We can no longer afford the medical bills to keep her on life support. Please help us fight to keep our Nadi alive. Please give her a chance to meet her granddaughter.
The website went on for three screens of backstory, accomplishments, photos, memories, EEG scans. Every member of the family told their story. They’d even embedded a YouTube video of Nadi’s son and husband recalling memories, and a clip of her newly born granddaughter in Nadi’s husband’s arms. Schmaltzy music played in the background. The website hadn’t been updated in two years, so by now, that baby could probably walk and talk.
Nadi had left behind every person on this website to rule over a world none of them had even heard of. The trade is worth it, she’d said. Power did scary things to people. Alinean lore was filled with cautionary tales of mages who let their magic go to their heads and suffered the consequences.
Nolan scrolled to the top of the website and studied the text again. The page didn’t say which hospital Nadi was staying in, but he guessed it was close to her family. Cape Town, SA. South Africa. He didn’t think it mattered. Even if Nadi had been in the United States, then what? Maybe he could’ve found a way to sneak into whatever care facility or private home she stayed at. He’d smother her with a pillow, the same way she’d smothered a three-year-old girl in that palace so long ago. He’d shove scissors into her stomach as she’d threatened to do to Pat.
The thoughts nauseated him enough to roll his chair away from the desk and put his head in his hands, which smelled faintly of soap and the ramen noodles he’d brought up to his room earlier. He’d spilled some of the spices.
He tried to hold on to his line of thought. If the choice came down to Nadi or Pat, to Nadi or Amara, Nadi or Cilla … Nolan would kill Nadi no matter how much the idea sickened him.
Maybe not. He hoped not. At least he wouldn’t find out. Nadi was halfway across the world.
He didn’t know which options that left.
“I can’t eat breakfast,” Pat said.
“Big night coming up, huh?” Nolan asked. The play debuted that evening. He’d almost forgotten.
“I guess. What’s your excuse?” Pat flicked on his light and leaned in his doorway, a pose Nolan had gotten used to by now. She was herself again. No trace of Nadi. It’d been a day since her threat—how much longer did they have? “You didn’t sleep, did you?”
“Not a bit.” The light hurt his eyes, and he grimaced, chugging down his fifth fake Coke.
“Seemed like a good idea?” she said, mimicking the way he’d been saying that lately. Thank God, she could still joke. “You, uh, want to talk about what’s going on?”
He considered it. “No. Thanks. How about you? Want to talk about butterflies in your stomach?” Or about Nadi?
“Let’s not.” Pause. “They’re more like steamrollers. Oh, man. What if I mess up? There’ll be over a hundred people there. A hundred! I’ve never been in front of that many people before.”
“You played that sunflower when you were five.”
She laughed. A pang shot through him. Pat seemed so … normal. Had she recovered from Nadi’s possession so quickly? Or was she just a better actress than either of them knew? “Yeah,” Pat said. “I remembered all my lines, too. Go, me. Are you coming to the play?”
“I probably shouldn’t. I’m sorry. I want to, but I need to stay with Amara. If I keep closing my eyes during the play …”
“Mom would smack you upside the head.”
“Yup.” Silence fell between them. It wasn’t a bad kind of silence. Not a comfortable one, either.
“What’s gonna happen to you?” Pat asked. “If … things don’t work out?”
It was the sort of silence inevitably broken by something awkward.
Nolan rolled his soda can between his hands. Right now, Amara was on the ship back to Bedam, where she’d meet Ilanne. Who knew what’d happen after that? “That’s a very good question.”
“Is it gonna get an answer?”
He looked up with a tired smile. “You want to rehearse that ER scene one last time?”
“Nah. I’m ready.”
Nolan thought back to the last time they’d practiced. With two timelines to account for, it seemed a lot longer ago than it should. “I think so, too.”
40
You want us to save the anchor?” Ilanne said. “Give me one reason.”
“None of this is her fault,” Amara said. “She’s been lied to all her life. About everything.”
Ilanne leaned against an airtrain stop in Bedam. The sky was slowly lightening at the horizon, but the sun hadn’t peeked over the edge yet. A couple of seagulls stood on a nearby stretch of grass, stomping the earth to draw out their morning meal.
Amara had found Ilanne quickly, and Ilanne had confirmed her theories, but none of that mattered if Ilanne wouldn’t help. And looking at her now—the sharpness of her face, the slouch of her skinny limbs—she could see the woman wasn’t impressed by Amara’s answer. She wasn’t impressed by anything.
Amara felt the opposite. Every few seconds, her eyes fluttered over Ilanne’s clothes, and she wondered where she kept that knife of hers.
We’re on the same side, she told herself. After all those childhood nightmares: We’re on the same side.
Ilanne went on. “Nor is it the fault of all the people who’ve died in hurricanes, floods, earthslides, volcanic eruptions …”
“We don’t even have volcanoes in the Dunelands.”
“You think the backlash is restricted to here? Every storm or shake affects the rest of the planet, too. And there’s an easy fix.”
“I won’t help you kill her,” Amara said.
“Of course not.” Ilanne radiated disgust. “You’re one of them. How do you like that body? I don’t see why you’d go for a servant. Maybe you just like little Elig girls. Is that it?”
“This is my body!”
“Prove it. I can see your little guest in there right now. Have him take a walk.”
“Why? So you can kill me as soon as I stop healing?”
They stood there, fists balled and glaring. In the silence, dawnflies sang their high whistle. Finally, even though all of her screamed to either attack or run, Amara relented. “Listen,” she said, “we don’t have time for this. They might hurt Cill—”
Ilanne’s hands gripped Amara’s so hard they hurt. “Don’t use that name. You know it’s not hers.”
Amara tore her hands free. “It’s the only one I know.”
“Don’t call the dead. Ever.”
Amara rubbed her wrists where Ilanne had grabbed her. The skin burned. Her jaw set. “Nadi”—Amara had come up with a sign for Nadi’s name earlier, one similar to Nolan’s sign—“might hurt her. She might hurt my ‘guest’s’ family, too.”
“Why should I care?”
“Because we want the same thing. We need the travelers gone. Right now, we have Nolan’s cooperation, but if we take too long …” Amara left it there. She didn’t want to think about being responsible for Nolan’s family, whoever and wherever they were. Once his control ran out, his family was as good as dead. Until then, he could panic at any moment and send Amara running back to the palace without a plan, without a goal beyond keep my sister alive.
“And what do you expect us to do?”
“Us?” Amara signed an echo.
“I called other mages the moment I heard your supposed princess was at the palace.”
“You won’t make it inside without me—”
“We can try. Then we’ll kill the anchor and cast a spell to block travelers for good, and our problems are solved.”