“He’s contaminated and compromised. The junior guy’s replacing him at trial. The show will go on.”
“That’s all they’re saying?”
“Pretty much. That marshal who saved everyone is hero of the hour,” added a familiar-looking stranger. With a jolt, Will recognized him—he’d starred in a hit sitcom, back when the world was normal. “You might say she’s the new you.”
“Juanita Corazón?” Poor woman. Bet she’s hating the attention. “Roche put her in front of the press?”
“Not so far, but CNN has a pretty good profile running. Bio, school, family pictures. She’s got a brother MIA, and they’re interviewing her saintly old ma in Reno in—” The actor consulted his watch. “—eight minutes.”
“Has Astrid seen any of this?”
“Astrid’s a news avoider. Why?” the actor said.
“She thought Juanita might be important.”
“Cool—I’ll get up a briefing and give it to Pike.”
Continuing across the plaza, Will ran into a bottleneck of people backed up in front of the gateway. The wiki fluttered, explaining: Astrid was conducting a graduation of sorts, saying thank you and good luck to the newest volunteers.
For a moment, he braced himself for a typical ceremony, something formal and speechy. But Astrid, Mark, and a handful of the other team leaders were simply hugging the departing volunteers and sending them into the glow.
He was struck again by the scope of Astrid’s operation—there had to be fifty people exchanging good-byes and last-minute advice—and the folksy informality of it.
The last to go was a sun-worshipping beach boy from Tofino, on Vancouver Island. Mike, the wiki told him: Astrid had chanted his surfboard so that it could hold back incoming tidal waves … assuming, as always, there was enough power available.
“The shark’s-tooth necklace lets him breathe underwater,” she told Will as Mike took his leave. “If he’s swamped…”
“Seems like a good plan.”
She shook her head. “I haven’t got him onto the Big Picture yet.”
“There’s still a portrait of him in the hotel ballroom—in Limbo?”
“A sketch. If things change so he’s safe, Jacks will let us know by coloring it in.”
“Does Mike know he’s still supposed to…”
“Die?” She nodded, eyes shadowed. “We got the body count down a lot this week. The raids on Saskatoon and Manila—”
Will smothered a pulse of guilt. “Saving people’s good, but spreading contamination…”
“I know you’re not crazy about that part of it. We can talk about it—”
“No. What I want is my kids.” They had outrun him last night in Manila, Ellie sprinting away, screaming in terror, Carson loyally following. “Not soon, not in some happily ever unreal after. Today.”
“How do you want to go about it?”
Her agreement caught him off guard. “Chasing them isn’t working. Their escort just whisks them away.”
“Yes, we’ve struck out there. What, then?”
He intercepted one of the scavengers, a delicate-featured drag king who was rolling a cart full of ready-to-chant objects across the plaza. “Make something that’ll bring them here.”
Astrid thanked the volunteer and then sorted through the cart, examining each scavenged item in turn before selecting a striped fleece blanket. She bled magic into it, brow furrowed. “Okay. Lay it out, like a picnic blanket. Stand on it and wish.”
Will snatched it, laying it on the uneven marble floor and pinning its corner with his feet.
The blanket began to slurp letrico, flapping like a flag in a strong wind as the power ran through it.
Cries rang up and down the plaza. Pike’s voice hummed through a hundred different musical instruments. “Someone’s draining our power reserves.”
“Will, hold up.”
He waved her away.
“Tombe reports a spreading chill in Madagascar—” That was Pike again.
“The Alchemites are fighting you,” Astrid said, voice low. “Give me a second, let them—”
“I am not letting go.” Threads of lightning flickered across the plaza, jolting through the blanket. It frayed, falling apart in puffs and tufts of fiber.
“Mark, find the Alchemites drawing heat in Madagascar,” Astrid ordered. “Mute them—steal their voices before they start vamping people.”
“Nice in theory, boss, but we haven’t got the juice—”
A last rush of power, and the blanket disintegrated completely. Carson and Ellie appeared on its remains.
Predictably, Ellie began shrieking at the sight of them.
Fatigue rippled through Will, a sign that his ring was drawing power. It would protect him for a while, but he’d burned out the town’s letrico reserves.
Astrid and the other volunteers pitched over.
“Dad,” Carson managed. Then he fainted too.
Ellie turned to flee, only to trip over Astrid’s prone body.
Will caught his daughter’s arm. “Ellie, it’s me, it’s Daddy.”
She wailed. “Don’t touch me!”
Exhaustion burned through him.
“Ellie,” he pleaded. He’d have to sedate her, he thought. A few yards away, Olive tried to get up; Ellie let out another yelp and she collapsed.
“Nobody’s going to hurt you,” he said, fighting to seem unaffected. Ellie was pale, exhausted; she’d drain them both at this rate. “Give me whatever chantment you’re using, before you pass out.”
Behind them, Astrid was stirring.
Will focused on his daughter. She’d grown a couple inches, and her crooked tooth had been straightened … magically? Her hair, fine gold just like Caro’s, had grown to her shoulders. “You need to give us that chantment.”
Astrid’s hand drifted to the shopping cart full of junk, bleeding magic into its dirty rubber wheel. Carson groaned, pushing himself upright. Ellie jerked in Will’s grasp.
“The chantment,” he said firmly.
The look she gave him was so like Caro’s, that last day, laced with contempt and malice. “Around my neck,” she said, lifting her chin. A whisper of chain lay against her skin.
He reached for it, and several things happened at once: the shopping cart clattered softly; Carson pushed himself upright, rasping, “Wait—”
Ellie twisted in his grip, fluid as a salmon, and almost broke free. She scrabbled in her pocket, tossing something bright and sparkly into the air. A diamond necklace, he realized, as flecks of light filled the air, blinding him.…
Then he, Astrid, the kids, and all the volunteers from the plaza were lying in a flower-strewn meadow, and Ellie was sprinting away.
“Take that, Pipeman!” she shouted. In a blink, she put a hundred yards between them.
“Don’t chase her, Will,” Astrid said. “We’re in dreams—no matter what you do, she’ll slip away.”
“Car-car, come on!”
Carson made a show of staggering to his feet, keeping his face turned from his father’s. “They used a chantment on her—a padlock. Sahara made Mom put Ellie’s hair in it.”
“It makes her scared of Will?” Astrid asked.
“No!” Facing them, he backed away, hands out as if he was afraid. “Dad, no, not you. She sees the Pipeman. I gotta go—she won’t trust me if she thinks I’m on your side.”
Anguish tore at him. “I’ll fix this, son.”
“Sorry,” he said, pelting off after his sister and vanishing over the hill.
“Pipeman?” Astrid said. Her voice was raspy, weak.
“I got hit on the head, on the job, a few years ago. Ellie had nightmares about the kid who’d done it.”
“Someone hit you with a pipe?”
He nodded.
“I’m sorry, Will.”
Sympathy made it worse: he stepped away before she could touch him. “Dammit. What’s it gonna take? What do I have to do?”
Astrid touched the tuning fork at
her throat. “Pike, you there? Pike? I guess we don’t have enough juice for communications yet.”
“Are you surprised?” That was Olive—the unconscious volunteers were stirring. “Will’s little stunt sucked us dry.”
“I had to do something,” he said.
“I know how you feel, but—”
“You know what?”
Olive stiffened. “I lost my son, remember?”
“Just because you have the patience of a saint doesn’t mean I should have to wait forever. Carson and Ellie—”
She cut him off. “What happens if there’s a bombing raid before we rebuild our reserves?”
“Yeah, Will,” Jupiter said. “And those Alchemites damn near froze Madagascar, trying to hang on to the kids. There’s bound to be a huge storm.”
“Don’t everyone start pecking at him,” Astrid said. “Olive, you’d have done the same for Jacks.”
“Astrid…,” said Jupiter.
“We’re not doing blame,” Astrid said. “Move on.”
“We have time to do a little blame,” Jupiter said. “We’re just twiddling our thumbs here while we wait for the phones to come back online.”
“Or we could work,” Astrid said. “Did you notice Will was able to draw all our reserves? The letrico crystals aren’t connected.”
Everyone was quiet for about five seconds. Then Olive said, “Yeah, that is interesting. Did the letrico jump because he wanted it so bad?”
Will turned to face them. Astrid was sitting cross-legged in a circle of flowers, enjoying the dream sun, looking as though everything were okay. She’d effectively defused the situation, distracting the volunteers from what he’d just done.
Which was, if he wasn’t mistaken, to land everyone in the same prison the Alchemites had been using for all their enemies.
“I—,” he began, and they fell silent. “I owe you all an apology.”
“Save it for when we get home,” Astrid said.
“Home? But—”
“Abracadabra.” She gestured at the hillside, and Bramblegate began to grow, slowly, on the lawn.
“We can get out?”
“We’re just waiting on power,” Olive said.
“Gate will take you back in, though,” Astrid said. “You can talk to your son, maybe, while Ellie’s back is turned.”
“If people can just walk out of dreams—”
“The Alchemites can put people here, but they can’t pull them out again.”
“Or hurt them,” Olive added. “Everyone’s nice and safe.”
“You can get them out?” Will repeated.
Something seemed to pass between Astrid and Olive—a debate, perhaps?
“Astrid?”
A shrug from Olive—go ahead?
“It was us,” Astrid said. “We arranged for the Alchemites to steal the diamond bracelet that Ellie used to slide us into dreams.”
“You did what?”
She rose, pointing. The horizon shifted and Will saw a beach, crowded with hundreds of the missing—soldiers, reporters, a few Alchemites who’d tried to leave Sahara’s fold, several dozen police officers. “Sahara’s followers would have killed all those people, Will, if I hadn’t given them an alternative.”
“You’re helping the Alchemites?”
“That chantment saved hundreds,” Olive said. “Their families can visit and they can’t be abused, by Alchemites or anyone else.”
“And they can do anything they can dream of,” Astrid added.
“Except cause trouble for you,” Will said.
“Will, think: The Alchemites can’t hurt your kids if they’re here. You can visit your son. All we have to do now is break the spell on Ellie.”
He didn’t want to concede she was right, but Sahara’s people could have murdered the children out in the real. “What about the padlock chantment Carson says they used on Ellie? Did you arrange for the Alchemites to steal that?”
“No. Sahara stole a stash of pretty nasty stuff early on. It must have come from there.”
He shouldn’t be angry, Will knew. All Astrid had done was keep the fight between the Alchemites and the government from getting bloody.
“If we break the spell on Ellie, Will, the kids will step through Bramblegate on their own.”
“When?” He knew this voice, knew he was on the edge of falling into bottomless rage. “Years?”
Astrid pressed her lips together. Fury had a tendency to silence her, Will thought. She wouldn’t say anything that might provoke him further.
Jupiter interrupted: “Bramblegate’s open.”
“I’m gonna go ask the seers about the padlock chantment.” Astrid led the others through the gate.
Soon it was just him and Olive.
The landscape darkened, the grassy hill changing to pavement. He was on a street about three blocks from home, looking up the street at the shop where he used to take the kids to buy shoes. Behind him, a baker was arranging cupcakes in his window, creating a pyramid of pink-and-chocolate-capped confections.
Cars drove by, pausing for jaywalking pedestrians.
“Nothing magical here,” Olive said. “This must be your dream.”
He was still angry, but he also knew what grown-ups were supposed to say: “I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”
“We all blow occasionally, Will.”
“I’m sorry anyway.” It didn’t feel true, but it would be.
She cupped her hands, staring at her interlaced fingers. “You know, the day we started on the Big Picture, we drew down lightning to power the paintbrush. Jacks made those sketches of everyone we have to save. Piles and piles of cards. We were hysterical. So many people, you know? The worst was knowing that some of us would be in the stack. But you know who Astrid looked for first?”
“Carson and Ellie?”
“Nothing mattered to her, none of us, not Mark, not even … She was determined to confirm your kids were safe.”
“If Astrid wants me on board, she needs my children.”
“Yeah, she’s such a Machiavelli. It’s all a big game to her.” With a disgusted snort, Olive stormed off.
Dreams. Will thought of his children, and suddenly he was at the edge of their school playground. Ellie was crying on the merry-go-round. Carson had an arm around her. He caught his father’s eye, then mouthed a word: Later.
Will nodded.
The tuning fork at his chest buzzed.
“Astrid says we can’t hang you for burning our power reserves, lad,” Pike purred. “Come on back, will ye?”
“Be right there.” Bramblegate had followed him: he took a last look at the kids, then stepped out onto the plaza. People were sitting in groups, eating and chatting, waiting out the power shortage and catching up on trial news.
At his appearance, a round of boos—gentle ones—broke out.
“Way to go,” Mark said. “You’ve slowed down the rescue in the unreal and our work on reducing the body count.”
He ought to be contrite, Will knew, ought to offer to go do some grunt work, join the power-spinning circle. Instead, something Olive had said about the Big Picture tugged at him. “I’ll make it up to you all, I promise.”
He strode across the plaza, thinking of the ballroom as he stepped into the glow. The room was empty but blazed with light—the vessels of vitagua glowed whether anyone was there to see them or not.
He stepped into the midst of the dance floor and turned a slow circle, examining Limbo’s cartons of cards. A number had place names hand-lettered on them: Cincinatti, Paris, Argentina, Swaziland, Delphi, Alberta, US, Peru. A trio of crates nearest the bandstand were marked: Soon, Sooner, Soonest.
Wait—had that been U.S. or Us? Will reached for the container, a bright orange laundry basket … then fumbled it as he recognized a sketch of Mark Clumber on top.
This is what Olive had begun to say. Astrid didn’t care about anyone but his children, she’d said. Didn’t care about—
The basket tipped, spillin
g cards across the floor.
Will knelt, heart slamming. He gathered up the pencil sketches of familiar faces: Mike the surfer; the strike team medic, Janet, who’d been a nurse in Vietnam. There were volunteers and Wendover workers and even the Alchemite Prima, Passion. Boomsday might engulf most of its authors, killing them as it had Albert Lethewood, Jacks Glade, and the fire chief.
His hands trembling, he scooped the cards into the basket. He’d go to the letrico factory, spin energy. He’d work harder, apologize. He’d been selfish, but he’d make it right.…
He froze, his hand hovering above the last two portraits on the floor as he recognized Sahara Knax and Astrid Lethewood.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“ELIZA’S ARRANGED FOR US to go see Jacks.” Patience was extraordinarily tall this morning, almost seven feet in height, with generous, curvy proportions, skin the color of soot, and a cap of short, tightly curled black hair. She was clad in a dress woven from blue-tinged grasses. Her feet, which were massive, perfectly shaped, and oddly bewitching, dwarfed the sandals she had crammed them into.
“They make fabric here in the unreal?” Ev asked.
“Had to. I failed to pack anything for a giantess,” she said without a shred of humor. “What I wouldn’t give to be myself again.”
Ev knew what it was like to be trapped in an ill-fitted body. Before he could say so, Teoquan sauntered into their rooms, wearing a knowing smirk.
Swallowing his words, Ev settled for a cool nod.
“Teo’s going to be our guide.”
“Thanks very much,” Ev said, feigning enthusiasm.
“I agreed before I knew you were coming,” Teoquan said.
“I appreciate it, whatever your reason.”
“My reason’s nothing to you. Let’s hit the road.”
“Fine,” Ev said. “Where to?”
An evil grin. “Off to bone bridge.”
He led them out to the Pit, whose edge, since St. Louis, had become a seeping waterfall of vitagua. Slush flowed downward into the brightness, thick, slippery, and dense with contamination. “Ready to go?”
Ev peered over the lip, blinked at the glare, and fished out a pair of tinted glasses. “Ready.”
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