holding the cricket in amber up. “Olivia, it’s hers! You’re not Death’s Card! She is! This can disarm her!”
Olivia shook herself and stood down, the magic fading. Asa stepped forward.
“Mother Morevna,” he said, holding the cricket out in front of him. “I think I have something that belongs to y—”
A giant, flaming arm caught him in the stomach and knocked Asa off the roof. As he fell, he threw the cricket upward.
“Sal!” he cried. “Catch it!”
And he fell directly on top of Mr. Jameson, sending another magical shotgun blast into the sky.
I saw the cricket glint in the firelight. It fell at my feet, and I scooped it up, realizing for the first time what it was: the Master Stone, the one she had laid in the desert so long ago. The one that could end the second sacrifice, the Dust Sickness, all of it. The Dust Soldiers roared beyond the walls, and suddenly, I understood all of it. The truth of it all filled me like light, like wind, and I knew what I had to do.
She was so close now that her heat was singeing my hair, wrinkling my clothes. She reached out, and with the cricket in amber in my fist, I grabbed her fiery hand, and as my palm blistered, I pressed the cricket into her hand.
“No!” she roared, her voice crackling like timber. “Put this back!”
“Don’t you see?” I said. “The whole time, you’ve been helping to destroy us. Helping Death. She’s been using you!”
“That’s not true!” she roared. “I have done only what is good for this city!”
“It is,” I said. “And I’ll show you.”
I willed my magic into our hands. The nausea and darkness rose and took us. I felt the truth of it rise around us, all the mistakes, all the deaths, all the blood. Truth that couldn’t be turned away from or ignored. And as it enveloped us, held itself over our minds’ eyes, I felt Mother Morevna try to look away. But she could not. And as it burned itself into our souls, I felt her absorb this truth. I felt her absorb every particle of the pain she had caused. The wishes of Goddesses, the wants of witches, and all the misunderstandings of a society built to be equal, gone terribly, terribly wrong. I felt it begin to dim and recede, and when the darkness fell away, instead of a monster, I was holding the frail, tattooed hand of an old woman, an old witch who had finally seen the truth.
She let go of my hand, and as she did so, my blisters healed themselves. I stumbled, then righted myself. Our feet were no longer stuck in her web of magic.
Mother Morevna swayed on her feet, a look of hollowness, of brokenness making her appear far older than she’d ever looked before.
“It’s too late,” Mother Morevna said quietly. “Oh, God, now it’s too late.”
She had seen her utopia for what it was, what she herself had made it. She heard for the first time the pain in the cries of her people, and the knowing was the heaviest burden.
“Sallie…” she croaked desperately. “Here.”
She raised her hands and closed them over the cricket in amber. There was a deep thrum of power, more power than I’d ever felt at once. A feeling of leaving, of draining, of never going back. As I watched, the tattoos faded from her hands until they could have been the knobby, gnarled hands of any old woman. She heaved a great, weary sigh. Then she held out her hand. The cricket in amber glowed in her palm, power radiating from it. But no longer from her.
“I am not fit to wield this power,” she said. “But you… you saw the truth. You saw it the whole time.” She gritted her teeth in pain. “Take my magic! Add it to your own, and set it all right, once and for all. And when my spells have been lifted, use it to fight them. You are our only chance now.”
I hesitated. Beyond the gates, there was a roar, the screech of metal, the sound of many men screaming.
“They’re gonna break the lines!” shouted a guard. “We need help!”
“Sal!” came Olivia’s voice from behind me.
“Go,” said Mother Morevna. “Go, now!”
I started to say something—what, I didn’t know. Then Olivia shouted for me again, and I took the cricket and clambered back down into the church. We ran across the quaking sanctuary, out of the church, and out into