Page 132 of Hijack the Seas: Tsunami

Which is why we didn’t try.

We just went through them instead.

Even in the spirit world, I felt their tug in my flesh, the anger in the pulsating bonds fighting me as I pushed through them, as if they knew I was there.But we were in another world, which worked by different rules.So they snapped and snarled and grumbled and lashed out—

And we walked through just the same, until we stumbled out the other side as if emerging from an electrical storm.

Into a darkened suite, with only a single light burning.

It was on a desk facing the expansive windows to the balcony, holding a tarot spread and a mug of what I already knew to be tea.But Rhea wasn’t sitting there; nobody was, like nobody appeared to be moving anywhere within the suite, something so wrong that it sent a chill up my spine.This place was usually a madhouse.

It had little girls running everywhere, playing with dolls, building blocks, crayons, or bossing around the animated footstool that followed them about like a puppy.Petitioners sat kicking their heels in the waiting rooms outside my audience chamber, or attempting to bribe my appointment secretary to move them up the list, while I hid out in the kitchen to avoid them and snare a snack at the same time.A ghost or two floated through, drawn by the sheer number of clairvoyants in one place, and occasionally offering commentary.And Reggie, our token war mage, could be found on the balcony “training” Jesse, my majordomo Tami’s son, who had decided he wanted to be a war mage despite being a necromancer.

But none of that was happening today.Today, it was as silent as a tomb, with the only sounds coming from the spirit world behind me as I approached the barrier.And felt the tension against my fingertips when I got too close.

“Careful,” Billy said.“You step through, you’re back in real time.”

“How long do we have?”

“Not long.They’re pretty stupid, these “gods,” even the ones who haven’t gone completely nuts.But it’s not gonna take long for ‘em to figure out they don’t need to go on a wild goose chase through the Paths after you, but can just come here.It’s not like they don’t know what you want.”

“Just grab her and we’ll go somewhere else!”Alphonse said, which didn’t sound like a bad idea.

“Help me find her,” I said, and everyone scattered.

I approached the table, where the tarot cards were in a messy spread.The High Priestess lay across the World card, which was a much nicer version than mine, with pristine edges and no dirty fingerprints, as if it hadn’t been used often.Or possibly at all, as what was the point of a tarot deck with no clairvoyance?

I wondered what that had been like for Rhea, stuck in this horrible place with no friends, no allies she could reach, and no power to see a potential resolution.And for so very long.I had been here a few days and had already come close to breaking; how had she managedfifty years?

And what had it done to her, I wondered, shivering slightly.

Then I didn’t have to wonder when a lone figure stepped through the doors from the darkened balcony, backlit by the light from distant explosions.

Rhea didn’t look that different.She was older, with the nineteen-year-old I’d known now a woman grown.But she was still young, as mages typically live two hundred years or more, so at not quite seventy, she wasn’t even middle-aged.

But the years showed in other ways.There were lines on the once fresh face that shouldn’t be there, a darkness in the eyes, a frown on the forehead with a rut deep enough that it spoke of long periods with no reason to smile.There was also a weariness in how she walked, a slowness that spoke of having nowhere to go.

Had they left her all alone?I thought, tearing up for the girl I’d known.Had she had to see everyone else fall, and been the only one left standing?

I suddenly feared for her, and for us, not sure if I would have survived mentally intact through something like that.My God,fifty years.I’d heard that number since I arrived, and even before in Faerie, but it only hit me just now.

Fifty.Years.Alone.

Was she even sane?

And then she sat at the table, the light shining on her dark chignon, picked up her half-cooled mug of tea, and brought it to her lips—

And froze.

For a long moment, she didn’t move.Just stared at the High Priestess card, which was now several inches over from where it had been.I hadn’t realized until that moment that I’d reached through the barrier to touch it, but I guessed I must have, because the card was lying beside the World in the Future position, rather than on top of it.And after a moment, Rhea stretched out a trembling hand to pick it up.

Then she was on her feet, screaming: “Cassie!”

And I was stepping out of the world of the dead into that of the living, tearing through the last shreds of that other space, and was immediately grabbed by my half-crazed-looking heir.Who stared at me for an instant in complete disbelief, before shaking me violently, hugging me, and then staring at me some more.Before collapsing, weeping, to the floor, which is where we were when the others came running back in.

Mircea was still holding Zara, who was looking more alert; Billy was zooming around the room, sayingshit, shit, shit, although I didn’t know why; and Alphonse—

Alphonse was killing Tony.

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