“Ah, that’s the rub, isn’t it?” Father sat quietly for a time, massaging his temples. I suspected I knew what was to come: he was about to tell us that he had kept us apart because he did not want us to spill secrets to each other and thus to the enemy. Still, I would like to hear it from his own mouth.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-FOUR
O Brave New World
“Perhaps you all think working for an angel is easy,” Father said, when he finally began to speak. “Well, take it from me: it is not! It takes tremendous faith and courage to follow Divine Will. The angel comes and says, ‘Put Aerie Ones into bodies so they will develop souls.’ And you think: that idea is crazy! We’ll lose control of them. And what kind of souls? Not all souls are good, you know.
“It took great courage upon my part to go forward with the plan to try to give the Aerie Ones souls. It went against many things I believed in, putting spirits into bodies, letting them interact with mankind,” Father continued. I saw Cornelius and Mab both nodding. “However, once I had done it, I could not help thinking … If I was brave enough to give the Aerie Ones freer rein, what about my children?
“Miranda has often berated me for allowing you all to leave Prospero, Inc., but during the period when we ran the company together, I controlled everything. I made the decisions, chose our projects, enforced good behavior, mediated disputes—marshaling you all like a good general with his troops. And you all acted like good soldiers, obedient but with little initiative.
“So, I decided to take a risk. I set each of you about separate tasks and slowly withdrew my oversight. There were some frightening moments there.” Father frowned at Ulysses. “More frightening than I had realized, apparently. But look at the benefits I have reaped. Each of you has flourished and grown. Without my help, you went to Hell, rescued me, rescued your brothers who were in need, and all came back again—only eight have ever made it to Hell and come back alive, before this.” He turned to me, a twinkle in his keen eyes. “Besides, I figured if you were really interested in what your brethren were doing, you might take the trouble to ask them.”
I blinked in astonishment, my head spinning as I tried to absorb all that Father had revealed. I put my hands on my temples, as if that could stop the feeling of vertigo.
Had I known a month ago what I knew today, the Three Shadowed Ones would have been no more successful at making me doubt Father than they had been at convincing me Cornelius blew up our warehouse. So, all my guesses had been wrong; Father had not acted from secrecy and suspicion.
He was something quite unusual, my father: a man whose hidden motives were more noble than his outward façade. I would never have guessed he had stepped aside, not out of a longing to return to his orchid-strewn island, but so that the rest of us could finally come out from under his shadow. How funny that Logistilla, of all people, had put her finger on the matter when during our dinner at her island home she pointed out how Father was hardly any older than the rest of us.
And yet, during these last few days, I had lost something as well.
While I still loved my father dearly, I no longer looked up to him in the worshipful way I had done previously. I did not know if this came from having a freer will, or from seeing that Father could be put into a peril from which he could not extricate himself without our help. Either way, it was as if he was now more of an equal and less of a master. The old me missed the old Father who had been so wise and could do no wrong.
Mab scratched his stubble. “Do I get a question?”
“Certainly, Caekias.” Father nodded.
Mab tilted his squashed and stained fedora, lowering the brim. “Actually, if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather be called Mab.”
“Mab, then.”
As Mab flipped through his notebook, a spark of cheer glowed in my heart. So he was not renouncing his time as “Mab.” I was glad of it.
I cleared my throat. “Before Mab goes, I have something to say.” Mab looked up from his notes. “Mab, on behalf of my family and myself, I wanted to thank you for your loyalty, your tireless work, your sharp insights, and for putting up with bullheaded employers who did not listen to you, even when your advice was really very good.”
Mab attempted a disapproving frown, but his mouth kept sneaking upward into a smile. “Thank you, Ma’am. About time someone noticed. Just wish you had noticed that my advice was trustworthy when it mattered.”
“Actually, I did tell you I trusted your word once before,” I said, “but the you I told turned out to be Osae.”
“Danged demon getting my praise,” Mab muttered, but he was still grinning a big, wide grin. “Back to my question. I just looked over the questions I’d written down, and I was able to cross off every one: what happened to Mephisto, why did Logistilla have the knife—I assume Ulysses gave it to her after taking it off Mr. Thompson’s corpse.” Mab glanced at Ulysses, who nodded. “Whether Cornelius had Theo under a spell—that’s all cleared up now, right?” He looked up again. Theo, who was tearing at barbecued spare ribs with his teeth, gave him a thumbs-up. “Whether Astreus had tithed Mephisto, all that stuff. However, I do have a question of my own.” He shot me an apologetic look. “I guess you could say it’s another version of a question you and Miranda have heard quite often … but it is the first time you’ve heard it from me.…
“If Lord Astreus is so eager to help keep us Aerie Ones in line, why couldn’t you have enlisted his aid a long time ago and let us free then?”
Father arched a bushy brow. “What, in our time together, Mab, would lead you to believe I had any interest in letting your people free one millisecond before their allotted one thousand years had passed? I have not my daughter’s soft heart.” A smile tugged at the corner of Father’s mouth. “Beside, just imagine I had suggested the idea to you: ‘Mab, I’m off to negotiate with the elves.’”
“Don’t do it, Sir!” Mab answered quickly. He made a negating motion with his hand, and I recalled the wild look in Astreus’s face when Boreas tempted him to Sturm und Drang. In the past, before the return of his wings gave him a new hope of Heaven, the Elf Lord would have joined in the fray, urging the Aerie Ones on rather than calming them down. That was hardly the kind of help upon which Father—and mankind—wished to rely.
Mab continued, “Isn’t worth it. Elves and humans just don’t mix! I make an exception for Miss Mir—” He paused and then said deliberately, “For Miranda, of course, seeing as she isn’t really human.”
“Exactly.” Father nodded. “Despite this, I did consider the option of approaching Lord Astreus, if the Aerie Ones were not showing more restraint by the time the thousand years were up, but I fear no good would have come of it.” He smiled at me, his eyes twinkling. “It is not I whom the quixotic Lord of the Winds seems so eager to help. Next?” Father looked around the table. “I believe I skipped you, Erasmus, as you were off wrestling with my recalcitrant book. Did you have a question?”
Erasmus brushed his lank hair from his eyes and stood. His habitual lazy smile was still in place, but his face was rather pale. “Father, why did you tell Miranda not to give Water to Maria?”
A great sadness came over Father’s face. He suddenly looked old and very weary, as if his time in Hell had taken a heavy toll upon him. “Erasmus, my son. I beg your forgiveness. Maria was one of the great mistakes of my life. I sincerely misjudged how much she meant to you.”
“But you told me it was up to Miranda?” Erasmus asked again. “And Miranda said you told her not to do it.”
“I was hoping Miranda would disobey me,” Father said slowly.
“Maria died because of that?” Erasmus choked.
Father rubbed his temples. “It’s not so simple. You see, Miranda did disobey me once—back on our island, when I forbade her to speak with young Prince Ferdinand. That’s why I gave my blessing for them to marry. I thought it would be only a matter of weeks before she became a Sibyl and would be free to marry—for Muriel Sophia had told me that Mi
randa could not be elevated to Sibyl until she demonstrated her own free will. And clearly she was making her own choices when it came to the handsome Prince of Naples!”
“So, that was it! All this time…” I whispered, recalling suddenly how Father had ordered my youthful self not to speak with Ferdinand. Shakespeare had that one right after all.
“Then Ferdinand died.” Father rested his head in his hands. It was a while until he began speaking again. All was quiet except the pit-pat of rain on the sky lights and thump-thump of Titus’s younger son as he jumped on his father’s back. Finally, he continued, “All the ground we had gained was lost. Worse than lost, she became almost like an automaton, obeying me down to the littlest detail or in the most exaggerated fashion. Antonio dealt us a far worse blow than he knew, the day he killed the young Prince of Naples.”
Father raised his head and met Erasmus’s gaze. “Miranda was fond of Maria. She liked her and spoke well of her. I thought—I hoped—she would disobey me and save Maria … but she did not.”
“Antonio told me Maria came back to earth several times more and each time he manipulated me into rejecting her.” Erasmus’s voice was barely audible. “Finally, she gave up on me. She lives on Earth today, somewhere in Poland.”
“Is this true, Vinae?” Father inclined his head toward the Staff of Wisdom.
“It is true.”
“I am truly sorry, Son.”
A period of quiet followed during which we ate in silence. Theo came and sat beside me, squeezing my hand fondly. I smiled and laid my head against his shoulder.
“I have a question for you all,” Father addressed us. “If Gregor was alive all this time, whom did we bury?”
“Eli Thompson.” Mab handed Father the wrinkled, water-stained printout with the article about Mr. Thompson’s television appearance.
“What do you know!” Father smiled. “My new staff worked! That was the first time I tried it on a human being. Before that I had only resurrected squirrels.” As he scanned the article, he began to frown. “Cornelius?”
“I’m on it, Father.” Cornelius nodded wearily, a spoonful of curried rice suspended before his mouth. “We of Orbis Suleimani will make certain this man’s story does not make it into the history books.”
Gregor looked up from where he sat, examining the boxes the food had come in. “I have a grave?”
“Oh, yeah, and we had a funeral and everything. Very sad.” Mephisto made as if to wipe a tear away. “We all cried, even Daddy. Ulysses gave a very touching speech.”
“Did he?” Gregor eyed his younger brother.
“Quick, someone change the subject before I get beaten to a pulp, again!” begged Ulysses.
I nearly laughed aloud. The implication of Ulysses’s new black eye finally dawned on me, as well as those of Logistilla’s apparently tender seat. When they teleported away from the storm, Ulysses and Logistilla had found themselves alone with Gregor. Apparently, my long-imprisoned brother had taken the opportunity to express his displeasure at their treatment of him upon Ulysses’s face and Logistilla’s rear end.
Good for him!
“Hey, speaking of your staff, Daddy,” Mephisto cried, “if I go dig up my dead cat, can you bring him back to life?”
“Your cat?”
“Someone hit Schrödinger with a car,” I explained.
“That’s right,” Logistilla sniffed, “don’t ask your sister, the sorceress who makes bodies. After all, she couldn’t possibly know how to incarnate a familiar!”
Mephisto ran over to Logistilla and, falling on his knees, put his hands together, pleading, “Please! Please! Oh, please!”
“Don’t beg, it’s pathetic.” She raised her nose and sniffed again. “I’ll do it if the mood strikes me.”
“Wonderful!” I laughed. “Tybalt will be so pleased!”
Logistilla turned to Father. “How come Mephisto is not sane again, now that he’s been released from the oath he took?”
“I still drank from the Lethe,” Mephisto replied.
“Well, that was stupid, Brother!” she sniffed. “Why don’t you wear your hat then, the one you were showing off to Father when the Demon Queen snagged you?”
“It makes me talk funny. As soon as I put it on, I start thinking like I used to before I lost my memory—saying thee and thou—and I have trouble remembering everything that has happened since then.”
“There is a river called the Eunoe in Purgatory that restores memory,” Erasmus said. “Perhaps, our sister the Sibyl could find her way there one of these days.”
“Or he could take up studying the Ancient Art of Memory again,” Cornelius offered. For the first time, his voice almost sounded normal. “Now that there is no longer a reason for him not to do so.”
Mephisto shook his head quickly, indicating that he did not cherish the idea of returning to the rigors of that discipline. Father glanced pointedly from Cornelius’s dejected face to Mephisto, his bushy eyebrows jutting above his glaring eyes like great, gray beetles.
Mephisto flinched back and started nodding quickly. “Yeah, sure, Cornelius! Great idea!”
Logistilla sniffed a third time, then turned to watch her sons fondly. She seemed more relaxed with her children than she had been a week ago, more pleased to be their mother. I wondered if meeting Galeazzo had affected her more than she let on. Perhaps, she did not want any more of her children to end up in Hell.
A skylight opened, and Astreus flew into the library, closing the window behind him. Landing, he shook out his wings, spraying the rest of us with water. From the bright gleam of his eyes and the smile dancing about his lips, I suspected he had done this on purpose. Apparently, it amused him to drench us mere mortals.
“Off to Heaven, then?” asked Father.
I looked down at my food but found myself unable to eat. When Astreus had spoken of forming a flock, I had hoped …
Astreus strode across the chamber, stopping beside Father. Despite that he was soaking wet, he looked splendid in his sapphire and charcoal garments. The coronet of stars twinkled upon his brow.
“Uriel explained to me that the way to Heaven is open to me now, but I am not yet worthy to travel it,” Astreus said. “I must earn back my halos. My first task is to aid my fellow elves in freeing themselves from the yoke of Hell. Tomorrow, I shall depart to pass among them, spreading the word of our freedom.”
He was not running back to Heaven, but he was off anyway, was he?
I could not claim to be too surprised. I had known that was how it would be. I wondered if he would return and visit me occasionally, or if his words of love had been a passing fancy, a wind that blew my way and then changed its course again.
Worse, if he did return, would I be able to bear it?
Astreus was departing and I would return to my work at Prospero, Inc. Funny, I had so looked forward to getting back to the company, and yet, now, the thought of it seemed unbearable, as if I were a butterfly trying to crawl back into my cocoon. I had come so far, I had learned so much … surely the future had something more to offer me than just a repeat of my past?
Intellectually, I knew that, once I returned to work, the urgency of the problems the world currently faced would draw me out of my sorrow. And, yet, I knew as well, that it would take years, perhaps decades, for my former good spirits to return.
Broken hearts were like that.
Then, just when I regained my equilibrium, he would burst like the sun upon my life, and the whole thing would begin again.
How many times could I bear that cycle? Could I bear it even once? Better to make a clean break now, than to suffer so eternally, with no hope of succor or release. I turned away, waiting for him to depart. Instead, Astreus came around until he was in front of me and offered me his hand.
“Come with me!” Glowing a rosy-gold, his eyes shone with love. “Surely the elves will accept their newfound freedom all the more quickly if the Sibyl who made it possible travels in my company!”
Ti
me stopped. Space ceased to exist. My heart paused midbeat and did not pick up its rhythm again. I sat there, everything around me as still as if it had been a scene painted upon glass.
Had I heard him correctly?
I pictured us flying through the starry sky, traveling on the backs of giant swans, visiting the courts of Fairyland, and seeing wonders upon which no mortal eye had ever laid.
What could be more wonderful?
With all my soul, I yearned to go with him. Then, I thought of the split oak and the tumbled turret. The damage on the mainlands, where mankind dwelt, must be even more terrible, and Prospero, Inc., would be needed to help keep matters from getting even worse. With the majority of my Aerie Ones departing, the company would be in disarray. It would take all our strength and effort just to service our Priority Contracts. How we were going to perform all the damage control that was needed, I had no idea.
All this had happened because of my broken flute; I could hardly run away and abandon the mess I had created.
“I can’t,” I replied softly, my voice filled with lingering sadness. “All the damage. The Aerie Ones have fled. If I went, who would run Prospero, Inc.?”
I expected Astreus to look disappointed. Instead, he tapped his temple thoughtfully. “Who indeed?” He spread his hands, indicating my family. “Why, right here stands the Magician Prospero and his lively sons, a whole parcel of them! Who better to run Prospero, Incorporated?”
“But they can’t. They’re busy. They … I…” I stuttered.
In all my dreams of a future life with Astreus, I had never even considered walking away from Prospero, Inc. I had never once thought of going to live with him to Fairyland. And yet … and yet, was that not exactly what I wanted: to explore, to visit places unknown, to soar through the sky, hand in hand, unfettered by earthly fears?
Astreus leaned close to me and gazed directly into my eyes, his eyes a brilliant, piercing, deep blue. “Are you trying to talk yourself out of coming with me, my love?”
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