Strange Attractors (61 page)

The animal side-kicked the stable door when the other horses tried to sniff him.

Rosette rolled her eyes. ‘I’ll bet he does.’

She pointed at the rail and An’ Lawrence passed her a clean towel. At the tilt of his head, Scylla jumped into the tub that Drayco had vacated. ‘Go get something to eat, the lot of you. I’ll finish up here.’

The horse took a nip at her bare shoulder as she walked past. She scolded him and he squealed.

Jarrod walked straight up to the beast and stroked his neck. ‘I remember you.’ The gelding’s ears relaxed as he whickered. ‘I am proud of you, Fortuna.’

‘Some friends you pick.’ Rosette wrapped the towel around her shoulders, drying her hair with the ends. ‘We’ve got to do something about this ash. Is all of Earth on fire?’

‘I think it might be,’ An’ Lawrence said. ‘The whole continent is about to blow.’

The kitchen was silent save for the thump of Fynn’s tail. The temple cats stared at the dog and he stopped.

‘It surprised me too, I promise,’ Grayson said. He could tell by Rosette’s face she wasn’t liking it. He sat back, folding his hands. He’d checked and double-checked. There was no mistaking it. DNA didn’t lie.

‘It has to be a mistake,’ Rosette said.

He stared at his mug.

She grabbed his shoulder, forcing him to turn towards her. ‘It’s a mistake, Grayson.’

‘Rosette, it’s no mistake, not according to the technology we found in the cellar. The hair you brought me from Shaea, her DNA, it’s the same as yours.’

‘Like a sister?’ Rosette’s eyes went to Nell who shook her head.

‘Like a daughter,’ Grayson said.

Rosette pounded the table, tea jumping out of the cups. ‘My child is dead. You buried him yourself. I have no other! Certainly not a full-grown daughter.’

Teg mopped the table. Nell had her eyes closed. Jarrod stared as if he were a million miles away. An’ Lawrence seemed asleep. No help there. Grayson had hoped they would have something to say. He didn’t want to try and explain how this could have happened but he realised he was the only one who could. ‘Rosette.’ He touched her hand and she pulled back. She didn’t look at him. ‘Rosette, listen. I think I know what happened.’

‘Tell us,’ Nell said, opening her eyes.

He cleared his throat. ‘When you were in Cryo, under Everett’s care…it must have happened then. He took samples of your DNA. He knew you were different and he catalogued everything. When we got you out, he still had the samples.’

‘Samples of what?’ Rosette asked. Her eyes bored into him.

‘Cell structure, tissues, maybe more. Maybe cultured ovum. Everett started an in vitro program in the Borderlands and I think that’s where Shaea—and Jarrod’s new body—are from.’ He looked at Jarrod. ‘Xane’s memories correlate, don’t they?’

Jarrod nodded. ‘Could fit.’

‘I have no idea what any of that means,’ Rosette said.

‘It means, Rosette, effectively, you’re right. You never had another child, but someone did for you.’ Grayson did not meet her gaze.

‘Twins?’ She pointed to Jarrod. ‘Was Xane mine as well?’

‘She birthed both Shaea and Xane but only Shaea is your blood.’

‘Who, Grayson?’ she asked. ‘Who birthed them?’

‘Her name is Regina. She’s a shaman, a witch in the Borderlands.’

‘And Makee stole the twins?’ Jarrod said, his voice very quiet. ‘She must have followed us through the corridors, hid there and tracked Everett onto the Borderlands.’

‘Why?’ Rosette said through clenched teeth. ‘What possible reason?’

‘To get the spell,’ Nell said. ‘She needed someone of the blood to carry it. She must have known Everett’s plan all along.’ Nell crossed her arms tight. ‘She intended this from the start. Everett took the female from you, Rosette. That’s why the male developed.’

‘My boy?’

Nell nodded. ‘Twins aren’t uncommon in our line but the males don’t grow past the first trimester. The mitochondrial DNA prevents it.’

‘Luka Paree’s tampering…’ Rosette stared at her hands.

‘Rall, old witch Rall.’ Jarrod shook his head. ‘It’s all making sense.’ She was Makee in one world and Rall in the other, keeping an eye on the two children.

‘Not much of an eye, from what I can tell.’ Rosette’s face was flushed. ‘You said you two were gutter-raised.’

‘We were.’ He rubbed at his scab and Rosette pulled his hand away. ‘I don’t see why she took Xane though.’

‘Maybe she didn’t know which of the babies was the right one. She couldn’t know half the truth of our DNA or the spell it carries.’ Nell looked at An’ Lawrence. ‘Where is La Makee now?’

The Sword Master shifted in his seat. ‘The Lemur raven died in my hands.’

The cups and saucers rattled as a tremor shook beneath them.

Rosette glanced at Grayson and broke the silence. ‘What do we do?

‘My question exactly,’ he said.

Rosette stood. ‘We’ve ASSIST trackers sniffing our borders, fit to detonate what’s left of the northern hemisphere, my…offspring is traipsing through the corridors on her own, Passillo in tow—unless she’s dropped it in a ditch or sold it to a baker for an apple pie. She has no idea of what it is. I don’t even fully understand its link to the Entities. Would she know how to navigate? Where would she go? And Kreshkali’s vanished, who knows where.’ She leaned closer to Nell. ‘Did I miss anything?’

‘We’re cut off from the resistance at Half Moon Bay, and the corridors out of this world are filling up with magma.’

‘Are they? I didn’t know that.’ She looked at An’ Lawrence. ‘Did you see Kreshkali when you came through the portal?’

He shook his head.

‘Where could she be?’

All eyes turned to Nell.

‘I know where she is,’ Teg said, speaking up for the first time. His shoulder was wrapped tight, his arm in a sling. He cradled a large mug in his free hand, staring into it.

‘You do?’ An’ Lawrence asked.

Teg levelled his eyes on Nell. ‘She’s on Shaea’s heels.’

‘And where is that?’ Rosette asked.

‘The Borderlands.’

Jarrod looked up. ‘The young witch’s trying to find her way home.’

An’ Lawrence insisted they ride to the portal. The horses would be easier to control that way and he didn’t want to lose any more. There was his stallion, Diablai, and three Desertwind brood mares left behind as it was. They had taken off to higher ground in the east and short of doing a calling spell, he couldn’t get them back. There was no time. The world was breaking apart and his heart broke too, leaving them behind.

The ground shook, the groan of the land deafening. They had to evacuate. The spell Makee had laid beneath the mountains to make them boil was not undoable but Jarrod had calculated the possibilities from an infinite number of variables and had come up with an unequivocal
get out!
Nell and Rosette were stubborn. They grabbed Teg and did some investigations in the ether. The information they came back with didn’t look any better.

The polar caps were frozen solid, the ice spreading to the sixty-degree latitudes, north and south—not a natural state for the hothouse phase of Earth’s climatic cycle. Magma was erupting from rifts and crevasses at the fifty-degree line on to well south of the equator thanks to Makee’s thermodynamic meddling. She wanted to shut down ASSIST—stop the trackers from crossing into Gaela—and when conventional magic didn’t work, she decided to close off the doors to Earth. The portals were filling with lava, Entities fossilising. The tectonic plates were shifting again. There was no way to undo Makee’s spells in time, no foreseeable way, so they were evacuating, going back to Los Loma Gaela to await the fallout. What would become of the many-worlds was yet to be seen. Jarrod
had some likely scenarios in mind. An’ Lawrence couldn’t say he was fond of any one of them.

He ground his teeth as he handed the palomino over to Jarrod. The horse went willingly, though he suspected the animal knew this wasn’t the same stableboy from Corsanon. He turned to Nell. They exchanged a single look, letting everyone pass before them towards the crevice. Together they followed the others into the portal, jumping back the moment Rosette ran her hand over the plasma stream. Scylla sprang from Drayco’s side, leaping through the portal as if it were a ring of fire. She landed in front of An’ Lawrence and leaned into him as she screamed a farewell to those in the corridor. The Three Sisters shot out as well. An’ Lawrence took Nell’s hand and they ran back into the ash, rumble and spit of a dying Earth.

‘Nell! Rowan!’ Rosette shouted. She squeezed Teg’s shoulder, making him yelp. ‘Where did they go?’

‘Nellion!’ Jarrod yelled.

‘Noooooo!’ Rosette’s cry was ear-splitting.

The palomino reared and the other horses pawed the ground. Rosette rushed to the portal edge with Jarrod and Grayson, leaving Teg and Maluka to settle the horses. Annadusa’s head came up, but she didn’t leave Clay and Shane. They were propped against the back wall, still recovering from the short ride to the portal.

Teg stroked the palomino’s neck, soothing the others with a calming spell. He didn’t look to the portal. He knew where they had gone. Nell had tried to hide her thoughts from him. He’d pretended he didn’t read them—but he did. She hadn’t given up on Earth. He guessed she never would.

Rosette spun on him. ‘You knew!’

He licked his lips. ‘They’re making one last attempt.’

Rosette wailed.

‘They can’t be!’ Jarrod said. ‘Even if it succeeds, the portals will be closed. They won’t be able to get out.’

‘Nor us in.’

Rosette looked down. Her eyes filled with tears and she wiped them with her fingertips, her hands bearing the intricate designs of her new tattoos. She was a High Priestess now, initiated the night before in the dark of the moon. She wouldn’t try to follow. There was too much at stake. Her path lay ahead.

Drayco’s tail lashed as he stared at the whirling portal.
Maudi, they are gone.

The pain in his voice made her tears flow again. She dropped her hand into his fur, gripping tight.
We have to keep moving. Start again.

Without them?

She squeezed his neck tighter but said no more.

Nell ran from the portal; Scylla was racing ahead, the Three Sisters circling above. Rowan didn’t let go of her hand. She blinked back the tears, slipping and stumbling as the ground tremors rolled beneath them. She stopped by the wrought-iron gate to catch her breath. Ash piled up on the ground like autumn leaves. She flipped up her cowl, hiding her face.

Rowan stood, legs wide, braced against the tremors. ‘Are you ready?’ he asked. His eyes went to the closest peak; plumes of smoke rose hundreds of feet in the air creating a vault of black above them.

‘I am. Back to the temple,’ she said.

‘While it still stands.’

An’ Lawrence and Scylla ran, Nell and her familiars flying ahead. The sudden gusts of hot wind tipped her wings as she careened towards the temple grounds,
the ravens’ flight erratic in her wake. They met by the stables; the remnants of Janis and Luka’s protection spell were barely holding the place together. She didn’t shape-shift but perched on the hitching post, watching Rowan work. He armed the first set of micro-explosive devices confiscated from the trackers and held them out in the flat of his hand. The Three Sisters each picked one up neatly in their claws. Nell hovered over him for a moment, grabbed hers and took off.

Nell, I…

Don’t jinx it, Rowan. This will work if we see it working. I’ll be back.

She flew northwest, high over jagged peaks, catching a stabilised thermal above the ash clouds. When she spotted the northern vein of the old San Andreas fault line, she called the Sisters in and dove. Just above the sealed ravine, where the pressure was highest, she opened her talons and let the megaton explosives drop. The Three Sisters did the same. Instantly she back-winged, catching an updraught rushing south. Wings wide and flapping, she flew for all she was worth, her familiars on each side as they rushed higher and further away from the blast zone.

When the shock wave came, it rolled her head-over-tail through the air, down feathers levitating about her. She tucked, plummeting until she was able to correct her descent. The Three Sisters fared worse—unable to manoeuvre as quickly. Their broad wings were strong though and they were climbing again before the ground came up to meet them.

The hot air burned her cere, ash clouding her vision. Behind, lava spewed in bright red geysers from the new rupture between the Earth’s plates.
Perfect. Thank you. Come, ladies, this is only the start.

By the time she winged back to Temple Los Loma, the shakers had subsided. She didn’t bother to shift but resumed her perch, taking a drink from the trough.
Three more like that and we’re in business.

‘Three?’

The last one is a parting gift to ASSIST.
She blinked her falcon eyes.

‘Nell, you look like you could use some…’

Don’t say it. We have to keep going.

Rowan’s face was white, his hands shaking by the time he loaded her with the last micro-explosives. ‘Have you seen Half Moon Bay?’

It’s a mess, but we’ve got people there, still alive. I gave them the coordinates around the mountains. They’re on their way.

‘How long will it take them to get here?’

If they make it? Two weeks. There are children and elders among them.

‘And you? How long?’

She clenched the explosives in her talons.
Less than an hour.

‘I’ll have a hot bath waiting for you.’

She circled Temple Los Loma, taking in the fractures in the ground, the burnt paddocks, the fallen trees. Remarkably, the manor house was unharmed, the giant stained-glass dome over the library obscured by ash but otherwise untouched.
That will be lovely. A birdbath for the Sisters too, please, and food. We’re famished!
She whistled, long and shrill, before darting away.
This is it, Rowan. The last one. After I drop it, no matter what happens to me, the Allied States will not rise again.