by R. M. Webb
Here’s what I do know.
I’ve not spent each night looking for him, each day missing him, for me to find him and lose him all in the same instant. I reach out and funnel my magic through Celine’s, trying to strengthen our connection, because, damn it, he’ll see me if that means I have to jump on his back and do cartwheels off until he does.
“Noah!” I scream his name as I reach out, cursing when my hand falls right through him as if he were nothing more than a projection on a screen. Now that I can see him, I realize all the more how much I miss him, how much I’ve needed him. I’ve been incomplete since he stopped talking to me. How could I have been so stupid? This guy is cut from the same awesome cloth as his sister, and maybe he loved me once, and I just took all that he gave me and tossed it aside. Silly me, too desperate for answers, too easily swayed by Luke.
“Noah!” I reach out again. “Please see me. I’m so sorry. I’ve been such an ass. But,” and here’s where I really start to feel awful, “I need your help.” After all he’s already done, after me being an ungrateful bitch, I can’t believe I have the gall to ask for more. He flinches, squeezes his eyes closed and shakes his head like he can’t concentrate. Maybe I’m getting through to him.
He turns and looks my way, his blue upon blue eyes slowly focusing on mine until I’m certain he sees me.
“Zoe?” He squints. “Where are you?”
I want to tell him I’m sorry. I want to tell him that I realize I’ve been a total bitch, that I’ve taken advantage of him and I never want to do that again, that I want to make him as happy as he’s made me, but I’m not sure how much time we have before something happens. It’s been days finding him, I don’t want to waste even one second.
“I’m at the ranch. With Daya. And Celine.” I can’t stand the flood of emotion I watch tear across his face.
“Celine’s with you?” If pain has a sound, that would be it. “I thought she … Zoe? Celine died.”
Oh, God, the hope in his statement rips open my heart. I nod, and despise myself for even bringing her up. “She’s a remnant. She’s been helping me.”
His face grows hard in the absence of hope, the final realization that his sister has been stuck here for decades while he continues to live out his life wages a war against his handsome features. His magic blazes awake, a dazzling display of light and dark, drawn out by his emotion. What do I say? Do I talk about how wonderful she is? How the world suffered with her loss because we need people like her in it? Or do I just say silent?
“Why are you here?” His eyes start fading out of focus and he’s seeing through me again. What if he just lets this whole thing go and wakes up, thankful to be rid of a particularly brutal dream?
“Celine sent me. We need you. And Luke. Both of us need both of you.”
Noah swallows hard and shakes his head. He looks away, and I watch as he settles the raging emotions fighting inside him and the flickering light around him goes from a strange blend of light and dark to just a pure golden glow. He is a testament to control and inner strength, the strongest person I’ve ever met.
And he still hasn’t answered me.
“Noah? Can you hear me?”
He refocuses on me and for just the tiniest fraction of a second, I’m floored by the amount of disgust I see there. I even stagger back a few steps, losing control of our connection and cry out when he flickers in and out of focus. There’s a surge of energy - thank you, Celine - and Noah’s features come back into high resolution.
“Are you asking me to drop everything and come to your rescue again? Grab Luke and off we go?”
My heart sinks. I’ve used up all his good will. Me, the person who so resented being used by Daya and Becca and whoever set Becca up to keep me hidden, I went ahead and used Noah and never even thought twice about it.
“I don’t deserve it. I know it. I’m a terrible person…” I trail off, distracted by another huge surge of energy. My dream world ripples and flexes, the ground moving and twitching under my feet. And then it’s like I’ve lost control of my words and body. I open my mouth wide, too wide, and light blazes from my eyes and I only know that because somehow, I’m watching it instead of experiencing it. And then, there’s a parade of images, the same ones Celine showed me the other day. Me fighting the hollows for her. Me figuring out how to stop time in the courtyard rather than bow to Daya’s orders. Me pulling waves of dark magic back into myself, bringing life back to the trees in the orchard. Me, getting up and doing the things Daya asked of me, but never giving myself fully to my dark magic.
Celine stands beside me in my dream world and stares at her brother with a look that’s serene and peaceful and wistful and so filled with love. Noah’s face crumbles and the love is echoed in his eyes and tears stream down his cheeks. He reaches out and sobs when he can’t quite touch her, his hand passing through her form the same way mine passed through his just moments ago.
Celine steps forward and holds out a hand, palm out. He lifts his as if to press it to hers. I think they’re talking, and though I can’t hear it, I can see all I need to see to understand that they’re overjoyed to be reunited and there’s grief, so much grief, at having ever lost each other.
“She’s not a terrible person,” says Celine in her angel’s voice. “She’s worth saving.” Noah nods, tries to speak, but I don’t think he can make it around the lump in his throat. He just closes his mouth and nods more frantically, and then sniffs and smiles all while his face crumbles yet again.
“I’m sorry,” he begins in a choked whisper.
Celine shushes him. “I’m not.”
And then the world explodes and I sit up, alone in my dark cell, sweat soaking into my cot. “Celine?” I call out even though I know I’m alone.
Chapter Nineteen
I pass the rest of the night watching the wedge of a window go from black, to gray, and then to blue before the morning sun blazes into existence. I don’t know what happened to Celine. All I know is that she’s gone and I’m really afraid something bad happened to her. When Daya scrapes open the big metal door, I’m already dressed and waiting. Thing is, when she doesn’t look surprised, I’m pretty certain that she’s the cause of whatever happened to Celine.
I don’t know if I’ll be able to control myself if I find out Daya hurt her.
We wander through the now familiar hallways and I can tell we’re heading out to the courtyard. I think it’s still late autumn, but the morning is cold. Frost crunches under our feet and my breath puffs in little bursts in front of my face. The whole place is dried grass and dead leaves and empty branches scratching out against the brilliant morning sky.
Bo and the other hollow remnants filter into the space, some walking as they did in life, others passing through the walls, and others still scuttling on the ground in some awful version of a human spider. For the first time in a long time, I’m nervous. I search the group for Celine, but I don’t see her.
“Help them pass on.” Daya’s now familiar voice scrapes out into the space, as cold as the ground.
“Where’s Celine?” I’ve played her games long enough. It was one thing to blindly follow her orders when it wasn’t hurting anyone except maybe me. But now? With Celine gone and Daya certain to be the reason? We’re playing a totally different game now.
“Why, whatever do you mean?”
“Oh come off it.”
Daya’s whole demeanor changes. “You didn’t think I knew what you were doing? Setting up your wards, letting the girl try and filter your magic. Child, you’re a fool. Celine was a little girl when she died. That’s not a lot of time to learn much about the way things work.”
My whole world comes crashing down around my ears. I can’t stand to hear her say anything negative about Celine, even though I probably was foolish for believing the girl knew how to outsmart Daya. “Where is she?” Even my voice is crackling with energy, that awesome twist of dark and light energy, both ready and eager to come to life and do my bidding.<
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“Help these hollows pass on and I’ll tell you. Don’t you think they’ve suffered long enough?”
I want to roll my eyes. These hollows deserve some time spent suffering. Celine? She’s not deserved one thing that’s happened to her along the way. Hell, I want to keep fighting, but if I have even a small chance of helping Celine by following Daya’s orders, well that girl deserves to have someone fight for her. “You know I can’t do it without drawing energy from another source. I’ve never done it without killing someone.”
Something wicked works its way across Daya’s face, and I can’t help but remember how much I don’t know about this woman. “Then use them.”
With a wave of her fingers, she slides open a door on the other side of the courtyard. The hollow remnants chitter and chatter, echoing Daya’s words in their horror movie voices, laughing and cackling, filling the courtyard and my mind with the sound. My head is filled with too many voices.
Two figures stumble out of the doorway across the courtyard, drawn forward by Daya’s magic. The remnants scuttle and cavort, jerking through a macabre dance, laughing as they point and continue to chant: “Use them.”
My heart stops.
Stumbling towards me like two men doomed for the gallows, are Noah and Luke. And behind her, chained to a wall with magic stained a vicious red, is Celine. Her tear-streaked face contorts when she sees me. “Stay true to you, Zoe! Stay true!” The magic holding her back lashes out and whips her across the face, leaving an angry mark on her cheek. She cries out, and rope-like magic snakes into her mouth, silencing her. She’s choking and gagging on it and I set my jaw.
I turn to Daya. “I can’t. I won’t.”
“This is what you wanted, girl.” I almost can’t hear her over the howling and cavorting of the hollow remnants. “You think dark magic is as simple as killing vagrants? Strangers on the street? The real stuff, the powerful stuff, comes with a heavy price. You really want to understand it? That knowledge comes at quite a high cost.”
Luke laughs, his muscles straining as he fights each step forward, his body controlled by Daya’s magic. “Haven’t changed your act much over the years, have you?”
Daya ignores him and stays focused on me. “You’re right, you know. You won’t be whole until you can learn to integrate both parts of yourself into your identity. And you won’t be strong enough to fight Lucy until you’re whole.”
I just stare at Daya. There’s no way I can sacrifice Noah and Luke to help these remnants pass on, it doesn’t matter if my life depends on it or not. I just shake my head and turn back to my friends. They’re not being pulled forward anymore. They’re just standing a few feet from me, bodies straining with their attempts to pull free from Daya’s magic. And behind them is Celine, tears streaming down her face. Despite it, she shakes her head, her final message to me, despite her pain, is to stay strong.
A hollow remnant - one who still looks like little boy with wiry arms and legs and eyes darker than anything I’ve ever seen - jumps onto my back and clings to my shoulders. His body is weightless and burns where it presses into mine. “It’ll feel so good. When you kill ‘em. Just flex your magic and watch ‘em fall.” He leans into my ear and I feel his cold lips brushing the skin at my neck. “You’re gonna love it.”
This isn’t what I want to be. I want to be strong, not cold. Whole, not broken. Can’t I marry the two parts of myself without compromising who I am? Won’t giving into my dark magic just swing the pendulum to the other side? If I’m all light, without dark, then I’m not whole, but if I’m all dark, without light, well I’m not whole then either, am I? And sacrificing the two people - my eyes fall on Celine - three people who actually mean something to me? That’s letting the pendulum swing so far it just shatters the opposite wall.
“No.”
Daya steps forward, gathering her energy into her hands, flexing them and flaring them and her magic snaps and pops, heavy with threat. “What do you mean, ‘no’?”
“In order to be whole, I’ve gotta be balanced. If I kill my friends, that’s not balance.”
“And killing strangers is?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know. What I do know is that sacrificing my friends for my own personal gain is wrong. It goes against who I am. And that’s not balanced.”
Daya lifts her hand, her magic popping like an electrical storm. “Well, then I’ll kill them myself.”
I don’t have time to ask myself why Daya wants Luke and Noah dead. Why she has Celine chained to a wall and choking on hateful magic. I just leap in front of them, calling on my tiger and chanting a series of protection spells. Golden light flares around them, a huge shield of energy.
“Cessabis magicae!” My magic flares like a fountain, showering sparks onto the cold ground, and shatters the controlling spell Daya has on Noah and Luke.
I spin and find myself facing Daya again. She flings a fireball that whizzes past my face, singeing my hair, and smashes into the ground, sputtering out when it hits the frosted grass. So, now what? Now I have to kill Daya in order to get out of killing my friends?
The courtyard is boiling with movement and energy. The remnants are flailing and cackling. Magic is flaring. My tiger is roaring and pacing and Noah’s joins her, followed by Luke’s dragon. And when a wolf joins them, I know it’s Celine’s.
Freed from Daya’s spell, Luke steps up to my side and Noah stands tall near the other. Without thinking, I reach out and clasp their hands and something strange happens the moment we’re all connected.
Wind swirls around our feet, racing up our body and standing our hair on end. There’s the pop and woompf that comes when magic starts doing its thing without being told and then, oh my gosh, it’s like when a watercolor gets wet and all the colors bleed into each other. Noah’s magic and Luke’s magic rush through my body and collide in my very center and then … I don’t know … it’s like my magic reaches out and wraps up both of them and melds it all together and now we’re one. Celine steps in front of us, energy surging around her little body, her hair whipping around her face, magic streaming from her fingertips.
And if that doesn’t make sense, then good. Because I don’t understand it either.
The courtyard falls silent. Daya lets her magic dissipate, the fire enveloping her hand contracting until it no longer exists at all. She waves her hands and flares her fingers. “Relegant religuiae,” she says, and the hollow remnants disappear.
Noah, Luke, and I, we’re still holding hands in the middle of the courtyard and all I know is that I don’t want them to let go. There’s a strength and a comfort with us unified like this and I don’t want to go back to being un-whole. Whatever that means.
“Well done, Zoe.” Daya steps towards us. I want to move away from her, but the men keep me steady, each of them squeezing my hand and keeping me in place. “You’ve completed the Trinity.”
Excuse me? What?
She must see the confusion on my face because she smiles and shakes her head. “Like I said, you need to accept that there are people who know more about what’s going on than you do and trust them to make the right decisions for you.”
I look at Luke and Noah in turn because I’ll be damned if there’s yet another big conspiracy surrounding me that they’re in on. I’ll never forgive them if that’s the case. Luckily for them, they look just as confused as I am.
Celine turns and smiles at the three of us and I hope someday I get to experience the love I see on her face. I don’t think many people do. Tears are brimming in her eyes, which are glowing with that autumnal light. They’re so bright, they should be hard to look at, but they’re not. They dart from Luke to Noah and then back to me before she runs up and wraps her arms around Noah. “I love you little brother,” she says.
And then there’s wind and warmth and this moment of pure joy and way before I’m ready, Celine is gone. From out of nowhere and from everywhere, her voice sounds one last time. “I’ll be waiting for you.”
And
then, her voice is in my head, just a tiny little whisper, the last bit of my friend before she passes out of my world. “Thank you.”
Chapter Twenty
“You guys can let go now.” Daya indicates our still clasped hands. “I’m sure you don’t want to, but you’re gonna have to let go someday. Now’s as good a time as any.”
Reluctantly, we unwind our fingers and let go of each other’s hands. Oddly enough, that feeling of connection and completion doesn’t go away now that we’re no longer touching. It’s like I can still feel them, their energy, connected to me. I swipe away the tears trailing down my cheeks and Noah does the same.
“This way,” says Daya and takes off towards the doors that held Luke and Noah just moments ago without turning back to see if we obey. We do, of course, following her like confused little ducklings. At least, I hope we’re ducklings, and not lambs being led to the slaughter. I trail my fingers across the wall that held Celine, saying my own little goodbye and somehow I’m certain she hears me.
Daya winds us through the labyrinthine hallways and we end up in a room that has to be hers. It’s like this room sucked all of the color out of the rest of the ranch. There are plush chairs set on either side of an overstuffed sofa and for just a split second, I resent my spartan cell, but I don’t give that thought room to grow because I met the most beautiful little creature in that room. A child who will forever change the way I see things. Daya indicates that we’re to sit on the couch as she lowers herself into one of the armchairs. Noah and I sink into the couch while Luke leans against the wall near the door, arms crossed, glowering.
“Sometimes,” Daya pauses and swallows. She looks down, as if she’s searching for the right words and thinks she dropped them in her lap. “Sometimes,” she continues with a flourish of her hands, “weapons must be forged. I’m sure the steel despises the blacksmith’s hammer…” She trails off and shakes her head. “And the heat of the flame…”