“Then how do I get out?” she asked. “You said I’d have to leave my death to go back to Ghost, but how is that possible if touching that stuff can kill me? You know,again.”
“It’s not,” her father said. “Not if you’re alone. If you’re going to leave this place, you need a spirit’s help. This is their realm. They’re sentient magic, which means they can move freely through the flows. If you belong to one, he can protect you, but while the Empty Wind acknowledges you as his master, he can’t claim you because you are remembered. That puts you outside of his domain, which means not only can he not protect you from the magic, he can’t even find you.”
Ghost had said something similar when she’d first arrived, but Marci didn’t understand. “Can’t he just come to my death?”
“Your death is a tiny speck at the bottom of a black, endless sea,” Aldo reminded her. “Even if he knew exactly where to go, there’s a good chance you could be burned to nothing just from passing through that hole to reach him. I know you’re determined, Marci, but there’s a difference between a hard path and an impossible one, and I fear you’ve been led down the latter.”
“It can’t be impossible,” Marci said stubbornly. “If nothing else, the fact that Amelia’s here proves that I have a solid chance. She’d never stake her life on an impossible bet.”
“Absolutely not,” Amelia agreed. “I don’t do long odds on something this important. I’ll have you know Bob gave us a solid fifty-fifty.”
Marci almost choked. “Fifty-fifty? As in fifty percent chance of death?”
“You’re already dead,” Amelia reminded her. “But why are you upset? Those are great odds.”
“Not when it comes to my life!” Marci cried. “That’s a coin flip!”
“Exactly,” the dragon said. “You have a heads-or-tails shot at something that should, as your father just pointed out, beimpossible. That’s pretty miraculous, I think.”
Marci dropped her head with a groan. That was not the answer she’d been hoping for when she’d appealed to Amelia. In the end, though, she supposed it didn’t change anything.
“I appreciate you telling me the truth,” she told her father. “I understand escape is not guaranteed, but what alternative do I have? Sit around in here forever?”
Aldo smiled. “Would that be so bad?”
“Yes,” she said, appalled this was even a question. “Death isnotan option.”
“Why not?” he asked. “You said yourself there are worse things than death, and your death is far better than most. I’ve never met your Julius, but going by your memories, he doesn’t seem like the type who’d forget. Even if he finds someone else to love, he’ll treasure your memory all his life. Hisdragonlife. Given the fuzzy nature of time on this side, that means you could stay here in safety effectively forever. Best of all, you’ll have company. Normally, humans are as alone in their deaths as they were in their own heads, but Ghost broke the rules when he sent me here, and you brought Amelia. You have safety, company, and an entire world to remake as you see fit. I know it’s not what you died for, but your death is a paradise by all standards, and paradise isn’t something to be casually thrown away.”
There was a deep truth to those words. From the moment she’d first opened her eyes, Marci had never thought of this place as anything but temporary, another trap to wiggle out of. Now, though, she looked down from the roof and actually let herself imagine what it might be like to live here. Amelia would balk, of course, but her father would be happy. Even when they’d gotten on each other’s last nerves, she and her dad had always been a good team. They could be one again, working together in her attic workshop. She had tons of experiments to finish, far less dangerous ones than the journey that had brought her here. With enough time, she might even be able to teach her father proper methodology. Mostly importantly, though, they’d be together, and her father wouldn’t have to go back to the Empty Wind.
That was the real barb. Marci firmly believed her spirit was not evil, but her dad’s description of Ghost’s reality wasn’t exactly rosy. Now that she understood it, Marci could see why Aldo was so insistent that she not give up this place. After what he’d been through, it probably did seem like paradise to him, and she wasn’t sure if she could live with herself if she took that away.
Unless…
“Speaking hypothetically,” she said slowly. “If I left, could you stay? Keep things up for me here?”
Aldo sighed. “I wish I could. But this isyourdeath, Marcivale. You’re the reason all of this exists. Without you to live in them, your dragon’s memories are just memories.”
So much for that. “I suppose leaving and coming back is also out of the question?”
“That’s my understanding,” he said uncomfortably. “Again, I’m not an authority. I only know what you know and what I’ve learned from watching the Empty Wind do his job. From what I’ve observed, though, mortals only seem to get one life and, therefore, one death.”
“So in other words, no second chances.”
“Death is notoriously hard to cheat,” Amelia said. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t do it.”
“I know,” Marci said, looking up at the hole again. “But Julius was always the one who found all the loopholes. I’m just…”Dead, she finished to herself. Dead and trapped between her dad and a hard place. But as she was getting nice and depressed about that, something her father had said came back to bother her.
“You said you were inside the Empty Wind as he did his job,” she said, looking at him. “What job was that specifically?”
“Finding and rescuing the Forgotten Dead,” Aldo replied without missing a beat. “When a person is forgotten by everyone, they become part of the Empty Wind’s domain, which means he can hear their voices and come to them. If they’re lucky, he finds them before their death fills in completely and they’re torn apart by the magic. That’s why he’s a wind. He has to be fast.”
“That can’t be right,” Marci said. “If everyone gets forgotten, that means the Empty Wind is basically all of death. Are there no other options?”
Aldo shook his head. “None that I know of.”
“But that’s crazy,” she said. “Ghost is only one spirit, and he only rose a month and a half ago. What happened to human souls before that?”
