“That was before you had the fateweaver.”
“The fateweaver was big, but it wasn’t enough,” I said. “Sure, it’s powerful, but Richard’s gone up against plenty of people with raw power and come out ahead. I knew I needed something more. So I turned things around. I started thinking about how I’d beat myself. I thought back over all the times that my divination hadn’t worked, and looked at all the things they had in common. And there were three. Sometimes I couldn’t predict someone’s actions at all, either because they were deciding on the spur of the moment or because they were just too unstable. Sometimes I could predict what was happening, but didn’t have the power to do anything about it. And finally, there were times when I was caught out looking in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“So which one did you go for?” Luna asked.
“All of them at once,” I said. “I got Richard to focus on me when he should have been watching Rachel and Meredith. Once Rachel took her shot, I used the fateweaver to make sure it’d hit. And Richard wasn’t able to see it coming far enough away, because it was Rachel. She’s always been a nightmare for me to predict because she’s so crazy.”
“So that was what that dragon was getting at with that prophecy.”
I nodded. “With anyone else, it wouldn’t have worked. Either they wouldn’t have been unstable enough to snap the way she did, or Richard wouldn’t have trusted them enough to turn his back on them. Rachel was just the right combination of close enough and unbalanced enough. And with Meredith’s magic, they couldn’t see what was happening until it was too late.”
“Can’t believe she was actually useful.” Luna thought for a moment. “I’m still not sure if we won. I mean, on one level, I guess you did. You finally did what the Council’s been failing at for years. You screwed up Richard’s plans. He’s been working towards getting Anne on his side for God knows how long, and when he finally does it, you break her free.”
“But?”
“But . . .” Luna trailed off. “I don’t know. I know it’s silly, but I guess I was hoping that once Richard’s control was gone, she’d come back.”
I didn’t answer. A part of me had been hoping the same thing.
“How did you know you’d have so much time?” Luna said, returning to her original question. “I mean, the only reason it worked was because Richard let you stand there and talk.”
“Actually, that was the one thing I wasn’t worried about. I knew he was going to hear me out.”
“But he had to know you had some kind of agenda.”
“Of course he did,” I said. “I was being careful not to tell any blatant lies, and I was keeping my surface thoughts focused so Crystal couldn’t get wind of what I was doing. But there was no way Richard was going to trust me. He knew I was playing some sort of game.”
“So why did he let you do it?” Luna said.
“Because he was sure he was going to win,” I said. “Because he’d always won before. When someone loses to you nineteen times in a row, then comes back and sits down at the table yet again, you don’t chase him off. You laugh and get ready to take his money for the twentieth time. Every single time I’d tried to outsmart Richard, I’d lost. Except this one.”
“I don’t think I’d have had the nerve,” Luna admitted.
“It’s a lot easier to face your fears once you’ve got something you care about more than yourself.” I glanced through the futures. “We should get moving.”
We changed direction, angling through the woods until the trees parted before us to reveal the clearing with Karyos’s cocoon. “How long?” Luna asked.
“More than two minutes, less than ten,” I said. “But there’s no violence. Whatever kind of state she’s going to be in, she’ll be willing to talk at least.”
“I wish Vari could be here.”
“Yeah, that’s not going to happen,” I said. Variam had been almost completely out of contact since last night. “They just had a member of the Senior Council killed in a straight-up attack. I don’t think that’s happened since the Gate Rune War. They’re going to be in full-on emergency mode, and once they figure out I had something to do with it—which they will—then they’ll come after me twice as hard. I don’t think Vari’s going to be able to come back here anytime soon.”
“It feels wrong,” Luna said. “Vari was here when we won this shadow realm. He ought to be here for the end.”
“I think it’s going to be more and more dangerous for Vari to have anything to do with me,” I said. “For him to keep seeing you will be hard enough.”
Luna made a face. “No Arachne, no Anne, no Vari. Starting to feel a bit lonely around here.”
There was a cracking sound from the cocoon. We both turned to look.
A fracture had appeared in the curved surface, and as we watched there was another crack and the fracture widened. Although the cocoon was wood, the way it broke made me think of an egg. The cracks spread across its surface, and the top near the trunk began to peel away. A hand appeared, then Karyos stood up, the cocoon unfolding like the petals of a flower.
She didn’t look like a hamadryad. She looked like an eight-year-old girl. Maybe her skin was a shade of gold not quite natural for a human, and maybe her brown hair had a suggestion of bark, but there was no trace of the monstrosity of roots and thorns that we’d fought in the Hollow on our first meeting. She swayed on unsteady legs, and had to catch the cocoon to stop herself from falling.
“Welcome back, Karyos,” I said. “Can you understand us?”
Karyos looked at us both uncertainly. “Who are you?” she asked in slow, accented English.
“I’m Luna,” Luna said with a friendly smile and a wave. “Hey.”
“And I’m Alex,” I said. “We’re your . . . well, guardians, I guess. At least for now.”
Karyos looked around, turning her head as if searching for something. “Is something wrong?” Luna asked.
“There was . . . someone else,” Karyos said haltingly. “I felt her. When I was growing.”
Luna started to reply, then looked at me. I hesitated a moment before answering. “She’s not here anymore.”
Hampstead Heath was warm in the afternoon sun. Carried on the wind, I could hear the sounds of people talking, children playing, the barking of dogs. It felt like a different world.
The ravine where Arachne had lived was cordoned off with blue-and-white tape marked POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS, swaying gently in the breeze. I ducked under the tape and climbed down into the ravine. The entrance to Arachne’s cave gaped open with more tape blocking it.
The tunnel felt cool and gloomy after the bright daylight outside. I walked blind down the slope, my feet falling automatically into the old familiar path. My footsteps echoed as I came out into the cavern. Guided by my magic, I walked to one of the walls, touched one of the sphere lights, and channelled.
Light bloomed, revealing devastation. Arachne’s lair had been torn apart, bolts of cloth shaken out and trampled, cushions cut open, furniture overturned and splintered. Everything valuable had been looted, and the debris scattered. I walked slowly through the wreckage until I found the sofa where I used to sit. It had been knocked over, the bottom slashed open with the stuffing pulled out. I bent down and righted it, then sat down in my old place. The springs sagged.