by Jodi Meadows
The queen mother and her sister urged James to listen to his king, but his focus was all on Chrysalis’s instructions.
“We jump. We dive in and grab the barrier, and we push. My queen will need to command the barrier to accept us.”
Tobiah spun toward me. “Don’t do it. Don’t tell the barrier anything.”
James pressed a hand on his king’s shoulder. “Then I’ll be dead for nothing. It’s a long drop.”
“You’ve already been impaled. A drop won’t hurt you.”
James snorted a laugh. “I’m going to say good-bye, cousin. Please don’t deny me. Please.”
Tobiah threw his arms around James’s shoulders, squeezing him tight. “I can’t say good-bye.”
James hugged him back, both of them unguarded in this burst of affection. “Then say, ‘You’re welcome.’ You and Wil gave me ten years of life. You gave me family. You gave me purpose.”
“Then you’re welcome,” Tobiah murmured. “And thank you for—for everything. You were always there when I needed you.”
Quickly, James hugged his friends, his aunt, and his mother, pausing to whisper something in her ear. I couldn’t hear it, and the angle was wrong for me to read his lips, but whatever he said, she just touched his cheek and said she loved him.
He came to me last. “I think Oscar will make a good replacement for head of castle security. Or Ferris, if you want to send Oscar off to his estate when this is over.”
“Shut up.” My jaw trembled with exhaustion and grief, but I hugged him and kissed his cheek. “You were always real to him. To me. To everyone who knew you.”
“Thank you.” He pulled away, unbuckled his sword sheath, and pressed it into Tobiah’s hands. Without a word, he moved toward the edge. “Coming, Chrysalis?”
The wraith boy had barely moved through all this, just stood there and watched. No one had wanted to hug him.
I did. Gently, I wrapped my arms around him. “If I could do it again,” I whispered, “I’d get to know you better.”
He didn’t respond, just joined James on the ledge, whispering instructions or assurances. I couldn’t tell.
Tears streaked down my face, cold against the wraith-heated night. Tobiah pressed himself against my side, and Melanie on the other. Everyone gathered around us, many openly weeping. We left a space between James and Chrysalis and us, like moving too close would shatter the moment as they stepped onto the railing.
“I can’t watch.” Tobiah spoke so that only I could hear.
“You must.” I slipped my ungloved hand into his, and the barrier piece pressed between us. “James’s biggest desire was always to protect you. That’s what he’s doing now. You must honor him.”
Tobiah gripped my hand so tightly it felt like my bones scraped together, but neither of us looked away as James and Chrysalis stepped off the rail and leapt into the Red Bay.
“Accept them,” I whispered to the anchor scale. “Let their magic be spread throughout the ring. Make their sacrifice matter.”
A double splash sounded.
The scale turned hot in my palm, scalding, but the sudden relief was immeasurable. Burden lifted. The slow drain of magic I’d lived with for so long—it was gone.
My knees buckled, but Tobiah and Melanie held me up as white light speared the sky.
It stretched from the Red Bay, north to Tangler Bay, illuminating Snowhaven Bridge from beneath, and then beyond my sight. Cool, clean air came off the water, and thousands of stars appeared in the sky as the mirror cut through the haze of wraith.
“You did it.” Melanie lifted her face to the sky in wonder. “Between your mirror and the barrier, even the wraith in the city is burning away.”
It was glorious, yes, but as we all huddled together on Radiants’ Walk, I could only think about everything this victory had cost.
FORTY-NINE
I KNOCKED ON the door between my room and Tobiah’s.
“I’m here.”
Cautiously, I opened the door to find Tobiah sitting on the bottom corner of his bed, staring toward the balcony window. The curtains had been pushed back to reveal a spectacular view of the city.
“The wraith is gone,” I said.
He dropped his gaze to James’s sword lying across his knees.
“Colin’s and Patrick’s people were arrested. They shouldn’t be a problem anymore.”
Silence.
“Not that Melanie trusts we’ve seen the last of them. She’ll root out any lingering opposition.”
He didn’t move. He hadn’t bathed, or even changed out of his Black Knife clothes. He just sat there, slumped as he steeped in his grief. Tear tracks shone on his cheeks.
“This morning, I took a boat with Mel and Lieutenant Ferris. There’s a sheered-off edge on the opposite shore of Tangler Bay. It worked. The wraith can’t return.” I’d seen refugees crossing Snowhaven Bridge, taking rescue boats where the bridge hadn’t yet been repaired. “The castle wall is still silver. When I told Connor’s mirror to go back to sleep, it just stayed there.”
Now there was nothing magical draining me but the barrier; I couldn’t risk letting go of that without being sure the pieces would never be disturbed. It’d been simpler in Mirror Lake, which wasn’t connected to an entire ocean. But here, anything could happen to the scales.
So I held on to them, keeping the anchor scale in a pocket so I’d never forget.
“Did you sleep?” I asked.
“I can’t.” He curled his fingers around the sheathed sword. “Part of me wishes I could blame you. Or Chrysalis. Or anyone besides James, but it was his choice in the end, wasn’t it?”
My dress rustled as I crossed the room to stand beside him. “You’ve lost so much. It doesn’t seem fair that you should lose James, too. But yes, it was his choice. I think it was his way of proving he was real.”
“It’s interesting that he didn’t feel like the real one,” Tobiah said after a few minutes. “I knew him longer than I knew the first James. We got in trouble together. Had parties together. Complained about our parents together. When my father died, he was there for me, and when he was shot, I couldn’t leave his side. How he came into my life never made a difference. I cared only that he was there.”
“He’s still there. I know it’s not the same.” I touched his shoulder and hated my own inadequate words. “Of course it’s not the same. But James was made of our magic, and you know the most basic law of magic.”
“It’s never created or destroyed. It simply changes forms.”
I nodded. “So that’s James out there.” I pulled the anchor scale from my pocket and unfolded my fingers around it. “And this is James in here. Just another form. And he’s doing the same thing he did for the last ten years: he’s protecting. You. Me. The kingdom.”
“We didn’t even win. Patrick and Colin are gone now, but the wraith is still out there. The Indigo Kingdom is gone, and so is everything beyond it. We didn’t stop the wraith, just found a way to hold it back.”
“Sometimes that’s as much as we can ask for,” I whispered. “We didn’t ask to inherit this world with its too-big problems, but it’s the world we have. There’s going to be wraith as long as there’s magic, and magic is in us. It’s part of us, whether we want to deny it or embrace it. Maybe our parents and their parents did the best they could, but it’s up to us to do better. We’ll change the world.”
Tobiah leaned forward and rested his face in his hands. “I’m so tired of losing people.”
“I know. I am, too.”
He didn’t move or indicate he needed me to stay, so I smoothed a strand of his hair and left.
I filled the rest of the afternoon with council meetings to ensure refugees were cared for, city repairs were under way, and everything was moving as smoothly as it ever had.
When I returned to my room and peeked through the adjoining door, Tobiah was nowhere in sight.
That had to be a good sign.
Dusk fell. A fire already burned
in the fireplace, throwing warmth into my parlor. I turned on a gas lamp and found my notebook, the black one Patrick had given me years ago.
There was only one blank page remaining.
I lingered over the ritual of preparing to write, choosing a pen and ink, considering the handwriting I wanted to use, and finally dipped the pen and touched the tines to paper.
When I was only nine years old, I began this diary to chronicle my return to my kingdom. I’ve carried it through kingdoms and battles and wraithland.
I’m home at last, but everything is different from how I imagined.
Friends are lost: some to death, and some to differences we were never able to overcome. Some because they sacrificed everything for what they believed.
I don’t know if I’m ready to be queen. I don’t feel ready. But maybe queens never do.
All I know is this: I’ll give it my best.
Tobiah stood at my elbow, watching with those dark eyes. He’d washed up while I’d been out, and now he wore a clean black suit. He tapped the corner of my notebook. “You use this handwriting a lot. Whose is it?”
The hand was a mix of my favorites, the best parts of each. “It’s mine.”
“I like it.” His smile was faint, but it still existed. There was hope after all. “And these”—he touched the small stack of papers near my work—“are our letters from Skyvale? You kept them?”
I blew on my writing to dry the ink, and then closed my diary. “There aren’t many things I’ve ever really thought of as mine. This notebook. The signet ring my father gave me. My weapons. These letters are important to me.”
“Right up there with your favorite daggers?”
I shrugged. “Almost up there.”
He shifted his weight and touched the pale blue notebook I’d enchanted. “After you left the Indigo Kingdom, I looked for your letters every day, even when I didn’t have time to respond. Or want to. But as the days passed, and suddenly I was thrust out of my city, your letters became what kept me whole. I reread them all the time. They made me feel close to you. I celebrated your triumphs, cursed your struggles, and spent whole nights wondering about this handwriting you kept using. I relied on those letters. I needed them.”
My heart turned as I touched the leather cover, ran my fingers over the braided designs on the edge. “I looked for your response every day. I didn’t stop hoping. Not until—not until the news came.”
He nodded, head low. Hair breezed over his eyebrows. “I know. When I saw your final letter, I thought it would kill me. I wanted to reassure you, but it was impossible if I wanted to ensure your queenship.”
We’d both sacrificed so much.
And so much had been ripped away.
It was a wonder there was anything left at all.
“What are you going to do with your diary now that it’s finished?” He kept his gaze on me, steady and warm and seeing everything. “Will you start a new one?”
“Once I find a notebook I like as much. In the meantime, I’ll put this one away.” I walked to the bookcase filled with the diaries of queens before me. “I’ll leave it so those who come after will know what I did to reclaim Aecor—the good and the bad. Maybe my descendants will make better choices where I failed.”
“Your descendants?” He took my chair and pen, not bothering to ask permission as he found a sheet of paper and began writing. “Are you planning on having a lot of descendants?”
“One day I’d like a whole army of tiny vigilantes.”
“A worthy goal.”
We stayed in the quiet for a few more minutes, him writing, and me reluctant to interrupt him. It was good that he was here. Reaching out. Not alone.
Finally, he blew on the ink and handed the paper to me.
It was a list, and almost looked as though it were written in my handwriting. A fair approximation anyway.
Reasons we should get married:
Because I love you.
We both look good in black boots.
I spent some time without you, and I didn’t like it.
You make me happy.
I make you laugh.
I like the way you fight.
You see through my masks.
I really love you.
You love me, too. (Though you’ve mostly said this while yelling, so perhaps I should have double-checked.)
Army of tiny vigilantes. (I have name ideas.)
Various political reasons that make sense but don’t fit with the theme of this list.
I’m holding your handwriting hostage. You can have it back when you say yes.
When I looked up, his expression was earnest. Hopeful. “It doesn’t have to be right now. We can wait. I just want to know you’ll be ready one day.”
My heart knotted as I reread the list. For all I wanted him, there were still barriers. One, especially. “What about Meredith?” I let his list hang limp in my fingers as I strode toward the fireplace. “Chrysalis was my responsibility, and I didn’t stop him when I should have.”
On the mantel behind me, the clock ticked away seconds.
“During the ball,” he said, “you avoided this conversation.” He pursued me across the room, taking my waist in his hands. His body was only a breath away from mine. “But it must happen. Surely you know that.”
I dropped my eyes to the hollow of his throat. “I’m listening.”
“Finally.” His hands relaxed, but he didn’t move away. That was good. “After I announced the wedding date, I would lie awake every night and think about that time in the breezeway, and the mistake I’d made.”
The mistake of kissing me.
“I would think about how for ten years, our lives kept touching, tapping, but we never seemed to stay on the same course. The One-Night War. The streets of Skyvale. Your time in the palace. And when we kissed in the breezeway, I knew, I knew I wanted to be with you, and that I’d never be satisfied any other way. But I still chose her because I’d promised my father—who wasn’t even alive to care. That was my mistake.”
“Oh.” The word came as a breath.
“Wilhelmina Korte, from the moment we met, you challenged me in ways I needed to be challenged. In ways I want to be challenged. I’ve known it all along.
“When I chose her, I chose wrong. Oh, I’d have done my best to make her happy. I cared about her. But I’m just as responsible for her death, and I’ve spent the last months learning to accept that.” Tension ran from his shoulders and he stepped back, firelight glowing across the planes and angles of his face. “And I don’t want to ignore how much I feel for you, either. There’s an undeniable gravity between us. I know you feel it, too.”
“Yes.”
And it seemed as though everyone else sensed it, too. James. Melanie. Chrysalis. Meredith. Even Prince Colin.
“We keep drifting toward each other.” Tobiah’s eyes were steady on mine, so familiar in the faint light. “No matter the masks we wear, we always end up together.”
“I’m tired of wearing masks.”
“So am I.” He cupped his hands over my cheeks. “Wilhelmina. I know we have a lot to work out, but I can’t deny that I want you.”
My heart beating so hard made my chest ache. His list slipped from my fingers, floating, skimming across the floor a little ways before it settled.
Tobiah’s fingertips brushed against my face, cool and gentle. “I want every part of you. The nameless girl. The Osprey. The vigilante. The queen. Wilhelmina, you have a hundred identities and I love every one of them.”
I couldn’t stop my smile. Maybe I didn’t have to understand how he could love me after all the things I’d done, just accept that he did—and that maybe, probably, he felt the same way about my love for him.
He bent so his forehead rested against mine. “A few times now you’ve told me not to kiss you anymore. Do I have your permission this time?”
“You have enthusiastic permission.” I cupped his face in my hands, keeping him in place as I tilted my head t
o kiss him. Softly, at first. A brush of my lips against his.
“Again?” His eyes were closed, but he was smiling.
“Yes.” When we kissed, the muscles of his jaw flexed under my fingers, and the shape of his body fit with mine. His arms fell around me, drawing us close. His hands pressed against my waist and hips and the small of my back. His mouth moved against mine, deepening the kiss until we were drowning.
He’d been right about gravity. We’d spent our lives falling toward each other, and now he was in my arms. I was in his.
“Wil,” he breathed. “Wilhelmina.”
With my hands on his face, fingertips tracing the lines and curves of his jaw and cheeks, I could feel the way he said my name.
My name.
We were no longer vigilante and thief, or sullen prince and hidden princess, or only half aware of the other’s identity. This was love without masks.
I pushed my fingers through his hair and kissed his mouth and chin and neck and the hollow of his throat. He dropped back his head in surrender as heat from the fireplace washed over us in waves.
The world fell away. I breezed my hands down his back, mapping the ridges of muscle beneath his clothes. He kissed a trail down my jaw and neck and shoulder. We breathed in time with each other, like we were one.
A door clicked and footsteps sounded, but I didn’t pay attention until Melanie said, “I guess this means Paige should prepare the castle for a wedding.”
Tobiah kissed me again and drew back, just enough so I could see the smile that warmed his face. “One day.”
“One day,” I agreed.
Melanie stood in the doorway, a packet of papers in one hand, and holding the fallen list in the other. “For propriety’s sake, I’d bolt the doors between your rooms and take the keys, but you’re both disreputable enough to pick the locks.”
“Definitely.” Tobiah grinned at me.
“Did you come here to tease us, Mel?” My heart still pounded with Tobiah’s nearness. “Or was there something else?”
“I brought good news.” She offered the packet to me.
The top sheet was a map: Aecor, shaded in red, and the barrier around us, silver. The north and south were still questions, but in the west, the Indigo Kingdom was marked with the familiar colored bands of wraith movement. The bands covered the entirety of the Indigo Kingdom.