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“All right, Gemma. Out with it,” Felicity commands. “We’re missing the party.”
“The Winterlands creatures are not dying out. They have an army, thousands strong,” I say, words tumbling out of me as from a patient at Bedlam. “They’ve been sacrificing souls to the tree to gather their power, but they’re waiting for something. For someone.” I take a breath. “I believe it’s Circe.”
“Now you believe it,” Felicity says.
I ignore her jab. “We must go into the realms, return the dagger to Eugenia, and make the alliance—”
“You mean give back the magic?” Ann asks.
“It isn’t ours. It’s only borrowed—”
Felicity interrupts. “But what about Pip? We must tell her!”
“Fee,” I start, “we can’t. If she is one of them—”
“She’s not! You just said it was Circe.” Felicity’s eyes narrow. “How did you come to know this, Gemma?”
Too late I realize my folly. “I went into the realms. To see.”
“Alone?” Felicity presses.
“No. With Kartik.”
Ann glares at me. “You took him in without telling us?”
o;Gorgon, we must leave with the utmost haste,” I say.
“As you wish, Most High.” She steers a course out of the Winterlands. I tell her what we have seen, though as a kindness, I do not mention Amar’s part in it. The churning sky eases into the indifferent dusk of the Borderlands, then into the bright blue near the Caves of Sighs, and into the orange sunset of the garden.
Kartik has not spoken a word the entire voyage. He has sat on deck, his knees drawn to his chest, his head buried in his hands. I do not know what to say. I would have spared him that.
“She,” I say, shaking my head. “She set the plan in motion.”
“What is it?” Gorgon asks.
An anger I’ve never known rises in me. “Circe. She made a pact with the creatures long ago, and she wanted me to think that was in the past. She’s never stopped trying to take back the power. I won’t be her pawn any longer.”
“What would you bid me do, Most High?”
“Ride to Philon and the forest folk. Tell them what has happened and that I would join hands with them tonight. I will return with my friends, and we will meet at the Temple. Offer to the Untouchables again as well. They may still be swayed.”
“As you wish.”
“Gorgon,” I call.
“Yes, Most High?”
I do not know how to ask what I want to know. “If I share the magic, if we join hands, will that end it?”
Gorgon shakes her head slowly. “I cannot say. These are strange days. Nothing is as it was before. All rules are forfeit, and no one knows what will happen.”
I lead Kartik over the path by the Borderlands and through the corridor. We step through the secret door onto the lawn of Spence. From the open windows above, I can hear applause and murmuring. Nightwing announcing Miss Cecily Temple’s recitation of “The Rose of Battle.”
Everything is familiar and yet nothing seems as it was. Kartik won’t look at me, and I wish we could go back to that moment in the Caves of Sighs when we put our hands to the stones.
“That creature feeding souls to the tree. That was my brother.”
“I’m very sorry.” I reach out my fingers but he will not be touched. “Kartik.”
