It was Nim.
Hope.
The Seven golden figures closed in on the girl. The three Stones still hovered above her.
“It’s Nim!” Deirdre called out. “She’s the catalyst.”
She felt Beltan’s and Travis’s startled gazes on her. Beltan tried to swipe the dagger from Phoebe’s hand, but he still moved stiffly, and she was nimbler than the other Philosophers. She darted past him, then grabbed Nim, holding the dagger above the girl.
“Stop!”
The Sleeping Ones seemed to understand her. They ceased moving a few steps from Nim, their faces still serene, expressionless. Travis and Beltan lunged forward, but Phoebe glared at them.
She did not have the power to cast her spell, not fully, but there was still some malice in her gaze. Both Travis and Beltan staggered back, and Deirdre knew a chill like that in her own arm had touched them. However, in the time it took Phoebe to work her magic, Grace had closed the distance. She reached for the dagger.
Deirdre didn’t will herself to run forward. Instead, she seemed to float over the floor. She was so light, so empty, like a bauble of spun glass. The air continued to ripple, so quickly now that with each blink of the eye the world seemed to change. London. Morindu. Again, and again, until the two blurred together, becoming one. . . .
Phoebe slashed with the dagger. A line of red appeared on Grace’s arm. Grace staggered back, outside the circle of the Seven. Phoebe’s lips curled in a smile. Nim gazed up, her face a white oval. The dagger flashed, then sank deep into flesh.
“Oh,” Deirdre said softly.
Phoebe stepped back, a look of annoyance on her face. Nim’s cheeks were streaked with tears, but she made no sound. Deirdre smiled down at the girl, to tell her not to cry. Then she saw it: The hilt of the dagger jutted from Deirdre’s stomach. Nim hesitated, then reached out and touched Deirdre’s hand.
Deirdre saw it at once: the shimmering web of the Weirding. She could see–no, could feel–Travis and Beltan staring, shock on their faces. Not far away, Larad was regaining his feet. And Hadrian and Vani, though still in stasis, were unhurt.
I wish I could talk to you Hadrian. You finally did it–you had a Class Zero Encounter.
But so had she, Deirdre supposed. The room around them was still a blur, changing so quickly that it was both London and Morindu, both Earth and Eldh, at once.
Oh, Deirdre, Grace’s voice sounded in her mind, trembling with sorrow.
I see, Grace.A feeling of exhilaration filled Deirdre. The Stones hovered before her. The Seven golden figures stepped forward. I see everything.
Grace’s voice hummed over the shimmering threads. You would have made a good witch, Deirdre.
Thank you, Deirdre wanted to say.
Only then the Seven took another step, closing the circle. She was aware of Phoebe trying to push them back, to break the circle, but Grace stuck out a foot, tripping her, and Phoebe went down, her black veil tangling around her.
Nim tried to pull her hand free, but Deirdre held her tight. Don’t be afraid, she tried to murmur. The catalyst doesn’t change. That’s what Sister Mirrim told Hadrian.
She didn’t know if she spoke, or if she sent the words along the Weirding, but either way Nim stopped struggling and stood still. The Seven reached out gold hands, laying them against the girl. The three Stones descended, alighting on Nim’s outstretched hands.
The melded vision of Earth and Eldh vanished, replaced by darkness–pure, flawless darkness, stretching into eternity. It was like the primordial vacuum, the empty space that constantly spawned pairs of virtual particles. It was the nothingness in whose very emptiness lay coiled the potential for everything. It was the silence before the word, the slumber before the dream.
It was hope.
With her last thought, Deirdre Falling Hawk sent everything she saw, everything she sensed and understood, in a pulse along the Weirding, toward the green‑gold strand she knew belonged to Grace.
It’s so beautiful!
Then she gazed into ancient black eyes, and the nothingness that had brought her into being claimed her once again.
48.
Travis was cold. So terribly cold.
He was a planet, spinning alone out in space. The sun he had been bound to had vanished. Its light and life‑giving warmth were gone, and there was nothing to hold him down, nothing to keep him from spinning off into the dark, endless Void alone. . . .
“Travis?” a voice murmured. “Travis, can you hear me?”
The voice was warm and familiar, like the memory of the sun. In the darkness, two lights appeared. They were stars, each as green as a summer forest. He let the stars pull him in with their gravity.
“Please, Travis. I know you’re still in there. Talk to me.”
The stars grew brighter, closer. Only they weren’t stars, he realized. They were eyes.
Grace Beckett’s eyes.
A shuddering breath rushed into him, and Travis sat up.
“Grace?”
She was kneeling beside him, along with Beltan. Vani, Nim, Larad, and Hadrian Farr stood close by. Beyond them, the dim air flickered, as if lit by a lamp swinging on a chain.
Grace smiled, a look of relief on her face. “There you are, my friend.”
Beltan gripped his hand. “You scared me. I thought after all this that . . . I thought you weren’t going to . . .” The blond man pressed his lips together and shook his head.
Sorrow pierced Travis’s heart. Why was Beltan so sad? Travis tried to think back, to remember what had happened. It was hard. He felt thin and hollow, like a candy wrapper with nothing good left inside. Only that wasn’t completely true. He still felt good when he looked at Beltan, and Grace, and Nim. They all looked well and whole, though Grace did have a small cut on her arm.
“What happened?” he said. For some reason, he couldn’t stop shivering.
“There’s no magic,” Farr said. His face was haggard, haunted, but there was a note of wonder in his voice. “It’s gone. The Imsari and the morndariwere what brought it into being in the first place. When the Stones and the Seven came in contact, when they eliminated one another, magic ceased to be. We feared you would share their fate.”
Travis frowned at him. “Share whose fate?”
Farr stepped aside and gestured to something on the floor. It was a heap of black cloth–a robe. Shriveled hands jutted from the sleeves of the robe, skeletal fingers curving like claws. A black veil half concealed a skull stretched with withered skin.
It was Phoebe.
Travis started to stand. He was still shaking, and would have fallen, but Grace and Beltan helped him. Beyond Phoebe, he saw the other five on the floor. All of them were dried mummies.
“The Philosophers,” Travis said, the words a croak.
Farr stood above the mummy that had been Phoebe. “It was magic that sustained their lives all these centuries. Drinking the blood of the Seven gave them the gift of immortality. Once the Seven were no more, that gift was taken away.”
Travis swallowed hard. “And you thought . . . you thought the same had happened to me.”
“We didn’t know,” Grace said. “Orъ’s blood hadn’t extended your life, at least not yet, but it hadchanged you. You collapsed at the same moment the Philosophers did, and we feared the worst.”