J. Mitchell - The Severed Tower

“Zoey…” Mira whispered.

“Mira, look,” the little girl urged. “It’s not like it used to be.”

Mira was stunned by what she saw. She remembered the Vortex, tearing her apart in unbelievable pain. She remembered Ben, too. Then she woke here, with Zoey. But where was here?

It took a moment for her mind to connect the dots.

She was exactly where she had been. In Bismarck. The heart of the Strange Lands. Only the Strange Lands were gone. No oppressing darkness. No black, swirling clouds or furious winds. Even the Charge was missing.

Instead, the sun shown down. The sun. Shining through white clouds that only partially covered a brilliant blue sky. Where the Tower had been there was nothing now. Just a massive blackened scar, as if from some epic blast of fire, stretching northward. Everything there was flattened and charred, but to the south it was all untouched.

“What happened?” Mira asked.

“Everything’s like it’s supposed to be,” Zoey told her. “Well. Almost everything.”

Mira wasn’t sure what Zoey meant, but she was too shocked to ask. She couldn’t believe what she was looking at.

“Thank you, Mira,” Zoey said.

“For what?”

“I couldn’t have gotten here without you. You were the only one who could do it.”

The words eclipsed whatever awe Mira felt at the landscape. They were words, just yesterday, she would have thought impossible to hear. It reminded her of Holt. Which reminded her of many other things.

“Did we… die?” she asked. “Did you save us, Zoey?”

“No.” Zoey reached forward and put something in Mira’s hand. “Someone else did.”

It was Ben’s brass dice cube. The sight of it, without him holding it, was jarring. She had never not seen him with the object. Mira felt her emotions begin to build.

“He wanted you to know he meant what he—”

“I know.” Mira nodded and wiped away the first of the tears. “I know.”

She looked to the south. There was destruction there, too—burning buildings, the wrecks of Assembly walkers—but it also had life. There was movement, figures slowly wandering the streets and gathering together.

In the far distance there was even more motion, just becoming visible. A mass of thousands of figures marching toward them, moving through the now-quiet battle zone. Each was flanked by two shining points of color.

The White Helix were arriving.

“Come with me,” Zoey said, holding out her hand. Mira took it and slowly rose. There was no pain, her limbs were no longer shattered.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“To them. I have something I need to do, before… before everything else.”

They walked through the ruins, all of it warped and twisted by Dark Matter Tornadoes that, already, in the sunlight, seemed like a foreign concept. “What does that mean, Zoey? Everything else?”

Zoey squeezed Mira’s hand tightly. “It means it isn’t over.”

HOLT EYED HIS COT and sleeping bag wantonly. He would sleep for a week if no one stopped him. The way his luck had been going, though, that didn’t seem likely.

He was inside one of the offices where the Menagerie had set up camp. They were small offices, still filled with the ruined possessions of their owners, all of them fused to one another and immoveable. The Strange Lands were gone, but the Artifacts remained. They still had their powers, even now. Holt wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

The office’s windows looked out on the streets of Bismarck, and for once they were empty. The White Helix had gone to bury Gideon. Holt wasn’t sure why Zoey couldn’t save him like the others. Maybe his death happened too far back in time to influence. Maybe she had her own reasons for not helping him. Either way, he was gone, and though the White Helix mourned, they were resolved. For what exactly, Holt couldn’t say.

Ambassador and the silver Assembly set up to the south, including several dozen green-and-orange Hunters and their artillery walkers. Holt wasn’t sure why they hadn’t been wiped away with the others, but they seemed cooperative at any rate. Still, everyone gave them a wide berth. They were Assembly, after all.

The office had a door, which was good. It made it private. Holt moved to shut it, wincing as he unbuttoned his shirt. Every part of him ached.

Ravan leaned against the door, smiling conspiratorially. Holt sighed. All he wanted to do was shut his eyes. “Ravan…”

“Just pretend I’m not here,” she said, studying his shirt.

“Not sure I’d sleep all that well with you staring at me,” Holt retorted. She hid it well, but Ravan was tired, too. Holt knew her well enough to see the signs. He knew when something was bothering her as well. It was the same as always. She wouldn’t talk about whatever it was unless he asked. “You okay?”

Ravan held his stare. “Not as good as you, surprisingly.”

“I think I’m too tired to be worried about much right now.”

“We were dead, Holt. Dead and gone, and that little girl of yours brought us back.”

Holt leaned against the door frame across from her. “You don’t sound all that thrilled. Would you prefer she hadn’t?”

“No,” Ravan said. “I’m just saying… it’s a pretty scary power to be able to tap into. There’s gotta be a price, messing with the order of things like that. Repercussions.”

Holt rubbed his eyes tiredly. “What’s your point, Ravan?”

“You care about her, I get it, but a power like that sets off red flags, and it should. If I were you, I’d be asking myself just what it is I’m traveling with.”

“She’s a ‘who,’ Ravan, not a ‘what,’” Holt said with intensity. “And I don’t just care about her, I trust her. She saved us.”

“Just pointing out something you might be too close to see,” she told him. “You used to value that.”

Holt frowned and looked away. Ravan wasn’t totally wrong. What Zoey had done… It didn’t seem possible. Controlling machines was one thing. Reversing time was quite another. If Zoey could do that, what else could she do? And did he want to find out?

“Thought anymore about Faust?” Ravan asked.

He shook his head. “I have to help Zoey, Ravan.”

“You’ll help her a lot better without the Menagerie hunting you down, and with Avril, it’s your best bet of changing things.”

“Yeah,” Holt replied. “Also my best bet for getting shot between the eyes.”

Ravan smiled. “It’s still better odds than you had two weeks ago, and you won’t get near that good again. Besides, we had a deal, you and I.” Her stare drifted downward, to the half-finished image on his wrist.

“I break deals all the time,” Holt said half seriously.

She looked back up at him with her sapphire eyes. “No, you don’t.”

A shuffling outside the door broke their attention. Mira stood in the hall. The sight of her, watching him and Ravan, caused a twinge of unease.

“Sorry,” Mira said. “I can come back…”

“That’s okay, Red. I’m done,” Ravan replied. She looked back at Holt as she turned and stepped into the hall. “Think about it.”

Holt watched her disappear, waited until the sound of her footsteps faded, and then looked at Mira. She wore her feelings much more on her sleeve than Ravan did. “Hi,” he said.

Mira smiled a little. “What was that about?”

Holt turned and stepped back into the room. “The usual. Old debts.”

“She wants you to go back with her?”

“Yeah,” he replied.

“Is that what you want?”

“Not particularly, I like my head where it is.”

“But she thinks you can fix things. With the Menagerie. Wouldn’t that be worth it?”