“Evan, listen to me—”
“Well, you’ll find out the hard way that the universe doesn’t care about your three-act structure. There’s no epic saga. No Holy Grail to find. You don’t even get your love interest. That’s another thing Peter takes from you. See, he’s a spiritual man, unlike you. With a better face and body. In a perfect world, the looks wouldn’t matter. But Amanda’s a woman. She’s a Given. It matters.”
Evan chuckled at Zack’s frozen expression, caught between despair and distrust.
“That’s okay. Don’t believe me. You’ll see for yourself soon enough. It’s just one of the many pains that await you, my friend. When you see tomorrow’s paper, you should clip that photo of you getting squeezed by the big tempic fist. Because that is you for the rest of your pathetic life.”
Evan leaned forward, hissing a whisper. “Oh, and by the way? Your brother’s dead. He was here. He was a Gold. But Rebel got him three days ago. Oops. So much for that quest.”
All the blood fled Zack’s face. The world outside faded away to a swirling haze. He dropped his phone over the railing, then returned inside without so much as a look at the goblin in the tower.
Screaming, Evan overturned the patio table. He raised a chair to throw through the glass, then froze at the sight of a tall couple in the bedroom. He had no trouble recognizing them.
“Shit . . .”
Azral curled a long white finger, sternly beckoning him. Esis stood at his side and shook her head in reproach. Evan knew there was nothing he could do to allay their displeasure. No matter where he rewound, the Pelletiers would be there, still aware of all events. Still angry.
He dropped his chair and removed the mask. There was no point in wearing it now. The Deps wouldn’t see a thing with their ghost drills.
His heart jackhammered as he joined the Pelletiers in the bedroom. When he’d first witnessed Azral’s wrath, centuries ago, he wet himself in terror. Never again. He’d never again show his fear to these people.
He plopped himself down in the overstuffed easy chair and forced a chirpy smirk.
“So. Is this a lecture or a spanking?”
—
Amanda stared at her tense reflection in the lumivision glass, pondering her next steps. Zack had traipsed back to his room with barely a word. She’d never seen him so distraught.
After five anxious minutes, she cautiously followed him into his room.
Zack leaned against a dresser, keeping a crossed-arm vigil at the window. She knew it was a painful position for a man with cracked ribs. He didn’t budge an inch at her approach.
“I asked you all to give me some space.”
“I know, Zack. I just—”
“Did you think you were an exception?”
“I was kind of hoping I was.”
Now he turned to face her. His eyes were gray and cold, the color of knives.
“You’re not.”
Amanda took a pained step back, then retreated from the room. The cartoonist resumed his window stance. He stood for two hours like a stone figurine, lost in the pain of his many new fractures.
TWENTY-FOUR
Hannah dreamed in high speed, a whirlwind barrage of fleeting scenes and images. She danced high in the sky on a floor of aeris, her long white gown twirling in the wind as Azral spun her under his finger. He dipped her halfway to the floor, ravishing her with a smile so flawless that she didn’t mind the freezing cold.
She ran crying through the streets of an old and foreign city on the brink of dawn, leaving footprints in the snow as she carried a bundled infant. She knew the Cataclysm was coming but she didn’t have time to warn anyone. She had to get her son to safety. He was all that mattered.
She stood onstage in a majestic old theater, a sprightly little child in a pretty white dress. As she sang her angelic rendition of “I’ll Fly Away,” her parents and sister smiled at her from the front row. Amanda’s hands were sleek and white, as if her skin wasn’t skin at all but—
No . . .
She lay in a void of pure whiteness. The air chilled her to the bone. A brown-haired woman eclipsed Hannah’s view. She was a fearsome beauty with coal-black eyes and a fiendishly crooked grin. The actress struggled to move but she was held in place by something cold. Not ice but—
“No. No tempis. Get it off me. Please!”
Esis raised an alabaster hand. “Hush, child. You’re mended now. Sleep.”
Her palm flashed white, and Hannah disappeared into a dreamless oblivion. Once her brain rebooted, she found herself awake in strange quarters. Someplace beige. Someplace warm.
—
Bleary thoughts floated through her head like dandelion puffs as she registered her new surroundings. The room smelled like paint and was devoid of all furniture except her bed. A familiar mop of shaggy blond hair poked out from the covers next to her.