Chapter 61—Earth

“I'm not saying he did the right thing,” John says, “but if he's right, if Terra's falling apart, if my mom’s death was collateral damage, that means he's trying to save the lives of what? A hundred thousand people?”

“More like three hundred thousand,” Devlin says. “On Terra alone.”

“Shut up!” I Bind his mouth and watch him struggle to speak.

“I'm not saying he's a good person,” John says earnestly, ignoring his dad. “I'm just saying he had some justification for tormenting you, not that it excuses what he did to you or Jesse.”

I feel profoundly betrayed.

I blink several times, wondering if I'm actually having my first real nightmare. Maybe now that I've left Terra for good, I'm dreaming. It's too bizarre, John pleading for his awful father's life. I reach out with my senses, the same ones I used in Terra, but I can't sense them here, the strands that wind together to form John’s soul. I can't feel his motivations, his thoughts, or his desires.

I don't care what Devlin thinks of me, but I realize that I do care what John thinks. “I can't believe—”

Devlin’s eyes roll back in his head and he begins to writhe against the Bindings.

“It’s happening,” John says. “Terra—like he said. There must be something wrong.”

So what. Let him die. At least then it’s not my fault.

“It’s not just him,” John says. “If Dad’s dying, if he’s right, everyone on Terra will be seizing just like this as it crumbles.”

What if that’s really happening? I don't even think about it any further. I plummet downward, toward Terra. The pathway's easy to find this time, and there's no resistance as I rocket back.

When I arrive, appearing in the precise spot I left not that long ago, I'm standing in the midst of chaos. People sit in bunches all around me, some of them leaning against one another, some alone. All of them are sweating profusely. Many of them look confused, dazed even. Every face is filled with despair or downcast or panicked. The trees and the buildings have begun to unravel. In the blink of an eye, a tree goes from its normal form to a flickering mess and then back again. Or it disappears in a flash of pure light. It's happening everywhere I look. The ground, the walls, the buildings. Flashing, flickering, pulsing, twisting.

Devlin was right. Terra’s in its death throes.

I hope he's right and it's not my fault for bringing Jesse home. Because if he’s wrong about that, then maybe he and I aren’t so different after all.

I close my eyes and feel for the people around me. There are so many, stretching on and on and on. Hundreds of thousands. Have they already started dying?

The icy tendrils of guilt drag me downward.

Is Duncan alive? What about Martin? I focus on the souls I know. I find Duncan and Martin both still pulsing. I feed energy into them and breathe a sigh of relief as they seem to lighten. I seek for the rest of my family, the troupe. They're all there, flickering, but lit up. I feed them the energy from their own wagons.

That's when I realize that Devlin was right about something else.

I can't bolster everyone. I need to get them to Earth before they’re extinguished forever.

But I don't have enough power to bring three hundred thousand people back with me.

I pull Martin toward me. I pull Duncan. I pull my troupe and the Unit. I start selecting souls who are nearest to me. I realize I can only bring, maybe, a thousand. I look around panicked. So many will die, because saving Jesse sped this up. Thanks to my selfish maneuver, we’re out of time.

He will blame himself if he ever finds out.

Which means that if he survives the transition, he'll never forgive me.

I can’t think about that. Not now. I focus on saving all I can—what else can I do?

But how can I possibly choose?

I gather up as many souls as possible, and I pull. They zing along with me, shrinking down to sparks of light like fireflies, darting and flashing all around me. I step back from Terra and they follow, and it's hard. Harder than ripping Jesse free. Harder than anything I've ever done. I'm not sure I can even make it with everyone I gathered.

Except now I see something I didn't before. I don't personally have the power to do what’s necessary. It would end me to even try. I’d burn up on the return.

But I'm surrounded with vast, unfathomable power.

I step back down to Terra, my gathered fireflies following me eagerly. I touch the ground under my feet and pull and it floods into me, from the rocks, from the trees, from the being and matter of Terra. I slurp the world around me up like a Slurpee, drawing people like flickering lights into a swarm that swirls and darts and dips in every direction. The power I need swells inside me as I gather, and when I think I can't take a single speck more, the stream just keeps on flowing. I'm so full of energy that I may burst into a million tiny lights. My skin stretches tight, my eyes burn.

And still I don't stop.

The swarm of souls around me grows and grows, flowing into me as I consume the ground beneath their feet and the buildings in which they're cowering. I suck them down, and they join the darting, flickering, flying masses. They're scared, angry, and hurt, but I push onward. It takes hours, it takes a millisecond.

I lose track of anything but the power, the pull, and the pain.

The unfathomable pain.

Finally, when I have gathered every last soul, I cast just one back, and I begin the voyage home. I see one thing as I leave Terra forever. Devlin, Lord of Rochester Castle. He salutes me from where he stands alone on a single flagstone.

He was right. He spoke the truth.

He is dark and light entwined, but I will not bring him back. I will not spare his life. He owes me for the death of my parents, for the life of my brother, for the memories of Jesse’s that I can’t ever restore, and for the years of my life he ruined.

I’m calling in the debt.

And I’m not looking back.

I cast off, blasting away from the ruins of Terra as quickly as possible. The closer I grow, the harder it becomes, much as the trip with Jesse became more and more difficult.

Although I want to quit, I want to let go, I pull those thousands upon thousands of souls along with me, every last one. I move quickly through the darkness, my entire being quivering with the immeasurable strain. I burn through the power I siphoned as I drag the lights back to Earth. This time, like Kahn, the lights I'm dragging with me veer off, presumably returning to their own bodies. Each departure lightens my load, and I'm glad, because I'm almost out of energy.

I'm so close, but I’m nearly empty, coasting on fumes.

I slam back into Earth, the ground shaking as I reconnect in the family room of John's modest home. His lamps, his furniture, everything in the apartment shakes. I'm not imagining it—the world around me really is cracking, as though Houston’s being wracked by its first earthquake. Once the tremors stop, I collapse. It takes every ounce of strength I have left, but I look up, into Devlin's eyes, and I smile. It's not a smile full of joy, but it’s a smile full of satisfaction.

He knows.

He knows I've saved everyone but him, and he doesn't even look angry. He looks relieved. I feel him shove at my Bindings, but my power's spent, and I can't stop him. I know he can probably come over and kill me, and there's nothing I can do to stop him. He breaks free, but instead of coming for me, he stumbles over to his son.

“John.” He grabs for his boots, but John lifts him up and hugs him. “I'm sorry, John. I'm sorry that I did everything wrong. That I got it all backward.”

Devlin begins to spasm again—as though he improved with my return to Terra. . .and now that he’s stuck, he’s back to convulsing.

I feared this man for years, and as I grew, that fear turned into hate. I've hated every decision he's made. I hated how he destroyed my life, and how he brought an army against me in Terra that would have destroyed all my family and friends.

I hated every fiber of his being when he murdered my brother.

I shouldn't feel bad about leaving him to his death. After the thousands of men I killed back on Terra, even before being able to see their intentions and the state of their souls, I shouldn't feel so much guilt over this one. This blackened man, this horrible, misguided, person.

Except we become our actions.

I hate Devlin because of the choices he made, even though he thought he was doing the right thing. His intentions don't excuse what he's done. . .just as my intentions won't excuse my choices, not now that I know the truth.

Who am I to decide whether Devlin was justified or whether he can be redeemed? I'm not God. I'm not all-knowing—not even close. I may not be able to forgive him, but I can at least keep my soul clean, keep my tiny light as bright as it can possibly be.

I don't want to make the journey again.

I want to let him die, because he deserves to pay. But I fling myself back toward Terra anyway. When I arrive, I grab Devlin's salt and pepper soul, unsure how I can possibly make the return trip. I'm a juiced orange. I'm a cloth that's been wrung dry. I won't make it back alone, much less dragging someone with me. After he shrinks down, into a not-so-sparkly firefly, all that’s left of Terra is the single flagstone I left him to die on. It flickers and shifts, but it's there. I suck it up, a mere teaspoon of power compared to the fire hose I drank from before.

I use that drip to take us both back home. It's enough, but only just.

When we arrive, I collapse in a heap. Exhaustion tugs at me and I drift toward it. This time, I know I won't wake up on Terra. I'll never wake up there again, because it's gone.

I don't mind. Not at all.

I'm looking forward to having a normal dream for once. I let myself go, imagining puffy clouds and unicorns with wings, and myself as the princess of all of them, with Jesse at my side, keeping me safe, keeping me sane, and making fun of every stupid thing my non-Terra-shackled brain can cook up.

When I finally fall asleep, I'm smiling.