Violet shook. “And ye would do this to save that boy? Ye would do this to her?”
Camillia’s eyes were shattered as she said, “She will have three magnificent aunties. It is the only way to save them all. Tell Hyacinth none of this. Nor Primmy. They would never understand. And they must never know the sacrifice I must make to right such a terrible wrong.”
“I am begging ye, sister. Don’t do this thing,” Violet pleaded.
Camillia’s smile was soft and sweet but firm. Her mind was clearly made up. “The decision has been made. More lives will be saved than lost, and is that no a sacrifice worth making?”
“But ye,” Violet sobbed, and it was Camillia who comforted her until she finally stopped crying.
“Ye ken what to do now, no?” Camillia asked softly. “Ye must shelter the girl, keep her safe until such a time as the boy can be freed of his curse. Then and only then can you bring the girl out. Their life strings are tethered. She only sleeps now, but if aught should happen to her body, he too will suffer. I have foreseen that Bláth will reawaken and when she does if her children are’nay there, all hope will be truly lost.”
Violet said nothing, only looked at her sister, completely shattered and silent. Then without saying a word, she got to her feet and walked over to the hearth, gathering bits of dried herbs that were hanging from the rafters. She crumbled them into an empty cauldron and quickly covered them with water.
“Henceforth that child can no longer be called Xavier. It must have a new name, a name I will never recall or remember.”
“Malachite, for his eyes,” Camillia said softly.
Violet smiled just slightly before stirring the pot and setting it upon a hook over an open flame.
“I will drink of my tea. Every day, I will not remember why I do it, only that I must do it. Henceforth I will know nothing more of this night than what my other sisters do.”
“Then send Talulah away now. Keep her safe and guard her with yer life,” Camillia instructed.
With a flick of her wand that manifested from thin air, Violet pointed the tip of it at the slumbering beauty. And in an instant, the child vanished.
“Good. Good.” Camillia inhaled deeply, looking regretful but also relieved. “She is safe now from his darkness. Dinna tell me where, for I fear my love for her would cause me to seek her out. Tell the sisters where her body rests. Talulah must be kept safe at all cost. But never speak of this to another.”
Violet nodded slowly. Camillia got up and walked over to her. Gripping Violet’s shoulder, she gave a soft squeeze. “Truth will win out, sister, and someday, all will be revealed—the sacrifice I make and the sacrifice you made as well. The town might hate us all when they learn the truth, or maybe not. Maybe they will see why it was done. But I canna do what I must unless I ken that ye love me still and always will.”
Violet turned and yanked her sister into her arms. They held on to one another, sobbing quietly for several long moments, both of them shuddering against one another.
Camillia was the first one to pull away. She brushed at her tears with her palms before dusting off her skirts and top. “We did try to stop this. At least take solace in that. We knew it was a long shot, Vi, but we gave the boy many good years to ken kindness, and perhaps in that, we can count ourselves victorious. I have seen the outcome, and I know that it will be grand, that all will be well again.”
Camillia looked over her shoulder as she said that, exactly to the spot where I stood, and smiled softly as though she were smiling at me. Startled, I scooted back on my heels, but there was nothing but a mud wall behind me. I had no place to go.
Sighing, she rubbed at her nose and squared her shoulders, and I was sure I was just going crazy.
“Now I am off to tell the sisters of Malachite’s new form and of other glad tidings.”
Violet sniffed, wiping off her face with her apron.
“Dinna fash yerself, Vi. I’ve a few more years yet. So let us savor them now. Aye? Once ye’ve finished with yer tea, warm up that marrow stew, will ye? It’s going to be a chilly night.”
Violet smiled, but the light of it didn’t reach her eyes.
Camillia turned and made her way outside. I looked toward the spot I’d seen Malachite last, but the cat was long gone.
In my old world, none of this could have happened. A cat who’d once been a boy couldn’t have cursed people. And how in the devil had he done it exactly? I still wasn’t even sure about that. But knowing what I knew now, that he was the love child of Bláth and Bás, I wasn’t terribly surprised he could do something so terrible. His mom had gone mad in the void, and his dad was basically death incarnate. He didn’t have the greatest of genes to work with.
I rubbed at my skull, hoping like heck we were finally done and could go back home. I missed my boy, and I desperately needed to talk with Zinnia about everything I’d learned tonight. None of it made sense to me, even though I had seen it all with my own eyes. A part of me felt as if this were nothing more than a really strange and twisted dream and that soon, I would wake up.
“I ken what ye are thinking,” Violet said slowly.
I looked at her back. She was stirring her cauldron again, but there was no one else in the room with her.
“I’ve sensed yer presence in me life for the past many decades.”
My eyes widened. What in the world? Turning on my heel, I looked around for someone, anyone that she could possibly be talking to. But there was no one else there but her and me.
“First when the king of faes brought his cursed babes to our realm, and on and on and on. Yer magick is great and powerful. I ken ye have questions, and I have but mere moments until I forget it all. If ye wish answers, now is the time to speak with me, while we have our privacy.”
I blinked. The timeline would be affected if I said or did anything, yet the need to talk with someone about all I’d seen felt like money burning a hole through my pocket.
She turned and stared dead at me. Her wise eyes thinned to mere slits. “I canna see ye so much as I can see a wavering image of matter filling the void of space.” She wiggled her fingers at me. “So ye cannot hide.”
I couldn’t talk to her, no matter how much I wanted to. I looked up toward the heavens, not sure how I was supposed to summon that vortex of spiraling doom to take us back.
But just as I was ready to mumble a “please come get us” to Time, I felt a shimmering wave of heat slam into my back. Gasping, I turned, wondering what in the heck that was, only to see Violet smiling, her wand gripped lax in her hand as she gave me the once-over.
With a start, I looked down at myself, realizing I wasn’t invisible anymore. I patted my chest and my waist.
“Yer no a toad if that’s what yer wondering. But ye wouldn’t come to me no matter how kindly I asked, so I forced ye out of hiding as it were. Me name’s—”
“Violet,” I said with a heavy thread of displeasure.
She smirked. “I see my reputation proceeds me, male.” Planting her hands on her curvy hips, she studied me. “I’ll admit that ye aren’t what I was expecting to find on the other side of the veil. Ye can start with who are ye and why have ye been spying on us.” As she said it, she lifted her wand.
I kept one hand firmly clapped to Zinnia still resting in my pocket and held the other one up. “Whoa. Whoa. I’m just—”
“What’s in yer pocket?” she hissed. “Are ye a sorcerer? Dark witch? Dinna believe me weak, male.”
I coughed, shocked by her ferocity. This wasn’t the Violet I knew at all. “Okay, wait. Stop.” I cringed when the tip of that wand wiggled. “My name is Zane, and I mean you no harm. I’m just a human. And I swear that what I have in my pocket is the key to everything, but I can’t show you, and please don’t make me.”
She cocked her head. “What kind of answer is tha? Key to everything? Do ye take me for a fool? I sense no power in ye, and yet yer hand remains in yer pocket. Why?”
I blew out a deep breath. Anytime T
ime was ready to get me, I was so ready to leave. “Look, I can’t tell you too much because I just can’t. I was told it could disrupt the timeline, and—”
She gasped, rushing up toward me so swiftly that I stumbled and nearly toppled on my butt. I probably would have if I hadn’t been backed into the kitchen counter.
“Yer from the future, aren’t ye? Gods above, how did I no see Time’s stamp upon ye before? But there it is, waving like a red flag around ye.” She waved her hand over me, and I looked down but saw nothing other than the clothes I wore.
I frowned.
She batted her hand as though swatting my worry aside. “I’ve the sight, ye see. And if I’d been paying better attention, I’d have noticed that he sent ye. Though why, I’m sure I’d love to know.”
I opened my mouth, and she held up her hand. “But I shan’t, because ye are right. It is no safe to muck about with time. The threads are too delicate. Only tell me this, traveler, did our plan work?”
“I wish I could say that I know what you’re talking about, but even after everything I’ve seen, I’m still not even sure what any of it means.”
She thinned her lips and leaned heavily against the stone hearth, her arms crossed over her chest. “Hmm. Guess it couldn’t be as simple as all that. Suppose I’ll just have to wait and see.” Her eyes turned contemplative. “Can ye at least tell me if Camillia...”
I bit my bottom lip, not wanting her to ask the question I surely already knew the answer to. Something on my face must have shown my dread because she immediately stopped talking.
“Oh,” she whispered. “I see.” Then swallowing hard, she gave me a tight smile. “So ask, traveler, if it’ll help ye any. Time has clearly allowed ye to remain for a purpose yet, I must assume that purpose is for now.”
Not having thought of it that way, I grinned weakly. “Well, that makes about as much sense as anything else, I guess. I do have a few questions, but I have to admit I’m wholly out of my comfort zone here. Magic and time travel, that’s Zinnia’s department.”
She frowned and whispered softly, “Zinnia.” A wide smile spread across her face. “Camillia’s favorite flower.” Then tears sprang to her eyes, and she covered her mouth with her hands, staring at me differently. Taking a second to gather herself, she finally reached a hand out toward me and squeezed my arm. “Ask, male, quickly now. My brew is nearly done.”
I asked the one question that had been burning in me. “What is the curse? Through all the times we’ve come through, that was never quite explained. What’s happened to Bláth?”
She sniffed. “Life and death, boy. Two sides of a very similar coin. Doomed to love and doomed to lose. To love him would invoke a sort of madness in her.”
“Then why didn’t Bile stop it when he had the time?”
Her shoulders drooped, and she shook her head. “Do ye have a child, Zane? Because I do not, but I have studied what a parent will do for their offspring, the lengths they will go to to keep that child happy. He should have stopped it, aye, but he loved her. And in that love, he handed her the key to her own destruction. Her mind fractures because of her love for death, and the irony is that only through her offspring can she be saved from this madness. Life springs forth from purity, but death is a ceasing of that joy. The two cannot twain and create something pure. And so there is the dilemma. Her child can save her, and yet her child has inherited that same madness. From within Bás’s loins, madness sprang, and from within Bláth’s, renewal. But the two sides are at war with one another, fighting for dominance, and they fight within the heart of the boy himself. Only one side can win. And before the choice can be made, much darkness will roam the lands.”
She shook her head, looking grieved and saddened.
“But what about Malachite’s sister? She’s not mad. Couldn’t she have saved Bláth?” I asked, feeling frustrated and wondering what choice I would have made if I’d been in their shoes.
“She is mortal. As mortal as you. All the power went into the boy. He is a sorcerer, and only the sorcerer can save life. It was foreseen.”
I sighed. “So falling in love with death caused life to go mad. But their child could save her. Only problem is, he’s now mad too. So how in the heck can any of this be fixed?”
She shrugged, tossing out her hands. “And now you encounter the conundrum. I told Bile ages ago that he could halt her spiral into madness if he never allowed her to conceive. But Bláth is life, and so she must. The desire to create life is as innate to her as breathing is to your or I. And he loved his child, so he watched her slow descent into madness with a heavy heart and allowed the one thing he should never have allowed to happen to happen. So what do you do then? Allow the thing that can save her but that can also hurt so many others live? Or do you kill it? Does saving the many justify killing the one? Bile did not think so. The cost was too high for him to conceive of.”
“How in the world can any of this be fixed? It feels impossible.”
She sighed deeply. “Camillia saw more. Ye see, the boy took on all the darkness within himself to save his sister. He did it in the womb. He sacrificed his body so that his sister might live. But now the darkness grows within him, struggling to break free, struggling to take over. And Camillia, she is... gentle, loving.” She smiled, turning her eyes on me. “She is the best of us. And she saw that he could yet be saved by the sacrifice of one other, a very powerful witch that is yet to come.”
My skin rolled with goose pimples, and I shook my head. “What do you mean sacrifice?” I held Zinnia tight in my grip. She slept on, and I was grateful for it. I hoped to God that Violet wasn’t talking about Zinnia because that was a conversation I never wanted to have with my little newt.
Violet inhaled deeply, and the aroma of steeping herbs punched me full on in the nose. Our time was nearly at an end.
“Only the witch will ken what that means, and only when the time has come. But Camillia has foreseen peace for all, a lifting of a terrible curse.”
I swallowed hard.
She patted my cheek. “Worry not, traveler. For that hour is not just yet. And so many choices could still change it all. But if ye are here, then it gives me hope that mebbe, just mebbe Camillia is right and there is still a chance for us all.”
“What’s still coming? What’s going to happen next?” I asked her.
“A curse, of course.” She chuckled. “Isn’t there always?”
I shook my head, still confused, wishing I had Zinnia here to talk this through with. “What curse?”
“It’s not yet, and I dinna think I should speak of it now, for as ye say, time must not be altered, and that means not even ye must ken of such things as are to come.”
I frowned. “Nothing makes sense to me right now.”
Her laughter tinkled like bells. “Life is an adventure, traveler, or haven’t ye learned that yet?”
I knew our time had finally come to its end when Violet dipped her ladle into the cauldron and withdrew a spoonful of bubbling green brew. Her eyes were sad and her look heavy as she said, “It’s been a pleasure meeting you, though I am sure this will no be our last time seeing one another.”
I nodded, feeling much the same. I was awed by how different and intelligent our conversation had been. Not that Violet wasn’t smart or crafty in my time—she was—but this was an altogether different version of her.
“Why must you take the potion and not your sisters? Why only you?”
She smiled and glanced down at the ladle with a resigned look. “Because only I know of Camillia’s vision.” She inhaled deeply. “And I do no think I could live with meself, knowing how very much the world we’ve built will come to loathe us for the actions we take today.”
“Must you? Must you do this thing? Isn’t there another way?”
She shrugged. “Is there? Ye yourself have told me you come from that future, the future that my sisters, the king, and I have so carefully crafted. If we don’t do this, the children die, and the hope of Bl
áth’s own curse being broken might die with them. Bláth is life. If she perishes, then all of life eventually will too. And make no mistake that if her children die, so too would she. A fae’s heart canna bear the loss.”
I shook my head. “Her only crime was that she loved the wrong man. None of this seems fair.”
Violet inhaled deeply. “Life is rarely fair, human. Ye of all people should know that.”
I shivered, knowing that Violet could see the future and past timelines. I sensed somehow that without my even saying so, she knew of Elle and what had happened to Edward and me.
Her smile was sad. “I wonder if...” She trailed off, shook her head, and wrinkled her nose. “Ah, nothing.”
I frowned. “What?”
She laughed, but the sound was forced and filled with sorrow. “Weel, truth is I did wonder what kind of woman I become after this? Prolonged use of this potion does things to a mind, makes one... simple. And I worry that mayhaps I will no be the—”
I grabbed her elbow, squeezing gently. My smile was soft and tender. Violet was simple. She wasn’t as bright as this woman before me, nor was she such a force to be reckoned with, but simple didn’t have to be a bad thing.
“Of the three, you have always been my favorite. And though Zinnia might never say it, I think perhaps you are hers as well. You have a kindness in you, Violet, that no amount of forgetting-potion can ever eradicate.”
She shuddered, and I knew she’d heard what I’d not said. She was simple and would forever more be.
Sniffing, she brushed at her nose with her sleeve. “Ye are a kind man, Zane Huntington. I shall enjoy meeting ye again in the future. But I think it is time for ye to be leaving back to yer place and yer peoples.” She glanced down at my hand that rested inside my pocket, where I still gently caged Zinnia.
“Ye ken, I always despised reptiles, ’specially lizards. Now I think mebbe they’re no so bad as all that after all. Might even take on a familiar or two.” She winked, and I grinned. “Weel, bottoms up, eh?”
Then with a quick dip of her ladle toward me, she tipped her head and choked it back.