by Kit Alloway
“Explain,” it said to Feodor.
“Peregrine Borgenicht, the man who controls my devices,” Feodor explained, “will use them to stage dreams and to wield power over the World. If he uses them long enough, they will destabilize the Dream on a large scale. These children will not stop him without my help.”
“Then tell us what to do,” Mirren said, “and we’ll return and do it.”
“The solution is not so simple. I must examine these towers the girl spoke of to know how to defeat him.”
“No,” Will said. “He’s lying!”
“What assurance do you offer that you will return to Death?” the figure on the right asked.
Feodor smiled, just faintly, and Mirren feared the figures couldn’t see it. “I will leave a hostage,” he said.
“What?!” Josh asked. She actually outshouted Will. “No way! Not going to happen!”
Feodor shrugged innocently and said, “Then I wish you luck.”
He began walking toward a side door.
“Wait,” Haley said.
Feodor stopped walking and turned back to face them. Mirren’s heart skipped a beat.
“I’ll stay,” Haley said.
Her knees dipped, and it was Haley who caught her and held her up.
“You can’t,” she whispered.
“You need him,” Haley told her. “You won’t defeat Peregrine without him.”
“That’s crazy,” Will said, coming to stand at Haley’s side. “We aren’t leaving you here.”
“No way,” Josh repeated.
“You have to,” Haley said. His face was calm, and Mirren couldn’t understand why until she realized—
She gasped. “You knew! You knew that if we used the ritual, you would have to stay here. Oh, dear God, why didn’t you tell me?”
He smiled sadly at her. “Because if I had, you might not have used it. And without Feodor, you don’t have a chance of stopping Peregrine.”
“This isn’t happening,” Will said. “J—don’t let him do this.”
“I’m not going to,” Josh assured him. “It’s not an option. We’ll think of something else.”
Mirren heard her, but she knew that Josh’s protests were useless. She could see on Haley’s face that he had already made up his mind, not just a moment ago or even a day ago, but long before that.
“I decided the night I met you,” he told her.
Hot tears pooled in her eyes. “Will I ever see you again?” she asked.
He took off his cardigan and wrapped it around her shoulders. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I hope so.”
“Kiss me.”
He smiled and kissed her, and it was the kiss she had been waiting for since she’d met him. Knowing she might never get another made it all the more bittersweet, and when it was over she wiped the tears from his cheeks—his or hers, she didn’t know.
“Stop,” Josh said. “You can’t do this.”
“I love you,” Mirren told Haley.
He smiled again. “I love you, too.”
He kissed her again, briefly, before turning away. Will grabbed his arm, and Haley said to him gently, “You can’t stop me. It’s my choice.”
“It’s a crazy choice!” Josh said.
“It’s still mine.” He spoke to the lords of Death. “I will stay here as a hostage for Feodor.”
“Very well,” the center figure said.
“No!” Josh shouted. “No! We don’t agree!”
“Take care of her,” Haley told Josh.
Mirren saw Will grab at the gun in Josh’s waistband, but she closed her eyes, knowing he was too late. They were all too late; they had been from the start.
“It is done,” the figure said, and the air pressure in the temple changed.
Mirren was still crying when she opened her eyes and found herself sitting on a patch of charred earth.
Twenty−five
Chaos broke out in the forest.
“How could you let this happen?” Will shouted at Josh.
“I didn’t!” she shouted back.
Josh could hardly believe her eyes—Feodor Kajażkołski, getting up from the forest floor and brushing the dirt from his gray pants, then tilting his head back to gaze at the starry sky above them.
“Where’s Haley?” Whim asked. “Wait—is that—?”
“Who are you?” Deloise cried.
Feodor smiled at her, made a little bow, and then held out his hand.
“Feodor Kajażkołski,” he said. “Delighted.”
Deloise, who was too polite to do anything else, shook his hand, which caused Will to lunge forward while shouting, “Don’t touch her!”
Deloise jerked her hand back as if from a hot teapot.
“Josh!” Will barked, as if there were something she was supposed to do.
Josh was at a loss. Feodor might steal Deloise’s soul, but he wouldn’t bite.
“What the hell is going on?” Whim asked. “Where’s Haley?”
“He’s gone,” Mirren said, still sitting on the ground. The earth beneath her had been scorched by the door into Death, and soot covered her hands and skirt, but she didn’t make any move to get up.
“Gone?” Whim repeated.
“Haley stayed behind,” Josh said. “As a hostage. Until we return Feodor.”
“They kept him?” Deloise asked.
“He said he wanted to stay—”
“You let him!” Will told her.
“I couldn’t stop him!” Josh burst out, using a forceful voice as much to convince herself as Will. “You heard what he said—he knew he was going to have to stay! He decided weeks ago! I told the golden people or whatever not to let him. What else could I have done?”
“How are we going to get him back?” Deloise asked.
“He’s not coming back,” Mirren said in a soft, broken voice.
“He is coming back,” Josh insisted. “He’s just staying there as collateral to make sure we return Feodor when we’re done with him.”
“I thought you were just going to ask him what to do,” Whim said.
Josh pushed her hands into her tangled hair. “Look, things didn’t go as planned. Feodor said he needed to get back to the World to help us, and Haley offered to stay behind.”
“How long can you leave Haley there?” Whim wanted to know. “Can he even survive there?”
“I don’t know!” Josh shouted. “Stop yelling at me! I don’t know! I’m doing the goddamn best I can!”
That shut everybody up. Will retreated to a fallen tree, and Josh was horrified to see tears on his cheeks. Deloise was crying, too. Will motioned her to sit on the tree beside him, and he wrapped his arm around her. Mirren, Haley’s cardigan wrapped tightly around her, remained on the ground, rocking slowly back and forth.
“It seems I have arrived at an awkward moment,” Feodor said.
Josh couldn’t look at him. All her nightmares had come to life and were standing in front of her in the form of this small man, and he was giving her this polite little smile, this awkward, forgiving little smile.
When he’d walked into the temple, her first thought had been that she was so happy to see him. He’d been an old friend with whom she had waited years to reunite, and in that moment the years and miles between them had meant nothing, and just as she’d shifted her weight to run into his arms she’d remembered who she was and the impossible situation between them.
And now they’d lost Haley.
Josh pulled on fistfuls of her hair.
“Okay, okay,” Whim said, seeing how she was yanking. “Stop before you end up bald. Come here.”
He hugged her and she forced her hands to relax, but somehow neither Whim’s bony chest nor his wiry arms were reassuring. The moon appeared from behind a cloud, bathing the clearing in an artificial silver dawn, and Josh remembered how the morning after the fire at her mother’s cabin had been the first in an endless string of days without Ian. She feared this morning, feared it would be the daw
n of days without Haley, and she wondered how she would tell his mother that Josh was responsible for the loss of both of her sons.
“We’ll get him back,” Whim assured her.
“I’m sorry,” was all Josh could say.
When Whim released her, she saw Deloise and Will helping Mirren to her feet. Mirren had gotten soot on her face, which only added to her shell-shocked appearance.
“I’m sorry,” Josh told her.
Mirren blinked at her and then said, “Why? If I couldn’t convince him to stay, you couldn’t have.”
Somehow, knowing she was right hurt.
Mirren picked up one of the singing bowls and then placed it back in its suitcase, and her purposeful action seemed to wake everyone else.
Even Feodor tried to help, which resulted in Whim snatching a box of gunpowder out of his hands.
“No explosives for you,” he said.
Feodor made a little smile. “Apologies, apologies. I only meant to assist.”
Whim leaned close and said, “You sucked my little sister’s soul out. She’s lying in a hospital right now, wasting away, while her soul rots in a canister. When all this is over, I’ll be the one sending you back to Death, and it won’t be through any magic door in the forest.”
Rather than appearing offended or upset, Feodor gave an acquiescing nod. “As you like.”
He caught Josh’s eye as they departed the clearing. Caught it, and held it, and all she could think as she stared into his gray eyes was, He knows, he knows, he knows.
What he knew, she couldn’t have said, only that she felt he knew a truth about her that she would never have chosen to reveal, not to Feodor, not to Will, not to anyone, and she heard his voice as if he had whispered in her ear, We are the same, you and I.
She remembered how gently he had held her in her dreams, how tenderly, how sweetly he had kissed her.
She remembered the smug smile he’d worn when Haley said he would stay.
How he could be both of those people, she didn’t know.
Josh turned her whole head away to break eye contact. “Go,” she told him, but when she forced her feet onto the forest path, she caught sight of Will.
She didn’t know what he’d seen or how much he knew—that her heart was a traitor, that she was powerless against Feodor, that everything was already lost—but she said quickly, to cover her tracks, “Keep your eye on him.”
Will nodded and said nothing.
* * *
Though Josh felt that the trip to Death had taken at least an hour, Whim said that less than a minute had passed in the World. “Del didn’t even have time to freak out,” he said.
When they arrived back at their campsite before one in the morning, no one was tired, least of all Feodor, who kept gazing around in much the same way Mirren often did. He looked at his hands often, too, as if their solidity surprised him.
Whim was hungry, so he built up the fire and cooked a big pot of franks and beans. Initially, he dished out only five bowls, but Deloise pointedly passed hers to Feodor and he got the message. Feodor ate the beans slowly, with a peculiar look on his face, and he pushed the franks to the side.
“Let’s get started,” Josh said when he was finished, but Deloise said, “You barely ate, Josh.”
“I’m fine.”
“Nope,” Whim said, and dumped another ladle of franks and beans in her bowl. “Now you get twice as much.”
Josh gave him a look, but she ate. She’d gone through a thing after her mother died where she more or less stopped eating, and no one in her family had ever forgotten it. Tonight, though, it wasn’t sorrow but impatience that made her reluctant; there were so many more important things than food right now.
So she ate, stealing glances at Feodor as she did. She wanted to be alone with him, where she could sort out the situation without Will watching her every second. Or she wanted to be alone with Feodor so she could confess everything to someone who wouldn’t judge her.
He tortured you, she reminded herself. He’s not an old friend.
But he was. He was the voice in her head, her inspiration, her terror. She had changed, she was not the girl who had nervously walked across the front lawn the night of her birthday, and he was the only one who could understand. He would forgive her bad judgment and her lust for power because they had come from him.
“May I ask where we are?” Feodor asked. “And also the date?”
Josh told him, despite the look Will gave her. What did it matter if Feodor knew when and where they were?
He made no visible response to the information.
“Please describe in detail the devices you built,” he said to Josh.
She thought it was a strange request, but she outlined the circlet and vambrace, the configuration of wires, the placement of various crystals and magnets. Afterward he asked her to explain the towers Bash had built, and she did so as best she could, given that Bash had lied to her about how they worked.
Strangely, Feodor then returned to questions about the devices, particularly the vambrace. “And the polarization of the cephalic magnets?”
“South.”
“How did you diminish the current sufficiently to avoid burning the skin?”
“I didn’t, not completely. But I mitigated it by—” Josh stopped. “Why are you asking me this?”
Feodor lifted one pale eyebrow. “You brought me to the World to assist you. I am doing my best to comprehend the situation.”
“But you designed the vambrace. Why are you asking me how it works?”
He begged her indulgence with a smile. “You must forgive me. Perhaps my recent resurrection has confused my memory, but I do not believe I created the devices you have described.”
Nonplussed, Josh said, “What?”
“Of course you did,” Will told him.
“What do you mean?” Josh asked.
“The headpiece you describe resembles an invention of mine, I believe, although mine was intended to produce a different effect. The armpiece—or vambrace, did you call it?—I do not recognize at all.”
“Oh God,” Whim said. “They sent him back stupid.”
“But I drew it in my sleep,” Josh argued.
Feodor made a little shrug. “Then I believe it would be most properly considered your invention.”
She had wondered, while explaining the devices to Bash, how channeling Feodor’s ideas through her mind might change them. Now she knew.
Josh saw herself then as she imagined Will had since he’d found out about her nightmares—as a stranger, a foreigner, even a monster. All those times she had criticized Feodor for the horrors he had created with his intellect; had she done any better when it was her turn to use his intelligence? Was her craving for control any less dangerous than his?
“Holey moley!” Whim said. “Josh, you’re a genius now!”
Will got up from the table and walked away.
Feodor only stared at her queerly, waiting.
Josh remembered what Feodor had asked her when they were still in Death, what he had said in Polish so that the others wouldn’t hear.
Why didn’t I build the devices?
I don’t remember, she’d told him.
And he’d said, How interesting.
But she remembered now. He had designed only the circlet, and it had been meant not to control the Dream, but to protect the wearer from dreaming.
And he hadn’t built it because he’d believed it would drive the wearer mad.
“Teraz sobie przypomniałam,” she told him.
I remember now.
She was afraid to look at Will. Instead she looked down at her hands, which rested on her sketchbook, full of what she had believed were Feodor’s ideas.
“What’s going on?” Whim asked.
“So, if Josh designed the devices, can you still figure out how to destroy them?” Deloise asked.
Feodor brightened. “I believe so. I believe that if you built a second set of devices, replacing
the southern magnet on the cephalic vein with a diamagnetic substance—perhaps antimony—and coating it with copper, you would, ah … boost the power of the devices to such a degree that Peregrine’s devices would be no match for yours.”
It could work, Josh thought. Using a diamagnetic substance had never occurred to her, but of course Feodor was exactly right.
“It might even diminish the current enough to keep my skin from burning,” she said.
“Precisely! The devices, as you have designed them, will eventually break down the integrity of the subtle body, killing the operator, but this change will weaken the effect so that you will far outlast your enemy.”
And the power would be immense. Josh wasn’t even sure she’d have to think of something before it happened—the Dream would conform as fast as her impulses. Peregrine’s brain wouldn’t have time to register that she was there before she captured him, and then she would finally be able to bring peace to the Dream the way she’d dreamed of for so long—
“Hell no,” Will said.
Josh blinked at him. “What?”
He was standing at the far end of the campsite, next to Josh’s car, as if he had been on the verge of driving away and stopped only when he realized what they were planning behind his back.
“You want more power?” he asked. “All along, you’ve been obsessed with controlling the Dream. You built two devices that could basically brainwash everyone in the World, and now your answer to dismantling them is to give yourself more power?”
Josh swallowed. Yes, she thought. I just need a little more.
“If that’s what she needs to beat Peregrine,” Whim said, “then that’s what she needs.”
“It would just be for a little while,” Deloise began, and Will cut her off.
“Would it? Would it just be for a little while, Josh?” He began walking toward her, breaking a s’more stick into smaller and smaller pieces as he approached. “Would you stop Peregrine and then take the devices off forever? Would you throw them in the fire? Would you dismantle the towers? Or would you tell yourself that you know what’s best for everyone and march into the Dream to fix everything the way you’ve been obsessing about ever since you found out—”
“Will!” Deloise cried, and only then did Josh realize that he was so far gone, he would have blurted out her secret to Feodor.