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The flying monkeys arrived first. They swirled around the dome, bat wings blackening the sky and I laughed at the sheer power of it. Dragons roared, landing on every tower and a cry of battle fervor rattled through the mind web.
Finding Incandescence, Healer and Falcon, I knocked the unholy trio on their asses, sending dragonfly girls to alert some humans to put them in silver until someone had time to deal with them.
The rest fell like dominoes, frightened of the power I wielded. Titania’s erstwhile army erupted into chaos, regaining themselves as I ruthlessly emptied myself of power to burn away the last dregs of her control. I followed the oily lines through the mass mind, burnishing and purging as we’d done for our injured, but on a grand scale. At the ends languished those captive fae she’d fastened in place. Them, too, I liberated, setting them free to make their way as they would, giving them each a boost of power to do it with.
None of them knew I used the last of my life energy to put things in order. Tying up my affairs, as it were.
Even as I collapsed to my knees, the scepter eagerly drinking from me, I made one last effort, however. Maybe they had crossed the Veil. If I could only see…
I looked for Rogue. For the Black Dog.
For my daughter.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Chapter 29
In Which I Tie Up My Affairs
‡
The report of my death was anexaggeration.
~Big Book of Fairyland, “Immortality”
Nothing.
The emptiness of the word reverberated through my mind.
What I had left. What my life had become. What I had become.
I could let go now. Give up the struggle. All this time, I thought I’d been fighting Rogue, but it had never been him. Just the inevitability of this moment.
Like Cecily, I could let myself dry up and dissolve into dust.
Ashes to ashes.
Someone tugged at the scepter and the pain penetrated my fog. I tried to hold on but the flesh tore from my palms as it was wrenched away from me. Then blessed cool healing replaced it, tasting oddly of hot chocolate and warm cinnamon rolls.
I opened my eyes and Walt grinned crookedly. “Sorry, Gwynnie—no noble self-destruction for you. And it’smystaff. Ha-ha.”
The blue sky, deeper sapphire than Rogue’s eyes, arched overhead in deceptive flawlessness. No booming or shouting. No wheeling dragons or flying monkeys. The castle had settled into something resembling peace.
“Just leave me be.” My voice came out in a whisper, creaking over abused vocal chords. I seemed to recall shrieking as I called the monkeys, like some demented version of the Wicked Witch of the West. Which was redundant, most likely. I should be the Wicked Witch of the East, since I felt as though a house had fallen on me. Rogue would tease me for thinking so much instead of being dead. “Why am I not dead?” I wondered out loud.
“Because you’re not mortal.”
I struggled to sit up at the sound of Puck’s amused voice. “What?”
He strolled into the room, hair cut short, Wall Street-style, and wearing, if I wasn’t mistaken, an Armani tux. “I told you. You can put a pig in a pond, but you can’t make him swim.” He waggled a finger at me. “Or her.”
“Of course I’m mortal. I was born to human parents.” Wasn’t I? A sensation of falling gripped my stomach as my reality fell into pieces, reassembling into a different picture. “I don’t understand.”
“Don’t you?” Puck’s mismatched eyes sparkled and he danced over to kiss me on the cheek. “I carried you over myself. You were such a cute baby.”
