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  He has a role to play as much as we do. She had to say that, didn’t she? Guaranteeing I’d give up my plans to turn him into mush?

  Grumble, mumble.

  If you pursue him here, now, Trill sent with the same intensity, things won’t end the way you think they will, Doombringer. Ack. That again. I suppressed the chill that made me shudder, saw even my demon rub her arms as if to ward off goosebumps. The order must be obeyed.

  As in the Order, Dark Brother’s soldiers? Now I was confused. The play on words made my head ache. They are part of this?

  I believe your original supposition is correct. My vampire turned from Trill to me. It is she who commands the correct order of return of the pieces. Trill flinched slightly, didn’t respond. But she’d given me my answer without having to.

  The other side is cheating. Trill shivered, shook her head. I’m not sure why Zoe is helping them, but she’s not supposed to. This is between—

  Enough! Right on cue, Fate appeared, silencing Trill with a blast of volume and power. The Zornov maji glared back.

  I’m doing what Creator asked, she sent, the pair facing off over the pieces. They were expending so much power, crackling around them, the dark pushed back, lighting the stone walls, and surely had to be enough to draw unwanted attention at some point. Still, here was the possibility of answers, right?

  If we stay out of it, my vampire sent. And observe.

  But my original fear was correct. Within seconds of Zoe’s appearance, Belaisle came running, a tunnel of black forming beside Shaylee.

  Syd! Trill’s power pulled me forward and I felt disorientation shove me around. I landed hard on the floor, three personas—four counting my own—stuffed back into my physical body as the Zornov maji jerked me all the way over into this plane. RUN!

  Belaisle’s shocked expression was almost reward enough. And I could have stayed, could have fought him and maybe won. But, this was too important.

  And I chose, instead, to trust Trill. Imagine.

  With a jaunty wave that mimicked the arrogant toss off he’d often shared with me when in this same position, I leaped bodily through the shields, my white sorcery making an easy hole, and landed on the pieces, opening the veil at the same instant.

  And fell through into the darkness beyond with the two chunks of statue pressed to my chest.

  Where have you been? The foot snarked at me in a young man’s voice as I jerked at the veil for the second time, terror and elation spinning in time with the desperate need to get to safety. You botched the first recovery. I think I’ve been waiting long enough. Right. We’d been together on the frozen plane, just before Trill stole the piece from me on Zoe’s insistence. Why did all of the chunks of Creator have such nasty personalities? His whole attitude problem wasn’t making things any better.

  Oh, hush, the ear muttered, female this time, correcting my assumption the pieces were all asshats. Can’t you see she’s busy?

  I laughed. Out loud. Barked it like a madwoman. Couldn’t help it as I hit the ground running in the statue chamber of the Stronghold.

  You think she’s stable? The foot’s hissing whisper was so loud it made my head ring.

  Really, dear, the ear sent. You’ve always been impatient.

  Smartaasses. Just what I needed.

  I scrambled up the base of the statue, juggling the foot and ear, my haste making me clumsy and slower than I should have been. But all I could imagine was Belaisle coming after me, pursuing me, taking the precious pieces back.

  Gabriel was right. Whether the Universe suffered for it or not, I had to replace them.

  But that wasn’t my job, was it? The moment I stood on Creator’s lap, the ear pressed to the side of Her head and not one blessed thing happened—while I muttered to myself the foot would have been a better attempt, wouldn’t it?—I understood. My son.

  I needed my son.

  Well, at least she’s thinking straight again, the foot sent.

  The ear just sighed.

  Someone was here. I spun, panic rising, to find Max stepping through the veil, staring up at me with shock on his face.

  “Syd?” He paused, gaze traveling over the stone parts clutched haphazardly in my arms before his eyes rose to meet mine again. “Where did you find those?”

  I didn’t get to answer. And despite not calling him personally, when Gabriel appeared alone, grim faced and determined, I knew I didn’t have to.

  Finally, the foot griped. The Gateway.

  At last, the ear sent, joy in her voice. Home.

  I slipped from Creator’s lap, leaving the pieces behind while my son nodded to me on the way by. I could have given him a boost but he didn’t need it, his magic lifting him easily into reach. I staggered away, to Max’s side, reaching out in a strange need I’d never shared with him before, to hold his hand and take comfort from the touch of another being as my son recreated the one who made this Universe and tore it apart at the same time.

  “Mom.” Gabriel turned toward me, the ear in one hand, the foot balanced in a net of energy in the other. “Trill?”

  I nodded, swallowed. “Trill.” Drew a breath. “Sweets, who is she working for?”

  He didn’t answer, turning as he went back to his task.

  This time when the Stronghold shook I just stood there, feeling the veil collapsing, the loss of planes without needing—or wanting—to observe them, Max kindly holding my hand.

  And did my part when the two souls of the drach who protected the pieces all this time sang the songs that were their names—a stunning older man Max called uncle and a young female he bowed to with a whispered cousin —and rose into the air, waving farewell to the one who had doomed them to this in the first place.

  I owed him that much.

  ***

  Chapter Nineteen

  Gabriel came to me, the stranger he’d been gone now, aware and himself all over again. I clung to Max as I hugged my son to me with one arm, feeling empty and alone despite the boy who squeezed me tight and the powerful drach holding my hand.

  The world finally settled again, the Stronghold’s shaking subsiding, dust filling the air, making me cough.

  “Mom,” Gabriel whispered into my t-shirt. “I’m sorry.”

  I shook my head and pushed him gently back, finally releasing Max. The ribbon on my wrist flexed and released its tight hold, sighing in such an accustomed way I almost stared at it. I knew that sigh, but from where? Didn’t matter now. I had the grief of my son to deal with.

  “Never apologize for doing what has to be done.” I looked up at Max, shrugged in a bout of wonder. Three pieces in such a short period of time, after all this searching and guilt and anger. Two thirds of the way there in an eye blink. Seemed anti-climactic. “Now what?”

  “I take it from your conversation with Gabriel Trill assisted in the return of the two pieces.” Max’s calm might have irritated me any other time. But right now it helped me level out, settle, find my own balance in the whirling emotions fighting for control over me. Even Gabriel seemed less hurt, more relaxed as I nodded.

  I filled them in on what had happened, shivering a bit at the memory of my alter egos outside me.

  Refreshing experience, my vampire sent and I had a flash of her true face, something I’d never had before. I wasn’t sure if it would change how I felt about her, now I knew what she looked like. Odd, right?

  “You believe it’s up to Trill to decide when the pieces are returned.” That wasn’t a question. The giant drach lord was nodding slowly as if this made immense sense to him. Nice to know I wasn’t delusional or anything. “That means the three remaining pieces will find their way to us in due time.”

  I hated not being in control of things. “She gave me that impression.” Maybe I should have been happier knowing events were unfolding as they were meant to. Mostly. “What worries me is Trill’s comment about Zoe. And how Fate tried to stop me from taking the pieces.” If Trill was working for Creator like Zoe was…

  Who
did I trust?

  “This continuing reference to order concerns me.” Max stared up at the statue of Creator. “It smacks of a warning Dark Brother’s soldiers will make it through despite our best efforts.”

  “Or has nothing to do with them,” Gabriel said. “Trill’s right about order, though.”

  My head snapped down, eyes boring holes into my eldest. “Young man,” I said, “I think it’s time you came clean on what you know.”

  My son flinched, looked away. “Mom,” he said, voice breaking. “I can’t. I’m sorry.” He tossed his hands, a gesture far older than his little body should have been familiar with. “We all have our jobs to do. And this is mine.” He glanced back at Creator. “Among other things.”

  I almost didn’t catch that last, but instead of losing my crap as I was about to do, I stood still and held my tongue as Max spoke.

  “Let us agree we are on the right path,” he said in his kind and stoic way. Grrr. Fine. “You agree, then, Gabriel, that the other side is, as Trill put it, cheating?”

  My son’s concern showed clearly on his face. Yeah, like mother like kid. “I was supposed to have returned the foot and ear before now.” His lips clamped shut, face pale as if he’d given too much away.

  Shaking my child was out of the question.

  Keep telling yourself that, Syd.

  “Sweets.” I knelt next to him, stroked my fingers over his cheek with more tenderness than I thought I had in me at the moment. “We need answers.”

  He hugged me around the neck, pressing his little lips to my ear.

  “There’s a reason I can feel the pieces,” he whispered. “That’s my job, Mom.”

  “Because you’re the Gateway.” I knew that already.

  He leaned back, misery on his face. And shook his head, but the gesture seemed ambiguous. Like there was more to it he wasn’t telling me. Not a denial, but not the rest of the story, either. Instead of speaking again or filling me in—because that would be the best way to diffuse me—he simply let me go.

  Max’s next interruption saved my son from my building tirade yet again.

  “Who, then, is influencing Fate if she works against us now?” His deep voice vibrated with concern. There was a time his true love, Bellanca, the Light Fate, was the distant eyes of Creator. Along with her brother, that was. It had to be hard for the drach leader to remember that was no longer the case. The two Fates were removed from that position, both with their physical vision returned to them along with their maji status. Gone forever their ability to see the future.

  I wondered suddenly how they were faring. I’d left them in the care of Iepa, their fellow maji and the only one of that race I trusted. She’d been silent since. I really needed to check in and see if the second race was suffering like the rest of the Universe.

  My son stood, mute and miserable, before us.

  I had to do something. And since they were on my mind, I’d take the maji as the distraction I needed before I turned the Gateway over onto my knee and spanked him.

  Like I’d ever raised an angry hand to my kids. But, as I tore with frustration at the veil, I grumbled to myself there was always a first time.

  I landed, Max at my side, Gabriel reluctantly following, in the Fate’s chamber by the fountain where once Light Fate had resided. For a brief second I wondered if it was a bad idea bringing my son here. After all, the last time I’d let him come the maji leader, Zeon, had attacked him, showing him the race Gabriel tried to save had died horrible deaths on the new plane he’d relocated them to. Never mind their own plane was dying, them along with it. Gabriel had tried his best. But it had almost broken my son, the fact he’d caused their end instead of the good he’d tried to do.

  Too late now. He was with me and no way was I sending him home alone. Besides, within another instant I realized it didn’t matter if he was with me or not.

  Something was terribly wrong. The last time I’d been here, the maji were nowhere to be found, but their power at least remained linked to Center. This time? Nada, zilcho, bupkis.

  The maji and all the power of the second race were gone.

  I gaped into the quiet of the plane while Max’s power reached out, seeking what I knew was already missing. I turned in a slow circle, feeling the utter emptiness of Center even as I understood that wasn’t quite accurate.

  Two souls remained. They appeared at the entry to the grotto, their matching blond hair and pale eyes as well known to me as the drach beside me. But these two who had been Fates of the Universe weren’t the people I used to know.

  Bellanca’s burning bitterness had changed her from the kind, thoughtful young woman she’d appeared to be to a caricature of herself, lines formed around her eyes, her mouth. She’d aged in her resentment, body hunching slightly, still slim and attractive, but no longer pretty. Anger had darkened her and I knew she would never recover from the blame she felt toward Creator for taking away her lifelong task.

  And how would I feel if, after millennia, I had such power stripped from me and handed to another with what felt like a casualness that bordered on indifference?

  Her brother seemed less the worse for wear, though Thanos was equally altered by this new state of affairs. Also older in appearance, less a late teen and closer to my age, his lips had pulled into what seemed to be a permanent smirk, his own anger bubbling behind his eyes.

  “Where are the maji?” I didn’t mean to just blurt out the question, but I was so shocked by the emptiness of Center I couldn’t think of anything else to say. Way to be all sensitive to the hurt of others, Syd.

  Bellanca shrugged, bitterness coming through her magic, through the tightness of her jaw as it jumped in response. “Gone,” she said, as if that told me what I needed to know.

  This was terrible. If the second race was already lost to the void… I couldn’t even comprehend what that meant. Was the Universe so far gone already?

  “They are too strong for the void to have taken them this soon.” Max seemed confused, hurt by Bellanca’s attitude.

  She frowned at him, tossed her head. “Small minded, as always, drach.” Where once I’d only ever heard love from her when she spoke to him, now there was pure contempt. “They departed of their own choosing.”

  "Why?" I must have whispered that word. Though the fact the maji were unwilling, even now, to step up and do something to save the Universe really wasn’t that big of a shocker. In fact, the moment the question passed my lips I felt my own anger rise, burning away my shock when Bellanca spoke.

  “The blood of the maji will be on your hands.” She jabbed one index finger in my direction, body quivering from the force of her gesture. “You call evil down on all of us, Doombringer. And I for one will not remain to see the end.” She snapped her fingers with a glare for Max and disappeared into a flare of fire.

  Thanos remained behind, his gaze fixed on the spot where his sister had been a long moment before he looked up, the smirk falling from his face. I almost preferred his arrogance over the deep and abiding pain in his eyes.

  “My sister,” he said, “has become cruel and impatient. And though I understand her hurt, I can only hope Creator knows what She is doing.”

  I nodded, swallowed down a sharp retort. “Where did the maji go, Thanos?”

  “We don’t know.” He shook his head, hands wringing at his sides. “Their dark brethren have also fled.” His people, the ones he’d lived with at Core for so many centuries. Had to hurt, that second betrayal. Going without him like that.

  “You’re sure they didn’t fall into the void?” Max’s voice was quiet, but calm still. I knew he had to be in pain from the encounter with Bellanca, but he was as steady as always.

  “This place remains,” Thanos said, gesturing around him. “As does Core. Their power is simply gone, away with them.”

  Right. Every other time we placed a piece, planes had vanished right along with the people and power on them, hadn’t they? Except the vampires. And the Order. Neither seemed con
nected directly to the planes or their disappearance. Both races appeared inclined to just poof out of existence all on their own. Irked me I still didn’t know why that was.

  “Will you help us?” It seemed a silly question. Especially since there really wasn’t much we could do right now. Thanos shook his head, looked away, smirk returned.

  “Go, Doombringer,” he said. “Ruin everything. And save us all.”

  With that, he vanished after his sister.

  Not much we could do from there. Max led us back to the Stronghold, my son silent beside me. He’d not said a word in what felt like forever, remaining still and quiet through the entire exchange with the old Fates. But, the moment we passed through into the statue chamber, my son shook himself as if he’d just woken from a dream.

  “Mom,” he said. “I have an idea. But you’re not going to like it.”

  I clamped my lips together and nodded. Chances were if acting meant putting himself at risk, he was right. But who was I to tell the Gateway what he could and couldn’t do? His mother, damn it, that’s who.

  Syd. Hush.

  Gabriel glanced at Max then back to me, little shoulders squaring. “I want to send my soul back into the veil.”

  Reaction #1: Oh, hell no.

  Reaction #2: OVER MY DEAD BODY.

  Reaction #3: Dear Creator, it might be the only way…

  “Mom, just listen.” He continued to hold my gaze while my stomach turned over and I fought the need to throw up at the memory of his little body, lifeless but for the soft and infrequent da-dum that had been all that remained of his mortal existence. I felt that heartbeat, the recall of it, like a shudder through my body as he went on. “We need the other four pieces. And I can see so much when I’m in there.” His eyes took on a faraway expression that terrified me even more.

  Da-dum.

  Twitch.

  “I can find them if I go in, I know it."

  Da-dum.

  “Just let me try.”

  Da—

  And then, I understood. Like a flash of pain, a hit to my solar plexus, a punch deep into the heart of my soul, I knew why it shook me so much, that sound.