But… no. They’renotgone. I can still feel their energy. Their love. Their protectiveness. Every one of them is reaching out to me, even now.
How is this possible?
I close my eyes and steady my breath, trying to get a grip. Judgment plays on fear. On guilt. The Magician needs me weak and distracted. Both of them know what losing my men would do to me.
Another of Doc’s early lessons comes rushing back at me.
Fear is our most primal, most powerful emotion. It leaves an imprint—almost like a ghost in the room. When I pulled the trigger, it didn’t matter that the gun wasn’t loaded. Your fear of death by gunshot was completely sincere, and left an intense imprint that my spell was able to amplify. That imprint, combined with the power of suggestion planted in the rich soil of a soft mind, was enough to make the guard truly believe that I killed us…
Holy shit. Of course.
A great deception is upon us.
Death is only the beginning.
The moon casts not its own light; in its glow, nothing is what it seems…
At the Magician’s behest, Judgment is manipulating my mind, making me believe my greatest fear has come to life. He planted the seed long ago—the vision I saw on one of my earliest trips to the dream realm.
And now, he’s using that against me.
But my fearhasn’tmanifested. No fucking way. They’re still alive. I can feel it—a wave so strong it lifts me to my feet, filling me with hope.
The magick holding me in place vanishes. The Dark Magician smiles, his eyes sparkling with pride. He thinks this is a done deal. That I’m broken, that he can take whatever he wants from me with no resistance.
I lift up my skirts and take a step back into the holly thicket—back into the mist.
“Where are you going, little Star?” the Dark Magician laughs, but makes no move to stop me. He can’t evenbeginto imagine my plan. It amuses him, my pain. He’d probably get off on letting me wander around through the mist all day, crying my eyes out until he’s bored and ready for his final ritual.
But despite what he believes, hehasn’tdestroyed me.
I still have my men. And I still have a choice.
Trello once told me something about choice:You either choose to act through your own free will, or you choose to let the river of fate carry you where it may. In choosing to act, you don’t always have the luxury of acting justly for all of the people, all of the time. You simply make the best decision you can with the information available to you. Again and again and again. After that, all that’s left is hope.
Right now, I’m choosing that hope. I’m choosing to believe this isn’t the end. I’m choosing to believe that no matter how desperate things might seem, there isalwaysa light to be found in the darkness.
And if there isn’t?
Then you find a way to be yourownfucking light.
With one last call to Jareth—a final plea I know he won’t ignore—I turn my back on the Magician and his monstrous entourage, turn my back on the vision of the ashes of the men I love, turn my back on all the darkness. I take a deep breath and let the Fool’s energy surge inside me, filling me with that unshakeable sense of hope.
Then I take off at a run, knowing exactly where I must go. What I must do.
“Fight it, Stevie!” a voice echoes through the mist, but I don’t pay it any mind.
“It isn’t real,” comes another. Sharper. Urgent. But again, I can’t stop to listen. I’m on a path from which I cannotturn.
My destination is much closer than I thought. In a matter of seconds, I reach the edge of the drop-off. Through the swirling mist, I can just make out the deep dark emptiness below, though I don’t dare look for too long.
The Void.
I recall what Kirin told me my first day on campus.
L’Appel du Vide… Call of the Void… It’s said that there are places in this world so deep, so dark, so… compelling… when you peer down into them, they literally beckon you to jump…
Lala’s words come to me next, repeating the prophecy that allegedly foretold my death.
