Yes. I felt it was true. What had just happened between me and Calamity was no trick. But still, I had to test it. I had to know for absolute certain.
And then I would kill myself, quickly, before the desires consumed me.
I reached out to touch the water.
42
I felt something.
Well, I felt the water, of course. I mean something else. Something inside of me. A stirring.
Hand on the surface of the water, I peered into those depths. Just beneath me was an ancient steel bridge cluttered with a line of rusted cars. A window into another world, an old world, a time before.
I imagined what it would have been like to live in this city when the waters swept in. My fears returned, the images of being crushed, drowned, trapped.
Only … I found that they didn’t control me as they once had. I was able to shove them aside. Nothing would ever again be as bad as standing before the glass wall beneath the ocean and firing a pistol toward it, inviting the sea to come and crush me.
Take it, a voice said in my head. A quiet, distant voice, but a real one. Take this power. It is yours.
I …
Take it!
“No.”
The tingling vanished.
I blinked at the waters. Calamity’s light had retreated, and everything looked normal again.
I stumbled to my feet and turned to face Regalia.
She smiled. “Ah, it takes hold!”
“Nah,” I said. “I’m a washing machine at a gun show.”
She blinked, looking totally befuddled. “… What did you just say?”
“Washing machine?” I said. “Gun show? You know. Washing machines don’t use guns, right? No fingers. So if they’re at a gun show, there’s nothing they’d want to buy. Anyway, I’m good here. Not interested.”
“Not … interested. It doesn’t matter if you’re interested or not! You don’t get a choice.”
“Made one anyway,” I said. “Thanks, though. Nice of you to think of me.”
Regalia worked her mouth as if trying to speak, but no sound came out. Her eyes bulged as she regarded me. Gone was her posture of dominance and control.
I smiled and shrugged. Inside, I was working frantically on some way to escape. Would she destroy me, now that I’d failed to become part of her plans? The only place for me to go was into the water—which, considering her abilities, didn’t seem wise.
But I wasn’t an Epic. I had no doubt that she’d just tried to give me powers, as she said she could do. I had no doubt that I’d heard Calamity’s voice in my mind.
It just hadn’t worked on me.
“Epic powers,” I said to Regalia, meeting her gaze, “are tied to your fears, aren’t they?”
Regalia’s eyes widened even further. A piece of me found it supremely satisfying to see Regalia so flummoxed, and it seemed further proof to me that everything else she’d done had been calculated. Even when she’d seemed out of control, she’d known what she was doing.
All except for this moment.
She glanced away and cursed. Then she vanished. I, of course, immediately dropped into the ocean.
I sputtered a bit but managed to paddle myself to the nearest Babilar building. Mizzy would have laughed to see my silly version of a swimming stroke, but it worked well enough. I hauled myself up out of the water and into the building through a window. It took about five minutes to find the stairwell—there were paths worn through this building, probably made by people gathering fruit—and climb to the roof two stories above.
It was a typical Babilar night, with people sitting out, legs hanging off the edges of their rooftops. Some fished, others lazily gathered fruit. One group sang softly as someone played an old guitar. I shivered, soaked through, and tried to sort out what had just happened to me.
Calamity was an Epic. Some kind of … super-powerful gifter, perhaps? Could it be that there had really only been one single Epic all along, and everyone else held an offshoot of his powers?
Well, Regalia was in communication with him, whoever he was. She’d left me alone. Was it because her failure to make me an Epic had spooked her? She’d looked to the side at the end; it was hard to remember sometimes that she was actually in her hidden base, with other things happening around her there. Perhaps something had distracted her.
Well, I was free, for the moment. And I still had work to do. I took a deep breath and tried to orient myself, but I had only a vague idea of where I was. I jogged up to a group of people cooking soup beside some tents; they were listening to the music of a quiet radio—probably a live broadcast by someone else in the city. They looked up at me, and one offered me a water bottle.
“Thanks, uh, but I can’t stay,” I said. “Um …” How could I say this without sounding suspicious? “I’m totally normal and not weird at all. But I need to get to Finkle Crossway. Which direction is that again?”
An aging woman wearing a glowing blue knit shawl pointed with a lazy gesture. “Ten or so bridges that way. Turn left at the really tall building, keep going. That’ll take you past Turtle Bay, though.…”
“Um. Yeah?”