Lyria cleared her throat and delivered her own speech. “Me too.”
Was this really happening? Had Eze's daughters just come over to our side? This was absolutely unreal!
“You would have killed Delia,” Xane said, never moving from his father's side. “She is most annoying and quite bossy, but I find her intriguing, and I cannot abide that you would see her dead for nothing more than revenge.”
“You've known him, what? Like five hours?” Zo said. “And four of those you were stuck inside a freaking mountain! Seriously, Delia, we can't take you anywhere.”
Despite Xane's words, he seemed to be having a great deal of trouble actually moving, but when he finally took the first step toward me, he ended up leading close to a dozen others. The Muses. Eros. A guy I'd never even seen before.
One by one, we shared blood, and one by one, Morgan's court grew.
Kiste and Cyna stood by, aligning themselves with the old guard, their hatred for me and for what James had done clear in their every expression. Of all the un-Reckoned Sidhe I'd met, they were the only ones who stood against us.
“You planned this,” Eze said, fury and—if it were possible—hurt clear in her voice. “All of these years, you've been planning to take our children from us, and for what?”
Morgan smiled, but it was a soft, sad expression on her face. “For the future. Your daughter said it best, Eze. Humanity is something worth having, and it's high time that there was a court in this world that wasn't afraid to be a little bit human.”
Eze had accused me of defiling my Sidhe blood by sharing it with my friends, but in the end, it was my human half that others needed the most. I could feel the balance inside of me, could feel the blood of each of the others offsetting what I'd given away, but somehow, sharing my humanity with the Sidhe didn't lessen the way it pulsed through my own veins.
Despite everything, I was human and Sidhe, both at the same time, instead of somewhere in between. I was a balance to myself, only this time I'd been the one to find the balance, and no matter what happened, nobody could take that—or my friends—away.
Seven and a Half Months Later
“Today is a new beginning. Some people would call it the beginning of adulthood, the genesis of the rest of our lives, but I prefer to think of it simply as the beginning of now. Just as every minute of every day has led up to this moment, so this moment leads us to something new. This is not a turning point; it is neither the beginning nor the end of life as we know it. It is the continuation of everything that we've become, and the beginning of everything that we might be in the future. This moment has never happened before and will never happen again, but with each passing minute, hour, day, we will be faced with new moments, new beginnings, new opportunities to become the people that we wish to be.”
Blah, blah, blah, blah.
I elbowed Zo in the side. After all, that was her cousin up there giving the valedictorian speech. The least she could do was act impressed and refrain from making grumbling comments inside my head.
Hey, just be glad I'm not shooting lightning bolts at the pep squad.
For about the millionth time, I wished that the mix of blood in Zo's veins hadn't resulted in her acquiring Xane's affinity for lightning. After years of complaining about getting the short end of the powers stick, she'd hit the jackpot this time around, with equal doses of lightning and fire. It took all three of us—and the occasional visit from Morgan—to keep her in line.
“Right now, in this second, it doesn't matter if you have plans. It doesn't matter if you're leaving home or staying close, or if you don't know what happens next at all. What matters is this moment, the decisions you make right now about who and what you want to be, about what lessons you want to take with you from this place, and what things you want to grow past and leave behind. Once this moment is gone, it will never come again. Use it wisely.”
I glanced at Delia, who was using this moment wisely to braid and unbraid her hair—with telekinesis. I would have been worried that someone else would see her, but Delia was almost as strong at applying the glamour as Lyria was, and besides me, Annabelle, and Zo, all anyone else would have seen was a girl with thick hair, a perfect smile, and a graduation robe that had been accessorized to capacity and beyond.
Up on the stage, Annabelle continued her speech, perfectly in tune with her audience's emotions. Lyria said that Annabelle had always been a little empathic and that maybe that was why she'd chosen her as a target for possession to begin with, but now A-belle had surpassed the former heir in her ability to read others. Luckily, though, Annabelle didn't have to worry about manipulating other people's emotions, because the single trace of expath ability she'd gotten in the mix only showed up when she chose to take on a nonhuman form. Since Annabelle didn't exactly make maximum use of the shape-shifting she'd inherited from James, most of the time she had her powers firmly under control.
“Today is a time for remembering and a time for looking forward, but more than anything, it is a time for living, a time that exists between yesterday and tomorrow for whatever purpose you design. Somebody once asked me if I believed in destiny, and if there's anything that senior year has taught me, it's that we can make our own destinies. I believe that the extraordinary is out there, waiting to happen, and that the ordinary might be the most precious thing of all.”
As for the results of me mixing blood with the rest of Morgan's court, not much had changed. I was Life, the Third Fate, and that wasn't something a little spell could alter. The only difference was that now I understood the pattern I wove a little bit better, because when it came to weaving or painting, dancing, singing, or any kind of art, I was, for lack of a better word, inspiring.
Unfortunately, I was pretty sure you couldn't major in inspiration.
“So if you only remember one thing from this speech, remember this. For all you know, this moment, this second, or the next, or the next, could be your destiny. It's not about having plans. It's about having purpose and being who, not what, you want to be. Today is about possibilities, and even when they feel finite, I have it on good authority that they are endless. Thank you.”
Annabelle walked gracefully away from the podium, just a hint of gazelle in her step.
As she took her seat at the end of our row and the principal came to the microphone and began calling out names, I wondered how I could have ever thought that this moment would be the end. A-belle was right. We made our own destinies, and even if ours hadn't included a few mystical twists, the four of us would have survived. Blood or no blood, they were part of me and I was part of them, and something as trivial as splitting up for college didn't stand a chance against everything we had shared.
A lifetime of friendship.
Four years in high school.
Hundreds of sleepovers.
Countless mall trips.
Two mystical adventures.
The list went on and on, and as Delia's name was called and she sashayed toward her diploma, I smiled. Somewhere in the crowd, Xane was probably watching this, completely Delia-whipped and significantly geekier than any former heir had a right to be. James was probably with him, magicked to look like somebody else. For all I knew, the entire court—Morgan included— might have shown up. The barrier was closed again, and even the most liminal of times and places didn't allow for much crossing over, but, like Morgan, her court lived in both worlds, something that only those with a lot of power or a little humanity could do.
By the time the principal reached the Ks, I was starting to get fidgety, but I kept myself calm, for Anna-belle's sake, lest my emotions bleed over onto hers.
Just think about tonight, I told myself. Think about weaving life. Think about running through the Other-world. Think about the party the Court of Awesome is going to throw once we get there.
Ultimately, it was thinking the name Delia had bestowed upon Morgan's court that banished my nervousness. Officially, we were Morgan's Court, or the Court of Water, but everybody w
ho was anybody knew that we were the Court of Awesome, no questions asked.
“Bailey Marie Morgan.”
The principal called my name, and I stood up, my legs shaky as I walked forward and grabbed my diploma. This wasn't the end. This was a beginning of new adventures, for all of us, and no matter where we went in this world, Annabelle, Delia, Zo, and I would always have the Otherworld. We would always have one another.
As I turned to walk back to my seat, the cheers grew louder, and for just an instant, I saw through the glamour the other members of our court had cast. James was hooting. Xane was clapping in a very dignified fashion.
Lyria and Axia had both managed whistles, and the Muses appeared to be doing some kind of dance in my honor.
As for Morgan, she simply inclined her head as if this was what she had expected of me all along.
I sat back down next to my friends, and the Others disappeared. Annabelle got her diploma, and then Zo, and before I knew it, we were throwing our graduation caps up in the air and hugging one another.
“So,” I said, “who's driving to the after party?”
“Not Delia,” Zo said quickly.
“Not Zo,” Annabelle put in.
“Hey!” Delia said. Zo opted for something a little less PG, and she might have added a tiny lightning shock to the mix had it not been for the fact that something about the situation struck me as so inexplicably funny that I couldn't help cracking up.
Like Annabelle had said, this was our moment, and as far as I was concerned, it was perfect.
Thanks first and foremost to everyone who wrote to me after reading Tattoo, asking what happened next. Despite what Greek mythology has to say on the subject, I firmly believe that readers are an author's most incredible muses, and I'm incredibly grateful to mine. Thanks also to my editor, Krista Marino, who seems to have an actual sixth sense for knowing what a manuscript needs, and to my agent, Elizabeth Harding, whose support at every step in the process is invaluable. Finally, I couldn't imagine writing a book without the people who keep me sane and happy while I'm waist-deep in a process that can be a little crazy: my mother/first reader, Marsha Barnes; my roommate/sounding board, Neha Mahajan; and my friend/cheerleader/commiserator, Ally Carter.
Jennifer Lynn Barnes wrote her first novel when she was still a teenager. Since then, she's written five others, including Tattoo and its companion, Fate. Jennifer spent the year after her college graduation living in the United Kingdom, so she understands what it's like to be caught between two worlds. When she's not writing, Jennifer is a full-time student, working on a PhD in developmental psychology at Yale University. Visit Jennifer online at www.jenniferlynnbarnes.com or read her blog at http://jenlyn-b.livejournal.com/.
Published by Delacorte Press
an imprint of Random House Children's Books
a division of Random House, Inc.
New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either
are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events,
or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2008 by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
All rights reserved.
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Random House, Inc.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Barnes, Jennifer (Jennifer Lynn)
Fate / Jennifer Lynn Barnes. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Sequel to: Tattoo.
Summary: High school senior Bailey Morgan must choose between the
mortal world and the otherworldly Nexus, where each night,
as the third Fate, she weaves the web of life.
eISBN: 978-0-375-89194-6
[1. Supernatural—Fiction. 2. Fate and fatalism—Fiction.
3. Mythology—Fiction. 4. Best friends—Fiction. 5. Friendship—
Fiction. 6. Humorous stories.] I. Title.
PZ7.B26225Fat 2008
[Fic]—dc22 2007049429
v3.0
FATE Page 26