by J. M. Frey
Only to be broken by Bevel’s breathy: “Holy fuck.”
CHAPTER 16
FORSYTH
Bevel’s shock is momentary. He wrenches his attention back to his trothed, shouting Words of Healing and Words of Repair, and Words of Replenishment.
“Forssy, c’mon, help me,” Bevel begs, and I kneel beside my brother to add my Words to his.
“The magic can’t stay,” Pip says, and she sounds punch-drunk and woozy. “It’s building. It’s going to—I can’t—”
“Just give me long enough to save him,” Bevel sobs. “Please.”
“I can’t—”
“Please!”
“Forsyth,” Pip says, and she is grimacing when I look up at her, her skin growing brighter and brighter. Dear Writer, I think she’s going to explode. Actually explode. “Forsyth, I can’t hold on to it!”
“He breathes!” I say. “Kintyre breathes, the bleeding slows. He’ll live.”
“You can’t just—” Bevel protests.
“She must, Bevel. She must—”
Pip swallows hard and grinds out: “Think of home.”
“Home?” I ask. “Victoria?”
“Turn Hall,” my wife says. “Hain.”
The name is enough to conjure my memories of the place. It was the scene of some of my greatest sorrows, but also some of my greatest joys. The room where Pip’s first words to me were, “Oh, it’s you.” Where my daughter first slept in the cradle of my House. Where Bevel confessed his love to Kintyre, and where Kintyre returned to live as husband to him. Where they guarded Lysse, and bid Wyndam, “well come,” and offered sanctuary and occupation to Caerdac and Bradri. Where Pointe and I had whiled away long hours, sparring and laughing, and where, in the rosy dawn light of the first day of the new year, we sat on the front steps and shared a pipe, and confided to each other our Solsticetide wishes.
“That’s perfect,” Pip whispers, and then, struggling against some monumental weight that only she can feel, she raises her free hand. She points a single finger, raises it just above her eyeline, then draws it down slowly.
A bright white light follows, a rip in the veil of the skies, and the sound of the fabric of the realms tearing is like silver bells and shattering glass and the gleeful, high-pitched giggles of my daughter.
“Father!” a voice calls through the portal.
“Wyn!” Bevel shouts back.
“Bevel! You’re alive! You’re all right!”
“For now,” Bevel lies to the lad. Bevel looks up at us, his features grim.
“Wyndam?” Pip says, and already she sounds better, like a pressure valve has been released. “Stand back!”
“Aunt Pip?” the lad yelps, but there’s a scuffling noise that I assume is my nephew complying.
“Come on, Bevel,” Pip groans. “Grab Kintyre. The opening is going to close any moment.”
“I can’t . . .” Bevel chokes, startled back into his own body, staring down at Kintyre’s chest as his lover struggles for breath. The shock has set in, and Kintyre is fighting his own body now. Fighting to live. “Moving might kill him, and Mother Mouth won’t come in time.”
“Agreed,” I say, pulling off the mask and replacing it in my jerkin. “But staying here—the healer is powerless now. The Words are only air.”
“Uh, hello?” Wyndam calls from the other side of the portal. “Aunt Pip, what’s happening? It’s closing!”
“I know!” Pip calls back. “Bevel, you have to go.”
And she’s right. The two ends are starting to stitch back together, the rip in the fabric of reality healing over, the entry point getting smaller and smaller. The glow on her skin is starting to become unbearable to look at. We are out of time.
“Not without Kin!” Bevel snarls.
“But you’ll be trapped here, forever,” Pip insists. “The magic will be gone for good. This is it. This is your only chance. What about your family?”
“Kintyre Turn is my family,” he snarls with bull-doggish stubborness. “And I’m not leaving him!”
“Bevel, I can’t—” Pip gasps. The creak of branches in a breeze is the only warning that I get. I duck quickly, and just in time, too, for Pip’s ivy wings fold over her shoulders, the tips reaching into the tear. The gash closes hard on Pip’s wings and she skids forward a half a pace, eyes screwed shut, teeth clenched, fighting the pull of the Deal-Maker’s magic. Another booming crack fills the room, echoing across the ceiling.
Pip’s wings are splintering. They are cracking at the shoulders, the wood too fresh to break cleanly, the leaves being torn from their stems and sucked into the portal. Pip’s hair flies across her face, and I throw my arms around her waist, hold on to her, anchor her body to the floor as best I can.
“I’ve got you,” I whisper in her ear, warm, sure.
Pip throws her hands toward the portal, and the ivy twined around her arms skitters off and away. With a final resounding crack, both of her wings snap off and vanish into Hain.
“There,” Pip pants as we both back away from the opening. Her hands are fisted against her stomach; the separation must be making her nauseous. “The magic is back where it belongs.”
I press a relieved kiss to her temple. She sinks to the ground, hugging her middle, squinting back tears of immense pain, face flushed and countenance windblown. She has never looked lovelier to me, and I have never loved her more than I do in this moment.
“Bevel!” Wyndam shouts through the portal, which is rapidly shrinking now. “What’s happening?”
“We’re staying,” Bevel shouts back. “Writer, Wyndam, I’m sorry! We’re staying!”
“What?” Wyndam and Pip both shout in tandem.
“Goodbye!” Bevel shouts, tears spilling over his lashes and rolling down his cheeks, cutting paths through the blood and the sweat and the grime smeared there.
“Goodbye? Bevel—”
“Wyndam, be a good lad! Marry that girl Caerdac and have a Happily Ever After, and know that Kintyre and I love you very much!”
“I . . . goodbye!” Wyndam returns, and Writer, he is crying, too. The pain in my side is lessened, but it still hurts when my breath catches, and the burning at the back of my eyes grows so intense that I can feel the tears pushing their way out, rolling down my face as well. “Goodbye. I love you both, and . . . wait, Caerdac’s a girl?”
Pip laughs wetly as the portal closes with a final, soft pop.
There is a moment of stunned silence, and then Pip laughs a second time, weak and pained-sounding.
“Classic epic fantasy trope,” she whispers. “The girl disguised as a boy.”
“Is that it?” Bevel asks miserably. “Is that all of it? Is the magic gone now?”
“Almost gone,” Pip says softly, and then opens one of her fists. Pip holds up a single sprig of ivy, still writhing and curling and glowing bright green. She reaches out and presses it hard against Kintyre’s wound. I bend down over her hand and whisper the strongest Words of Healing, and Repairing, and Recreating that I know. And, as of just a few moments ago, I do know rather a lot of them.
We watch as the blood stops flowing, and the sides of the wound inch together. It doesn’t close, not completely, but it seems to be enough to keep the wound from being fatal. Kintyre’s breathing evens out, and he relaxes back into Bevel’s arms, eyes closed in a true sleep.
Above us, a thin siren wail pierces the silence. A flashlight beam sweeps down the escalators, and a voice calls, “Anyone down here?”
“Help!” Kora shouts, from the door of the ballroom, and races toward the escalator, waving her arms wildly. “We’re down here, and we need medical help!”
The next few moments are a blur of emergency personnel in dayglo vests, and the commotion of shouting voices, people crying, and loud assurances that everything will be all right now.
I am exhausted, and all I can do is wrap my hand in Pip’s and hold on.
I come back to myself when my wife untangles her hand to shove at Bevel.
“Hey, you lump. Move.”
Bevel snaps his eyes up to her, horrified. “No. No, I—I can’t! I . . .”
Pip points at the people ranged around us, clutching medical bags, grim-faced but hopeful. “Ah,” I say. “Bevel, you need to—”
“I won’t leave him!” Bevel snarls. “I won’t . . . I won’t be where he’s not.”
“Jesus fucking Christ!” Pip snarls back.She grabs him by the shoulders and hauls him back as much as she can. His hands flail up, red to the wrists, and I gulp in horror. “Move so the paramedic can get in!”
“The what?” Bevel yelps, caught off guard by Pip’s insistence and manhandling. “Is that a healer?”
Pip grins at him. “Better. I promise.”
“Fuck of a Dead Dog Party,” Pip says from the other side of the hospital room. She’s leaning against the wall, arms crossed over her stomach, watching Kintyre as intently as the rest of us.
She looks better than the rest of us, too, having been the only one of us well enough to escape the paramedics’ roving eyes and slip up to our hotel room for a shower and a change of clothes. The fire department has cleared the tower for occupation, though only the out-of-town guests with no immediate way home have been allowed to remain. Pip has brought me clothing, as well, and it feels nice to have a soft shirt over my wrapped ribs. Pip even stopped at one of the clothing shops between the hotel and the hospital to buy Bevel some jeans, a t-shirt, and a cozy red hoodie. Bevel still has blood crusted in his hair, though, and under his nails. A scrub in the waiting room washroom sink can only achieve so much.
“A what?” Bevel asks, moving as if he will glance back over his shoulder, but never quite managing to complete the gesture. He cannot tear his eyes away from his trothed’s face.
“Usually, at conventions, the committee who put on the con get together to finally relax once the con is over. Hang out in someone’s suite, eat pizza, drink the leftover booze, actually get time to meet the guests. Celebrate the end of the con and fight off sleep. Dead Dog Party.”
“Sounds exhausting,” I say.
“Usually is,” Pip agrees, and she lifts her eyes enough to send a twinkling look of fatigued mirth in my direction. “This is the best one I’ve been to yet, though.”
“The best?” Bevel splutters, affronted.
“Yeah,” Pip says, and steps forward to rest a kindly hand on his shoulder. “’Cause Kintyre’s gonna be fine.”
Bevel reaches up and clutches at Pip’s hand. He blows out a hard sigh, and if it ends on a bit of a sob, it is not my place to point it out.
I shift in my chair, trying to find a comfortable position, and failing. Though we are not supposed to use our phones in the hospital, I am being abysmally selfish and naughty, and am monitoring the media feeds, both social and mainstream. So far, it seems that only vague reports of what happened inside the convention center are surfacing. No one cornered the fans, nor did we threaten them to keep what they saw secret. If they care to tell the world that they experienced magic, real magic, while suffering a traumatic experience in an airless, lightless building, I am certain that it will cause no harm. Even if others believe them, there is no longer any magic in the Overrealm—no one would be able to recreate the experience or spells.
So far, the news is reporting it as either a homegrown terrorist attack or a crazed murder spree perpetrated by yet another maladjusted, entitled white man. Fifty-seven casualties are reported, including Ichiro Eiji and Ahbni Rebbapragada. Elgar’s death is, of course, the headline.
My heart aches to read of it, and I put my phone away.
“I’ve called my parents,” Pip says into the beeping silence of the hospital room. “They’re going to come here for a few weeks, while we all get healthy enough to travel. I’ve already arranged a room for them, and Bevel can take the spare one in our suite that was for . . . uh . . .” She trails off and swallows hard, the sound shaky. She turns away and dashes at her eyes.
“That’s extravagant,” I say. “Two flights and an extra room?”
Pip shrugs. “The con’s insurance is paying for it. Though I have no idea how it all got pushed through so quickly.”
I grin sharkishly and waggle my phone. “None, bao bei?”
Pip returns my grin, though hers is a little more wilted around the edges. “None.”
We lapse back into silence after that, and Pip shuffles her chair a little closer to mine, so that she can rest her head on my shoulder. I carefully lift an arm and wrap it around her, drawing her close and reveling in the scent of her skin, the heat of her cheek through my shirt, the soft warm puffs of breath against my collarbone. “I miss Alis,” she whispers.
“Me, too. But I’m glad she wasn’t here.”
“Me, too.” Pip drops a peck on my neck.
“You don’t have to stay,” Bevel says, without looking up. “I can mark the vigil alone.”
Pip and I exchange a glance and sit up.
“Do you want to be alone?” Pip asks.
“Yes,” Bevel says, but he sounds uncertain. “No? I just—I feel useless.”
“What would you prefer we were doing?” Pip asks, gently, and it’s not meant as a challenge or an unkindness. She honestly wants to help him.
“Magic,” Bevel says. “Why couldn’t you have cured him before you—?” He cuts himself off with a frustrated noise. “No, I know. Just getting rid of it was the clever thing, but I just . . .”
I understand his frustration, and anger. It is justified. I know Pip is wracked with guilt over the fact that she was so focused on keeping the magic away from the Viceroy that she didn’t stop to consider that she could do more for Kintyre, not until it was rushing past her and she had just enough presence of mind to snatch a tendril out of the air, to claw back just a little.
“He will live,” Pip says. “And he will be fine. All the doctors say so.” She leans forward and lays a hand on Bevel’s shoulder, aiming for comfort, but he jerks out from under her touch.
Pip sighs, not hurt by the rebuff, and sits back again.
“Perhaps we may try an experiment?” I suggest. “Pip, can you fetch that pen on the doctor’s chart? And some scrap paper, if anyone can find some.”
We cannot. We search for a few moments, and Pip suggests we ask the nurse for some. But then I remember what I shoved into the bag with my bloodied clothes and the Shadow’s Mask: the paper that Elgar used to summon Bevel and Kintyre into the Overrealm.
“Wait. I have some,” I say. I pull the wad of crumpled paper out. Carefully, I smooth it out on the end of the bed. It reads:
The Reader had the magic of the Viceroy inscribed on her bones, in her muscles, in her flesh. And while only the power of the Deal-Maker Spirits could rip a portal through the veil of the skies, the Viceroy was descended of one of the strongest; the weather witch who was his mother. His magic was Deal-Maker strong, and so were all the spells he had ever woven. He was a warlock in full possession of all the magic afforded to him by study and blood alike. That strength, that power, lived on in the corporeal essence of the Reader. Her husband could draw upon it—and so, too, could his maker, when he touched the Reader.
And so it was that the Writer placed his hand on the bare flesh of the Reader, cupping his palm over her scars and leeching the magic still held dormant there, releasing it, tapping it. And with that magic, that power, the Writer did what only a Deal-Maker had been able, in the past, to do.
He reached through the veil of the skies and pulled.
Through the rip stepped Kintyre Turn and Bevel Dom. They were attired for battle, armed with all their best and most treasured weapons and armor, and in the pocket of Kintyre’s jerkin, he carried a flask of the best dragon whiskey Drebbin had to offer. They came, ready to fight, ready to protect, ready to finish the final battle between good and evil. Ready to win.
Pip sucks in a wobbling breath, and then reaches out and touches the very corner of the paper with the tip of one finger. I am not certain what she
expects to happen. That it will crumble to dust, or electrocute her, or catch on fire, possibly? That perhaps magic will be made manifest in this bringing together of Writer and Reader?
Nothing happens, though. Nothing at all. Cautiously, tentatively, she takes the paper from me and smooths it over her thigh. The pen barely leaving a mark in her hesitance, Pip writes just below Elgar’s last line:
And with the excellent care of the hospital staff and the miraculous medicines of the Overrealm, Kintyre Turn completely healed by one o’clock in the morning, eastern standard time, and woke up.
Heaving a shaking sigh, Pip puts the pen back on the bedside table, and holds up her phone. We all watch breathlessly as the phone switches over from 12:59 to 1:00. Three sets of eyes dart immediately to Kintyre. We wait. The machines beep out their steady, rhythmic music. I am forced to exhale and inhale again.
At 1:03, Pip puts her phone away. She folds up the paper with Elgar’s writing on it, and presses it into Bevel’s hand. Her eyes are brown; not green, not violet, brown.
“I guess it was too much to hope for,” Bevel says quietly. “That the magic would linger long enough for just one more spell.”
“It was worth a try,” Pip says.
“Yes,” Bevel says sadly. “But this world isn’t a story. This world isn’t anything like the one I come from.”
“Not to be persnickety,” I say gently, “but this is exactly the world you come from. And it’s not so very different from Hain.”
“Oh, shut it, Bossy Forssy. You don’t have to keep indirectly apologizing for trapping me here,” Bevel snarks. “I chose to stay, didn’t I? I chose to . . . anyway, I chose.”
“You did,” Pip says. “And I just want to let you know that we’ll be here to help you adjust to—”
A tap on the doorframe makes Pip sit up ramrod straight and snap her mouth shut, like an errant child caught out by her governess. Standing in the doorway is a middle-aged man in the dark blue uniform of the Toronto Police Service. His hair is flecked with gray, his gaze tired but direct, and for a moment, he reminds me strongly of Rupin Pointe—upright, kindly, worn out by his duties, but also firmly and nobly beholden to them.