I could sense something building below, a wave of power. The marid sensed it too and it turned down and away, reaching for Anne’s body where it lay helpless on the ground.
I dived in, bringing around the sovnya, but this time the marid was ready. Another attack came swinging at me, ponderous and massive. I tried to get out of the way, but it was like trying to dodge a falling tree and it caught me a glancing blow.
My vision fuzzed out. Thoughts frayed and scattered; the jinn’s attack was striking both my body and mind and I could feel a horrible thinning sensation, as though I was fraying away thread by thread. I clung desperately to my thoughts, my feelings, everything from my memories of Anne to the fight in the shadow realm; I squeezed the sovnya in a death grip. For an endless moment, I teetered between existence and the void.
Gradually, I caught my balance. It was like wavering on the very edge of a cliff and pulling yourself back. Sight and hearing returned and I realised that both my armour and the sovnya were blazing with power; both looked weakened but they’d shared the blow, anchoring me. I looked down.
Below me was the kind of scene that you remember for the rest of your life. The marid was looming over the remains of the walls and tower, a titan of darkness, so vast that it seemed the mountains themselves had risen in anger. It was leaning downwards, its attention fixed, bringing all of its crushing power to bear – but where that power met the earth was a sphere of brilliant white-green light. Anne’s body lay unmoving on the ground, but Anne’s Elsewhere-self stood in front of it, her hand raised up in a command to halt. And the marid had halted. That globe of light looked like a marble caught beneath a giant’s hammer, but it was holding the marid back.
I took it all in in a single glance, then dived towards the marid like a thunderbolt.
The sovnya flared with a terrible joy. It tore through the marid like a lance, cutting through the jinn’s outer self and into its core.
The marid screamed, a noise beyond imagining. Walls cracked and trees shattered, and it reared back in agony.
Dark Anne’s voice rose up one last time, somehow audible over the scream. ‘Three times I bind you! By my power, by our power, by the strength of this land and earth and life! Be bound to your prison in Suleiman’s name!’ She drew a breath and when she spoke again it was with vengeful anger. ‘Get out and never come back!’
Power boomed with a clap of thunder. The marid reached down, trying to blot us from existence, but something else reached up to seize it, pulling into a vortex. The marid was drawn down into the ring, shrinking. I heard it scream, an awful sound of rage and hatred, as it was pulled in, smaller and smaller until it was a sphere of impenetrable black.
The sphere imploded and a shockwave burst out. The debris from the battle was flung away and every remaining tree had its leaves stripped from its branches in an echoing boom.
And suddenly everything was silent.
I sank from the sky, touching down on the plaza. The obsidian floor had been scoured mirror-smooth. Anne lay where I’d placed her, eyes still closed, hands still folded over her stomach, wisps of light trailing from her skin and dress. But the item in her hands . . . I couldn’t see the ring beneath her fingers, but I could feel it. It was the same feeling I’d once sensed from the monkey’s paw.
The marid was bound again.
Movement made me look up. Light Anne and Dark Anne were getting to their feet. They’d both been flung away, but they didn’t seem hurt and as they recovered they began walking back towards me. But as they drew closer to me, they drew closer to each other, and they shot each other looks and slowed until both came to a stop, the three of us forming a triangle fifteen feet on each side.
‘We actually did it,’ Dark Anne said. For once she didn’t sound flippant or angry.
‘It’s really over,’ Light Anne said.
‘No,’ I said. I looked between the two Annes. ‘There’s one last thing.’
Both Annes’ faces changed. ‘I won’t—’ one began.
‘I can’t—’ the other said.
I spoke over them both. ‘Be quiet.’
They frowned at me.
‘You do not get a vote on this,’ I said. ‘William Shakespeare himself could not find the words to express how tired I am of the both of you. I have journeyed through war and blood and death to reach you here, and after all I have sacrificed I am not going to let you pick yourselves up and do the same stupid shit all over again.’
‘We’re different people, Alex,’ Light Anne said.
‘You can’t shove us together,’ Dark Anne said.
‘For any other two people, you’d be right. But you’re not two people. You’re one person, and the only reason you stay apart is because the two of you keep it that way.’ I gestured. ‘Look around.’
Dark Anne and Light Anne did as I said, frowning. The walls around the tower had been rebuilt, sheer and tall once again. So had the tower itself. Hardly any time had gone by, but it was as though the battle with the jinn had never happened.
‘You told me, when we first met,’ I said to Dark Anne. ‘The very first words out of your mouth. You said those walls were to keep things in. But that was only half true, wasn’t it? You fight just as hard to keep her out.’
‘Can’t we just go home?’ Light Anne said.
‘In fact, you two are so split that when I take you into Elsewhere, you can’t even occupy your own body.’ I gestured back to where Anne’s body lay, its eyes still closed. ‘Which is bad for a lot of reasons, but right now, the most relevant one is that it means you can’t defend yourself very well.’
‘From what?’ Dark Anne said sharply.
I met her eyes, then raised one hand.
It was Dr Shirland who’d given me the clue to figure it out. Anne’s two halves weren’t different people: they were just two parts of her that wanted incompatible things. On its own, that was nothing special. But just at the age where Anne should have been dealing with that, when she should have been coming to understand herself, Sagash had captured her and taken her to his castle, and he’d hurt her badly enough that she couldn’t handle the things she’d had to do.
So Anne had turned to Elsewhere, sealing off the parts of herself she couldn’t accept. Aggression, self-interest, short-term desire – she’d poured them all into this tower, into her other self. But Elsewhere couldn’t actually change her into a different person; the most it could do was keep the two halves of her personality apart. The two Annes weren’t meant to be separate – they were drawn together like opposite poles of a magnet, and the only reason they hadn’t merged long ago was because they were both using Elsewhere to maintain the barrier that held the other at arm’s length.
And if that barrier was created in Elsewhere, it could be destroyed in Elsewhere.
Realisation flashed into Dark Anne’s eyes. ‘Wait—’
The walls and the tower were a part of Anne. It had been easy to spot, once I’d thought to look for it. They existed both outside her, and within the mind of the girl behind me. I focused my will, took a deep breath and prayed with all my heart that this was going to work.
Then I snapped my fingers and wiped the barrier from existence.
Both Annes cried out in shock. The tower and the walls burst, shattering into a million pieces that flared into nothingness. The two Annes were pulled towards each other, their cries ringing out in stereo, their bodies thinning and fading. As they did, Anne’s Elsewhere dissolved around us, and both Anne and I fell into nothingness.