as empty as it ever was. He heard a few cars rushing past on Wacker Drive, the homeless woman on the corner of LaSalle singing to herself, and the snap of Aelia’s shoes. He had scolded her before for her ostentatious clothing and unsubtle footwear. It was important to remain discreet on these late-night missions or someone might notice them.
“Is it magic that she pours into the boots?” Aelia said. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” he said. They began to climb the terraces, ducking under the pink blooms of crabapples and eastern redbuds. “And it is a kind of magic, if we think of magic as an energy of will. She has exerted her will over these boots, modifying them and repairing them, putting them on and removing them, just as the boy exerted his will over the paper crane.” The origami had survived the journey from Earth to Genetrix in a plastic sandwich bag and was now perched on a windowsill in his workshop. “The emotional attachment to the object only strengthens the energy associated with it, which will empower me to summon them both here.”
“And you don’t know which one possesses the Needle.”
“I believe it’s the girl, but I prefer to be thorough.”
“When will you go back?”
They had reached the street level. Nero paused and smiled at Aelia. “Don’t tell me you are eager to be rid of me again?”
Aelia flinched a little, the corners of her mouth tugging down. “I merely want to prepare for my relocation if it’s imminent.”
“We are still several months away from the destruction of these universes, I assure you,” Nero said. “I have secured your place in a new one; you have nothing to fear as long as you continue to help me.”
Aelia gave a tight smile and led the way across the street, toward the Camel. As Nero passed the singing woman on the corner, he dropped a coin into the cup before her. There was no shame, he thought, in giving someone momentary relief, even if her universe was doomed to destruction.
It was Aelia’s smile that was the last to disappear, staying steady as the Cheshire cat’s as a new memory surfaced.
“You are not listening to me,” he said.
They stood in his workshop, glowing orbs adrift around them. Nero was hunched over a notebook, scribbling a few stray thoughts before he forgot them. The electricity in the Camel had gone out, so the orbs provided the only light, lending an eerie glow to the new praetor’s face.
“The collision is inevitable,” he said slowly, as if he were speaking to someone who was quite stupid. He hadn’t thought that Aelia was, but she had displayed a remarkable lack of comprehension in the conversation thus far. “I am holding the two worlds apart for now—with a substantial portion of my magic, I might add—but once I am dead, they will continue along the path they have been on since the Tenebris Incident connected them: toward destruction.”
Lightning flashed in the windows, ominous. Thunder came soon after, like a drumroll.
“The Tenebris Incident?” she said. One of the orbs floated next to her ear, where she wore a gold-plated siphon that came to a point, a reflection of the ridiculous Genetrixae fashion trend of women dressing like elven princesses. Her gown was long and loose with billowing sleeves. “You never told me that was what forged this connection.”
“What else could have accomplished such a thing?” He scowled at her. “The magical core of this planet shattered and sent fragments of Genetrix’s magic into another universe and, due to the instability of time during universe-to-universe travel, back in time. Those shards became magical objects of legend on Earth—but there are so many false legends that it has been difficult to discern the true ones. That’s why I must continue to go back and forth between universes. I am considering doing something more dramatic to draw out the truth more quickly. I am tired of stalling the inevitable.”
“And there’s nothing you can do, even with all your power, to sever this connection and save both worlds?”
“Even if I wanted to, which I do not, I am immortal, not all-powerful,” he said. “And soon, circumstances permitting, I won’t even be that.”
“I’ll never understand you.” Aelia moved toward the windows, which were rattling in their frames from the wind. Rain splattered across them, obscuring the view of the city beyond. “Many would kill to live forever; they would sacrifice their love, their children, every penny they