Strange and Ever After (32 page)

“Come,” he said softly. “Join me.” Without waiting to see if I would follow, he began a graceful ascent up the worn steps of the pyramid.

And I hurried after. There were only thirty steps to climb, and they were waist high—easier to rise than the Great Pyramid had been.

By the time we reached the top, I was sweating and my breath burned in my throat. But I welcomed it—any feeling that distracted me from the gaping hole in my heart.

Joseph settled onto the top stone and eased Daniel’s spyglass from his pocket. I dropped down beside him, rubbing my face on my sleeve.

“He is gone,” I said into the damp fabric. “He is gone for good.” I risked a peek at Joseph.

But all he did was nod. Other than that, he showed no reaction.

And I was grateful. So
very
grateful. I lowered my arm, and as if Joseph were a priest to absolve my sins, I confessed. “I don’t know why I did it, Joseph. I suppose I hated feeling like I was no one without him.” I lifted my left hand helplessly. “But I
am
no one. His magic was everything that kept me alive.”

“You do yourself an injustice,” Joseph said softly, pressing the spyglass to his eye and scanning the horizon. “You saved all of Philadelphia without him. You battled spirits, you battled corpses, and you battled Marcus—all before you’d ever met Oliver.” He lowered the spyglass. “I realize the loss hurts, but it will fade with time, Eleanor.”

“But not soon enough. And there is such a vast emptiness where our bond used to be.” I clutched at my belly. “It is like someone scooped out my insides. Like
he
scooped them out and took them away.”

I sank forward and cradled my head. It was as if part of me had
not
let him go. As if this swelling in my chest was a desperate hope that he would return.

Joseph rested a hand on my shoulder—a brotherly gesture that was so unlike him . . . but that comforted me all the same. “Jie told me something,” he said softly. “She said when Oliver healed her, their minds met. She thinks it was by accident—that he was so upset by how close you went to the edge, he lost control of his feelings. They poured into Jie—and do you know what she felt?”

I shook my head.

“She felt lost and alone. Confused and angry. She felt a love so powerful, it branded her heart and reminded her why it was worth being alive.”

“But I felt that too,” I murmured. “He showed me his soul too.”

“Ah, but I do not think he did, Eleanor. You felt what your demon wanted you to feel. Jie felt what he could not hide.”

Joseph’s hand withdrew, and I nodded—though I did not truly understand.

Remember this, El: not everyone who you invite in will wish to be there. And no matter what you might want, I will one day have to leave.

My eyelids flicked shut. Perhaps I
could
understand. He had warned me, time and time again.

“Marcus,” I croaked, “could be here tomorrow. We are made weaker without Oliver’s magic.” I wet my lips and peeled my eyelids back. “We might not win this.”

“Ah, but you forget something.” Joseph leaned onto his knees. “Marcus wants only me. He will come to us because—as you rightfully saw—he wants revenge for what I did to him all those years ago. And so, should it seem that we are losing, then there is an obvious solution to change the tide.”

A chill snaked through me. “No.” I angled my body toward him. “
No
, Joseph. I will not let you consider that. It is not an option.”

His eyebrows lifted, and the resignation in his eyes was
inescapable. “I will do
anything
for Daniel and Jie, remember? I will kill for them . . . and I will die for them. And so, should our plans fail, it will be your job to make Daniel and Jie go.”

“Go?”

“They will never leave me behind.” His eyes narrowed. “Marcus comes here for me, Eleanor, and I will give him what he wants if it will save the rest of you.”

“So you’re going to
hand
yourself to him?”

“No. I go into this battle to win. But I cannot . . .” He grimaced and rubbed at his bandages. “The truth is, I cannot face Marcus if I worry about the rest of you. This is a fight between him and me that goes back many years—and it is a fight I pulled you into. Marcus should never have been
your
problem. Or Daniel’s or Jie’s. Yet look at what he has done to all of you. Look at what he did to your family.”

“Stop talking like this. As much as I may
want
to blame you—as easy as it would be for my conscience, I cannot lay this at your feet, Joseph. Not for a single moment do I see Marcus as your fault. My brother caused just as much damage as he. We are all here today because of the choices we made, good and bad. Nothing we say or think or feel can change that. So when Marcus arrives, we must
finally
finish what we set out to do.”

The muscles in Joseph’s jaw worked, as if he was trying to swallow back what he was about to say. But then it rushed out. “Except, I am not sure I can finish it, Eleanor.”

I grabbed at his arm. “Of course
you
can. You are the strongest one here.”

“Yet Marcus is much stronger than I. My electricity cannot hold up against his immense power.”

My fingers tightened on Joseph’s sleeve. “But you have us behind you.”

“And that is what frightens me most—can you not see?” He exhaled, a pitiful, shaking sound. “I know you think me rigid, Eleanor. I know my avoidance of black magic confounds and frustrates you. But every man has his limit—a line he will not cross. And every man must choose what that limit is.”

“And your line is self-power,” I whispered, releasing him. “I understand that, but it does not mean we will lose against Marcus.”

“But it is
very
likely, especially with Oliver gone. And that is why I am begging you to make sure Daniel and Jie leave if the battle should fall to me. Promise me this, Eleanor.” He leveled me with a sad gaze. Yet the look on his face was the Joseph I had come to know. The unwavering poise that made him a leader. “Promise me that you will see them to safety.”

I gazed into his glittering eyes, and ever so slowly I nodded. “I promise, Joseph. But only because you have a line—and that is what makes you worth following. It’s what has earned you the unflinching love of Daniel and Jie. And it is what makes us believe in you. To the end. If I had such a limit, then . . .” I shrugged one shoulder. “Perhaps I would not be so lost without my demon. Or so scared—” My voice cracked. “Or so
scared
of what the future brings.”

Joseph’s lips twisted into a smile. “But you
do
have a limit,
Eleanor. Every man has one. Let us simply hope you are never faced with crossing it.”

Joseph and I sat in silence until dawn, with no company but the stars and coarse wind. By the time the sun began to rise, its misty pink light bathing our left cheeks, I felt better. Though I kept reaching for things with my right hand: an itch, an errant curl. At least the stab in my gut had lessened. The choking in my lungs had tapered off.

Oliver was gone; I had let him go; I would move onward as I always did. Joseph was right: the loss
would
fade with enough time.

“Has the falcon moved?” Joseph asked, his voice a mere breath.

I closed my eyes, tested the leash. . . . “Not yet.”

And we descended back into silence until the sun was fully risen and burning with heat. Until Daniel appeared with breakfast—and saw my missing hand. Until Jie followed behind him and asked about Oliver.

Until I could not handle the chatter or accusatory gazes a moment longer.

Then I claimed the need for sleep and stumbled down the north side of the pyramid.

But Daniel hurried after. “Empress,” he called once my feet had dug into the warming sand.

I slowed, biting back a sigh. Ahead, the balloon shifted against its tethers, a graveyard of dogs now resting beneath its shade.

Daniel stopped beside me. The sun lit his face, his skin as golden as the pyramid now. His hair the same color as the tawny sand. His fresh white shirt billowed around his frame, and sunburn sprayed lightly over his nose and brow.

My frustration instantly dried up. And in an unexpected tide, grief buckled through me. Oliver was gone, we would soon face Marcus, and it all felt much,
much
too real.

So I turned and fell into Daniel’s arms, and I wept.

For my brother. My mother. My old life. For Jie. Allison. Oliver.

And finally for me.

I cried and cried until Daniel’s clean shirt was soaked through. And my wonderful inventor never said a word. He simply waited.

When at last I wiped my eyes and pulled away, he flicked my chin with his knuckle. “Cheer up, Empress. We’ll be home soon.”

“Home?” I croaked. “But . . . but we don’t
have
a home.”

“And that’s just it. It’s time to make one.” He pulled me back into an embrace, and my cheek rested against tear-soaked cotton. “We’re all family now, you know. None of us has anyone but one another. So I reckon it’s time for me, you, Joseph, and Jie to make a home. Though, of
course
”—he smiled into my hair—“you and I will have our own little place. Just the two of us.”

“Ah.” My eyelids fluttered shut. It was such a blissful image. A
home
. With Daniel.

For a long moment I sank into the warmth of his body so near to mine. And I reveled in how his heart thumped against
my cheek. How his ribs vibrated as he breathed. “I would like a home,” I admitted.

“So let’s go then.”

I snapped my eyelids up. “You mean
after
all this.”

“Let’s leave Marcus behind, and just . . . go.”

“Marcus will never let us leave,” I said quietly. “You know that. He will chase us until he has gotten to Joseph. Until he has gotten to me, to you, and to Jie.”

“I know.” Daniel shrugged one shoulder. “But you can’t blame a man for tryin’.”

“What happened to unflinching and unafraid?”

He drew back slightly and peered into my face. “I ain’t flinching, Empress. And I ain’t afraid. Not while this”—he took my hand and curled my fingers inward—“can make a fist. And not while breath still burns here.” He laid his other hand over my chest. “I will fight until the end, no matter where it takes us. But sometimes a man needs a few good dreams to warm his wicked nights.”

“Then let us dream right now.” My lips quirked up, and without thinking, I moved my arms back around his waist. “Let’s dream about what we’ll do when this is all over.”

A soft laugh ruffled my hair. His arms slid around my shoulders and tugged me even tighter. “We should start by getting your hand attached. The surgeon I designed it with is in Munich.”

My hand
. Daniel’s perfect, mechanical prosthesis. I had forgotten it.

“And then what?” I asked.

“Then let’s go back to Paris so I can
finally
see the Louvre, and then . . . how do you feel about London?”

“I feel good about London.” I grinned. “But we mustn’t forget Vienna. Oh, and there’s always Rome.” I tipped my head back and rested my chin on his chest.

He smiled down at me, the breeze sweeping his hair in all directions. “And how about
after
we see the world with all that money we don’t have?”

“Oh, we’ll have money,” I declared. “After we patent all your inventions and become disgustingly wealthy, we’ll have heaps of it.”

He chuckled. “In that case, after we see the world we’ll open a school.”

My eyebrows shot up.

“For all the kids like me,” he added. “All the kids who got kicked around by life but want somethin’ more.” He twined his fingers through my hair. “For all the kids who never even
dared
to dream about a life as perfect as mine is right now.”

I swallowed as cold crept over me. Nothing about our life was perfect. This sunny morning would end very soon, and the darkness would seep back in as it always did.

But for
now
it was good. For now I had my inventor. My Daniel.

I pressed my ear back to his heartbeat.

“I’ll call it the Joanna Sheridan Institute,” he declared. “After my mother, of course, and we can all be teachers there.
Joseph’ll teach about magic, I’ll teach about machines, and Jie can teach self-defense.”

“And what will I teach?” I asked.

“What do you
want
to teach?”

I chewed on that for a moment—but then the obvious answer came. “Literature, of course. Oh, and geography. I daresay I am more than qualified to discuss that nowadays.”

“I daresay you are,” Daniel murmured.

“I like this dream,” I whispered, my words sailing off with the sand and the sun and the wind.

“Me too,” he whispered back. “And when this is all over, it’s exactly what we’ll do.”

“Promise?”

“Yeah, Empress.” He squeezed me just a bit tighter. “I promise.”

I stood before the spirit curtain again. It was the strangest sensation—seeing my body stand in the middle of my cabin though I
knew
I was asleep.

I blinked. The curtain hovered before me instead of behind, and when I looked down, I was standing in the real world.

Cautiously, I reached for the shimmering doorway to the dock.

My hands hit a cool, flat surface.

I pushed. Nothing happened. For some reason I was trapped on the
earthly
side of the curtain. I leaned into the light, struggling to see the spirit dock. Yet it was like staring through a
window in a thunderstorm—a thousand lines of gold trickled and slid down a pane I could not cross. The view on the other side was blurred.

Except . . . the more I squinted, the more I
thought
I could see an old man. No,
the
Old Man. He shook his cane in the air, and his mouth moved as if he was shouting at me.

I pressed in, straining to hear something from the other side. The hairs on my neck and face pricked up, and when I laid my ear flat against the curtain, it sparked with static.

But the faintest sound also crept through. A voice—the Old Man’s voice.

I screwed my eyes shut and focused all my energy on shoving into the wall, on catching any strands of his words. . . .