Kingsbane

Jessamyn considered him appraisingly.

“Listen to the boy,” Zahra said, smiling. “He’s wiser than his age might suggest.”

But Jessamyn would not relent. “You said, ‘if we ensure she succeeds.’ Succeed at what, exactly? Simon will send her back in time, if he’s in fact capable of it—and I hate myself a little for saying such a preposterous thing aloud—and then what?”

“I bet you once thought bringing someone back from the dead was preposterous too.” Remy’s chin jutted stubbornly.

“I’ll talk to my mother,” Eliana replied, feeling even as she said the words that they were not enough.

Jessamyn’s mouth thinned. “Ah, yes. The Blood Queen. She was one for diplomatic conversation, was she?”

“And how would she react,” added Dani quietly, “if some girl appeared before her, claiming to be her daughter? She might fear it a trick. She might attack you.”

Remy, perched on the very edge of his chair, looked ready to combust. “Queen Rielle would know about marques. She would understand time travel and what they could do. She would believe El. I know she would.”

“You didn’t know her, Remy,” said Patrik tiredly. “You can’t say that for sure.”

Remy drew himself up, indignant. “But I’ve read—”

“Stories,” Jessamyn snapped. “You’ve read stories, passed down over centuries through the mouths and minds of the few people who managed to survive the Fall, and their descendants, and their descendants. Hundreds of thousands of people who could have gotten any number of things wrong. No one here even knew her. No one can say what she would do.”

“I knew her,” said Simon quietly, still facing the dark window, against which rain had begun to drum. “I knew her, and I still can’t guess what she might do. But I know we can’t afford not to try reaching across time to her.” He turned back over his shoulder, his profile cutting angry lines against the glass. “Unless you’d like to keep on running, Jessamyn, until you’re cut down fighting, after which the world will still go on in its misery. You have a chance here to help in a real way.”

Jessamyn straightened. “Are you saying the lives I’ve saved while working for Red Crown meant nothing?”

“No. I’m saying that staying with us, with Eliana, and helping her however you can in the days to come will mean more than whatever you could do elsewhere. We need as many fighters at our side as we can find.”

“Forgive me for asking what is probably a silly question,” Dani said after a moment, “but how exactly will this work? If it does work. You’ll travel back in time and talk to your mother, convince her not to ally with the angels. Yes?”

Eliana’s stomach sat in knots. “That’s right.”

“Let’s say you succeed. All those years ago, you change something the Blood Queen did or didn’t do. You alter the course of history.” Dani paused, glancing at Simon. “What happens to all of us?”

“Anything Eliana does in the past,” Zahra said at once, “whether she succeeds or not, will irrevocably alter this future in ways we can’t predict. Her mere presence there will change things.”

Then Simon added quietly, “And only she and I, being the ones connected to the thread that sends her back, will be the ones to notice any differences once we return.”

“You mean, we could end up dead,” said Remy quietly, “or somewhere else in the world, or born to different parents, and we wouldn’t know any better.”

It was not a question, and spoken in Remy’s childish voice, his words held an eerie finality.

“Yes,” said Simon, that unfeeling mask firmly in place.

“Or something she does could make this future worse than it already is.” Jessamyn’s words cut the room in two. “Isn’t that right?”

Simon inclined his head. “It’s possible.”

An enormous pressure had been building in Eliana’s chest, clamping down hard around her lungs, and now it became so unbearable that she had to rise from her chair and walk away from the group toward the farthest window. She stood there, arms crossed, shoulders hunched as if to bolster herself against a gale.

“So I could save us,” she said, “or doom us.”

“And we must move quickly.” Simon’s voice brimmed with frustration. “I had hoped we would have more time to work together here, where it’s safe. But if we keep progressing at our current pace, the army could arrive before we’ve had the chance to attempt traveling.”

He spoke as though they were the only two in the room—which, Eliana supposed, was his truth. What else mattered to him, besides her safety and his mission to protect her? Certainly not the lives of the other people gathered around them.

Patrik blew out a long breath. “So the question, then, is this: Do we risk everything and perhaps rid the world of the Empire, even if it means rewriting the lives of everyone now living? Or do we risk less and allow the world to continue on as it will, even if that could mean victory for the Empire?”

“Which would mean doom for this world,” Zahra added, her voice rippling like dark water, “and for all the others.”

“I have very little room in my heart for the safety of whatever distant worlds may or may not exist,” said Jessamyn tightly, “when my own is mired in an endless war.”

“It doesn’t have to be endless.” Dani rose from her seat, briskly smoothing out her trousers. “That’s what I’m getting from this conversation. We can end it, if we do this right. And I’ve been living two lives for all my years—a life of rebellion, and a life of false loyalty to a regime that goes against everything I believe in. It’s exhausting. If I can end that and send all the godly sparks of myself into a new form in a new, better world, then I’m happy to do it.” Dani placed her hands on her hips. “So what’s your plan, Captain? Whatever it is, my family and I will help you and Eliana as best we can.”

Simon’s smile was so small and tired that Eliana’s eyes grew hot. There seemed to be no end to her new capacity for crying.

“There’s a masquerade ball,” Simon said slowly, “in five days’ time. Isn’t that right?”

Dani nodded. “To open the Admiral’s Jubilee.”

“What in God’s name is that?” asked Jessamyn.

“A weeklong celebration throughout Festival to celebrate both the anniversary of Admiral Ravikant’s resurrection and the Empire’s conquest of Meridian.”

“And the admiral himself is already here in Festival,” Dani added. “He arrived earlier this month. Lord Tabris has been feting him for days.”