“Does it feel the same for everyone? I mean, do you love your sister the same way you love that girl on the boat?” she asked.
His eyes flashed. For a second, he looked angry. Then, to her surprise, he smiled.
“No, it’s not the same. I thought … Look, I didn’t love Karen. I knew we were too different to last. I trusted her, I let her in, and she messed with me. I was pissed. But I can live without Karen. I can’t live without my sister. She’s all I have. Literally.”
“What about your father?” she prodded.
In Pyralis, the Fates just existed with no beginning or end. There were no parents, no families. They called each other sisters, though there was no real relation.
“My father stopped caring a long time ago,” Luc said, pushing to his feet abruptly.
Corinthe watched his fingers curl into fists at his side and he clenched his jaw, making the muscles there flex and jump. “Ever since, you know. My mother.” He stopped to clear his throat. “He loved her, probably. I used to. But now … I don’t know. Love changes, I guess; people change. Nothing lasts forever.” His voice broke.
“But how can you go on, believing that?” she asked. He was right, of course—humans didn’t live forever—but also completely wrong. He was so innocent, so fragile in that moment that it made Corinthe’s chest ache. The universe was so much wilder and greater than Luc could possibly imagine, and she wished she could convey this to him somehow. That there were some things that lasted.
He shook his head. “All that matters is right here, right now. Making sure you have one more day, then one more after that.”
For the first time in her life, Corinthe truly understood what being mortal meant. And for her, now, there might not be a tomorrow. The hornets’ venom was still working inside her body. She would die if she couldn’t reach Pyralis in time.
There was a weight in her stomach, a curdling sense of guilt. Yes, guilt. Because she knew Luc trusted her.
It killed her a little inside to think that she would have to betray him.
They continued forward through the fog. It grew darker, and a wind picked up, so that the mist lashed around their ankles, cold and wet, like weeds. With the wind came whispers, strains of music and laughter, as the sounds of other worlds blew back to them. It was so dark Corinthe couldn’t see.
The wind crested to a howl; mist swirled around them like a blizzard. Had they at last reached the Crossroad?
“Luc!” she cried out, suddenly fearful that she had lost him.
Her voice sounded thin in the vast darkness. She reached for him, and he took her hand and squeezed.
“We’ll be okay,” he said, and she knew he was trying to act brave for her sake. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
A gust bigger than all the rest swept through the blackness, forcing them apart. Corinthe felt her fingers—frigid, stiff, and clumsy—slip from Luc’s grasp. Inch by inch, they slipped apart as the wind became a tornado, freezing Corinthe’s insides, turning her to ice.
“I can’t hold on!” she shouted to Luc.
“I’ve got you!” But he didn’t. He tried to grab for an arm, but it was too late: inside she felt frozen, couldn’t feel the beat of her own heart. It hurt to move, to breathe, even to think. As his fingers brushed her arm, she watched in horror while her skin began to shatter.
The last thing she heard was Luc shouting her name.
For several seconds, she did not exist. Not really. She had been blown apart, shattered into uncountable pieces. She couldn’t feel her body. She was nothingness.
And then, slowly, a pulse came through her and she was able to move. She was shaking, but she was whole. She could feel her arms and legs again. The shattering … it had been an illusion, but she’d felt it. Like the universe itself, she was losing equilibrium, becoming both Corinthe and not-Corinthe at the same time.
One way or another, this was all going to end, and soon. No one got this many chances.
She fought to keep her balance as she took in her surroundings. The ground under her feet was trembling violently, and it was hard to stand. She was on the roof of a concrete building. It appeared to be the very rooftop where she’d first arrived in Humana so many years ago—and where she and Luc had faced off—but she couldn’t tell if this was actually the same San Francisco or just another alternate world.
Not until she saw Luc’s Giants cap lying in the corner where he’d dropped it.
This was San Francisco.
“Luc?” She turned around, searching for him. A low rumble started again, and the entire building shook. Corinthe heard screams and sirens from somewhere down on the street.
Where was Luc?
The roof was starting to splinter and crack. She had to get down to the street before the building collapsed. The red roof-access door was jammed, and it took all of Corinthe’s waning strength to pull it open on its bent frame.
Another, harder aftershock rocked the building, and Corinthe slammed into the interior wall so hard it knocked her down several steps. She felt a sharp pain in her ankle as her foot twisted beneath her. Plaster rained down from the ceiling, and smoke started to fill the small space.
Earthquake. Had to be. She’d experienced several of them in San Francisco, but none this severe.
She stood and held on to the iron railing that ran the length of the steps, then put a little weight on her ankle to test it. It held. If she was careful, she could walk on it.
She gritted her teeth and took the steps one by one, hobbling the best she could. Her ankle didn’t feel broken, but it hurt worse than the smoke burning her lungs and eyes. Limping and coughing, she pushed herself down the last few steps and shoved the heavy double doors open. She felt as if she’d stepped into one of the nightmares she’d heard humans describe, an awful vision of chaos.
Out on the street, people stumbled out of doors, pushing past her. A child with huge eyes glanced back at her, a tiny trickle of blood running down her temple. The mother jerked her around a corner before Corinthe could react. No one stopped to ask Corinthe if she needed help; most didn’t even look at her.
She glanced around. Whole buildings had toppled, leaving piles of concrete and iron in the street. Power wires were down, sparking in puddles of liquid. Plumes of smoke billowed toward the sky, filling the air with a dusklike darkness.
This was her fault. She had disturbed the balance of the universe. All fate was intertwined; the universe was too tightly woven. By pulling on one strand, she had begun to unravel all of the others.
A radio crackled from a car that sat deserted on the street.
Confirmed 7.9.
Extensive devastation.
Multiple casualties.
Bruised people stumbled by, looking dazed. A child bawled in her mother’s arms. A man was shouting into a cell phone, and a teenage girl was crying, sitting on the stoop of a house whose roof had collapsed.
The streets were congested, full of abandoned cars and rubble. Fire trucks and police cars wove around the debris, sirens wailing. Down the block, she could see forked tongues of fire licking from the windows of an apartment building.
Blindly, Corinthe began to hobble through the mess. Halfway across the next block, she tripped over something. A leg. It was protruding from underneath a large pile of bricks. There was no shoe on the foot, but Corinthe knew the body was a woman’s; she could even make out the pink nail polish underneath the opaque stocking, the dainty toes.
Corinthe’s stomach flipped. She thought she was going to be sick. Death had never affected her this way before, another indication that she was becoming more like them. It was wrong. The chaos was all wrong.