She nodded firmly, yet couldn’t help feeling another shred of worry: But what if I can’t?
You must, you will, you shall, responded Dorsom.
Must. Sami felt the word echo around her. Will. She nodded again, breathing in each resolution. Shall.
You needs must travel back to the bright core. You have all the courage you need to take hold.
“Yes,” Sami muttered, half to herself. “Yes. That inside place—” She wrapped her hands around her elbows, and smoothed her palms up and down over her arms, calming herself. Contained. Focused. She pushed away stray thoughts or worries—these were meaningless to her now. Instead, there were the voices of the people and creatures she was fighting for, curving around her like a shining banner. She held fast to her determination and felt light begin to grow from within. As it did she seemed to feel some inkling of Ashrafieh as well. Come to me, Sami coaxed, calling to the fragile presence. I’m here, right here.
As the presence collected, Sami moved toward it, holding out her arms in the way she remembered her mother did while cradling her when Sami was very little. She tried to gather Ashrafieh and with her eyes closed and body lifted, she attempted to move them both in an upward direction, but nothing happened. Her arms moved right through her and the presence dissolved into particles. “Dorsom,” she whispered. “What do I do?”
Her loss and grief are overwhelming her, Dorsom thought-murmured. Is there some way you can become like your grandmother for a time?
Under different circumstances, Sami would’ve laughed out loud. She wasn’t some kind of expert rebalancer Flicker like he was. She and Teta were totally different! Her grandmother was a Bedouin warrior who knew about spells and fairies and led caravans across the desert and raised a daughter in Beirut and moved across the world.
And Sami, well, she was still just learning about herself.
How was she supposed to become like her grandmother?
There had to be a way. Sami trembled with effort, trying to bring every aspect of her grandmother into her mind—her long braided hair, her black eyes, her tales of the jinn and the long night marches under the brilliant moonlight.
Then an idea came to her.
Sami began to sing.
It was an old lullaby. She hadn’t ever tried to sing it herself. It was something she’d listened to all those nights when her mother had to work late at her office and her grandmother sang her to sleep. She realized she knew all the words, the sweet, lilting melody naturally rising and falling from her lips, making her brightness glow and seeming to soften the darkness all around.
Yalla tnam Rima…
She felt the shreds of Ashrafieh’s presence return.
Yalla tnam Rima, yalla yijeeha elnoum.
Slowly they gathered, intensifying, taking on physical form as a diffuse light grew around them. She began to make out the Flicker’s form and features. “You’ve come back. I can almost see you!” Sami cried.
“I dreamed that I’d died and gone. Perhaps I did,” Ashrafieh said. “Then I seemed to hear the voice of my Actual, dear Serafina, drawing me back and back. And it was you.”
“Just me,” Sami admitted.
“And so glad am I that you’ve summoned me back.”
Black eyes stared up at her: there was the familiar soft nose, the wide, gentle mouth, the heart-shaped face. This was what Teta had looked like years ago, before everything started to go wrong. The two wrapped their arms around each other and Sami felt Ashrafieh’s sadness start to lighten in Sami’s arms. They rose very slightly in the air. Excited, Sami began to sing more confidently and the grayness around them receded some more.
Yalla, yalla…
They crept upward. “Do you feel that?” Sami cried out, midsong.
“It’s working,” the Flicker agreed with a smile. “We rise.”
Up they went—inch by inch. Once again, Sami started to feel the swirl of touches she’d first sensed under the water when they crossed the Bare Straits. But this time, instead of challenging her, the brushing wisps seemed to murmur, Take me.
Please, me.
Take me as well.
They sprinkled along Sami’s feet and ankles, weightless yet present. “Hello, creatures; hello, my Shadow friends and captives,” Ashrafieh said.
“They tickle!” Sami said. “I never knew Shadows could tickle.”
“I am learning many new things as well,” Ashrafieh said, her head barely higher than Sami’s chest.
“You are?” Sami couldn’t believe anything as wise as a Flicker still had things to learn.
The Flicker pulled back from their embrace without letting go. “I never knew about your Actual heat and sounds—the warmth of Actual blood, and your heart music. I always was curious. And silverous splendid it is!” She laughed, then looked startled. “Goodness me—it’s been ages and ages since I heard the sound of my own laughing.”
They began to rise faster and faster; when Ashrafieh laughed they shot several feet straight up. Sami craned her head back, scanning for some sign of the surface, when she heard Dorsom’s thoughts again: Sami, I feel you growing nearer now. You must gain more speed as you go.
“We’re going as fast as we can,” she assured him.
Faster still. His voice was intent and urgent.
But Ashrafieh shook her head, saying, “I understand his thoughts.” Sami felt them slow a bit. “He means we must gain speed to break free. With the gloaming, the darkness grows denser and thicker. It will settle over everything. I forgot about that; the choking thickness will come. I didn’t remember. I wanted freedom more than I wanted to think.” Ashrafieh sighed. They slowed even more.
Sami wrapped her arms even tighter around Ashrafieh. “Please don’t lose heart. Not now! We’re really moving. I can get us both out of here—I know I can. But I need you to help me.”
Ashrafieh shook her head, trembling, eyes closed. “It’s not possible. Not workable. It was my mistake to feel hope.”
They slowed to a stop, then sagged a bit as the Flicker grew translucent in Sami’s arms. Desperate, Sami looked back up and felt her heart swell. It was very faint, almost invisible, but there was one tiny speck of light, less than a pinprick, far over their heads.
I’m waiting for you, Dorsom thought. The surface is so near now!
At the sound of his thoughts, a surge of hope jolted through Sami. Suddenly radiance surrounded them in the pit. Ashrafieh squinted and twisted her head away. “By Rotifer! Your eyes.”
Sami blinked slowly, seeing shadows sweep through the brightness, then retreat. The Ifrit light must have returned to her eyes, turning on like a photosensitive battery. Everywhere she looked was lit up with two tunnels of light, bright as day. She had to take care not to look too directly at Ashrafieh, whose eyes were no longer used to seeing light. Instead, she turned her gaze upward and the beams created a glittering pathway straight over their heads.
“Balanced and beauteous!” Ashrafieh cried, shielding her eyes. “I see it—the starry night.”
Sami kept her mind focused only on escape. She didn’t worry about the Nixie, the gloaming, or the Shadow soldiers. She and Ashrafieh were still deep in the void—her illuminated vision made that much clear. Sami noticed then a sparkling mist collecting around them. Glitter formed, circling their feet, as if the emptiness were full of crystals. She swished one leg through the air and her motion left a sparkling trail.
“The creatures!” Ashrafieh said. “They’re joining their light to ours. Their energies.”
“But I thought they were Shadows.” Sami gasped. “No color energy or anything.”
The Flicker looked at Sami with a twinkling solemnity. “Even Shadows contain a form of color as real and lovely as that of Flickers. Shadows were my companions in the abyss—they helped me keep my sanity with their whispers and poetry.” She gazed around at th
e gathering stardust. “I had no idea there were quite so many.”
“It’s like a sea,” Sami marveled. It felt as if piles of tiny golden sands were rolling up under her feet, gently nudging them on. They began to move upward again, their energies united.
At times they seemed to move at a crawl, other times even slower, but eventually Sami noticed the speck of light overhead start to grow in size. Details began to emerge from the night: she made out knobs and roots gnarled into the sides of the pit. She saw slashes and claw marks and splatters.
Dorsom. Sami sent out a quiet thought. Are you there? Where is the Nixie?
I’m here with Natala, Dorsom responded.
Hello, Sami, Natala joined in. I am sending you both strengthening energies.
We entered through the western archways of the castle, Dorsom thought, but have yet to see Nixie. All the castle doors are flung wide—we fear she may have started her escape into Silverworld.
Sami and Ashrafieh both felt the murk begin to accumulate once again, growing heavier as they neared the opening. It felt like a kind of thickness, as if the air were turning into cream or custard, then mud or plaster. The light beams from her eyes grew fainter and Ashrafieh clutched Sami tightly. “Whatever happens,” she muttered, “thank you, Silverwalker, for believing—for both of us.”
“Thank you,” Sami said, “for not giving up.”
Now you must both fight, Dorsom thought. I am here. I join my light to yours. To you I give my full power as a rebalancer.
As do I as well. My full power as rebalancer, Natala added.
The Silverwalker and the Flicker took deep breaths and Sami instinctively lifted her arms like a swimmer, stroking through the murkiness. It felt increasingly dense, as heavy as wet sand. She sensed that if she let herself think about it, she wouldn’t be able to breathe. So she didn’t think, she just kept punching her arms through the murk, pulling herself and Ashrafieh upward with her thoughts, her energy, her arms, and the force of the beings around and under her. Somewhere, dimly, as if he were being pushed back by the layers of night, Dorsom thought-called, Pull, Sami…pull….Harder…
She was getting tired, her mind and body exhausted by the effort. The Shadow creatures churned under her feet and Ashrafieh thought, Freedom, freedom. But Sami’s arms began to weaken and her neck and shoulders ached. The air was too heavy: it felt as if a sludge had begun pressing inside her—into her mouth, nostrils, and eyes. After what seemed to be hours of straining, Sami barely had any strength left. Each stroke she believed would be her last. Then she took another one. She couldn’t bear the thought of failing her grandmother, Ashrafieh, and all the Shadow captives. She couldn’t stand imagining Silverworld swallowed by the Nixie’s eternal emptiness. Yet the task began to seem—as Ashrafieh had said—nearly impossible.
Drowning, suffocating, crushing.
Dorsom’s thought cut through the murk, a distant beacon: Sami, you can. Giving it every last bit of effort, Sami thrust her arms forward, thinking, OUT, OUT.
And her right hand sliced cleanly into open air.
It was like bursting through a skin.
She and the Flicker went flying, trailing corkscrewing currents of brilliance and stars, of Shadows filled with sparks and will-o’-the-wisps of light and uncountable other beings, all of them shrieking and squealing and spilling free.
Sami landed, thumping and rolling across the cool tiled floor. She leapt up, scanning and blinking. The room was illuminated with stripes and banners of light, like an aquarium crammed with deep-sea fish. All around her, Sami heard the liberated creatures crying out in joyful voices and thoughts: Free, free, WE ARE FREE.
Then both Dorsom and Natala were there, flinging their arms around her. “You did it,” Dorsom whispered intensely, over and over. “Entirely, you did it.”
Oh, Sami, you’re alive, Natala thought. Really and truly alive.
Sami wrapped her arms around both of them at once, hugging them fiercely. We all are.
Dorsom grinned. “You pierced through the gloaming, Sami. Don’t you realize? Nothing like that has ever been done before.”
“You saved Ashrafieh,” Natala added. “And you broke through the gray matrix, exploding its skin. Now the Nixie no longer has any power to hold or confine. The Shadow spells are broken.”
Sami lifted her head toward the top of the castle, blinking at all the colorful beings and in-between wisps twirling sparkling trails of joy. She laughed, waving at the creatures who sent out showers of brilliance.
Natala helped Ashrafieh to her feet, then bowed before the Flicker and touched the back of Ashrafieh’s hand to her forehead. Dorsom turned and did the same.
“Most Venerable Flicker,” Dorsom said. “We are most honored.”
“Daughter of Worlds Beyond Worlds,” Natala said. “Hybridity Most Exalted.”
Renowned is Ashrafieh through all the Silverworld—a master Reflector of many generations, with royal bloodlines to the Ifrit, Dorsom thought to Sami.
Sami watched as the older woman’s hair grew lush and long, her eyes began to shine, jingling silver hoops appeared on her ears, a heavy silver necklace circled her throat, and ribbons of Bedouin tattoos emerged, twining around her wrists and hands. This was the Teta of fifty or more years ago, fresh from the desert, a scent of jasmine, sand, and lemons still on her skin. Ashrafieh glowed faintly sea green and her hair glinted blue, but she looked like one of the old black-and-white photographs of Teta restored to vivid, powerful life. In Ashrafieh, Sami now saw an essence of that wind and sand that Teta must have missed when she moved away from the desert. These things were always a part of Teta, but they’d faded from her life in the city.
Ashrafieh laughed, a girlish, tinkling sound, and waved away their admiration. “Here is the one to be honoring.” She kissed Sami’s cheeks, three times on each side, then placed an arm around her shoulders. “After being imprisoned—” Her voice rose sharply, as if about to crack. She took a breath, went on. “For years imprisoned, in a void of despair, lost to the Worlds, I was hope-drained, washed bare. Then this child—this Silverwalker—came to do exactly what I’d secretly believed was impossible. Now, I and multitudes of Silver Beings are freed.”
Behind the group of friends, the thick, old gloaming layers of the void began cracking apart, breaking up into rubbery spurts of dust and ash. Sami turned in time to see darkness surge up from the opening, then collapse back in a hissing rain. At the same time, a noise began growing from outside the castle walls. It sounded like a gathering crowd: there were voices and shouts. Natala looked out through one of the high arched windows and gestured to the others. “Come look!”
The soft Silverworld night was lit up with pinwheels of colors, shooting sparks, and squiggles of brightness. Standing by an open archway, Sami felt tiny airborne Flicker and Shadow creatures, newly released, their colored trails shimmering over her, circling her wrists, ankles, and waist, each of them like a burst of sweetness.
“They are thanking you,” Ashrafieh said. “All those many who were once imprisoned, now freed.”
Across the lawns, mauve hedges trembled and opened into shrubbery that glistened with flowers like tiny cups and bells. “The vapor plants bloom,” Natala breathed. “There is a language tree!” She pointed to an immense gold-trunked tree, its branches unfolding like the spines of an umbrella. The night itself seemed to glisten more brightly through the open windows and archways, the air fresher, and filled with life.
“The Great Balance is restored,” Dorsom said, stepping back to take in the sweeping view.
We shall open all the cages and boxes, Ashrafieh added, spreading her arms wide. The Castle Shadow is filled with them. We shall burst all the strongholds. Every Shadow and light being must live free.
The topiaries lining the courtyard began to dissolve or burst into showers of brilliance, releasing all sorts of creatures—lion
s, elephants, a great beaked griffin, each shaking out their limbs, stretching, squawking, or roaring. Row after row of columns started to dissolve as well—a deep groan emerged from all around the castle and trembled in the walls.
“No need to open cages,” Natala said, looking around. “The confinements are exploding open like the void itself.”
“I think it’s time to make haste,” Dorsom said, pointing out cracks racing across the ceiling.
Ashrafieh agreed. “Half this palace was constructed of imprisoned Flickers and Shadows. Soon there will be pillars and windows and railings falling everywhere.”
Sami and the others had to thread their way back through the palace rooms to the grand entrance, as none of the windows or doors opened to anything but more enclosed courtyards. Sami wished there were time to linger over some of the marvelous things she saw piled in the halls—mosaics, fountains, libraries filled with fluorescent books and paintings that seemed to shiver as they passed. But more than that, she wished she knew where Bat had gone. Picking up on her worry, Dorsom tried to reassure her: A Shadow bat as wise and old as she would surely evade the Nixie.
Sami wasn’t so sure. She remembered the vicious way the Nixie had swung and swiped at the tiny bat. But there wasn’t time to discuss their next move: pieces of tile kept smashing from the ceilings in spouts of dust and stones. Open cracks sped through the walls. They had to keep moving, faster and faster. Suddenly, a tremendous groan issued from the ground and the marble floor seized up, shattering, and thrusting out enormous jagged shards. Soon they were no longer walking swiftly, but running with all their might.
The group approached the corridor to the grand entrance, but as they hurried Sami began to notice something odd: it seemed to be growing darker within the castle, the atmosphere humid and heavy.
Picking up the specific density of the shadows. Natala’s thoughts streamed back as they ran. Her hand was lifted, her rings flashing deep blue and topaz. It’s odd. Its matrix thickens. Much like that of—
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