First Light (44 page)

“I’ve brought your supper.” Zipporah, the fairy I’d seen the least of the past three days, appeared suddenly, a steaming tray in her hands.

I hardly spared it a glance. “Thank you. Perhaps I’ll eat later.”

“Of course you won’t.” Zipporah nudged a toadstool with one of her enchanted shoes, so that the mushroom grew to the size of a regular chair. She perched herself on it and fixed her gaze upon me. “You haven’t eaten at all since your return. Florence’s tea is well and fine, but you’re going to waste away without some food, too. That’s no way for the future queen of Canelia to act. You’ve got to keep yourself healthy if you want to bear children someday.”

“Zipporah!” Tears sprang to my eyes at her suggestion that I should ever marry someone besides Cristian. “There will be no children.”

“Then Nadamaris won.”

“Of course she did.” I wiped my nose and stared at Cristian. “Look at him.”

“I am. I see he is holding on as long as possible, waiting for you to figure out a way to save him. Best hurry though.”

“A way—” My heart leapt with hope. “But Merry Anne said that there is nothing I can do.”

“Not alone, perhaps, but… What is in your hand?”

I held it out to her, unfolding my palm to reveal the pearl, luminescent as ever. Perhaps Gemine’s mother had cast a spell to make it glow. “It’s from the gypsies. Gemine wanted me to believe I could wish Cristian well with it.”

“No, no.” Zipporah fluttered her fingers impatiently. “That won’t work. Black magic is stronger, you know.”

“Yes.” I did know. I’d been told as much by Merry Anne, but for a moment, I’d believed Zipporah had come to tell me otherwise.

“Have you any idea all the running around
backward
that I had to do to retrace your steps to find that pearl?”

I furrowed my brow in confusion. “I don’t understand. And I’m too weary for fairy talk. If you cannot speak clearly—”

“Humans,” Zipporah muttered. She rose from the stool and began pacing. “If you’d only allow your imaginations to stretch a little, you wouldn’t need so many things explained so
slowly.
But never mind. Listen well.” She clasped her hands together.

“I knew your pearl had been lost. The one Nadamaris knocked from your hand in the garden wasn’t real, so I knew the real one had to be somewhere. If I could find—”

“The pearl I had in the garden
wasn’t
real?” I interrupted her.

“Of course not,” she said. “You know that. It didn’t work when you tried to wish you and Cristian to safety.”

“But
he
used it,” I argued. Though I’d been near death, I’d heard Cristian’s wish clearly. And I’d seen the pearl in his hand when that wish succeeded in bringing me back among the living.

“Ah—” A sly smile lit Zipporah’s face. “Wasn’t that so clever of Merry Anne? She couldn’t have given him the real pearl of course, even if she’d had it.
You
would have had to give it to him for the magic to work.”

Memory jolted my brain, and I recalled the gypsies’ conversation around the campfire. I hadn’t known the worth of the bracelet that night, but I’d learned that its magic would not work for another if I had not given the pearls freely. So how— or what— had worked for Cristian?

Zipporah read the questions flying through my mind. “It was not an enchanted pearl at all, merely a poor replacement put there by Gemine when he took the real one.”

“But Cristian didn’t know that,” I said.

“Correct.” Zipporah bounced up on the balls of her feet. “Nadamaris died before you— before her curse could be completely binding. And when Cristian saw the pearl, he
believed
it was magic. He loved you so much that he had faith in whatever miracle was needed to bring you back. He drew on the greatest gift and power anyone can ever have— love.”

“Then why is it not enough for me to save him?”

“But it is.” Zipporah’s eyes twinkled as Merry Anne’s often had.

She had my full attention now.

“I knew that if I ran back in time far enough, I’d find the real pearl. So I did, following you back the way you’d come— through those nasty trees and everything.” She shuddered. “And I saw Gemine take the pearl from you. Once I knew where it was, I hurried back to today, found him, and gave him a talking to. But truthfully, he didn’t need it. He was already on his way to find you.”

“Wait a minute.” My head was spinning as I tried to take in all she’d said. I held a hand up, hoping to stop her from saying any more quite yet. “You went back in time?”

She grinned. “I did. I’m sure-footed and swift. It’s my talent.” She held out her foot, flexing it, showing off her shoes again. “Speed. It’s wonderful.”

I stood and faced her. “You went back and didn’t save Cristian?”

“I couldn’t,” Zipporah said. “Against the rules. Fairies shall only use their gifts to
assist
humans. Under no circumstances shall a fairy alter or interfere with nature, fate, time—”

“I get it,” I snapped. But in spite of her words, new hope was burgeoning. “You gave me the same gift. Does that mean—”

“Oh no.” Zipporah shook her head. “You’ve a portion of my gift, but you’d have to be a fairy to go as fast as I can, to run backward or forward through time.”

I closed my eyes, feeling crushed with grief all over again.

“But you have the pearl now.” She took my hands, squeezing them gently. I opened my eyes and looked into her face, alight with joy— joy I still didn’t understand.

“It cannot wish one back from the dead.” I repeated one of the first things Merry Anne had explained about the bracelet’s magic.

“Cristian is not dead. If he was, you might see him alive again in the past, but the outcome would be the same. Though his death might be different, the laws of nature dictate that he would still have to die before you caught up with the present once more.”

“A pearl cannot overcome a magic more powerful, a black magic, as was used to curse the sword,” I recited.

“True.” Zipporah nodded sagely. “You’ve listened well.”

“Then how can the pearl— what good is it?"

“It is perfectly, tremendously good— at taking one to another place or—
time.”

She watched me closely as her words sank in.
Another time.
“I
can
go back!”

“Yes.” She released my hands and shrank to her fairy form. “You can return in time to a point before Cristian used the sword. But that will also mean returning to face Nadamaris again, for she will be restored— at least temporarily— as well. And if you face her again, the outcome may yet be different.”

Of course it would be different. Cristian would live!

“You may die, Adrielle.” Zipporah hovered in the air, directly in front of me. Her tone was serious, her tiny face grave. “And Cristian may die, too. If you return, there are no guarantees. All of Canelia may yet be lost.”

All of Canelia.
While I had spent the past days weeping, there had been much rejoicing throughout the land. Nadamaris was gone, the drought lifted, the people free. In reversing time, I would jeopardize all of this.

“But if I don’t return, Cristian
will
die.”

Zipporah nodded. “Do you love him enough to risk his death a second time? To risk your own?”

“Yes.” It was an easy choice, the only choice.

“Then choose your moment carefully, Adrielle, and choose it soon. Cristian has but one hour to live. If you do not go back before then, he will be lost.”

The next forty-six minutes were some of the most agonizing of my life as I clutched the pearl in my fist and held it close to my heart, thinking through the wonderful, awful choice I must make. Zipporah flew by every so often to check on Cristian and tell me how much time remained.

What at first had seemed a simple thing— to wish to return to a moment before Cristian touched the sword— was, in fact, rather complicated. If I didn’t go back far enough, the same thing might happen again. But if I went back in time
too
far, any number of events might occur— many of them altering the future for the worse.

The power I held in my hand was terrifying, and I understood why Merry Anne had not mentioned this possibility before. Had I known of it earlier, when I first had the pearls, I might have wished to return home, to see my parents once more.

What is to stop me from wishing for that now?
A shudder rippled down my spine. Zipporah had said that— as owner of the enchanted pearl— I was the only one who would remember that I had gone back, who would remember time as it previously was, before my wish. If I returned home, I could right the wrongs I’d done, and I could still save Cristian— and see my parents, too. I could save them from suffering. And
they
wouldn’t realize I was saving them, wouldn’t know all that they’d already endured, because their memories would be gone.

My heart felt tender as I thought of my parents, of the possibility of seeing them alive again. I could return to the morning Mother and I argued over the silver. Instead of disagreeing with her, I’d listen to everything she said. I’d help her, insist she rest, mix her the medicines that would prolong her life.
For how long?

Ignoring that troublesome question, I imagined talking to Papa, feeling his arms around me in one of his great hugs. I wouldn’t leave him alone by the fire at night; Nadamaris’s mercenaries wouldn’t murder him.
Would they continue searching and find me instead?

And if they did, what could become of Cristian? Of all of Canelia?

How easily I might change the future— for the worse.

With much sorrow, I pulled my thoughts from home, from the possibility of seeing my parents. Traveling back in time that far was too great a risk. I hadn’t met Cristian then, and if something happened to either of us before we did… That possibility I could not bear.

I thought of returning to the moment before the gypsies discovered Hale and me in the forest. I’d convince Hale to come with me to Castle Canelia, and there we would plot with Cristian and Cecilia to overthrow Nadamaris. Hale wouldn’t suffer at his mother’s hand; Cristian would live. It was the perfect moment to return to, except… Nadamaris would have already seen my fire by then and would have discovered my true identity.

I buried my face in my hands.
There is no perfect time to return to.

“Of course there isn’t,” Zipporah said, having read my thoughts as she fluttered by. “In going back, you’re not only granting Cristian life again, but returning Nadamaris to power as well.” Zipporah hovered in the air above me. I lifted my face to look at her.

“You defeated her once,” she reminded me. “At a great cost. But in facing her again, the price may be heavier yet. Have you the courage?”

I wanted to tell her I did but instead fought with the lump of fear that had formed in my throat. Nadamaris had butchered Hale, encased me in metal, and made herself into a dragon that tortured Cristian. What might we have to face if I brought her to life again?

“What is your greatest wish, Adrielle?” Zipporah asked. “And is it stronger than your greatest fear?”

“I must save Cristian,” I said without hesitation. “He has to live.
I
cannot live without him.” I knew what I spoke was true. Peace settled in my troubled heart. I did have courage.

“Then make your wish, my dear.” Zipporah flew away, leaving us alone.

I looked down upon Cristian, my best friend, my family now, my future. I concentrated all the love I’d ever felt, all the hope I had, all the faith that we were meant to be together into the pearl in my hand.

And wished to return to the most perfect moment of my life.

“Have you lost something— like your mind?” The words rolled from my lips as they had once before, five nights earlier. I’d uttered my wish— to return to the moment before he kissed me for the first time— and blinked, and here we were in Canelia’s secret garden.

“I fear I’ve lost much more than that.” Cristian’s finger traced my cheek, and my face tingled, the warmth spreading like fire through the rest of my body. I stepped back, and my heel bumped against a tree trunk. I couldn’t take my eyes from him, whole and healthy, that mischievous, devil-may-care look upon his face.