Chapter 18
The tunnels stretch ahead of us from the intersection where we stand. A Worldkeeper gives us each brief but clear instructions. Twino and Ren will emerge into the city through a forgotten sewer grate. Gregor and I will go back to the portion of tunnels I know.
We’re headed in opposite directions.
The four of us stand together, not saying anything for several seconds. We all need to go. Yet none of us can bring ourselves to move.
This isn’t goodbye, I try to tell myself. The two have already said they won’t leave Eclipse City, at least not yet. So why…why does it feel like the last time I’ll ever see them?
“Where are you going to go?” I ask, thinking they might answer with a bit more detail now that there are no Worldkeepers around. Though, logically, I know better. Everything echoes down here, and there might always be someone in the shadows.
“I had half a mind to buy a home in Fated Heights,” Twino says.
“Pfft.” Gregor’s eyes nearly pop out of his head. “Where do you think you’re going to get the money for that?”
Twino grins slightly. “I handled the accounting for the Starcrossed Club, remember?”
“You…” Gregor shifts Arina in his arms as he takes a step forward. “That was the club’s money.”
“Do we need it now?” Twino glances between us. Ren is looking rather smug at his love’s side. I can’t stop a mischievous grin on their behalf. “The money was in the bank under an alternate name Bristara went by, not the club’s.”
Ren straightens. “And this kindly older woman happened to have a nephew who will come to claim her fortune, now that word of her untimely demise has reached him. Such a shame she had no other heirs.”
I let out a laugh.
“You can’t honestly let this happen,” Gregor says to me.
“There’s no more club.” I shrug. “I don’t need it. And you’re throwing in your lot with the Worldkeepers. Let Twino and Ren use it. We all worked for that money, seems only fair some of us reap the reward.”
“Thank you,” Ren says to me.
“Stay safe, please.” My throat is thick with a lump I can’t swallow as I pull Ren then Twino in for a tight embrace. Twino and I linger over our hug a bit longer.
“As safe as anyone can be these days,” he says softly.
I nod.
“Don’t do anything we wouldn’t do,” Ren says as Twino and I break apart.
“That leaves plenty of room for trouble,” I point out.
“I know.” He grins.
“Shall we?” Twino looks to Ren.
“Lead the way.”
The two men walk into the tunnel, figures growing smaller and fainter in the flickering lamplight until the darkness swallows them completely. This is it…the end of the Starcrossed Club. The end of everything that’s ever made me feel safe since Mother’s death. The end of what made me who I am.
The same feeling as earlier returns with more clarity.
It’s not goodbye…But it is the end of an era.
A turn of fate’s wheel. I will see them again, but when I do, our paths won’t be overlapping anymore.
Not as they have been. We’ll be “old friends” catching up.
It’s not bad. It’s just different in a way that makes my heart ache.
Everything I loved is leaving. I look to Gregor, and judging from his expression, he’s having many of the same thoughts.
“It’s just us now,” I say softly, my eyes falling to my sister cradled in his arms. It still hurts to look at her.
“Hey…” He takes a step closer. “For ‘just us,’ we’re going to be pretty fucking unstoppable.”
I let out a soft laugh and shake my head at his perpetual good nature. Then I nod in agreement. Everything’s a contradiction in me. I agree and don’t. I’m optimistic and hopeless. I’m crumbling and yet have never in my life felt clearer in what I need to do.
There is only one path forward for me. Only one path to ensure my own and my sister’s safety. One path to a future that gives us both a home we can count on for good.
The World.
“Yeah, maybe we will be.” My words are fragile but sincerely meant. “Let’s go.”
We walk in comfortable silence for a while, our footsteps echoing off the stone walls. Gregor’s breathing is steady despite carrying Arina, but I can see the strain in the set of his shoulders.
“Want me to take her for a bit?” I offer.
He shakes his head. “I’ve got her. She’s lighter than my pack was on most jobs.”
The comparison makes my stomach twist. Of course she is; she’s skin and bones. Ravin stripped away everything from her.
“Gregor,” I say after another stretch of silence, “why are you doing this? Choosing to join the Worldkeepers is more than saying you’ll help because we’re as good as blood.”
He’s quiet for so long I think he won’t answer. When he does speak, his voice is rougher than usual. “You ever wonder what your life would’ve been like if things had been different? If the crown hadn’t destroyed everything you loved?”
“Only every day.”
“I had a sister once.” The words come out flat, matter-of-fact, but I can hear the pain beneath them.
I barely stop my head from jerking his way, my jaw falling open in shock that he would bring it up—he’s never talked about it before.
Though I do glance his way. Gregor stares forward, into the darkness.
I know the look of a man seeing the past rather than the present.
“I…I know,” I admit.
“Bristara?”
“Yeah.” The previous club matron told us all a little bit about one another. Enough that we all knew which lines we shouldn’t cross. The topics that, if mentioned, could send someone into the depths of sorrow.
He nods. I can see a touch of conflict on his face. Even well intended, Bristara had shared his most personal story. But it was for a good reason, and she did it equally for everyone. By the time I finally told the club about Mother, they all already knew.
But when I did, they heard my telling of my story. Bristara only ever shared the rough outlines, never the full color. The heart of our truths was always ours to share.
“She was younger than me. Sweetest person you’d ever meet. Always laughing, always getting into mischief. Kind of like someone else we know.” He looks down at Arina with fondness that has more meaning than I ever realized.
“I’m afraid I can’t relate to ‘sweetest person’ and ‘mischief’ in a sibling. You know damn well Arina at her best is a fiery rebellion wrapped in chaos with a dash of sass.”
He chuckles, and I crack a smile as well, still focused on my sister. That’s how she was. Now…Who knows how she will be when she wakes. I promptly banish the thought. She will be my sister, and that is all that matters.
“Malie was curious, especially after I started showing an inclination toward the arcane,” he continues. “I found some illegal inking tools and played with them. It was all so harmless. Not that it matters.”
“It never does,” I murmur, already seeing where this is headed.
“I didn’t even know she took the pen, paper, and powders.
I don’t think she even realized what they were.
The enforcers found her out with them, drawing.
‘Illegal tarot,’ they called it. As if a nine-year-old girl who didn’t even have the slightest whisper of power could be some kind of danger to the ‘greatest kingdom in the world.’ ” His tone sours, expression hardening.
“They took her. Dad went off to find her—to fight for her liberation. Never saw them again.”
“And your mother?”
“They told her that if she spent another stretch at the Descent, they’d free my sister. She agreed. How could she not? Mom never returned.”
“I…I didn’t realize your mom died there, too,” I whisper.
“Well, she wasn’t murdered. It was just an ordinary accident,” he says, as if that makes it better.
“I’m sorry.”
He shrugs, like it doesn’t matter. Gregor’s shoulders have always been slumped, as if he were carrying an invisible weight, but now his posture takes on new meaning.
“Point is, I’ve got nothing, Clara. I don’t have a Ren to go off and start a life with.
I don’t have the peace Jura managed to find no matter where she stood. All I have is—”
“Rage,” I finish for him. We share a look of pure understanding.
“Even you…You have your place as a Major; so does Arina. You can make the vessel and summon the World. What do I have?”
“You still have us,” I counter.
“I know. But I can’t take your purpose or your place. And I want to fight. But I do better with someone to tell me who, what, where, and when to punch. Guess I’m simple like that.”
“I’ve always liked you simple.” I nudge his side.
We continue on in silence. I navigate our way through the now-familiar tunnels on half-remembered paths and then on instinct through well-worn territory. The air becomes fresher, carrying hints of the flowers that grow in the graveyard and the distant smell of the city.
The tunnel opens onto a wide storm drain that empties into a narrow ravine between the mountainside and a row of shops on Silver Street.
The metal bars of the drain have long since rusted and fallen away.
Their remnants cling like rotted teeth that we carefully step around.
To our left, downward, is Rot Hollow. This outflow becomes a little river down there.
I knew many who’d wash their clothes in it.
To our right, upward, is the very edge of the city.
We both inhale the fresh air. Then I say, “We’ll wait a couple hours till dusk. I don’t want to be moving when it’s still so bright.”
Gregor nods and carefully settles Arina onto the ground.
It hasn’t rained in a fair bit, so it’s dry where we stand.
She stirs slightly at the movement, a soft sound escaping her lips that almost resembles my name.
I jolt and hold my breath but exhale any hope of her waking when she settles back to her usual catatonic state.
We pass the time by attempting to throw pebbles up onto a slanted ledge.
Most roll off. Then we talk about the first meal we want to eat once we’re settled in, how good a bath will feel, our favorite memories of the old club.
We talk about everything but our obligations, and, for a moment, it all feels normal.