Endlessly (Paranormalcy) (21 page)

I
stood
stock-still, utterly stunned, with Vivian’s long, skinny arms around me. When had I fallen asleep? I quickly ran back through my recent memories—Raquel, the path, Arianna, Reth—but they all flowed sequentially into each other. So either I was having the longest, most lucid dream ever or Reth had knocked me unconscious on the Faerie Paths.

Or Vivian was really here.

“I— You— Am I asleep?”

She laughed, backing up to arm’s length and holding both hands out in a ta-da sort of gesture. “You’re not asleep.
And neither am I, thank goodness for that.”

“How?” I scanned her frame but couldn’t see the burning souls she would have inside her if she’d drained any paranormals.

“That is the question, isn’t it.” Reth’s tone was as ill-tempered as his look. He sat on the couch and then, glaring at me as if daring me to mock him, he lay back on it, his breathing still shallow and rapid. “I plucked her body from the Center on our second visit there, lest she fall into Unseelie hands again. Imagine my surprise to return here today and find her awake.”

“You woke up all on your own?” I didn’t know whether to be elated or scared. I mean, sure, Vivian and I had become friends, sisters even, in the time since I stopped her from killing paranormals. But that had been in the safe confines of our dreams. Vivian out in the real world…“safe” was not a word that sprang to mind.

“I wouldn’t say all on my own, no. And have you seen yourself? You’re lit up like the Fourth of July!”

I looked down self-consciously. I’d been trying to ignore it, but I was pulsing with light. Not like when it had been concentrated in my wrist and heart from Reth, or the pale, barely there shimmer of my own soul. No, I was filled with all sorts of sparks and swirls of color if you bothered to look and could actually see.

Which Vivian, being another Empty One, could.

“Umm, yeah. I didn’t want any of this, not really.” Only
kind of a lie. “There have been a few…complications.”

She lifted her eyebrows at me, a wry smile on her face. “I know a thing or two about complications.”

“Yeah. So. You? Awake?”

She took my hand, hers freezing in mine, and pulled me over to the couch. “Gosh, your hands are burning up. It feels amazing. Sit down. I’m exhausted.” Vivian leaned back and I noticed she was even paler than me, which was saying something. She looked winded, though all she’d done was stand for a couple of minutes. “Guess being asleep for a few months and losing the energy from hundreds of souls doesn’t do wonders for your body.”

“Guess not.” I shifted uncomfortably, wondering if maybe she’d like to take some back so we’d be even. Added a whole new layer to the eternal problem of sisters taking each other’s things.

“Still, I’ve got one of my own now.” This time her smile wasn’t vicious or hard at all, but full of wonder as she blinked languidly. She pulled down the top of the long white hospital gown she was in and we both looked at the smooth skin over her heart. There, pulsing ever so faintly, dimmer even than David’s tiny candle flame of a soul, was a light.

“Viv,” I said, looking up at her with tears in my eyes, “your soul.”

“I know, right?” She beamed. “Guess I do have one, after all.”

“But how? I mean, why now? Do you think it was building up?”

“No, I know exactly how I got it. And now I finally understand why you weren’t dying when I met you, and how you kept getting brighter without taking souls from others.” She reached over and tugged the neck of my shirt down to mimic her own, poking the area above my heart with one cold, bony finger. “See, right there. The others are trying to hide it, but I can see it. And it’s brighter, even, than the last time I saw you.”

I looked down and put my hand over my heart, wanting to hold my soul there, to cradle it. Vivian and I knew how precious they were. “It is, isn’t it?” I hadn’t wanted to hope, but now that she confirmed it, I agreed. I was brighter.
Me
, not just the extras.

“Yup. Because, lucky Evie, I was right. Everyone loves you. Or enough people, at least, for your little sucky Empty One soul to grow all by itself. I never had that.”

I looked down, feeling guilty. Even with my bizarre life I’d always had it better than her, always had people who cared about me. “So you mean the people who loved me put it there?”

She shrugged. “Heck if I know the mechanics of it. Probably. I’m guessing you loving them helped, too.”

I felt warmer than I ever had before. Because this meant that not only did Lend fill that hole inside me, but Raquel did, and David, and Arianna. And, most important of all, it
meant that I had never truly lost Lish. If I had a soul because of the people who loved me and who I loved, then a huge part of it would always be hers.

“So, thanks,” Vivian said.

“For what?” I looked up at her, confused.

“For being stupid enough to love your crazy, murdering lunatic of a sister and being such a pathetic dork that I couldn’t help but love you, too.”

“That’s why you were disappearing,” I said. “You were waking up.”

“Because of you.”

This time I was the one to wrap my arms around her in a huge hug. “I’m so glad,” I said, my face buried in her hair. “But please, promise me no more killing, okay? I have way too many other things to worry about. Please be a happy thing in my life.”

She laughed, pushing me away. “Ouch. You are all elbows. And no worries. I’m not about to risk my own kick-A soul to mix it with some lame vampire mess. It’s too pretty.” She let her head flop back against the couch and closed her eyes. “Besides which, even if I wanted to go hunt for some souls, I’m pretty sure a legless werewolf could outrun me. All your little friends are safe.”

I breathed a sigh of relief, watching her face for any sign she was lying. It remained completely smooth and calm. I wasn’t about to invite her to a sleepover with Arianna or anything, but I had to hope that she was sincerely
changed. It was all I could do.

“What’s going on that’s got you so stressed? Dark Queen stuff?”

“Oh, if only that were all.” I explained the entire situation to her from start to finish. At one point I thought she’d fallen asleep, but her eyebrows remained drawn over her closed eyes instead of relaxing. “So,” I said after what felt like forever, “I’m going to open up the gate. Tonight, apparently.”

“Wow,” she said, exaggerating the lip movements to draw it out. “You have been busy, haven’t you.”

“Yup. What do you think? I mean, am I doing the right thing?”

She laughed and opened her eyes, her nearly colorless gray eyes meeting my own. “You’re really going to ask me that? My moral compass isn’t exactly known for its accuracy.” Her face softened. “Seriously, Ev, I think if anyone can make the right choices in all this mess, you can. Me, I’d just try to kill all of them. Did try to kill all of them, actually. But your way seems better. And less work in the end, because you get rid of them all in one fell swoop.”

I nodded, biting my lip. “It’ll work, right?”

She shrugged. “You’re the only one of us who’s ever made a gate. But sure. I think it’ll work. It’s why we’re here, right? At least one of us can fulfill her destiny.”

“Destiny totally sucks.”

“Don’t I know it.”

I stood up, pacing. I’d been debating what to do with her. I wanted to take her home to David’s, but putting her around that many paranormal creatures didn’t seem like a good idea. Best to ease her back into soul temptation. Because I couldn’t deny that even I was drawn to the souls of the paranormals around me, knowing how they’d feel, how they’d fill me. How much worse would it be for Vivian, who had once carried so many?

Yeah. Far away for now. Tonight I’d make sure Raquel was in charge of her. And that Raquel had Tasey. “Reth, are there any faeries with the people we saved?”

“No,” he said, his eyes closed, his thick eyelashes the same crescent as the dark circles beneath his eyes. “They are safe there alone, and all the Seelie faeries have gathered with the queen.”

“And what about that meadow where we have them? Is it going to, I don’t know, poof out of existence as soon as the faeries leave?”

He frowned thoughtfully. “I suppose it will remain as it is. All this will. We created it, but the matter from which it was formed was never ours. I can’t see why it would cease to be since we don’t do anything to keep the things we make here. Once made, they simply are.”

“Are you sure?”

He opened his eyes. “Of course not.”

I glared. “Well, thank you.”

“Part of my queen’s preparations have been gathering
food, ensuring there will be enough to sustain the duration of the lives of every mortal tied to this Realm.”

“Assuming this doesn’t all just wink out of existence.”

“Yes, assuming that.”

“Well, it’s something.” I’d have Jack bring over as much food as he possibly could, but I had no idea how long faerie food would stay good in the normal world. We’d have to make sure everyone was in the mortal realm tonight and hope that all this would still be here after.

“Okay.” I grabbed Vivian’s hand and pulled her up off the couch. “You get to go hang out with a bunch of weird, seriously screwed up humans.”

“I’ll fit right in, then.”

“My thoughts exactly! I’ve got some things to do with the faeries, including somehow convincing the Dark Court to join us. You’ll be safe in the meadow.” And so will all the paranormals I loved. But I didn’t say that part out loud.

“As long as there’s a place to lie down I’m good.”

We each took one of Reth’s hands, Vivian sliding hers down his arm before wrapping her fingers through his. “I forgot how pretty you are,” she purred.

“Have you also forgotten trying to make Evelyn drain my soul?” he asked, raising his eyebrows in a way I’d swear was flirty if Reth were the flirting type.

Vivian laughed. “Nope, I remember that part.”

“And this is awkward. Let’s go.” I tugged on Reth’s hand, and that horrible twisting thing happened, dumping
us in the orange grass. Jack ran immediately over to us.

“I took Lend back home along with a ton of food and most of the calmer people. Where were you?”

I sat heavily on the ground to make everything stop spinning, hugely disappointed that Lend wasn’t here to help me not freak out. I gestured to Vivian, who was already lying on her back next to me.

“Meet my sister, Vivian.”

“Wait, the one you put in a coma because she wanted to kill all the paranormals?”

“Yup.”

He reached down and took one of her hands in his own, bending over to kiss it. “Anyone who’s personally tried to rid the world of faeries is a friend of mine.”

Vivian laughed again, this throaty laugh that was so unlike mine. I liked it. “Charmed, I’m sure. Now bug off so I can sleep.”

I walked away from Viv, Jack following me, and stood next to Reth, looking at the crowd. He swayed and I moved closer, nudging him with my shoulder until he leaned against me. He was lighter than I thought he’d be, for all his impossible faerie strength.

Most of the people still here had calmed down more or less, and I could see Carlee going from group to group, smiling or listening as the situation called for it. I loved her. It was super bad luck that she’d been sucked into all this but good luck for everyone else. No one could beat Carlee’s
infinitely perky, innately bubbly personality.

“Keep an eye on Vivian, okay?” I said to Jack. “Just…well, make sure she doesn’t hurt anyone. You probably want to start taking everyone back right now so you’ll all be safe in case the Faerie Realms get messed up. Also bring as much food as you can carry.”

“That sounds promising.”

I shrugged, my attention elsewhere.

Jack followed my eyes to the group of pregnant girls, sitting together away from everyone else. “They’re not doing very well,” he said. Most of them sat listlessly on the ground, staring into space. One was biting her arm and rocking back and forth. The blond girl was slowly and methodically ripping out her hair. My stomach turned, sick with grief for them.

“Is there anything we can do?” I asked Reth.

“Take them back to the Dark Queen and give them to her. Let the Dark Court take the new Empty Ones so they will think they can leave your world on their own terms with their human pets and reject our offer.”

I closed my eyes, pressing my hands over my stomach, feeling like my own soul wanted to break into a million pieces from too many impossible decisions. “We can’t.”

Reth reached out and took my fingers in his own, his touch light but comforting. “I’ve found that sacrifice is called that for a reason. We have all lost much of what we were or could have been because of the mistakes of my
people. We’ll yet lose some things to set it right. But when you join eternity, you will not feel the sting of this life with such intensity.”

“You mean I wouldn’t feel at all?”

“I feel, my love. Simply not in the same way you do. And thank heavens for that, because you are quite an embarrassment at times. Your inconsistent and flailing passions will no longer be a concern.”

Leave it to Reth to go from comforting me to insulting me in the course of one short conversation. With one last long look at the girls I probably wouldn’t be able to save, I tightened my hand around Reth’s as he stood straight.

“Okay. Let’s go convince the Unseelies I’m their only option and get you all the bleep off my planet.”

N
eamh.
Evie. Neamh. Evie. Lend, Lend, Lend. Neamh. Evie.

“What are you doing, my love?”

I scowled at Reth for breaking my concentration. “Thinking. Shut up.” The Light Queen was speechifying up on a podium made of liquid light, her radiance bathing all the faeries in a glow that was nearly overpowering. Within a few seconds of being around this much faerie glamour I was having a hard time seeing straight and found myself slack-jawed and dazed. Thus, the name equivalent of pinching myself.

I realized at some point she had stopped talking, and now every single set of faerie eyes—a few hundred of them—were trained intently on me.

“Oh, uh, hey.” I waved. “What did I miss?” I whispered to Reth.

“You’re supposed to tell us how to convince the Dark Court to join us.”

“I—What? Seriously? I’m only here to make sure everything happens. I thought the queen would have a plan! I’m a glorified doorman. I open the gate, I close the gate. Nowhere in my job description of Empty One does it say I also manage to convince a mob of anti-Evie faeries to saunter on through the gate.”

Reth smiled. “And just when she’d finished praising human ingenuity and assuring us that everything will work out according to plan.”

“Yes! Plan!
Her
plan! Gosh, you guys are sucking it up all over the place. Aren’t you supposed to have these things in place for centuries, or were you too busy writing pretty little poems to
describe
the plans that you never bothered actually
making
them?”

His golden eyes, now with fine lines around them, twinkled with amusement. “We had a plan, my love. I was to fill you up and you were to open a gate for us immediately. But I seem to recall you doing everything in your power to resist and change that plan. So now we’ve had to account for all the other creatures from our world and conform to
your requirements. I think you’ll find that we fey, while obviously superior in nearly every way, are not quite so adaptable as temporary creatures. If you want improvisation, you’ll have to provide it yourself.”

“Of course I will.” I rolled my eyes, huffing. Why had I expected anything else? “Okay, fine. Do you all know any of the Unseelie names? Maybe we could force—”

“No,” Reth said, cutting me off sharply.

“You don’t know any?”

“It is not a matter of whether or not they are known. My queen knows every name of every soul from our world. But we will not use our brothers’ and sisters’ names to control them. It is not done.”

I raised my eyebrows in disbelief. “So you could have stopped this—all this—at any time? Your queen could have controlled those faeries?”

“If you could stop all this by killing someone you know—anyone—would you have done it?”

“No!”

“There are some boundaries we do not cross. IPCA visited great evil on us when it ensnared us and forced us to reveal the names of other faeries. We would have sooner perished but had no choice.”

“But you used my father’s name!”

He sneered as though he had a bad taste in his mouth. “That creature hardly counts as fey.”

“But you still broke the rule.”

“I might have, yes. But there is a chasm between the Light Queen and myself that can never be crossed. You and your entire world have changed me, pulling me further and further from myself. I am not proud of it. She remains unsullied.”

“Well, goody for her.”

“Child?” The Light Queen’s voice stilled the turbulent waves of my soul, singing calm and grace to every fiber of my being.
Neamh
. Ah, there, I was pissed off again.

I looked over the gathering of fey, all the ethereally impossible faces blending and blurring together. I didn’t want to look too closely at them for fear of seeing the faerie who was my father, Melinthros. I didn’t want to talk to him ever again. I didn’t even want him to exist.

Putting my hands on my hips, I sighed. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to Unseelie territory, and you’re all going to protect me with whatever faerie mojo you have, because I’m pretty sure the Dark Queen will not be very excited to see me. And then I’m going to talk to them.”

“Talk to them?” the Light Queen asked.

“Yes,” I said, trying to compose a poem on her beauty comparing her to the light of the dawn, to the rays of sunlight piercing clouds after a thunderstorm, to…
Evelyn
. I shook my head, trying to clear it. “Gosh, can’t you at least
try to turn it down? Anyway. We’re going to talk to them. If they’re anything like your court, a lot of them probably think their queen is a freaking idiot.”

The Light Queen’s wide, white eyebrows rose like a question mark.

“I mean, obviously not all these faeries agree with all your decisions. Like the one that got them stuck here. So we’re going to tell the Unseelies that time is up and bank on them wanting to get out, period, more than they want to get out under the Dark Queen’s terms. And then…we’re going to hope she decides to come rather than hanging out here all by herself.”

Yeah. This was going to go well, I could tell already.

The Light Queen inclined her head in a regal nod, holding her hand out to me.

“I’ll go with Reth, thanks.”

He took my hand possessively and put it in the crook of his elbow, though I supported him more than he supported me now. With one nauseating twist we were back in the clearing where I’d saved Lend. I had to give it to the Dark Queen—as we suddenly popped in with a few hundred other faeries, she didn’t even look surprised. My eyes darted to her neck, but the skin was once again smooth and unblemished. So much for my secret hope that we’d find her wounded or dead.

But unfortunately for my grand plans to turn her faeries
against her, the only faeries in the clearing were those that had come with me. The Dark Queen’s court was missing entirely.

“Sister,” she said, her black hole voice passing through me like a rush of bass too loud and low to register, leaving me shaken and trembling.

“Neamh,” Reth whispered in my ear, so softly only I could hear it, and I felt myself warming up again.

“Sister,” the Light Queen answered. “It is time to return home.”

“You have taken my things. I want them returned.”

“They never belonged to you. None of this has ever belonged to us. Let us leave it all and go home, together.”

The Dark Queen tilted her head to the side, a smile pulling at her violet lips. “None of this belongs to us? Have you not brought your own whelp along?” She trained her black eyes on me and I cringed, then tried to stand as straight as possible.

“I don’t belong to her.” I wished my voice carried power like theirs instead of sounding like a seriously scared seventeen-year-old girl.

The Dark Queen didn’t respond to me, instead looking back to the Light Queen. “Do not pretend at superiority. All this was for you; I have not forgotten. If I want to go home with a prize for my ages of suffering on your behalf, it is my right.”

“It is wrong.”

The Dark Queen laughed, a sound so heart-shatteringly cold and beautiful I didn’t realize I’d fallen to the ground and curled into a ball until Reth was kneeling beside me, again whispering my name. I stood, helping him up.

“You speak to me of wrongness when you have committed the same sins? You would control me, your other half, your equal in the eternities. You stand here with your very own Empty One after having the gall to take mine away from me? How is this any different,
Sister
?” She hissed the last word like a knife drawn across skin.

“Because I choose to be here.” I narrowed my eyes and clenched my fists. “My life, my choice. You didn’t give that to Vivian or to any of the new Empty Ones. But they’re all lost to you now. You don’t have any other options! It’s now or never!”

She smiled at me, her teeth a straight, sharp white line. “And does the Empty One think it has a will of its own? How precious.” I flipped her off. The gesture was meaningless here, but it sure as heck was my decision to do it.

The Dark Queen ignored it, turning back to her sister. “Do what you think best; your court will do well to pray it does not destroy them like your last whim that brought us here did. But return to me what is mine first and let me do as I desire.”

“It’s too late for that,” I said. “If you’d ever stuck around
on Earth like the other paranormals, you’d be able to feel that our worlds have moved too far apart, and whoever doesn’t leave now doesn’t leave
ever
, no matter how many Empty Ones you make. They won’t be able to find the gate.”

“Come with me,” the Light Queen said, her voice filled with such sorrow and pleading I was ready to throw myself at her and beg her to take me and let me spend the rest of eternity trying to make her happy.

LEND LEND LEND EVIE EVIE EVIE
.

“I will not,” the Dark Queen said.

“Even if it means dwelling in this hollow land of shadows and death forever?”

“Even then.” The Dark Queen’s back was ramrod straight, her eyes depthless pools of rage.

“So be it. Children, did you hear? She would remain, dwindling and thinning forever, rather than give up this play at creation, and give you no choice in the matter. Will you remain also, or will you come with me?”

Out of the trees came faerie after faerie, the entirety of the Dark Court, who had apparently been listening to the whole exchange. I looked at Reth, shocked, but he just smiled. I clenched my jaw and shook my head, annoyed. They’d had a plan all along, and it hadn’t involved me. I was here for show—
Hey, look! Our pet Empty One! You can hitch a ride back if you join now! Limited time offer!

“I did warn her you were less likely to come if you thought you weren’t in charge,” Reth said, his voice cracked but his tone self-congratulatory.

“Did you warn her I’m highly likely to back out of the entire thing if you piss me off?”

“Perhaps you had better pay attention to what is happening.”

“Perhaps you had better watch your back, stupid glowy golden faerie man whore.”

He frowned at me. “That made no sense.”

“Good! Now maybe I can join your club.” I took a step away from him but immediately felt terrible when he swayed and looked like he was going to fall. Moving back and putting my arm around him, I saw that, sure enough, all the faeries had mixed together, slowly joining hands, leaving everyone flanking the Light Queen and no one with the Dark Queen. The Light Queen held out both hands beseechingly toward her sister.

“Please,” she said.

“No.” The Dark Queen smiled triumphantly at me. “She is not even filled, and I know enough of this Empty One to know she will never do what is necessary to gain enough souls.”

“No,” the Light Queen said. Her voice was heavy with the weight of more time and years than I could begin to imagine, and I felt my shoulders sag. “She is not filled. And this is where I will ask you, once again, to be my sister, my
opposite, my equal. To join me in fixing our great and terrible wrong.” She stepped forward, hands still outstretched. “Only a power as endless as the one that formed the original gate can open the new one. Neither of us is what we once were, but together we can give her the strength she will need.”

The Dark Queen’s eyes widened, then narrowed to glittering points. “You would have me sacrifice
myself
?”

“We will both be lost forever. But we will be lost together and set the eternities back in order.” Her voice was soft and sweet, and I was sure the Dark Queen would agree. She had to. No one could resist that much love and pain and desire.

The Dark Queen cut her hand through the air between them and the sweet, yearning joy and sorrow of the Light Queen’s voice dropped away like a sheet of water, leaving me gasping.

“I will never.” The Dark Queen’s pronouncement rang through the clearing, final and certain as death.

“I am sorry,” the Light Queen said, her huge, beautiful eyes releasing a single tear. Then she leaned forward and whispered a name, a name so perfect and strange I couldn’t understand it but knew immediately what I was hearing.

“Be still,” the Light Queen said, and the Dark Queen ceased moving.

I felt the shock and agitation ripple through the faerie ranks around me. The Light Queen had broken their rule. Their one rule. I couldn’t quite believe it, but I finally
knew I’d made a good choice working with her. She meant to make things right, no matter what it took.

She turned to me, her smile sad. “Child, you will need everything from both of us to open the gate. I give it freely.”

My jaw dropped. “I—Wait—that’s what you meant? You want me to suck out both your souls? But that would kill you! You can’t go back to your homes if you’re dead. And besides, you promised! One of my conditions was that I wouldn’t hurt any paranormals.” I’d thought she meant to use their energy to help me. Like, both of them standing next to me or something. Not swirling around inside me.

The Light Queen held out her hand, beckoning me closer, and it took all my will to keep my feet firmly planted where I was. “I promised you that no innocent creatures would be harmed. My sister and I are not innocent in this. A sacrifice is needed, and only with both our souls will you have the strength to create a big enough gate for all to pass through. It was our folly and pride that brought us here. It will be our sacrifice and grace that will return everyone.”

I stumbled forward, my brain spinning in a million different directions. “But…I’d have to kill you.”

“It must be done, and I give you my soul willingly.”

I stared into her eyes, their rainbow shades of brown shimmering and shifting. To take her soul out of the eternities…it was wrong. It was too wrong. Reth I wanted to save because he meant something to me, but the Light
Queen I wanted to save because she was and always had been and always should be. I could feel it in my very bones. “I can’t destroy your soul.”

“Of course you cannot destroy it, child. No one can. You will simply give it a different purpose. A nobler purpose.”

“But you’ll still be dead.”