Everafter Song
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Everafter Song
was lucid and more honest than ever. He warned me you were incapable of restoring order to Avelyn. He said you were weak.”
“I believe all life is hallowed,” Imelda rasps.
Markham straightens the crown atop her head. “You think every-
one exists for you. Even my birth, my life, was to give you a greater purpose. But I’m not beholden to you. My life is mine.”
Imelda’s chin quivers. “I love you, Killian. I always have. You’re my little brother.”
He shifts in front of her, lowering the gun to her chest and pressing his lips to her forehead. “I never loved you like I loved them.”
He fires.
Imelda’s eyes expand, her chest blooming crimson. He catches her
as she slumps forward and hugs her against him. “I held Mother and
Father when I found them in the river,” he whispers. “You shouldn’t
have done it, Imelda. You should have told me you were lonely.”
“I’m sorry.” She gasps. “You. Were. My. Everything.”
“I know.” He kisses her forehead and repeats, “I know.” He rests
his lips against his sister’s skin, holding them there as her eyes go blank.
My sword arm gives way, my blade slowly dropping. Jamison gapes
in astonishment, and Harlow . . . Harlow is grinning.
“Change comes through sacrifice.” Markham pushes his sister back
against the chair and rises. “Callahan, I believe you have something I need.”
“My fist in your jaw?”
“Something much more powerful. I overheard you playing the ever-
after song the morning I visited your manor. For years, that song came to me in my dreams, but I could never hear the ending.” Markham gestures at a quill and piece of sheet music on the table near Nightingale.
“Write down the final measures of the song. I’ve written the rest.”
Jamison doesn’t move.
“He doesn’t know the whole song,” I say. “Tell him, Jamison. Tell
him how it’s been eluding you.”
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“He told you that to protect you,” Markham replies. “He knows
the song. Being around you, Time Bearer, has sharpened his awareness.
He hears with spiritual ears.”
“But he—”
“I was afraid to tell you, Evie,” Jamison says. “This was my burden
to bear. You had so many worries of your own already.”
I said the same to him just last night about my spirit jumping when
I was in his quarters . . . “You saw me last night in your room?”
His gaze searches my face, skimming over every feature with care.
“No, but I would recognize your voice anywhere.”
“You two warm my heart,” Markham says with mock sweetness.
He picks up the quill, strides to Jamison, and presses it into his hand.
“Now, finish that composition and I’ll be on my way.”
Jamison stares back at him, unmoved. The prince waits another
moment and then kicks him in his bad knee. Jamison pitches forward
on a pained groan.
I swish my blade at the prince. “Touch him again, and I’ll take off
your head.”
“Threaten him again, and I’ll blow your head off,” Harlow counters.
Markham lifts his revolver to Jamison’s face and runs the barrels
across his chin. When Jamison does not flinch away, the prince redirects his aim at me. “I will shoot her, Callahan.”
“Please do,” Harlow says.
“Go ahead.” I hold myself firm, my feet planted. Dying for the
good of Avelyn is a worthy death. It was my father’s death. My uncle’s death. If it was good enough for them, it’s good enough for me.
Markham squeezes down on the trigger.
“All right!” Jamison replies, standing tall again. “I’ll do it.”
“You can’t,” I breathe.
“I cannot lose you. Trust me, Evie.”
Jamison hobbles over to the sheet music and jots down the end-
ing of the everafter song. My clock heart booms like thunder. Harlow 214
Everafter Song
smirks the whole time. At the finish, Jamison sets down the quill and steps away.
Markham skims the composition and grins. “Thank you, Callahan.
You’ve been very helpful. For this, I’ll let you live to see what becomes of your world.”
He waves his revolver at the two of us, herding us into the corner.
Harlow holds Jamison and me at gunpoint while Markham rolls up the
composition and slips it into the violin case with Nightingale. Harlow takes several slow steps backward to him. They stand on either side of the infinity sandglass, and each sets a hand on the timepiece.
“See you on the battlefield, Evie.” Markham salutes me with his
revolver, then twists the dial on the sandglass. He and Harlow are
whisked away.
I release a shudder I’ve been holding in, then run to Imelda and
search her for signs of life. She’s gone. Dalyor didn’t make it either, but Asmer is breathing. I pat her cheeks and shake her awake. As I help her sit up, she sees her queen.
“Oh, no, no, no.” Asmer crawls over to Imelda and kneels before
her.
“The prince shot her and took Nightingale,” I say.
Asmer sags where she sits, her head hanging between her knees.
“He’s not our prince. He’s our king.”
Markham has bathed another room in blood. More lives lost. More
futures destroyed. And he isn’t finished.
Jamison won’t meet my gaze. Because I cannot decide which I am—
more outraged than disappointed or more disappointed than outraged
that he gave the prince the song—I settle for neither.
“I’m going after Markham.”
“Everley,” he says, “we’re lucky he left us alive.”
“Don’t thank luck.” Asmer raises her head bleakly. “Killian left you alive because he needs something from you.”
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Markham told me he wouldn’t kill me or destroy the infinity sand-
glass. It’s insulting that he put me in the same category as a timepiece, but Asmer is right. I am a tool, and he’s not done with me yet.
“Grand,” I say. “I’m not done with him either.”
“You aren’t going alone,” Jamison replies. His weight is on his good leg. He cuts a piece of cloth from a drapery and wraps his bad knee for support.
“You must stop Killian before he finishes playing the everafter
song,” Asmer says.
“I will,” I promise. “Release Osric from the oubliette. Tell him we’ll meet him at Elderwood Manor as soon as we can.”
I stand back, facing the windows, and slice my sword across the air
twice in a big X. At first, I see nothing, and then iridescent tears appear.
My clock heart starts to spin. Centurion is proving herself to be much more than just a star or a sword. She’s a lifesaver.
“That’s a new trick,” Jamison remarks.
“Let’s hope it works.” I take him by the hand and walk toward the
windows, straight through the flimsy rainbow opening and into the
dark.
The drop is long and filled with streams of light that fade away to
crooked ashen shadows. We land deep in a coppice of sky-high trees. I willed my sword to bring us to the Black Forest, and here we are, standing on the mossy undergrowth in the thick, damp brush.
Jamison bends in half. “Every damn time.”
I give him a moment to recover from his nausea and take in our
bearings. Markham must be somewh
ere, but which direction? I aim
my sword at the woods and turn in a circle, waiting for Centurion to signal which way to go.
“Evie,” Jamison says, “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to lose you.”
I clench my teeth. Doesn’t he realize he might lose me regardless? I suppose I am more outraged than disappointed, and until that changes, I’ll hold my tongue to keep from saying something I’ll regret.
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Far off in the distance, a single note on a violin pierces the quiet.
The hairs stand up on the top of my head, and my sword begins to
vibrate. Markham is tuning his instrument.
“This way.”
I run through the trees, leading with my sword. Jamison limps
a little but keeps pace with me. The music begins, the strains of the everafter song—serious, somber, beckoning. If the song were a person, it would be an old hag singing an entrancing lullaby to her next victim.
Jamison lags behind as I tear through the woods.
“Keep going!” he says. “I’ll be right behind you!”
I push myself harder. My clock heart rises in rhythm to meet my
demands.
Music saturates the forest like a heavy mist, stirring up the air and awakening the trees. Branches sway and roots heave from the soil as the foliage comes alive in a maze of swinging boughs and rustling leaves.
I leap over a rising root and catch my toe, tripping to the ground and tearing a hole through my red glove.
The land roars under me. Everything sways, but not because of
wind. Something silent but strong pushes the branches, a power older than the worlds. I pull myself up and race onward.
Time, be on my side.
I feel a burst of vigor from my clock heart and sprint faster. The
song is nearing its middle. The old hag has cast her enchantment on the forest, and this place of serenity has fallen wholly under her command.
Birds dart up into the predawn sky. The rising sun has begun to
lighten the heavens to a soft gray. Little animals scurry from their burrows and skitter away from the roiling dirt and snapping roots. Boughs catch my cloak and hair. I untangle myself and tumble forward, narrowly avoiding falling in a snag of roots.
A gap lies in the trees ahead. I fight my way out and into a field.
Markham stands in the middle, playing the transcendent song on
Nightingale, distending the air with a leaden pulse.
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A gun goes off, the bullet whizzing past me. Harlow steps into my
line of sight, positioning herself between him and me.
She keeps the revolver aimed at me and plants her feet. “Give me a
reason to shoot you, Everley. I have four more shots, and I will empty them all into your gut.”
“Stay out of this, Harlow.” I step forward. She fires again, nearly
hitting my boot.
“Three shots. Next time I won’t miss.”
“Yes, you will. Markham wants me alive.”
Her eyes shoot daggers.
The music surpasses the portion of the song that’s familiar to me,
the part Jamison played and hummed, and continues into the final
section.
“Harlow, step aside,” I say. “Markham means to enslave humans.
This is your world, and these are your people.”
“My people?” Her face screws up in malice. “These people abandoned me when I lost my parents. I was forced to live on the streets and steal table scraps from rubbish bins and sell secrets for coin. Only Killian cared what became of me. Now I will sit on a throne at his side while your people serve me as their queen.”
A soft glow radiates from Nightingale and spreads out, the texture
granular, like sand pouring from an hourglass. The sand flows off the violin strings in delicate waves, threads of light that sweep out over the trees. The grains of light rain down on the forest, pattering to the ground where they shimmer, and soak into the dirt.
The ground shakes stronger. Dirt ruptures in heaving knolls, tear-
ing up roots and toppling trees. I look for Jamison, but he still hasn’t come out. A tree falls into the clearing, landing between me and Harlow with a crackling crash. I glance at Markham. Then the trees.
I run back into the forest.
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The land is buckling, the ground rising in swells, showering me
with dirt and leaves and twigs. I dodge big holes and blink filth from my eyes.
“Jamison!”
A tree starts to drop toward me. I jump and roll. Lying on my back,
my sword tight in my grip, I gaze up at the trembling treetops. A massive hand bursts out of the ground near my head. I scream and crawl
away as more hands and arms push out of the land.
“Everley!” Jamison calls.
“Over here!”
He clambers over a fallen tree, his face streaked with dirt and sweat.
A hand shoots up from under the ground and scares him so badly he
falls backward.
We sit on the ground across from each other. A giant pushes his
head above the ground. Then one arm, then the next. The giant gasps
and pulls his torso into the air.
Behind me, another giant unburies himself. We scramble to our
feet, and Jamison crosses to me on the other side.
“Follow me,” I say.
Both of us are already running.
We lunge over and around more giants rising from the land. More
trees snap and crack as they fall over. We break out of the forest, and Jamison pulls up short, grabbing his knee. The binding came off while he was running.
“Killian is almost done playing the song,” Jamison pants. “Go!”
I sprint across the field. The last of the golden sand flies from
Nightingale into the forest. Harlow shoots at me. I zigzag away, her next shot closer.
Markham draws out the last note, his eyes closed in rapture. The
sand hangs in the air a moment longer and evaporates.
A beat of silence swoops in, and everything falls quiet.
Then, from deep in the woods—a roar.
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Figures emerge from the craggy sea of slashed flora. They start as silhouettes in the shadows and thud out into the clearing. The giants carry heavy maces, long poles, and battle-axes. I already see a few dozen of them, and more keep coming. They are bigger than those of the Silver-Clouded Plain. Over time, their kind must have lost height, or these beings were selected as their warriors because of their exceptional size.
One of them emerges ahead of the others and slams the end of
his battle-axe into the ground, scaring away the last of the birds. He’s a mammoth, easily twice the size of Sheriff Ramiel. This is the giant from the tapestry over Corentine’s bed. Nothor, the leader of the warrior giants who attacked the Land of the Living centuries ago.
Jamison hunkers down behind a fallen tree. I run for the high grass
and skid to my knees. Markham calmly puts Nightingale back in the
case and picks up the infinity sandglass. Harlow stays close to his side, almost behind him.
“Who are you?” Nothor booms.
Markham lifts the infinity sandglass for him to see. “I am Killian
Markham, helmsman to time and king of the Land of Promise. I have
come to do what none other could or would. I have woken you and
your warrior brothers from your unjust rest and brought you back to
finish the mission you began nine hundred years ago, here on this forgotten battlefield.”
The giant sniffs the air and curls his lip. “You’re an elf.”
“Much has changed while you’ve been asleep. The Land of the
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Living has become populated with humans again. After Eiocha put
your army to sleep, she cursed your kind, locking them away in your
world, and charged us elves to look after the humans and their land. I have worked for many centuries to wake your army so we may restore
proper order to Avelyn.”
Nothor sneers. “You speak too prettily, King. Elves are devious, lazy.
You only want humans so they can do your work for you.”
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“As I said,” Markham answers, forcing calm into his voice, “humans
no longer serve us. Eiocha forbade us to retain them as our helpmates.”
“Then who is that?” Nothor gestures at Harlow with his battle-axe.
“She’s human. I smelled her sweet blood from across the field.”
Harlow steps out from Markham’s shadow, braver with only one
bullet left in her revolver than I would be against these warrior giants.
“Harlow is my queen. She is only half human.” At his nod, Harlow
waves a hand over herself, and her already stunning features peel away to reveal pointy ears, nose, and chin.
Harlow has been wearing a glamour charm? She’s an elf?
“We woke you, and now we ask a favor in return,” Markham says.
“What do you want from us, Elf King?” Nothor squints at them
in distrust. He may be big and scary like the giants from my children’s storybooks, but he is not stupid.
“Any humans who surrender will be mine. So you don’t think this
is a trick, I have a show of good faith. Your army must be hungry
after centuries of hibernation. A village lies just east of here. Go. Feast.
Replenish yourselves and return here by noon tomorrow so we may
march on the city.”
Nothor stomps closer to Markham and squints down at him, as
though deciding whether he can be trusted. He lifts his foot and stomps down, crushing the violin case and instrument inside. The crunch of
him smashing Nightingale into the ground is grisly, like bones crushing.