leather straps were unbuckled and hanging over the edges.
Looking at his hands and clothing, he knew he was himself again. On the slab next to him was his cousin, Vela Bates. She had rolled over onto her side, facing away from him, and was weeping.
“Vela?” he said, sliding off the table.
“Go away,” she ordered between sobs. “You and your father have taken so much from me.”
Her statement was unfair, he thought. She and her mother had striven to take much more from him. He blamed Freya for his mother’s death even after everything he had learned as a djinn. To add insult to injury, her plan called for him to completely lose himself and fall into nothing but an existence without a conscious mind. Lastly, Freya wanted to kill his father—his real father—years before his time, robbing him of his own life.
Kolt was about to say all this when he remembered the way in which Vela had been brought up. She had been raised by a woman who had made her believe what they were doing was perfectly fine. The girl, herself, was born and bred to become the djinn her mother had wanted. If circumstances were reversed, he would most likely have been the one sniveling on the table.
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