Chapter Text
Saul stood by the gates, feeling the morning chill as he eyed the college, and sighed. He felt old, older than he already was, last night having aged him tenfold. He hadn’t felt so helpless, so hopeless. And yet, in the end, when he finally understood what he needed to do, he thought… But it was his fault. He had pictured it in his head so clearly, he hadn’t allowed the possibility that it wouldn’t be real. But here he stood, and nothing had changed.
He heard footsteps behind him and was almost afraid to look. When Sky finally reached him, he looked weary as though sleep eluded him all night. It must have. It was only last night when the barrier in Alfea failed and burned ones got through, last night when he told the kid the truth about how his father died, that it was his hand, his sword that did it, then he had to see the look of betrayal in Sky’s eyes as the pedestal he had built for Andreas crashed.
Sky had no greeting to give him this morning, no smile, not even nod of acknowledgement. He went on walking, heading toward the college, and Saul fell in stride next to him. For a while, their boots threading the ground were the only thing they heard as Saul, still plagued by the events of last night, reviewed a thousand different images cramming his head.
He asked, “Where’s Riven?”
He hadn’t seen the boy all morning, even last night when they were in the thick of it. At least, he couldn’t remember seeing him.
“Probably getting stoned somewhere with Dane. Can’t believe he knew this place was fucked way before I did.” Sky made no effort to hide the bitterness in his voice, before adding, “Didn’t even take a dead dad.”
Saul had to slow his steps, looking up above and pondering what to say. Should he tell him, so soon after just revealing the truth about Andreas’s death? Wouldn’t it be crueler to do so?
He took a breath. “One day I hope you will see, everything I did was for your benefit, Sky.”
Last Night
Saul looked around as he sat in his car. It was a typical street in an upscale neighborhood, quiet and dark, lit only by streetlamps that illuminated no passersby or loiterer, not even the occasional car. It was nearing midnight and not a single home was awake. Then he looked again to his right where the house stood. It had an old design, practically ancient, all red-bricked and tiled roofs, its driveway surrounded by a manicured lawn. Yet that was only the outside. He knew that the inside had long ago departed from its roots, the walls painted away from its old oppressive dark browns, the furniture changed over time to match the latest trends. It had been fifteen years since he first stepped into its threshold, fifteen years of him coming back here again and again to beg, at some point giving up, and yet here he was again.
It seemed incongruous that she should live in such an ordinary-looking street. Probably, not a single one of her neighbors knew that in their midst lived a myth. She was never more than that to Saul before, nothing but a children’s story, a nursery rhyme, and then Aster Dell happened. He only needed a little confirmation to start his search, which Farah was able to give. These stories were based on something, a consistency to them that he had to investigate. He pored through every anecdote, researched every children’s tale, every hearsay, every rumor, until finally, he knew the truth. She wasn’t some anthropomorphic creature, not time personified. She was simply a fairy, one who had the unique ability to control time. Every generation had just a single one of the kind. In his generation, her name was Nell Amana.
He leaned back on his seat and took a deep breath. “What are you doing here Saul?” he asked himself.
Just sitting here was bringing the memories back, his state of mind each time he took that march toward her door. The first time was the worst, and he supposed it was how fresh Aster Dell was, just almost a year when it happened. And yet, after his tireless search for her, after laying out his arguments, when he finally asked to send him back in time, all she had to say was this:
“In the right time.”
He remembered being baffled by it. And of course he would be—he was too focused on finding her, on the many dead-ends and false positives, he hadn’t considered the possibility that, once he was face-to-face with her, she wouldn’t immediately send him back. It had been so obvious after all; an entire town was killed. Wasn’t that reason enough? But he forgot the extent of her power. He forgot that everything he had said, she didn’t need to hear. She had seen it. Worse, she let it happen.
When he asked when the right time was, she only told him he would know. So, when Sky came into his life, he thought that was it. He could never raise the child of the man he had killed. But he got the same response.
“In the right time.”
Still, he thought it would be soon—soon enough for the child not to develop a bond with him. So, he came, again and again, when he had to train Sky to stop calling him dad, when the boy started asking about his real father, when Saul had to build a story for him, a perfect one, free of the bloodlust and hunger for violence that Andreas built his reputation on, when Saul knew he could never give Sky up, even if Andreas crawled out of his grave to claim him.
But tonight… tonight was different.
He tried to think of the things he should say to the time fairy, but he kept getting distracted by the look on Sky’s face when he finally confessed his sins, and then later on, have all of that turned upside down when Farah told him the final truth that Rosalind kept from them.
He closed his eyes. Maybe driving in the middle of the night wasn’t such a good idea. Back when he had a fully prepared speech, she didn’t change her mind. What would his exhausted brain come up with now? He didn’t even know what he wanted to do should Nell, however impossible, finally decide that tonight was the right time.
He must have dozed off a bit because, next he knew, he was jumping awake from a knock on his window. Then he was looking into the face of the woman he came here for.
Nell grinned her stupid grin, waving madly at him, her black hair braided, her dark brown eyes seemingly black in this light. She was covered up to her neck in sweaters, only her face showing her tawny brown skin, as she held something warm in her gloved hands. She signaled for him to wind the window down, so he did.
“Saul! Been a while!” the time fairy said.
“Hi Nell.”
“Tea?” She then offered him the cup.
He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised that she was wide awake when her entire neighborhood was asleep, and that she wasn’t in pajamas as though she never even went to bed. He looked at the tea she offered and accepted, the cold of the night streaming in from his open window. He could just see her breath as she exhaled, wondering what conclusions he should draw that she chose to step out of her house and meet him by the car with a cup of tea. That she seemed to bounce with excitement meant nothing—she always was excited to see him, even when she was turning him down.
“Good?” she asked as he took his first sip.
“Yeah.”
“You wanna come in?”
He felt a kind of déjà vu as he entered her house and how carelessly she tossed her scarf and sweaters on the first thing she came across with, which happened to be nothing since both items missed the console table by the foyer. She didn’t stop walking, expecting him to follow as he always did, nor did she turn to the living room or the dining room or what he thought of as a family room, and a library, so that he could only see glimpses of each as they passed. Then they were going past the kitchen into a breakfast room in full view of a wide patio and a lush garden. He had seen it with the ground lights on and the effect was spectacular. But with the lateness of the hour, there was only a dark canvass and the stars up above.
On the table were two coasters and one tea, seemingly newly made, steam still rising from it. Hers, he supposed, because he was still holding his. There was also a plate of what was probably a ham sandwich, cut diagonally.
“Sit, sit,” Nell said, pointing to where the plate was set, as though he wasn’t already on his way there. Then she pushed the sandwich to him. “Eat.”
He eyed the food, then her, and decided not to ask how long ago she had prepared it for him. But was it when he was still at home, staring blankly into the fire in his fireplace, or was it while he sat in the car outside?
Upon sitting down, Nell asked, “Is it because I’m looking?”
“Huh?”
“Okay, I’ll close my eyes and you can eat your sandwich.” She then proceeded to do just that, but only for a second before she was opening them again. As though having just remembered something, she snapped her fingers. “Oh! It’s because you’re eating alone. I should make one for myself…”
She then pushed her chair back, already looking toward the fridge in the kitchen, babbling about her cook who had already left for the day and how she didn’t feel like eating at the moment, which was why only one sandwich was prepared. She continued to talk as she dived in her giant fridge and began taking out stuff, proud of the fact that she knew where the cook kept everything. Meanwhile, Saul sighed and let her drone on until her voice became white noise. He picked up the sandwich and accepted his fate about eating it—it tasted heavenly.
When Nell came back, carrying her attempt at a meal (or some kind of artwork), he had finished the first half of his. She saw him grab the other half and said, “Ah! So, it was because I was looking.”
He only rolled his eyes, putting the meal down. “I didn’t come here to eat is why.”
“Well duh.” She sat down again and began forking the leaves of her maybe-sandwich, not putting anything in her mouth. Maybe it was artwork. “It’s not like we hang out. You only ever come here for one reason.”
He supposed that was his cue. He leaned forward, about to ask the all-important question, but Nell wasn’t done.
“You know, I could have just gone out whenever you came. I could have gone shopping, or watched a concert, or flew out of the country. But here I am.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
Her mouth hung open, as though offended. “Saul, after what we’ve been through… I wouldn’t dare skip out when you come.”
“Skip out on turning me down, you mean. Also—”
“—you know it wasn’t the right—”
“—it’s never ever the right time! And what the fuck do you mean ‘what we’ve been through’? You mean the trauma of having to say no to me again and again? Well, sorry for burdening you with that.”
She started laughing, throwing her head back in a series of loud cackles as she held her fork up with a piece of sticky lettuce in it. He let her get it out of her system, completely losing his appetite even though his stomach was still craving food. Then she straightened up again though a smile lingered on her lips.
He said, “You done?”
“You’re cute when you’re annoyed.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And your voice does this thing where it’s sorta raspy and loud at the same time.”
“You like hearing me raise my voice? Because I can keep going.”
She shook her head, thoroughly enjoying herself despite him fuming. She put the fork down and began taking things out of her pocket. First, a small candy, which she looked at and decided to eat before again fishing out a crumpled piece of paper, a coin, a black hair tie, then some lint that had collected there. All these she tossed out on her back, before realizing that her pocket was now empty, while she mouthed things like “not that”, “not that either”, or “what’s that?”, “didn’t know that was there”. Then, she disappeared under the table to look at the things she had thrown out. When she emerged again, she gave him the crumpled piece of paper.
“That’s for you,” she said, getting back on her seat.
He straightened the paper out. “A receipt for a…” he pushed the thing farther to read it better, “…phone charger?”
“Yeah.”
He nodded and smoothed the paper flat on the table. “Thanks. Now—”
“—it’s been five years since you were last here, Saul.”
“Nell—”
“—fifteen years since you found me.”
“So?”
“Fifteen years is a long time.”
“I am aware.”
“Sky’s all grown now. And you’re a headmaster with a reputation for producing the best fighters in the land. There’s—”
“—Rosalind’s loose.”
He didn’t expect her to be shocked, but did hope that she would show concern, some kind of acknowledgement that this was terrible news. But Nell didn’t even pause.
“And Bloom grew fairy wings for the first time!”
“For the first time?”
“I like her wings. It’s all fiery and stuff.”
He watched her play with her food, tilting her head as though reminiscing something from long past. One thing to be said about Nell, she was capable of obliterating all worries in your head, at least temporarily, by the sheer power of how annoying she was. Annoying wasn’t the right word. Maybe it was just how helpless he felt around her, how predictable, as though every aspect of his life was inevitable. That he wrestled with the decision of coming here or not for the better part of the evening, even while he was already driving, up until he was parking his car right outside her house, was all prelude to her. She already had a meal prepared for him and a tea ready. He was always going to come here.
“Can I ask you something?” he said.
“Hmm-mmm.”
“Was it because they were blood witches? Why you’re not sending me back? You don’t want me to save them?”
She looked up at him with such surprise in her face, it didn’t register at first that she was amused, not until a smirk appeared on her lips, which she bit down as though trying to stop herself from laughing again. Yet, she couldn’t hide the sparkle in eyes.
“You wanna let them die now, is that it?”
He formed fists on the table as he tried to find the answer. But Nell’s eyes still sparkled with amusement. “They’re not worth Andreas getting killed.”
“By you.”
“Yes, by me. If I had known they were blood witches—”
“—you wouldn’t have fought Andreas when he tried to stop you? You would have been like, ‘Yeah, you’re right. Let them die.’”
“They’re leeches! They sacrifice and kill people just to get magic that doesn’t belong to them!”
“Yeah! Never mind that they’re people, not burned ones. They don’t deserve to live!” The smile on Nell’s lips widened and she too formed fists, but only as mockery to his. “They’re all monsters! Sorta!”
He pushed his seat back, unable to keep still. Something was crawling inside him, some stain that spread which he couldn’t rub away or wash off. He should leave but was aware that leaving wouldn’t be enough. He wanted to stop thinking, his mind to go blank. He wanted to be told what course of action to take and not have to make any decisions.
He realized he was pacing back and forth as he kept his eyes on her and she kept on grinning ear to ear.
“Fuck you,” he told her. “You knew all along. You knew and you didn’t tell me.”
But she had no apology, not even a contrite word. Only a nod.
He stopped pacing. “Maybe they didn’t deserve to die like that. Maybe they were capable of some decency. Fuck they may even have a soul,” he said, “but Andreas…”
“Yes?”
He licked his lips and then swallowed the words.
“Andreas…?” Nell prompted. “You would rather they all die than Andreas?”
He went back to his seat, contemplative. He had his fingers intertwined, pressing them close together again and again as though praying. Then he looked up at her.
“Sky knows now, what happened in Aster Dell, how Andreas died.”
Again, all he received from her was a couple of nods and a bad attempt at looking sympathetic. He didn’t know why he was even telling her this. To her, this wasn’t the present. She didn’t live in the same time as him. To her, he was the past, his history from the moment he was born up to his death, only something that she had already seen gone by, and the tribulations of today was nothing in the great scheme of things. He wished he could borrow such a perspective because, it seemed, he couldn’t even move on from what happened sixteen years ago. Despite the moral compass that he clung to, the repeated assurances from those who knew—that he had done what was right, what was needed—it hadn’t cleared his conscience. And today, he found out what it was he killed Andreas for.
What will he tell Sky?
“I have to save him, Nell. I have to save Andreas.”
Her hand was underneath her chin, looking at nothing in particular, her thoughts seemingly far away. But she was still listening. “What about the blood witches?”
“I’ll save them too.”
“And the burned ones?”
She had asked this before, and he always thought this was the reason why she never sent him back. If Aster Dell didn’t burn, then the burned ones feasting on the town wouldn’t be killed. Back then, all he had in reply was a lame, ‘we’ll find a way.’ But now, he at least had a better response.
“I wouldn’t be setting them free. They would just stay in place. And Aster Dell wasn’t the end of them anyway. They just went into hiding. When Aster Dell burned, we assumed that was it. We stopped hunting them. We shouldn’t have. This time, we’ll hunt all of them down for good.”
She sighed, with it that dreamy glaze in her eyes disappeared, and she scratched her cheek as the smile on her face fell.
“What if you don’t? What if this peace that we have now, what if it goes away?”
The same lame response came at the tip of his tongue, almost spilling out, but he couldn’t bring himself to say them.
She went on, “What kind of world would Sky grow up into?”
He opened his mouth, but took a while to find the right words.
“You tell me.”
Her face didn’t show the slightest reaction, only staring back at him without a hint of what went on in her head, what future it was she saw.
He went on, “If I’m not supposed to go back, then say so. Don’t tell me that ‘it’s not the right time’ and string me along.”
“Remember what you said when you first came to me?”
“I said a lot of things when I first came to you.”
“You said you always knew that the myth that time was turned into a corporeal being was wrong. Remember?”
“Yeah. What of it?”
“Time isn’t nothing. She’s conscious, you know. She may not be corporeal, but she’s real. And, let me tell you, she’s not gonna be happy with what you’re trying to do.”
“Is that why you’re not sending me back?”
“No. It just wasn’t the right time.”
He hated that phrase. “Then when the fuck is it?”
At this, her lips cracked into the smallest of smiles, which transformed into a wicked grin, relishing what she was about to say. But instead of speaking, her eyes only continued to twinkle with a joke that only she seemed to be aware of until, having exhausted the silence, she looked down at the receipt on the table.
He had forgotten it was even there. He looked at it again, a printout of a mundane transaction that had no possible bearing on the conversation. Was there a code in it? Some text he neglected to read the first time out? But then, with the paper directly under the light hanging from the ceiling, he realized that something was written on the other side.
He flipped it over.
One word.
Now
He looked up to see that Nell’s hand was already raised and her eyes glowing gold.
“Wait—”