Zoe came to stand by X. She seemed to know what he was feeling as everyone met or reacquainted themselves, as the disparate strands of his life intertwined.
After a moment, she nudged him.
Ripper had gone to say hello to the Ukrainian.
X feared she’d say something tart or dismissive. She had never taken the guard, or his feelings for her, seriously. X wished that he’d had a chance to tell Ripper how nobly the Ukrainian had behaved. In any case, Ripper nodded politely, and even put a hand on the guard’s shoulder to let him know she was glad to see him.
“Hello, Mr. Guard,” she said.
“Hello, Reeper,” he said.
“You have been injured,” she said. She touched his face gently. “I’m very sorry to see it.”
“Yes, is true,” said the Ukrainian. “Had unpleasant experience while bravely defending X, okay? But in my time of agony, many things are made clearly crystal.”
The Ukrainian paused to introduce Ripper to Maud, then the guard’s expression turned serious, and he began what sounded like a rehearsed speech.
“I am loving you many years, Reeper,” he said. “I think you are aware, yes?”
Ripper’s body sagged so profoundly that the straps of her dress rose off her shoulders.
“Could we perhaps discuss this later?” she said. “Or not at all? Not at all would suit me very well.”
“No, now is good,” said the Ukrainian. “Now is important.”
Maud, looking uncomfortable, tried to move away, but the guard gestured for her to stay, apparently for moral support.
“I wait long, lonely time for you, Reeper, during which you behave vehement crazy, and sing many things I think are not actual songs,” he said. “I tell you now I am done waiting. My love for you is forever dead.”
X could see Ripper trying to mask her relief.
“I understand,” she said. “I have only myself to blame.”
“Is correct,” said the Ukrainian. “Now I tell you a second thing, and it may be painful in your ears: I have big new love, and it is Maud.”
Startled, Maud popped her eyes. “You can’t be serious.”
“Is true, cat person,” said the Ukrainian. “My heart is now in your hands. I promise you it is quite red and large.”
Just then, Regent called everyone to attention, and a hush fell over the arena.
“Our business here is not yet ended,” he said.
He lifted what had been Dervish’s golden band, and broke it in two. To X, it almost seemed like a religious rite. Regent slipped half the band into a pocket in his robe. The other half he held like a gift he was about to bestow.
“We are in need of a new lord to fill the void that Dervish leaves behind,” he said. “I have nominated someone who has some experience in the field, and her name has been quite well received.”
He looked to Sylvie.
“Come forward, if you would, old friend,” he said.
Sylvie crossed the ground swiftly. X was struck by how fast she had recovered from the cave, how—even in her gingham farm dress and boots—she seemed to throw off light.
“Here I am, old friend,” she said.
Regent lifted the fragment of the gold band.
“We ask you the favor of serving once more,” he said. “Will you do us this honor?”
“I will,” she said, “if you’ll do something for me in return.”
Regent smiled fondly.
“Most people regard it a great privilege to be a lord,” he said.
“Then you’re welcome to ask most people,” said Sylvie, smiling back. “I, however, am aware that being a lord changes you—and not always for the better—so I’m not going to accept without assurances. Are you ready to hear my terms?”
“How long have I known you?” said Regent. “I’m perfectly aware of what you want—and I will do it gladly.”
“I need to hear you promise,” said Sylvie.
“We shall release Zoe from the Lowlands immediately,” said Regent, “with the obvious admonition that she never speak of anything she witnessed here.”
Relieved as he was for Zoe, X was alarmed not to have heard his own name. His heart felt like a spinning coin.
He looked to Sylvie and saw, with relief, that she was still waiting—that she wasn’t yet satisfied.
Regent continued: “Yes, yes, we shall free your son, too. I believed he is called Xavier? He should never have spent a single hour in the Lowlands. I suspect the Higher Power did not know what to do with a soul so rare.”
Before X could even process the words, he heard Zoe break into sobs.
Regent put the gold fragment up to Sylvie’s throat. X watched, transfixed, as it grew around her like a vine and became whole.
The lords began beating their palms against their legs. It took X a moment to realize it was a kind of applause, and another to realize that it was not just for his mother but for Zoe and him.
There was still the second fragment of gold in Regent’s pocket.
Regent removed it, and held it out for all to see.
“Dervish did us one courtesy in his final diatribe,” he said. “He reminded us that we must remove the Countess from power as well. So it appears we require a second new lord. It must be someone inspiring enough to obliterate the memory of the Countess entirely—to stand for everything she stood against.”
Sylvie began to interrupt.
Regent stopped her with another fond look.
“Fear not, old friend—we are in agreement on this matter as well,” he said.
Regent searched the crowd with his eyes.
“Ripper, come forward, if you would.”
twenty-eight
Once again, X stood staring at the green house with the red metal roof.
Rufus’s house.
Zoe had gone in to talk to her mother.
It was afternoon. Already dark. The lawn was more grass than snow, but sopping wet. The portal that X had smashed into the street for himself and Ripper had been filled. X could see where it used to be because the pavement there was blacker than the road. The sight of it seemed to confirm that he would never return to the Lowlands. The way was lost—and thank god.
He’d been waiting perhaps 20 minutes. From the house, he had heard crying, shouting. But at least some of the crying had sounded loving. Conciliatory. That gave him hope. He didn’t want to be the cause of even more unhappiness in Zoe’s family. He’d leave if he had to, though he had no idea where he would sleep. Where did people go if they had nowhere to go?
X wore only a torn shirt, mud-streaked pants, decimated boots. He’d left his overcoat behind in the Lowlands, he couldn’t remember where. But it was all right. At least he had the silver packet with everything but the piece of porcelain, which his mother asked to keep after using it to wound Dervish: the shard held two memories for her now, one layered over the other. X also had the letter that Zoe had written him once. He reached into one pocket and crinkled the foil to reassure himself, then reached into the other to feel the plastic bag that held the letter. They made him feel rooted.
In the end, it’d been his mother who freed him from the Lowlands, and Regent who freed Zoe. Sylvie had pressed her palm beneath X’s eyes, as was the custom whenever a lord sent a soul to the world. Her hand was cooler than Regent’s had ever been, and the pain that hummed under his skin was nothing compared to the pain of saying good-bye.
X had peered at his mother in the final seconds, desiring to say a hundred things but powerless to untangle them. After knowing her for an hour, he was losing her. What was it that Zoe said when he told her that loss seemed to be the way of the world? Then I don’t like the way of the world. I’d like to speak to a manager, please. Someday, he’d ask her to explain the thing about the manager.
X had actually wanted to stay longer in the Lowlands—just long enough to talk to his mother, to hear more of his father’s story. Sylvie had known what he was thinking. She could hear his thoughts, just as he and Zoe could hear each other’s sometimes. She shook her head no. She wanted her son to live, and wouldn’t risk waiting. She told X that she loved him very, very much. And then she gave the world to him—and him to the world. X didn’t ask if she would be able to visit him sometimes, if she’d one day walk with him in the mountains. Sylvie said nothing about it either. Neither pretended to know the future.