And All the Stars (38 page)

She had to admit he had immediately attracted her on a
physical level, and she'd been intrigued by things which couldn't possibly be
Théoden. A boy who couldn't draw but
wanted to be da Vinci. Whose mother had
been his ideal. Who hadn't faltered from
necessity in the days after the Spire's arrival, then had had nightmares about
the people he'd failed to save. Driven,
time-poor, prone to putting people last outside of emergencies. Very like her. And, if that conversation was anything to go by, just as shielded and
defensive as she, for all his clear self-confidence.

It mattered a great deal that he'd made sure the entire world
knew the debt they owed to the Moth who had possessed him. And he'd seen that the first thing she'd
needed to know was how he felt about her art. But how could she go with him, constantly seeing only that he was
different from the boy she loved? That
would only hurt them both more, a long spiral of comparisons and
disappointments she didn't have the strength to face.

Fight. Always fight. No matter how impossible the odds, no matter who you've lost, how you've
been hurt. If there doesn't seem to be a
way out, look for one. If you seem to
have come to an end, start afresh. Never, ever give up.

Had Théoden foreseen this choice? Unable to settle her thoughts, Madeleine
walked up to the house, to wash her face and follow the noise of discussion to
a crowded lounge room. Musketeers
dishing out food and talking over what to do next. They greeted her cheerfully, entirely as if
she hadn't been curled up in her room for the past two days, and shuffled about
to make a space for her to sit. Madeleine tucked in beside Emily so she could thank her for a timely rescue,
remarked on Gavin's impressive black eye, and accepted a piled plate from
Nash. Pan grinned at her from the floor
beside
Noi's
feet, then turned his attention back to
a sniper war of paper balls with Min.

Acceptance washed over her, a sense of care and belonging, a
certainty of place. Whatever happened,
they would support her, pick her up if she fell, cover her weaknesses and be
glad of her presence. She ate, and found
herself almost smiling, and when Noi asked which city Madeleine thought they
should go to, she looked across at a closed, expressionless face and said:

"Melbourne."

A perfect autumn day. By
ten
the streets were already filling,
crowds flooding from the train tunnels, walking from the bus drop sites,
meandering down the centre of the closed roads, gaping at the crest of white
visible above the trees. Most wore
dust-catchers: broad-brimmed hats supporting elbow-length veils, reminiscent of
beekeeper garb but with a dense, silky weave. A few – the elderly, the very young – were clumsy in Hazmat gear. Bareheaded among them were Blues and Greens,
or the foolhardy percentage who gambled that the Conversion would make them
heroes, not corpses.

Many crossed the southern portion of Hyde Park on their way
to the ceremony, some glancing at the young woman seated on the stair of the
Anzac Memorial, none coming close enough to see the deep stain of her hands, or
the patch on her face hidden by an unnecessary dust-catcher. She watched them on their way to commemorate
a different war, and occasionally glanced at a worn paperback while fielding a
stream of text messages. As midday
approached, the flow of people tapered off, but by that time the northern half
of the park and surrounds were a solid mass, even spilling across the dividing
street into the southern park. The mood
was celebratory. It was a day to mark a
return to some semblance of normalcy, to gather at the point of invasion, no
longer a gaping hole leaking toxic dust, or the churned scar which had plugged
it, but a park once again, with a functioning train station beneath. To proclaim relief, sorrow, triumph, and a
move forward. The dust-catchers
silently, unavoidably, underlined that there was no going back.

The white noise of chatter died away to echoing
speeches. Then applause, more speeches,
more applause. Finally, inevitably, a
united chant which thousands of voices turned into a roar, thunder.

"All for one! All
For One! ALL FOR ONE!"

By two o'clock the park had nearly emptied, thousands
streaming over to The Domain, where food stalls and a sound stage had been set
up for an afternoon concert. Music
thumped. The performance was in full
swing when a curvy young woman wearing a white dress and blue headband crossed
into the southern half of Hyde Park, followed the length of the reflecting
pool, and climbed the Memorial stair.

"Not sketching?"

"Not stupid."

"I guess it would be a bit of a giveaway."

They hugged, and as ever Madeleine was immediately
warmed. It was if a year's separation
had never happened.

"How was the ceremony?"

"Blah
blah
blah
,
then a few thousand people in tears. Ready to go down?"

Madeleine glanced at the time on her phone and nodded.

"I should have grown some sense and skipped out
too," Noi said, as they headed north. "I'm so jetlagged I can't think straight."

"Do you want to put off dinner? Change it to tomorrow?"

"Hell no. I'll
nap for an hour or two while everyone's gabbing, then I'll be good to go. Besides, I've been dying to meet Millie's
girlfriend. What's she like?"

"Zoe? Clever, a
bit of a joker. Tries to be cool, but
absolutely hero-worships Millie. Wait
till you see them in their uniforms."

"A potential portrait?"

"Maybe. I've done
a few studies." She caught
Noi's
frown and smiled through the veil. "I think the police thing is working
out. Millie's breezing through the
training, and she's so happy even her parents are starting to accept."

"Mm. I still
regret talking her into calling them. All that fuss and drama."

They'd been in Mumbai at the time, six months after the fall
of the Spires, and the Wrights' discovery their daughter was still alive had
led to a stream of accusations and demands. Though it gave Madeleine a headache just to remember, she thought that
it had worked out better for Emily in the long run. Her parents so clearly adored her.

"How's casting going?"

"All the major roles are set. The rest we'll work through next week, which
should be fun and a half. At least now
Tyler's signed Nash can go back to being himself, instead of the Walking Tower
of Stress."

Madeleine laughed. "Why was he stressing? Tyler
really wants to play Milady." Reshaping the villainess of
The Three Musketeers
into a
loyalty-torn heroine had produced a particularly juicy role, and Tyler was far
from the only Big Name who'd been keen to win it.

"Oh, just a small matter of Undying Devotion. Besides, TBM is not exactly a major-league
production company, even with Saashi on board."

They crossed Park Street speculating on the chances of Nash
winning Tyler, which at least had shifted into the realms of possibility now he
was twenty-one instead of sixteen.

"Do you think you'll finally settle for a while?"

"Hey, you've gadded about almost as much as we have – is
there a city you two haven't studied in? But, yeah, we're thinking of basing TBM in Sydney even after the film's
done. I'm going to have to slow down
anyway." She touched her stomach,
and nodded at Madeleine's questioning glance. "Not a hundred per cent planned, but we'd been talking about
it. We both like the idea of a big
family."

Delighted, Madeleine paused to hug Noi again. "I'm not sure I should congratulate you
though – TBM's going to have it rough without you keeping everyone
organised."

"I'll be keeping my finger in the pie, don't worry about
that. Just not baking them for a crew of
fifty for a while."

"So does this mean you're going to schedule the wedding
at long last?" Madeleine asked as they made their way through a mix of
towering fig trees and recently-planted saplings.

"Yeah, time to make it official, and devastate Lee's
more rabid fans. I think I might ask Min
to do the dress – he's so wasted as our costume department."

"Wasted as in still loving every minute while pretending
the world annoys him?"

"That about covers it. Be warned, I'm ready and able to rope you in to paint the backdrops
again, if and when we move to another stage production."

"Good. I learned
a lot last time."

The prolonged stay in India had been due to a combination of
circumstance and choice. Attempting to
leave Sydney, they'd been co-opted by the Australian Army, which at least had
solved transport problems. Particularly
when they'd decided on Tokyo as the next stop after Melbourne, joining the
effort to weed out the most powerful of the Moth clans. From there they'd been shuttled to Mumbai, just
in time for the local forces to declare victory. With most cities well on the same path,
they'd been able to cut loose from the military so Nash could meet up with
Saashi. But that had effectively
stranded the Musketeers, since civilian air travel wasn't exactly
happening. They'd turned the situation
into a hands-on apprenticeship in film-making, as Nash's powerhouse sister put
them all to work helping her document some of the thousands of stories of the
invasion. The combination of interviews
and 'mini-play'
dramatisations
had won Saashi a great
deal of notice, and kept the company which had been her parents' ticking along
while the world tried to sort out if it had an economy.

TBM – The Blue Musketeer Production Company – had evolved
from this experience, and Nash, Pan, Min and Noi had worked steadily toward
gaining the reputation and knowledge to film
The Blue Musketeers
to the standard it deserved. Of course, it helped immensely that the
Musketeers were world-famous, and even more that Saashi had agreed to direct
and provide experienced crew members.

"Do you think they regret asking you to submit a
design?" Noi asked, as they emerged from the screening trees and stopped,
gazing up at the replacement for the Archibald Fountain.

"Maybe. I did
sometimes, during the fuss. But there
were a lot of other submissions, and they decided by public vote."

"Beautiful and terrible," Noi murmured. "I can almost look at it without
cringing."

The statue rose twenty metres, a graceful curve of white shot
with central veins of blue clustered into a semblance of a human figure. The base was suspended in a clear block,
giving it some necessary stability, and beneath was a patterned non-slip grid
to drain the water which fell in a single sheet from the outstretched, kite-like
wings. On hot days children would be
able to play in the near-mist of the fall.

"He liked water," Madeleine said.

They walked on in silence, ignoring the small scatter of
people who recognised Noi and looked closely at her companion. In the mist, tiny rainbows were visible,
shimmering in the fine liquid sheet.

Arms slid around Madeleine's waist, warm and familiar, and
Fisher rested his forehead wearily on her shoulder. "What mad impulse made me agree to be a
speaker?"

Madeleine leaned back, knowing perfectly well he'd done it to
make it easier for her to refuse. "When are they bringing them?" she asked instead.

"Just after dawn."

"What's this?" Noi asked. "Bringing who? Oh, wait – do you mean the Goat Island
crowd? Seriously?"

"It seems to be important to them." Fisher tightened his arms briefly, then
shifted to Madeleine's side, catching hold of her hand. "And kept absolutely quiet for obvious
reasons."

In Australia twenty-seven Moths had survived a choice to
surrender. After interminable debate the
Government had recognised Pan's offer of amnesty and collected them all on Goat
Island. Not every country followed suit
– some were still struggling to form a stable enough government to make a
ruling – but there were still several hundred En-Mott around the world. And, of course, endless rumours that this or
that prominent Blue was really an undiscovered Moth.

Fisher didn't work directly with the team which had spent
years creating a way to communicate with the remaining Moths, but occasionally
he was drawn into issues surrounding them, just as he had been all through the
months immediately following the fall of the Spires. The En-Mott would ask for him, because
Théoden had become as much a hero to them as he was to the Blues he'd
saved. Every time, the discussions gave
Fisher nightmares, and he would seek Madeleine out and start talking – about
art, about whatever he was studying at the moment, or the latest book he'd
read. Talking until the knots relaxed,
and the tension flowed out of him.

A shout summoned attention, and it was time to greet
long-absent friends, be introduced to new, and ignore the people taking photos
of the rare sight of the original Blue Musketeers all in one place. After the initial excitement had eased, Madeleine
broke away from the crowd and drifted with Fisher to a simple plaque set in the
paving right on the edge of the mist.

His profile as he gazed at the curve of blue and white above
took all her attention, and she was immediately distracted into planning a
canvas. "Will you sit for another
portrait?"

The expression he wore when he looked down at her became
another that she urgently wanted to capture, stealing her breath with its
intensity. "Do you remember what I
said the first time you asked me that?"

"I'm not likely to forget." He'd said 'Always', voice shaking, and kissed
her immediately afterward.

"It meant you'd started seeing me. You asked that question and I –" He paused, glancing at the audience behind
them, and offered her a faint, wry smile. "For you to see me, ME, was everything."

"Now I feel bad because I was simply glad that I'd
finally figured out how to paint you."