by Zoe Chant
Ansel turned on Henrik. “Break the spell on the others,” he commanded.
Henrik snapped him a bow with his fist over his heart and then turned his attention to their rapt, enchanted audience. Gwen closed her eyes and held her hands just in front of her. They stood this way a moment then turned to each other with puzzled expressions.
“It’s not working,” Gwen said.
“If I were in my magic form…” Henrik suggested, and he seemed to flow into a huge golden gryphon, filling the living room and knocking the abused Christmas tree back even further when he shifted.
Nothing changed as far as Ansel could see; there were no fireballs or flashing shields. He had to trust that Henrik was doing something, but the slack expressions on the knights and their keys didn’t waver.
After a few moments where the only sounds were the dogs whining and panting, he shifted back into a man. “It is a clever and persistent spell,” Henrik said gravely. “It will take time and care to break it.”
“We don’t have time,” Ansel said flatly.
“Their ornaments,” Gwen said, setting her jaw.
Ansel handed her Henrik’s glass gryphon and turned back to the garage, where he gathered up the last two ornaments. The white ring from Tadra’s firebird lay at the top of the box and Ansel picked it up with the others, desperate for any part of her. I’ll fix this, he thought forcefully. I’ll fix this and get her back.
There was no other option.
Henrik had no luck threatening Daniella and Trey with breaking his ornament and Ansel watched his performance critically. Gwen did no better. Daniella looked worried, as if she was watching a tense moment in a movie, but didn’t even get to her feet.
“Give me that,” Ansel said finally. He took the green glass dragon and ripped the string holding it in the ring. “I’m not screwing around any more,” he told Daniella, and he lifted it into the air. “Cerad has Tadra,” he told her flatly. “And I don’t have anything left to lose.”
She believed him, rising with a cry that set the hair at the back of Ansel’s neck up.
Heather and Rez were next; Heather had been knitting and she stabbed at Ansel with her needles before he could dodge away.
“Oh my gosh, I’m sorry,” she said, when she’d shaken her head clear and he’d caught her up on what was happening.
“I remember most of it,” Rez said, looking around in alarm. “But it is very distant.”
“Robin explained it, but I don’t have time,” Ansel said. “Cerad is at the warehouse now, and if we don’t go stop him, the same thing that happened to your world is going to happen here.”
It might have been heartening, the way that they all sprang into action, gathering their weapons and donning the leather jackets that passed for armor, if Ansel wasn’t remembering Tadra’s last look of despair as Cerad dragged her through the portal. He pulled on Tadra’s jacket himself; it wasn’t a perfect fit, but he had no intention of sitting this battle out, and it was the closest thing he had to armor.
He impulsively picked up the ornaments that had been left on the table, including the ring from Tadra’s firebird, and tucked them all into an inner pocket of his coat, in case he needed to break Cerad’s control again.
He glanced up to see Henrik watching him do it and he glared at the knight in challenge. Henrik only nodded his approval.
“I know it’s the end of the world,” Daniella said grimly to Trey, “but damn. You look good in black leather!”
Trey smiled and smoothed the leather down across his chest. “There is nothing impractical about going to battle well-dressed.”
Robin appeared from the media room, completely unconcerned by the fuss.
“Will one of you otherwise uselessly large people start some pizza rolls before you go out?” they asked, as if everyone was not dressed for a back alley rumble and Rez was not handing large, blunt weapons around. They would try not to harm ridden humans, and had been practicing knock-out and tackle techniques.
Ansel didn’t have an ornament or a key to threaten Robin back to themself with, and didn’t know otherwise how to snap them out of their enchantment. He did the next best thing he could think of, snatching the fable out of the air and stuffing them into one of his pockets.
The knights stared in horror as Ansel zipped up the pocket and Robin struggled and swore creatively.
“We might need them,” Ansel said flatly to the knights, ignoring his squirming jacket.
“Fuck you!” his pocket said.
Hopefully Robin wouldn’t chew their way out in the time it took to save the world.
Ansel gravely accepted a sword from Rez. He wasn’t a warrior, and he didn’t relish the idea of killing anyone, or even knocking them senseless, but he had seen at least one bleak and a host of ridden humans waiting at the warehouse for them, and he would do whatever he had to do to save Tadra.
“Ansel?”
Henrik was watching him expectantly, one hand in the air, poised to open a portal.
They were waiting for his direction, Ansel realized. He’d gone from hound-keeper to hero...and he wondered why he’d ever wanted this weight on his shoulders.
“Let’s go save the world,” he said, and Henrik ripped a portal to the warehouse where their destiny waited.
Chapter 32
Tadra willed her limbs to move and couldn’t.
It was worse than being unable to speak. It was even worse than her long imprisonment in glass.
It wasn’t worse than the grief in Ansel’s eyes, or knowing that she’d failed. If only she had hardened her resolve a little sooner. If only she had moved faster. If only…
Cerad yanked her through the portal and released his iron hold on her, catching the firebird when she might have dropped it from her nerveless fingers. He didn’t bother to catch her, and Tadra fell to her knees. He paused to turn the glass in the flickering light of the warehouse and chuckle. “I cast a spell to make you fragile,” he scoffed. “I did not realize how fragile you would actually be. It doesn’t help that this world is dry of magic.”
Tadra wasn’t frozen any longer, but she was drained, and she feigned more weakness than she actually felt. “You are the fall of the kingdom, and you will pay for your crimes,” she said, knowing that it sounded like the empty threat that it was.
Cerad laughed and tucked the firebird carelessly into his pocket. Tadra watched where he put it, wishing she’d had the courage to stop him sooner.
He left her in the charge of a pair of guards—one bleak, reeking of evil, and one human whose jerky motions reminded her of trying to walk with chilled joints.
There was an innocent under that veil of darkness, Tadra thought achingly. If she had her full power, she’d be able to release them and perhaps gain an ally. But she could only touch a tiny portion of her firebird magic and Cerad could steal anything that she accessed.
She let herself slump down to lie on the cool concrete floor, in every way a picture of collapse, as she watched and waited for her chance, hoping that her strength would renew quickly. Cerad had not taken that much to bring them here, and she wasn’t sure how accurate his sense of how much power she had actually was, so she pretended she was much worse off than she felt.
Robin said that time passed differently for fae than for humans. Something about the way that memories were set down made time stretch and bend with magic. Tadra felt every cold moment as it trudged past, listening to the gathering of Cerad’s army as portals opened and his forces swelled.
She braced herself for the portal to faery, but it was clear that Cerad was being careful with his power use; these portals were only from Earth, a gathering of his forces on this side before he opened the gates to her home world and let the darkness beyond through to complete his conquest.
The tactician in her thought that this made the warehouse a brilliant place for a glorious strike, to take out all the dark army at once, forever.
But there was no one to make that glorious strike. Her shieldm
ates were compromised, Robin was lost, and Ansel…
Tadra felt a hot tear slip down one cheek. Ansel would take them all on if he had any way to get here, with no hope of winning, because he was as brave and foolish as she was. She was glad that he wasn’t here, because Cerad would surely destroy him for fun, merely to make her suffer. She had only one way to stop things now, and she had to bide her time and wait for the right opportunity, hoping against hope that her chance didn’t come too late.
When she heard the sizzle of a portal behind her, at the far side of the warehouse she assumed it was another of Cerad’s allies, a belief that was quickly dispelled by the cries of alarm that were immediately raised. Tadra rolled and sat up, hoping she had enough strength to use whatever was happening as the distraction she’d been hoping for. She gained her knees, and had a chance to see down the warehouse behind her, where a shining portal was disgorging a welcome sight.
Her shieldmates, not in the sad, human lethargy that had muted their spirit, but in their full, glorious faery fighting form charged out, tails lashing and wings spread. Their keys ranged beside them, dressed in their black leather armor. Of them, only Gwen was armed, but Tadra could hear the ring of Daniella’s strong voice, and Heather was already weaving her hands in the air as Rez charged to skewer a nearby bleak.
And at their head, dressed in her own armor, was Ansel.
Tadra felt her heart expand a hundred times. Brave, foolish, beautiful Ansel.
He was holding one of the heavier practice swords, and he ignored every one of the ridden humans who stepped forward to stop them, slapping away their attacks or letting the knights do their work at his flank. His gaze swept the warehouse in search of her.
He caught sight of Tadra just as Cerad arrived at her side, laughing his cold, humorless laugh. “They’re too late,” Cerad said, sending his bleaks to intercept the attack.
He took Tadra by the shoulder and hauled her to her feet. She let herself stagger against him, pretending to be limp and disoriented, and he grinned down into her face. “You have what I need left inside you,” he said, and he wrenched her back to arm’s length.
“Behold, little bird, the end of their world as they know it.” Cerad raised one hand and traced not one but two portals in the air, spreading wider and wider out onto a chilling scene as Tadra glimpsed her world as she’d never seen it, an impossible dark force waiting on the other side to flow over and complete Cerad’s claim on this world.
Tadra felt the power draw out from her bones and her heart to power the portals opening, and she flung her hand out in one last, desperate motion, releasing the glass firebird that she’d smuggled out of Cerad’s coat to fly through the air.
It would strike the ground and shatter, but Tadra feared she was once again moments too late.
Chapter 33
Ansel felt his heart stop when he saw through a gap in the fighting as Cerad lifted Tadra to her feet, and he saw the flash of red in her hand as Cerad started tracing the great portals between worlds with her power.
Ansel knew what Tadra was going to try to do. They didn’t need words, or even signs. She was going to break her firebird and hope it kept Cerad from accessing what was left of her power in time to keep him from opening the portals.
Ansel felt rage and fear and frustration burn through him. Tadra, no! he signed, but she wasn’t looking at him, and even if he shouted, his voice was unlikely to carry that far over the sounds of battle raging between them.
If he’d been her key…
Ansel screwed his eyes shut. He should have been her key. They were meant to be together in ways that he’d never imagined were possible, even if there had been no magic to make it obvious to them. Every part of his heart was fitted to every part of hers, like the interlocking parts of a complicated system.
Cerad had stolen the magic connection, but he couldn’t take their destiny...and love was stronger than magic.
His eyes still shut, Ansel cast his memory back to holding the pieces of Tadra’s firebird back together. He shouldn’t have been able to mend her the way that he did, it defied logic and sense. If he could lay aside the constraints of his mind, let go of his own human limitations...if he could believe that he could do anything...maybe he could.
Something clicked into place as Ansel remembered the drawing he’d made of the four white rings, overlapping in the middle. Tadra’s ring had never broken.
His eyes flew open, just in time to witness Tadra use the last of her strength to raise her glass firebird and dash it towards the ground.
Her act was too late, because Cerad had already ripped a portal open, a shimmering slash through the warehouse, and then a second one, and the great dark host that waited in faery was already gathered—a dire wind preceding it through.
Stop, Ansel signed, and he set his teeth, dropped his sword, and caught Tadra’s firebird just before it could shatter at her feet from all the way across the warehouse. His chest felt like it was on fire as he lowered it slowly to the concrete floor.
It was impossible.
And if he could do that impossible thing…
Ansel remembered the seams of broken glass that he’d glued together, the way they went invisible when the light was right, the satisfaction of fixing the un-fixable things that had always inspired him. He became aware that the heat at his chest wasn’t metaphorical. The inner pocket that he’d tucked the ornaments into was glowing through his heavy jacket.
Robin was still swearing from Ansel’s outside pocket and drumming at his side with tiny feet.
Ansel listened to the battle turn against them as the bleaks from the other side came through the open portals, wispy shadows brandishing black swords, dark hounds howling at their heels. It was an insurmountable host, an unstoppable force, crowding through the portal into the howling warehouse.
Even the three knights and their keys at full power could not hope to keep them back, and Ansel was dismayed to watch them regroup to try. Tadra was limply struggling in Cerad’s grip, and he was grinning down at her, ready to take the last of her power to clinch the victory, holding the portal open against Henrik’s best magical efforts.
Cerad wouldn’t be able to do it if he didn’t have the key connection.
Ansel clutched at his chest where the rings felt like they were starting to burn through to his skin and pulled the ornaments out. The mythical animals were all cool glass, but the rings...the rings were the real magic, Ansel realized. That was why Tadra hadn’t been lost when her ornament first broke. She was entangled with the magic in the unbroken ring, anchored, and that was why Ansel had been able to find her again.
And maybe–just maybe—he’d been able to release her because he was supposed to be her key. Ansel yanked the ornaments off their strings, and returned them to his pocket carelessly as he stacked the rings in his other hand.
These were vessels of the magic of faery. These were the pieces of the broken crown.
It was everything he could do to hold on to the burning rings and he thought he could smell his own singed flesh. They were shining so brightly now that his fingers glowed red around them. He could not tell where one ended and the next stacked on top of it; they were a single circlet of power.
A crown.
Ansel was holding a whole crown, and it was blinding him, but he didn’t dare to close his eyes or look away from it. Tears rolled out of his eyes and he gritted his teeth against the pain and brilliance.
Ansel looked to find Cerad glowing with power as the portal to dark faery grew larger and wider, Tadra struggling like a wounded bird in his grasp. Was he drawing the magic from the crown through his key bond with her because Ansel had unlocked it? Was he only making things worse?
“Break the crown!”
Robin had squirmed free from Ansel’s pocket and was hanging in the air before him.
“Break the crown and the power ends. All of it! It’s the only way to save your world.”
It was the only way to stop what was happening.<
br />
Ansel could destroy the crown and all the magic, leaving the dark forces no foothold in his world. The portals would close. It would protect Earth and seal the fate of the fae kingdom that had fallen. Tadra and the knights would probably be destroyed, their human selves dragged to destruction with their magical halves, and the only magic in the world left would be whatever was naturally here. Robin...Robin would diminish to nothing.
The only way to save billions of innocent people who had no idea that the fate of their world was hinged on a battle in a warehouse in Michigan that night was to sacrifice his friends and his love.
“You have to do it!” Robin cried, battering themself against the crown like a desperate moth; they were too small to wrest it from Ansel and throw it to the ground, but they were trying gamely. “It’s the only way to stop him!”
“Your knights…” Ansel said achingly.
“You know they are prepared to make such a sacrifice!”
It was true, Ansel knew. They would not hesitate a moment to do whatever they considered right.
Ansel lifted the crown, prepared to dash it down, then paused.
This was the hero moment, he realized. The moment he made the hard choice and clinched the fate of the world. The moment he’d always wanted to be a part of. He had to do it, this terrible act with no happy ending.
His fingers tightened hard around the burning glass.
There was always another choice, some out-of-the-box solution. That was what he excelled at, finding the unexpected path. His inability to find another answer was only a failing of imagination, all he had to do was stop limiting his own inventiveness with boundaries of his own making.
Ansel shook Robin off the crown and clamped it down onto his own head, taking all of the power of faery for his own, instead.
He knew he’d made a terrible mistake as the magic seared down into him.
It was too much for a mortal to bear. He was a fool, he was too weak, too human for such power and it drove him nearly to his knees. He was unworthy, unfit. He’d let everyone down, lost his chance to save at least one world.
