“Key Destiny Interval?” I repeated, weary from so much information but alert enough to remember the phrase from Natalie’s file.
“It’s a term the Godmothers used to use to describe the pivotal moment when a person on Earth either heads down a path where their belief systems ultimately lead to good magic or dark magic.”
I put my fingers to my temples and closed my eyes, grimacing.
“What are you doing?” Liza asked.
“Just something SJ does when she’s stressed. I think I’m having a brain seizure. This is way too much for one day, or one lifetime.” “Don’t have a meltdown yet,” Liza said. “I have one more thing to show you, and this is something I know you’ll want to be at full attention for.”
I lifted my head slowly. “What is it?”
Liza meandered to a nearby shelf and came back with a book.
It looked just like the one Lady Agnue had presented me with when I’d received my prologue prophecy. It was forest green with my name etched into the front cover in shimmering gold letters. The only difference between this copy and the one I’d been presented with before was the understanding that the previous one had been a fake—forged by the antagonists to keep me in the dark about my true fate.
This copy was real. This was my actual book with my real prologue prophecy inside. All I had to do was look.
t was early evening when we arrived in the kingdom of Adelaide. The sky was tinged black and blue like a bruised eye, and we rode Lucky the remainder of the way to the royal castle—arriving there as the first stars showed themselves.
Our mission to find the Author was complete. Our quest was over and we knew that it was time to return to our lives—time to go back to school and deal with all the new understandings, responsibilities, and revelations we’d acquired. But we had one last stop to make before that.
When Ashlyn gifted us her locket back on Earth, she only asked one thing in return—that once we were done we return to Adelaide to find her mother (the former Little Mermaid and the present Queen of Adelaide), give her Ashlyn’s (now enchanted) locket, and tell her the truth about what happened to her “Lost Princess” daughter.
True to our word, we were on our way there now—intent on finally giving the royal family closure about their long-missing child.
How did we reach Adelaide so quickly, you might be wondering?
In a word: teleportation.
Liza had been able to teleport us pretty close to our desired destination. With the waters off the coast of Adelaide being highly prone to holes in the In and Out Spell, it provided enough of a magic beacon for Liza to hone in on. However, because we’d been on the other side of the realm, and had the interference of the Indexlands’ In and Out Spell to contend with—messing with Liza’s aim—the exact drop zone had been difficult for her to gauge. As a result, the five of us and Lucky had been zapped about sixty miles off Adelaide’s coast.
It was actually a pretty sweet ride from there. I was starting to get the hang of steering Lucky without magic. He had some ridges on the back of his neck that he seemed to respond to directionally—it allowed me to let him know whether I wanted him to go left, right, faster, slower, or stop.
While I steered Lucky, my friends were seated comfortably behind me. Liza hadn’t been kidding when she said she was excellent at crafting. She’d fashioned an awesome temporary saddle out of willow branches in less than half an hour, which allowed everyone to sit comfortably on Lucky’s back. Fortunately, Lucky didn’t seem to mind the accessory.
My only regret now was that Liza hadn’t been able to come with us.
We felt bad leaving her behind, but there was nothing we could do. I’d hoped that she could use Ashlyn’s locket to break through the In and Out Spell like we had, but with Liza’s anti-aging spell tied to it, she could never leave. If she ever stepped outside the barrier she would fall victim to the extra years she’d been alive—all 150 of them—and would pretty much turn to dust on the spot.
It was a really sad, twisted clause, but she asked us not to worry about her. I didn’t know if it was pride, strength, or denial, but she refused to accept any of our pity.
On the dragon ride to Adelaide Castle, my friends and I finally spoke about all we’d been through. First came discussion and reflection on everything Liza had told us about her origins, the Godmothers, her sister, Pure Magic, the true nature of protagonist books, and so on. Then we shared what happened during our solo meetings with her.
Daniel and Blue’s recaps took the shortest amount of time. Their whole interest in finding the Author had been rooted in a desire to have her alter their prologue prophecies so they could achieve different fates than the ones she’d prescribed. However, once Liza explained the concept of Inherent Fate, my friends realized she could not help them. Our prophecies did not mirror her wishes for our futures; they were predictions of how our futures would turn out based on our choices. And those predictions could have many interpretations, including some that might not be so obvious.
I knew perfectly well how much Daniel and Blue were dreading the futures Liza had foreseen—Blue having to marry Jason, and Daniel not ending up with Kai. Discovering that Liza did not have the power to change them, and that the interpretations they’d been concentrating on might not even be their true fates, was a hard truth to swallow.
At the same time, it was a liberating one. The forms in which their prophecies came to fruition would be on them and them alone. And that was what we’d wanted in the first place, wasn’t it?
I could tell my friends were still digesting the notion. They weren’t upset, but they weren’t necessarily happy about it either. It was just a lot to take in.
We’d spent our whole lives believing we were restricted. And we’d been attributing the constraints on our lives and futures to someone else. Realizing the Author couldn’t control our destinies changed things completely. However life played out, we knew it would be totally on us. Our fates were our responsibility, and we had to own up to them. We had to grow up and accept that there would be no one to blame for our problems. Going forward, the only people accountable for those futures was us.
From the look on his face, Jason was feeling the same way as Daniel and Blue about his conversation with Liza. While I still did not know what his prologue prophecy said, I could tell he felt humbled, surprised, kind of disappointed, but also relieved about being in charge of his own destiny.
In addition to discussing his prologue prophecy, Jason had been the one to ask Liza about Mark’s well-being.
It seemed like a lifetime ago that we’d found our old friend’s file in Arian’s bunker at the Capitol Building. Thanks to my dream we knew he was okay, and we would be seeing him again, but we still had a lot of questions. Why had he left school? And if he wasn’t dead, what did his “threat neutralized” file mean?
Unfortunately, while Mark did have a book in Liza’s library, its contents were predominantly blank. He didn’t even have a prologue prophecy yet. Liza had only ever had one vision of the boy. She foresaw it coming to fruition about a year from now. Like mine, it involved the five of us reuniting with him.
Liza had envisioned us visiting Mark at his home in the Dolohaunty Mountains. She’d gleaned from her dream that Mark really had been sick since the start of the semester, but with an illness that his parents didn’t want to make public. Evidently it was bad and he was not receiving visitors. But he would recover by next fall and the five of us would journey to his home where he would become an integral part of our mission.
It was comforting to know. Having confirmation of his current state—and that he would be okay—set our minds at ease. And since there was nothing in his book that would make Arian or Nadia consider him a threat, we hoped he was safe from their protagonist hunters.
The revelation did confuse us though. For if Mark didn’t even have a prologue prophecy, why had the antagonists taken an interest in him?
The topic definitely required further investigat
ion, but for now we simply couldn’t come up with a plausible theory as to what was going on.
When Jason finished recapping what he’d discussed with Liza, I finally explained what transpired during my talk with her, going into detail about everything I’d learned about Natalie, Eternity, and Earth magic. After that came the matter of my prologue prophecy.
Until now we’d all respected one another’s privacy in terms of prologue prophecies. However, as mine was the cause of so much that had happened to us, my friends asked me outright what it said.
It was a fair question, and I would have gladly divulged the details as I was no longer in the business of hiding things from them. But the fact was that I couldn’t tell them anything. Not because I didn’t trust them or didn’t want to let them in, but because I simply didn’t know.
When Liza had offered me my book—my prologue prophecy right behind the cover—I hesitated. And then after a moment of careful thought, I handed the book back to her.
“What do you mean you didn’t look?” Blue exclaimed, her mouth agape.
I calmly recounted the moment of my enlightenment. “Look, I know my prophecy is important and that there is a lot riding on it. But I also know that if what Liza said about Inherent Fate is true, then what good would there be in looking?”
“You would have clarity, and maybe feel at peace knowing some of the details,” Jason suggested.
I shook my head. “No, I’d have the opposite. If I’ve learned anything about prophecies, it’s that hearing them brings nothing but endless questions, doubts, and anxiety. So if knowing mine would truly make no difference in the events about to unfold, why invite these insecurities in? You guys may find it shocking, but I think it was the right choice. I’ll come to know what the future holds on my own terms when the time is right. When Liza handed me my book, I simply decided to give myself the very gift I always thought someone else had to bestow upon me. I decided to live my life just for me.”
My friends had nothing more to say. I didn’t know if that was a reflection of my own sureness while I spoke or their surprise. But I was grateful they let the matter lie. It had been my choice and there was no changing it. All they could do was support it.
Once I finished sharing, the only person left was SJ. She’d been extremely quiet throughout our retellings, which I’d mistaken for avid listening. When it was her turn to talk, I discovered that the reason for her silence had been something quite different. Embarrassment.
SJ didn’t have a protagonist book.
Like, at all.
We’d all known that she was the only person in our group who had yet to receive a prologue prophecy. Her determination to reach the Author had been inspired by a wish to preemptively keep anything undesirable from being decided about her fate. But we’d always assumed she had a protagonist book.
I mean she was SJ. She was at the top of our class at Lady Agnue’s. She was the world’s most perfect princess, heir to the throne of her kingdom, and daughter of Snow White. How could she not have one?
Yes, we’d learned that the ambassadors had been forging books for royals who didn’t have them. And Liza had informed us that being royal had nothing to do with the people she dreamed about—she simply dreamed about people who were special in some way. Their selection was random and she couldn’t control that process in the slightest. But for SJ not to have a book, for Liza to inform her that there were no visions of her future, no prophecies foreseeing any sort of larger importance to her life, no inkling at all that she was destined to be special, that was unfathomable.
The rest of us tried to console SJ. Daniel asserted that just because she didn’t have a book now didn’t mean she wouldn’t eventually get one. After all, his had only shown up a few months ago and his prologue prophecy appeared along with it. Meanwhile, to ease my friend’s mind I proposed the following notion:
Who said Liza’s word was law?
Just because our new Author friend hadn’t had visions of SJ doing anything mega important didn’t imply it wasn’t going to happen. I had the same abilities as Liza and I’d had visions of SJ along with the rest of our group, so that had to count for something. And even if it didn’t, that did not automatically mean SJ wasn’t supposed to do something awesome. The inarguable truth was that she was awesome, so her eventually doing something awesome was a no-brainer.
Maybe Liza’s predictions weren’t something to live and die by. Maybe SJ didn’t need to have one of Liza’s books to become a protagonist of her own story. Maybe being herself was enough.
After we talked about it a lot, SJ insisted she was fine and requested that we drop the subject. Respecting her wishes, we fell into silent contemplation for the rest of the journey.
Our eventual arrival at Adelaide Castle was not particularly welcomed. The guards outside freaked the geek out when Lucky landed at their front gate. My friends and I were barely able to stop them from attacking.
Once we’d calmed everybody down and explained why we were there, we were hesitantly granted admittance. Leaving Lucky outside, we entered the throne room with great delicacy, ready to fulfill our promise to Ashlyn.
The king, queen, and their young, auburn-haired daughter Onicka received us—intrigued, but confused as to why we’d come. When SJ presented them with Ashlyn’s locket and proceeded to tell the story we’d come to deliver, both these sentiments were replaced with astonishment.
The three royals sat motionlessly through the retelling. When the story was complete, the silence persisted until the queen abruptly rose from her throne and excused herself from the room. The king and Onicka swiftly pursued her.
Following the curt exit, the five of us stood there and waited, not sure what to do. Our job was done and our promise had been fulfilled, but leaving didn’t feel right—not like this, anyway. Thankfully, after fifteen minutes had passed, one of the castle guards signaled for us to come with him.
He led us to a room a slight way down the hall. We entered and found the queen gazing out a balcony that overlooked the sea. When the door clicked shut behind the guard, the queen turned around.
The brightness of the rising moon cast her face in shadow. But the light danced upon the glistening fabric of her one-sleeved mint and white gown, causing it to shimmer like the very ocean behind her.
She gestured for us to sit and we obeyed.
I squished onto the plush, powder blue fabric of the couch between Jason and SJ. The queen walked over gracefully and sat down on the chair opposite us. She rested her soft-skinned hands on the golden armrests as she crossed her ankles to the side in the shape of a fishtail.
The coral tiara woven into her auburn updo captured my attention. It was sharp but whimsical. Small diamonds glinted on it like a myriad of tiny undersea bubbles. Its minty green color contrasted the scarlet tendrils of her hair.
My gaze drifted to the accessory around her neck. She was wearing Ashlyn’s locket. I shifted in my seat as I waited for her to speak. Eventually she exhaled and gave us a small smile. “Thank you,” she said.
“Um, you’re welcome,” Blue responded on our group’s behalf.
“How are you doing, Your Majesty?” Jason felt the need to ask. “With all of this, I mean?”
“I am at peace,” the queen sighed. “Finally at peace.”
“You’re not angry with her?” Blue asked. “At Ashlyn, for leaving the way that she did? You forgive her?”
“Of course I do,” the queen responded. “How could I not when I was willing to do more or less the same thing when I left my family, my whole people, in the name of true love? It was the price of my happiness, as my daughter’s leaving was the price of hers. Much as I miss her, I could never be angry with her for making that choice. Everyone deserves a chance to find true happiness. The costs are just different from person to person.”
SJ nodded. “Ashlyn said something fairly similar.”
“I am not surprised.” The queen sighed again. “As demonstrated, she is very much her mother’
s daughter.” Her eyes turned slightly glassy and she took a deep breath to rein in her emotions.
“As I was saying,” she continued after a moment, “I want to thank you all for delivering my daughter’s message and her necklace to my family. You have finally given us closure and set us free from the terrible veil of mourning we have been under. And to see my daughter so happy with her family, to see my grandchildren in this picture inside the locket . . . Words cannot express the gratitude you deserve.”
“It was the least we could do,” I replied. “Your daughter was very kind to us.”
“Nevertheless,” the queen continued, “I stand by what I said about you deserving my thanks. And since no words can sufficiently convey it, I would like to offer you something in return—a favor.”
“What kind of favor?” Daniel asked.
“Whatever kind you like,” the queen responded. “On behalf of my family and my kingdom, I grant you one favor to be fulfilled with our full royal allegiance. Whatever it may be, whenever you desire it in the future—my husband and I have agreed that we will grant it to you. All you have to do is ask.”
“Wow, thanks,” Blue said. She looked at us and shrugged. “I’m thinking talking dolphins. How about you guys?”
“Blue . . .” SJ narrowed her eyes. “I think this is the kind of reward we should save for a rainy day.”
Blue leaned back against the couch and blew a wave of blonde hair out of her face. “Fine. Sue me for trying to have a little fun.”
SJ shook her head disapprovingly then readdressed the queen. “Thank you, Your Majesty, but you may want to rethink that kindness. Truthfully, my friends and I borrowed a few horses from your stable yesterday without permission. We meant to bring them back, but they were lost on our journey.”
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