“Give him the staff, child,” Gaia commands me in a quiet voice.
“Not until you fix them!” I choke back the burning knot in my throat. This staff is all I have to barter with.
The professor’s gaze drifts to my injured arm. Then behind me. To Marie’s desperate attempts to stanch Chill’s bleeding. To Julio and Amber, struggling to keep air in Jack’s lungs, fighting to keep his heart beating.
“Do it!” I shout at Lyon. We did our part, followed his plan, started his rebellion, got him this far.... What is he waiting for? “Do it, or I’ll kill Chronos myself!”
Lyon takes another step toward me, close enough for me to see the terror in his eyes. “You don’t want to do that.”
This is what he fears. That I’ll kill Chronos. That the power will be mine.
Lyon must see the thought flit fast across my mind. “His power would destroy you. You cannot be both a Season and Time. One draws its magic from chaos, the other from order. They are diametrically opposed. It would tear you to pieces.” The rest of his thought is written all over his face. This ishisgoal,hisrebellion. And no matter how much Jack and I have sacrificed, this is not a prize Lyon is willing to give me.
“If it’s no good to me, I’ll shove the staff so far underground, I’ll liquefy the damned thing.” I dig my mind into the soil, feel it tear like flesh. A chasm opens, and the ground between us crumbles inward.
“I know you’re angry,” Lyon says in a low, measured voice. “But think about the power you wield. If you destroy the staff, you destroy all of us. Without time, the world would fall into chaos. There would be no cycles. No balance. There must be natural order for the world to survive. Gaia and I can bring that balance back. That’s all we want to do.”
But he’s wrong. There is no balance. Not for us. Not without Jack.
“I can help them. But not without the staff.” Lyon looks between me and the deadly point of the long handle with deep concern. “The choice is yours,” he says gently.
Cautiously, Lyon reaches across the gap.
Behind me, Julio grunts with exhaustion. Marie’s low curses are laden with panic. All I can think about is what Jack said, about how my choices are the only ones that can change the outcome. Is this what I’m supposed to choose? Is this what he meant?
“Promise me you’ll help them.”
Gaia rests a hand on Lyon’s back. “We’ve waited decades for you, for the right Seasons to emerge,” Lyon says, his eyes never leaving mine. “I assure you, your efforts will be rewarded.”
“Fleur! I’m losing him!” Julio’s shout cinches around my heart. My bloodied arm burns with the effort of restraining Chronos. A soft nudge pushes at my mind as Gaia’s thoughts twine around mine and take hold of my roots, relieving me of my burden.
“Go to him,” she tells me.
I thrust the staff into Lyon’s hand and run to Jack’s side. His skin glows, warm and gold. It feels all wrong when I touch him. A thin streamof magic shimmers between his lips. I’m afraid to kiss him, terrified of stealing his magic from him.
“Do something!” Amber shouts.
“You betray me.” Chronos turns to meet Gaia’s unrepentant stare. “How many years have you spent conspiring against me?”
“Not nearly as many years as you’ve spent taking those I love from me.”
Chronos practically spits. “I protected your kingdom!”
Gaia’s diamond eyes shimmer with hatred. “You put my kingdom in a cage!”
“So you take up arms with the mortal and return to his side?”
She laughs, but it’s a doleful, joyless sound. “I never left his side. You took him from me.” Gaia draws a glass orb from a pocket inside her coat. Chronos’s eyes grow fearful when he sees the smaze thrashing inside it, twisting in its cage like an angry black cloud. She sets the orb at Lyon’s feet.
“And now I take my magic back.” Lyon drives the tip of the scythe down on the orb, shattering the glass and setting the smaze free.Mymagic, Lyon said, as if this smaze was his all along. As if Gaia’s been keeping a piece of him in that glass orb all this time, waiting for this moment to return it. Gaia sucks in a long breath, drawing its magic deep into her lungs. She takes Lyon’s face in her hands, her lips lingering close to his as a chilled, shadowy breath billows between them. His hair glazes with ice, and his eyes swirl with fog. The staff laces over with frost as he places a reverent kiss on Gaia’s lips.
Chronos wrenches himself against the roots. “You are unworthy of my power. She is weak and you are a fool. You are both out of control!”
Lyon rounds on him, the chill in his eyes terrifying. “What we are is nature! We are forces that should never be tamed.” He points to us. “You’ve made them naive and weak. But I remember who I was. I remember whoyouwere, Michael, before the eye showed you a future you were too afraid to face. A future where your own children would rise up and overthrow you. Your choices have made this very outcome inevitable.” Lyon shoves the frozen staff into Chronos’s trapped hand. Chronos cries out, his flesh seared by the frosted metal. “Tell me. What do you see of your future now?”
Lyon grabs Chronos’s chin, turning his face toward the crystal, forcing him to look. Reluctantly, Chronos gazes into the prism. A frown pulls at his cheeks.
“You’ve surprised me, Daniel,” Chronos says through cold, cracked lips. “This was not a possibility I gave much consideration. Had I thought you to be so reckless and defiant, I would have watched your future more closely.”
