My death curls up near her feet. “Our worlds are symbiotic. One cannot exist without the other. The magic of Letum is fueled by the imagination of your world while also feeding the very thing that sustains it.”
Willa’s brow furrows, as she mulls over my words. “I…don’t understand.”
“There was another king who ruled before me.” I hold up a finger before she can say the name. “And yes, that is the name your fables know him by, but here, he is known by another. He was the Aeternalis.”
The air shivers around me as I invoke his memory, the long-buried secrets of the island awakening from their deep slumber. “The Everlasting. The stories say he was the one who created this island, who used his power to imagine it into existence.”
Willa listens intently, her hands going still in her lap and her breathing softening, like she’s hanging on my every word.
“Letum was called something else then. It was a place where dreams burgeoned and the fantastical existed. And the greatest of the dreamers were always children. Pixies were born from their laughter and sirens from their mischief. The magic of their belief, of childhood wonder and innocence, nurtured the island and fed its power. The Aeternalis would bring the children through the wards as a tribute for the beauty of their dreams. The kingdom was fed by their inherent magic, and in return, so were their dreams.”
Willa’s expression is wistful, even as my ribbons shudder and twitch between us. For death has a long memory, and mine is no different.
“This kingdom was always meant to be a temporary stop on the journey to adulthood, a breath of fresh air as the road to reality grows ever more perilous. A gift of magic and adventure before the vise of responsibility leaves no more room for the possibility of enchantment. Childhood should be nurtured, never permanent. But the Aeternalis, who had lived longer than any could fathom and whose own magic was irrevocably tied to the island’s, began to resent the children for choosing to leave him and return home. As a boy, he’d been abandoned by his family, and he didn’t like being alone. But more than that, the children’s magic fed his—and he didn’t want to cede the power he acquired each time he brought a new child.”
An ancient ache throbs in my chest. My memories from the time before the Aeternalis stole me from a window in London have all but disappeared, blurred and erased by the years since.
“He began keeping the children. Brainwashing them to believe returning to their lives and growing up was the most terrible of fates. And the longer they remained by his side, the more of their magic he would siphon. He fed on them for centuries…until they were only empty vessels. His eternally loyal servants.”
“The Strayed?” Willa gasps.
I nod. “They were just simple children once. But we aren’t meant to be youthful forever. Children are selfish and impulsive by nature. They demand instant gratification and give into every emotion, no matter how rash. But the Aeternalis refused to let any of them grow up for fear they’d leave him. Any who showed signs were mutilated or killed. And so, they were stuck in stasis, growing ever more volatile with each passing century.”
Willa’s eyes widen in horror. “But…surely children are just trying to have fun. How could it have turned so sinister?”
I shrug with a casualty I don’t feel. “The thing about fun is that it relies on novelty. And after centuries, more is required to feel anything at all. And if there’s no one to teach you patience, no one to curb your worst inclinations…they grow in the dark like poisonous vines. The Aeternalis stripped them of everything that made them human, nurturing depravity to grow in its place. He siphoned the magic natural to children, the most potent of all, and left them as empty shells. Creatures that aren’t human. The Strayed do not feel, they do not love. And worse, they do not dream.”
Willa is bereft, and I understand it. Coming from a world where childhood is cherished to one that systematically destroys it. “Did any of them ever escape him?”
The ribbon closest to Willa flickers.
“A few of the most powerful ones did. It took hundreds of years for the Aeternalis to siphon a powerful child’s magic, so a few managed to sail away or escape before he ruined them entirely.But it was rare. The Strayed left in Letum have not been human in centuries, so there have been no more escapes.”
“Centuries?” Willa repeats in alarm. “The plague only began like…two hundred years ago.”
I hum in agreement, suddenly feeling every bit of my exhaustion. Perhaps it’s the adrenaline of finding Willa being attacked draining away, or maybe, it’s the toll of speaking of things I’ve long tried to burn from my memory. Things that siphon my energy, that leave my brain mired in mud.
“The beginnings of it were always evident if you knew where to look. Children in your world growing up faster. Becoming more cynical, more exhausted. It was always written off as the effects of technology, but it wasn’t.”
I lean my head back against the mattress. “It was the Aeternalis tainting the kingdom’s magic. Stealing more and more children away, and never returning them. It strained the island, strained your world. Eventually, things got so dire that forces rose up and slayed the Aeternalis. But his power was unique, the anchor through which the magic of both worlds flowed. They didn’t realize that killing him would unmoor the island. Every year since, both your world and mine have been dying a slow death.”
“What was his magic?” Willa asks softly, her face solemn.
“It was a rare power, one that drives not only magic, but life itself. Without dreams, there is no hope. No innovation. No goals for the future or empathy for a better world. There’s nothing to live for. Nothing to keep humanity afloat.” I stare at her, willing her to understand. “Imagination, Willa. You are a distant relative of the Aeternalis, a descendent of the family he left behind in your world. That’s why the Strayed want you. Why I want you.”
Willa grimaces like I’ve confirmed her worst nightmares. And maybe I have. “I won’t anchor myself here, Niko, no matter whoit saves or who I’m related to. I’ve been torn apart and put back together too many times for the sake of others. I refuse to do it again. To be trapped anywhere I don’t choose.”
Nothing she says surprises me. I told Willa I saw her villainous heart for what it is, but the truth is, I saw to the core of it andwantedit. With a furious envy, with an unending desire. As someone who’s sacrificed my entire life, my happiness, my body, for the sake of the kingdom—and before that, for love—I wish I had Willa’s bravery to choose selfishly.
Even now, my choices may seem selfish to her, but they aren’t. They’re driven by a love of my people—of all people—one that’s tunneled so deep, it allows me to cross every boundary. Every moral line. For the greater good, for the sake of something better. Willa is ashamed of her survival, of the sacrifices she’s made, but she hasn’t yet realized that selfishness isn’t nearly as dangerous as devotion.
“I have no wish to trap you here, Willa.” A lie, in so many complicated layers, and then, the truth. “I want you to embrace your power of imagination and open the wards. I want to bring the dreamers back to Letum and restore the magic and life to both our worlds.”
She watches me with that steel gaze, and I can almost feel the thoughts whirring through her mind. Whether or not I’m being genuine; whether or not she has a choice, as if choice isn’t as fanciful an idea as dream tiger-beasts, and pixies who sprinkle magic dust.
“If you want to get back home, you’ll have to embrace your power. There’s no limit to what someone with your magic can do. Anything you dream could be yours.”
The longing in her face mirrors the one I’d detected in the cave. An ache for something more than survival, something fuller than a life of merely existing. “You could imagine thewards open. You could imagine yourself home. You could imagine an entirely new world.”
