lips. She couldn’t remember the last time he had smiled at her. She couldn’t remember if he had ever smiled at her like that—Many Gods knew she’d probably never smiled at him—but seeing it now made her feel so sad and so happy all at once.
Happy that her brother was alive.
Sad that she had spent years wishing he wasn’t.
Saxony turned back to the explosions, still filling the sky with light and color. It took a while, but when they were finally done painting the sky in glory, they faded to rain and a swirl of hues trickled down and over the city.
It coated Creije like a liquid rainbow, puddling in the streets and slicking over rooftops.
It ran across Saxony’s dark skin and then dripped off and onto her shoes, and though she felt a little light-headed, and her heartbeat seemed to quicken—which could have been from the sheer beauty—it had no lasting effects.
At least, not on her.
Not on Karam or Wesley or Tavia.
But for the rest of Creije, time stood still.
The city meandered to a halt and the wind froze midair and the footsteps sank into the ground and the music caught in the space between worlds.
The people stopped moving.
The moonlight stopped glistening.
There was just Saxony. Just her brother and her lover and her friend, standing over the city they loved, preserved in a stolen infinity. It was only the waters around them that continued to glisten and move with unbreakable fluidity.
They joined hands once more and descended from the tower, making their way back onto the center of the bridge path.
“Let’s never do that again,” Tavia said, once they landed. “I’m all for a good light show, but the flying I could do without.”
Her hand was still locked in Wesley’s and neither of them made to let go.
“Arjun and Schulze should have a clear path to Yejlath now,” Wesley said. “And the rest of our forces can start taking back Creije.”
He looked proud, but more than that Wesley looked relieved, as though he hadn’t expected their plan to go so smoothly. They weren’t used to winning when it came to Ashwood.
“Up ahead,” Karam said.
She pointed over the bridge, to the river that led out into the winds of the other Uskhanyan cities.
For a moment Saxony thought it was strange that Arjun and Schulze would approach with their half of the army from the river, rather than through the outskirts as they had planned. She wondered where they had commandeered the small train from and who was navigating, but when she saw the train fully, she knew that it wasn’t Arjun and her Kin or the Doyen inside.
The train was an obstinate black, with just a single carriage small enough to carry a handful of people, not an army. It glided through the waterways as though time was not pinned in place. It docked just under the bridge, stopping in the center of the river, and a small hatch opened up on the roof.
A figure drifted out, made of darkness.
And then following him, a small girl climbing the ladder to the top.
They stood on the roof of the train and looked up at Saxony and the others.
Dante Ashwood, who looked like death incarnate.
Zekia, who looked so small from the bridge’s slope.
“Hello, sister,” Zekia said.
She smiled up at Wesley.
“Hello, brother.”
Saxony was surprised at how happy her sister looked to see them both, and how happy she felt to see her sister again. They had spent too long apart, and now that Saxony had found one half of her family, she wanted the other half back more desperately than she could say.
“Zekia,” she said. “How are you here?”
“You froze Creije, but not the waters that bind the cities,” Ashwood answered in her place. “Time cannot touch those.”
“You can see your light show all the way from Yejlath,” Zekia said. “It’s very pretty. We were already on the train, so I missed most of it, but the flowers were nice.”
“Already on the train?” Saxony asked.
Ashwood laughed, like she was just some silly little child.
“Did you really think I would not know?”
He looked up at Wesley, whose hand was still precariously entwined in Tavia’s.
Saxony saw the moment Ashwood’s eyes met his.
“My boy always finds his way home.”
34
Karam
“SHALL WE MAKE THIS QUICK?” Ashwood asked, as he and Zekia ascendend onto the bridge. “Or slow?”
Karam stepped closer to Tavia, keeping her eye on Zekia.
“It will be quick,” Karam said. “Just like the quickness with which our armies are slaughtering yours.”
“Ah yes,” Ashwood said.
He did not look