by Jenn Stark
“It’s time, Armaeus,” Eshe said at length. “If you’re not going to let her die, which was what has been fated here, then you must give her a different sort of death. The death of your illusion.”
“No.” He keened the mournful word.
“Yes.” Eshe’s words were absolute. “The villagers will discover she’s not in the house soon. If you don’t want her branded as an arsonist or a consorter with sorcerers, you must return her to her home. Return her and erase yourself from her memories. It’s the only way. No one can live with the memories of a loved one who has spurned them, not even for a good reason. It is among the cruelest pains.”
I blinked in surprise as Eshe’s words floated over the grotto. Mirabel clutched at Armaeus, and her grip redoubled at Eshe’s words. “What is it?” she asked, and I saw in her face that she could not hear Eshe, she could merely see the shift in Armaeus’s face, the regret and sorrow in his expression. “You are here now, you are here! It will all be better now.”
Armaeus appeared to be swallowing rocks. “I cannot stay, my heart. You know that. I cannot stay.”
“But you must! Armaeus, you must.” Her voice sounded desperate, and I slid my gaze to Eshe, then back to the hapless woman. “I cannot bear for you to leave me again.” A new wave of tears flowed down her face. Even crying, she was absolutely stunning, and I watched, transfixed, as Armaeus lifted a hand to her cheek to cast a tear away.
“I will care for you the rest of your life,” he said. “You will not want for anything. You’ll not suffer any pain. You’ll have—”
“I want you!” The woman clutched at him, and I tried to dislike her for it, I did. But she was losing the man of her dreams with every passing second, and I got the sense she would do anything to hold on to him, no matter how transparent her actions.
Transparent they were too. Eshe stood stonily now, watching the scene with a stoic expression that couldn’t quite mask her…what? Anger? Indignation? Had she been fought over so hard and so long, I suddenly wondered? Had she had a man on his knees, begging her not to leave him, not to take on this mantle of work that would lead her from his side?
“Please, Armaeus. At least…this.”
Mirabel reached up and pulled Armaeus into a long, searching kiss, and I could practically see what was going to happen next, no crystal ball required. I reared back from the edge of the grotto, putting my hands to my own damp face. Armaeus had loved. He had well and truly loved, and he had left behind the one woman that he’d ever cared for, to take up his work as Magician. This was his sacrifice, and I sensed it was not the only one he had made over the course of his centuries in the role. But it was the first, and the greatest.
This was the one he had never forgotten, all the long years. This.
I dragged myself far from the grotto and into the forest, until the sounds of their conversation could not dog me any further. My hands were trembling, and my throat burned. Armaeus had had several lifetimes before he had met me. It was foolish of me to think he had never loved before.
But I had never loved before. Not fully. I had never given my heart, not even to Brody, though I’d crushed as hard as any seventeen-year old possibly could have on him. I hadn’t realized how much I’d come to care for Armaeus until—until this day, when he’d held me in his arms, night after week after month in the cocoon of a world outside of time. A world that didn’t exist anywhere but in my own mind.
And it had existed there. I hadn’t forgotten. I didn’t have the mercy of Armaeus waving his magic wand and winking himself out of my memories. At this point, I knew that was the bitterest of blessings. But it was a blessing I would never, ever willingly give up. For all that it was an illusion.
For all that it was a lie.
Something happened behind me, and Armaeus shouted, his cry a long-drawn-out wail of agony as a man who could do anything gave up the one woman he could not have.
My heart was ground to dust.
Chapter Fifteen
I awoke alone on a stone floor, with stone walls all around, and lay there curled in a tight ball for a minute more, cackling at the irony of waking up in yet another rock-walled prison.
Eventually, I realized I could move, sort of. I crawled to the far wall to lean against it, gradually inching my way up to a seated position. Everything on my body hurt, especially my face. I lifted my palms to my cheeks and winced as they settled against abraded skin. Burns. I’d been burned in that fire, I must have been. Burned and hadn’t realized it, my mind too transported by what I’d seen, what I’d felt. What I could never unsee or unfeel.
Nothing mattered anymore.
I sighed as I sagged against the wall, trying to remember why I’d come to this place of despair. Beneath my card pouch, the jade amulets were both slung securely around my neck, and were both cool to the touch, their work done in this place. They were reunited, their magic whole.
Mine had been torn asunder.
“Snap out of it,” I grumbled, gingerly rubbing my face again. It was rough, but it wasn’t bleeding. The skin was intact.
Progress.
And at least I was alone, my evil twin electing not to travel with me anymore. So things were definitely improving.
I leaned forward with the clear intent of getting to my knees, then my feet. Instead, I simply fell, my arms giving way like string cheese. My face bounced hard off the floor, and I winced but could do nothing other than lie there and experience the pain arrowing through me for a long moment.
I hadn’t thought anything could be worse than what I had seen between Armaeus and Mirabel, but this was, in a strange way. Because now the shock was over, and I was left with the aftermath. This was the first moment of living with the awful understanding, and knowing it would haunt me for a lifetime.
A lifetime of realizing that no love could be greater than Armaeus’s first. A first I could have no part of.
I groaned, curling up on the floor again. I didn’t have to do anything quite yet. I didn’t have to fight. I could rest here, for a little while longer. Rest and heal. If I could simply sleep…
“Yo, dollface.”
My eyes snapped open.
Directly across me on the floor was a pair of no-nonsense platform stilettos, exactly the pair Nikki had been wearing when I’d seen her last at the Clementinum. Her outfit was different though: a prim librarian pencil skirt, starched white blouse, and red horn-rimmed glasses to go along with the blonde bun complete with pencils sticking out of it. I rolled to my side, squinting up.
Nikki stood with her fists on her hips, scowling down at me.
“I said yo, wake up. I’ve been covering for you so far, but Kreios is going to figure this out soon enough, and there’s gonna be Hell to—” She winced. “Let’s just say I don’t think it will go well.”
“What are you talking about?” Despite my confusion, I obligingly hauled myself into a sitting position, trying to focus. “How are you here?”
“Rainbow connection, remember?” Nikki tapped her temple, then squatted down to stare me in the eyes. “Unlike usual, I don’t know what you’ve seen, but I know you’ve seen plenty, and it’s got you weak as a rag doll. Also, you look like shit. So give me your report already.”
“I have the amulet—Soo’s mother’s amulet. Mission accomplished.”
“Uh-huh. And Armaeus? Have you seen him?”
“Not…” I paused. “Not exactly.” I frowned as Nikki cursed. “Why?”
“He hasn’t reported in. Eshe is getting squirrelly as a bedbug, and Kreios is under the impression that something’s going on down here that’s decidedly not kosher. He thinks Eshe knows something she’s not spilling, some information about Armaeus that makes him being in Hell not the best decision all around anymore.”
“Oh.” I rubbed my face again. “How much time has passed, anyway?”
“So far, a day and a half. What about here?”
I couldn’t respond to that, the laughter bubbling up in my throat sounding hysteric
al, even to my own ears. Nikki reached out to touch my face, but her fingertips dissolved as they hit my skin. She was a ghost.
“You’ve been crying, dollface. I thought you had, but damn. There’s no amount of foundation can cover that shit up. What happened?”
“Nothing I want to talk about right now,” I said, groaning as I got to my feet. Nikki stood beside me. “How long are you here?”
“Gotta bounce soon, actually. Kreios got distracted with a crypt, but there’s only so long dead bones can fascinate a guy, even him. You should know I’ve been pinged several times by the dark mages too. They want to know if you’ve found their compass yet.”
I groaned. “Tell them I don’t have time for that. I have to find Armaeus and get the Hel—get out of here.”
She glanced around. “Aww, c’mon. It doesn’t seem like such a bad place. Could make for an epic road trip.”
Her tone sounded almost wistful, and I smiled. “You want to come with me, don’t you?” I waved my hand through her midsection again, and Nikki shivered.
“You do not want to know what that feels like.”
“You’re right, I don’t.” I squinted up at her. “I want you here, Nikki. Really here.”
“I want that too, dollface.”
What I did next wasn’t planned, not exactly. But I’d seen too much illusion in the past several hours—days—to care. I reached out and focused on Nikki’s hand, the way I focused on the walls when I astral-traveled, rendering them thicker or thinner, transparent or solid as I’d ripped through them on my way to somewhere else. With Nikki, I needed her real, present, here—
“Okay, this shit is way better than drugs. Not gonna lie.”
Nikki stood before me now, fully solid, her eyes alight with happiness. She stared around. “This is Hell? I expected it to be…warmer.”
“It’s got its own set of issues.”
“Roger that.” She cocked her head, her eyes narrowing. “You hear what I hear?”
I shook my head—then stopped. “Maybe?” There was the faintest rushing noise…a noise I was certain I hadn’t heard before Nikki showed up. Then again, I’d mainly been listening to my bones grinding together.
“It’s water. Gotta be.” Nikki grinned. “And where there’s water, there’s maybe the Spinners’ compass, right?”
That made me perk up. I scowled at the rock walls and floor. This place did appear different from the corridors I’d walked before. Older. Not man-made. “Seems like it’s on the way,” I nodded. “What can it hurt?”
Still, my nerves jangled as we headed out of the room and down another long corridor that opened at the end into a wider chamber. I hesitated at the threshold of that chamber, but Nikki went on through, turning to scowl at me. “It’s over this way, not backwards,” she said.
I eyed her, suddenly mistrustful. “How do I know…I mean, don’t take this the wrong way, but I’ve been conjuring up an impressive amount of crazy today. How do I know you’re you? Tell me something I don’t know about you, and I’ll pull a card to verify.”
She thought about that. A snap of wistfulness chased its way across her face, but was quickly gone. “You know how you rescue kids? Well, I got three who rescued me. Joe, Bobby, and Clara. Got their pictures on my desk at home and everything. Would that work?”
“Yeah.” I turned away enough to pull the pouch free from my tank top, but I knew without drawing a card that it would be one of the yes cards of the Major Arcana. Nikki’s voice had the absolute ring of truth to it. How had I not known about these kids?
My throat pulled too tight as I reached into the Tarot pouch and the first chip to meet my questing fingers practically sprang out of the bag. I flipped it up. “You, my friend, are the Empress,” I said, my smile wobbling as I tucked the chip back into the bag. “In more ways than one.”
Nikki snorted. “Except she’s often preggo, and let me just tell you, that is not on my itinerary.” She turned back into the doorway. “Speaking of ships, I think we gotta be in the right place. C’mon.”
I followed willingly and stepped out into the open space, realizing that we were in some kind of natural cavern system now. There were no statues or ornate fixtures, no paintings of any sort. It was a cave filled with enormous stalactites and stalagmites at various intervals, some white, some black, some stained a deep ochre. “Nice place,” Nikki said dryly.
Fifteen feet in front of us, the cavern was intersected by a nine-foot stretch of water. A bit too far to jump, but in no way requiring a ferryman. Plus, we were underground, which didn’t feel right.
“I thought the River Styx was in some sort of marshland,” I said. “I didn’t think it was buried in a cave.”
“Maybe it starts or ends here,” Nikki shrugged. “Eventually everything goes underground, right?”
“I guess.” I squinted at the water, remaining unconvinced. “Some kind of stupid illusion,” I muttered. “Has to be.”
“You know, your attitude could use a little work.” Nikki slanted me a glance. “We’re in Hell, my friend. How many people get to say that and actually mean it?””
I blinked at her, but I couldn’t stop the laugh, though it was a bit of a rasp. “Don’t stay here too long, okay? You’ll see the reality of this place, and that’ll depress me.”
“More depressed than you already look? No thank you.” Nikki placed her hands on her hips and squinted down at the water. “You know, Achilles’s mom made him immortal by sticking him into this thing. Suppose that legend had anything to do with reality?”
“Yet he somehow miraculously was killed by an arrow that hit him precisely in the back of his foot, the place she held him.” I shook my head. “Seems a little too coincidental, you ask me. I suspect he was no more immortal than either one of us and simply found an interesting way to die.”
“You really do need to lighten up, yo.” Nikki walked up and down the riverbank, but the waters remained smooth as glass. There was not so much as a stick on this side, let alone the foundations of a long-ago bridge to guide us. There was a small outcropping of rock that stuck out about two feet into the water, but that was it. We paused there, scowling down at it.
“I could probably throw you,” Nikki offered. “I think the landing would suck, though.”
“Hang on.” I pulled the pouch of discs out of my collar once more, letting the necklace hang loose as I pawed inside. Jostling three chips free, I shook them in my hand a few times before opening my fingers. Two were faceup, one facedown. I flipped the third disk over as Nikki ambled over. “Interesting,” I muttered.
“What’s tricks?” she asked, peering down.
“The first is obvious, Six of Swords. Yup, there’s a river, and yup, we have to cross it.” I blew out a breath. “Also means a psychic journey or traversing rough waters, but I think here we can call a Six a Six.”
“Seems fair.” She poked a finger at my palm. “And I see what they’re doing there, very cute.”
“Yeah.” There were two other sixes in the reading, rendering the cards as a perfect trifecta depicting Six-Six-Six. But the other two specific chips were the Six of Wands—victory, or a man on a horse, or a parade…any one of which I would take right now—and the Six of Pents. The Six of Pents showed a man giving alms to the poor, with additional coins raining down on him. Since we probably weren’t going to be in the market for a money drop any time soon, I could safely bet on the other common interpretations of the card: abundance or a loan coming due. When it wasn’t presaging a windfall, the Six of Pents was often pulled if the querent had to pay up on services rendered, or make good on a karmic debt. Given where we were, that sounded about right.
“We need a horse,” I muttered, trying to peer across to the far side of the river. “Something that will get us across that thing. We can’t risk it suddenly going wide in the middle of us trying to jump across.”
“Well, unless Sam stashed his pony down here on his way through the Mines of Moria, I think we’re out of luck with
that.”
I sighed, reviewing the chips again before dropping them back in my bag. “Agreed. But there’s got to be something…”
“I could jump that, maybe,” Nikki said, eyeing the far side of the river. “But I’m kind of not the point here. I think it needs to be you.”
“And if we guess wrong, it’s bad news. This place has a way of making you pay for mistakes like that.”
“Annnd, Grumpy Gus is back. I think you’re worrying a little too much, dollface. So far, it’s been nobody but us chickens down here. I thought we’d at least get some damned souls served up to haunt us or maybe a fire in the ol’ hearth. But we’re flying solo and completely flame-free, it looks like. So live a little.”
I grimaced, thinking about the fire I’d seen in the village. The fire and all that had come after. “I wonder what would happen…” I stood at the edge of the abutment and took a step up—as if I was going to climb a ladder or step confidently out over the water. With my gaze fixed on the far edge, I saw it at the same time that Nikki did.
The opposite riverbank—retreated. It leapt away from us, until the stream was suddenly nearly twenty-five feet wide. I dropped my foot as Nikki gasped.
“Did you see that?” she stammered. “It just—what the… What was that? That was so cool!”
I lifted then dropped my foot again, and the far edge rippled a second time. There was no way to tell where the real bank lay and where it didn’t.
“Whoa, whoa,” Nikki said. “Check this out.” She was facing behind us on the rocky abutment, gazing back the way she came. When she lifted a foot as if to step back onto the shore proper, the near side of our bank of rock retreated as well, leaving us on a tiny island of stone in the middle of a wide river. She dropped her foot, and the stone floor reappeared. “You see that?”
“I knew it,” I groaned. “Another illusion. You’ve no idea how many of these I’ve already dealt with.”
