X handed the broken band to Regent, who looped it around his arm, then dragged Dervish up the canyon like a corpse. The other lords followed. X stayed behind a moment, watching them rise up the wall en masse. With their wild colors and jewels, they looked like an ancient race of creatures finally leaving the sea.
Up on the stadium floor, the lords stood in a ring around Dervish, and debated his fate. X couldn’t see Dervish himself, but he heard him wailing like an animal. No, that wasn’t fair: X had never actually heard an animal cry like that. Even Vesuvius, when the Countess had stolen him from Maud and imprisoned him in a box, had protested less.
X went to Regent. He needed to know what would happen next. He’d accepted that his mother would remain imprisoned in the Lowlands forever—but what about Zoe? What about himself?
Regent turned away from the circle, annoyed at the interruption. X got a glimpse of Dervish through the other lords, though their bodies were thick as trees. Dervish had stopped screaming. He sat on the ground in shock, rocking back and forth like a terrified child.
“What is it?” said Regent. “Speak.”
Abashed, X spoke only four words.
“What becomes of us?”
Regent’s expression cooled.
“Zoe will be freed,” he said. “As for yourself, I cannot claim to know. We have not even determined what becomes of Dervish. There are some here who believe this gold band should be returned to him.”
“That would be madness,” said X.
“We agree on that point, you and I,” said Regent. “Now go. Do not squander your time wondering what is to come. Give Zoe and Sylvie the whole of your attention. One of them—I don’t know which—you shall never see again.”
Regent turned his back, and once again the circle was a wall through which no light shone.
Nearby, the Cockney and the other guards were making bets about what the lords would decide—happily flinging rings and hats and weapons in a pile on the ground.
X couldn’t bear to watch.
His eyes found Zoe and the others, who sat by one of the rivers. Maud was tending to Sylvie’s and the Ukrainian’s injuries. Vesuvius was climbing bossily all over everyone, looking to nest. He settled at last on Sylvie’s lap, remembering her even after 20 years. The two of them playfully butted heads. X saw Tree watching longingly from a distance, as if everyone’s affection for one another was a fire he wished he could warm himself by.
X approached Zoe, and whispered for her to follow him.
He led her under the archway, away from the guards and the lords, away from the Screaming Man, who seemed to know everything, see everything, feel everything. He pressed Zoe against the tunnel wall, and kissed her. As he did, she released a breath into his mouth—a sigh—that made him shiver.
Zoe smiled, put a hand on X’s chest, and thrust him at the opposite wall. X all but left the ground as he flew backward. He’d forgotten that she had powers, too. He began to speak but Zoe strode toward him, and kissed him twice—once softly and with cool, parted lips, and once so forcefully that she seemed to want to find a way inside his body.
“Which kiss did you like more?” she said.
Dazed, X said only, “Yes.”
She dipped her hands just below his waistband, and took hold of his hips. He was aware of every fingertip on his skin.
“Can I tell you a secret?” she said.
“Please,” he said.
“I like these powers. I kinda want to keep them.”
“I do not think it will be possible.”
“What if I promise to only use them for little stuff—like helping people open jars?”
X laughed.
“You are in a playful mood,” he said. “I did not expect it.”
She kissed him all the way down his throat. His body felt like a fuse that had been lit.
“I’m going to take you home with me,” said Zoe. “I’m going to show you everything—everything good, everything the world’s got.”
“I pray that you can,” said X.
Zoe heard the uncertainty in his voice. She pulled back.
“You don’t believe you’re going to get out of here?”
“I want it far too much to believe it.”
Voices crept in from the stadium, and the moment unraveled. X and Zoe left the tunnel hand in hand. The lords had disbanded. Everyone in the stadium had moved closer to Dervish. He didn’t bother standing, but seemed more in command of himself now. He glared at them all from the ground.
Regent addressed the unlikely crowd.
“It is Dervish’s own doing that we are gathered in the wilds of the Lowlands, where law and morality are but ghosts,” he said. “As such, it is his own fault that he shall not have the benefit of a true trial, nor have the right of redress.”
“Prattle, prattle, prattle!” said Dervish. “Is my punishment being bored to death?”
Regent ignored him.
“It saddens—and sickens—me to announce that the lords are not in agreement about Dervish or the fate of this gold band,” he said. “We shall hear arguments for and against him. But first I think it only right that two more of Dervish’s victims be allowed to bear witness to this process. I call them to us now.”
X and Zoe exchanged a confused look.
Regent lifted his arm, and pointed at two cells on the second level of the stadium. One cell door sprang open, then the other. The metallic groans drifted down. X stood frozen, waiting to see who emerged from the first cell.
It was a woman. Not many of the others recognized her because she was wearing a new gown.
Ripper descended as if she had just been announced at a ball.
X was stunned to see her again. He thought he’d lost her forever.
Banger materialized from the second cell, looking sleepy and unkempt. The purple cowboy shirt X had given him once was only half-tucked into his jeans. Amazed that he was allowed to leave his cell, Banger looked down at the crowd, and shouted, “For the reals? Coolio!”
“He’s a good guy,” Zoe whispered to X. “But he should be in the Lowlands just for crimes against slang.”
When Ripper and Banger arrived on the stadium floor, they caught sight of Zoe, and stopped short. X waved his hands, trying to communicate that it was okay, that she was okay. Beside him, Zoe pounded her chest with a fist: I’m alive.
X pointed to where Dervish sat crumpled and diminished. Ripper and Banger saw him now, too. Another shock. Ripper streamed at Dervish, scowling. Her feet were not visible beneath her dress, so she seemed to glide through the air.
“You MAY NOT harm me, you harpy,” said Dervish when he saw Ripper bearing down on him. “I am defenseless and have ALL THE RIGHTS of a citizen of the Lowlands!”
Ripper turned to Regent for clarification. Regent shrugged indifferently: Do what you like.
Even without powers, Ripper had no trouble pulling up Dervish’s frail body. She punched him in the mouth three times in succession. When he fell, she clasped her hands, and brought them down on his head like a hammer striking an anvil.
“Did you ENJOY that?” Dervish hissed when he could speak again.
“I think you know I did,” said Ripper.
Regent called the crowd back to order. He informed them that Dervish would be allowed to speak, but that first, they would hear from someone whose life he had taken upon himself to destroy.
Sylvie stepped forward. She looked strong to X. Resolute.
X caught Ripper’s eye.
With a proud look, he told her: That’s my mother.
“When I was a lord—when I was ‘Versailles’—I never understood why the Higher Power seemed to sleep through our most trying times,” Sylvie began. “Why allow Dervish to wreak havoc so long? Why not put a stop to it sooner? Was it because the Higher Power was disgusted by us, and had given us up for lost?” She paused. “I had twenty years to think about those questions when my son was taken from me, and Dervish chained me up in the Cave of Swords.”
Sylvie stopped again, and X feared that she wouldn’t be able to go on, that the memories of losing him would be too much. He felt a flash of panic, not just because she was his mother, but because she alone now stood between Dervish and freedom.
“Do you want to hear what I realized after twenty years?” said Sylvie at last.
X exhaled in relief. Zoe looped her arm around his waist.
“I realized that when I was alive we asked the same kind of things about god,” Sylvie continued. “Maybe the people in your time did, too. Why is there evil in the world? Why is there suffering? We know that there’s a method to god’s ways, even if we can’t always divine it. So maybe there’s a method to the Higher Power’s ways, too. Maybe, like those poor fools up in the world, we’re supposed to find the path forward ourselves—to define for ourselves what’s right and what’s wrong. And we have an advantage down here, don’t we? We were all damned for being murderous, for being selfish and inhumane. Surely that’s a sign that we should try something else?”
Zoe leaned into X, and whispered: “I had to give a eulogy for the Wallaces. It wasn’t this good.”
“Dervish will never try anything else,” Sylvie went on. “He’ll continue to carve his self-loathing into a weapon, and he’ll continue to savage the prisoners of the Lowlands with it until the last clock in the universe stops. When it’s his turn to speak, I’m sure he will tell you the same thing. Dervish must be stopped for good—in both senses of the word. The lords and the guards aren’t supposed to beat the prisoners, or engage in any of the treacheries that Dervish is so fond of. Why? Because the true punishment here is psychic, not physical. It’s making a soul who’s been damned sit in the dark and contemplate his sins until his insides boil with regret. There’s no pain worse than that. You all know it because you’ve all felt it. Probably you feel it still.”
Sylvie pointed to the stone statue screaming in terror.
“That’s the face of a soul being ripped apart by guilt,” she said. “It’s not the face of a soul being beaten just because some crazed lord finds it amusing. If you have any doubts about what to do with Dervish—or with Zoe and my son, for that matter—think about the fact that the Higher Power allowed Zoe to come here and challenge Dervish. Think about the fact that the Higher Power allowed my son to tear the gold band from Dervish’s neck. You shouldn’t need any more evidence to do what’s right. Remember that the power that rules us is awake—and watching.”
Sylvie nodded to indicate that she was done. There was a silence, during which X could hear the rivers whisper.
Then the applause began.
It started with Regent, Ripper, and Banger, but spread quickly. Soon, Tree and the guards were clapping, too—every one of them but the Cockney.
X looked to the lords. One or two still appeared unmoved, unsure about what to do with Dervish. How could they be? What would it take?
When the applause died away, Regent told Dervish he could speak if he liked, but that no one would be disappointed if he chose not to.
“I shall speak,” said Dervish. “Of course I shall speak.”
He stood, spreading his feet wide in an attempt to appear commanding.
“The whore we called Versailles is correct in precisely one regard: I shall not repent, nor beg for mercy,” said Dervish. “Instead, I shall expound upon your idiocy a final time. You think in dispensing with me, you will save the Lowlands? The Lowlands MADE me.”
He prowled toward the other lords.
“You thought you had tamed the Countess, yet, according to my spies, she has already unsheathed her knife and begun peeling the skin of a certain Plum.” Dervish turned to X, and waited for the pain to show in his eyes. “And that is AS IT SHOULD BE, you worms. We are here to punish sinners, not grow goddamn DAISIES! Do what you will with me. You have become soft because of these two”—he gestured disgustedly at X and then Zoe—“and I do not fear you.”
X surveyed the ranks of the lords. Surely they saw Dervish for the cancer that he was? Even the Cockney was frowning now, and fussing with his lamp, as if he’d never been devoted to him. Zoe pulled X closer. He was so tense that he’d dug his fingernails into his hand.
The lords didn’t gather to debate this time. Regent only had to look them in the eyes to know their thoughts. He lingered a long time, it seemed to X, on the ones who had previously dissented.
At last Regent turned back to Dervish.
“It saddens me that you think us soft,” he said. “Perhaps we can persuade you otherwise.”
He nodded to one of the lords.
“Take him,” he said.
The lord lifted Dervish into the air by his neck, like an osprey clutching a fish.
He flew at the statue of the screaming man, and threw Dervish into its gaping mouth. Dervish tried to scramble out, but before he could the lord made a quick motion, like the tossing of a match.
The mouth exploded in blue flame. Dervish’s scream was like a twisting screw.
The lord sealed the statue’s mouth with another gesture.
Dervish was swallowed whole.
Once he was gone, the Lowlands themselves seemed to breathe again. X felt as if a siren they’d all gotten used to had suddenly gone quiet. He watched as his friends rushed to one another, as the lords broke into a flurry of talk, as the guards settled the bets they had made by handing over weapons and rings.
X’s relief at Dervish’s fall was undercut only by the fear that everyone had forgotten about him and Zoe. The lords hadn’t even ruled on what would become of his mother.
He found Regent in the crowd, and interrupted him a second time. Regent didn’t wait to hear X’s questions. Instead, he gave him a gentle look, and said, “You will have all your answers soon. For now, rejoice. The victory over Dervish is yours more than anyone else’s.”
“Mine?” said X. “I did nothing.”
“Why can you never see the good that you do?” said Regent. “Dervish couldn’t bear how much you loved Zoe and your mother when no one had ever loved him. He tried to punish you for it. It became a mania. At last, the other lords—and the Higher Power, even—saw him for the horror that he was and had always been.”
X thanked Regent, then turned and gazed at his friends wistfully, as if he were on a train and they were disappearing into the distance. He looked at Sylvie, Ripper, Banger, the Ukrainian, Maud. And Zoe, of course. How had he come to care about so many people? Had it all been Zoe’s doing? Had she opened him up in some way—broken down a wall that had been blocking him? No, it wasn’t quite that. She hadn’t broken down the wall—she had coaxed him out from behind it. She had convinced him that there was nothing in his heart to be ashamed of, that it was okay to be seen.
X watched as Banger greeted the Ukrainian.
“Dude!” said Banger. Seeing Maud, he added, “Dude and random chick! Whoa—and a cat!”
Banger was punchy from being in the cell.
“I’m allergic, actually,” he said. “Wait, are allergies still a thing when you’re dead? They can’t be, right? How could they? Can I pet the little guy?”
Even this exchange warmed X somehow. He turned again, and saw something that triggered an avalanche of feeling in his chest: Ripper was shyly approaching his mother.
He hurried forward to introduce them.
“Ripper, this is—”
She raised a hand to silence him.
“I know very well who she is,” she said. “Madam, it is an honor. Truly. I almost feel I should kneel before you.”
“And I feel like I should kneel before you,” said Sylvie. “You raised my son as if he were your own. I can’t think of a nobler act.”
“I suppose we could take turns kneeling before each other?” said Ripper.
Instead, they embraced.
“That’s an exquisite dress, by the way,” said Sylvie.
“Thank you so much,” said Ripper. “I stole it.”
Zoe came to stand by X. She seemed to know what he was feeling as everyone met or reacquainted themselves, as the disparate strands of his life intertwined.
After a moment, she nudged him.
Ripper had gone to say hello to the Ukrainian.
X feared she’d say something tart or dismissive. She had never taken the guard, or his feelings for her, seriously. X wished that he’d had a chance to tell Ripper how nobly the Ukrainian had behaved. In any case, Ripper nodded politely, and even put a hand on the guard’s shoulder to let him know she was glad to see him.
“Hello, Mr. Guard,” she said.
“Hello, Reeper,” he said.
“You have been injured,” she said. She touched his face gently. “I’m very sorry to see it.”
“Yes, is true,” said the Ukrainian. “Had unpleasant experience while bravely defending X, okay? But in my time of agony, many things are made clearly crystal.”
The Ukrainian paused to introduce Ripper to Maud, then the guard’s expression turned serious, and he began what sounded like a rehearsed speech.
“I am loving you many years, Reeper,” he said. “I think you are aware, yes?”
Ripper’s body sagged so profoundly that the straps of her dress rose off her shoulders.
“Could we perhaps discuss this later?” she said. “Or not at all? Not at all would suit me very well.”
“No, now is good,” said the Ukrainian. “Now is important.”
Maud, looking uncomfortable, tried to move away, but the guard gestured for her to stay, apparently for moral support.
“I wait long, lonely time for you, Reeper, during which you behave vehement crazy, and sing many things I think are not actual songs,” he said. “I tell you now I am done waiting. My love for you is forever dead.”
X could see Ripper trying to mask her relief.
“I understand,” she said. “I have only myself to blame.”
“Is correct,” said the Ukrainian. “Now I tell you a second thing, and it may be painful in your ears: I have big new love, and it is Maud.”
Startled, Maud popped her eyes. “You can’t be serious.”
“Is true, cat person,” said the Ukrainian. “My heart is now in your hands. I promise you it is quite red and large.”
Just then, Regent called everyone to attention, and a hush fell over the arena.
“Our business here is not yet ended,” he said.
He lifted what had been Dervish’s golden band, and broke it in two. To X, it almost seemed like a religious rite. Regent slipped half the band into a pocket in his robe. The other half he held like a gift he was about to bestow.
“We are in need of a new lord to fill the void that Dervish leaves behind,” he said. “I have nominated someone who has some experience in the field, and her name has been quite well received.”
He looked to Sylvie.
“Come forward, if you would, old friend,” he said.
Sylvie crossed the ground swiftly. X was struck by how fast she had recovered from the cave, how—even in her gingham farm dress and boots—she seemed to throw off light.
“Here I am, old friend,” she said.
Regent lifted the fragment of the gold band.
“We ask you the favor of serving once more,” he said. “Will you do us this honor?”
“I will,” she said, “if you’ll do something for me in return.”
Regent smiled fondly.
“Most people regard it a great privilege to be a lord,” he said.
“Then you’re welcome to ask most people,” said Sylvie, smiling back. “I, however, am aware that being a lord changes you—and not always for the better—so I’m not going to accept without assurances. Are you ready to hear my terms?”
“How long have I known you?” said Regent. “I’m perfectly aware of what you want—and I will do it gladly.”
“I need to hear you promise,” said Sylvie.
“We shall release Zoe from the Lowlands immediately,” said Regent, “with the obvious admonition that she never speak of anything she witnessed here.”
Relieved as he was for Zoe, X was alarmed not to have heard his own name. His heart felt like a spinning coin.
He looked to Sylvie and saw, with relief, that she was still waiting—that she wasn’t yet satisfied.
Regent continued: “Yes, yes, we shall free your son, too. I believed he is called Xavier? He should never have spent a single hour in the Lowlands. I suspect the Higher Power did not know what to do with a soul so rare.”
Before X could even process the words, he heard Zoe break into sobs.
Regent put the gold fragment up to Sylvie’s throat. X watched, transfixed, as it grew around her like a vine and became whole.
The lords began beating their palms against their legs. It took X a moment to realize it was a kind of applause, and another to realize that it was not just for his mother but for Zoe and him.
There was still the second fragment of gold in Regent’s pocket.
Regent removed it, and held it out for all to see.
“Dervish did us one courtesy in his final diatribe,” he said. “He reminded us that we must remove the Countess from power as well. So it appears we require a second new lord. It must be someone inspiring enough to obliterate the memory of the Countess entirely—to stand for everything she stood against.”
Sylvie began to interrupt.
Regent stopped her with another fond look.
“Fear not, old friend—we are in agreement on this matter as well,” he said.
Regent searched the crowd with his eyes.
“Ripper, come forward, if you would.”