Her magic had brought them here, and she gladly accepted the role of judge, jury, and executioner as they stood on the precipice of time and space.
Inside the orb there was chaos, magic swirling around her like a maelstrom . . . outside there was a soundless vacuum, the infinite silence pierced only by her uncle's cries. And then the singularity exerted its final pull and David was sucked backward. One minute he was there and the next, he had ceased to exist.
Lyse knew she couldn't stay here any longer. That her magic could only protect her for so long before the singularity broke through and stole her away, too.
"Take me home," she murmured.
And the orb popped.
• • •
"Holy shit!" Freddy yelped-as Lyse's body magically appeared on top of the round oak table in front of him.
Lyse grinned back at him, enjoying the shocked expression on his face. He was wearing a white embroidered Mexican wedding shirt with a coffee stain down its front. He was also holding a coffee-stained mug in his hand. She felt bad. Her surprise appearance must've freaked him out so much he'd spilled his coffee down his shirt front.
"Nice to see you, too," she said. "Sorry about the coffee."
She groaned as she tried to sit up, every muscle in her body aching.
"Wait . . . Uh, what, uh . . . How?" he whispered, sitting back in his chair and pointing at her with the coffee mug.
"I said I wanted to come home, and this is where my magic brought me."
He nodded, as if this made all the sense in the world.
"Sure, yeah . . . yeah . . ." he said, and took a sip from his mostly empty coffee mug.
Lyse ignored the pain in her limbs and climbed off the tabletop, only feeling human when she had both feet on the floor again. She pushed away the bad feelings-though she knew she'd have to deal with the knowledge of her parents' murder eventually-and tried to clear her mind. For now she just needed a break from all the emotional shit.
"Where's Dev?" she asked.
"Uh, she's in the bedroom . . . would you like some coffee?" Freddy asked.
Lyse thought about it for a second, then nodded.
"Why the hell not?" she said, feeling giddy and full of crazy energy after what she'd just done.
She knew she should feel racked with guilt-she'd just hurled a human being into a singularity-but since it existed within the landscape of the dreamlands, a place where anything was possible, it didn't one hundred percent mean that she'd killed him. She had a strange feeling her uncle was more alive than dead, though she doubted he'd be coming back to their world any time soon. And, if she was lucky, maybe he'd never come back again.
Wishful thinking, Lyse thought.
Dev came into the kitchen and found Lyse sitting there having a cup of coffee with Freddy. Somehow she'd missed all the commotion, and her shocked Oh! of surprise made Lyse laugh.
"You're here," Dev said, switching gears in a heartbeat. "Do you have the girls? Where are the others? We've been so worried. The house is gone, everything inside it, too. We've missed you!"
Too many questions and feelings all at once. The only thing Lyse could think to do in response was to pull Dev in for a hug.
"I'm so sorry," she whispered in her friend's ear. "I can't even imagine . . ."
Dev pulled away from the embrace and looked Lyse right in the eye.
"Yes, you can," she said. "You of all people can understand."
Dev was right. Lyse had lost so much. So many of the people she'd loved were gone. She felt like she was a bad omen. Being friends with her was like having a deathwatch beetle quietly ticking away inside the walls of your house. She wondered if her love should come with a warning label.
"Lyse . . . ?"
She realized Dev had been talking to her and she'd missed every word.
"I'm sorry," she apologized. "What were you saying?"
"The girls, we spoke to them. They're with Lizbeth and Eleanora in the dreamlands. A place called the Red Chapel . . . ?"
"I can take you there," Lyse said, excited that she could do something to erase the sadness etched into Dev's features. "To the dreamlands . . . it's something we discovered . . . now that magic is loose in the world again, real magic, all of our powers, everything we can do . . . it's heightened."
Dev nodded. She had come to the same conclusion herself.
"That was why I could use the cards to reach out to the girls," she said to Freddy. Then she turned to Lyse: "It was the strangest thing. I just knew it was possible and then I made it happen. And Freddy saw it all."