Invincible (38 page)

“YES!”

“NO!” Monica shouted. “I can't believe you'd do this to me! You
made him a slave and gave me the whip?” Joy was terrified, speechless. Monica,
for her part, seethed. “I can't do that! I can't make him do something against
his will!”

Joy shook her sticky fists, helpless, furious. Monica didn't
understand; she couldn't—wouldn't—use magic, but Joy could and would and
did.

“Fine,” she snapped. “Give it to me.”

Monica glared daggers at her. “No.”

“Bequeath me the knife!” Joy said. “I can use it to save him!
To save us!”

“No,” Monica said flatly. “You can't hold power like that over
someone—that's slavery! That's...” She struggled for the right word.
“Inhuman!”

Joy choked back tears, recoiling. “But he'll
die
!”

Monica was beyond angry, her blotchy face matching Joy's flush.
“It's not
your
life! It's not
your
choice! And it's not mine, either—” She grabbed one of the
Bailiwick's loose hands, claws and all, and slapped the ox bone blade into his
palm. “It's
his
!”

Joy knelt closer, willing for there to be a miracle, wishing
that he would heal himself, hoping that he could hold on. Her mentor's breath
rattled in his chest. He was deflating like a balloon. She shook her head,
dripping tears. “Graus Claude,” she whispered into his eardrum. “I can save you,
but you have to stand up!
Please
!”

But he barely moved. Even if she could take the ox bone blade
and use it like the scalpel, she needed time. He needed time. And immortality
did not mean No Return.

“Bailiwick!”
Joy screamed.

Three arms pushed forward. His eyes were rolling as he coughed
up blood. He wheezed through his teeth and dragged his feet through the dirt,
squatting forward on his belly like a toad. His head nodded, quivering, eyes
glazed, mouth dripping. It was enough.

“I demand entrance to the Bailiwick of the Twixt!”

At first Joy thought she was too late, but then his glassy eyes
filmed over, his breathing slowed, his broken jaw clicked as his mouth grew
wider, taller, stronger, stiffening as his body lurched into position—his head
yawned open, mouth upraised, hands curled into familiar perches on his hips and
knees. His tongue adhered to the top of his palette, exposing the stairwell down
into darkness beyond.

Graus Claude, the Bailiwick, was safe as stone—an immortal
thing, outside of time.

Joy collapsed in relief, her body's tension cut in two.

“What the hell happened?!” Monica shouted.

“He's the entrance to the Bailiwick,” Joy said. “The doorway to
Faeland—I opened it. He's safe, now.” She glanced down his throat, wondering if
they could hear her. “But we
can't
let Aniseed get
through before the Imminent Return!”

Monica wiped her hands in the grass as the battle raged behind
them in a shower of sparks and blood. “How long is that going to take?”

“I don't know,” Joy said. “It's supposed to be imminent.”

Monica stared at Joy. “Are you kidding me?” She grabbed Graus
Claude's discarded rifle and dragged it over by the butt. She propped the recoil
pad against the statue's knee and dug the stand into the grassy ground. Joy
edged away from the weapon. She was far more scared of guns than magic.

“Do you know how to use that?” Sol Leander asked.

“No,” Monica said, trembling, adjusting the grip with shaking
fingers. “But don't tell them that!”

Sol Leander shifted his shield with a ghost of a smile. It
looked like pride.

“You should go,” Joy said. “Get outside the ward. The Cabana
Boys will protect you. You can ask for asylum from the Court of Earth.”

“Air!” Sol Leander snapped. “She is
my
charge!”

“She's my friend!”

“She's standing
right here
!” Monica
pulled on the cartridge, leaning back until she found the safety, which
surprised her by flipping with a sharp
clack
. She
smiled uneasily, lips quivering. “And I'm staying,” she said. “Because if I'm
staying, he's staying and you need him to win this thing—you need both of us—so
that's that.” She shrugged. “Just call me Stupid.”

“Okay,” Joy said. “Okay. Thank you.”

“If she dies, I will kill you,” Sol Leander swore impotently at
Joy's back.

She barely glanced away from the battle. She muttered thickly,
“Get in line.”

“You wish to save her?” Sol Leander said, grunting with the
effort of holding off the death match. “Do you wish to save him? Yourself?
Anyone? Then you need more—” He broke off, sternly apologetic, almost fatherly.
“I am sorry, but you must be more than what you are.”

Joy understood. If she could not have a human heart, she was
willing to sacrifice it to save two worlds. She would sacrifice the chance to be
human to save her friends, to save Stef, to save Ink. She knew what had to
happen next.

Monica said, “I've got your back.”

“You always do.” Joy smiled. “Just don't shoot me in the
head.”

Monica nodded but didn't laugh. She knelt, hands shaking, next
to the Bailiwick, prepared to defend him for her friend. There was an explosion
of stars as Sol Leander's ward collapsed. The first thing she saw was Ink,
standing before Aniseed, his face splotched with black blood. His head turned
away from the dryad's, shrieking and writhing, catching Joy's eye as the eclipse
light winked out. He saw what would happen. He couldn't stop it. He knew.

She fell into his eyes. They said
No
and
I love you
and
Good-bye
.

Joy stepped in front of the Bailiwick and placed her hands on
the ground—the earth she knew better than any other rose to meet her, thick,
rich, well-seeded and firm. She spread her fingers through the grass, letting
her eyes unfocus, tuning out the tumult into a quiet blur. Shapes softened,
becoming colors; swirls of black, blue and silver against green and orange and
brown. Sounds dimmed to a hum and the world unfolded under her feet.

Salt
. Minerals. Water. Earth.
Blood. She felt herself touching everything—everything alive—because all life
came from the oceans, the earth, the blood, the salt. It tasted of metal and
glaciers, rock and sand, sea water, copper, iron, and old, old ice. It burned up
her arms, lit up her hamstrings, fired her legs, her hips, filling her up from
the core of her world,
this
world, and the one she'd
inherited from her ancestors long ago in the Wild. She'd been fighting it,
afraid of losing herself, but the truth was that she'd found herself, her True
Name, her power.
Her
. Even if the Earth scared her,
changed her, there were some things worth protecting. She let go, becoming what
she was born to be—what she had always been—

No mistakes.

The ground broke upward and outward, fountaining dirt and mud
and icy ore, enfolding her, embracing her, hardening, collapsing, trying to
complete the transformation, the merging of two worlds into one body, the
instrument of an entire people buried, hunted and forgotten, waiting to arise.
Joy embraced Earth and called it home.

I AM THIS WORLD. I AM ITS MOTHER. I AM ITS
ANCIENT DAUGHTER.

WE ARE LIFE, INVINCIBLE.

I AM WOKEN. I AM FREE
.

Her body convulsed, half-buried, burning; her skin baked,
merging, melting into rock, into steam. Plates of earth kept hardening into
crystals that shattered, flaking away in shards, pieces rolling down the slopes
of her massive legs and buried hips that disappeared into the ground.
Incomplete, at the edge of things, it was still enough.

Aniseed's roots tore through the surface, salting the ground
with blood and gore. Joy's buried fist drove up, bursting in a tidal wave of
earth, great slabs of stone shooting up like a wall—a prison, a cage—pinning
Aniseed, trapping her long enough for Ink to sever her leg with his blade. She
screeched. The others swarmed upon her, those few that were left. Sol Leander
grabbed his aide by the feathered scruff and tossed him inelegantly through the
shrinking ward.

Aniseed stared at the half-formed creature that was
part-Elemental, the thing of Folk nightmares, the scourge of the Twixt. The
gathered Folk howled in terror at the sight of their ancient enemy. Ink's ward
kept them locked out, at bay. Joy was distantly both grateful and grim. She had
just been outed as the most dangerous creature in the world.

Aniseed laughed within her stony prison, even as she clutched
her severed leg. “Ha ha ha! Look, stripling—” she gasped. “Do you see? See all
those you meant to save? They will kill you! They hate you! They want to tear
you apart and toss the pieces like flower petals at the feet of their King and
Queen.” A growing light was crawling up the Bailiwick's throat. “No matter what
happens to me, I will know that I had my revenge!”

“As have I,” Joy managed through her clattering teeth, the
ground slowly closing over her head. The clay helm kept breaking off and falling
apart in crumbles, exposing hot chunks of her human face. Joy blinked away the
chalky dust while staring at her foe.

“Oh no,” Aniseed chuckled. “I know the face of my death and it
is not yours—my death was fated, foretold in the Dark Days—but I did not submit!
I chose to make my
own
destiny! I am undying! I am
triumphant!” She pointed at the crumpled mass to her left.
“I have cheated death!”

Kurt was splayed on the ground, an inelegant smear. Everyone in
the Twixt knew what Fate had held in store for him—it was well known the
Bailiwick's manservant had been spared the Black Plague and offered to Graus
Claude in exchange for his life, having lived for one purpose: to bring about
Aniseed's death. It was both his Fate and his fondest wish.

Joy blinked, unbelieving. Her breath chugged in her chest,
coughing through puffs of dust. “Is—is he dead?”

Ink staggered on unsteady legs, pale as a shadow, eyes flat.
“He is dead.”

“Aha!” Aniseed cackled with mad relief. The light from the
Bailiwick etched her face in stark shadow. “I win!”

Kurt's head lolled sideways. His body flickered. His mouth
moved.

“Not exactly,” he said.

The glamour died, revealing Filly laughing, coughing blood
across her cheek.

“Victory!” she said and spat at the witch.

Kurt stepped out of the Bailiwick, hale and hearty, both swords
held high as he broke into a run, racing purposefully, joyously, malevolently
toward his fate. Aniseed lunged back, her mouth a snarl of horror. Joy let go,
the stone slabs of the dryad's prison parted, falling, as Kurt ran through the
breach, undaunted, slashing both swords in unison and plunging them deep into
her back. It was the crack of an ax. A clap of thunder. With a guttural scream,
he wrenched them lengthwise, scissors slicing, severing her spine.

The great tree witch toppled, broken, slapping heavily against
the ground. Joy felt the impact through the soil and in the roots of her teeth.
Aniseed's body crumpled in stages, her broken limbs shuddering death whispers,
her blood slowly soaking into the grass—to Joy, it tasted like honey. Disgusted,
Joy withdrew from Earth...and what remained behind was human.
Part-human. Part-Twixt. Part-Earth. Me
.

Joy's stony carapace crumbled, flaking off great scabs of dirt.
Ink appeared beside her, holding her, helping her out, running his fingers over
her hair and face and arms and back, convincing himself that she was whole. Joy
leaned on his forearm and managed a smile.

“I am here,” she said with shaky breaths. “I am very, very
here.”

Aniseed's fading gaze slid over them as if slipping off a far
horizon. Her mahogany lips creaked as she spoke her last.

“How?” she whispered.

Ink glared down at her, stone-faced. “I lied.”

Her eyes rolled slowly in their sockets, a one-quarter turn.
The air seemed to leave her lungs as she sagged against the ground, her torso
collapsing, sprouting moss and mushrooms that bloomed and blackened, withered
and died, as her body dissolved, emptying, joining the earth from which all
things come and go and come again—but this time, in this life, it was Aniseed's
final Return.

“Wait,” Joy mumbled, wetting her lips and staring at Ink. “What
did you say?”

Ink brushed her shoulders, lingering a moment on Grimson's
mark. “I lied,” he said. “Remember, I was made, not born. So, technically, I am
not one of the Folk, and therefore I am not bound by their rules. It is what the
princess intended and the Folk required—that Inq and I would be loyal and yet
have the freedom to choose to whom we give our loyalty.”

Joy gaped at him. The words took longer than they should have
to come out. “You
lied
?”

He nodded. “Often.”

“But...you said you never lied.”

He cocked his head, smiling. One dimple. “Also a lie.”

Joy stepped closer. He caught her arm as she swayed. “Have you
lied to me?”

“Not intentionally,” he said, black eyes demure behind long
lashes. Two dimples.

“Liar,” she said, and kissed him.

THIRTY

THE HONEYED LIGHT
from
the Bailiwick swelled and burst into golden radiance as the King and Queen
emerged and everyone dropped to their knees. Joy knelt, head bent, because she
chose to—not because she had to—she was not Folk, she was a part-human
changeling, and she was mourning what it was to be mortal.

Their entrance preceded a sudden flood of Folk; soldiers and
courtiers and wide-eyed children walked disbelievingly onto the grassy field,
squinting up at their long-lost sun. Their awed murmurs transformed into screams
of joy, a clamor of names as the Twixt raised their eyes.

“Mama!”
A tiny antlered girl ran
toward the line of flame.

“Drop the ward,” the King commanded. “We are not separate any
longer.”

Ink obeyed, slicing through the ouroboros, which collapsed in a
shower of sparks as the crowd of Folk converged in a laughing, crying, hugging,
keening, jumping, flying, barking, cawing, roaring, singing, breathing, glorious
mass of family, kith and kin.

The Council bowed before their monarchs, begging forgiveness
and offering fealty; many of the Folk lay prostrate as others kissed the hems of
their gowns, crying grateful tears. Children yelped and laughed and cried and
squealed the way that only small children do, and Joy searched the crowd for a
certain sapphire nixie she'd know upon Sight.

Strange music radiated in every direction, like Inq's ripples
through the world. Wherever it touched, the world looked brighter, fuller, more
saturated with color and light.

Something was changing and everything had changed.

The Folk crowded Abbot's Field. Ink held her arm. Joy hung on
to him, looking for her brother and Dmitri, Inq and the Cabana Boys—she needed
to know who was safe and alive. Ink's hand was on her back, steadying her
against the warring tides of hope and sadness, relief and dread, knowing and
not. She didn't know what to feel until she could see them all again. Joy
turned, trying to find their faces in the crowd, when the Queen appeared
suddenly within a hand's breadth.

“Release him,” she commanded, pointing at Graus Claude.

“I formally withdraw from the Bailiwick,” Joy said, tripping
over the words. His features began to color, his mouth retracting, shrinking, as
bloody patches bloomed over his skin. Aniseed's wooden talons had broken off
during the change—but what would happen when he started breathing, bleeding? How
much time had Joy stolen? Had it been enough?

But as his eyes changed from white to ice blue, the Bailiwick
stretched languorously, all traces of wounds and damage gone. Joy would have run
and hugged him if not for their formal audience and the grisly state of his
armor.
Etiquette and decorum.

Graus Claude tugged his bloodied armor and bowed before his
Queen.

“Your Majesty,” he rumbled. “I humbly beg your forgiveness for
my lapses, for my failure to act, for my weakness and willful ignorance that
brought us to this brink, but I would have you know that I remained loyal and in
your devoted service in the hopes of realizing this glorious day.”

“Nonsense,” the Queen said. “You are our chosen vessel and the
best of all those maintaining the Twixt in our stead. Ironshod could not have
chosen wiser. He always spoke highly of you and with the utmost respect. You
honor us with your loyalty and the love you've shown our people.” She turned her
terrible, beautiful face to Joy with the barest hint of a smile. “You have done
well by us, courier, although your predecessor had little to offer as praise.
Yet you fulfilled your role admirably, Joy Malone.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty.”

“And thus, you are absolved of any wrongdoings concerning the
oak.” Joy swallowed audibly as Graus Claude shot her an icy glare.

“Was that your proof?” Joy blurted. Graus Claude coughed with a
scandalized scowl. “Your Majesty?”

The Queen did not deign to acknowledge the lapse. “Our proof
was this.” She gestured to Monica. “We witnessed a human willingly and knowingly
decline to claim ownership over one of the Folk, bequeathing onto him his own
freedom, his own life, rather than abusing that power to save herself.” She
fanned her fingers as if caressing Monica's cheek through the air between them.
“To you, who granted us our safe Return, you have our eternal gratitude.”

Monica blinked as the Queen herself inclined her chin and
everyone around them, including Joy, bowed before Monica—the most powerful human
in the world—the girl who saved the world simply by being
human
.

Satisfied, the Queen withdrew. The crowds stood. Monica swooned
on her feet.

“Miss Reid.” The Bailiwick addressed her formally with every
ounce of dignity. “To you I must also offer my humblest apologies,” he said,
bowing again. “May I extend our gratitude to you, as members of the Council of
the Twixt, as well as my own, personal, appreciation that you are a person of
wisdom, integrity, honor, compassion and enlightenment.” He glanced up at Joy
from beneath his postorbital ridge. “Best take notes, Miss Malone.”

He took a hand from each of them and pressed a sincere kiss
across their knuckles in turn. He hung on to Joy's a moment longer, covering her
hand with his own.

“Thank you,” said Monica. “And may I suggest you do
likewise.”

The Bailiwick stiffened. Joy felt a sick stab in her gut. The
icy blue eyes blinked once.

“Pardon?”

“You said how much you appreciate my granting you your
freedom,” she said. “How about paying it forward?” Monica turned pointedly to
look at Kurt, who stood with Inq and the remaining Cabana Boys in a quiet
huddle. Joy had told her Kurt's story, but Monica, being Monica, pushed it one
step further. “I'm
certain
your King and Queen would
approve.”

Graus Claude's stillness cracked along the edges. All four
hands twitched. Even freed, he could deny her nothing—she'd just been honored by
royalty.

“Indeed,” he croaked. “You are quite correct.” The Bailiwick
placed his hands across his belly and, with a double-slashing motion, crossed an
X through where his
signatura
burned. Across the
field, Kurt jerked—a hand pressed hard against his abs—and his eyes cut to his
master, who was his master no more. Graus Claude gestured, a soldier's salute,
and Kurt returned it, placing a hand on Inq's shoulder.

“There, now, doesn't that feel better?” Monica said with a
self-satisfied smirk.

Graus Claude grumbled, shifting his enormous feet. “You could
have commanded me to do so before you released me.”

“Yes, but then what would have been the point?” Monica said.
“You have to have the choice to do what's right—
that's
the point.”

The Bailiwick nodded and then took Joy by the arm, steering her
quickly aside as if to forestall her getting any new ideas from her best
friend.

“I expect I will be seeing you again shortly,” he said, his
authoritative tone returning. “Now that my theory about your change has proven
out, we must invent an entirely new category of Folk and establish the proper
protocols—if the Return is any evidence, the magic has already adjusted to suit
and now our work can truly begin.”

Ink slid into step alongside them. “And what theory is
this?”

“Why, that there was no possibility of Joy completing the
transformation,” the Bailiwick said as if this were obvious, which it wasn't.
Not by a long shot. Joy stopped walking. Graus Claude raised a manicured claw.
“Miss Malone foreswore all armor in exchange for accepting a True Name. Did I
not explain that in order to become an Earth Elemental, you must be entirely
subsumed within your element—in a cocoon, if you will—until the change can
complete?” He spread his four arms wide. “Well, there you have it. Without
ability to suit yourself in Earth's embrace, no transformation is possible. Thus
you are now as you always shall be—wholly and completely ‘incomplete' until we
all Return, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” He smiled knowingly. “I am afraid
this condemns you to remain part-Twixt and part-human, after all.”

Joy could have kissed him and did. As she pressed her lips
against his jowly cheek, he blushed a brilliant emerald green. He smiled and
patted her arm as she let go.

“Now I know that you must have many questions and decisions to
make concerning your upcoming future, but you are the first human-Elemental
changeling we've identified since the purge and, as such, you are granted
certain responsibilities that must be formally included within our governance in
order for your status to be sanctioned.” He paused, considering. “I am thinking
‘ambassador' has a fine ring to it. Ambassador to the Twixt. Of course, this
will elevate the Scribes accordingly—given their ties to both the princess and
yourself. Mistress Inq, in particular, should be quite pleased with that!” The
Bailiwick draped an arm casually over Joy's shoulders. “Have you ever considered
majoring in Political Science?” His eyes fairly glinted with imagined
opportunities. “Yes, Miss Malone. We have much to do!”

“As do we all, good sir Bailiwick,” Ink said, gesturing toward
Bùxiŭ de
Zhēnzhū, a dragon no longer, and his
Council of loyalists speaking to the King.

“Ah yes,” Graus Claude said, straightening his spine to his
impressive height. “I must go present myself formally to my colleagues on the
Council.” His grin was full of shark teeth. His pink tongue flicked with a snap.
“I shall deeply relish watching them squirm.”

And with that, the hunchbacked Councilex lumbered resolutely
toward the gathering Courts. Ink and Joy exchanged a glance at the pomp in his
step.

“Will you look at the Frog Prince strut,” Monica muttered over
Joy's shoulder.

“Monica!” Joy grabbed her best friend, squeezing her in her
arms. “Oh my God! You did it!” she crowed. “You are the
best
! You're
amazing
! You saved the
world!”

Monica laughed. “I did! You did! We so totally did!”

They clung to each other, laughing with effervescent glee. This
was it—what Joy had always wanted, but never hoped could happen—friends, family,
kindness, forgiveness, happy endings, new beginnings, all together.
This!

“Joy!”

Stef pushed past a knot of sasquatch and grabbed her bodily,
smashing her against his chest.

“Stef!” she cried, her eyes tearing.

“Oh my God,” he whispered, squeezing her tight. “You did it,
Joy! I knew you could!”

Burly arms wrapped around them both, knocking them sideways.
Curly horns butted against her head.

“Hey,” Dmitri said, scratching his beard against her cheek.
“Did I hear something about someone saving the world?”

“Not me—it was Monica,” Joy said, pointing at Monica, who
joined the group hug. Joy felt Ink's arms come around her and he tucked his chin
on her shoulder.

“You deserve some credit,” he said.

She wrapped her arm around him. “I'm just happy to be me!”

As they turned in their huddle, Joy spied Sol Leander staring
at them over a young lady's sparkling shoulder. She might have imagined his nod,
but she did not imagine the kiss he pressed against the maiden's starlight hair.
He held her tenderly as they walked off together, exposing the snow-haired
figure standing behind him.

Joy shouted, “Avery!”

He turned, stumbling slightly under his thick cloak of
feathers. Even wounded, he looked happy. He kept glancing around at all the Folk
dancing and laughing, kissing and clasping hands, embracing one another lovingly
in their wings. The courtier smiled, looking lighter despite the heavy weight on
his shoulders.

“Well met, Joy Malone,” he said. “And an honor, Miss Reid.”

Joy asked, “Do you have family here?”

“No. All my family were human,” Avery said. “They died long
ago.” He didn't sound sad when he said it. It must have been years, decades,
centuries. “Sometimes, when we find ourselves alone, we will cling to any
kindness.” It was almost a story—betrayed by family, joining the Tide,
condemnation, redemption—it showed on his face. “Do you see now why I wanted to
save you?”

It seemed too public a place, too private a question, too
unsaid a secret, especially with Ink standing by.

Because you love me?
she guessed.
Instead she said, “No.”

Avery gave a rueful smile, a gentle chiding as if he'd heard
her thoughts.
So human
. “Because of what you
represent,” he said. “That magic chooses justly, that right will win out, that
we can be kind as well as cruel and that there are no mistakes.” His wing
shifted, curled protectively against his side. “And that if you belong, well,
then, so do I.”