“Petra,” James said, using her name as a talisman, trying to rouse her to action. “Don’t you understand? We can’t let them win. They will stop me from saving you somehow.”
Petra shook her head. “I don’t think they will. I don’t think they will have to.” Finally, she turned to him. Her eyes were eerily dead. “You were so wonderful, James. So sweet and gallant. You fused your love to my power, connected us. We’re still connected even now. I can feel it. The thread between us has been there ever since. You saved me that time.”
“That time…?” James asked, although he had a sinking feeling that he knew exactly what she meant.
“She will be less powerful with Donofrio as her host,” Petra nodded, her eyes unfocussing, drifting back out over the waves. “Merlin will be able to defeat her. Or your father. Or even you, perhaps. None of it will need to happen as it did. The broken Loom. Lucy’s death.
The Night of the Unveiling. The Morrigan web…”
James was shaking his head firmly, growing deeply alarmed.
“But Odin-Vann didn’t even follow you back in time!” he insisted, reaching to take Petra’s hand, to shake her out of her fatalistic fugue.
“Nor did Judith! You and I were the only ones that went through the portal!”
She blinked aside at him, as if surprised that he didn’t yet get it.
“I was the only one that needed to come back, James. Don’t you see?
Judith’s origins are outside of time. In some vague way, she is always in both the past and the present. It’s her unfair advantage. And Donofrio already exists here. She has surely already found him in this timeline, prepared him, poisoned his already broken mind with delusions of power and revenge. The version of him that you knew will never be. A new Donofrio Odin-Vann will spawn from this changed moment.”
She looked at James once more, assuring that he saw the conviction in her eyes, albeit tainted with regret. “They only needed me to come back in time, James, because I am the one who will make the change. I should have gone over to my death the first time we went through this cursed storm. You saved me. But you should have let me go. You have to let me go. I can’t let you interfere this time.”
“That’s crazy!” James exclaimed, nearly shouting in the face of the blaring, rainy wind. “You can’t give them what they want! You can’t just give up!”
“I’m not giving up,” Petra said, her voice going firm, her eyes hardening. “This is the cruelest thing of all for me, don’t you see? I don’t want to die. I don’t want to leave Izzy! It’s even worse than when I thought I was just returning to Morgan’s dimension! But this is what should have happened. Just look at the terrible things that occurred as a result! This time, without me to amplify her power, Judith will be defeated! Merlin will destroy her, assisted by you and all the others who will join him. You know the truth of all this, James. You must tell them. You must make them believe, and act! This is your duty.”
“No!” James cried firmly, taking Petra by the shoulders, turning her to him. “Come down below decks with me! It can’t be like this!”
“You’ve always wondered,” Petra mused thoughtfully, studying his face, “when you invoked the same Deep Magic that your grandmother did to save your father, how it was that you didn’t have to die, like she did. The love covenant is a force of sacrifice, after all. But now we know the answer, don’t we? The bargain wasn’t over. The Deep Magic didn’t require your death because it knew we would be back here again. The bargain was only a reprieve. And now, the circle will complete itself.”
She raised her hands and took his, removing them from her shoulders. She turned away from him then, looked back out over the raging tempest. He reached for her again, and found that he couldn’t touch her. She held him back with her mind, erecting a subtle force around herself.
“It’s all a lie, Petra!” he said desperately. She didn’t look back.
Lightning flashed brilliantly over the waves, stabbing down, seeking its mark. Thunder filled the world.
James tried to focus on Petra through the ribbon that connected them. He sensed the power between them, could virtually see the silvery thread pulse in the air between their hands. But she was shutting him out.
She was committed.
“Every bargain they’ve ever made with you was based on paying an impossible, unfair price, Petra!” he shouted, straining to be heard over the thunder and wind. “The Gatekeeper tried to make you kill Lily.
The Bloodline of Voldemort wanted you to kill Izzy. Odin-Vann said you had to kill me. It’s always the same deal, the same terrible cost. And what do you get for it? Nothing but a tainted soul and teasing shadows!
The cost outweighs the benefits! It’s just leprechaun gold, gone by morning! The death bargain is always a lie! And this time it’s the biggest lie of all! Judith has finally convinced you that the person you have to kill… is yourself!”
She refused to look at him. Her back was straight, her arms locked at the elbow, spread to grip the railing, squeezing it, waiting for the inevitable. Her hair flailed in the wind like a black corona.
Lightning was nearly constant now, accompanied by a seamless cannonade of thunder.
Seeing the inevitable now, James firmed his voice, raised his chin, and stated, “Judith will kill Izzy first.”
Petra’s shoulders tensed as if he had struck her.
He went on, bitterly. “When you’re dead, the connection will be broken. Judith won’t need Izzy anymore, and you won’t be there to protect her. Maybe you’re right, and in the end Merlin will defeat Judith. But she’ll kill whoever she can before that happens. Izzy will be the first, because she knows the truth. I’ll be next on her list. I’ll fight, but who am I compared to her? She’ll kill me with barely a second thought. All because you gave up.”
“Don’t!” Petra shouted, her voice carrying over her shoulder, shrill on the wind. “James, don’t! I have to do this! Don’t make it any harder!”
“Do you remember how Lucy died?” James asked, undeterred, taking a step closer, still speaking to her tensed back. “She died protecting Izzy. She’ll do the same thing again this time. You know she will. When Judith comes for Izzy, Lucy will get in her way, try to stop her. She’ll fail, and Judith will kill her again. History finds a way to keep happening. You may change the bigger story, if we’re very lucky.
But the little things will still find a way to happen just like they did last time!”
“STOP!” Petra shouted, and whirled to face him, her eyes more alive and sharp than he had seen them during the entire exchange.