My beloved, he hasn’t yet risen to the sky. Yet, where there should be but dark, a faintest silvery glow emerges. It finds its way into the room through the crack in the glass, the gap between the planks, past the open curtains. “Our father showed me something that for a long while only confused me. But I just realized what he might have meant. That is, I’m pretty sure I know what he was after.”
The silvery light draws me toward it. My sisters and Olesia hear the call, too. It can be but a message from our father, for we are all his daughters.
“When I read the scriptures, I came across a spell that might enable me to change the souls between two willing bodies.” Sibilia glances at Alina and Merile, and then… at the two dogs. No wonder that my sister is hesitant. Her idea is straight out of a children’s story. “He has shown me the dogs running through the forest, following the magpie. I think that…”
She doesn’t need to say more. She is suggesting switching Alina’s and Merile’s souls with those of the two dogs, to be guided to safety by the witch who demanded too much from me in her greed. And then she wants me to leave the house with…
“Could you bind the spell?” I ask, though this is a ludicrous conversation to have in the first place. But I must know the answer to make a decision of any sort. It is very challenging to maintain a spell while moving, and if the spell were to snap, the souls would no doubt return back to their original bodies.
“I’ll stay here,” Sibilia replies, her voice steadier than mine. “Captain Ansalov will have no reason to go after the dogs.”
The rest of her plan dawns on me. She wants me to leave the house with Elise. Elise, of all people!
“No.” I cup Sibilia’s cheeks, kiss her forehead. My dear sister, the one I once chose to stay behind with me, the one I promised to never abandon, is ready to sacrifice herself to save her younger and older sisters—a duty that was mine, but which I couldn’t carry through. “No, no, and no.”
But my sisters care little of me rejecting the dreadful idea. They don’t yet understand the price it bears, the sheer number of unknowns. What would happen to our youngest sisters once their bodies cease to breathe? Would they remain captive in those of the two dogs forever? Or would the witch know a way to bring them back?
“Yes, that’s it!” Elise claps her hands. She isn’t cheerful as much as relieved. “Celestia, can you not see it? This is our father’s will.”
Alina squeals with delight. “I’d be a dog!”
“But what of my dear sillies?” Merile asks in a quiet voice, though she must know the answer already. There is nothing left in this house for us, for them, but despair.
“Please, be quiet,” I plead with them, pacing away from the pale light. Sibilia’s plan is far-fetched, its implications more terrible still. If her spell were to fail, the lives of our youngest sisters would be forfeit. If it were to work, beyond all logic, beyond all sanity, four of us would have a chance to live. But one of us would fall.
“Rifles.” Olesia’s shrill whisper interrupts my train of thought. “Irina says… Men loading rifles.”
“Father Moon, forgive me,” Sibilia mumbles even as she marches to me. She grabs my wrists and pulls me with her into the beam of light. “Will you show your wife your will and let us get on with it?”
Before I can tell her that it is outrageous of her to ask this of our father, demand my husband show me what he sees when he hasn’t chosen to do so before, impossibly, the light turns luminous. I can’t move, wouldn’t even want to move, as it swallows me whole. My beloved reveals his blessed face to me, the drawing room fills with his silvery presence, and I can at last see that which has come to pass under his celestial gaze.
The Great Thinking Machine has grown in size. It is blacker than the night, an oiled creature with a thousand spindly, insect legs. It hisses in hunger, though dozens of men feed it small amber beads in a constant supply. Another group of men piles holed paper sheets in its gaping maw, questions that the gagargi demands answered. The cogs and wheels spin as the machine crunches through numbers without thought or care. All this is possible only because…
A peasant woman with more white in her hair than one of her age should have presents her newborn to a country gagargi. The man in black robes extracts the child’s soul from the writhing body with practiced ease, a glyph pronounced, fingers flicked. The small glass bead fills with amber light. The baby ceases to move, to breathe, to be. The gagargi nods, satisfied with a job well done. He offers the limp body back to the woman. She attempts to hide her tears without success. This is the fate of every other child.
There are more visions of my empire, but they change too fast for me to catch more than a glimpse of each. But in many of them there are weapons fired without thought or reason, snow and frozen ground stained with blood, houses and fields left behind for someone else to claim. I don’t know why my beloved hasn’t shown this to me before, but now isn’t the right time to ask. Not now when the vision changes once more, and I see with my own eyes the one that first confused, then inspired Sibilia.
A black dog, a brown dog dash through the midnight forest, thin tails extended straight behind them, ears pressed against their heads. Theirs is speed, theirs is devotion, as my beloved lights their way through the unnamed, winding paths. A bird black and white flies before them, wings beating fast, but whether it is fast enough…
“Celestia.” Elise’s whisper is soft, wavering. “Please come back to us.”
I blink and find my sisters huddling around me, my beloved’s light receding. I understand now what I should have realized on my own a long time ago already. When one is taking, one isn’t looking. That is why I didn’t see these visions before.
“What did he show you?” Sibilia asks, and my younger sisters stare expectantly at me. They know that I now know my beloved’s will.
“I must return to the Summer City, there to put an end to Gagargi Prataslav’s rule.”
Men arguing. Glass shattering. Furniture being pushed aside. These harsh sounds carry through the house, and we hear them clear now. The impatience and anger unleashed.
“Hurry.” Olesia flickers out of sight, back. “Irina says to hurry.”
I have always prided myself on being able to think rationally even in the direst of circumstances, and this occasion is no exception. Sibilia’s plan is our best and only option. It pains me to accept this, but there is no other choice.
I stoop down and pat my knees twice in quick succession. The dogs bounce to me, brown coat, gray coat gleaming under my beloved’s light. I meet their big, round eyes. “Let me have a look at you.”
My sister’s dogs are more than themselves tonight. There is a deeper understanding present in their glistening gazes. They are ready to sacrifice themselves to save their mistress, her little sister. And for that I love them as if they were truly my sisters.
“Alina, Merile.” I address our youngest sisters even as I rise up. Elise herds them before me, not quite able to conceal her own haste. Sibilia peeks out through the crack in the glass, the gap between the planks, thoughtful. Olesia falters out of sight, returns fainter, but there is nothing I can do for her. “I have seen what Sibilia has seen. Will you let Rafa and Mufu help you?”
“Yes!” Alina agrees as if she had been waiting for this moment for months and then again months. And perhaps she has.
“Other way.” Merile pouts her lips. Tears glitter at the corners of her eyes. “There is no other way. Is there? One where…”
Elise wraps her arms around Alina and Merile. Regardless of what she insisted earlier, it isn’t easy for her to part from them. It isn’t easy for me either. I should have been the one to sacrifice myself, not Sibilia. “I am afraid there is none.”