“Yeah, it’s kind of shit right now. But I gotta admit, watching you punch Cameron in the face was pretty satisfying,” Marcus said in approval. “I’m glad you told him to shove the monarchy up his ass. He needed to hear it.”
I don’t know how you can shove anything up his ass, seeing as how it’s so tight already, Oberi grumbled.
I shrugged. “I don’t care about the Elven throne. I just want to be the great dad I never got. Casey won’t grow up like I did— I’ll make sure of it.”
My whole body slumped. “I just don’t know what we’re going to do now. I gave up when the Warden beat us, but now I have to figure out another way… for him. I don’t want my baby to exist in a world with the Warden in it.”
Oberi put a paw on my shoe. Charlie, that’s a great idea! Perhaps there’s a way to end the Warden’s existence entirely.
I gritted my teeth. “That’s so useful and encouraging, Oberi. Now’s not the time for sarcasm.”
I’m serious! Hear me out. We’ve been going about this all wrong and trying to kill the Warden, but he’s proven himself indestructible. What if there’s another way to get rid of him?
“How?” I demanded. “He’s stronger than we are now. He can turn anything we throw at him against us.”
He is strong, but not all-powerful. We have a power he doesn’t have, and therefore, can’t manipulate— time!
I frowned. “Which you’ve consistently forbidden us from using due to how dangerous it is. Even if Kallie had access to her time powers, which she doesn’t anymore after losing her wings to the Dollmaker, going back in time is a risk. Every time we’ve tried before, it makes things even worse. We could erase Casey from existence.”
I wasn’t willing to risk that for anything. Casey hadn’t existed moments ago, but already he’d become my entire world. I’d give up everything to protect my son, so we had to be more careful than ever before.
That is not what I’m suggesting, Oberi said. What you said about existing in a world without the Warden in it made me realize we have power we aren’t using correctly. We don’t have to go back in time to change things. We just need to kick the Warden off this timeline, completely.
My heart gave a start. I wasn’t sure what he was suggesting was possible. I couldn’t dare to hope, so I proceeded with caution. “How would that work?”
There are breaks on the timeline where nothing exists called time vortexes. We could utilize these voids and send the Warden to a place where time doesn’t exist at all. Therefore, he’d cease to exist. The time vortex would destroy him, and he wouldn’t be able to escape once he’s in it.
“What good would that do?” I asked. “The boundary to the afterlife is broken, so everyone will be stuck in the in-between for all eternity anyway.”
Spiritual rules can be bent, but until we’re rid of the Warden, we can’t find ways to bend those rules. There may be other ways to repair the broken boundary, but we must get rid of him first so we can explore our options. He’ll get in the way of anything we’ll try, so he has to go.
I tried to wrap my brain around the concept, praying Oberi knew what the hell he was talking about. “If this is real, how are we going to achieve this? Kallie doesn’t have access to her time powers, so we’ll have to find another way to reach one of these vortexes.”
I… don’t know, Oberi admitted. We will have to conduct some research.
“You don’t know.” I balked. “Oberi, how can we be sure this idea is even worth pursuing? We can’t waste more time chasing down dead ends.”
The details are fuzzy, but I’m sure I’m onto something, Oberi insisted. I’m a mutabeecha. I’ve told you before that there’s information that’s been blocked off to me that I can’t access in my earthly form. This is one of those things. I don’t know where this information came from, or how the details work, but I can say one thing for sure. Kallie isn’t the only one with the power to manipulate time. There are others out there who can bend reality, but I can’t be certain who they are, or whether they are friend or foe. But I’m telling you, if we want to get rid of the Warden, we have to figure out how to destroy him in a way he can’t come back from. We must pursue this.
Oberi seemed so sure of this idea that I had no choice but to believe him. He was right that we’d been going about this all wrong. Every attempt to kill the Warden had failed, and he’d only come back stronger each time. Even if we managed to kill his mortal body, he’d find a way to continue his work from the spiritual plane. If I had any hope of raising my son in a world where the Warden no longer existed, I had to listen to Oberi and find a way to blast the Warden out of the timeline entirely. We had to learn where this information came from and how to access a time vortex, before the Warden broke through our shield and annihilated us.
“Do you want to tell me what you two are discussing?” Marcus demanded.
My heartbeat pounded out of control as I considered the possibilities. We’d lost Ava’s powers, but we still had four demigods among us. We’d reshaped reality before. Maybe we could do it again.
“Oberi might’ve found a way to defeat the Warden, but we need more information. We’ll be in the Archives looking for answers,” I said, already leaving him behind. “I’ll summon you and the others when we figure out exactly how to beat this bastard for good.”
Chapter Sixteen
AVA-MARIE
I’d call myself a monster, but that would be inadequate. There wasn’t a term in this world that would describe the kind of heartless, deplorable, lack-of-a-person I was.
The child sat inside four clear walls, lying upon a soft bed. Two days had passed, and I’d finally rolled into the NICU once I’d received my discharge papers. I hadn’t been sure I wanted to visit, but I couldn’t put it off any longer. The baby was getting Anichi healing treatments to keep his strength up, but it wasn’t enough for him to forgo modern medical support, so he’d be stuck in that incubator for weeks. He was still hooked up to so many wires— feeding tubes, monitors, IVs. His chest rose up and down as he took soft breaths, a strange alien life force.
Though many mothers would tear up at the sight of their baby inside an incubator, I felt as if I was watching him from somewhere outside my body, observing a screen instead of my life. It reminded me of my recovery after I’d gone into the Infernal Underground. I bitterly hated it.
The baby stirred. I expected some sort of rousing of emotion, but my heart remained cold. All I could conceive was emptiness and shame.
