“Nothing you do anymore has anything to do with me. I don’t even know why we’re having this conversation.”

“We’re having it because I want some fucking answers.”

“I got tired of waiting for you, Derek. You have done quite well for yourself, Beta of Ice Fury. You became the man I always thought you would be if only you got out of your own way. That man didn’t want Julie Olsen, but here we are, with you staring at me like you need me to keep breathing. What? Am I finally pretty enough for you?”

He stepped away from me. His gaze was impossible to hold. “Okay. I hear you. Be careful what you wish for, Princess.”

He turned and walked to the sphinx.

“That’s right,” I called. “Keep walking.”

He swiped her heart off the floor, turned to face me, and bit into it. Blood dripped down his chin. For a moment Derek froze, encased in moonlight, looking at something a million miles away with glowing eyes. A feral wolf smile bent his lips. He turned away and walked out.

I sagged against the column.

Too much. Too much magic, too much danger, too much Derek. Too much.

It didn’t matter. He’d killed the creature he’d come here to kill. He would go back to Alaska now. It was over. I should be glad for him. I should be relieved for myself. I got things off my chest. I cleared the air. I could finally let go of him forever and be free. Everything went according to plan.

So why the hell did it hurt so much?

*

I sat by Saiman’s gravestone and watched the sky slowly lighten above Unicorn Lane. I was so beat up. My body, my mind, my heart, everything was bruised. I just felt hurt and hollow.

Sienna walked out of the shadows, her cloak swirling around her. She carried a plastic bottle filled with clear liquid. The liquid shone slightly, not exactly glowing, but filled with its own subtle light.

“Very mystical,” I told her.

“I try.”

She looked me over. Her eyes were distant. Magic shimmered along her skin. To my sensate vision, she glowed with an intense, brilliant blue, the tendrils of her magic stretching out in coils, as if stirred by a phantom wind. Her voice flowed, suffused with magic.

“You are so tired,” the Witch Oracle said.

“I am. Did I do enough? Did I change the future?”

She shook her head. “No.”

Fear drenched me like a bucket of icy water. I’d failed. I’d signed Kate’s death warrant. I— “But you’ve made it less certain.”

The words took a moment to penetrate. “Damn it, Sienna.”

“I want to show you something. I saw it for the first time just after midnight.”

She crouched and poured the contents of her bottle on the ground. The liquid gathered in a depression of the pitted asphalt, and she touched it with one long, slender finger. Vapor streamed from the surface of the water, rising in a shimmering curtain. A dark-haired woman appeared within it, her features familiar, so much like my own. Kate. She smiled, picked up a small blond toddler, and set the child on her hip. The toddler looked at me through the curtain of time, her big brown eyes bright on her tiny face.

Goosebumps broke out on my skin.

“This is your sister,” Sienna said softly. “This vision exists because yesterday you brought Moloch up short.”

The vapor vanished, as the water dissipated into nothing.

“You bought them time,” Sienna told me.

“How much?”

“Who can say?” Sienna gave me a one-shouldered shrug.

“Can I see them now?”

“No. You cannot see them, and you cannot leave.” The Oracle looked at me with haunted eyes.

“What is it?” I asked.

“If one day I wrong you, Julie, will you forgive me?”

“Yes. We all come up short once in a while. You’re my friend.”

She smiled. She looked like she was about to cry.

“Is something wrong?”

She shook her head. “A promise is a promise. I hope you always feel that way.”

Her magic spiraled around her and vanished, pulled in. An ordinary young woman stood in front of me. My friend was back.

“We should have tea and chocolate tomorrow,” Sienna said. “I will take you to the new bakery on Smith Avenue. My treat.”

“I’ll take you up on that generous offer.”

Sienna smiled.

Epilogue

The sun had risen, and the magic still held. Normally I would’ve waited till the beginning of a new wave, but this was too important.

I picked up the box, wrapped in purple velvet, with my left hand and a bag with my right, took a deep breath, and reached for the hidden connection, letting it carry me to a place at once near and impossibly far.

The scent of flowering trees washed over me. I stood on the balcony of a grand palace. Below me a breathtaking garden bloomed, trees and flowers flourishing among shallow ponds and gentle streams flowing through manmade beds. Delicate ornamental pavilions of pink and white stone dotted the greenery.

The Water Gardens. One of the wonders of the old kingdom.

“It’s been a while,” a familiar deep voice said behind me.

I turned. My grandfather strode onto the balcony, dressed in a white tunic and loose white pants. His feet were bare. His dark hair, strategically salted with grey, fell on his shoulders. He had the face of a sage, beautiful beyond human limits, yet wise and self-assured.