I waited a few seconds and tried again.
Dom appeared suddenly, his expression wild. “Kat!” He leaned in closer to the tiny mirror’s surface. “What is going on? Why can I sense you all of a sudden?” he demanded.
“I don’t have long,” I told him. “I’m in the Netjer universe, and—”
“I know. Re reached out to Nik and explained some of what’s going on,” he said. “He told Nik everything about the Isfet situation, and the two of them are trying to figure out a way to reverse their connection to bring Nik to you via Re . . . at least in spirit. Re believes it may help slow the bonding withdrawals a bit.”
I blew out a breath of relief. I’d been right about Re; not only had he not been a willing participant in tricking me, but if everything Dom said was true, it sounded like he was genuinely trying to help. “Good to know,” I said. “This place is crazy, Dom, and I don’t really understand what’s going on. I think I may have an ally in Anapa, too, so I’ll see if I can get him to help me escape. I have to get back there to free Isfet. You’re all in so much danger . . .” I gritted my teeth, squeezing my eyes shut to fend off the pain searing my nerve endings.
“What is wrong, little sister?”
Again, I shook my head. “It’s nothing.” I took a deep, shaky breath. “I haven’t seen the twins, but maybe Lex can talk to them . . . see if there’s some way they can help me get out of here before—” I groaned, the pain bringing a wave of nausea.
I took a deep breath, then another, blowing the air out slowly. “Before the bonding withdrawals kill me,” I finally managed to say. I shuddered.
“Kat—”
“I’ll be in touch soon,” I said a fraction of a second before I pulled my hand away from the wall, dragging the threads of At and anti-At out of their entanglement with the Essence. I felt light-headed and slightly sick to my stomach.
After a second, stronger wave of nausea, I realized I was more than slightly sick to my stomach.
Hand on the wall, I stumbled into the bathroom. I just hoped Anapa had included a real, functioning toilet. I’d yet to check, and I really didn’t want to have to spend the next however long I would be here smelling my own vomit. Especially not if this was the end for me.
Thankfully, the toilet worked. Once my stomach was settled via being utterly empty, I made my way to the sink and turned on the faucet. Thankfully, it worked, too. I cupped my hands and slurped down handfuls of water. Thirst finally sated, I made my way out of the bathroom, feet dragging. When I reached the bed, I collapsed on top of the mattress, weak and groggy.
Connecting to this universe’s power source had drained me physically. But at least it had left my magical batteries recharged. I closed my eyes, a tiny victorious smile touching my lips. I could feel my body’s need for sleep, so I didn’t fight it. I would need all the strength I could get.
I’m standing in the middle of the northbound lanes of Interstate 5, right in the heart of Seattle. The freeway is in a deadlock, people laying on their horns and sticking their heads out of windows to get a better look at what lies ahead holding them up.
It’s dusk, the final orange rays of sunset a mere hint glinting off the buildings’ glass exteriors.
At the sound of car doors slamming, I turn around.
A family is getting out of their car—a woman, a man, a teenaged boy, a young girl carrying a stuffed elephant, and a golden retriever. They hoist backpacks onto their shoulders and start hiking north, making their way to the shoulder of the freeway.
I watch them walk away until my attention is snagged by the sound coming from the radio of a car nearby. It’s the distinctive, chill-inducing tone of the emergency alert system. I tilt my head to the side, listening to the message.
There’s an evacuation order in effect. People are ordered to leave all cities associated with Nejerets.
I take a step toward the car, intending to knock on the driver’s window and ask for more details about what’s going on.
The scene shifts in a blur.
I’m still standing on the freeway, but the cars all around me are strewn about, some resting on their sides or roofs like discarded children’s toys. Car alarms blare, a deafening cacophony that makes it hard to think. Smoke streams out of massive holes blown in some of the high-rises west of the interstate, while other buildings look to have been broken in half entirely, their upper floors scattered among the streets of downtown Seattle.
I spot the stuffed elephant the little girl had been holding so tightly, discarded near a hubcap by the median. There’s no sign of the girl or her family. There’s no sign of anyone.
I’m paralyzed by what I’m seeing. My city lies in ruins. It’s like something out of a nightmare.
Off to my right, a car engine explodes, and I stumble away a few steps, hands coming up to cover my ringing ears.
Once again, the world becomes a blur, shifting all around me while I remain in place.
It’s pouring down rain now. The abandoned vehicles are still here, scattered around me on the freeway, but now they’re rusted and rotted, with green things growing over, inside, and through them. It’s quiet, the gentle sound of rain soothing my ringing ears. The buildings are covered in ivy and other vines, and blackberry bushes grow rampant in even the tiniest patches of dirt. A herd of deer meander down the southbound lanes, not a care in the world.
Nature has taken root here once more; civilization is gone.
I take another step, hoping to induce another of those blur-flashes that make time leap forward.
Nothing happens. I’m still here, with the herd and the blackberry bushes and the rain.
There’s a tearing sound coming from the sky, like thunder slowed down.
I look up, raising one hand to shield my eyes from the rain.
It appears as though the sky has been torn open, and a darkness deeper than anything—deeper than the shell of midnight surrounding Aaru—peeks through the jagged tear.
I watch as pieces of the sky are sucked into that endless abyss. I watch as the tops of the tallest buildings start to break apart, the fragments flying into the growing patch of darkness. I watch until the first car starts to fracture.
And then I turn around, and I run.
* * *
I woke from the dream with a start. I sat up, heart pounding in my chest and stare skirting around my bedroom in skips and starts. Not my bedroom, I remembered. This was my prison cell. And that hadn’t been a dream. It was an echo.
I had just seen the future—or a future. And it was worse than I ever could have imagined.
“There has to be a way to change it,” I said, lying back down.
Sleep tugged at my consciousness, and no matter how hard I fought it, I knew I wouldn’t win. My body needed to regenerate.
I rolled onto my side, eyelids heavy. “There has to be a way,” I murmured, eyes closing. “There has to be . . .”
Chapter Sixteen
“Katarina Dubois.” I could feel somebody shaking me by the shoulder. “You must wake. The High Council is ready for you.” Whoever it was rolled me onto my back, trying to wake me, but the pull of regenerative sleep was too strong. All I could manage was a faint groan as I curled away from the person, hugging my knees to my chest.
“What is wrong with her?” In the far recesses of my mind, I recognized the voice as belonging to Sian.
“She is primarily a physical creature,” Anapa said. “She must have gone too long without sustenance. Return to the High Council and tell them she will not be able to stand before them for a while yet. I shall fetch food and drink for her.”
“She has access to water here,” Sian said.
“She needs more than water.”
“But the Mother of All’s orders were for her to go without—”
“She must be fed,” Anapa snapped, genuine anger sharpening his tone. “She will not be able to receive the High Council’s judgement until then.”
Their voices grew distant as sleep dug its c
laws in deeper.
“Very well,” Sian said. “How long shall I tell the High Council to wait?”
But I didn’t hear Anapa’s response. The voices were too faint, and my brain was too foggy.
I woke to the smell of toasted bread, grilled meat, fried potatoes, and a very particular, delectable brand of grease. My mouth was watering before I’d even opened my eyes. The echo-dream lingered in the back of my mind, but my hunger kept it subdued. I needed food, immediately.
I could hear another heartbeat in the room besides my own and figured it belonged to Anapa. Who else would’ve known to bring me food from Dick’s Drive-In?
“This doesn’t get you off my shit list,” I muttered. But it was hard to sound annoyed when the scent in the air was literally making me drool. If he hadn’t actually brought me food from Dick’s and this was just another illusion, so help me gods . . . but sure enough, when I opened my eyes, six white bags with the Dick’s Drive-In logo sat on the dresser, stuffed full of food.
Anapa was perched on the foot of the bed, his back to me, hands clasped together in his lap and his head bowed. “That is fair,” he said mildly.
I frowned. It was no fun being pissy with him if he was just going to take it without fighting back. I thought that was maybe my favorite thing about Nik—he always fought back.
I scooted to the edge of the bed and stood, making my way over to the dresser. Along with the six bags of food from Dick’s Drive-In, Anapa had brought in gallons of bottled water, a few liters of Cherry Coke, a family-size bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, and several bottles of bourbon.
Feeling like a dried-up husk, I reached for the logical beverage choice—Cherry Coke. “This gives you some points at least,” I said as I unscrewed the cap on the bottle. I gulped down a full quarter of the bottle, throat burning from the sting of carbonation. It hurt so good, and I would have sworn that I could feel the sugars seeping into my bloodstream, flooding me with cheap energy. I lowered the bottle and pulled it from my lips, sucked in a breath, then followed up with another hearty swig. And another.
“So, are they watching me?” I asked, turning to face Anapa, eyes watering. In other words, could I speak freely?
Based on the fact that the Netjer High Council hadn’t known about everything that I’d blabbed to Re, I assumed Anapa hadn’t included the Netjer version of a camera or a two-way mirror while building my cozy little cell, but I just wanted to make sure.
Anapa shook his head. “It has yet to occur to anyone that you might pose an actual threat here. At present, you have your privacy while you are in this chamber.”
I blew out a breath. That was a relief. It hadn’t even occurred to me that there might be eyes on me when I’d been experimenting with jacking into this universe’s version of magic. I’d been too jacked up on the surge of excitement to fully think things through. “Great,” I said before taking another swig of Coke. “Time to spill the beans, Anapa,” I said when I lowered the bottle again. “What the fuck is going on?”
Anapa raised his head, his eyebrows climbing higher on his forehead.
“Come on . . . don’t play dumb. You brought me my tarot cards . . . and the mirror.” I set down the bottle of Cherry Coke and crossed my arms over my chest, narrowing my eyes. “There’s no reason for you to have brought either of those things to me, unless you thought I could use them.”
His none-too-surprised expression told me I was right. Gotcha, buddy.
“Which means you want me to use them,” I said. Look at me, using logic like a pro. It didn’t happen all that often. “Which leads me to believe that you were trying to help me,” I continued, “which is the part I keep getting stuck on. You brought me here, Anapa. You trapped me and threw me into this prison.” I speared him with an intense stare. “So why is it that ever since I got here, you’ve been sneaking around, trying to make nice? If you really wanted to help me, you would have explained things from the beginning. Or better yet, you would find a way to send me home.”
Anapa raised one hand, rubbing the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “You know, I often forget how exhausting it is to spend so much time in physical form.” His eyes drifted over to the bags of food. “Do you mind if I . . .”
I stepped aside and gestured to the mini feast atop the dresser with a sweep of my arm. “Have at it.”
“I can’t send you home,” Anapa said, standing and heading for the dresser. “Only the Mother of All can create portals between universes.”
“But you brought me here,” I said. “You brought my clothes and this food and—”
“Using one of the tokens she gave me. I have none left. Please, Katarina, think bigger,” he said, opening one of the bags. “I brought you here—need you here—for a reason. This is about more than just you and your universe.”
The scent of a Dick’s deluxe burger became the preeminent thing in my immediate world, too potent of a lure to ignore. My stomach rumbled, reminding me of the aching void left by my bout of regenerative sleep. I joined Anapa, reaching into the bag after he did.
Anapa took a bite of his chosen burger, chewed, and swallowed. It was somehow reassuring to see him eat like a normal person—or, a normal physical person. He took another bite, then set down his burger. “I brought you here because I am as much a prisoner as you,” he said, “my chains just look different from yours. And I brought you the tools you would need to realize your power here so we would finally be able to fight back.”
I stared at the side of his face, burger in hand, hunger momentarily forgotten.
“We are all prisoners of the Mother of All.” Anapa looked at me, midnight gaze intense. “We live and die on her whim—and yes, Katarina, Netjers can die. Anything can die if the Mother of All wishes it.”
I swallowed roughly.
“I brought you here because she made me do it,” he said. “But that is not what this is about.”
I had the sense that this referred to my tarot cards and the standing mirror. To me realizing that I still had power here.
“This is about every universe that has ever existed,” he continued. “It is about genocide and the sanctity of life.” He placed his hands on the dresser and looked at me, his eyes filled with conviction. “It is about doing what is right, even if failure is almost certain.”
I was captured by his stare, unable to look away. “Well, shit . . .” I searched his eyes, looking for some hint of deception. There was none.
My stomach groaned, and for the briefest moment, my attention returned to the burger in my hands. I brought it up to my mouth, not taking my eyes off of Anapa. “Tell me more.”
Chapter Seventeen
As it turned out, the Netjers were involved in some sick, twisted shit. But it wasn’t really their fault. Most of them didn’t even know what was actually going on.
It was the Mother of All. She was the root of all the evil. Every heinous atrocity knowingly or unknowingly committed by a Netjer eventually came back to her.
Anapa wasn’t sure where the Mother of All originally came from—her origin story was a mystery to all Netjer-kind—but he did know that every single universe that had existed in connection to their central universe had been created by her. But she wasn’t in the business of creating universes for the sheer joy of creation. She wasn’t in it to foster new life-forms and civilizations, and she didn’t give a shit about the beings that lived in those universes, let alone care about the universes themselves. She was in it for one thing—the energy.
According to Anapa, that prized energy took different forms in different universes. In my universe, it was the soul-energy shared by all living things. In this universe, the mother universe—universe zero, I surmised—it was one and the same with the Essence.
After the Mother of All created each universe, it was the responsibility of the Netjers to nurture them, raising them to maturity until they were big, healthy, and bursting with energy. And, unlike the Mother of All, the Netjers actually cared about the we
ll-being of their carefully tended universes. But most of them didn’t know that, once the universes were fully mature and ripe with an abundance of energy, the Mother of All slaughtered them like they were little more than livestock. She destroyed every living thing inhabiting those universes with zero regard, harvesting the energy the Netjers had spent so long cultivating.
The day would come when the Mother of All would do this to my universe. It was nearing its prime, on the cusp of full maturity. Soon, the Mother would drain it of all of its soul-energy and discard its wrecked shell. It would be nothing more than a husk left to deteriorate, dust floating out into eternity. Everyone I loved would be dead—truly dead, not just spending an eternity in Aaru.
And that wasn’t even the worst part.
After the Mother of All drained the universal energy, she consumed it. It was her sole form of sustenance. She needed it to stay alive, to stay strong and powerful. And the Netjers just kept tending the universes, supplying the Mother with what she needed, either unaware or unconcerned that so long as she had power, she owned them. All that mattered to most Netjers was staying on the Mother’s good side. And now that I’d seen her bad side, I could hardly blame them for wanting to avoid it.
Millions of universes had risen and fallen, both created and destroyed by the Mother of All. The destroyer of all. Only a few Netjers were truly aware of the situation, Anapa included, and even fewer were interested in challenging the status quo. There weren’t many ways they could die, but going up against the Mother of All was pretty much a sure thing.
As Anapa spoke, my stomach twisted into tighter knots, the extreme hunger caused by regenerative sleep warring with the utter disgust that only grew deeper the more I learned. I had to eat to keep my body strong, but I feared that everything I’d put into my stomach over the past hour would end up in the toilet soon enough. I’d managed to force down a couple deluxe burgers during Anapa’s long, eye-opening explanation of the way things were. That combination of bread, ground beef, cheese, and condiments became cement, churning in my stomach.
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