by Lee French
Claire jumped to her feet with a squeal and hugged Justin. “I thought I killed them!” Tears streamed down her cheeks “Those ghosts were so terrifying and I don’t even know why and I thought the mist was coming to kill me. It didn’t make any sense because nothing worked and everything went wrong.”
“They’re both going to be fine.” Justin squeezed her, then he held her by the shoulders so he could look in her eyes. “Claire, I want to know why you didn’t come talk to me about doing this. I know a lot happened between the three of us, but I’m still your mentor and dad-like person. This is exactly the kind of thing we should have talked about before you ran off to do it.”
She wiped her face. And had no answer. In retrospect, she should have gone straight to him and told him everything. He could have asked better questions at Anne’s. He could have kept Drew from doing anything scary enough to make Mutt run away. He could have protected her in the tunnels.
“I’m sorry,” said with a sniffle. “I was dumb.”
He smiled and hugged her again. “Not an answer, but a good start.”
Claire hadn’t felt this safe and loved for too long. But Justin wanted to know, and Avery and Anne probably could help fill in holes that he couldn’t. She let go and sat beside Drew again.
“It started with the Ordeal.” She told him about fighting an echo of her father, about finding Leeloo and Iulia, and the gist of what Iulia had said. When she finished with the need to destroy the Palace, she took a deep breath and added, “I’m not tainted.”
“She’s not,” Drew said with a firm nod. Knowing he wasn’t as certain as he sounded provided Claire an extra buoy. He supported her. That mattered.
“I know.” Justin waved them both off and sank into thought.
Stunned, Claire let her jaw fall open. “But I thought…I mean…how…?”
“Ki could tell,” Avery said. “After my experiences at the Palace this morning, I…” He shrugged and growled in his throat. “I want this to be true. I want Caius to be a corrupted Phasm so we can destroy him and the Palace. Then I never have to endure that awful dissonance again.”
“Speaking from the point of view of someone many Knights feel is automatically an enemy,” Anne said, “I’m not surprised to hear there’s something rotten in Denmark, so to speak. Justin, you know I’ve complained about your aura before. This has got to be the reason for what I see. It’s the simplest, best explanation.”
Chapter 27
Claire
Justin frowned. “I hear all of you, I just…this is…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Kurt did a lot for me. This feels like betraying his memory. We worked so hard to preserve the Palace, and now you want me to just accept destroying it.”
“In fairness, I feel the same way,” Avery said. “I spent twenty years of my life as a Knight. I considered Mark a friend. Looking back on all that time, I don’t like thinking it was all a waste.”
“But it wasn’t. Don’t you see?” Claire could see she needed to convince both men, and her mind whirled with things she could say. “If we just let the Palace be destroyed, Caius will be released and I’ll bet he’d make the mother of all corrupted Phasms. Or, I guess, the father. But the point is, this isn’t about destroying the Palace, it’s about wiping the slate clean and starting over. Iulia can harness the power it releases to make a new one, which is actually the important part.”
“Claire, wait.” Justin shifted so much it looked like squirming. “Caius isn’t the dark lord of evil. He’s got power and a mission, and he uses it. Everything he does is to keep the Knights strong and capable.” As he finished, his voice pitched up until he begged.
Avery cleared his throat. “I think the important thing we both want is evidence. Genuine proof. Neither of us is willing to do this based on the word of a woman who stabbed Caius in the back.”
“So he says.” Claire had to pace. “There’s no such thing as evidence about this. Caius’s account is just that—Caius’s account. Iulia’s account is the same thing. There’s no unbiased book of facts.” She paused and looked at Mutt. Anne scratched under his ears. Neither had a role to play in this situation so far as she could see. Besides, even if Mutt knew something, Justin and Avery would never believe him. But they would believe Claire.
Claire raised a finger. “How about if we all lay out everything we’ve seen or noticed in the past couple of days that would support one side or the other? Like, I’ll start. I kind of glossed over Iulia’s situation when I found her as ‘torture.’ ” She described the scene for them—angry spirits swirling, a woman with a hooked nail pounded through her wrists, and screeching.
Justin blanched. Avery frowned at the ground. Anne scowled.
“The memories Caius left in the Palace claim he loved Iulia and she loved him. I can see being mad about betrayal. That makes sense. I can even see doing all those things to her. The thing I don’t get is leaving her there for two thousand years. When I look at Drew, someone I’ve known for years, who’s my best friend, and think about the worst thing he could ever do to me?” She met Drew’s gaze and quirked up one side of her mouth. “Yeah, I could get all tyrannical and do something horrible to him. But after a while, I’d have second thoughts. I’d at least make it so he didn’t suffer anymore.”
“Caius is a ghost,” Avery said. “His sense of morality is different. Which…is your point. I see.” He picked up a rock and rolled it around in his hand, his expression pensive.
Arms still crossed, Justin shifted until he seemed more open to the conversation. “I’ve always wondered why Caius feels it’s necessary to kill Knights who don’t measure up. There isn’t an inexhaustible supply of us. For every Knight he’s killed, a region goes without until another one either moves in or rises up. Kurt told me it happens once every twenty years or so. That’s a lot of Knights killed for the crime of asking for more power than they could handle. A simple ‘no’ would have the same effect without killing anyone.”
“That dissonance.” Avery hurled his rock into the trees. “I wish I knew what it means. It’s like…like the corrupted Phasm turned the dial on the radio we use to listen to the Palace and Caius.”
Pleased to see both men thinking, Claire wracked her brain for anything else she’d seen or noticed that might matter. “He makes a special point of depicting dragons as really, really evil. Like, so evil they can’t be tamed or allowed to roam freely, or whatever else people might want to do with dragons. But the one in the Ordeal was so loyal to Iulia it hurt, and Enion is a sweetheart. They don’t even eat meat. Dragons are vegetarians.”
“He fought enough of them in his life,” Justin said. “He must have—”
“Never tried to befriend one because they’re scary-looking and he was a famous gorgon-slaying hero?”
Justin’s frown made Claire feel justified for interrupting him. “I don’t know, Claire. I just don’t know. I do wonder how the magic in the tunnels mutated ants if the Palace is supposed to prevent that from happening.”
Avery nodded and picked up another rock. “That’s bothering me too.”
“Are those memory echo things normal?” Claire rubbed her shoulder. She wondered if the numbness would ever go away.
“Yes,” Anne said. “Disturbances in ley lines can produce them. Not usually as many at once as you all saw, but that’s a powerful ley line.”
“Should they be able to freeze my skin through my armor?”
“No,” Avery said.
“The Palace seal is leaking,” Anne said, sounding so firm Claire didn’t dare argue with her. “Didn’t you say Iulia told you the palace seal would crack eventually? I think we can accept that much as truth, since the logic of it checks out. Creating a new seal is a major undertaking that needs a lot of power. The only way to collect the energy released by the existing seal breaking is to be there when it happens. And the best way to do that is to cause it.”
“Suppose we accept the Palace seal is cracking,” Justin said. Claire couldn’t tell how
he felt about it yet. “If we explain the problem to Caius, there’s no need to kill him. He may be a ghost, but he still wants to continue to exist, and if breaking the seal to reforge it is necessary, he’ll allow it to happen.”
“I’m not sure I believe that,” Avery said. “Caius would run us through a test first. He’ll play hard and dirty for something like that. And then there’s the matter of getting to him in the first place. Sure, we can try to just imagine our way in as usual, but I can’t concentrate well enough there to find my way out of a paper bag. And what do we focus on to avoid letting him deny our entry all at once without giving away our intent?”
“There’s got to be a door or hallway, doesn’t there?” Drew asked. “I mean, it’s all one place, so everything’s connected. The connection to wherever Caius is can’t only be in his mind. He’s part of the seal.”
“He’s right,” Anne said. “Seals aren’t my area of expertise, but I know how magic works. Someplace in there, it has a door or portal to his demesne.”
Avery nodded. “Instead of wanting to find Caius, we all go with the intention of finding the doorway. That should work. We talk to him, fight our way through his test, destroy the Palace, and then…?”
“And then…” Claire slumped. This part of the plan relied on both trusting Iulia and killing Caius. Neither Avery nor Justin had been convinced of these things. While she probably could persuade them, Claire had no idea if she should. She paced more.
Iulia seemed honest to Claire. The story of Caius as an egotistical, self-righteous ass felt right. Though he’d treated her with relative fairness, something about his manner and attitudes, and those of many of his Knights, grated on her nerves. Thinking of those Knights led her to remember Djembe’s behavior before the Ordeal. He’d been reasonable only one day earlier. Something had changed with him.
“Yesterday, when Djembe glared at me like I’d killed his puppy, his head jerked to the side. It was weird.”
Justin snapped his head up. “I saw him do that too. I’ve never seen him do that before.”
“Like this?” Drew twitched his head to the side in an uncanny imitation of Djembe’s tic.
“Yes,” Claire and Justin said at the same time.
“You did that yesterday morning,” Justin said. “I remember now. I saw it and dismissed it. Then I saw Djembe do it. I didn’t know what to make of it then and still don’t.”
Drew nodded. “I noticed it in the mirror this morning. Now that we’re not in competition for my body, it happens when Kay and I are arguing about something. He sort of reflexively tries to take over, but only for a moment. Then he remembers Claire is prepared to do awful things if he doesn’t keep our deal.”
Claire gulped and feared she already knew the answer, but had to ask the question anyway. “So Djembe was arguing with…?”
“Caius,” Justin said with a scowl.
“Except Caius is stronger than Kay,” Avery said, the corners of his mouth twisted with disgust, “and hasn’t made a deal with anyone to play nice. If he wanted to take one of us over inside the Palace, nothing would stop him. Maybe that explains the dissonance. Having thrown off the shackles of a corrupted Phasm, we’re resistant to the influence of another.”
“Your auras have been changed permanently,” Anne confirmed. “I think you all know what needs to be done. Since I can’t go with you, you’ll have to rely on Iulia to gather the power when the Palace is destroyed. In theory, when the seal is broken, every Knight in the Palace will return to Earth, probably wherever you usually cross over. Iulia, having nowhere she normally crosses over, could land anywhere. Also in theory, I should be able to track her when you get back. Beyond that, I can’t say what exactly will happen or how we should handle it. It’s best to just prepare for as many possibilities as we can. Given that, I’d like to go home and gather supplies. Can we wait until morning to do this?”
Justin, Avery and Claire all agreed. Claire faced the house with a deep breath and no clear idea how to beat Caius. They’d find a way, she had no doubt about it. Between Justin and Avery, they could keep Caius busy and figure out his weakness or battle him until he left an opening. Or something. He had to make mistakes. Rondy would be helpful too, if she could contact him. She wished she could take Drew and Mutt and the entire flight of dragons. Mostly, though, she just wanted Enion to come back.
Chapter 28
Justin
Marie sat in bed, reading her latest book and twirling the yellow dandelion Justin had given her after tucking the girls into bed. “Are you planning to stay there all night, or are you going to tender your formal apology?” she asked.
Justin sat on the edge of the bed in only his jeans, resting his elbows on his knees and rubbing his face. Fighting Caius sounded like a suicide mission. He still held out hope they could circumvent or recruit him, but not much. “I haven’t decided yet.”
“Jay, I’m not really mad. Nothing bad happened. It’s just upsetting how, lately, you’ve made a lot of promises you can’t keep.”
“This job…” He sighed. “I never leave because I want to.”
“I know. It doesn’t change the fact you promised to be there, and then you weren’t. We’ll look back on this Thanksgiving and call it the year Daddy didn’t show up.”
The truth stung. His usual rebuttal, that she knew what she was getting when she married him, sat on the tip of his tongue. If he wanted to argue, he should use it.
He didn’t want to argue.
“Claire and I are going to do something tomorrow that will change a lot of things. If what I think is going to happen actually happens, I won’t be a Knight anymore afterward.”
Silence made him turn, and he discovered her staring with her mouth hanging open. He didn’t have the heart to tell her she could be a widow in twenty-four hours without ever seeing his body. The job always had that attached, but with Tariel’s ability to heal him, he rarely worried about it.
“Say something?”
She set her book aside and crawled to him, wrapping her arms around him from behind. “I know how much you like doing what you do and how much it means to you. I know so many good things have come from it. And I also know that I’d much rather have you here instead of risking your life to protect people who will never acknowledge you.”
“That sums up how I feel about it.” He leaned his head against hers and covered her hands with his own. “There’s also the possibility we’ll make things worse while trying to make things better. I want you to know that if the world goes crazy, this whole property should stay safe, thanks to Anne.”
“Oh, Jay.” She kissed his cheek. “I’m supposed to work tomorrow, but if some sort of ghost apocalypse is going to happen, maybe I should call in sick.”
“It’s possible nothing will happen for several days or weeks. It’s also possible giant monster ants will pour out of the sewers to destroy Portland. If you do go to work and everything implodes during the day, come straight home and don’t worry about the job. You and the girls staying safe is much more important than paying bills.”
“I love you, Justin.” Marie slipped into his lap and brushed her nose against his, forcing him to meet her gaze. “Can I get you to make one more promise? That you’ll come home?”
Instead of making that promise, he kissed her.
Chapter 29
Claire
Claire pulled her blanket tighter around her shoulders. She sat on a fallen branch in the woods, waiting for Enion to wear himself out and come back. Justin’s suggestion, to think very hard about him, proved difficult to keep her mind on through the chill and the knowledge Caius might kill them all before they could fix anything.
“This is a pleasant spot,” Rondy said.
“Yeah.” She blinked at the elder Knight suddenly sitting beside her, surprised to hear his voice. The branch neither moved nor creaked under his weight. Other than knowing he was dead, she still had no idea how to categorize him. Phasm? Figment of her imagination? Shared halluci
nation? Bizarre phenomenon?
“Something bothering you?” His appearance seemed strained, like she had to look through thick, grainy glass to see him.
“Lots of stuff.” Relieved he’d finally showed up, she smiled at him. Then she thought of all the things she wanted his advice about and it faded. “Is there anything you would refuse to help me do?”
Rondy laughed. “Don’t be coy, Claire. Spit it out.”
She took a deep breath. “I’m going to kill Caius and I need all the help I can get.”
All Rondy’s amusement disappeared. “Don’t you think you should wait until you have more experience to challenge him?”
“Challenge him? Who said anything about a challenge?” She ran through the entire discussion with Justin, Avery, Anne, and Drew in her mind, hoping he’d get all the important points without her having to speak.
Rondy went quiet for a long time. “This is audacious. I wonder if Caius suspected this might happen all along? It explains Djembe’s initial desire to execute you for witchcraft. And his continued insistence on accusing you of it.”
Silver flashed in the trees. Enion circled Claire before landing on her knee. “Heard calling!” He leaped to her shoulder and bumped his head against her cheek. “Fetched new seeds for flight grotto. Planting now. Garden in spring.”
Claire grinned, pleased he’d been doing something useful for his family. Having him back with her made the world seem brighter and her grim task less daunting. Tomorrow, she’d have him by her side. “Is that what you’ve been doing all day?”
The tiny dragon nodded. “Flight is settled now. All dragons happy.”
“Especially this one,” Claire said as she brushed his side. She looked to Rondy. “Will you help?”
“Yes. Your reasoning is sound, and Justin and Avery’s experiences back it up. So long as you don’t mess with any more ley lines tonight, I should be able to fully overcome this interference by morning. And by the way, consider talking to me before you do anything like that again.”