The kiss went on a few moments and then they parted. Kitsune glanced over to see surprise on Oliver’s face. He shifted and looked awkwardly away. After a moment, he smiled slightly, and she knew he was happy for her.
“Go, Kit. I’ll miss you.”
“And you, mongrel.”
Coyote laughed and waved to her, smoking his cigarette as he went off down the hill the way Cronus had gone. He seemed light of heart, mischievous as ever, but there was something quite final about his last words to her, as though he expected them to be a true and permanent good-bye.
Blue Jay smiled when he saw Oliver and Kitsune come over the top of the ridge.
“All right,” he said, turning to the others. “Let’s get this done.”
Cheval rose up from the grass as though floating. She touched Grin’s face tenderly, smiling, and then they joined Blue Jay and the Nagas, who had gathered there on the hillside. Distant cries carried over the hill, muffled and so far away. They could almost have pretended the war didn’t exist, though it was just over the hill. They could have walked away. But the time for walking away had passed a long, long time ago.
Li rose from the burnt patch of grass where he’d been playing with a tiger cub he’d created from fire. With a gesture, he absorbed the fire-construct into the charred tips of his fingers and turned to walk over to Blue Jay as though there was nothing at all odd about this, as though he had not a care in the world. As though his heart was not shattered.
Li shot a grave look from those burning ember eyes at Wayland Smith. The Wayfarer stood away from them all, gazing into the sky to the north, back to the Borderkind, and the hill, and the war. He seemed almost to be waiting for a sign, or searching the clouds for angels to descend.
“Smith,” Blue Jay said. “Are you ready?”
The trickster resisted the urge to call the Wayfarer “Uncle,” as some of his kin did. Whatever Smith was, Blue Jay felt sure the tricksters had chosen him as a relation by sheer accident, or by Smith’s own manipulation.
“Hmm?” He turned, eyes hidden in the shadow of his broad-brimmed hat. “Oh, yes. Ready whenever you are.”
But there was something off about the Wayfarer. Blue Jay couldn’t put his finger on precisely what troubled him. Perhaps it was the way he held his cane, as though he thought he might need it at any moment to fight off an attack, or if it was just the way he seemed so apart from the rest of them. Smith seemed so distant it was almost as if the conflict that unfolded here, the broken truce, the deceit of Atlantis, the murder of King Mahacuhta, concerned him not at all. It almost seemed Smith wasn’t of this world.
“Oliver’s here,” Blue Jay said.
The Wayfarer blinked. He stroked his beard and glanced over at Oliver and Kitsune, who hurried now to join the gathered Borderkind.
“So he is,” Smith replied. He nodded, raising his cane to draw their attention, even though his own attention seemed to wander. His eyes focused for the first time in minutes and he studied first Blue Jay, then Kitsune, and finally Oliver.
“Gather round, then,” said Wayland Smith. “Like the campfire. Gather round.”
The strangest look came over his face. Blue Jay saw Oliver’s eyes narrow and knew he’d thought it odd as well.
As Kitsune greeted the others-though Grin was the only one to give her a warm welcome-Jay sidled over to Oliver. He slid his hands into the pockets of his blue jeans, the heels of his boots digging into soil made soft by a recent rain.
“Change of heart?” he asked.
“Julianna thought she should have a chance to fix things,” Oliver replied.
Blue Jay raised an eyebrow. “Are things fixable?”
Oliver thought on that a moment. “My sister shattered an antique perfume bottle of my mother’s one time. Pink glass. The stopper was a glass butterfly. My mother collected the things, but that one was her favorite. She glued it back together, but you could always see the cracks and there were a couple of chips from bits we never could find. Probably got vacuumed up. Most things can be put back together, but that doesn’t mean they can be fixed.”
Blue Jay watched him curiously for a moment. For the first time, he realized that this was not at all the same man he had first met in the Mazikeen’s garden under the streets of Perinthia. In a way, Oliver was like his mother’s perfume bottle. He’d been broken and put back together in a way that would never be quite the same. Yet in Oliver’s case, it wasn’t a matter of being fixed. The man he’d become was an improvement, cracks and missing chips and all.
“Saw you kiss Julianna good-bye,” the trickster said.
Oliver smiled. “And Damia? Did you give her a good-bye kiss?”
An icy chill spider-walked down Blue Jay’s spine. “She refused. Said good-bye was for people who weren’t going to see each other at bedtime.”
They were interrupted then by Smith, who called again for them to gather round. Gather round like a campfire. Oliver and Blue Jay joined Li, Grin, Cheval, Kitsune, and the Nagas in a circle around the Wayfarer. He leaned on his cane, fingers curled around the bronze fox-head, and one by one he looked at them.
“Those of you who are Borderkind have traveled between worlds before. What we are about to do is similar, but not precisely the same. We will not be stepping from one world to the next, but walking a Gray Corridor, a space between worlds. This is why I am called the Wayfarer, the Traveler, and other names in other places. You’ll form a line. Grip the shoulder or the arm or the hand of whoever is in front of you, and do not let go. If you do, you will likely be lost forever in the Gray Corridors. Borderkind or not. This is not the Veil. The magic that makes you Borderkind will have no effect.
“Li, if you intend to journey with us, you will have to withdraw the fire from your hands so that you will not burn whoever precedes you.”
The Guardian of Fire nodded. It occurred to Blue Jay then that Li had not spoken in a very long time. He wondered if the burning man could still speak at all, or if the fire had seared his voice from his throat.
Li lifted his right hand. He stared at it a moment, brow knitting in consternation. After several moments, the flames retreated. What remained was blackened and cracked skin with pink raw flesh showing in between tiles of char.
Cheval looked kindly upon him and reached out. Gratefully, Li grasped her hand. Quickly, they formed a chain. Oliver drifted away from Smith, positioning himself amongst the Nagas, and Blue Jay was left to connect them to the Wayfarer himself.
“Don’t let go,” Smith said, eyes hard.
Blue Jay said nothing. After a moment, the Wayfarer nodded.
“The walk will take some little time. Minutes. Be patient, but also, be ready. When we arrive, it will be suddenly, and there is no way to know what will be waiting for us.”
“Get on with it,” Oliver said. “We’ve been spoiling for a fight for a long time.”
Wayland Smith held his cane in one hand and Blue Jay’s grip in the other. Smith took a single step forward. Jay felt his hand jerk slightly to the right, and then the world fell away around them.
“What the hell?” the trickster muttered.
“Don’t let go!” he heard Kitsune cry.
Smith paused and glanced back to be sure no one had been lost. Blue Jay felt his stomach twisting with the terrible sense of dislocation. He had not even taken a step himself. He’d lifted one scuffed cowboy boot and when it came down, he’d been here, wherever the hell here was. Gray mist drifted around them. The path was solid beneath his soles and his heels didn’t sink in the way they had into the rain-sodden hillside.
“Follow,” Smith said, and he started off.
Stunned into silence, perhaps afraid, no one spoke a word. Their strange parade followed along behind the Wayfarer without argument or hesitation. They passed hundreds of side paths, little ribbon trails that led off either side, into the mist. The first few times that Smith guided them into one of these turns, traveling paths that seemed barely there, Blue Jay tried to keep track, but soon he could not. Lefts and rights blurred together.