“Careful, careful.” I held my hands out, anticipating disaster. “Not too fast, Hydna. He’s just had surgery. Hydna, you’re being too rough!”
“The moon!” shouted the sorcerer, ignoring me—or so I thought. Pulling free of his sister, he grabbed me by the head and planted a kiss on my forehead. “The moon!”
“The moon,” I agreed.
The lighting of the room shifted, to a kaleidoscope of reds, blues, and greens, whirling in dots across the walls and ceiling. Hydna bellowed, open-mouthed in delight, while Merulo clutched my arm.
“Cameron.” Unshed tears softened his single eye, and something in my chest crumpled with joy. “This . . . all of this. It’s the most wonderful thing I could have imagined.”
I couldn’t help but agree.
CHAPTER 60
In Which This Is the Most Horrible Thing Glenda Could Have Imagined.
Metal beasts whirred overhead, spooking Glenda’s unicorn. She’d walked, then run, to the nearest Order outpost, her stomach churning with a hunger that sapped strength from her limbs. Even with the world ending around them, none of the knights had gotten in the way of the shouting, violet-faced elf as she commandeered gear and a steed. Many of them stared overhead, their limbs locked in mute horror.
The moon looked wrong.
It hung, as white and round as ever, but something infested it. Pinpricks of yellow light, like a carpet of hives, or—if looked at more sympathetically—like a spiderweb strung with golden dewdrops.
And around it in a quiet dance, stars fell from the sky.
Glenda kicked at the sides of her steed, a chestnut mare whose coat shone like blood under the moonlight. “Go, go!”
A figure darted across her path. The unicorn reared, twisting against its bit and prancing to a stop. Glenda shrieked a curse, and yanked a slim knife from her belt.
“No!” The figure, a wide-eyed woman, shielded her face with a basketful of morels and puffb alls. “I’m sorry! I just—what’s happening?”
Re-sheathing her blade, Glenda squeezed her eyes shut, searching for some semblance of calm. She found none. “God is dead,” she called down. “The mad sorcerer is victorious. We are now in the aftertimes.”
“But . . .” The woman gulped. “What does that mean?”
Before Glenda could answer, another woman appeared from the brush. She grabbed at the mushroom-gatherer, pulling her away. Overhead, something large and blazing with light swept above the treetops.
“What does that mean?”Glenda repeated, incredulous, while her unicorn snorted and shied, its dainty hooves stamping a beat. Humans were such fools. How could they fail to grasp the significance of this?
Glenda dug her heels into the mare, yanking its reins. “Go!”
It meant the end of their peaceful norms. The end of Order itself. In this new chaos, cats would eat dogs. Fish would soar through the sky, while birds swam below. Rain would rise from the soil, men would bed men, and women would . . . women would . . .
Glenda didn’t notice the unicorn slowing to a trot.
Screams sounded from the forest. Harsh screeches trailed in the path of metal behemoths that shot across the star-filled night. Glenda wiped clammy hands in the silk of her unicorn’s mane, then sat back in the saddle, near breathless with the force of her thoughts.
The world was changed, irreparably. The order unbalanced,the status quo un-statused, the table upended and all the drinks spilled.
And Glenda, bobbing with the slow, lazy strides of her unicorn, rubbed at her chest and marveled at the combustion within her.
Maybe this did not have to be such a bad thing, after all.
EPILOGUE
In Which the Mad Sorcerer Has Completed His Foul Schemes, and Won, and Landed on the Moon, but In Which, Perhaps, He’s Learned a Touch More than He Wanted to.
A. . . video game?” The sorcerer sounded faint.
Merulo and I wore clothes spun for us by the SMSLunatic Freak, smooth and silky garments that fit as though tailored by a master. It gave significant pleasure, the feel of clean materials against my skin, and the knowledge that—no matter how unconventional—I did lookgood.
