“Or…” Tevian smiled at me. “You can trap him.” Timbago’s words echoed through my mind—that’s what he’d told me to do, too. “Now, close your eyes and concentrate. Concentrate on the crystal in your hand and nothing else.”
I closed my eyes and focused everything inside of me on that crystal. The way it felt in my hand. Its smoothness. The coolness of it against my fingers.
“Now,” Tevian whispered. “Melt the wall between this world and the Bleak.”
Melt, I thought. Just fade away.
“Oh crap,” Winston muttered behind me, and my eyes flew open.
There, just in front of me, was a square of darkness the size of the door to my old bedroom in the World That Is. Through the blackness all I could feel was…nothing. It was like I knew somewhere deep inside that if I stepped through that door nothing would follow me. Not love or hope or fear or hatred or anything else. On the other side of that black square was a never-ending world of emptiness. The Bleak.
I closed my eyes again and returned all my energy back to the door. I tried to force my mind forward to close it and lock it so that the nothing couldn’t come through. Once I’d pretended to lock the door in my head, my hand began to warm, and I opened my eyes again to find the room the exact same as it had been before. Except for the dragons all staring at me, mouths hanging open and funny, ceremonial hats askew.
“It seems the Golden Rose has, in fact, found the tear,” Ardere said with a cough.
“Yeah, told you so.” I resisted the urge to stick out my tongue. “The question is how do we destroy it? Because I don’t know anything that breathes a fire a million times hotter than what all of you can do.”
“The problem, Your Majesty,” Tevian said as he let go of my hand and stepped away from me, “is that neither do we.”
Chapter Nineteen
“How long has it been since you slept?” Winston asked as we made our way out of the Dragos Council meeting an hour later.
“I…” I tried to think but suddenly just the word sleep had my eyes growing heavy. “The night before the Great Hall. I had a nightmare about Esmeralda.”
“Two days then.” Winston steered me down a side street that hadn’t been damaged.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“The black dragons have a guest house on this street,” Winston said. “You can bed down there and get some rest.”
“But the army is coming and we’ll need to get things—”
“Allie.” Win stopped and turned to face me, his hands on my shoulder. “We need sleep. You need sleep. Just a few hours.”
“What if something happens while I’m asleep?”
“Then someone will come and get you.”
“And if the wizards attack again?”
“I’ll have guards posted outside the house,” he said. “And I’ll be asleep in the black dragon lodge house, across the street. We’ll both be safe.”
“Okay.” I nodded slowly.
“Okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, okay, you’re right, I need to sleep.”
“Good. Come on.” He motioned me toward a large, hulking black house with two tall, dark-skinned men standing in front of it.
“Your Majesties,” one of the men said and they bowed their heads.
“Good night.” Winston kissed the top of my head, and I gave him a quick hug.
“Good night.” I started up the steps, and when I reached the top I turned to watch him making his way across the street to the tall house with blue shutters directly across from us.
“Your Majesty?” one of the guards said. His fingers brushed across my sleeve. “If you’ll follow me, please? We’ve got a bed for you. The wryen and the dryad are already inside.”
I followed him through the front door and up the stairs to a large, airy room on the third floor. On the floor were two piles of blankets. Kitsuna had curled up on one and was snoring softly, while Mercedes had splayed herself out, spread-eagled, her mouth hanging open.
“I’ll arrange to have breakfast provided for you when you wake,” the guard said as he backed out of the room, not meeting my eyes.
The minute I was alone with my sleeping friends I let my shoulders slump and exhaustion overtook me. As the last of the adrenaline began to wear off I realized there was nothing left that I could do. I yawned, my jaw cracking.
I quickly made my way over to the blankets that had been set aside for me and toed off my boots. Kitsuna had taken off her sword belt and put it beside her pallet, and I did the same with my own, setting it gently on the floor so that the clatter of the blade wouldn’t wake my friends.
“Right,” I muttered as I climbed between the blankets and closed my eyes. “Time to—” I yawned again and let my eyes drift close.
“Your Majesty.” I heard Timbago’s voice, and when I opened my eyes I was back in the palace and the sun was shining. Instead of trying to wake up I sat at the palace’s kitchen table and waited for the goblin who couldn’t really be there.
“Ah.” He waddled into the kitchen and came to stand beside me. “There you are. I had wondered when we would talk again.”
“You’re—”
“Never far, Your Majesty. Even though you may feel differently from time to time.”
“I’d rather you actually be here and not just some strange appearance in my dreams.”
“So would I,” he said, “but that was not what was meant to be. Now you must be the Golden Rose I’ve always known you can be.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“You can be so much more than you believe is possible.” He took my hand in his, and I felt a pinch as he pressed something sharp into my hands. I held it tightly. “You just have to make the choice to act even if you’re afraid. Make the choice, Queen Allie. You know what you have to do.”
“Imprison the Fate Maker inside the Bleak.” I swallowed, my throat thick. My voice box felt like it was clenched in an ogre’s fist.
“Imprison him and then destroy the tear so that he can’t ever come back,” Timbago said.
I shook my head. “According to the Dragos Council there is nothing in Nerissette that burns hot enough to destroy it.”
“There is.” He shook his head at me. “Even if the dragons do not understand what it might be.”
“Then what is it?” I asked.
“You’ll know when the time comes.” He gave me a grim look. “But first you must imprison the Fate Maker and come back to the palace to be the Golden Rose that the people of Nerissette deserve. The Golden Rose that they’ve been waiting for.”
“I will,” I promised him, the pain in my palm stinging as I clenched my fist. “And we’ll find some way to show people what you did. We’ll make a monument so that no one will ever forget how brave you were. How brave all of you were.”
“That won’t be necessary, Your Highness.” He shook his head and reached down to pat my closed fist. “Be glorious and our choice will have been the right one. It will have been worth it.”
“Nothing will ever make it worth it to me…”
“I’ll never be far away,” Timbago said. Then he stepped back, letting go of my hands. “Remember that, my queen. None of us will ever be far away.”
“Timbago?”
“Yes, Your Highness?”
“How did Winston get the tear?” I said, finally asking the question that had been niggling at the back of my brain. “On the night of my coronation he put it around my neck, but the Tear was hidden in the palace. You were its guardian. So how did Winston end up with it?”
“Simple, Your Majesty.” The goblin smiled at me. “I gave it to him, just like I gave it to you in your apartments, and then I made him forget.”
“Why?”
“Because the sorceress and I…” Timbago bowed his head. “Each of us had a destiny. A role to play. Her fate was to bring you here. Mine was to keep you safe. And now I have.”