“No. You can’t—” I wheeze, head spinning with the strain of holding the hopes and dreams and lives of hundreds of people in my hands and now this on top of it all.
“I’m sorry. For all of it. Let me go now, Cole.”
Still that small hand, outstretched. Demanding something I can’t give.
Except—what right do I have to leave her behind? To force her to remain alone. Forever the villain of the story. Eternally the lonely child who sacrificed everything to bring back what she herself had destroyed.
But the past is gone. It’s time for both of us to let it die. And that means letting it all go—both the past and my need to control the situation—and trusting her one last time. So I don’t stop her when she reaches to take these strange creatures that have come into my life away again.
“Thank you. It wasn’t all bad, was it?” She curls her small arms around Fluffy and Squishy, snuggling them close. Puffy nestles in her hair.
It’s unexpectedly cute. Little brat. “I’ll miss you.”
“Well duh,” she calls back over her shoulder, darting weightlessly out of my reach—and into the heart of the volcano, flames spurting up in her wake.
There’s no time to mourn.
I throw everything I have left into holding the eruption at bay. Flaming chunks of the city batter our misty shelter, each one pressing in further than the last before being deflected.
The heat is unbearable, the smoke choking without the sea or the sky to brush it away. The earth shudders and rips open beneath us without the forest’s roots binding it together. Ash’s quick thinking is the only thing that keeps me from sliding into the fires deep below. Not everyone is so lucky.
I spend the remaining power to its dregs and beyond, drawing more than magic down my web of threads. My hands grow cold and clumsy, but there are only a few strands left to cling to, the crowd long since released lest I reach beyond what I had given them and drain down their lives too.
The fiery reds and smoky blacks of the volcano-rocked landscape fade to featureless grey. The blistering heat slips away, leaving only this icy numbness.
If I can’t protect us, at least I won’t be the last to die this time. Maybe I’ll catch up with Cadence, and ask mom and dad if they’re really hers, or mine, or—
No more questions.
No more thought.
Just . . .
Stillness.
Chapter 35: After
There once was a girl.
And then there were two.
One to wander in the labyrinth of memories and mistakes of the past. One to stumble through the pathless mists of the future. And one dancing through the endless present, forever waiting for the moments her sisters might call.
So really, there were three.
“YOU’RE NOT REAL.”
Victoire shrugs and pirouettes in place, colourful flowing layers fluttering in her wake. Four orbs dance with her, bobbing and pouncing joyfully.
“What are they doing here?”
She catches the flickering one, peeking over its flames of blue and red and yellow mischievously. The ball of fog nuzzles her face while the little wood knot spins excited loops around her feet.
Squishy sloshes over to me sedately, apparently done playing.
“You weren’t supposed to die, too,” I inform the ocean at my feet. “Or are you just visiting?”
“No one’s dead,” Cadence says.
She’s sitting cross-legged on the ceiling, hair hanging down in a ragged mane. It’s not a particularly remarkable ceiling. The paint’s a bit blobby, truth be told.
“You’re babbling. Stop it.” She rolls her eyes. “Fine. I’ll come down if you think of somewhere more exciting to hang out than . . . wherever this is supposed to be.”
Victoire swirls into midair and extends a hand.
Cadence crosses her arms. “Not until she stops imagining us into a cell. It’s depressing.”
Victoire flips upside down and mimics Cadence’s posture, slumping her shoulders and putting on an outrageous pout.
Cadence snorts. Then she giggles. Victoire nudges her, and the giggles turn into full-blown, mouth open, eyes scrunched, red-faced laughter.
“Fine, I’ll come down.” She pushes off the ceiling, flips twice, and lands neatly in front of me. “Don’t tell me you thought she was a figment of your imagination? Not likely, when the best you can come up with for scenery is a bland set of four walls and a blobby paint job.”
Okay then. That’s about enough regret-fuelled nostalgia for me. “Go pester someone else. I don’t remember inviting you to my afterlife.”
“Again. Not dead. You’re free to wake up anytime, princess.”
Victoire nods, shaking her finger with mock solemnity. The fiery orb bobs along with it like an oversized ring. My frustration ebbs. She winks. Has she been working me this whole time?
“If you name it ‘Burny’ I’m never speaking to you again,” Cadence says, pulling my attention back to the newest member of our little flock of weirdoes.
“Where did Flicker come from?”
She blinks. “Flicker? Actually, that’s not bad. For you, I mean. The volcano gave her to me. Turns out she wasn’t too happy at Nine Peaks sending her so far from home like that. Messing with the natural order is totally the opposite of what they’re supposed to be doing, after all.”
“She?”
“Well, it’s better than calling them ‘it’ don’t you think? Besides, she’s really more of a she.” Cadence holds out a finger and Flicker flutters over to perch on it. “Also, she says she’s staying with me. You can go now.”
“They talk to you?”
“It’s a gift.”
Victoire twirls by, gathering Flicker and the other three back into her orbit with a reproving glance. Cadence deflates a bit.
“You’re sure you’re not just imagining things?”
“Are you?” she snaps. “Only one way to find out, right?”
She marches over and shoves me into the wall. And then through it.
“SHE’S GOING TO WAKE up soon, right?” Ravel says.
A cool hand brushes my forehead. “There’s nothing wrong with her,” Ange says. “Just overtired.”
“It’s been days. No one’s that tired.”
“What do you want me to say? She has a pulse. She’s breathing. The kid is alive. Beyond that, it’s not like I’m an expert on the repercussions of being a human shield.”
“Did you ask them?”
“No. It never once occurred to me to check with the other people with strange powers to see if they knew any way to help this person with strange powers. I’ve always been incompetent like that.”
“You could have just said yes.”
A rustle. Footsteps. A breath of air on my cheek.
I can feel the world, raw and grating against my awareness. I can hear it. I just can’t see it. I should open my eyes, right? That’s the obvious next thing to do.
I just . . . can’t quite muster the energy . . .
“Anything yet?” Ash says from further away.
Ash, and Ange, and Ravel? Either this section of the afterlife is better than the last, or maybe, somehow . . .
“Shouldn’t you be able to do something?” Ravel complains. “It can’t be good for them to just be lying here like this.”
Them?
“Oh, that’s right. I forgot to wiggle my fingers and chant the magic words. I’ll get right on that.”
“Why is everyone so sarcastic today?”
“Out,” Ange orders.
“Good idea,” Ash says. “They’re probably just waiting for you to leave.”
“I know I am,” a fourth person says. Her voice is a little slurred. It’s rougher and higher pitched than I’m used to. But the bolt of pure electricity it sends shooting through me not only snaps my eyelids open but has me nearly to my feet before the vertigo catches up.
I grab for the edge of her cot to keep from crashing to the floor. She fro
wns blearily. “Clumsy. Hope I don’t grow up like that too.”
“How—You—You can’t be—”
But that trademark eye roll is unmistakeable.
The girl in the cot beside mine is shorter, with a rounder face and longer hair. Otherwise, we’re identical.
“Told ya no one was dead,” Cadence says smugly. She coughs. “Also: ouch.”
In the background, Ange swats Ravel. “Go help if you’re going to stay.”
He fumbles for water, gingerly sliding an arm behind Cadence to lever her up enough to take a sip without choking. She glares and pointedly dribbles on him.
Ash appears at my elbow. “You should probably lay down again. You were out for a while.”
I let him steer me back to the makeshift cot—more a heap of flattish rubble padded with a couple dusty blankets, really—without taking my eyes off Cadence. “How is this possible? You’re—you’re—” Real. Visible. Also, weirdly, either a lot older or a few years younger than she should be?
Ash clears his throat. “Same question.”
“You two are hopeless. You really had no idea what you had all along? C’mon out guys.” Cadence snaps her fingers, and then groans at the sudden weight of the orbs on her chest. “Cutesy nicknames aside, you made some very convenient friends. When I met Flicker, she insisted on a gift to thank us for helping the fires return home. So they all teamed up to build us this.”
She examines her nails and sighs. “I did suggest a little more creativity in the design. And before you ask, yes, it’s real. It’ll grow, and get hungry, and do all the usual sorts of obnoxious human things. Oh, and Victoire says hi. She decided to stick with me. We prefer to be addressed as Cady, boss, or My Queen and will accept the use of singular pronouns, though the plural is obviously more accurate.”
“Oh,” says Ash faintly, sitting down beside me all at once. “Wow.” I pat his shoulder tentatively.
“Yeah, wow.” Ravel echoes sarcastically. “Great reward. You couldn’t have them build us a new city instead?”
Ange smacks him again.
“What? We’ve got hundreds of people to house in burnt-out rubble and feed with scraps of broiled seaweed.”
We do? “Wait, where are we?”
I haven’t had much of a chance to look around, given the circumstances. But the ‘walls’ seem to be some kind of textured fabric, billowing with the briny sea breeze, open to a murky sky. The ‘floor’ is grainy sand and rubble.
“Home. Where else would we be?” Ravel says with a smirk, gesturing at the makeshift room. “Our own lovely ruins.”
“But—”
“You’ve been unconscious for a few days,” Ash says more gently. “We did talk about trying to move everyone to Nine Peaks, but it’s a long way on foot, and the elders aren’t likely to respond well to a crowd of refugees appearing on their doorstep at the best of times.”
“Not to mention they’re the murdering assholes who tried to, you know, murder us all,” Ravel adds helpfully.
My mouth goes dry. What do we do? Why had we never talked about what came after? I mean, besides the obvious: we didn’t really expect there to be an after. But now there is, and someone is going to have to figure out how to keep a city’s worth of people safe and, like, alive.
“We can talk about this later,” Ange says, looking at me with a worried expression. “You really should get some more rest—”
“Who’s in charge?” I interrupt. “Somebody has to be giving orders out there.”
They exchange guilty looks. Ange is the first to confess. “We kind of told them you were, actually. It was easier than trying to get past what they thought of each of us before. People saw you protecting them. They seemed to figure if you could keep fire from raining down on their heads, your orders might be worth following.”
“I haven’t given any orders.”
“They didn’t need to know that,” Ravel says. “And they still don’t. Like Ange said, you can get some rest. We’ll pretend to consult you and then tell people whatever they need to hear.”
“But you just said they’re starving, and—”
“Nah, they’re just sick of seaweed. And we’re not totally out of supplies. Yet. We managed to grab more than we expected on our way out.” A strange expression softens his features, and he slips one hand into a pocket, accompanied by the faint crinkle of paper. He shakes his head. “It’s fine for now. Seriously, flame. You don’t have to figure out everything right this minute.”
“Yeah, flame,” Cadence says sarcastically—which is more than usually upsetting coming from a face that looks so much like mine. “You can always screw everything up tomorrow.”
Then she closes her eyes and shakes her head. “Oops. Sorry. Habit. We’ll behave.”
I groan and flop back against the blankets. This is too weird. Too much. I was counting on a nice peaceful afterlife, not getting appointed head of a city’s worth of refugees.
On the other hand, it’s not like I don’t have ideas about what needs to happen. Maybe it’s exhaustion talking, but this . . . is not the worst thing to happen to me lately. I’m alive. My friends are alive. The city is destroyed, but a bunch of people got saved after all.
So maybe Cadence got the starring role in the end—but the battle’s not over yet. There’s still more to be done. And somehow, as usual, I’ve got myself all tangled up in it.
When it comes right down to it, I don’t even mind. If anything, I’m kind of excited to get started.
“I’m going to sleep,” I announce. “And when I wake up, I expect a full report of our situation. I want headcounts—make a list of useful skills, too. I want supply inventories. I want the squads patrolling in case any nearby creatures get curious. I want people sorting rubble for anything salvageable. And somebody get me Haynfyv.”
“You don’t actually have to be in charge, flame,” Ravel says. “We just said you were to get everyone on board.”
“Don’t worry,” I say, yawning. “I’ll make good use of your talents too.”
Chapter 36: Beginnings
Despite Cady’s preferred title, neither she nor I end up being crowned queen of the refugees. I think it’s going to be healthier for me not be in the spotlight, at least not on my own. As partial punishment for nearly causing the end of the world, she doesn’t get to be.
Instead, she’s going back to school—Grace and Susan have set up an ad-hoc child-minding-meets-education program in the midst of the rubble. We’ve managed to reunite a few of the stolen children with parents or older siblings, but most were orphaned by Refuge. Maybe we can get to the place where they can be adopted by other survivors, but for now, we’re all operating as one big, not-so-happy family anyway.
The basics—food, shelter, clean water—were secured while I was still unconscious, along with a rough leadership structure mirroring what existed before the fall of the city. Ange represents Underfolk, Ravel has mostly been recognized as the successor to Refuge by its inhabitants, and Sam stands in as the voice of the unaffiliated survivors from the streets. Ash speaks for the dreamwalkers, with Susan and the squad captains for backup. Turns out the Nine Peaks elders’ hostility didn’t sit too well with a number of their people, and my grandmother was all too pleased to bring more supporters our way, even if there wasn’t much they were able to do on arrival. And, by virtue of technically saving the world and accidentally getting named leader of the whole mess while I was out of commission, I’m also on the council.
Actually, as far as the general population knows, I’m in charge of it. That doesn’t necessarily mean anyone listens to what I have to say, though.
“Of course they’ll let you in,” Susan insists. “It’s your home.”
“But not ours,” Ravel points out. “If you remember, they weren’t exactly thrilled when I showed up the first time. Nine Peaks stuck the last batch of survivors in a quarantine camp outside the city walls when we first showed up. What do you think they’re going to do when we arrive on their
doorstep with ten times as many?”
“And that’s assuming we can even move everyone,” Ange adds. “There are some pretty young kids, not to mention the sick and wounded to think about. We don’t have nearly the amount of transportation needed to carry the ones who can’t make the trek on their own.”
“We’re better off moving to the island,” Ash says. “At least they want us back.”
“’Cause sailing worked out so well for you the last time,” Ravel snipes. “No thanks, Sparky.”
“Really?” Ash takes a step toward the shorter boy. “You really want to try me right now?”
“Enough.” I shove them apart to take the center of the small ring we’ve cleared as an open-air council chamber. “Let Kurt finish his report.”
The former Inspector Haynfyv clears his throat, looking as if he’d rather be anywhere but in the middle of our meeting. “As I was saying, upon consultation with experts from the communities formerly known as Refuge and Under, and with the specialist recommendations of our guests from Nine Peaks, the feasibility of restoring a sufficient number of dwellings and supplying occupants with the essentials of life within their previous territories is inadvisable.”
“Which is why Nine Peaks—” Susan starts, at the same moment as Ash says, “So we’ll take the ships, then—”
I motion them to silence, not taking my eyes off of Kurt Hayne. “And the other possibility?”
He shakes his head. “It is far from ideal, but engineers and fabricators from all three populations agree it could be viable. It would take time to construct a new city on this side of the inlet, of course, but there are sufficient resources in the vicinity to maintain the settlement.”
“Here?” Susan sweeps an incredulous hand toward the long-overgrown rubble. “There’s nothing here but sand and ruins. Hasn’t been for a hundred years.”
“Thanks for your input, Gran,” I say dryly. “We can carry on from here. I’m sure your students are missing you.”
She nods, conceding the floor with good grace, but steps into the center of the circle to give me a hug before heading out. Ash straightens at her departure, settling under the responsibility of speaking for the dreamwalkers alone.
Burn the Skies Page 24
