“What if I don’t want a new creation? What if I want a person who understands what it means to be human? I want Darcy’s mind. I want her attitudes. Don’t you see how a copy of her wouldn’t be able to connect with me? She needs her Earth memories to be my equal.”
Naomi pointed at me, genuinely bewildered. “I thought you wanted a girl who desires you. This one’s attachment is to Lord Sean. It’s a human failing that can’t be undone. Remember what happened when you drove the Sworn Asset Jonathan mad and he was removed from his home? She couldn’t watch him through her window anymore, but she still cared. Even after you killed him, still she cared. You saw how she grieved. She has ridiculous human emotional attachments to people who aren’t of any use to her. She’ll never forgive you for what has happened here, and we can’t erase it from her mind. She’ll always see you as a traitor to humans and the murderer of Lord Sean.”
Remy’s eyes flashed. “She’ll change her mind when I’m the last human left.”
“So you want her to love you due to a lack of options?”
I lay on the floor listening to this while my life continued to run out of me through my palms, as if I had opened a vein and was bleeding out. I could feel Sean stirring. I felt drowsy, as if just awakened from a long, hot, summer nap. In a dreamy sort of daze, I took my hands from Sean and crawled to Remy’s feet.
“Put me to the lava,” I said hoarsely. “I would rather die than have you touch me.”
“Now do you believe me?” Naomi asked, scoffing.
Remy turned on Naomi, his voice filled with menace. “You did this. You said she would be grateful to have me love her. You told me she would be mine once I killed her shaman and rid her of her neighbor Jonathan. You promised me that I would have Darcy in the end.”
“My plan was perfect,” Naomi snapped. “You ruined it when you got impatient and killed her shaman before she had a chance to warn her away from Lord Sean. It’s your fault that she met him—not mine.”
“You told me the clawman would change her mind about Sean. And this is my reward? She wants to die.”
“Only this creation in this body wants to die. We will make you a new version of Lady Darcy, one that isn’t full of unacceptable thoughts. I will keep my promise.”
“Naomi is lying,” I said to Remy. My lungs were so weak I could hardly push enough air for a whisper. “She wanted Sean and me together. She needed us both.”
Remy jerked his face toward Naomi. “What is she talking about?”
“Nothing! Don’t listen to her,” Naomi snapped.
“She sent the clawman so that I could prove to Sean how much I loved him and he could show me how much he loved me back.”
Naomi scoffed. “Don’t listen to her stupidity. The clawman was supposed to weaken her so she would have to accept help from Lord Judah and build some affection for him.”
“But it didn’t work, did it?” Remy’s voice rose to a shout. “And you kept Sean next door to her in the Sworn Asset building. I told you not to. How do you think I felt knowing they were always together, arm in arm, having dinner, playing together on a beach?”
Naomi grew heated. “Don’t disgust me with tales of how you humans eat together and play in water. And you’ve been in Geminay long enough to know that Sworn Assets can’t be kept in the palace with the rest of us.”
“We can’t be in the palace with them, but she’s taking you on a ship?” I asked hoarsely.
“We aren’t lowborn,” Remy said.
Naomi became soothing. “Of course you’re not lowborn, but you’re a creation and you grew up on Earth. You must be aware that you’re human in too many ways.”
“She’ll never have us on the ship,” I whispered. “Not whether I’m in this form or a new creation. These people only keep us to steal our souls because they have none. They’re empty vessels without courage or nobility.”
“We are more than humans,” Naomi snapped to me. “We’re survivors.”
“You’re contemptible. You have your spaceships and technology, but you’re nothing better than fugitives running from your crimes. Always the hunted. Never the hunter. Hated in the known universe. You’re as cold and empty as space.”
Naomi stepped on my hand, grinding her foot as she crushed my fingers into the tiles. “How empty is this?”
When I cried out, Remy grabbed her arm and jerked away from me. “Touch her again and I’ll make sure you’re not on the ship either.”
Naomi barked a laugh. “You? You—a creation—dare tell me what to do? I’m Lady Naomi of the House of Beck. Take your hands off of me.”
“Remy, she’s nothing.” My words came out as gasps as the agony in my fingers stole my breath. “This is all a ploy to gain glory by making everyone believe she saved Geminay by recovering the virus from us and the Tarkwins. She wants to look like a heroine in order to pressure Sylvan into having her back. She means to betray you before this is all over. You’ll never be on that ship.”
Naomi gave me a sharp kick to the ribs. “Shut up.”
Her blow knocked the wind out of me. My chest felt hollow and my mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water. When air finally flooded my lungs, my bruised ribs throbbed as if I had been hit by a car. Naomi and Remy were in each other’s faces shouting. My ears rang with their voices as I began crawling toward the knife. It felt like bits of glass were scraping on my bones in the place where Naomi had kicked me.
“Give me that,” Remy said, seizing the virus from Naomi’s grasp. “I’m keeping this until you can prove to me that you’re holding up your end of the bargain.”
In the blink of an eye, Naomi pulled a glass dagger from her sleeve and stuck it into Remy’s chest right below his breastbone. It tacked his tunic to his chest.
“Do you believe me now?” she asked with a laugh.
Remy’s eyes widened. He made the slightest sound, then backed away from her, the dagger still impaled in his flesh. He dropped to his knees and held out his hand to me.
Naomi chuckled. “She can’t heal you now. She’s too weak.” Naomi reached down and took the virus away from him. She wore the first genuine smile I’d ever seen on her face.
I kept sliding myself away from her, working my way toward the wall. At this moment I knew myself to be completely defenseless. Naomi eyed me like a cat does a mouse as it’s trying to determine how to finish off its prey.
“If you kill Sean and me, then the House of Beck won’t have any Sworn Assets. You’ll never be able to leave Earth,” I said as my exhausted mind worked to find ways to buy myself and Sean a few more minutes. “If we die, you destroy Geminay.”
“Actually, it’s better if you both die.” She playfully tossed the virus from hand to hand. “I’ve been planning this for a long time. I’ve hidden many loaded crystals in the palace walls. They hold more than enough energy to create a new generation of Sworn Assets, ones who are obedient to me. The existence of those crystals makes you and your two suitors here redundant.”
I understood. “And with us dead, anyone who wants energy has to come to you. That’s another way for you to make sure you stay in power. But it won’t work.”
Naomi raised an eyebrow at me.
“I found them.” My voice had become little more than a croak. “Sean and I found all your crystals. You lied about them being in the palace walls. You hid them under the waterfall that empties into the lake. That’s why the hallway there is so narrow. And that’s why Sean and I could form water there.”
Naomi froze, her eyes narrowing in rage. Though I had taken a wild guess at this, I knew by her expression that my guess had been correct.
“Sean and I drained some of them and hid the others,” I said, lying shamelessly. “How do you think we got so powerful so fast?”
Naomi glared at me, her face a hard mask of hatred.
“We gave some of them to Gemmee to put in the lowborn village,” I lied. “And you didn’t notice they were missing, did you? I guess that makes it a bad thing that you killed Gemmee.”
Naomi advanced on me with a terrible fury. Behind her Remy slowly staggered to his feet. As Naomi stopped over me, Remy, in one last gasp of energy, came toward us and pulled the dagger from his torso. Then he swung an arm around Naomi and plunged the dagger into her chest. She gasped. Remy pulled the dagger out and sank it into her again. Her blood fountained through the front of her fine tunic and her knees buckled. Naomi dropped the virus into the pool of blood at her feet. It clattered and rolled toward me, leaving twin trails of red. Remy and Naomi, swaying together in a strange sort of dance, lurched toward the pattern in the tile where the young mechanic had stood in the last moment of her life.
The floor fell away. Naomi and Remy dropped gracefully into the lava, though Remy clung to the edge of the floor for a moment. He swung back and forth twice, giving me a long and beseeching look, before releasing his grip and falling into the lava with a hiss of steam. Sean kicked the virus in after them, and the lava door shut with the snap.
* * *
Sean and I fell through into the spring on the edge of the park near our high school. We could hear sirens all around us as we lay in the long grass where the spring had thrown us. The blue sky and yellow sun stabbed my eyes with their piercing brightness. After the pinks and violets of Geminay, the green of the tree canopy and the white clouds overhead dazzled me with so much color. I felt a fluttering sensation in my eyes and the glaring sights around me faded, as if someone had dimmed the world. When I turned to Sean, I saw that his eyes changing. The round pupils emerged with gold diamonds in them. After spending so much time in Geminay, the circular pupils seemed exotic.
When I tried to sit up, the world started to tip. “I’m dizzy.”
“Stay down and let the sun soak into your skin. In a few minutes you’ll start to feel better.” He sat up, grimacing as he reached around to touch the laceration on his back. “I went through that feeling after my first trip to Geminay. And you’re way more drained than I was.”
“Then it’s over?”
“It is for Remy and Naomi. In the end Remy saved you. We’re safe. For now.”
My mind was trying to frame up sentences, but my voice was so breathy and weak that I wondered if Sean would be able to understand me. “Now that we’re back, what are we going to say to the cops? Look at how we’re dressed.”
“Tell me about it. We’re wearing more jewelry than a Babylonian king. We need our clothes and my backpack.”
Sean’s voice sounded like he was far away. I couldn’t focus because the ground beneath me seemed to be rocking like a boat tied to a dock. My skin felt cold, clammy, and hungry for the warmth of the yellow sun. I pulled up my sleeves and turned my palms to the sun.
“My mom and dad will be tripping once they get the news about what happened at the school. So will yours,” I said hoarsely.
“Not for long. The police will find us any minute now. We’ll say we hid here because we were scared of the crazy men in the vice principal’s office. We can say they gave you the bump on your head and this cut on my back. It’s actually a good thing that you weren’t able to heal me all the way because we need a cut to explain all the blood in the vice principal’s office.”
My head lolled on the ground. “Won’t the video from the school’s security cameras show us covered with blood?”
“Judah and Leonie said they would hack the system and blur any images of us.”
I felt the sunlight tingling on my arms, reviving me with its heat and warmth. “How did we get back on the Earth?”
“Through the Mechanics’ fountain. Apparently Naomi set off some kind of alarm when she opened the lava door. When the First Mechanic came to investigate, he caught the end of Naomi and Remy’s argument. He didn’t want to confront them alone, so he went to get help. By the time he got back, Naomi, Remy, and the virus had met the lava. He didn’t ask a lot of questions because you had passed out and needed the yellow sun right away. He had some soldiers carry you to a fountain and he fell through with us. He doesn’t know the virus met the lava, so our secret is safe for now.”
“You trusted the First Mechanic?”
“I was out of options, and believe me, there was no love lost between Methany and Naomi. He couldn’t help but grin when I told him that she had met the lava. And he made some comment about not losing the investment in a Sworn Asset. They don’t love us, but they need us.”
My brain felt fuzzy. “That sounds like something a Mechanic would say. Everyone there has an agenda for us.”
“I know they do.”
My eyelids grew impossibly heavy, and I slipped into darkness again. When I woke, Sean was on his feet stripping off his tunic. I didn’t feel guilty for staring at his gorgeous torso, not after everything we’d been through together. We were too connected and had shared too much energy. Sean took a clean and neatly pressed tee shirt from his backpack. He held it up for a moment to examine a tear in its back before drawing it over his head and shoulders. The cut on his back darkened the area around the tear with blood. I closed my eyes and fell into darkness again. When I woke, Sean had changed into his jeans and had my clothes waiting for me in neat stack.
“How did you get our Earth clothes and your backpack?” I whispered.
“Circle brought them while you slept. She fell through with Methany while you were out. The maids had washed our clothes and somehow managed to microscopically fix all the rips the missusans made with their daggers in the vice principal’s office. Don’t ask me how. Then while she was here, she added a tear to match up with the cut on my back. Once you change back into Earth clothes, Circle will fall through to collect our Geminay outfits. She can only tolerate about fifteen seconds of being on the surface.”
“I’m keeping the earrings.”
Sean laughed. “Then I’ll keep mine too.”
“How long were we in Geminay?”
“In Earth time, about forty-five minutes from when we landed on the battlefield until now. That’s what Methany told me.”
I sat up and felt the world tilt. I braced myself and waited for the sick feeling in my stomach to pass. Even though Sean was right in front of me, I pulled my tunic over my head and was rewarded by the soothing sun on my skin. The urge to throw off all my clothes and let the sun hit me all over was almost irresistible. Sean helped me to my feet, and I leaned heavily on him when I slipped off my Geminay clothes and put on my Earth outfit. I vaguely recalled Circle collecting my discarded clothes and jewelry. The exertion of changing overcame me, and I passed out again. When I came to, Sean had pulled up my shirt and his own to reveal our bellies to the sun.