“I mean her water reached up and grabbed him out of the sky!” Chelsie snarled, the words coming out in dangerous puffs of smoke. “You were just talking to her. Make her cough him up now, or I’ll…”
She trailed off, the smoke fading from her breath. Across the beach, the cloudy blue water in front of them was parting, the waves giving way to dry land as a woman made of water walked out to meet them. She moved slowly, dragging the lake water behind her like a train. It wasn’t until Algonquin knelt in front of them, though, that Marci saw why. The spirit wasn’t trailing water. She was carrying a dragon.
Bob’s multicolored body was cradled in her water. He was curled up so tightly, his feathered tail was wrapped around his nose. He didn’t move when the spirit released him, or when Chelsie charged toward him across the exposed lake bed. It wasn’t until Marci ran over as well that the seer finally unclenched himself enough to reveal what he was cradling in his claws.
It was a fire. A sputtering yellow-and-green flame no bigger than a candle’s. But despite its tiny size, the warmth it gave off was strong. Strong and familiar, a heat Marci would know anywhere.
Julius.
“What did you do?” Chelsie roared, her fangs dripping fire as she turned on Algonquin. “I swear, spirit, I will set your lakes afire if you—”
“It wasn’t her,” Bob gasped, coughing up water as he struggled to his feet. “It wasn’t Algonquin, Chelsie.”
“Then who did this?” his sister demanded.
Bob was still coughing too much to answer, so Algonquin spoke for him.
“Julius did.”
The spirit spoke slowly, lifting her face to reveal a fall of water so sorrowful, there was no human expression that could match it. “He gave his life to save me, to give me a second chance.” Her water dropped as she finished, and then Algonquin bowed, dipping so low before the flicker of Julius’s fire, she nearly merged with the mud. “A mortal’s life is the greatest treasure they possess. Being immortal, I have no death to give in return, but I…” Her beautiful voice began to shake. “I am sorry. For what I’ve done. For what I put all of you through. For my selfishness and anger, I am sorry.”
The words were soft, but they darted through the quiet air like fish, because they weren’t just for Julius. Algonquin was apologizing to her own banks and creatures, and to those watching beyond. Now that things were quiet, Marci could feel them all around. The little faces peeking from the grass and mud, the birds that landed in the reeds and trees and the deer that watched fearfully from the woods beyond—the Lady of the Lakes was apologizing to all of them. She might even have been apologizing to the dragons. If that was the case, though, it fell on deaf ears, because Chelsie was already rushing back to the shore where the Qilin was waiting with their daughter on his golden back.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I have to get Amelia,” Chelsie said quickly, spreading her wings for takeoff. “She’s the one who knows the most about preserving dragon fire. You stay with Bob. Don’t let Julius go out before—”
A blast of wind cut her off, knocking Chelsie back to the beach. Even Marci was blown off her feet as a black shadow appeared above them. It happened so suddenly, her first horrible thought was that the Leviathan was back. When she looked up, though, she realized she was only partially right. It was a giant monster from another plane, just not the one they’d been fighting.
“Brohomir!”
“Oh dear,” Bob said, closing his claws protectively around Julius’s sputtering flame as he lifted his head to face the Black Reach, who was hovering above them like a weather front.
“Ungrateful seer!” the construct thundered, black smoke pouring from his mouth. “I showed you mercy! I gave you my fire! I spent uncounted thousands of years of my power to cover your wager, and this is how you repay me?”
“Well, technically, I didn’t do it for you,” Bob said. “You see—”
“Spare me your excuses,” the Black Reach snarled. “There was one thing you could not do. One thing, and you stuck your snout right in it! I haven’t even had a chance to look and see which futures you sold, but I felt you do it. You have committed the one crime I can never forgive, and now I have no choice but to kill you!” He slammed his tail into the lake, splashing water so high into the air, it froze. “Do you know what I went through to spare you? How hard it was to fight ten thousand years of programming to do what I felt was actually right? Why did you put me through all that if you were just going to betray me now?”
“Because I also had to do what was right,” Bob said with a shrug. “And for the record, I don’t regret it at all. Especially since you’re not going to kill me this time, either.”
“There, you are wrong,” the Black Reach snarled, reaching out his charter-bus-sized claws. “There’s no escape this time, Brohomir of the Heartstrikers. You’ve already done what can never be forgiven, and from the number of futures I can no longer see, you did it to the hilt. I don’t know what you got in return, but it certainly wasn’t your survival, because every future I see has your life ending right here.”
“Then I’d suggest you look again,” Bob said. “Because I know for a fact that you can’t kill me.”
The construct growled in frustration, but he must have been at least a little bit curious, because he asked, “And how is that?”
“Because you are the death of seers,” Bob replied. “And I am no longer a seer.”
The giant dragon froze. “What?”
“I’m no longer a seer,” Bob repeated. “I still have my powers, but I gave up every future where I use them in exchange for this.” He held up his claws, opening them just enough so the Black Reach could see the precious fire hidden inside.
The eldest seer squinted. “Is that Julius?”
“My littlest brother,” Bob said, nodding. “He was the axis around which I built the machine that saved the world. We all owe him our futures, including you, but since I’m the one who set everything up, it only felt fair that I be the one to foot the bill this time around. The fact that this selfless act of brotherhood also conveniently puts me outside of your jurisdiction is merely a convenient coincidence.”
“It is never coincidence with you,” the Black Reach snarled, looming close. “You planned this.”
“Actually, I planned a lot less than this,” Bob said, his voice strangely thick. “My lady and I worked this cleverness out together, as we do all things. When the moment came, though, the price was higher than we expected, and I did not have enough. I would have given everything, I owed Julius that much, but my lady spotted me the difference.” His voice began to shake. “An End sacrificed her one present to give us a chance at a better future. Surely you can appreciate the poetry in that?”