Chapter 32
Periwinkle
After my marked men and I have given a full account of our confrontation with Viscera, Rollick stands in the trailer meeting room for a while tapping his fingers together, his face set in an expression I can only call bemused.
“So you subdued her with the power of love and acceptance,” he says finally. “Should we expect you to start farting stardust and rainbows next?”
I can’t stop myself from glancing over my shoulder as if such a deluge might already have started without my noticing.
“Um, I think maybe… maybe this is what my power was always supposed to be. The way I can send out energy, at least. It felt right. I just needed to find the right people to bring it out of me.”
The people who could make me see how multi-faceted love really is—not just happiness but every other fraught emotion that comes into play when you care that much. And accepting all of it as a valid part of the whole.
Accepting all that I am.
I’m sure I’ve seen this sentiment on an inspirational poster some human made, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong: I had to love myself before I could be what I needed to be.
Mirage grins. “She doesn’t need to fart rainbows when she can already shine one out of her hair.”
I give him a playful kick under the table, but my thoughts have veered to more serious matters.
“Viscera is gone, but there could be more warped higher shadowkind like her who’ll come through the new rifts.
The lesser creatures are still a problem.
They can do so much damage… and it isn’t fair to them that they don’t have a chance at a real life before they break apart.
From some of the things Viscera said, it sounded almost like they’re being compelled here, which would make it even less their fault. ”
Rollick frowns. “What did she say compelled her?”
“She wasn’t really specific,” I have to admit. “She just kept talking about being pulled and pushed, about how there was supposed to be a place for her but it was a lie.”
As his frown deepens with concentration, Sorsha cocks her head where she’s leaning against the wall. “I wonder if you could close up these rifts. Your lovey-dovey power contained Viscera better than anything else we’ve seen. If there’s some way to apply it to the portals…”
My heart leaps. “I’ll try anything. I just want everything to go back to normal.”
Whatever normal will look like now that I have my powers under control and four men I adore who are just as devoted to me.
I can’t imagine yet exactly how that will be… but it should definitely be a juicier version of life than any I’ve experienced so far.
Rollick seems to shake off his apprehension and nods. “We’ll start experimenting right away. I’ve also established contact with another sorcerer who’s on her way and may be able to help Jonah rein the creatures in better while they’re still coming. And—"
One of his assistants pops out of the shadows with a gasp of ragged breath. “The rift!” she cries out. “I don’t know—it’s doing something—you have to see.”
We all scramble to our feet. As we rush out into the makeshift film set’s yard, my stomach lurches like I’m on a teeter-totter.
We don’t need to hustle over to the factory the rift was floating by. Even from here, half a mile away, I can see the portal now.
The wavering swath of air has stretched up and out, distorting several factory buildings beyond it and the more distant skyline of the city. The artificial lights that gleam brighter as evening starts to fall are quavering when seen through its surface.
The rift expands farther with every thud of my pulse: wider, higher, thicker. It was already huge, and now it’s at least a hundred times larger than the biggest portal to the shadow realm I’ve ever seen.
Rollick curses under his breath. His jaw tightens as if he doesn’t like what he’s about to say. “Stay here. We don’t want to risk getting any closer. We’ll just have to wait and—”
His phone starts ringing. He cuts himself off to yank it from his pocket.
At the same moment, a thicker warbling of energy passes through the air, as potent as if I’m standing right in front of the rift rather than far off down the road. The portal’s hazy outline surges farther even faster, swelling across the terrain and up toward the sky like a tidal wave.
And then it crashes.
The immense rift topples over, belly-flopping across the entire sprawl of the city in a spew of shadow.