“No.” The word was pulled, twisting, out of the depths of Nova’s soul. Her treacherous whisper had always been right. “I was too late,” she said, weeping. “I’m sorry, Kora.”
“No,” said Kora with tigress ferocity. “What I asked of you was impossible. How could a girl from nowhere, with nothing, cross dozens of worlds all on her own?”
“It wasn’t impossible,” said Nova. “I did it! Which only means I could have done it faster.”
Kora was shaking her head. “It’s not your fault. I should have gotten free and found you. I should have been stronger.”
“It isn’t weak to ask for help.”
“It’s weak not to help yourself. But I tried. Nova, I almost did it. In a few more years I’d have been free. I stole a smith baby before Skathis could kill him. I took him and hid him far away, so that when he was older I could end Skathis and not be trapped on the wrong side of a portal. I would have found you. But I ran out of time.”
“I know,” said Nova, teeth gritted, because she had seen Kora’s death in her murderer’s own memory.
“I’m running out of time right now,” Kora said, and Sarai was pierced by her urgency. “Nova, listen to me. If you’re here, then you’ll know what became of me, and also…what I became.” Shame clung to her words. “I know you would have been stronger. You’d have saved all those children instead of helping sell them. My love, I know you’ll be angry, but I want you to listen to me. I wanted so much to be here for you, but that doesn’t mean I deserved to live. I was part of something terrible, whether I chose it or not. They weren’t wrong to kill us. Promise me: no vengeance. Let all the ugliness end here. I love you so much.”
Kora wrapped her arms around Nova, and Sarai caught a glimpse of Nova’s stricken face before she buried it in her sister’s shoulder and gave in to racking sobs. And as heartbreaking as that was, it was far worse when Kora faded—the phantasm faded, its energy expended in the fulfillment of its purpose—and left Nova sobbing alone. Alone again, truly and forever.
Sarai was standing, devastated, in the dream, her arms wrapped around herself, her face slick with tears. Nova met her eyes, and Sarai felt like she was falling with her into the black place inside her. There could be no denial after this. Kora was gone and Nova knew it.
“I’m sorry,” Sarai whispered.
Nova’s face crumpled and she curled over herself, the pain too much to bear. She shook her head from side to side, saying, “No, no,” but it wasn’t denial anymore. It was devastation. Her eyes were frenzied, mad with loss. Had the ice given way? Would she drag them all down with her?
Hearts hammering with fear, Sarai made an effort to infuse the dream aura with a feeling of calm. “She loved you very much,” she said. “She never doubted you. She knew you would do the impossible for her. Do you know how rare it is, to trust someone like that?”
“I already killed them,” said Nova.
Sarai didn’t know who she meant. All those faces under the ice. She had killed so many people.
“She said no vengeance,” said Nova, rigid with the horror of what she had done, “but I already killed them.”
Sarai understood in a rush. “Oh! No,” she said. “They’re alive. Sparrow saved them,” and Nova’s eyes closed—not squeezed shut, but softly, with unmistakable relief. “Really?” she asked, as though it were too much to hope that this small portion of her burden might lift.
“Really,” Sarai told her, a little of her tension cautiously ebbing. If Nova was feeling remorse for that, then maybe her sister’s words had gotten through to her. “He’s my father, the one who…” She trailed off. “He also did terrible things to save the people he loved. It wasn’t his fault. And it wasn’t Kora’s, or yours. It was the gods, like a canker at the center of everything. But they’re gone. Let the ugliness die with them.”
Let all the ugliness end here, Kora’s phantasm had said.
“Can you?” Sarai asked. “Please?” There was a note of desperation in her voice as she thought of Lazlo, caged, and Rook, Kiska, and Werran trapped, and all the others as good as trapped, too, all of them at Nova’s mercy, and all depending on her. Nova heard the note in her voice, too, and understood it—and the reason for it. Here, in the dream, she’d been lost in the past. Now, suddenly, she recollected the present, and the dream split in half and spilled them both out.
Nova lurched awake and came upright, twisting free of Sarai’s light touch and turning, rising, all in one movement to face her. They were both breathing fast. The truth ached between them like a heart, but things were different in the waking world. Their communion had evaporated, that had allowed them to feel what the other was feeling, and understand each other, beyond all language barriers. Sarai couldn’t tell what Nova was thinking.
She held very still, as though she were facing a wounded predator, unpredictable in its pain and its power. She was conscious that Tzara’s arrow must be trained on Nova, ready to fly, and she was desperate that it not. She wanted to turn her head or call out, but she was afraid to take her eyes off Nova, or to alert her to the others’ presence if she hadn’t already noticed them. So she only turned one hand toward the arcade, palm out, and silently willed them: Hold.
Her gaze flickered to Lazlo in his cage, and Nova’s followed. Nova winced when she beheld the tableau and had to reckon with what she’d done, then she flicked out a hand to open the loop. The iridescent bubble evaporated and Kiska and Rook were free. They stumbled, disoriented. Rook’s hand was still raised, ready to draw a loop of his own, but he stopped when he saw Sarai, and blinked.
Next, the serpent’s jaws opened and spilled Werran out before the creature collapsed back into the floor, leaving nothing but smooth mesarthium.
And then Lazlo.
The cage swelled as it sank, releasing him slowly as it melted away and set him down on the floor. Sarai flew to him. She caught him in her arms. His face was a rictus of pain, his limbs cramped in the position they’d held for so long. She helped him lift his head, and she set her brow against his and breathed his breath and kissed his perfect imperfect nose that stories had left their mark on, as they had left their mark in him.
“You’re still here,” he whispered like a prayer. His voice was ravaged. It sounded like he’d screamed until he wore his throat bloody, and Sarai realized he had believed she’d evanesced. He touched her face as though to make sure he wasn’t imagining her. “Are you all right?” He looked at her and looked as though he couldn’t get enough of looking, as though he’d been saving all his witchlight, and then he was crying, and she was crying, and he was smiling and he was slowly unfolding his limbs, wincing, and Sarai’s hearts felt as though all her moths and Wraith were living inside her chest, and a sweet wind had caught them and sent them all spinning.
Rook and Kiska were helping Werran to sit up. He was drawing deep, heaving breaths into his lungs. In the archway, the others were wary, glancing back and forth between Sarai and Lazlo, Kiska, Rook, and Werran, and Nova, who stood alone. Tzara had not lowered her bow.
Nova seemed aware of no one. Sarai saw her turn, moving slowly, her gaze unfixed, and take a step toward the arcade. There were a half-dozen open archways. Minya and the others were in the center. She didn’t look at them, but went around them to the right. Sarai helped Lazlo to stand, and they followed her into the garden.
Out there it was all flowers and metal creatures, their own familiar garden until you looked out past the plum trees, where the massive white stalks rose up and disappeared into the mist. There was no Wraith flying circles, and there never would be again. The bird had vanished for the last time.