Fates (22 page)

She had always been warned that trying to alter fate would have dire consequences.

Was this all her fault—because she hadn't yet finished her task? Because Luc, a human, had been traveling the Crossroad with her?

Her tongue felt thick, and it took enormous effort to swallow. Miranda. She had to get back to the rotunda—she had to find Miranda.

She looked around to try to orient herself. The dust, the howling of the sirens, the smoke—it made everything look foreign. Most of the familiar landmarks were gone—destroyed, buried under rubble. She limped to the next intersection.

Divisadero and Pine: the same place where she had directed the principal to her death. The pharmacy on the corner was missing its sign; half a wall had caved in.

It seemed so long ago that she had performed that task. Now she was back and she felt a spasm of pain, of doubt. Had she done the right thing that day? Had she ever done the right thing?

Who decided?

Corinthe forced the thoughts out of her mind. It was too late to change the past. She could only think of the future now.

She started moving again. She noticed a man advancing toward her. Every few feet, he stopped strangers in the street, gesturing frantically, eyes wild. At first, Corinthe thought he must be asking for money. But as he got closer, she saw that he was holding up a picture. She began to make out what he was saying.

“Please. I'm looking for my children. Have you seen them?”

“Please. Help me find my children.”

When he reached Corinthe, he turned to her with the same imploring eyes. “I'm looking for my children. Have you seen them?”

There was a fine line of blood trickling from his forehead, and he was covered in a white dust. Corinthe almost pushed past him, but the panic in his voice made her hesitate and flick her eyes to the small picture: a dark-haired girl and a smiling boy.

“I—I'm sorry,” she stuttered.

The man grabbed her arm. “Please. Help me.”

Her mouth tasted like metal.
My fault.

“You're hurt.” Her voice cracked. “You're in shock. You need to be treated.”

She took his arm and guided him forward; he followed her mutely. A fire truck and two ambulances blocked off the street to her left, and Corinthe led the man toward one of the EMTs, a middle-aged woman with gray hair. The woman was examining a body.

“He's bleeding,” Corinthe told her, and the woman looked up. Corinthe felt another squeeze of pain. For a second, she had mistaken the woman for Sylvia, the dead principal.

The principal Corinthe had killed.
My fault, my fault.

“Thank you,” the woman said briskly. “We'll take it from here.”

Corinthe nodded. There was nothing else she could do but keep moving.

The route to the rotunda should have only taken a few minutes, but she was hurt, and at the intersection of Richardson and Chestnut the street had collapsed, leaving a gaping hole and a broken gas line, which the police were trying to cordon off. She backtracked to Lombard and cut across to Lyon. She passed beautiful town houses that had been reduced to splinters of wood and concrete, cars crushed under the weight of trees and lampposts.

Was this the end of Humana?

When she crossed over Bay Street, she had to stop and climb carefully over a toppled tree that lay across the road. The Palace of Fine Arts was barely recognizable. The columns that had once majestically lined the walkway had collapsed and lay in piles across the lawns, one of them half immersed in the lagoon. The roof of the rotunda still perched precariously on broken supports.

Corinthe fought back the surge of terror and broke into a run.

Halfway across the rotunda, the earth trembled and bits of stucco rained down on her head. The supports shifted and the roof sank a few inches closer to her head. A chunk of concrete had smashed into the column with the concealed panel that revealed the secret tunnel. The doorway was standing open, half blocked by fallen rubble; Corinthe could barely squeeze through it.

Miraculously, the power had not gone out yet, and the dim bulbs over her head allowed her to make her way down the narrow staircase. Bricks had fallen loose from the walls, but the steps were intact.

The rooms had not fared so well.

The kitchen was in shambles. Broken dishes littered the ground, and the table lay on its side. Water overflowed the tub and gushed onto the floor. Steam filled the air and made it thick and hazy.

Corinthe sloshed her way through the debris to her room. It didn't even look the same. The trunk that held her clothes was smashed open, and bits of colorful cloth—her clothes, all her belongings—were visible. The entire wall on the far side had collapsed. The mural she had worked on for weeks was ruined; it lay in tatters on the floor. Corinthe felt a sense of loss so strong it almost carried her off her feet.

Then she heard a low moan from the corner.

“Miranda!” she cried.

Miranda lay pinned under a slab of concrete, her midsection crushed. There was a trickle of blood at the corner of her mouth. Her breathing was labored and short.

Corinthe attempted to heave the rock, but it wouldn't move. Miranda's eyelids fluttered and she opened her eyes. Her lips turned up into a smile.

“You came. I knew you'd find me.” She coughed. Air wheezed from between her lips, and a speck of blood dotted her chin.

Corinthe was filled with fear unlike anything she had ever known. It was as though a Crossroad had opened inside of her, filling her with whipping panic. Corinthe reached out and gently wiped Miranda's blood away with her sleeve. “What happened?”

“I came because I couldn't find you. I was worried. I knew your last task was still incomplete. Then the wall—” Miranda coughed again. A spasm of pain passed across her face. “The wall …”

“Shhh. Don't try to speak.” Another low tremor reverberated through the ground. “I have to get you out of here.” Again, she strained to lift the rock, pulled until her lungs felt like they'd burst in her chest. But it was too heavy, and she was far too weak.

Miranda closed her eyes and opened them again. Her breathing was growing fainter.

“It's too late for me, Corinthe,” she said.

“Don't say that.” Corinthe felt a pressure in her throat. Her fault, all her fault.

Miranda lifted her hand and laid it on top of Corinthe's. It was cold. Miranda had stayed with her in Humana all these years to guide and protect her, to make sure she never stopped believing she'd one day go home again, only to die here, in this splintered, terrible world.

“Have you completed your task yet? Is the boy dead?”

“I'm sorry.” Corinthe could barely speak past the knot in her throat. This was what it was to feel, and to lose, too: for a moment, she was gripped by a sense of remorse for all the lives she had taken, all the pain she had helped bring to the world.

“There is still time, Corinthe. You can still fulfill the fate and go home.” Miranda squeezed Corinthe's hand and a smile played across her lips. Corinthe thought Miranda had never looked more beautiful.

“I don't know how to find him,” Corinthe choked out. “It's too late.”

“It's never too late. This is your fate, too. Remember that.” Miranda coughed and blood specked her lips. Her grip tightened painfully around Corinthe's fingers. Miranda cried out, her body jerking as though an electric current had run through her.

Then her fingers relaxed.

“Miranda,” Corinthe said. Miranda didn't respond. Corinthe felt the pressure in her throat building to a scream. “Miranda!”

Corinthe turned away from the body, fighting the urge to gag. She wanted to cry, as she had seen humans do—to sob, to scream—but nothing would come.

“I'm so sorry,” she said. “Forgive me. I'm sorry.”

Her Guardian was gone forever. Lucas was lost in another world where the chances of finding him were next to impossible.

It had all been for nothing.

The years of exile, her job as an Executor, the chance to go back to Pyralis.

The walls began to shake again as a low rumble worked its way up to the ceiling. Corinthe stood unsteadily. The ground swayed and she stumbled forward, bracing herself in the doorway. Behind her, another section of the wall collapsed, burying Miranda under a pile of stones.

It was a struggle to remain upright. The stairs seemed so far away. The shelf where Miranda kept her potions rattled fiercely, and bottles slid off one by one, crashing to the ground. The lights overhead flickered and then went out, burying Corinthe in darkness.

Then, for several seconds, everything went still and perfectly silent, except for the gushing of the tub, which was still spitting water.

A thunderous crack sounded, rolling across the ground, up the walls, and into the ceiling. The earth bucked, and an entire section of roof collapsed in a deafening roar, missing her by only feet. Dust blasted her face, and she turned away, coughing.

When she opened her eyes, hazy light filled the room. So much dust sifted down from above it was as though it had begun to snow. Debris was everywhere, and Corinthe saw that a huge hole had opened to the sky above her.

Not since the first day of her exile had Corinthe felt so alone, so lost. She ached all over. Weakness made it hard to stand. She could feel the venom and its sluggish movement through her veins. How long had it been since she had been stung?

Surely she was almost out of time.

She was so tired.

Maybe she would curl up here. Sleep for a bit. She had no fight in her left. But as she sank to her knees, a touch of blue caught her eye. Half buried in the rubble was the painting she loved so dearly—miraculously intact. She grabbed the frame and gingerly stood it on edge, shaking it a few times to dislodge the dirt.

She couldn't believe it had remained undamaged. It was a sign. It had to be.

The children in the painting were still there, holding each other's hands, looking away from the garden.

The sight broke Corinthe's heart.

The simplicity of it. The sense of possibility.

The love.

She knew, suddenly, what she had to do.

L
uc's skin felt as if it were about to peel off.

He crawled blindly through a world of fire—flames roaring so loudly he could hardly think. The smell of burning singed his nostrils, made him gag. There were no pathways here, no signs pointing to a way out. Just heat and light and smoke and pain, forked tongues of orange and yellow.

And
blue.
His heart leapt. On his left burned a giant flame that was different from the others. A yellow finger of fire burned at its center, but the outer flame was all blue.

The opposite of a normal flame.

Before he could change his mind, Luc flung himself into the flame's center. Searing heat ripped at his skin, and he clenched his teeth tightly to keep from screaming. The pain crested, became unbearable.

And then the light, and the heat, blinked out at once.

He found himself out of the Crossroad and in utter darkness, on ground as frigid and hard as concrete. He shivered. Every breath was painful.

Move,
his brain commanded. He had to keep moving, even if he had no idea where he was.

He hoped he wouldn't walk straight off a cliff.

He climbed dizzily to his feet and painstakingly inched his way through the darkness. Terror made him completely disoriented. This was the closest he could imagine to
nothingness,
to an endless void.

His foot hit something—a rock, maybe? As he moved carefully forward, the darkness seemed to become slightly less dense. There were now gradations of shadow, distinctions in the dark—his eyes were adjusting.

Something large loomed ahead of him. He ran his fingers over the surface, recognizing sharp angles and smooth crevices. It was a boulder, judging by the size of it. He navigated around it, keeping one hand firmly on the cold stone to orient himself. On the other side of the boulder, he heard the faint trickling of water.

Tiny lights flickered in the distance. They looked almost like fireflies. And in the sky, twin crescent moons rose over the mountains to his left.

Despair rose thick and high in his chest. He was back—back in the land of Figments and Figures, at the very edge of the universe.

Back where he had started.

And he knew then, knew for positive and for certain, that he no longer had a prayer of saving Jasmine.

Luc couldn't control himself any longer. He spun around, kicked at the first thing he saw, sent a rock skittering into the darkness. He was so angry he wanted to punch something. If Corinthe was right, if this had all been fated, he wished he could burn down the whole universe.

Thinking of Corinthe made him feel even worse. He felt a fierce longing for her; it was here, in this very world, that she had pressed up against him in her sleep.

“Why?” he screamed into the darkness. “Why? Why?”

“Shhh,” a low voice said behind him.

Luc whipped around, fumbling for the knife in his pocket. “Who's there?”

A shadow moved separately from the dark around it. “You looking for the pairing?” it asked in a hushed voice.

“The … what?” Luc asked.

“The gathering,” another voice said.

“I don't know what you're—” Before he could finish, a person seized his arm.

“Don't be afraid,” the first person said. A girl, Luc thought, judging from the whispery voice. Her features were dark. Where she touched him, he felt warm. His anger dissipated; he felt weirdly calm. Maybe he could search out Rhys. Maybe there
was
hope.

The shadowy shapes led him down an indistinguishable path. They stopped in front of another huge rock. “Here we are.”

“Where  … ?” Luc started to ask, but once again, his two guides hushed him.

“It's okay. I was really confused my first time, too,” said one.

“We missed you,” said the other.

Before Luc could ask what they meant, they had rapped three times on the rock face. It slowly slid off to one side, as though it had been set on tracks, and a set of stone stairs was revealed, dimly lit by lanterns.

As the girl passed in front of him, under the light, Luc stopped. The bottom dropped out of his stomach like on the dip of a roller coaster. It wasn't a person at all. It was just a shadowy outline, featureless, faceless.

A Figment.

The girl—the thing—realized Luc was no longer behind her. “Come on,” it whispered.

The other person—also a Figment—hovered by his side, as though looking at him curiously.

Luc hesitated. His head was spinning. Figments were supposed to be confined to the Ocean of Shadows. How had these managed to escape?

“What do you mean, you missed me?” Luc said, hedging.

The second Figment put its shadowy, weightless hand on Luc's arm. “You don't remember?” it asked.

“We are yours,” the girl Figment said.

“Mine?” Luc's voice cut through the darkness.

“Your shadows,” they answered simultaneously, then turned and continued down the stairs.

Luc followed them, stunned and unable to speak. As he trailed his shadows, he felt a sense of relief, or victory, even—the way he'd lose the ball on the field and find his way to it again.

As if reading his mind, one of the Figments broke the silence. “We'll be separated again, after this. …” She motioned down the dark passageway, where the faint sound of music drifted.

“But this isn't the end,” the other Figment added. Its voice was slightly deeper, more grating, like rocks moving together in a current. “We'll see each other again. In the Crossroad. When we're strong enough to travel …”

Soon, the lanterns became more frequent and quick bursts of laughter punctuated the air.

The stairs emptied into a cavernous space. Once again, Luc stopped, amazed. The room was filled with hundreds and hundreds of people—or at least, Luc thought they were people. They moved like people, but their skin was the same reddish color as the sand on the beach and looked thick, almost scaly. None had hair, and it was hard to distinguish males from females.

They had to be the Figures.

Each Figure was dancing with two featureless shadows—Figments—waltzing and spinning, dipping and laughing. The happiness in the room was almost palpable.

You're looking for the pairing?
The Figments' words came back to him.

Luc looked around at the cavelike space, ornately decked out with furniture from the human world—some of it ancient and crumbling, some of it pristine—like Rhys's raft had been.

Just before the shadows next to him slipped into the crowd, Luc called for them to wait. But when they both turned, he realized he was lost for words.

“Like he said, Luc. This isn't the end.” The girl reached out to squeeze his arm. They nodded reassuringly before disappearing into the throng of Figments and Figures. Luc was left alone, mesmerized.

As he moved out of the doorway, into the whirling mass of strange bodies, he saw something catch the light of the lantern: Corinthe's crystal earrings, dangling from the ear of one of the dancers.

Rhys!

As Luc got closer, Rhys tipped back his head and downed the contents of a vial. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and turned toward Luc. His eye covering hung loose, and Luc saw a violent gash where the eye should have been.

“Ah, you came back,” Rhys rasped. His long hair partly concealed his face. “Did you find your sister?” He swayed lightly, and Luc smelled sweat and herbs and something musty-sweet, like tobacco.

“No,” Luc said shortly. “What's going on? What is this place?”

Rhys grinned and raised a glass. It occurred to Luc that the man was slightly drunk. “It's a celebration, my friend. Once a year, at the end of the moons' cycle, I arrange this secret get-together for those who wish to be whole again.”

“I thought the Figures were afraid of the Figments,” Luc said. But even as he said it, he knew it couldn't be true. They didn't look afraid. They looked … joyful. Free. The Figures and Figments laughed and touched and danced without pausing for breath. It was intimate in a way that made him want to look away, but at the same time, he was fascinated.

“The old generation were the ones to battle, the ones who banned the Figments. The young Figures only want to be whole again. They don't have the fear of their forefathers.” Rhys shook his head. “They know only the feeling of division.”

Luc watched two Figments twirling on the arm of their Figure in the very center of the room. He felt an ache deep in his chest. Jasmine would love this place: the energy, the excitement. Dancing with shadows.

He was reminded of the outdoor concert he'd attended with Jas a few years ago. She hadn't stopped dancing all night; her hair had been whipping around so fast, she joked she could use it as a weapon. The air smelled like cigarettes and patchouli and sunscreen, and he remembered thinking that he needed to memorize everything: the look and the smell, the way she was dancing, how she'd fallen asleep on the train back to the apartment with her head resting on his shoulder. It was as if he already knew that things would start to fall apart. That she would grow up and get stubborn and wild and moody, that he wouldn't be able to protect her.

“Don't you see?” Rhys said in a low voice. “They
must
have their Others. Their shadow selves. Isn't that what it's all about—finding the one who makes you feel whole again?”

As Luc watched the Figure spin faster, he found that it seemed to merge with its Figments so that they were indistinguishable, moving completely in tandem. The music was wild, full of joy and longing. All around him, Figures and Figments converged, melted into each other, became one. Even Rhys was soon swept away by his Figments, drawn into the middle of the floor, where they'd had made room for him.

The music changed and a thumping beat began to vibrate through the floor. The tempo started out slow, then picked up speed.

The Figures and Figments moved with it, as if they all shared the same pulse. They lifted their hands in the air. They shouted, cries of happiness and freedom. Rhys passed in and out of view. He looked so happy. So joyful.

And still the dance went on—faster, more frenzied—nameless arms reaching out and pulling Luc into the mass of undulating bodies and shadows.

Luc's own heartbeat pounded frantically in his chest as he was swept up in the crowd. He swayed with the others, letting their movements guide him. There was a pressure building in his chest, something he couldn't name or explain. And then, as the music crescendoed, as the shouts of joy crested over him like a physical force, it brought with it a single word, blazing through him, impossible to ignore.

Corinthe.

When his mother died, she had taken part of him with her. He had never expected to feel whole again.

But he did. He had. A spark, long buried, had jumped to life when he met Corinthe.

He understood her. They were so similar. Both holding tight to responsibilities that were too big, too heavy for them. Trying so hard to do the right thing, struggling to find a place where they fit in.

A realization struck him as swiftly as a lightning bolt: Corinthe made him feel whole again. Around her, everything made sense. He felt the awareness in his whole body, down into his fingertips.

He loved her.

She
was his Other.

He didn't know whether to feel relieved or heartbroken. She was the one—he knew that now—and he might never see her again. Gripped by twin feelings of terror and awe, he pushed his way back out of the crowd, then through the entranceway and back up through the tunnel. He needed air.

Once outside, he stood heaving, his head still thumping from the smoke and music below. At first he didn't even notice that Rhys had reappeared at his side.

Rhys leaned in close. “Need something for your head?”

Luc could smell his breath. It was clear Rhys was drunk on something. He opened his coat and reached into the inner lining to retrieve another of his vials. As he did so, the various contents of his coat caught the moonlight. One object in particular spilled out and swung from a chain attached to his waist. It reminded Luc of an antique watch, but the shape was different. Whatever it was, it looked somehow, impossibly,
familiar.

“What is that?” Luc demanded with sudden urgency.

Rhys shrugged and grabbed the swinging object in his hand. “The compass? Something I made a long time ago,” he slurred. “It was part of a pair. Worthless, I guess. It was supposed to mean something, but she lost hers—” He broke off.

“She, who?” Luc said, taking the object into his hands and turning it over.

“Miranda,” Rhys answered, his voice slurry and heavy with sadness. “Love is bigger than any of us, my boy. It follows its own rules. For love I have lost everything. Even my eyes.”

“Love made you blind?” Luc asked with uncertainty.

“Not
blind,
you fool.” Rhys suddenly swung around and grabbed Luc's shoulder. His grip was hard and firm. It was as if he were looking straight into Luc's soul. “I turned back time,” he whispered. “Not even the Unseen Ones could stop me. And it was worth it. Even though I lost her, too. …” His voice trailed off, and Luc watched him pull another vial from his coat and bring it unsteadily to his lips.