“You said before that there was a chance that I could stop all this if I went to her,” I reminded her, still thinking.
“I think it’s possible that all this tearing into the mortal realm is an effort to find you,” Gemini answered slowly. “They stopped entirely during the time you were being held at the Bone Court, a time in which she knew where you were. They resumed again when you disappeared and, most recently, she tore one right into the Court of Wanderers, right into the very marketplace where we were. You don’t think it odd, girl, that these things always seem to pop up either to draw you out or right near where you are?”
“Hellscape,” I murmured, eyes widening in realization as I put it all together. The rifts from before I met Lark were all over the mortal world but I went to them every time. I hadn’t known they’d stopped while I was at the Bone Court but now that I did, it put the following ones into more perspective. The rift that tore into Hellscape while we were there, when I saw Wyn on the other side. The rift that tore into the marketplace of the Court of Wanderers. I closed my eyes, wondering how I hadn’t seen it before. “She isn’t going to stop.”
Gemini didn’t answer so I knew I was right.
“She’s tearing the world apart to find me,” I breathed in awe.
“She is,” Gemini nodded her agreement this time. “But it’s entirely possible Lark would tear it apart to get you back.”
He wouldn’t. I knew it and she did, too. He would want to and Gemini was right. He would rage for centuries if something happened to me. But Lark wouldn’t break the world for anything. Not when everything he had ever done, not when every move he ever made, was to save it.
“I can stop this,” I said, mind racing at the implications of all that I had learned. “All I have to do is go to her and it all stops. The rifts, the risks of exposure, the destruction of the Divide. It stops.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
“If I don’t go, she keeps at this and then eventually this realm is exposed to the mortal realm once and for all. More beasts might get through, more people might die. A war might start.”
“And if you do go, you may never leave again.”
One life, my life, for the lives of many, for the salvation of the Divide. She might try to control me, keep me under her spell like she did to my father, but I am better equipped to deal with that than he ever was. She was powerful, supremely so, but I had magic too, magic from her, and I could use it. I might be alright. I might survive, and someday, I might escape.
Maybe this was my fate. Maybe Lark only saved me all those years ago so that I could save him, save all of them, now. He had been exiled, he had been sentenced to death, to save me. He had given everything to do the right thing. So I could too.
“You said she fancied herself your friend,” I said then, looking at Gemini with determination. “Could you take me to her?”
Gemini’s lips slanted into a frown.
“The last time I saw her I was complicit in her newborn daughter’s kidnapping,” Gemini recalled. “I can’t imagine she will be pleased to see me.”
“Even if you’re bringing me back to her?”
Gemini raised a brow, watching me closely.
“You’re going to do this?” she asked.
“Tell him I’m sorry,” I said, steeling myself because I had to. “Tell him I had to.”
“I will.”
She reached for my hand and I took a deep breath. I sent out a feeling, huge and raw and real. I’d never told Lark how I felt, not truly, but maybe an outpouring of the love I held in my heart could reach him wherever he was in this court. I felt that tug a moment later. A question. I pushed it aside and focused on my task. Reaching for Gemini, I felt his panic when I didn’t respond, just before I grasped her hand and the world squeezed shut around us.
Chapter thirty-six
A Mother's Welcome
Myfeetfoundthehard, russet marble ground below them moments later. I only stumbled slightly as Gemini and I materialized before a grand bronze throne. Steps made of the same russet marble with rivulets of bronze and copper woven within them flowed downward to where we stood before it. The walls were made of the same material, all the way to the hard, mahogany ceiling and the shining copper chandelier. The light was dim, like a candle guttering out. No one was here. No one had been waiting for us, preparing for this room to be occupied.
“What—” I started but was interrupted by a sudden feminine voice calling out from beyond the mahogany doors at our backs.
“I know you aren’t so stupid as to shadow step right into my throne room, Gemini Morningstar,” the voice sang as the doors flew open and a woman with blonde hair and a flowing chocolate gown strode inside. She flicked a wrist and the copper fixtures on the wall as well as the matching chandelier above us flamed to life, lighting the entire room.
Her eyes settled on Gemini for a moment before flicking to me. She froze, her hand still held aloft from the gesture she had made to light the room. Her lips parted as her eyes widened.
“Seren,” she breathed.
“Mother,” I replied, disgust roiling in my gut as I addressed her.
