Chapter 9

T he silence after the grand magus leaves is oppressive.

The mist of the Cloud Forest settles like a shroud. Distantly, the birds still chirp.

There are still bodies on the ground, unmoving where I dropped them. Since I didn't banish them, High Earth will be able to reuse the same portal. Evram—no, probably Destien, fresh and freshly sanctimonious—will be back to collect them. We have to go.

I don't move.

I'm just kneeling in the dirt, breathing hard, my vision blurred through tears that are dripping down my face.

Then my whole field of vision is filled with Nariel, kneeling down directly before me.

I don't know what to say to him.

He just saw me lose control. He just saw a clear demonstration that I do not in fact have all my shit together. He had to bail me out of making a decision even worse than the one I ultimately made.

Now I'm just a sobbing mess in front of him, and all I can do is let him see it all. I'm too raw to try to hide, or cover, or even piece myself together.

Bad politics, to let the person you're challenging the universal order with see that maybe he shouldn't trust you after all.

Insult to injury, to show a person you deeply respect and want to like you that you're a disaster on two legs, with just enough ability and ambition to be dangerous—to everyone.

Even to my sister.

Brook . Fuck everything. I punch the ground, and punch it again, and again, and again, harder and harder and I can feel my knuckles scraping and do not care —

—until Nariel firmly gathers my hands in his. He's stronger than me—what an understatement—so even straining against him I can't tear them free.

Which means my wand is also held in his hand, but he doesn't take it. Doesn't even try, despite everything. And I could cast like that to free myself, but I don't.

I just stare back at him, my mind for once empty of words.

His gaze is steady on mine. Slowly, with the shadows flickering in his eyes as a focus, my breathing steadies, too.

We kneel there together, unblinking, his hands holding mine.

The mist makes it feel like we're alone in the world.

We're not. We're surrounded by the bodies of mages I knocked unconscious with magic.

The birds continue to chirp.

"You didn't trade me," Nariel says at last.

I thought I was as angry as I could get, but that pricks a different note of annoyance. Of course I didn't trade him.

"I may occasionally be impulsive—" A ghost of a smirk flickers across his face, and I scowl as I finish, "but I am not actually stupid. And before you knew I wasn't considering it, you still shielded my sister."

Nariel's eyes narrow that time. "You did think I had betrayed you."

And I am too tired, too raw to pussyfoot about it, so I tear my hands out of his, and he lets me, and then I poke him in the chest.

He blinks.

I look him dead in the eye and let him see whatever he can read in my expression and say, "I trust you. And he can't have you."

For better or worse, I mean it.

Maybe I am a little bit stupid.

Even the whites of Nariel's eyes go black as his eyes flicker into black shadows, just for an instant.

I'm guessing that means he's feeling a deep emotion, for me to see that.

Something in me settles into place. It's not a question for me to worry over anymore. Three days, and somehow, I trust him, and I will stand with him, as he has stood with me. It's done, that's it.

If he does betray me, now I'll never see it coming.

Rustling behind us; a mage is stirring.

Finally Nariel says, "We need to move."

We do. Not just leave this place—it's my move on the proverbial chessboard.

Or at least, it has to be my move if I don't want Evram to win, and fuck that .

But it feels like the fog of the Cloud Forest has permeated my head. I can't think.

After another moment, Nariel, moving slowly, settles his jacket over my shoulders and then gathers me into his arms, carrying me bridal style.

With a sigh, I thump my head against his shoulder.

His arms tighten around me. I burrow into the warmth of him, the feeling of his magic, like velvet shadows.

I hear the snap of his wings unfurling, dimly see the shadow of them above—which means he's not hiding them—and then he lifts us into the sky.

At first all I can see over his shoulder is trees poking through the mist. Eventually we rise above it, and Nariel spins us slowly, letting me take in everything around us.

I squint against the sun. Before, he wanted me to see what we could build. Now, it's what is mine to protect. The whole world that I have risked without any defense, that I have failed. My chest tightens.

Nariel keeps spinning.

No. Nariel would just tell me if he thought I'd messed up, wouldn't he? That's my own self-recrimination, and self-recrimination won't save my sister.

This is about giving me time to screw my head back on in whatever direction I decide it needs to go.

And this is about possibilities.

I can go anywhere in the world, because Nariel can take me. He will take me, despite the fact that I'm dampening his shirt with my tears, that I'm making him do all the work of holding me up right now, and that has to stop.

It's my move.

I wrap my arms around Nariel, holding on.

He lets his chin rest on my head.

We spin like that for I don't even know how long, breathing together, before I notice something that gives me the barest shape of an idea, but that's something and I grab onto it like a lifeline.

"Can you fly us to La Fortuna Waterfall?"

"It would be my pleasure," Nariel murmurs into my hair.

My heart pounds.

Then we're moving.

N ariel dives back into the forest, flying through the trees.

I don't know Costa Rica's geography that well, but I'm pretty sure this isn't a normal route people take from one place to the other.

It takes me a few minutes to notice Nariel is slowly picking up speed.

I tilt my head so I can look up at his face.

"Problem?" Nariel asks in his velvet voice.

Is there a problem with not being cloaked, my demonic companion zipping through the trees like they're an obstacle course?

He's enjoying this. The realization hits suddenly.

Look at that, my brain may still work after all.

Because on the heels of that thought is another: I told Nariel I trusted him, and now he's trusting that and showing me this side of him.

The wings.

The demon.

Unhidden. Unmoderated.

Dangerous, and not shy about it.

I lean my head back on his shoulder, relaxing. "Nope."

A flicker of a smile crosses his face.

Then he goes even faster.

Nariel carries me effortlessly as he asks with his flight: Do I scare you now?

Because given how he rose to power, even if spirits in Dark Earth respect him now, they must fear him, too. At the very least, he has to always be mindful of the power differential between him and the spirits who are his to protect.

But me, he just saw flex my still-burgeoning power and drop all my enemies in an instant, with barely even a spell.

Nariel can fly as fast as he wants without worrying he's going to overwhelm me. I'm not worried, anyway, and eventually he won't be either.

But I think he also means for me to understand not just that he is strong but that I can rely on his strength, and that's a problem.

If I rely on him to solve this, no one will ever take me, or humans, or even other spirits, seriously.

If High Earth attacks me, or other wizards, or anyone in Low Earth, I can't run to him to solve my problems for me. He has his own problems.

I have to be able to stand on my own, or I can't be an equal partner to him.

But I'm also, very evidently, not enough on my own. If I were, Brook wouldn't be involved in this.

Nariel cloaks us as we approach the waterfall and lands us on a bend in the trail, so no one notices we've just come from out of the literal blue.

We walk unspeaking, unwilling to poke this delicate and beautiful new thing between us despite the ugliness we just came from, through the new sounds of this place. The sounds of people. Of yelling, and laughter. Of rushing water rather than hushed silence.

The sounds of innocent people like my sister who can all become hostages against me, against this whole dimension, because I've done nothing to defend them.

Yet.

I stare at the waterfall. It's a tall one and a strong one, crashing into a pool. The pool itself doesn't look as dangerous as it is, but it's only once the water crashes over boulders and thence down a creek that it's safe for people to enter. The currents are too strong near where the waterfall hits the pool.

Which means it's empty.

"Can you cloak me?" I ask Nariel. I don't want anyone else watching me and deciding it's safe for them to try.

I can use magic, after all.

Instead of triggering joy, my jaw clenches at the thought even as I feel Nariel's magic tingle over me, my nerves dancing to awareness.

"I'll wait for you," he tells me softly.

For some reason, that's what almost breaks my equanimity.

I clench my fists, holding my wand tightly, and dive into the pool.

For a moment, I let the whirlpool and the strong currents batter at me, let them wash me under.

I scream, releasing my gathered magic with a wild pulse that sets off a wave of water around me.

This is the side of me I never let anyone see before today, because I have to always appear perfect and unassailable or no one will take me seriously.

And it's ironic, that I can coldly plot out a magical revolution across four universes and bide my time for a decade, but this part of me, this blatant willingness to disregard all the rules and norms High Earth claims to live by, this is what made my former mentor afraid of me.

This is why the grand magus is now taking me seriously.

All their protocols—and ours too—are set up to put down people who can't handle their emotions and thus their power. They aren't set up to deal with someone who wields their emotions as power.

And I know enough of humans, and of High Earth, and of my former mentor in particular, to understand that if Evram is afraid, he will never stop until the source of that fear is put to rest.

My first error was prioritizing getting magic over defending anyone.

My second, perhaps ultimately even more damning, was making the grand magus understand that I can and will kill him.

I'm the one bringing magic back into this world. No one asked for this. I put everyone here at risk for my ego, my own personal need for magic, and that means it's my responsibility to make sure it doesn't bite them in the ass. Not any more than it already has, anyway.

The crux of the issue is that I'm still not willing to lose magic. Not for myself, or for anyone else. I've tasted it again after living so long without, and I will not go back.

Which means High Earth will never let me alone. One way or another, I'm marked.

My days are numbered, but those days will be full of magic.

And I can make the most of the time I have left so everyone else will be able to keep magic in their lives.

I'll wield my magic so hard High Earth will never be able to erase me again.

I let the feeling of being caught in the whirlpool overwhelm me, and batter at all my grief that this is the course available to me while still being true to who I am.

But I won't give magic up, no matter what.

I'm doubling down.

And that's why Nariel's soft statement, now, is such a kick in the gut.

He can't wait for me if I leave him.

My eyes snap open, and I cast.

A sphere of calm in a storm, my rage channeled. Lightning crackles around me as if contained in a globe.

I'm clear-eyed. Focused.

I lift myself out of the water in a bubble of power, the water streaming off of it while the humans play all around me none the wiser.

While I have eyes for only one person.

His eyes are dark pools I could lose myself in. But I won't lose myself to anyone, and I let him see that.

And he rises in the air to meet me and holds out a hand: meeting my challenge, not dominating or subjugating.

My heart squeezes, but I know what I have to do.

Before I activate the third anchor, I'll have to convince the grand magus to bring my sister back so I can rescue her and win magic for this world in one shot.

One move, before I'm off the board.

I let Nariel see only my resolve as I take his hand.

And then we're gone.

I n no time at all, we're on a flight to another continent. Before we change planes on our layover, I have plenty of time to check the news—no reported strangeness at Stonehenge, so we appear to have gotten away with that—and get in touch with Letty.

She falls all over herself to spill the tea as soon as I start to ask, which makes my own eyes sting with tears again.

My sister isn't the only one I failed with my blinders-on approach.

I wish I were surprised to learn that Evram threatened Letty, but it makes too much sense—for a person who doesn't care about the means to the end, that is, which the grand magus has thoroughly demonstrated he exemplifies.

I am surprised that Letty's involvement doesn't sting, given what a cavernous chip I have on my shoulder when it comes to betrayal. I trusted her, but she also trusted me . And then I left her in an impossible position.

The problem with knowing all the wizards in Low Earth, as Letty does, is that all the wizards in Low Earth also know her. High Earth mages could find any wizard at all and press them for info, and all of them would know to point to Letty.

"I don't know who it was," Letty growls, "but I will find out."

I appreciate her anger and her feeling sold out, but to my surprise, I don't share it.

Maybe that's growth.

Maybe I'm just tired.

"It doesn't matter," I tell her. My voice is hollow. "I didn't do anything to protect any of you. No one had any way to stand up to a grand magus but me. That's survival, Letty. I can't hold that against any of you."

Letty was the one to tell the grand magus I had a sister—Brook apparently had hidden our relationship just as I'd asked, which fills me with a mix of pride and sadness and a kind of strangled feeling—and that Brook was the way to get to me.

In a way, Letty did me a favor, because Evram missed a trick. She convinced him that Brook was the only way to get my attention, but he could have absolutely used Nariel for that too. But since Letty doesn't know how deep I am in with Nariel now, she couldn't know that Evram framing him to look like he'd betrayed me would have kneecapped me even more effectively.

Letty probably does know I'd have fought for her too, but as generous as she is, she knows what she's worth.

Since she knows every wizard in Low Earth, she can also be used against all of us.

Brook, by comparison, can't offer High Earth anything other than a line to me.

"I'm sorry all the same, Sierra," Letty says. "And also fucking pissed."

"Yeah," I say softly, dangerously. "Lot of that going around. But thanks for saying it."

"You have a plan? Because you'd better."

"I do."

A pause, then she swears. "You probably shouldn't tell me what it is."

"Oh, if they get in touch again, feel free to tell them we're going to Japan. Just don't tell them you gave me Ayaka's contact info."

A beat of silence.

Then: "Ayaka."

"Ayaka," I confirm.

Letty lets out her breath in a hiss. "Oh, I hope you know what you're doing, girl. And don't you even think about telling me. I can't know anything else, just in case, even if the suspense drives me right out of my mind."

"Thank you, Letty."

"Don't thank me," she says grimly. "Just get your sister back and finish this."

I glance at Nariel, who's been watching and waiting patiently.

Waiting.

My heart squeezes again, and once again that rage burgeons, that this is all the time I have.

I meet Nariel's gaze as I say to Letty, "Oh, I'll do more than that."

I hang up.

Nariel says only, "Japan?"

He knew that much already; it's on his plane ticket. He's inviting me to tell him more.

It's my turn to dodge his questions about logistics, because this is the last thing I want to talk to him about.

"Japan," I confirm nonchalantly. "Kyoto first, but it's not where we end."

And then, my heart clenching, I float a new cap onto his head.

Nariel grins, and it's like the sun coming up and burning a hole in my chest.