I slip outside of my physical form. The transition is finger-click fast. It’s as if I inhale a breath in my shower and exhale it in New Amster. I recognize this Gothic, dust-covered entranceway I find myself in. It’s the building that guards the passage to their secret city.
The sweet scent of brown sugar assails me when I ghost-move through the majestic, crumbling corridors of the outpost. Matchstick men puff on cig-a-likes, venting the fragrance into the air. It makes me shrink away from them. I associate the aroma with Defense Minister Telek. It was the last pleasure he had before I’d poisoned him . . . well, other than the threats to my life. He took great pleasure in those.
Sifting through the decadent decay of abandoned wealth, I slow when I see Trey. He’s attired in a New Amster uniform, sitting alone near a broken-out window in the darkness and staring at the empty streets. They’ve given Trey a freston, which he has propped up on the window frame, ready to use to defend their position. If the form I have taken is my soul, then my soul aches for him.
Crouching down next to him, I grieve in a way I haven’t since this has all begun, not with tears, but with discoloration. I’m a watercolor, bleeding luminosity in smearing swirls of sorrow. I’ve never seen him like this. Trey is hollow. Empty.
I barely hear someone else approaching. “May I sit with you?” Pan asks as he towers above us. He’s little more than a shadowy silhouette in the darkness. Moonlight shines on Trey’s eyes as he looks up. He gives Pan a brief nod. Pan approaches and sits down beside Trey. Leaning against the same wall, Pan offers Trey a cig-a-like. Trey shakes his head.
“You don’t smoke?” Pan observes.
“No,” Trey replies, refocusing his attention out the window. Streaks of light from Sinter, the larger moon, fall on his eyes, highlighting their violet brilliance.
“Kricket’s mother, Arissa, made me quit when she was alive. She said it was bad for me,” he says. His voice has a deep, sleepy dragon’s tone to it. Holding a stylized smoker in his hand, he spins it between his fingers. “I don’t smoke it. I just carry one around as a reminder.”
I stare at Pan, studying all of his features. He’s a hazy memory. I don’t think he’s aged at all, but it’s been a long time. He smiles, as if remembering something, or maybe it’s from the ridiculousness of him quitting smoking only to find himself in an apocalyptic situation—I’m not sure. His smile does something to me, though; it sparks a memory of the two of us on the sidewalk in Chicago. I used to like to wave at taxis as if they were a parade of floats in a carnival come to town. He used to play along, lifting me up for a better view of them.
“I was impressed by your ingenuity with the drones,” Pan says to Trey.
Trey’s lips show his disgust. “You like the way I can annihilate mass amounts of people with just a few keystrokes?”
“It’s war,” Pan says flatly. “They were toasting the demise of the House of Rafe when it happened. The House of Alameeda will level the House of Wurthem when they no longer need them. You saved many more lives by taking a few. One city. Now they’ll turn their eyes to the House of Alameeda in suspicion.”
“I think the cost was too high.”
“Your cost?”
“Mine. Theirs,” he says in desolation.
“History will show the sacrifice as just.”
“Will it?” He obviously doesn’t believe that.
Pan doesn’t respond to that; he simply twirls the stout cylinder of the smokeless inhaler between his fingers.
“Was there something you needed?” Trey asks coldly.
“What’s she like?”
“Your daughter?”
Pan nods.
“She’s a loner,” Trey replies. “She pays her own way. She’s someone who doesn’t know her place, or if she does, she doesn’t abide by the rules. She’ll see right through your lies. She’ll steal your heart without even trying. She’ll blanket you with a million whispers in the night while she holds your hand as if she’s the only one who fits it right. You’ll want to carry her bones inside your bones.”
“So she’s like her mother,” Pan says softly.
“Your people say that Kricket is still alive?”
“Yes,” Pan replies. He studies Trey and adds, “Don’t look so guilty. You haven’t done her wrong, as they say in Chicago.”
“What would you call it then?” he asks bitterly.
“A little bit of circumstance, fate, manipulation.”
“What about you? Do you think you’ve done her wrong?”
“I haven’t done her right.”
“Is there a difference?”
“I hope so.”
“Why did you leave her alone on Earth?”
“For the same reason she left you—there was no other choice.”
“You didn’t have a choice?”
“Not really. Kricket has a destiny, Trey. If you get in the way of it, you’ll pay . . . and pay . . . and pay.”
“You talk in evasion and riddles. Come back if you ever want to have a real conversation,” Trey growls. He grasps his gun and checks the setting.
“You want to know how we’ve come to be here? Time has conspired against us, Trey. My family has a part to play in the future. My consort was an extraordinary creature. She could see the light of future days. ‘So many possible futures,’ she would say. ‘Where to begin?’” He laughs, but there is very little humor in it.
“Arissa saw the future like Kricket does?”
“I don’t know what Kricket sees or how she sees it. She was a child when I left her. For Arissa, it was a violent explosion of atoms, tearing her away from her body, projecting her into the future.”
“Sounds familiar,” Trey admits. “You still haven’t answered my question, though. Why did you leave Kricket behind on Earth?”
“Her mother told me she’d bring about the destruction of Rafe,” Pan says. His fingers deftly wield the cig-a-like as if it’s a baton. “Arissa sifted through so many possible futures, looking for one where we could all be together. She could see nuances in time—the other infinite possibilities, not just the dominant markers. Can Kricket do that yet?”
“I don’t know,” Trey replies. “Are you saying that Arissa saw options in time in which things could be changed?”
“Yes, but the problem Arissa had in changing the future was that there was so much time between her and the events that she was seeing. Trying to change time that far out is difficult. Time always tries to right itself. The changes have to be drastic if you want to affect the distant future, or it will find another course to come to the same conclusions.”
“What exactly did Arissa see?”
“She saw several possible futures at war with each other—all of which were attempting to become the dominant marker—the event that happens.”
“According to Arissa, what event presents itself as the dominant marker?”
“Excelsior Ensin becoming Emperor of Ethar.”
“Are there other possible markers?”
“The best one we found for Rafe is one in which Astrid rules Ethar as our empress.”