Before he’d met Elloven, he might have answered no. “Tell me.”
“Your final test is wisdom, and whether you possess the right kind in the right measure.” Her brows creased her eyes into a sinister squint. “On your left is another path of forgiveness. You climb inside and hold Gennady in your heart, forgiving him for the well-meaning deception resulting in his death and your torment, and perhaps even forgiving yourself for your impetuosity. Your crime disappears from the ledgers of history. No one ever has to know—certainly not Elloven, who will welcome you with a heart full of love, and together you will share the life you’ve never allowed yourself to dream of. But you will always know what you’ve done.
“On your right is another feat of courage. Should you climb into that one, you will face with the full weight of your terrible crime, the murder of your best friend. You will brandish this crime like you brandish your flame, forever and everywhere... though forgiving yourself may be possible, with enough time and reflection. But if you take this path, you will tell his sister what you’ve done, or the truth will find her another way. You will have to live with what you have done and with whatever consequence follows. You will be alone, but free in a way that would never be possible otherwise.
“Now you will take the wisdom of the lessons you were given and decide. Will there be love at the expense of contrition? Or will there be contrition at the expense of love?”
When she reached into her vest, she revealed a warm pulse of light on her chest. It was the first time Jesstin had seen her flame, and though it seemed silly now, he realized he’d assumed she didn’t have one.
She produced what looked like an hourglass, but when she turned it over, the sand sifted much too fast. “You have roughly until the count of a hundred to decide, or flip a coin, I must.”
Jesstin examined the graves. The one she’d called forgiveness seemed too easy, too obvious a choice to be the right one. But his first two tests had been about moving on and finding peace. If he chose the harder path, he would never have that. It was the bolder move, but was it too bold? Would she assume he would choose the hard way, when love was the right answer all along? Was this a case of him knowing it was a trick, or would she expect him to see that coming and thus choose conversely?
“Wisdom is not about clarity, darling.” His mother was back. He glanced at the Conductor to see if she’d noticed, but she was ogling her cane with a sly smile that reminded him of a child who’d raided the sweets cupboard. “Every door we open closes another. We aren’t meant to get everything right. We are not built so.”
What choice is there, if they’re both wrong?
“The especular isn’t looking for the right answer or the wrong one. It asks only that you choose with wisdom. I know the wisdom lives in you. That malicious witch believes you’ll fail. She needs you to fail. And you will, if you use logic. This trial is not about the Conductor, or the especular. It’s about you. Wisdom is an internal force. Only you know the answer, Jessie, and to find it, you’ll need to forget the Conductor. Forget what’s at stake. Forget Elloven, for now. Forget all of it. What have these lessons taught you, above everything?”
The damning power of lies. They’d shaped his life. Upended it. Eviscerated it. They’d led to Gennady’s death, not that he could ever blame his friend for that night, not ever again. If he was fully honest with himself, he’d been waiting for someone to give him a reason to turn anger into action. He’d welcomed a betrayal fresh enough to incite the screaming violence within him that had been untended for far too long.
He’d murdered Gennady as much for what he’d believed he’d done as for the need to punish the world, and himself, by robbing it of goodness.
“Lies demolish everything. I knew that even as a... as a...” The Night Soul. Of course, of course, that was where it had come from, where it had been born. He wasn’t some incidental tourist; he’d created the pathway, the rules. He’d been just a boy when it had first appeared for him, but he hadn’t wished into being an escape filled with toys or amusements like most children would. He’d wished for a place that was honest. “It was there all this time. It was right in front of me. The truth. I choose the truth.”
The Conductor’s mawkish smile froze. A third grave opened up between the other two.
“I choose the truth,” Jesstin said louder. The world rattled and hissed with his answer. The Conductor’s face distorted, and when she lifted her ghoulish cane, a foul wind gathered around him. “You don’t scare me. I’m so tired of everything. Everything. So my choice is to live honestly, and if...” His voice choked. “If that drives Elloven and everyone else away from me, then at least whatever is left will be something I can live with, because I’ll know it’s real.”
The Conductor’s face had turned an unhealthy shade of green, her hair a silver-streaked black that swung all the way to her ankles. Jesstin gripped his jacket and held it over his face to protect it from the branches and leaves and blooms pelting him. “Is this your final answer? Think carefully, Jesstin, for I’ll only seek this clarity once.”
She needed him to doubt himself, but the especular’s tests had lit the spark of freedom. He needed to atone for what he’d done, beginning with an honest accounting of who he was and who he wanted to be and then, if he had the courage, to live with it.
Jesstin tucked away thoughts of Gennady for the moment. The Conductor was relying on him being guilt-ridden, shocked, and distracted, and he’d already given her—it—a piece of his soul. He still didn’t know how he was going to steal it back, but that was another distraction. There was only one thing that mattered as he stood firm in the tall grass of the old field, wind thrashing his hair across his face, reality and fantasy bent and twisted by a force he didn’t understand and never could.
He stepped in front of the gaping maw of the fresh grave marked “truth” and peered into the lightless chasm. After glancing up just long enough to offer the Conductor a cheeky wink, he leaped into the pit. An inhuman, fevered shriek followed him into the darkness as he fell, tumbling, through the icy gorge. He saw the ground rise up too late to do anything more than shield his head, but that was like putting a bandage on a severed limb, and because he expected a devastating crash, he was not surprised when he got exactly that.
Elloven tugged the wispy curtains closed. Moonrise had fully descended upon the Infinitum. The fiends, including her own, had commenced their nocturnal production.
It would be another long night wondering what had happened to Jesstin. There’d been no more Night Soul interludes. She had no indication whatsoever of where he was, what he was doing, or if he was all right. Was he alive, dead—could he die in the Infinitum? All she had were questions, with no one to answer them.
Over the years, she’d pleaded and prayed for the safety of solitude. She’d never dared wish for someone she could feel safe with. She wasn’t greedy.
But as she curled up in the small bed in the tiny havre she’d held vigil in since she last spoke with Jesstin, she wanted more. Her desire for companionship was tied to a man who had provided both solace and sorrow, but he’d traveled to the netherworld to find her. No other woman could say that. No other man had done it. But the pain of their last confrontation in the living world still stung, a dagger tip nestled just under the skin’s surface, and it demanded resolution if there were to be any way forward.
She prayed Jesstin would find her that evening in their dreams, but she prepared herself for another long night alone.
Chapter 8
Calm Over Chaos
Jesstin tried to raise his head, but a deluge of water slammed it back to the earth. His nostrils were on fire. Between his ears was a mess of garbled waves. He couldn’t clear from his throat the horrifying feeling he was drowning.
He managed to flop onto his side, which offered some relief from the torrent but not the pain. Oh, the pain was incredible. He’d always tolerated it with a sort of bitter resilience, but there was pain, and there was this. It was everywhere. In every twitch of his toes, shift of his jaw... Adjusting his back left him wondering if he could even stand again.
Jesstin’s last memory was an incredible impact, but he didn’t know how long ago that had been or where he’d landed after leaping into the grave. He couldn’t even be sure if he was alive, dead, or something far worse.
He sputtered rain from his mouth and lungs. The only other time he’d felt a burn like that was when Emrys found him floating on his belly in a fountain at Riverhelm Citadel when he was six. Neither Rhiain nor Emrys had left his side for days.
