I knew it must’ve been different for you—I saw his mark on your chest.”
“Tell me everything,” he says.
“Well, you and I were walking along the riverbank when we found that weird glowing cave. That part you remember, right?”
“Yes, but then you vanished. You literally vanished out of my grasp. I searched all along the river for you.”
“In my version, I never left you, Doc. We were talking, and then you just… You got this glazed look in your eyes. Then your whole face twisted in pure agony. I sensed your pain, and I didn’t know what to do. That’s when the mark appeared. You fell to your knees, and you were basically catatonic.”
Now I’m the one trembling, the memories too fresh, too real.
That feeling of helplessness… Goddess, it was awful. I didn’t know how to help him. I could see the mark blazing on his chest, and I knew Judgment had gotten a hold of him. But the enemy himself was nowhere in sight. It took every ounce of willpower I possessed to calm myself enough to think clearly. To ask for the right kind of help without alerting the entire Dark Arcana army to our whereabouts.
“I focused all of my energy,” I explain. “I thought about all the air magick lessons Kirin ever gave me, all the things he said about connecting with my familiar, and I did it, Doc. I called on my owl.”
“I saw him!” he says excitedly. “He was there with me. It felt like… like he carried your scent on the breeze.”
“I still can’t believe he actually came to me. I can’t wait to tell Kirin about it. He’s going to freak out!”
Doc smiles, tucking an errant curl behind my ear.
“Anyway, the owl showed up, and when I told him what was happening—don’t ask how he understood me—he took off again. Moments later, he returned, the Princess of Cups following after him. She helped me bring you inside the cave, where the owl kept watch. I didn’t want to leave you, but at the same time, something told me I had to—that it was the only way to save us.”
“What about your Princess?”
“She led me deeper into the cave. She never speaks—not with words—but I knew she was taking me somewhere important. It felt like we were walking for days, but I never got tired or hungry. I had a single mission—follow her dark red cape. I kept it in my sights at all times, through darkness so all-encompassing I couldn’t see my own hands in front of my face. But I could see that cape.
“Eventually we reached a massive, dark pool so far underground I thought we must be in the literal belly of the earth. It was magickal, Doc. Like… like a giant bowl full of stars. We knelt at the water’s edge and put our hands in it, and the starlight or whatever it was… it just filled me up. The darkness and fear in my heart left me, and the light took its place. That’s the best way I can describe it.”
“Incredible,” he whispers, his eyes filling with wonder.
“In that moment, I just knew I was supposed to find that place. To be there with her, for whatever reason. A sense of deep peace washed over me, like nothing I’ve ever felt before. All my worries drained away. Suddenly I had complete faith that you were going to be okay, and that we’d make it back here. That Ani would come back to us in his own time. That Baz would heal. That Kirin would reconnect with his sister and forgive himself for the past. That all of us would forgive ourselves… Goddess, it just went on and on. Tears streamed down my face, and my whole body was shaking, but I couldn’t stop smiling.”
Fresh tears glaze my eyes as the same peaceful energy flows through me again, soft and warm and all-encompassing. The Princess flickers in my mind’s eye too, her red-gold hair fluttering, her silver crescent-moon circlet winking on her crown.
You are loved and you are love, she whispers now, just like she did at the pool. Never doubt it.
“When we stood up,” I continue, “the Princess was holding her Chalice. She drank from it, then presented it to me like a gift, just as she did the first time I ever saw her—in my vision in Trello’s office when you first brought me to the Academy. But this time, it wasn’t the old-fashioned gold cup she usually carries.