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“No. Never. Walter, would you see what healing Nancy needs and—what?”
Walter looked deeply uncomfortable and Starling burst into tears.
“Oh no.” Not Nancy.
Athena put a hand on my arm. “I think she died the moment Titania struck her.”
All my fault. If I’d left her at the inn, she’d be fine still. Happily making her very fine beer. And we hadn’t even saved my child. All for naught. Oh, God. Billy. Orphaned now.
“What about her son? Does anyone—”
“Safe with my kin,” Athena supplied.
“He always has a home here. Make sure everyone knows it.”
“I’ll look after him.” Starling firmed her chin. Then took Walter’s hand. “We both will.”
“If I may point out,” Athena inserted, “if we don’t secure the castle, none of us will have a home here.”
Time to mourn later. For them, not for me. “Walt’s right. We need the scepter.” Where the hell would Rogue have hidden it?
“I know where it is,” Athena said. Then shrugged, maybe a little guilty. “Seems like once I keep track of something, part of me always knows where it is.” Another boom shook the tower.
“Sooner might be better.”
“Yeah. On that.” She dashed off.
I assessed my energy levels. Surprisingly good, though I felt curiously unstable, as if half of me had been torn away. The Rogue half. And our daughter with him. Maybe that left me only one-third of a person.
Should be enough to finish what I needed to do.
Mentally, I checked in with Larch. The Brownies were still fighting for me. The humans appeared to be conscripted. Falcon, Incandescence and Healer had them throwing themselves at each other. Fafnir’s army had been divided up among his erstwhile generals, each of those having helped themselves to Titania’s crew.
Not surprisingly, Rogue’s cyborg army had vanished with him, as I imagined many of his defensive spells had. With battles raging both inside and out, the castle wouldn’t last long. Utter chaos.
“Seriously—don’t you people haveanythingbetter to do than fight amongst yourselves?”
Walter shook his head. “Yeah, like we’re any different.”
He had a point. And it made me think. What exactly had Titania’s plan been? If she’d intended to sow dissension in the human world in some way, it would likely be easy to accomplish. Not that I could do anything about it, if she had managed to pull the trigger. The world would have to save itself.
I knew my limits.
Athena, a streak of blood on her check, skidded back into the room. “I got it out of hiding, but I didn’t want to risk carrying it past any of the others, just in case they could glom on to it. Figured you could, you know, suck it to you and then give it to—”
Indeed. The magic rose cleanly in me. It made a difference when you didn’t plan to keep any in reserve. I’d already died once today. It would make no matter if I did again. I really had nothing to live for at this point. Trapped in Faerie without Rogue or our daughter sounded like the worst of prison sentences. The scepter appeared in my hand. Walt whistled in appreciation. “Nice trick, Gwynnie.”
Athena dug her fingers into my forearm. “I wassaying‘and give it to Walt.’”
“I can handle it.” I yanked my arm from her grip.
“Like hell you can—you’re obviously crazed from losing both Rogue and the baby. You’re upset about Nancy. You couldn’t handle the scepter when you were in good shape.”
“She’s right, Gwynn.” Starling stood, wringing her hands together. “If you use it now, you could—”
“What?” I laughed and I did sound more than a little crazy. “I could die? Been there, done that. Frankly it didn’t suck. It was…restful.” It sounded so much better than facing the alternatives. “All of you stand back.”
Unleashing the magic and pouring it through the scepter and thence in a focused arrow through the lens of the crystal dome, I sought whatever might help. Using my wish like a net, I gathered reinforcements to me.
