by Kit Alloway
You have to follow it.
The lifeline that appeared before her was Ian’s. She felt an instant of panic, and her hand clenched around the egg, but what she saw was not the future, not the damaged, demented thing Ian had become. What she saw was the Ian she had known before, back in the basement, the night the cabin burned down and she’d believed he had died.
She was standing in the archway they had created, one hand holding Ian’s in Feodor’s dimension, the other holding tight to Winsor in the World. She was listening to Ian screaming, and all she could feel then was his hand and how tightly she was holding it, how she refused to let go, even when he was physically torn from her.
From above, she saw his soul then. As his body landed in Feodor’s universe and his soul came back to the World with Josh, something happened to it. Something not right. A small change, a penknife slit in the fabric of his being, but it would grow, and grow, and grow. She had forced his soul off its path. That shouldn’t have been possible, and it wouldn’t have been, for anyone else. But Josh had no destiny, no path to follow, and so she was able to pull Ian off his path.
In all the universes, she was the only one who could really screw up.
I am special, she thought, and felt bitterly amused.
Josh saw that if she had let Ian go, his soul never would have chosen to haunt and possess Haley. It was, put bluntly, her fault.
But for once, Josh was incapable of feeling guilty. Guilt was a largely useless emotion, she realized, now that she was holding the egg and had perspective. Yes, she’d driven Ian off his soul’s intended path. She had that power. But she could bring him back, couldn’t she?
You can try, the egg told her.
That was the catch, she realized. Ian wanted control, Peregrine wanted control, even Will wanted control, but control was an illusion. It didn’t exist, and what had misled them was the belief that it was attainable.
All we can do is try, she thought.
She saw again the future she had seen with Haley, back in the basement: that Ian’s attempt to control everything would lead to the end of the cycle of reincarnation and the evolution of love. He would ruin the purpose of life and make them all spiritual slaves.
Somehow, in thinking of him, she brought him to where she was, and she could feel the desperate hunger within him, like a terrible wound in his gut, a pulsating pain in his heart. He saw the Omphalos and knew it for what it was, and Josh realized she had made a terrible mistake in bringing him here. She’d wanted to give him a choice, but he wasn’t thinking clearly, all he could see was more power, he wasn’t listening, he was leading instead of following, he was a ravenous wolf looking forward to eating eggs. And as the boundaries of the Cradle began to collapse, and as Josh and Ian were both sucked back into what was left of the universes, and as the Omphalos itself began to descend toward the palace at the heart of the breech, Josh saw Peregrine running toward them. Somehow he had been listening, and it was all power, all that power he had wanted; he was so frightened and so small and he just wanted to be safe, like every child, like every little boy, not realizing that it was his own mind that haunted him, his own mind that threatened him, not the World.
They were all running toward the Omphalos when Josh woke up.
Forty
Something sharp bit into Will’s chest, right at the spot where Josh’s back rested against him. Then he heard her gasp, and he opened his eyes and saw, over her shoulder, the wooden knife handle sticking out of her chest.
Katia shouted something unintelligible and threw herself onto Haley, the two of them skidding across the wet tiles. Josh suddenly fell limp, and Will caught her as she slid to the floor, fresh blood blossoming across the front of her already stained gray shirt.
This isn’t happening, he thought.
“Josh!” he cried. “Josh, talk to me!”
Josh didn’t say a word, just stared at him with her mouth open. Deloise and Whim were screaming at Haley, who had allowed Katia to pin him without a fight. He was trying to say something, but Katia had her forearm across his neck.
Josh lifted her hands, as if to touch the knife in her chest, but they just hovered uselessly in the air. “Lay her flat,” Deloise was telling Will, and she helped him ease Josh onto the floor. The knife moved an inch out of her flesh, and Will realized that Haley had stabbed her straight through, and that the bite he’d felt had been the knife tip cutting his own chest.
“Don’t remove the blade,” Deloise said. “She’ll bleed out.”
She’s already bleeding out, Will thought. He knew from Josh’s many anatomy lessons that Haley had cut between her ribs and straight into her heart. It was a fatal wound.
Deloise was trying to apply pressure around the blade, but her efforts were useless. Will took one of Josh’s confused, staggering hands and held it in both of his, caught between shock and panic. He desperately wanted her to say something; if this was the last time he was ever going to see her, he needed to hear her say something that he could hold onto. He wanted to know that, despite everything they’d been through, she still loved him, that she was dying without regretting being with him.
“Josh, Josh, say something,” he begged.
Through her parted lips, Will could see that her mouth was full of blood. She made a choking sound, and the pool of blood got sucked down the back of her throat as she tried to draw a breath, and then she coughed and the blood exploded out of her—a hot, wet slap across Will’s face. Josh shuddered, once, twice, and then went limp. Her head rolled to the side and more blood poured out of her mouth and onto the tiles, like a fountain that filled and emptied itself.
Deloise screamed. Will couldn’t think; it had happened so fast, so utterly without warning. Katia punched Haley in the face, and Whim cried, “Is she dead? She’s dead?”
Will’s mind became strangely practical then. He wasn’t surprised; his mind had retreated into denial before. Without Josh, I don’t think we have a chance of fixing this, he thought, and he looked around the bathhouse that hadn’t been there a few weeks before, at the people without souls who were watching the scene with confusion while continuing to bathe.
Finally, he looked at Haley, who was staring at Josh. His eyes were frightened, but there was also a strange excitement in them, as if he were hungry for the sight of her corpse.
“Why?” Will asked.
Haley glanced at him, surprised by the question. “She needed to go back.”
Josh sat up and gasped.
Deloise screamed again. Whim screamed, too, and stepped backward into the pool. Even Will jumped back, although he kept hold of Josh’s hand, which was suddenly vital, suddenly returning his tight squeeze.
Josh looked down at the knife in her chest. “Shit,” she said, and pulled it out.
The wound didn’t bleed. Josh dropped the knife onto the floor and coughed, blood spraying onto her palm. “That hurt,” she said, and wiped her mouth on her sleeve.
“What the—what the—” Whim sputtered.
Haley was grinning from ear to ear. Katia, who was still sitting on Haley’s chest, gaped at Josh.
“Are you okay?” Deloise asked her sister.
Josh nodded, coughed again. “Yeah. I’m—getting better.”
She pulled up her shirt to reveal a two-inch horizontal gash beneath her left breast. Beyond the sliced flesh, though, the muscle appeared uninjured. Prodding the wound with a finger, she said, “It’s going to hurt for a while, I think.”
“What the hell is going on?” Whim shouted, pulling himself out of the pool.
Josh smiled then. “The three universes have merged. No one can die, because there’s nowhere else to go afterward. We all just end up back here.”
Whim bent and slapped Haley across the face. “You couldn’t have just told us that?”
“No,” Josh said. “He couldn’t have.”
Will touched the wound in her chest, quickly, like he was testing a hot iron. But he could see the edges closing together, the fle
sh beneath the skin knitting back up.
“It’s like your pelvis, Del,” Josh said. “You did break it when the bird dropped you. But whatever’s happening with the merged universes, it’s frozen us physically. That hole in your cheek is already gone, Whim.”
Will hugged her. Too tightly—she coughed again, but he didn’t care. Apparently there was no more danger in too tight. He just wanted to feel her against him, her physical, breathing form, the weight of her head on his shoulder.
I’m not ready to lose you, he thought.
“I know where the Cradle is,” she said.
He pulled back to look her in the face, and the words that came out of his mouth were, “Do you think I care right now?”
Josh looked a little abashed.
“I’m all right,” she assured him.
Will didn’t know what to say, how to tell her that he needed more than that, he needed some guarantee that she was going to stay all right, needed to hear those last words she hadn’t said, just in case …
“We have to get to the Omphalos before Ian does,” she said. “Katia, let Haley up. He was just doing what he had to.”
Reluctantly, Katia climbed off of Haley.
“And why couldn’t he have just explained this?” Whim asked again.
“You wouldn’t have let him risk killing me, and I needed to go back,” Josh said. “Back to the Cradle, and that’s where I go when I die.”
She stood up, a little carefully, wincing but on steady legs.
“What did you see?” Haley asked her.
She held out a hand, and Will took it.
“I saw Ian. I’m the reason he’s like this, the reason he can’t let go. If I hadn’t dragged his soul back to the World when we accidentally entered Feodor’s universe, he wouldn’t be confused. He wouldn’t be so attached to his life.”
“So what do we do?” Deloise asked, handing Josh a bottle of water from her pack.
“The boundaries around the Cradle are collapsing.” Josh took a swig of water and used it to wash the blood out of her mouth. “We need to get to the Omphalos before Ian and Peregrine do. And we need to go now.”
“I apologize for slapping you, buddy,” Whim said, helping Haley up.
“S’okay,” Haley said. “But don’t do it again. Where should we go, Josh?”
“The palace,” Josh said. “That’s the very center of this tear, so that’s where the Cradle will … empty itself.”
Deloise hoisted her pack onto her shoulder. “I’m ready.”
Josh looked at Will, whose heart was still pounding. “You all right?”
He shook his head. “I guess. If nobody can kill you, then I guess I’m okay.”
“There are worse things than death,” Josh warned, but she smiled at him.
They made their way to the door of the bathhouse. “Which way?” Deloise asked.
They had to stop a random citizen and ask. “Follow the street, turn left at the temple of Peregrine, and you can’t miss it.”
That we can’t miss it, Will thought, I don’t doubt.
They set out at a steady jog, which taxed Whim and Katia but felt good to Will. He wanted to be doing something. He wanted to be helping, even though he knew this was Josh’s show.
Ultimately, it was all about her, wasn’t it? This was her destiny—True Dream Walker or not.
He felt small then, and he wouldn’t have minded being small in the grand scheme of things, except that he wasn’t sure he was enough for her. Who was he except a homeless kid who’d showed up on her porch by accident because her sister ordered a pizza at the wrong moment? He wasn’t magical, he wasn’t powerful, he wasn’t even a great dream walker. He just wanted to help her.
He remembered their first fight, in the high school lobby during the Valentine’s Day dance. I would do anything to help you, he’d said to her, if you’d just tell me what to do.
Well, that he could do. He could listen to her, and do what she asked, and hold her up when she fell. He could be her safe place when the storms rolled in. And if he was only meant to be a footnote, then he’d be a footnote.
He was okay with that. He would be himself; hopefully that would be enough.
The entrance to the palace that they found was different than the one they’d used before, but Josh knocked the guard down with one sharp jab and ran past him. Inside, they sprinted down the frescoed hallways, the dozens of torches casting their light on the gems set into the walls, stopping only to ask directions to the throne courtyard.
“What are you—” a woman carrying a platter of small stuffed birds asked.
“No time!” Josh shouted at her. “The emperor must be warned!”
When they finally burst into the courtyard, Peregrine was already there, sitting in Snitch’s body on his throne, wearing a crown of gold-dipped olive leaves. In the center of the courtyard, a beautiful young woman was dancing for him, weaving her arms sinuously above her head. She wore a toga of deep rose, and her blond hair tumbled to her hips.
Haley released a little cry and ran to embrace her. She smiled and held him close.
“Wait,” Josh said. “Is she…”
“She’s Dustine!” Haley said.
“She’s mine!” Peregrine barked. “I destroyed Death, I got her back, and now she’s mine!”
The smile on Dustine’s face was so serene that Will doubted Peregrine owned her in any way.
“Grandma,” Deloise said, and hugged Dustine.
“Get away from her!” Peregrine barked. “She’s a slave! She’s my concubine!”
“Del,” Josh said, “do what he says.”
Deloise reluctantly obeyed.
“What do you want?” Peregrine demanded. “This is my palace—get out!”
We need time, Will thought. The Cradle hasn’t opened yet.
But Josh said this was where it would open, so they needed to stick around, and Will knew Peregrine was on the verge of teleporting them back to the arena, or to a dungeon, or to Tunisia.
This is something I can do, he thought. I can help keep Peregrine calm.
“We’ve come to apologize,” he said, “and swear fealty to the emperor.”
“What?” Whim asked, and Deloise stuck him with her elbow.
“This place you’ve created, Peregrineum, is astounding,” Will said. “I can’t even wrap my mind around its glory. Obviously, if you created this place, you are in fact, God, and we should bow down to you.”
He took a few steps forward and got down on one knee, bowed his head. “Forgive me, my lord, for not seeing before that you are a living god. I beseech you—let me serve you. Let me be your instrument. Allow me to spend my days in service of your vision.”
“Me, too,” Deloise said. “This place is … so beautiful. I never knew such beauty existed. Please, make me your slave.”
Will, still staring down at the flagstones, waited. He wished he could see Peregrine’s face.
If he wants control, we’ll give him control.
Finally, Peregrine laughed and said, “Now you see! Now the scales fall from your eyes and you see that I am the god of all things and all people! I am the alpha and the omega! I am legion! Bow, bow down before your god!”
Whim and Haley joined them, and finally Josh and Katia.
“Grovel, slaves!” Peregrine shouted, as he climbed down from his block of marble.
Will didn’t actually know how to grovel. He did the best he could, lying face down on the flagstones and sort of wiggling, rubbing his face against the stones. Then he crawled to Peregrine and began to kiss the man’s feet, which was less disgusting than he’d expected because the man was wearing shoes that Will was pretty sure were spun from pure gold.
“Oh, my lord,” Will said, “I am overcome—”
“Call me Father,” Peregrine said.
Will’s stomach turned, but he managed to say, “Oh, Father, just kissing your shoes fills me with such … joy.”
He nudged Whim, who chimed in about how he’d nev
er heard the birds singing until today.
“And you!” Peregrine cried, kicking Josh in the side with his golden shoe. “Have you finally seen the blaze of my glory?”
“Oh—yeah,” Josh said. “It’s … really bright. Like, the brightest.”
She’s going to ruin this, Will thought.
“Like the sun,” she added.
“And the moon combined,” Deloise said, jumping in. “And all the stars—”
“What’s this?” Peregrine asked, as Ian walked into the courtyard, wearing a twisted grin.
“Hey, ugly,” he said. “Nice chair.”
Josh’s fake smile was gone, replaced with a fear that made Will anxious. He had barely known Ian when he was alive, but Will knew that there was something cruel in his eyes that hadn’t been there before.
“Thought you could run off on me again, did you?” Ian asked Josh. As he spoke, Will felt the air shift above them, and a crack of light worked its way across the sky. “You’re a false bitch, you know that?”
“Ian,” Josh said weakly, shrinking into her shoulders, and for a moment, Will got a glimpse of what she must have been like back when she and Ian were dating. Her insecurity, her self-doubt—Ian knew how to exploit the weakest parts of her. “I never…”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’re even worse than this one.”
He jacked a thumb toward Haley, who was suddenly trembling and pale.
The crack in the sky got wider, white light piercing the courtyard.
“Grovel!” Peregrine yelled at Ian.
“Fat chance,” Ian told him. “In a couple of seconds here, you’re going to be the one kissing my ass.”
Peregrine launched himself at Ian, at the same instant that the crack in the sky turned into the burst of a white supernova, filling the courtyard with blinding light. Will threw an arm up against the light, and when he lowered it, the light was gone, and in the center of the courtyard sat a black basalt pillar with a white stone egg on top.
Ian was running toward it, and he didn’t have far to run. Josh was running, too, springing into action the way she always did, but she was too late. Will could see she was too far and too late.
“Haley!” he shouted.
