“It’s going good there. The windstorm didn’t do much damage, and the rain and the break from the heat seem to have been appreciated. Power grid’s mostly restored. The mass healing earned a lot of goodwill.”
“Which is going to the Alchemites.”
She shrugged.
“Astrid, about this agenda of spreading contamination willy-nilly—”
“Honestly, Will, it freaks me out too.”
“Does it?”
“Of course,” she said. “But we all went over and over it. The consensus was people should get used to living with magic before the Small Bang.”
“It was a group decision?”
She nodded. “Also, some of the volunteers accused me of hoarding magic in America.”
“Hoarding? Who would want to live this way?”
If she was insulted, it didn’t show. “There’s lots of personalities here, lots of opinions. Some of the volunteers are afraid of a future where the United States controls most of the vitagua and everyone else makes do.”
“Is that likely?”
“No, it’s not what happens,” she said. “But let’s talk about your kids. Your daughter didn’t look happy to see you.”
“She was terrified.”
“It has to be magical,” Astrid said. “Sahara did something to her.”
“Or Caro did,” Will said. He heard her again: I would cut their throats myself. “If we get our hands on Ellie, can you cure it?”
“We must, at some point. She’s not scared in the After.”
Predestination again. “Astrid, I’m not prepared to just rely on your prophecies.”
“They promise your kids end up here, Will, with us.”
“That couldn’t be a lie?”
“They don’t lie outright. Sometimes they withhold things, but every day, I learn a little more.”
“How? You’re scrambling from the hospital to the Bigtop to here, running like a maniac. You’ve got people filling rocks with vitagua and dumping them. It smacks of desperation.”
“We save your kids,” she said, irked. “They survive, they learn chanting. I hear ’em laughing in the forest and you, giving me a hard time about being a permissive stepmother—”
“Excuse me?”
She snapped her mouth shut, looking sheepish.
“You believe we’re getting involved? Romantically involved?”
“The grumbles—”
“Astrid, as far as I’m concerned, your grumbles are full of it. They hold out on you; they got Jacks killed.”
“I believe them,” she said. “What else have I got?
“Do you even like me?”
They had been speaking in low voices from the start, but now they were scrunched against the wall, as far from the volunteers as they could get, all but whispering.
“Well, I—,” she said. “You’re a good guy.”
“High praise. Jacks was a good guy. You didn’t want him.”
“Could you stop smacking me in the face with Jacks?”
“You didn’t want him, because of Sahara,” Will said.
A dismissive huff: “That’s over now.”
“Is it?”
“Will, this is ridiculous.”
“I’m ridiculous? I abandoned the law for this rinky-dink operation, and now it turns out you’re grooming me to be your successor and your concubine.”
She giggled a little, covering her mouth: it was her usual reaction to shock. “Look, some things are bound to happen. Like the sun burning out one day. Is that destiny? Science says it’s inevitable. Or everyone dies—mortality.”
“You’re saying it’s not if it happens, it’s when and how.”
“When and how are a huge deal, Will!”
“Even if the end result is the same?”
“Think about the Small Bang. We’re releasing vitagua into the real as fast as we safely can.”
“So that less of it comes when the well opens?”
“Less of it? No, Will. This isn’t about another minor spill.”
“Minor? Are you kidding me? Astrid, nothing about what’s happened so far is minor.”
“It might look that way when the well pops.”
“The scale of contamination will be larger, I get that—”
“No, Will, you clearly don’t,” she said. “All the remaining magic is going to come out, into the real, all at once.”
“All of it?” His breath caught. “The whole of the unreal?”
“Every last frozen drop.” A bead of liquid magic welled up from the gold barbell pierced through the web of her thumb, misting into what looked like a mushroom cloud.
“Boomsday,” he said, remembering Mark’s word. “Small Bang. You said the smaller, the better. I thought that meant limiting the size of the next spill.”
“Not the size, just the damage,” Astrid said. “Will, I’m stomping the brakes on a runaway truck.”
Will’s mouth was dry. “Close the well.”
“The Roused would freak. They might already have enough force of will to bust out.”
“Because magic is desire,” he said.
“Exactly. They seriously desire their freedom.”
He grappled with that. All that magic. The first spill had been a catastrophe. Releasing it all …
“So we’re back to predestination,” he said at length. “Boomsday comes, I’m getting my kids back, you and I find true love, and I should just … what? Lie back and enjoy?”
“I’m not dumb, Will. I don’t expect you to just assume the children will fall into your lap. Why do you think we’re pursuing them?”
“Then what are you trying to say?”
She shook her head. “The sun burns out, everyone dies, the well blows … that’s big, unstoppable. But we can have an effect. Shrinking the Small Bang by releasing vitagua up front. Giving people chantments so they can deal with the disasters.”
“Deal how?” he asked.
“I’m making things that heal, stuff to dig through rubble, find survivors…”
“Rubble? Good God, Astrid—”
“We can reduce the casualties, Will. The Small Bang can be a stupid mess instead of a…”
“A what?”
“Horrific. A calamity.” She swept an arm out, indicating the whole ballroom, and now he let himself really see the boxes on the dance floor, the snowdrifts of pencil sketches.
“Jacks made a picture of everyone who’s going to die?”
“Everyone we can save, Will,” Astrid countered. “And before you ask, your children survive, I know that. I know it.”
Pictures in the thousands. Tens of thousands? His legs felt watery. “How many people are at risk?”
“Focus on this,” she said. She led him past the bandstand and up a curving flight of stairs to the mezzanine. On the back wall, a collage of faces rose to the ceiling. He saw Olive Glade first, then Katarina. Unlike the pencil sketches, these were paintings, colored in and vibrant.
“This is the Big Picture,” Astrid said. “It’s everyone we saved already.”
Will looked at the faces, thousands of them, lacquered to the wall. “There’s more down there—is that Limbo?—than there are up here.”
“That’s why we need time. To get more vitagua out, more magicians in place.”
“The more, the merrier. The more you save—that’s what it means?”
“Yes.”
“And these?” A few portraits were still black-and-white sketches. But before she could answer, he saw: “There’s your dad. And Chief Lee.”
“It’s everyone who’s died already.”
He looked from one set of images to the other: the colored pictures of people they’d saved, the black-and-white of the dead and, below, all those people at risk. There must be some way to make it stop, stop it all, bring the old world back. Make his daughter whole, halt this insane runaway train and let all these endangered people off.
The tuning fork at his wrist hummed, not forming words, jus
t wailing, like an air raid siren.
Astrid frowned. “That’s weird.”
Will pushed her to the floor, shielding her with his body. Jet engines tore the air, and molding fell from above, bouncing harmlessly off his back. A tickle rippled through him, the ring, protecting him from the impact, drawing energy from his chunk of letrico.
A shout: “Get Astrid to the plaza!”
“I’m okay,” she called.
A second explosion jolted the building. Will dragged her to Bramblegate.
Within the ruin of the train station, the roar of planes was even louder. Hundreds of Astrid’s volunteers were crossing the plaza, moving swiftly but without apparent fear as they vanished into the glow.
“Is there a bomb shelter?” he asked.
“We dig one,” Astrid said, with that faraway look that meant she was listening to the grumbles. “Cave of wonders.”
“Astrid—”
“Don’t worry.” She pointed at a muscular Latino—Jupiter, the Rolodex told him, one of a pair of formerly conjoined twins from Nicaragua—who stood atop a letrico boulder. He wore a catcher’s mask and asbestos gloves. “Jupe’s on Mark’s defense team. There’s no danger.”
“Then where’s everyone going?”
“Some volunteers go out to heal people or disperse chantments. Some go home.”
He blinked. “You evacuate?”
“It’s no fun getting bombed, so why not skip it?” She crooked a finger. “Come on, let’s put this time to use.”
She led him between the pillars, murmuring “Green Gate One,” as they stepped into the glow and out into … a bank vault? Yes, definitely a vault. Its back wall was a gridwork of safe deposit boxes, all full of cached letrico. A steel door, slightly ajar, revealed six-inch steel walls. Bramblegate filled the corner, its thorny canes hung with hollow glass ornaments filled with vitagua. They gave the room a cool, oceanic glow.
Eight people sat around an eight-sided blackjack table. Mark was among them, as was Aquino, one of the gay guys from the strike team. A scattered selection of grenades and model airplanes were at hand, along with other chantments.
“Let me guess—a defense center?” Will asked.
Astrid nodded. “We call it the Octagon.”
“Which is a secret.” Mark shot Astrid a glare.
“It’s not in the wiki,” Will said.
“Yeah. Because it’s a secret,” Mark repeated.
Astrid ignored this. “What’ve we got?”
“The usual,” he said. “Fighters with napalm.”
“If it’s the usual, how come they almost hit the Grand?”
“I guess the air force got itself some magic,” Mark said.
Will thought fleetingly of the guy who’d just come to Wendover. Gilead, he’s called.
“Can you send them off course?”
Aquino shook his head. “Pilots aren’t falling for it.”
“I don’t want anyone hurt,” Astrid said.
“God forbid we should curl one hair on their heads—they’re only trying to kill us.” Mark flicked Will a exasperated look. “Boss here wants a bloodless war.”
“‘Boss’ is standing right here and wishes you’d stop calling it a war.”
“Tell that to the USAF.”
“It’s okay,” Aquino said. He was rolling a beeswax candle between his hands. “The planes aren’t protected.”
“Ready to drain their fuel tanks,” said one of the others, a middle-aged Englishwoman who looked like she should be teaching grammar school.
“How’s my rainstorm coming?” Mark said.
“Canopy’s good and wet. Thunder sent out a team to draw some heat, so it’s all fogging up. Temperature’s dropping, wind’s rising. Flying conditions are getting worse.”
“Fires?”
“Eyes on the reservoir.” A bamboo mat in the center of the blackjack table resolved into an image of a burning tree near the dam. “One blaze, almost out.”
“Okay, damage the planes,” Mark said. He shot an annoyed glance at Astrid. “Take it slow, so the pilots can break off.” He scooped up one of the grenade chantments, drawing letrico.
“What’s with the grenades?” Will asked under his breath.
“They’re models,” Astrid said. “Mark used to collect them. We found his house in the forest, practically intact.”
“And military toys fit with the general theme of the Octagon?”
“They’re his grenades, this is his project.” Astrid’s face held that listening look. “It’s handy, Will … you use the Bramblegate grenade to bluff … someone?”
“Astrid, I need a break from the futuretalk,” he said.
Jupiter’s voice thrummed through a bass guitar hung over the blackjack table. “I’ve caught five incendiaries and parked ’em at the old fairgrounds. Where are we sending them?”
“Astrid?” Mark asked. “You spacing out, or what?”
“Empty out the bomb casings and fill them with vitagua,” she said. “We’ll leave them in a big leaky pile somewhere on our next run.”
“You’re doing another run?” Mark said.
“If we move faster, we might catch the kids.… Will, are you ready to try again?”
Was he? He could do one more run with the strike team, Will thought. If he got the kids back, he could go back to Wendover and throw himself on Arthur’s mercy.
Fantasy or not, the idea that he might yet step back from this madness steadied him. Speaking to his tuning fork, Will called the seers. “Do we have a location on my children yet?”
“Saskatoon, Will,” came the reply. “They’re in Saskatoon.”
CHAPTER NINE
DURING THE ST. LOUIS RAID, Astrid and her strike crew had freed about four dozen of the Roused from the glacier. Ev spent that night in the unreal drying clumped, icy vitagua out of their fur before turning them over to Patience, who was spinning up rose hip tea and strong black coffee. From there, the rescuees moved on to one of the few truly warm places in the unreal—a marble-lined pool filled with heated water.
It was crucial to warm them as fast as possible; having been frozen within iced vitagua for centuries, the newly Roused were at risk of hypothermia.
Centuries ago during the magical war, the Fyremen had laid a curse on vitagua, making it a contaminant. Anyone who came into contact with the raw magic got Frog Princed into an animal, usually losing their mind in the process. Astrid had found a way to reverse the effect, by taking a magical object and embedding it directly into the person. Embedded chantments drew contamination into themselves. It was a treatment, not a cure—like giving insulin to a diabetic.
A dime thus embedded in Ev’s hand had arrested his devolution into a goat. The coin also let him turn people into whoever they might truly be, regardless of the body that nature had given them at birth. Gendermorphing, Mark had dubbed it.
Most of the Roused had opted to wait on getting a chantment embedded in them. They didn’t consider themselves mad.
It had been something of a relief, as far as Ev was concerned—Astrid had more than enough demands on her time, and even though she was making chantments by the hundreds, they were precious, rare, and needed in the real.
He was helping the newly awakened—and struggling to keep himself from mooning too obviously over Patience—when a nude man, seven feet tall, red of skin, with shaggy black hair and no visible signs of Frog Princing, pulled himself onto the glacier.
Ev stepped forward with a towel.
The newcomer whisked it out of his hand, drying himself efficiently. “Who are you supposed to be?”
“Ev Lethewood,” he replied.
“Ah, father of the Savior. Our very own Virgin Harry.”
Ev tried not to bristle. “Astrid is my daughter, yes.”
“She send you to spy on us?”
“No.”
“What, then? A show of good faith? Hey folks, I trust you—here’s my mama.”
Ev had not gotten used enough to being male t
o appreciate being reminded that he’d spent fifty-five years as a woman. But he was here as a diplomat, so … “You got a name?”
“Call me Teoquan,” the newcomer said.
“Tay oh kwan,” Ev repeated, trying to get the odd vowels right. Judging from the contempt on Teoquan’s face, he’d messed it up. “There’s tea over there, and hot baths.…”
“Yeahyeahyeah. Tell your brat that if she’s expecting gratitude, she’ll have to do better than drinks and a pool party.” With that, he strode over to Patience, kissing her hand. She laughed, tipping a curtsy.
Ten hours passed before the last rescuee was out of the Pit. As the effort wound down, Patience brought Ev a cup of tea. Everyone was drooping. The raccoon granny, Eliza, curled around a cedar branch poked above the level of the ice. Her open eyes were glazed with exhaustion.
“We’ll ask about seeing Jacks once everyone’s rested,” Patience murmured.
“Think they’ll say yes?”
“We’ve earned some goodwill by pitching in,” she said. “What you figure, Ev? Fifty people tonight?”
“Yeah. Fifty new mouths to feed. There’s no resources here: Astrid was right about their needing a letrico mill,” Ev said.
“I’ll talk to Eliza,” she said, yawning.
“She can free up some bodies, I have other ideas on—”
“Please, Ev, rein in the Lethewood work ethic until I’ve had some sleep,” Patience said. “They’ll be just as impressed—or not—tomorrow.”
Feeling his face warming, he took refuge in a gruff nod.
She raised her voice: “Where’d our stuff end up?”
A field mouse with glossy black hair piped at them. Rather than translate, Patience just gestured: Follow me.
Ev fell into step beside her, tracking the mouse up through hollow, bamboo-textured stems that served as corridors, to a suite of egg-shaped rooms halfway up the honeycombed skyscraper. Their things had been unpacked into silk hammocks that hung from the ceilings. The walls were gold wax, and mattresses of moss lay on the floor of each room.
Ev fished out his old dulcimer and plucked a string, dictating a quick report for Astrid: Arrived safe, Jacks won’t go free until everyone else is loose. He struggled to summarize what the cricket had told them about the unreal being key to how Bramblegate worked. He wrapped that up with: “Maybe Katarina could send someone to talk to them about it?”
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