19. 19

I squeezed my eyes shut. Afterimages burst behind my eyelids. I opened my eyes and glanced at Mom, who was squinting out the window. "Mom, don't stare at the sun."

It wasn't the sun. I knew it wasn't, even as I jammed the accelerator down and Victorine's SUV lunged through the intersection.

"Zelda," Berron said.

"What?" I snapped. The barrier had gone haywire, Mom couldn't leave, and now I was trying to pilot this behemoth through what was rapidly turning into rush hour.

"It's coming closer."

"Oh, no…" Poppy said, as she pressed against the window for a better view.

"What?" I nearly yelled. "What's ‘Oh, no'?"

I didn't need to ask. I just didn't want to see.

The light turned green and horns blared behind us. I made them wait.

I made myself look.

Golden robes crackling with magic like electricity. Golden hair, floating unnaturally; locks curling in and out at the tips like octopus arms. And a face I never wanted to see again, turning toward me with glowing eyes. Smiling. A beautiful smile, on molten glass lips.

The Arcade.

I could have kept driving. I could have gotten out and walked. Over a bridge, through a tunnel; far, far away. Fat lot of good it would have done—it didn't matter if I could get off this island, because none of the people I cared for could come with me.

"Berron. Poppy," I said. "I'm going to drop you off. Take Mom home and keep her safe. I'm going after this… thing."

"Zelda Hawkins, you will do no such thing," Mom said.

"Mom, you are not getting involved in this."

"Try getting me out of this car," she said. "Just try. You won't have any eyebrows left."

I squeezed the steering wheel. "Please."

"No."

"It looks like it's coming up 40th," Poppy said. "Or maybe 41st. I can't tell."

"That's the Manhattanhenge alignment," I said, turning down an avenue. Skyscrapers made the Arcade disappear, and for a few moments, I could imagine that everything was normal—until I made another turn and saw the Arcade floating over the New York Public Library, high in the air above the two famous lions. "What's she doing?"

"Nothing good," Berron said.

"Oh, you think?"

"What are those silver swirly things?" Mom said.

"What silver swirly things?" Then I saw them: fine threads of silver wrapping themselves around her, turning gold.

"That's magic," Poppy said. "She's… absorbing it?"

"From where?" Mom said.

"New York," Berron said. "Like the Forest of Emeralds."

"Not if I can help it," I said.

"She's floating in the sky," Poppy said. "How are we going to reach her?"

Everyone fell silent. Out of nowhere, I pictured the glider from Escape from New York, the movie Daniel and I had watched on my first night in the city. A glider that had landed on a rooftop.

A rooftop!

"Daniel's condo," I said. "It overlooks Bryant Park. The building has a garden on the roof."

"He still has that condo?" Poppy said.

"You still have a key?" Berron added.

I looked in the rearview. Mischief glinted in his eyes, even at a time like this. "Stop wiggling your eyebrows at me and help me find a place to ditch this car." Victorine was going to murder me if it was impounded, but that paled in comparison to whatever the Arcade was up to.

Luckily, we found a spot around the corner. Everyone got out.

"Mom," I said, giving it one last try. "Let me get you a cab home."

She pointed to the Arcade, who continued to hoover up silver wisps of magic. "You want me to toddle off while you face this alone? Stop wasting time." She whirled, marched off, then stopped. "Which one is Daniel's building?"

I pointed the opposite direction from where she'd been heading.

She huffed and walked off.

I managed to catch up and lead the way, Berron and Poppy following, all of us dodging the office-suited people on their way to their normal, office jobs.

When we went through the building doors, warm air rushed out—the exact opposite of the first time I'd walked through them at the height of summer, when the air conditioning had nearly frozen my sweat.

Although the doorman didn't know me by sight, the key card I waved kept him from taking too much interest.

We entered the elevator. I pushed the button, the doors slid closed, and we surged upward until my ears popped, passing Daniel's old floor.

At the top floor, the bell dinged, and I jumped like the Arcade was right behind me. I took a breath and walked out of the elevator.

The hallway was noticeably cooler than the lobby, as if the building didn't bother to pump the heat this high. Floor-to-ceiling windows revealed a view of outdoor couches and tables arranged on artificial turf. It would have been peaceful if I didn't know what was floating nearby.

I put my hand on the door to the outside.

"Wait," Poppy said. "What's the plan?"

"The plan?" I said. "Mom'll burn the Arcade's eyebrows off. Right, Mom?"

"Right," she said, looking small but particularly fierce.

I pushed the door open.

Cold air barrelled across the patio; the higher the altitude, the higher the wind speed. My hat blew off but I caught it in-flight and shoved it into my pocket.

We crossed the artificial turf and approached the lookout over Bryant Park and 41st Street.

Below, the everyday city business: people rushing, cars stopping and going, the smell of breakfast food trucks and exhaust rising as high as a skyscraper.

And, hovering above where 41st ran into the New York Public Library, my old enemy.

The Arcade.

She floated in what looked like serene contemplation, a meditative goddess, almost peaceful—benevolent-looking, even—until you saw the silver magic drawn from below, wrapping around her tentacle hair like old-fashioned curl papers, and then, with one last bright flash of defiance, becoming absorbed into the gold.

"She's getting stronger," Berron said.

"How are we supposed to fight it?" Mom said. "She's over there. And, well"—she gestured to the fake green grass we stood on—"we're over here."

Mom was right. The last time I'd fought the Arcade, she'd been careless enough to let us get close.

"She doesn't look particularly concerned," Poppy added.

The silver magic fled the city faster, as if her appetite was growing.

"She's showing off," I said.

"What happens if she sucks it all up?" Mom said.

"Nothing good."

"We can't just stand here." Mom wound up like she was going to throw a baseball, then chucked a ball of fire into the air in the direction of the Arcade.

The fireball burned itself out a few dozen feet from Daniel's building.

"Mom! You can't just—chuck fireballs off a building!"

"You got a better idea?"

Manhattanhenge, still aligned with the city grid, bore down on all of us, painting the Arcade inferno orange.

Poppy tried next, launching a respectable fireball that again fell far short of the target. She leaned over as if winded. "Why do I feel so knackered?"

"If she's sucking up all the magic, it's not as easy for you to access it," I said. "And the longer we stand here, the worse it will get." I pulled off my gloves and conjured fire in my cupped hands by thinking of hot kitchen things: ovens, griddles, elements. The flames sprang to life and inflated to beach ball size. I lifted the fireball and hurled it in the direction of the Arcade.

It soared, then winked out short of the target. Farther than Mom's, but shorter than Poppy's.

"Damn it," I said.

"What if the three of you worked together?" Berron said. "Pool your fire magic."

Mom, Poppy, and I looked at each other. What was there to lose?

"Come on." I held my bare hand palm-up. "It's worth a shot."

"What do we do?" Mom said.

"Imagine you're fueling a fire. Same thing you do as when you prepare to throw a fireball, only you're going to concentrate on aiming it right here." I moved my hand up and down like I was weighing a ball of dough. "I'll pull the magic away from you and throw it. Got it?"

Mom nodded.

Their magic poured into my hand. It swirled around and around as if that ball of dough had been thrown into a mixer on high speed. Following the pattern of its spin, I waited until it glowed so brightly silver I could hardly look at it—then I launched it.

The silver cannonball flew high, arcing even higher than we stood on top of the building, before tumbling downward and burning out short of the Arcade.

We missed.

But we'd drawn her attention.

Her head turned until her glowing eyes had us in their sights. Though I should have been blinded by them, like headlights, instead darkness descended, like she'd swallowed Manhattanhenge along with the magic.

In the dark place, came her voice.

Zelda. I have finished the work your grandmother's generation began. The barrier is sealed at last. I will take all the magic, until there is none left; until everything is peaceful.

As you always wished it to be.

"I never asked for that!"

Did you not? The Arcade's expression could have been carved ice. And when I am finished, I will pull the Forest of Emeralds up by its roots and have its magic as well. You will be helpless. You will be, at long last…

Normal.

The word sliced through me like a jagged cut from a dull knife. Truth brought shame. I had wished for normal, once upon a time.

But that time had passed, and I wasn't that Zelda anymore.

"I am not normal!" Anger sent tremors through my body. I seized my mother's hand, then Poppy's. "And neither are they! And that's…" I looked at Mom. "That's okay. We don't have to be normal." I felt Berron behind me, then, placing his hands on my shoulders. Supporting me.

My mother; my friend; my… Berron. I had things to say to him, when this was done.

You will not stop me, the Arcade said. You are weak.

"Not being ‘normal,'" I said, "is our strength." My hands sparkled, as they often did after I had petted Jester, since that day at the charity auction when he ate the four-leaf clovers.

Take me down and the barrier falls with me. You will destroy what your grandmother helped build.

Was I destroying my grandmother's legacy? The shop still stood. My memories burned bright. Grandma protected New York the best way she knew how. So did I.

Was this destruction—or was it evolution?

I saw the faces of those I loved most, and I knew the answer.

"Let it fall," I said. "It's time to try something new."

I squeezed Mom and Poppy's hands. Fire, I thought. Fire and flight. Fire and soaring over the city fueled by magic and the sun—

And love.

Love for the magic of New York. Of my mother and my grandmother. Of the witches, the Gentry, and the Blessed.

The world was growing dark, but we were a beacon; we shone; we gathered to ourselves everything the Arcade could never take, never understand.

My chest hurt. I had never given birth, but some primitive part of me knew that something was coming.

A new creature, born of flames.

Wings, unfolding in silver cascades, beating in slow motion like the chambers of my heart. A head adorned with delicate curling feathers. A pointed beak. Eagle-like claws. A body as gracefully shaped as an expensive vase in the Met.

A phoenix!

None of us had ever manifested a true familiar—but together, we had created something even greater and more beautiful than any familiar I'd ever seen.

The bird rose, trailing sparks. It flapped its wings, setting a course for the Arcade.

The wind from its wings blew hot against us, whipping the cold air to make whirlwinds that sent the pillows tumbling off the couches and across the turf.

But the firebird hung in mid-air—not retreating, not getting closer to the Arcade.

"Why isn't it moving?" I said.

"Magic can only go so far," Poppy said. "It has to burn something to keep going."

"What can it burn?" Mom said. "It's in the sky!"

"And if it sets anything on fire," I said, looking at Bryant Park, the library, the surrounding buildings, "someone could get hurt."

Berron's hands left my shoulders.

He moved to the edge of the patio.

He turned back. Looked at me. Smiled. His ears regained their natural points. His modern clothes turned fairy-in-the-forest, rich and brown and not of this Earth, piped with gold—except for the West Side Sandwiches hat, the perfect accessory for any outfit. "Tell my sister," he said, "that I love her."

My heart skipped, and the phoenix lost a little altitude. "Berron," I said, "what are you doing?"

"And tell yourself," he continued, as if I hadn't spoken, "the same. Except very, very different." He doffed the cap, like a gentleman, then tugged it back in place and turned away.

Before I could let the phoenix evaporate like fog in the sun, consequences be damned, he climbed onto the ledge.

Unbidden, the words of the book I found in Prospero's apartment, Manners for Men, came back to me.

Reliable as rocks…

His clothes roughened like bark, then his skin; fingers lengthened into branches and twigs; feet became roots that gripped the side of the building.

Judicious in every action…

And then the tree that was Berron grew and grew, reaching across the space between our building and the next, suspended in space across two root systems, a canopy exploding open like an umbrella, reaching for the phoenix.

Dependable in trifles as well as the large affairs of life…

In the space of moments, the prince's tree grew from spring to summer, then burst with autumn apples, and then stood in craggy winter form, dry and stripped of leaves and fruit.

Full of mercy and kindness to others…

A lifeline. A lifeline meant to burn.

His life is pure and kindly.

I realized I was screaming when my throat hurt. My fire mouse burst from me and ran for the roots, tiny frantic squeaks lost in the crackle of leaves and branches growing toward destruction.

"Berron, no…" But it barely came out. My voice was gone.

The phoenix landed in the tree and the whole city seemed to inhale. The phoenix expanded, brightened, took on the color of true fire, not just silver magic, as it incinerated the tree from its crown to the smallest tendril of its roots. Ash rained down as the phoenix took flight once more, a flaming arrow aimed at the heart of the Arcade.

She turned. Her hair curled up at the tips in rage. Her eyes beamed hatred; I felt it through Mom and Poppy, too, each of us conducting power like the wires of the city itself, competing with the pull of the Arcade.

The phoenix bent its wings and plunged.

Fueled by magic, roaring with fire, the phoenix struck the Arcade full in the chest. Gold and silver and orange exploded as if the Manhattanhenge sun had fallen to earth and cracked in half like an egg.

A sound of breaking glass; of bells that would never ring again.

Stolen magic billowed free.

The city exhaled.

When the smoke cleared, the phoenix remained. It banked over the stone lions and let out a call, triumphant and musical but also a little bit like the faraway horns of morning traffic. It was a New York bird, after all. Then it glided back and landed on the edge of the roof.

The Arcade, gone. The great split-rooted, building-spanning tree, gone.

Berron, gone.

Just Mom, Poppy, me, and a phoenix. It preened its feathers and small embers fell out, scorching the fake turf.

My cheeks were cold. Wet. I let go of Mom and Poppy's hands and approached the phoenix. Radiant warmth dried my cheeks, the salt pulling the skin tighter.

I reached a hand out, gently. Could you pet a phoenix? It had always worked for Jester. I touched the bird's head and smoothed back the curly feathers.

The bird looked at me gravely. Then it stuck its neck out and pecked at my hat.

"I think it wants it," Mom said. "Your hat."

I scrubbed at my stinging eyes. "Why do you want my hat?" I said.

It cocked its head impatiently.

I thought of Berron wearing his hat, staring at himself in the mirror and being so pleased, and my stomach lurched. I took the hat off. "Here."

The bird seized it in its beak. It looked around—at Poppy, at Mom, at me. At the sun. Then it flapped its wings and soared away, its reflection glinting in the windows of the surrounding buildings, finally dissolving into the bright sky over Bryant Park.

Hat and all.