The sounds of war carried to them up the hill, the area around the head of the Isthmus a natural theater. The acoustics sent a chill through Oliver. Their view of the ocean unnerved him. Normally the sight soothed him and it seemed somehow abominable to have a war on the shore. The ocean ought to have meant peace and tranquility.
“This is creeping me out,” Julianna said.
“Hell, yeah,” Oliver said, glancing at her as they labored up the hill. “Of course it is.”
“I don’t just mean the war. It’s being up here, after they’ve all taken off. Like we’ve been left behind on purpose, cheese baiting the trap.”
Oliver frowned. “This isn’t—”
“I know.” She waved his protest away. “But I’d feel safer down there with all the people who have weapons.”
Even as she said it, they came around a tent and saw a larger one. Six riders sat atop their horses around the tent and a couple of dozen others were spread out at the top of the hill. Two massive ogres with twisted features and carrying war hammers stood on either side of the tent’s entrance. In the air, robed in dark green, a trio of Mazikeen floated over the tent.
“The King’s Guard,” Julianna said.
Blue Jay glanced back at them. “Hurry, you two.”
Oliver felt his pique rising. “We’re only human.”
The trickster said nothing. Julianna squeezed his hand.
“You’re not,” she said. “I’m having a hell of a time keeping up with you.”
“You got me. My secret’s yoga, in case you’re wondering,” Oliver said, but only because he couldn’t think of any reply that wasn’t a joke. How was he supposed to respond to that? He wasn’t ready yet to start thinking about himself as being anything other than human, even though in his heart, he had always been a child of two worlds.
Julianna rolled her eyes.
He lifted her hand and kissed it.
Blue Jay stopped in front of the tent. Oliver and Julianna halted on either side of him. A severe young woman in the uniform of the King’s Guard ran to meet them.
“Tell him Oliver’s here,” was all Blue Jay said.
The young woman—barely more than a girl—widened her eyes in surprise, nodded, and nearly fled into the tent.
“Damn, you’re like Elvis now,” Julianna whispered to him. “No last name needed.”
The soldier emerged from the tent, pulled a flap aside, and nodded for them to enter. “His Majesty, King Hunyadi, will see you.”
Blue Jay grumbled something about protocol in the middle of a war, but Oliver couldn’t quite make out the entire sentiment. He held back so that Julianna could precede him into the tent, and went in last.
A table with maps of the battleground and troop deployment had been moved to one side and now stood forgotten. King Hunyadi still looked like the rough-hewn, bearded fisherman he had seemed when Oliver had first encountered him, despite the armor and the sword at his side. Damia Beck stood with him in the tent. Blue Jay strode over to the tall black woman and exchanged a quiet word with her, their fingers entwining. As they traveled together over the past few days, Blue Jay had spoken of Damia quite a bit—and Oliver remembered her from their brief encounters in Euphrasia—but he’d had a hard time picturing the beautiful, yet grimly serious soldier and the trickster in love. Seeing the way they looked at each other erased all of his preconceptions.
Frost stood in a far corner, deep in conversation with Wayland Smith. A hundred distrustful thoughts went through his mind when he saw them, but he spared them only a glance.
“Collette!” Julianna cried happily.
The two women ran to one another and embraced like long-lost sisters. Oliver stood by during their reunion, until Collette detached herself and turned to look at him with a mischievous grin.
“You’ve got a bit of a tan,” Oliver said.
“I’ve been on a millionaire’s boat in South America, sunning, enjoying life,” Collette replied. “Of course, the boat was stolen and we were getting shot at, but beyond that, very luxurious. Hence the tan.”
Oliver drew his sister into his arms and held her close.
“If he hadn’t gotten you back here alive, I’d have killed him,” Oliver whispered into her hair. “Damn it, Coll, I was afraid for you.”
Collette ran her hands up and down his arms and stepped back. “Me, too, little brother. But at least you had Julianna to look after you.”
“Oliver,” Blue Jay said, sharply.
He turned to see King Hunyadi looking at him and Julianna expectantly.
“Your Majesty, I’m sorry,” Julianna began.
“We’re both sorry,” Oliver said. “It’s just that we were—”
Hunyadi held up a hand. His eyes spoke of hard-won wisdom, but also of a fondness that touched Oliver.
“I understand. And it’s good to see you, my friends,” said the king. “But the morning is fleeting and the time has come for all of us to share what we know. For the sake of Euphrasia, for the Two Kingdoms, and two worlds, the Legend-Born must be protected. Morale depends upon hope, and hope, right now, depends upon you two.”
He nodded at Oliver and then Collette.
“Your presence means a lot to the human soldiers down there amidst the bloodshed and monsters. Still, it would be simpler if you were elsewhere.”
Oliver opened his hands wide. “But we’re here. And we can help, Your Majesty. All my life has been about pretending, whether in a court of law or on the stage. The time’s come to do something real.”
“You can’t—” Julianna began.
“He’s right,” Collette interrupted. “We have—it’s hard for me to say magic, but we have magic in us. We can help.”
Frost flowed across the tent on a blast of frigid air. “No. Absolutely not.”
Oliver turned on him, scowling. “You know, I’ve had just about enough of you pulling the strings. You’ve got some grand plan for us? Great. Hope that goes well for you. But we’ll make our own decisions.”
The winter man narrowed his eyes, blue-white mist rising from their edges. “I did what I had to do.”
“Frost,” Blue Jay warned.
Wayland Smith gazed at Oliver and Collette from beneath the brim of his hat. “The two of you must understand, the outcome of the war is vital, but there are even greater things at stake. We cannot risk your lives, no matter the cost.”
Oliver pointed at him. “What makes you think I’m going to listen to anything you have to say? Last time I saw you, you murdered a man in that inn at Twillig’s Gorge just because he figured out who I really was. You’ve been in this scheme with Frost from the beginning.”
Smith raised an eyebrow. He glanced at King Hunyadi, then shifted his gaze back to Oliver. “If you must know, the scheme—as you call it—was primarily mine.”
Oliver glared at him. “Well, then you’re a fucking asshole.”
King Hunyadi stepped into the middle of the tent, separating them.
“Enough.”
They all looked at the king, but no one argued with him.
“I’m sorry,” Oliver said. To Hunyadi, not to the others.
The king held up a hand again, brushing it away. He began to ask questions, and soon they were sharing their stories. Frost and Collette spoke of the Atlantean forces. Oliver and Julianna and Blue Jay talked about the chaos they had left in Palenque. Damia reassured them that the anarchy they had begun still raged in the capital city of Yucatazca and beyond.
“The rebels have nearly taken control of Palenque. They’re demanding that Prince Tzajin return to Yucatazca and address the public himself. They will return control of the city to the prince, but only after hearing the words from his mouth.”
King Hunyadi nodded. “Yes. According to Frost’s report, mistrust of their purpose has caused the Yucatazcan warriors to lose heart. It may be that we can turn them to our cause or convince them to withdraw from the field of battle.”
Oliver felt almost as though he were in a courtroom, and Hunyadi the judge. “If it pleases Your Majesty, I’d like to speak.”
The king smiled thinly. “Now you ask permission?”
With a glance at Julianna, Oliver nodded. “Look, it seems pretty obvious to me that everyone’s on the same page here. Maybe we’ll win this war on the ground, but it’s a hell of a gamble. Those ships Frost and Collette saw—who knows how many more of them there are? There could be another entire invasion force on the way. We need an ace in the hole, and Prince Tzajin is that ace. I’ve been thinking about this ever since we heard the kid was in Atlantis.”
Oliver studied King Hunyadi.
“Your Majesty, I’m going to get him. I’ll find the kid, get him out of Atlantis, and back here. It’s pretty clear that Smith can travel in ways that the Borderkind can’t—ways he doesn’t seem interested in explaining to the rest of us, but that’s fine. Let me choose a small group. I’ll pick them myself. Smith drops us in the middle of Atlantis, as close as possible to the library where he saw Prince Tzajin. We’ll bring him back.”
At last, he allowed himself to glance at Julianna. Her nostrils flared with anger.
“Don’t do this,” she said.
Oliver didn’t reply. He had to do it, and she knew that. After what Ty’Lis had done to them all—the murder of his father, the Sandman terrorizing Collette, the death of Ted Halliwell—how could he not do whatever was necessary to stop Atlantis?
“After what Ty’Lis did to you, Jules?” Collette said.
Julianna shot her a withering glance. “You can’t agree with this.”
“Agree?” Collette replied. “Hell, I’m going with him.”
Silence fell. One by one, they all looked at King Hunyadi. The big man stroked his beard. At length, he glanced at Frost and Smith.
“Your Majesty, the risk,” Smith warned.
Frost shook his head. The familiar sound of his icicle hair clinking made Oliver nostalgic for a time before resentment and deceit had come between them.
“You can’t let them both go, Majesty,” the winter man said.
“What a surprise,” Oliver mused. “One of us is expendable.”
Blue Jay glanced at Damia, who seemed to be growing impatient to join her troops. “They’re right.” He glanced at Oliver and Collette. “I’m sorry, my friends, but they’re right. You can’t both go. I’m not one of the Lost. It matters not to me if your people ever get home. But if you both die, that’s a victory for Atlantis, and it could undermine all that Euphrasia is fighting for.”
King Hunyadi raised both hands. “Agreed. And it is decided. Oliver, choose your allies. Smith, you’ll take them in and bring them back, with the prince.”
“I’m not supposed to interfere, John,” the Wayfarer said grimly from beneath the brim of his hat. His eyes were shadows.
“You aren’t. You’ll ferry them, nothing more.”
Smith didn’t argue further.
Julianna had no such compunction. “So, what?” she said, staring at Oliver. “I’m just supposed to wait for you, again, wondering if you’re dead or alive, trapped in this crazy place alone?”
Oliver glanced away. “You won’t be alone.”
“No,” Collette agreed. “I’ll be with you. They’re not going to let me go.”
Julianna glanced around the tent, fixing her eyes one by one on Frost, Smith, King Hunyadi, and Oliver.
“Fucking men.” She turned and left the tent.
Collette stared at her brother for a moment. Then she went to him, hugged him close, and looked up at his face.
“I’ll look out for her. You look out for yourself. Don’t think I’m not pissed, though. I want you coming back alive so I can kick your ass.”
Oliver kissed her forehead.
“Wouldn’t miss that for the world.”
Sara woke in the small hours of the night, the Maine wind howling outside the windows. A storm had blown up, but she couldn’t hear the patter of rain. Just that wind, rattling the windows in their frames and whistling in the eaves. Her father’s house was a relic of the past.
It surprised her to find that she’d fallen asleep. All day she had been on the phone, ordering the shutoff of the utilities, calling her friends in Atlanta and an editor she knew would give her work. Calling her mother, and crying again. Both of them weeping for a man they had never found a way to stop loving, even in the times when they had wanted to.
When she’d gone to bed, her mind had been bustling with activity, with plans and their repercussions, all the while trying to avoid the truth around which it all revolved. Her father’s house would soon be empty, and it might be that way forever. She’d tossed and turned with these thoughts, wide awake, first too warm and tossing the covers away, then freezing cold and retrieving them, burrowing underneath.
Somehow, she’d managed to drift off.
Now she stretched, head muzzy with sleep, and listened to the creak of the old house and the cries of the wind, and wondered if that was what had woken her. The clock on the wall ticked. The seconds seemed to pass too slowly, lengthening, stretching out as though hesitant to move on. Tick. A breath. Tick. Its oddness drew her. Eyes closed, she listened intently, wondering if the battery was dying. And as she strained to make sense of the sluggish passage of time on that clock, she heard another sound.
A sifting.
A shiver ran up her back. Her skin prickled with gooseflesh. The sound seemed familiar, but she knew she had never heard anything precisely like it before. The sifting, scratching noise seemed to cascade toward her, and then abruptly ceased.
“What the hell?” she said, mostly to hear herself speak.
Sara turned, rising from the pillow, and her breath caught in her throat. The thing that stood by her bed could not have been a man. Not with those fingers like knives and its long, cruel face, and the terrible lemon eyes that shone in the dark.