to spin as I connected Agatha to her land again, handing over those pulsing reins with relief.
Yekpehr groaned mightily, like a lover reunited with the beloved thought dead, and Agatha seemed to swell with that vigor, her papery skin taking on a glow as the sharp bones of her face softened, gaining fullness of life like a wilted plant finally watered.
“Nooo!” Anure howled, and I released Agatha, standing again. I swayed, dizzy as Calanthe rushed in to fill the hole Yekpehr left in me, and Con caught me with a strong arm around my waist. I looked up at him and he grinned down at me, fierce and proud.
The red wizard backed away, staring at Agatha as if she were something monstrous. Then at me, with wonder. “It’s true,” he whispered. “You are the promised queen.”
“I’ve had enough of prophecies, quite frankly. Regardless, I can do what you never will. Choke on that.”
Face contorting with rage, he grew in size, his presence reaching into multiple dimensions, the dense bloodred sphere of his being truly frightening to behold—and anchored to our reality by only a flimsy strand of a flesh-and-blood body. With a sharp thought, I seized that slim physical connection, holding him fast so he could not escape. “Hit him,” I told Con.
Without hesitation Con swung the rock hammer, crushing the wizard with a single blow. He crumpled, leaving barely a red smear on the dusty marble. The black wizard shrieked, lunging for Sondra, Merle clinging to his shoulder—grabbing for the walking stick she yanked out of reach. “That is mine,” he snarled.
“All right,” Sondra replied with her flesh-eating grin. “Catch!”
“No!” he screamed as she threw it at him. He dove to catch it. Merle vanished in a cloud of purple shards. The stick hit the floor just as the black wizard did, a bilious cloud rising up. When it cleared, he’d vanished, leaving only a bit of ragged black cloth behind.
“Save Me,” Anure shrieked to Ambrose and Merle. “Do something, you idiots.”
Merle in raven form circled, then came to land on Con’s shoulder. Anure gaped, then turned his pleading to his one remaining wizard. Ambrose, hand still on Anure’s shoulder, gazed down at him with something akin to compassion. “You are destroyed,” he said softly.
“Anure Robho,” I said in a clear voice, the one I used for delivering a sentence of execution, though I would not be the one to decide his fate, a burden I was happy to hand over, “you are nothing but a sad, pitiful excuse for a human being. Look around you. You are alone. The lands you stole are slipping from your grasp. They will be returned to their rightful bloodlines, just as I have returned Yekpehr to Queen Agatha’s care.” I bowed to her and she inclined her head regally, then turned her gaze on Anure.
“Get off My throne,” she said.
Merle flew up into a cawing spiral. Ambrose gave Anure a shove. He tumbled down the long steps, falling in an ignominious heap at the bottom, weeping and protesting. Cutting his hands on the shattered glass, he held them up to first Con, then me—showing us the blood as if we might take pity.
“Please,” Anure sobbed, “have mercy. I never meant for it to get so … large. It was the wizards! They put a spell on Me to want more and more. I only wanted Valencia. For My mother who loved Me and was cruelly used. I only sought justice, and what was supposed to be Mine. Percy! You remember, how it was in the beginning.”
“I do.” Percy gazed on the sobbing mess with true pity, perhaps seeing him from long ago. Con met my gaze, a promise there of a story to be told.
“Help Me, cousin,” Anure pleaded. “I’ll give you Valencia to rule, as we both know it should’ve been yours all along. I’ll give you Aekis! Or more. Whatever you want. You helped Me, so I’ll help you. We were always as brothers.”
“We were,” Percy agreed sorrowfully. “But I disavow all relation, all affection. You are nothing to me.” Percy looked to me. “Can You restore Valencia to me, as you did with Agatha—if that is the boon I ask of You?”
“I can, and I will,” I promised. “But I will because it belongs to you by right of blood. You may ask another boon of Me.”
Percy shook his head. “I only want Valencia, so I can take responsibility for my land, as I should have done to begin