“What happened after Jonathan died?”
“I helped Katie get away. It was the only good thing I ever did, because Row meant to get rid of her too. But she was pregnant, she told me so, and I couldn’t get past that; it would have been too great a sin . . .”
“Forget that!” Katie replied shortly; the word sin never failed to irritate her, and she was sickened by the idea that he had not found Katie worth saving until she was carrying a child. “Who was the father? Jonathan?”
“She wouldn’t tell me.” The Fetch turned away, but not before Kelsea saw a hint of old hurt in his eyes, and she suddenly remembered that he had once asked Katie to a festival. He had admired her, perhaps more, enough to help her flee . . . but not enough to help Jonathan. “She vanished, and took Row’s crown with her. When Row found out, he went mad, and I thought he would kill us all, but by then he had already started to fade. Katie had cursed us, but it took months for us to notice that something was wrong.”
“She didn’t punish you enough.”
The Fetch’s face went red with anger, and for a moment Kelsea thought he might try to strike her. But after another moment his fist dropped, and he leaned weakly on the balcony railing, defeated. “Say what you like, Tear Queen. But when you have lived centuries, when everyone you love has died around you and the world is full of strangers, you might know better.”
But Kelsea was in no mood to feel empathy now. She turned to survey the land beyond the balcony, squinting northward in a futile wish to see New London. But which New London? Katie’s, or her own? Both were now under siege, and Kelsea felt a sudden stab of grief for the failed dreams of William Tear. He had worked so hard for his better world . . . all of them had, Lily and Dorian and Jonathan, all of those people who had boarded the ships. They had fought and starved and even died in pursuit of mankind’s oldest dream, but they hadn’t known that Tear’s vision was flawed. Too easy. Utopia was not the clean slate Tear had imagined, but an evolution. Humanity would have to work for that society, and work hard, dedicating themselves to an unending vigilance against the mistakes of the past. It would take generations, countless generations perhaps, but—
“We could get there,” Kelsea murmured. “And even if not, we should always be growing closer.”
“What was that, Tear Queen?”
Kelsea looked up, not seeing him, suddenly sure of what she had to do. She didn’t know whether the past could be changed, whether William Tear’s mistakes could ever be repaired. But to not even try seemed the most reckless course of all, and now Kelsea saw that she, too, had been caught by Tear’s vision, just like Lily, just like the rest of them. Mankind’s oldest dream . . . even the possibility was worth dying for. She reached beneath her shirt to clutch Tear’s sapphire, sensed his better world, hundreds of years away, yet so close she could almost touch it. And who was to say which was more real: the present, or the past? In the moment before she turned and shouted for Mace, Kelsea realized that it didn’t matter.
She lived in both.
Two hours later, Kelsea sat astride a horse, surrounded by her Guard, as well as Hall and his soldiers. Mace sat in front of her, and Kelsea’s arms were tied around him with thick ropes. It had been Mace’s idea, and a good one; a fugue might come upon Kelsea at any time now. If her Guard thought her bonds odd, they gave no sign of it; Coryn had bound her up and Kibb had tied his artful knots. The very act of being bound had been useful, for now it seemed too late to change her mind about going back. Kelsea wasn’t a perfect atheist, not really; she took far too much comfort in the idea of the inevitable.
“How fast can we ride?” she asked Mace.
“Faster now that you’re not slowing us down, Lady,” Mace had replied, and the remark had silenced Kelsea, just as he had intended.
Nearby sat General Hall on his grey stallion, his brother Simon beside him, and behind them the sad remnants of the Tear army. The Fetch and his people were there too; Hall and the Fetch seemed to have an affinity of sorts, for Kelsea had seen them talking during the preparations for this ride. Kelsea felt the ultimate fraud; she knew that the only reason Hall and most of the Guard had agreed to this course of action was that they believed she would take care of it somehow, equalize the odds.
Can I do that? Kelsea wondered. How?