The End of Magic (The Witches of Echo Park #3)(84)

Maybe Eleanora, Dev thought, and Thomas, of course. But I don't think the others realize.

"You're not The Magician-though everyone thinks you are," Thomas said to Lyse. "Even Eleanora. She believed it, too."



       
         
       
        

"I'm The Hierophant?" Lyse asked, confused.

"But The Magician is supposed to bring about change-" Eleanora began, but Thomas held up a hand for her to stop speaking.

"And Lizbeth did bring change to the world . . . big-time change," Thomas said. "The Hierophant is the crossroads. The place in time and space where anything is possible."

"I don't get it," Lyse said, bouncing nervously on the balls of her feet. "What're you talking about?"

Dev understood immediately-and she felt stupid for not seeing it before. She was the diviner, the interpreter of the tarot, and it had never occurred to her. And she'd been with Lyse when her friend had manipulated time and space . . . she could've kicked herself.

"You can change it all, Lyse," Dev said. "You can travel in time and space. It's how we went back to the hospital and saw your past self-"

"No," Eleanora breathed. "It can't be."

"I didn't think it was possible," Tem said, "but Thomas says it's true."

"Would someone explain this to me, please?" Lyse asked.

"I said before that the answer to stopping all of this was twofold. Lyse has to search out the one moment in space and time when all of this could've been averted. The rest of us must go and fight the darkness and its Flood. Lyse will only have as much time as we can give her-"

"-unless I can pick apart the threads of time and space and stop all of this before it begins?" Lyse said, covering her face with her hands. "I have a headache just thinking about what you said."

"Yes, it's not for the faint of heart or mind," Thomas said, "but if you can figure out where the darkness tipped the scales in its favor, you can fix this. At least, here in the dreamlands and in your world. And possibly it will spread further . . . we can only hope."

"It's a suicide mission, Lyse," Eleanora said. "You can say no."

Lyse shook her head.

"I'm going to do it. It's not a question."

"I'll go with you," Lizbeth said, but Lyse was having none of it.

"Not gonna happen," Lyse said, her voice steely. "I'm the only one going on a suicide mission. I want the rest of you protected as much as possible." 

Lizbeth nodded, but she didn't look happy about it.

"Well, with Hessika and Arrabelle gone," Lizbeth said, "that leaves the rest of us here at The Red Chapel to fight."

"And Evan, wherever he is," Daniela said.

"And Evan," Lyse agreed.

"Ten of us," Dev said.

"No pressure there," Daniela replied, snorting.

No pressure at all, Dev thought blandly. Just the fate of the world in your hands.





Niamh





Niamh had been sequestered away in one of the back bedrooms-a child's bedroom by the look of it-with Dev's daughters, Marji and Ginny. She liked the girls immensely; their connection to each other reminded her of the one she'd once had with her twin, Laragh.

"I don't think we'll be here long," Niamh said, sitting down on the pink canopy bed that took up the majority of the tiny bedroom. "They just need to talk about a few things."

Ginny and Marji plopped down on the floor in front of her, both eyeing her curiously.

"They're saying bad stuff," Ginny said. She was sitting cross-legged, her elbows pressed into her knees, her chin resting in her clasped palms. "Mama always makes us go upstairs when she and Daddy talk about bad things."

Marji rolled her eyes.

"She means when they fight."

Niamh remembered her own parents screaming at each other while she and Laragh hid under the square claw-foot table in the dining room. When their parents fought, she and Laragh would just wait it out. They spent a lot of time there, playing with their Fisher-Price Little People, building cities for the flat-bottomed plastic dolls to live in.

She'd asked Laragh about it years later-when they were both older and, supposedly, wiser-and her sister had just stared at her like she was crazy.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Her sister's denial had frightened Niamh, and she'd put the memory aside, not wanting to argue with her about something Laragh had-obviously-blocked out.

"They don't fight much," Marji continued. "Not like the other kids at my school."