by Lanie Bross
Whenever there was an aberration in the universe’s delicate scheme, whenever the balance was disrupted, Free Radicals were born, like spontaneous explosions. Set off into space to float forever, they were enemies of order, the sole aspects of the universe that the Unseen Ones could not control. Like stars tearing across the sky, they were instruments of chaos and destruction and refused to remain fixed.
Once a Free Radical attached itself to another being, it would alter and morph the predetermined path of its host—just like vines that snaked themselves around vast trees, piercing the bark, feeding off its strength, slowly rendering the tree hollow and, eventually, toppling it.
Just then, Miranda materialized from the dark, as though emerging straight from the foam of the bay. She folded herself neatly into the sand, next to Corinthe, tucked her long white dress around her legs, and idly drew lines in the dirt between them.
Corinthe watched her Guardian from the corner of her eye. She seemed tense, on edge. She wouldn’t stop moving.
“Is everything okay?” Corinthe asked.
Miranda turned to look at her. Then Corinthe realized she was wrong. Miranda wasn’t on edge. She was happy. More than happy. What was the word? Exhilarated.
“Everything is exactly as it should be,” Miranda said with a slow smile. “Your task has been completed, I assume?”
“Of course.” It had been ten years since Corinthe’s exile as an Executor, and not once had Corinthe failed to complete an assignment. “And your night? What were you up to this time … more trolley rides?”
Miranda’s eyes flashed, but her smile did not fade. “My night went exceptionally well. And I have good news for you.” Like a magician pulling cards, she produced a marble with a flourish. “This is your last task, Corinthe. And then you can go home.”
“The last one?” Shock and joy swelled in her chest. Would she really be allowed to return to her home now? “Are you sure? How do you know?”
Miranda’s smile became more playful. “I have my ways. You trust me, don’t you?”
Corinthe nodded. Trust was another human concept, a concept she had never known or particularly needed before Humana. Miranda had taught her to trust.
The marble was cool in Corinthe’s hand. She thought it felt even heavier than usual. She gazed at it in the soft moonlight, could see the shadows inside it shifting, resolving. The marble seemed particularly cloudy, which meant the fate had been more disturbed by chance than most. Whatever the job was, it would need her full focus.
Inside the marble’s swirling dark colors, a hand became visible. Corinthe’s hand—it had to be; because it held her knife. She squinted and held the marble closer. The figure in front of the knife was backlit by the rising sun, featureless.
Though she could not see a face, one thing was clear.
Someone would die.
A chill went through her. Someone would die by her hand. Usually she only assisted in orchestrating deaths: accidents, things that would be called unlucky. But Corinthe knew there was no such thing as luck.
Though she’d trained for it, she’d never actually been called upon to kill. She’d never seen herself in a marble before. Never had her own future been closely entwined with a human’s.
She swallowed against the rising wave of panic. She understood now. The Unseen Ones were testing her. This was the task that would prove she was ready to return home. She was practiced and strong. She couldn’t fail now.
“When?” Corinthe asked, hoping that Miranda couldn’t see how nervous she was.
“In the morning, at the first light of dawn.”
“So soon?” Corinthe couldn’t stop herself from saying. She had to kill someone in less than five hours?
“You’re not eager to go home?” Miranda frowned.
“Of course I am,” Corinthe said. A tiny spark of hope ignited deep inside her chest. All these years she’d never allowed herself to hope too much, just in case. Was it really possible? Would she finally be allowed to return to Pyralis?
The light in Miranda’s eyes shifted. She grinned again, just enough to reveal white teeth, sharp as knives. Her right incisor extended down farther, sharper than the rest. She reached out and ran her hand over Corinthe’s cheek. “We have done so well all these years. We deserve this. You deserve it.”
Corinthe nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
Miranda reached into her pocket. “I have something else for you. I’ve been waiting a long time, until the time was right, to give it to you.”
She pulled out a long chain and slipped it over Corinthe’s head. On it was a tarnished silver oval the size and shape of a walnut that hung low over Corinthe’s chest.
Corinthe loved pretty jewelry, especially things that sparkled. This necklace was so plain it bordered on ugly.
Still, a gift—even an unattractive one—was a gift.
“Thank you,” she said politely, as she had learned was customary in Humana.
Miranda laughed. “It’s not meant to be pretty.” She turned it over. On the back of the oval was a tiny button. When pushed, the walnut split in half on a tiny hinge, opening; a tinny music began to play, and the figurine of a ballerina began to pirouette.
Longing, fierce and hot, rose in Corinthe’s chest. She knew that melody. It was the same one Miranda hummed every day.
“What—what is it?” Corinthe’s heart pounded wildly against her ribs and threatened to burst right out of her chest. The ballerina spun, flashing, in the dark; she couldn’t look away. “Where did you get it?”
“This is the compass that will guide you to the thing you want the most,” Miranda said. “When you find yourself inside the Crossroad, the dancer will stop and point you in the right direction.”
The thing she wanted most?
To return to Pyralis.
Home.
“Don’t take it off. Above all, don’t lose it. It’s the only way to find your way through the Crossroad when the time comes.”
Corinthe turned the small music box over and over in her hand but couldn’t see any mechanisms that made the ballerina spin. “I have to cross more than one world to return?” The thought of navigating the Crossroad, something only the Messengers did, made her stomach flip. She was certainly strong enough, but still—the Crossroad was dark and lawless. The danger of it was deep and psychological; it mirrored your own state.
When she’d first been pulled through the Crossroad into Humana, her heart had been full of chaos and confusion. She had felt as if she were getting violently torn apart. But now she was older: determined and capable. She’d earned the right to go home. …
“Will you become the Guardian of another Executor when I’m gone?” Corinthe’s voice cracked a little. She would miss Miranda, who’d been her only friend for so long.
Miranda touched Corinthe’s face briefly. “I don’t know what will happen next.”
Corinthe felt a tug of concern. Miranda had been almost like that special human thing: a mother. Corinthe hated the idea that Miranda might be alone after she left.
“Don’t worry.” Miranda smiled, as if she could see Corinthe’s thoughts. “Everything will be as it should. You’re ready. And as long as you have the compass, you’ll find your way.”
Corinthe closed her fist around the locket. Holding it in her hand, solid and real, loosened the tightness in her chest. She could travel the Crossroad. A grin spread over her face. It was finally happening. The locket was suddenly the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen in her entire life.
She jumped up and then pulled Miranda up with her.
“Shall we walk together?” Miranda said. “One last time, to celebrate? Then I, too, have an errand to perform.”
“In a little while,” Corinthe said. She just wanted a few minutes alone to think. To prepare for the task at hand.
“Don’t be too long,” Miranda said. “And, Corinthe?”
Corinthe turned to her Guardian. Miranda’s eyes were as dark as the ocean. The wind blew h
er hair around and above her, making it appear as though she was crowned with a ring of writhing serpents. She smiled, and her eyes flashed momentarily green—the vivid color of a firefly’s wings.
“I’ll miss you,” Miranda said. “When you’re gone.”
6
“They won’t support what you’re trying to do.”
Miranda ignored the girl’s voice. “One cappuccino, please,” she said to the barista behind the counter. Miranda didn’t even drink coffee, but she enjoyed Fiend, the narrow, wood-paneled coffee shop in the Mission filled with a collection of mismatched stools and mismatched people: pink-haired, pierced and punctured, tattooed, and stinking of various human smells. It was chaotic and disorganized and everything she loved.
While she was waiting for her coffee, the girl moved to stand beside her. Miranda didn’t have to turn to know exactly what she looked like. Dark hair, woven through with strips of canvas, tangled against her exposed back.
“Tess,” Miranda said, trying to keep her voice light. “How have you been?”
“Why do you continue to pursue this path, Miranda?” Tess persisted in a low voice. “The Tribunal has a carefully laid-out plan. You know that. And you’re jeopardizing everything. They’ve spoken out against you. No one will even risk your company.” Tess placed a hand on Miranda’s arm, so that Miranda was forced to look at her. “No one will aid you, either.”
Miranda took a deep breath. She didn’t want to lose her temper. “So why are you here, then?”
“To try and reason with you.” Tess spat out the words. Now Miranda saw that Tess, too, was trying to keep from losing her temper. The idea almost made her smile. “Do you have any idea what this will do to us? It could reveal our presence. Set us back millennia …”
Miranda shrugged. “My issue is with the Unseen Ones. How the Tribunal is affected is not my concern.”
For a second, Tess’s eyes blazed, going from the dark black of a polished stone to a pure, hot white, sparking with anger. “If you do this, you will force the other Radicals against you. Is that what you want?”
“One cappuccino,” droned the girl behind the counter.
Miranda took the cup that was offered to her and licked a bit of foam from her finger. Garbage. But she enjoyed the ritual of it. Tess was watching her, but Miranda unhurriedly emptied sugar into her coffee, stirred carefully, tasted again.
“My plan will work, and then they will be forced to admit that I was right all along,” Miranda said. “There will be chaos in Pyralis, Tess. There will be blood. One of their own carries, even now, the seeds of destruction back to its shores. Then we can rule like we should. The Tribunal wants us to wait … but for what, Tess? We’ve been waiting too long already. It’s our time now.” She might have been born from chaos, but she wouldn’t die like a beast, driven to her knees in the dust like a dog.
She would choose. She had chosen; she had chosen the day she learned of Corinthe’s existence and decided to launch the plan that was now ten years in the making.
“They know what’s best … ,” Tess began to say, but Miranda waved her excuse away with one hand and walked toward a small wooden table in the corner, covered with white ring stains like a series of interlinked planets. Tess trailed behind and took the seat across from her. “So you’re willing to sacrifice an innocent life for the chance to prove the Tribunal wrong?” she hissed, leaning across the table so that no one else could hear.
Miranda steeled herself against the flush of guilt. She wasn’t sacrificing anyone, not really. Corinthe’s fate was to die. Miranda was giving her the chance to save herself. If Corinthe chose to kill the boy, she would live. She would effectively swap fates.
And if Corinthe, the only Fallen Fate in history, chose to go against her fate, it might be enough to upset the balance.
Then the Free Radicals could regain what they had lost. There had been a time when Miranda had had the power to tear holes in the universe, to bring time to its knees and make planets spin backward.
She could still almost taste it … how it felt to hold the universe like one of those precious marbles in the palm of her hand … how it felt to smash whole worlds to pieces and watch new creations rise from their dust.
Tess had been one such creation. The closest thing to an offspring a Free Radical could have.
And Miranda knew it was Tess’s daughter-like loyalty that kept her here, in this cafe, continuing to urge Miranda to return to the Tribunal.
Now Tess shook her head as though she was reading Miranda’s mind. Perhaps she was. “I may not be able to come again.” She almost sounded sad, and Miranda, surprised, turned around. Tess’s eyes were dark again, full of shadows. “If I can’t change your mind, we will be enemies.”
The last time Miranda had stood before the council, she had pleaded with them to listen. Begged, almost. The threads of the universe were so tightly woven that the efforts of the Free Radicals made only tiny tears in the fabric. They were ineffectual, they were failing, and they would soon suffocate, crushed out by the control, by the regularity, by the stiff-necked balance that forced everything in one direction.
She had a plan to take back control.
They refused. The Tribunal wanted to coexist with the Unseen Ones and were too shortsighted to realize that by denying their very nature, they were walking into their own extinction.
Now the Radicals were dying faster than they could be born. As they moved through space unattached, their powers gradually dissipated, like water evaporating in the sun. This was why Rhys had become so weak—his exile was draining him, allowing his powers to simply seep away. This was also why the Tribunal had so much sway: they knew that only by banding together and combining their energy could they survive in a universe that was increasingly dominated by order instead of chaos.
And it worked. The Tribunal was just like a black hole—luring other Radicals into it, terrifying in its strength. Miranda knew that the biggest risk she could ever take was going against the Tribunal. They were the one force in the universe that could easily destroy her, and her powers were diminishing gradually, just like Rhys’s. She knew she couldn’t survive on her own forever—no Radical could.
Two could, however. She’d forged a partnership once, born out of ambition and a mutual desire for revenge. Ford. He was a Radical of tremendous power. Together, they had survived without the Tribunal. But the Tribunal had gotten to him long ago, and now Miranda had no allies left.
Corinthe was her only hope. She’d banked everything on Corinthe.
She had escaped her exile in the Land of the Two Suns, only to live miserably in Humana, virtually a slave, disrupting the balance whenever she could, creating tiny moments of chaos out of order.
A small, meager, pathetic way for a Radical to exercise her powers, and she didn’t even know if her plan would work, but she knew she had to try. She thought of Corinthe’s face, and the music box turning and turning forever unless the girl figured out what she wanted. A horrible destiny: gripped by her own indecision, compelled to spin forever at the hands of those who wished to control everything. Miranda would not be a part of it.
“Then we will be enemies.” Miranda spoke gently. “I couldn’t stop it even if I wanted to.”
Tess shook her head. She seemed about to argue, but at last she just said: “Goodbye, then.” Tess turned and glided out of the coffee shop onto the San Francisco street. Miranda turned away so she wouldn’t have to see Tess disappear.
“Goodbye,” Miranda whispered.
She waited for a minute, then walked into the street holding her coffee, feeling its warmth seep into her hands. Then she dumped it out in the nearest gutter.
Soon, if everything went as planned, this would all be over.
7
Went to the Marina. Lost something.
Luc stared at the note he had found tossed carelessly on his pillow. He tried to keep himself from screaming, or hitting something. He’d forbidden Jasmine to go out. He’d made her swear. An
d she’d ignored him.
What the hell was so important at this hour?
The apartment had been dark when he let himself in. No surprise there. His dad was snoring on the couch. No surprise there, either. Luc couldn’t remember the last time his dad had mobilized himself to make it to his bedroom instead of just passing out in front of the TV.
For a long time, Luc had hoped that one day he would snap out of it and start being a father again. Then, sophomore year, after Luc had put a fist through a locker—to be fair, he’d been swinging for Drew O’Connell’s head; Drew had been spreading rumors that thirteen-year-old Jasmine had given him a striptease in the Taco Bell parking lot—he’d been forced to see a therapist for six months.
The guy was a total prick—once Luc had even caught him sleeping during a session, and his breath always made the office smell like tuna fish—but one thing Dr. Asswipe had taught him was this: Give up the wish.
His dad would never snap out of it. Give up the wish. His mom wasn’t coming back to life. Give up the wish.
He would always feel alone. Give up the wish.
Luc was on his own if he wanted to find Jas. Damn it. He punched her number into his phone and waited. When it rang and went to voice mail, he hit call end.
There was no way he’d sleep without knowing if Jas was okay. He crumpled the paper in his fist and stormed back to his room. A dark blue varsity soccer sweatshirt hung over a chair, and he yanked it over his head. He jerked the laces of his boots tight and then stood up, pulling a Giants cap down around his shaggy black hair.
Why did she have to go to the Marina at three in the morning? The only people who hung out there at this hour were dealers and addicts.
She had probably gone to see T.J. If she got messed up tonight …
Luc was going to kill him. Luc was going to kill her.
As if his night hadn’t been messed up enough already.
Luc tried Jasmine’s cell again and swore aloud when it went straight to voice mail. Of course. Why should tonight be any different? Jasmine was always full of excuses.