“I mean,” Sloane said, “I just had a panic attack because of a pair of boots, so I don’t think I’ll be winning any mental-health achievement awards anytime soon. But if I knew how to bring Albie back, or my brother, even for a moment, even a pale version of them . . .” She shrugged. “I would, I think.”
“You would?”
She smiled. “You’re not the only one who’s been alone for too long.”
“Yeah.” He cocked his head. “Feeling better now, Sloane?”
She liked the way he said her name, heavy on the Slow. Like he was tasting every vowel before letting it out.
“Not really,” she said. “I’m just trying to figure out how it was possible for me to stand right next to the Dark One without realizing it.” She had thought that she would know him in any universe. That she could trust her heart to tell her what hearts knew. But her heart had never been that wise, had it? There were some things it just didn’t seem to know. “But some pieces are fitting together now. Sibyl said she thought the Drains were a world’s allergic reaction to the presence of someone who wasn’t supposed to be there. We thought he caused them because he was there whenever they happened. But maybe they just happened whenever he was there—he was the wrongness in that universe, and the Drains were a way of Earth trying to right itself.”
“But then he came here,” Mox said, “and they started again.”
“Did they? I mean, when did the first one happen?”
“After I was on the run. Everyone was saying I was planning something big, that I was dangerous, and then—” Mox paused, frowning. “And then he summoned the first challenger. The first Chosen One from another world, I guess.”
“Which caused,” Sloane said, “a Drain.” She sat back with a satisfied smile.
“She was young, the first of them.” Mox was lost again, his fingers chasing each other across his kneecap, hair falling over his face. “More deft than powerful, I’d say. Caught on to Genetrix magic so fast, it was like second nature, and she was clever with it, knew how to slide one working into another as easy as singing a song. It was her skill against my brutality, and . . .” He shrugged. “I feel trapped by it all,” he said. “Stuck in it like mud.”
“I wish I had some kind of answer for you,” Sloane said softly. “But all the things I was good at were from before. Good at falling asleep fast and waking up faster, and running toward Drains instead of away, and making dark jokes afterward that made other people uncomfortable. If you’re good at those things, how are you supposed to be good at going to work, getting married, popping out kids? They’re opposite lives.” She shook her head. “Nobody ever prepared me for what came after. They just assumed I would never find out.”
When she looked at Mox again, she was surprised to find that he was smiling a little.
“That’s a false dilemma you’ve created, you know,” he said. “It’s not like you either hunt Dark Ones or get pregnant, nothing in between. There are many lives out there to live. Endless possibilities for you to sort through and discard.”
She hadn’t, of course, thought about it that way. She had asked him why he didn’t run, leave the state, the country. And his enemy was still out there, hunting him. But hers—well, now she knew that he was still alive, but she hadn’t before. She could have left Chicago, left Matt, left her entire life. Gone backpacking in Europe like a college graduate with wanderlust. Ate, prayed, and loved across India to find herself. Bought a bunch of land in Idaho and built her own log cabin. But she hadn’t tried anything. Her only desire had been to be left alone.
No wonder she couldn’t do magic reliably; deep down, she didn’t even know what she really wanted. “You’re right,” she said. “But first, we have to survive this.”
“True. But in order to do that, we’ll need to get some sleep.”
“We?” she said. “Who ever said we would sleep anywhere?”
His eyes danced a little. “No one,” he said. “But, you know, we might die tomorrow.”
“That’s a good line.” Her face broke into a smile. She couldn’t help it.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
TOP SECRET
TO: Aelia Haddox, Praetor of the Council of Cordus
FROM: Nero Dalche, Quaestor of the Council of Cordus