Matchbox Girls (35 page)

dreadfully injured
reported the shield but
safe
for now
safe
.

Marley felt thin, just as she had when she’d failed to protect AT, but she didn’t care. Penny didn’t want what was happening to her, Penny had asked for her help, Penny could be saved. How could Ettoriel stop them? Her friends looked after her and she looked after them, and together they were unstoppable. Joy and defiance exploded out of her, and she screamed wordlessly at the angel.

He spared her only a look and then raised his hands, the Ragged Blade and the iron chain both glinting. He touched the two of them together and once again the air cooled rapidly, as if something was sucking up the energy of the fires. The audience of ghostly figures watching from the outskirts of the dome of golden light seemed to press in, a ripple going through them that ended with a shape spinning into the dome, made of straight lines and gentle curves, and enclosed by a pair of slowly moving rings. It was the Machine that she had seen once before, the one that Corbin had sought answers from. It hovered, flat side down, over Lissa and Kari, and began to exert a
pressure
.

Marley could feel it through the shield. It wasn’t a physical pressure. It was bringing power to bear, not something actively destructive, but something scattered and chaotic. It bombarded her already-weakened shield with noise, confusing her instinctive awareness of threats and safety. She concentrated, trying to maintain her conscious sense of what was a threat and what was not. The Machine was a distraction, not a threat. Ettoriel, blade out, was a threat. Another Machine wheel, identical to the first, settled over his head, and he stepped toward the children.

Her shield faltered.

She wasn’t sure if anybody noticed. Could Ettoriel detect the shield before he tried to actually hurt them?

The ground shook again, and a crack opened between Ettoriel and the twins. They’d stopped arguing and were holding hands again, both of them staring angrily at Ettoriel. “You go away,” said Lissa. “We’re bad. We’ll be even more bad.”

And Kari said, “I don’t like your hat.” She pointed at the Machine spinning over Ettoriel’s head, and the rings stopped. The ripple from the ghostly onlookers was an audible gasp of horror.

Ettoriel sighed, and closed his wings. The golden dome of light vanished with a whoosh. Red-orange light briefly took its place before white smoke replaced everything with a haze. It invaded Marley’s nose but seemed to get stuck at her throat, leaving her easily breathing tainted air. Penny was
safe
. Safe enough. Even flickering, the shield filtered out the worst toxins, the killing heat. But Branwyn started coughing immediately.

Marley looked around wildly as the coughing became choking, and then stopped entirely. She saw Tarn standing, holding Branwyn in his arms, his face bent toward hers.

“You
are
bad,” agreed Ettoriel quietly. He was still standing between Marley and the twins, the Ragged Blade at his side. “It’s not your fault, though. I can make it all better, if you let me.”

Kari muttered, “I don’t want to be bad.”

Marley advanced on him with her spear up. His back was to her. The Machine over his head was turning only fitfully, like a fan with a dying motor. She could just stab him in the back, and it would all be over.

No.
Her shield would not hold, not as thin as she'd spread it, not as damaged as it was by the Machine. It could keep out smoke, but Lullaby destroying Ettoriel was still a threat to Penny. She could see it.

But Tarn had thought there was another way. He'd mentioned a weapon, back when he was Tinker Chime.

“Of course you don’t,” said Ettoriel to the children, and his voice was as cool and smooth as silk. “Somebody made a mistake, and you’ve had to suffer for it.”

Ah, yes. The faerie
had
provided her with a weapon long before Branwyn and Corbin had, a weapon far more personal and just as dangerous. The spear fell from her hand, Lullaby’s song trailing away.
Somebody made a mistake.
“Was it you?” she asked quietly. “Their mother loved you.”

Ettoriel froze. She walked around him, so she could look him in the eye. “Her name was Nina. She called you Cat. Did you forget already? Or is this whole thing really about you? About erasing your own mistakes? About forgetting that once you loved someone?”

“It was a trick,” he breathed.

“I don’t know about that, but I know she really loved you. She would have done anything for you.” Marley considered him clinically, then lowered her voice again as she stepped closer. “Did you kill her, too? Was that also to save the world?”

“No!” he said. His eyes, when they found hers, were anguished. “I don’t know where she is.”

“But you’ve looked,” she said gently. “Are they yours?”

“No!” he said quickly, looking down.

Marley didn’t smile, though she wanted to bare her teeth. “You’re not sure. Losing your name confused you.” He gave her a worried look, his beautiful face twisted up. She continued, her voice just as calm and smooth as his had been. “You don’t know. And now you want to kill her children. Not because you want to save the world, but because you can’t bear the thought of their existence. And look at what you've brought to bear on such a personal crusade.”

“This is bigger than me,” he said, and waved vaguely with his dagger, indicating nothing in particular.

“No, it isn’t,” she said sharply. “It is
only
about you, and the children who could have been yours. The shame and love that
is
yours.”

He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.” He half-turned toward the twins again.

“Doesn’t it? Let’s test that,” said Marley, lightly, idly.
How long did a valence event last?
“Look at those tiny children. Perhaps they’re yours, the result of a world-shaking crime. Maybe it was your crime, your love that brought these children into the world.”

Shakily, he said, “Then I should fix it.”

“But the real crime’s in you,” she said brightly. “There’s always suicide, but I’m sure that’s a crime, too. Let’s table that for now. Look at those tiny children. Perhaps they’re somebody else’s. Maybe she found what you wouldn’t give her in somebody else’s arms. Maybe after you abandoned her, she was driven to find a replacement. Or maybe she found somebody better.”

He squeezed his eyes shut, his entire body rigid.

“We’re not done,” she said, her voice cutting like a knife. “Look at those tiny children.” As if beyond his will, his eyes flickered open again, though he remained coiled like a spring. “Look at them. Look at their faces. Don’t they look like her?” She was gambling on his own heart filling in details she knew nothing about. “Can you really kill her children, all that may be left of her, no matter who their father may be? Can you stand a world without Nina?”

She paused, and he said nothing, his eyes fixed on the little girls. “I think,” she said finally, “that everything you’re trying to stop will occur because you’re trying to stop it. That’s usually how prophecies seem to work. You’re a lot older than me. Maybe you know that, too. Maybe you even want that. I don’t know.” She stared at his broken face, and felt pity finally stir in her heart. “I really don’t know,” she repeated.

The fire crackled around them. Her hair was singeing.

At last Ettoriel raised a hand to touch the wheel of light over his head. “I can’t—” and his voice cracked. “I can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry. I fell from my grace years ago.”

Marley’s initial burst of elation was cut short as the world suddenly went wrong.
The wrongness was everywhere. The fires were out of focus. The rings of light were the extrusions of some great Machine that arched over them and climbed into the sky. The watching figures complained bitterly.

Ettoriel’s curse, weakened and deprived of tools by Ettoriel’s own fire shield, finally found a channel and struck one final time. Her Geometric Sight fully activated, showing her the lines of light twisting around her in a vortex. Something struck her like a hammer. The Sight went out. All her shields vanished.

She crumpled to the ground, staring without understanding; angry words emerged from the roaring of the fire as the ring of watching figures grew larger.
The HUSH. Focus on the HUSH break the HUSH everything can be done but for the HUSH ETTORIEL THE HUSH free us use them there’s still time DO IT NOW redeem yourself.

But the Machine wheel over the heads of the girls lifted and merged with the one over Ettoriel’s head, turning onto its edge and growing larger. It drifted down so it was level with Ettoriel’s face. “My friend,” he whispered, touching it again. “Help me understand.”

ETTORIEL
screamed the watchers. The sky yawned open and a lightning bolt as thick as Marley’s waist struck Ettoriel. For a split second, his entire body was nothing but plasma. Then he and the lightning bolt were gone. The chain he’d been holding, along with the Ragged Blade, dropped to the ground.

Some of the Machine wheel’s symbols changed color, and then it vanished as well.

The restless, angry observers remained. Crimson light began to gather in the center of the circle.

Corbin threw himself down beside Marley, putting one arm over her. “You’ll be okay,” he muttered.

“What about everybody else?” she mumbled. “What about Penny and the girls? What about...” She trailed off. The crimson light was condensing, becoming a humanoid shape with wings. She couldn’t remember what she was saying. She was all out. Of energy. Of words. She’d done it all, but apparently all of Heaven was behind Ettoriel, and what could she do against that?

Out of the corner of her eye, Marley saw Severin the kaiju lift his head. His hands were still in his pockets, but a fierce smile stretched his face. “Are we breaking the Hush after all? Oh, please do.” He stepped forward, and his footfall shook the ground like thunder. “We
have
suffered terribly under the Hush, haven’t we. The angels and the monsters.”

The crimson, winged entity paused, a half-manifested, misty form. The kaiju continued, “I would
so
enjoy getting more than a taste of each of you gathered here. A grand council of angels, all agreed! So you just get started with tearing down the Hush, and I’ll finish with the spirit tethers.” And he pulled his hands out of his pockets and opened them. In each palm was a handful of tiny, glittering balls of light.

The crimson figure fuzzed as the circle of observing entities recoiled away. A few of them vanished completely. Severin’s fingers closed over the glittering orbs again. “Oh, come on. It’s been so long. How can I eat you if you run away?”

“Good question,” murmured Corbin in Marley’s ear.

More of the glowing outlines vanished. The crimson figure collapsed into a shower of sparks. Severin paced over to the two remaining figures and leaned toward them, his hands back in his pockets. “Come on,” he said again. “Let’s do this. We can find out what happens if an angel dies during a valence event. Is their name erased from the Sea of Dreams? It’s for science!”

One of the figures spoke, with a voice like an eagle’s cry. “My brothers each worry they will be the one who falls before we erase you from the world, lost one. But I would have—”

The other figure interrupted, with a voice like an underwater song. “This has been an informative experiment already. We have much to discuss. Thank you for revealing yourself as part of the equation, lost one.” Then it vanished, leaving a little swirl of ashes behind.

The final remaining figure flickered belligerently at Severin for a moment, then faded away. The kaiju snickered, and pulled his hands out of his pockets, shaking dissolving specks of light off them. Then he turned toward Marley on the ground. “Nice job with Ettoriel, sweetheart. I’d never have thought your mother was an angel, with you talking dirty like that.”

Marley gagged and threw up on Corbin’s arm. Corbin said, “That's okay. I'm okay with that,” and raised his voice. “Can anyone do anything about the fire? Before it burns us or I’m forced to do something drastic?”

“Faerie magic, that is,” said Severin cheerfully.

Everybody turned to look at Tarn. He’d left Branwyn sitting on the ground next to a huddled Penny as he walked over to where Ettoriel had vanished. Slowly, he bent down and picked up the iron chain from the ground. His hands blistered instantly, but he stared down at it wonderingly. He muttered, “Break the chain.”

Marley sat up and wiped her mouth, prickles running down her spine. “Should we...?” she began uncertainly.

“Yeah,” said Corbin, heaving himself to his feet.

Tarn carried the chain over to Lissa and Kari, who still clutched each other's hands. He knelt down before them. “I’m so sorry I took your guardian, little ones. It was this chain that compelled me. This chain forced me to do it. And it could be used that way again.”

“No,” said Kari flatly. “It couldn’t.” And she touched the chain with her hand.

White light outlined each link. For a moment, everything was frozen. Then, each link in the chain burst, split cleanly into two, and a pile of iron shards fell to the ground at Tarn’s feet. Tarn remained kneeling, his head bowed.

Corbin said, “Did she just...?”

Severin said, “Destroy something that it took dozens of celestials to craft? Oh yes! There’s fun times ahead, kid. I'm pretty sure faeries one-third freed can cause a hell of a lot of chaos.”

“I don’t care,” shouted Kari. “I want my uncle back! Now!”

The fires around them went out, and in the sudden, howling silence, Lissa said, “Nobody else was putting the fires out and it was hot. Was that bad, too?”

“I don’t
care
!” began Kari again, but the world parted like a curtain beside them, and Zachariah stepped out, looking as though he’d just finished showering and dressing for a day at the office.

“You’re good girls, both of you,” he said, before they double-teamed him.

Tarn stood up, his head still bowed. Marley staggered toward him, and he turned. The smile on his face was as wide and frightening as Severin’s grin had been before. “Finally,” he breathed. “After millennia... finally.” A shudder passed through him, and the faraway look faded from his face. “Thank you, Marley. You were useful in the end. Time for me to go, though. So many things to do! One chain down, two to go.” He looked around until he spotted Branwyn, holding Penny’s head in her lap. “Sweet, inventive Branwyn. I’ll be seeing
you
later.” Branwyn stuck out her tongue at him, he blew her a kiss, and then—he was gone.