And Angelica herself, her lap full of timeworn folios and crackling tomes; Angelica in bed beside me, her breath warm upon my neck; Angelica rising slowly from black water, her breasts silvered with light, her green eyes glowing and her hair streaming behind her: Angelica in all I could imagine.
From the night country rose a wind, warm and redolent of spices. Coriander and sandalwood and galingale, and sweet as their fragrance a childish voice, chanting.
Bone upon bone and the thumping of cloven staves, fingers tapping upon a hollow skull and a sudden chorus of keening voices—
“You see how they are,” Balthazar murmured. “Rooting in the dirt, smearing their faces with soot and filth. And there is worse than that—”
A scream ripped the night. The fires flickered out. All was utter darkness, save only this—
Upon the rim of the world a sliver of moon perched, a tiny crescent like the memory of magic. After a moment it faded. From the abyss a wind rose, cold and insistent.
“So it will always be,” whispered Balthazar as he pulled me from the edge of the portal. “She forgets that chaos begets only chaos, and cannot prevail.”
I clasped my arms to my breast, shuddering. “No.”
“No?” Balthazar’s tone was unforgiving as the wind. “Are you a fool like Mr. Crawford, then?”
“N-not of-fool—” I said through chattering teeth. With a grunt I pulled away. Two quick steps and I stood within the portal.
Dimly I was aware of the room, a shadowy place where outlines of walls, furnishings, windows hung ghostly in the darkness. But the real world lay before me—eternal and empty and torn by wind.
“Listen to me, Katherine!” shouted Balthazar. “Oliver is weak! He believes that we have no power left—that our time has ended—and so he sought to align himself with our Enemy. He thought She had changed, he thought She would not destroy him; but he is wrong! We are the only ones who can save him! You know that—”
I hesitated, thinking of Angelica wielding the lunula as a weapon, of Balthazar rushing to Oliver’s side in the field.
“We are always the strongest, Katherine! Force majeur, and we always prevail. Even in this darkness—”
He swept up behind me. “Even now, we will prevail—”
In the wasteland a light appeared. Not the carnal blaze of a bonfire, but a steady glow, deep blue and shot with sparks of living green. The glow took shape, grew into a single pillar—then two—then four; until I was gazing upon the spires of a cathedral, tiny and perfect as though carved of crystal. Upon the horizon a second light appeared, and another edifice arose—a mosque this time, its dome a cobalt tear.
“Witness our legacy,” cried Balthazar.
As though he had sown them, more and more structures sprang up, each more intricate than the one before. Pyramids of glass and steel, glittering alcazars and raised tombs of stone, pavilions and columned temples and immense black slabs of polished jet: all shining like gems, like prisms of flame. A stone had been hurled into the abyss and the darkness shattered, and each shard shone as brightly as a sun. A chorus of voices rose from them—voices now sweet and high and clear, now deep and tolling like those drowned bells that ring the changes beneath the sea. I could not make out their words, but I understood them well enough. They were singing joy and pride and courage in the day, singing long and loud against the dark.
“Do you understand now, Katherine?” Balthazar’s laughter sounded close beside me. “There is no choice, really—not unless you would choose darkness and ignorance over light and order.”
I felt his hand rest lightly upon my shoulder as he went on.
“Though it does not matter—not for you, at least. I show you these things just so that you will not forget—so that you will have something to take away with you from the Divine. Something to remember us by, if you will.”
I felt a tightening in my throat. “What are you going to do with me?”
“Nothing.” Before us the lights winked out, one by one. The glorious singing faded into the wind. “I will take you downstairs, and Francis will drive you back to the city—”
“Francis!”
He made a dismissive gesture. “I have much to do now. This has taken too much time already. Someone will be contacting you about forwarding your transcripts to your parents. I have no doubt but that you will do much better at your next school.”
He turned and began to walk away from the door. I watched him, stunned, then looked back at the portal.
Beyond it loomed the abyss. As I stared the outlines of the doorway became more distinct. The wood’s grain and the faint glister of light upon the doorknob grew brighter and brighter, until what lay behind them was all but lost to view.
“Behold the world She would give you…”
Yet could that truly be the world Angelica’s Goddess would bring?
I know enough not to buy into every idea my father taught me. Or Balthazar Warnick…
Why should the darkness be seen as evil and bleak and nullifying? Why women’s magic nothing more than rutting in the cinders? Why chaos and the end of all things?
Why is a raven like a writing desk?
“Katherine,” Balthazar said, gently but insistently, “it’s time to go.”
“No.”
Before he could stop me, I darted to the edge of the portal.
“Katherine! Get away from there—!”
Behind me lay Balthazar’s study. Somewhere in the lodge beneath us Annie slept, and Baby Joe. Somewhere Oliver slept as well, swept into the night on a tide of Demerol and hospital sheets; and perhaps even Angelica, perched on the cusp between earth and sky, dreams and waking.
That left me and Balthazar Warnick. His hands clenched as I edged away from him.
“If you step through there you will be destroyed!” he cried. “It is nothing!—”
“I don’t believe you, Professor Warnick!”
I took another step. The wooden lintel disappeared into fog. I stood upon a precipice hanging out above the abyss. “Nothing is that simple—maybe Angelica is wrong, but you’re wrong too! Or maybe you’re both partly right—”
The freezing wind howled up from the wasteland. Behind me Balthazar shouted, but his words were lost to me. Suddenly I laughed.
Because if it was a choice between the void and what lay behind me—the loss of my friends, the loss of the Divine and all its promise—then I would take my chances with whatever was down there rooting in the night. I turned to look at Balthazar—and jumped.
For an instant he was frozen in the air before me: hands outstretched, his mouth open in a wordless cry. Then it was as he said—
A raging wind, ice and darkness and the freezing air tearing my clothes from me, my flesh and hair and voice—
Nothing.
I came to in some kind of shed. Eerie blue light resolved into a wintry glare filtered through walls of translucent corrugated plastic. There was a strong sweet smell. Lemons, but chemical lemons. I rubbed my eyes, looked down, and saw that I was sitting on a nearly empty plastic container. Greenish liquid spilled on my boots. My stomach churned; I put one hand in front of my face and with the other pushed forward, until I felt the thin plastic give way. A door opened and I fell out onto the driveway in front of the Shrine.