Ruby Fever

Chapter 18

The northwest corner of the wall widened into a patio originally designed to offer a scenic backdrop for wedding photos. The patio was crowned by a pavilion we’d dubbed the Wedding Cake because it was ornate and ridiculous. After buying the Compound, the Wedding Cake was converted into an observation post complete with reinforced walls and massive bulletproof windows. We still called it the Wedding Cake, despite all the renovations and the fact that its charming table and chairs had been replaced by a utilitarian counter offering a variety of cameras and binoculars.

I stood inside it now, drinking coffee from a white mug with golden lettering on it. The letters said, “You got this.”

Dawn was breaking outside the ballistic window, the sky slowly flooding with red and orange. It promised to be one of those unforgettable Texas sunrises.

On the patio behind us, shielded from view by the Wedding Cake, Alessandro was drawing a complex arcane circle. I had a clear view of him through the open doors of the pavilion. He was dressed in black and my null blade rested in the sheath on his back.

Leon whistled a spaghetti western tune next to me.

“Shouldn’t you be in your tower?”

“All in good time, ma’am. I’m taking in the sights and getting the lay of the land. A man only gets one Alamo in his lifetime. If he’s lucky. I’m committing it to memory.”

He was wearing one of the Scorpion ballistic vests and a helmet, just like me. Running in that getup to the tower wouldn’t be the easiest thing in the world.

We had split our forces. We had two gates to protect, this one and the one in the south that faced Grandma Frida’s motor pool. Arkan would be a fool not to attack from both points, so Grandma Frida, half of our guards, Runa, and Grandma Victoria took the south side. After some discussion, we all collectively decided that Arabella would join them. Nobody wanted to say it out loud, but both grandmothers had celebrated their seventieth birthdays some time ago, and while their magic was as strong as ever, everyone felt better knowing my sister guarded their backs.

Leon, Alessandro, Cornelius, and I took the north gate. Konstantin insisted on joining us, because, according to him, when Arkan finally knocked on our front door, he wanted to open it and say hello. We hadn’t seen him since last night. We may have seen him and didn’t know it was him, or he may have left. In any case, I couldn’t spare any time to worry about it. Babysitting Russian princes was not on the agenda for today.

Mom positioned herself in her crow’s nest at the main house. From there she had an opportunity to support both sides. Lilian went with her. My mother and Alessandro’s seemed to have found some common ground. Lilian and I hadn’t had an opportunity to really sit and talk, but she told me that her son was lucky, so I hoped it would go well.

Linus insisted on getting his mech out. We’d stored one of them in Grandma Frida’s motor pool since we moved in. None of us could pilot it, and he shouldn’t have piloted it either, not in his current condition. But we couldn’t ignore the possibility that once the fights at the gates broke out, Arkan could sneak some of his people over the walls in random spots. The mech was light and mobile, designed for rapid response, and Linus was hell-bent on using it.

The distant rumble of artillery fire rolled through the morning air. Too quiet to have come from the south gate.

“The PAC is at Connor’s house asking to borrow a cup of sugar,” Bern said into my earpiece.

“Shouldn’t you be drawing?” Leon asked me, mimicking my earlier tone exactly.

I looked at his feet. He glanced down. We were standing in an arcane circle. It would take me seconds to finish it. Grandmother Victoria and I worked on the design until almost midnight. It had to require a bare minimum of power. Neither one of us was happy with the power drain it would take to maintain it, but then we wouldn’t have to keep it up for long.

“Touché,” Leon said.

Cornelius strode into the pavilion. For some reason, the helmet and the vest made him look slightly ridiculous. It just didn’t suit him.

“Something is coming,” he said.

“Define ‘something,’” Leon said.

“Something large.”

“Summoner portal,” Bern said. “Nine hundred meters out from the north gate.”

They were just outside Alessandro’s blast area. As if they knew his range. Hmm.

“The portal has closed. Something is moving through the trees.”

“Something large?” Leon raised his eyebrows.

“Yes. Go to your tower.”

The stone floor under our feet reverberated. Cornelius turned and ran out.

A colossal shape burst from under the trees at the foot of the hill. It was the size of an elephant, its thick lavender hide streaked with purple splotches. No, not splotches, armor, heavy bony plates stretching into spikes. Bony shields covered its broad head, bearing two large horns. It was shaped like a rhino, armored like an ankylosaurus, and it was charging toward us like a bull.

The floor shook.

“Time to mosey.” Leon ran outside.

The beast thundered toward us, three pairs of small eyes gleaming in the skinfolds between the plates on its head.

“Brace!” I yelled and crouched down. I had no idea why I’d done that. It just felt right.

The arcane beast smashed into our gate with a deafening clang. The impact shuddered through the wall. Metal screeched.

I jumped to my feet and ran out onto the patio.

The creature slid to a stop in the parking lot, the wrecked gate stuck on its horns. It shook its head side to side. The gate went flying.

With one hit, it reduced our wall to nothing.

The beast bellowed and tore down the driveway toward the main house.

A short figure walked out from under the oaks and directly into the monster’s path.

The beast bounded forward.

Cornelius raised his hand. His voice snapped in my earpiece. “Stop.”

The dino-rhino braked with all six paws. He slid forward, comically landing on his butt, picked himself up, and trotted toward Cornelius.

“Significant, my foot,” Grandmother Victoria said.

The rhino monster bumped its head against Cornelius’ hand. Its skull was as big as Cornelius himself. Its long, spiked tail wagged.

“Incoming,” Bern said.

I turned around and ran back into the Wedding Cake. Figures were emerging from the trees, running for the gap the beast had created. The four attackers in the front line shimmered behind the aegis shields.

“Good boy,” Cornelius said. “Go get the bad people.”

Arkan’s people were almost on us. I could see them clearly now, dressed in identical tactical grey fatigues, odd helmets on their heads, covering the skull and the ears. Arkan had taken precautions against my siren song.

The creature bellowed.

“Go,” Cornelius repeated.

A sniper rifle shot took a man down in the third row. The aegises stretched their magic shields, angling them up.

The floor under my feet shook again. The walls trembled, and the rhino beast hurtled through the gap it had made at full speed. The line of advancing soldiers scattered. Bodies flew, one of them desperately trying to adjust his shield against the impact.

The beast rampaged on the slope, running back and forth, stomping and goring anything in its way. It rammed one of the car wrecks we hadn’t had time to clear and headbutted it like it was a toy.

“Psychological warfare in three, two . . .” Bern said.

Arabella’s voice blared through my earpiece. “You’re going to die. This is your last warning. Leave, and we will not pursue you. Save yourself.”

“Bern?”

“Sorry. Had the speaker on.”

Arabella’s voice vanished.

On the field, one of the soldiers yanked his helmet off. Noise-cancelling helmets were fine and good, but you still had to transmit the orders to your soldiers. Bern had hacked into their communication channel. Right now, their ears were full of my sister’s voice telling them they were about to die.

Loud booms of artillery bombardment came from the south.

“We have visitors,” Runa announced.

On the hill, the attackers reformed into a column, the aegis mages in the lead, and charged the gap. A portal snapped open in front of the beast. It was galloping down the hill as fast as its legs could carry it and it had no time to turn. The creature vanished into the portal and the ragged dark hole collapsed on itself.

“Krause is in range,” I called out.

“Good.” Alessandro straightened in his circle.

The flood of Arkan’s soldiers spilled inside the wall.

A rapid staccato of gunfire tore from Leon’s tower. People dropped like flies.

The last woman through the gap stabbed the man in front of her with surgical precision, spun, sliced another attacker’s throat, blurred into the man she just killed, and sank her knife into the third soldier’s kidneys. Konstantin.

He was cutting them down like they were weeds, jumping from shape to shape as he went.

“Stop it,” Leon growled. “I almost shot you twice!”

“Any sign of them?” Alessandro asked.

“No,” Bern reported.

The real fight hadn’t even started. These were the preliminaries. Neither Arkan nor any of his two remaining Primes and six Significants were on the field.

Arkan would have to provoke Alessandro. It was just a question of who he would use.

Konstantin and Leon were mopping up the intruders. If Arkan was going to push the go button, it would be now.

A woman strode into the opening at the bottom of the hill and jerked her hands up.

“It’s Krause,” I called out to Alessandro, covering my mike. “He’s using her as bait.”

“I wonder what she did to get on his shit list.”

“Do you want to go for it?”

“She’s not going to give us much choice.”

I took my hand off my mike. “Please go to your designated circles.”

A cascade of explosions came from the south.

I grabbed the tablet off the counter and pulled up the feed from the motor pool. The southern end of the property looked like hell on earth. Here and there asphalt burned with crimson magic. An oak crashed to the ground and caught on fire. The motor pool’s roof in front of the camera looked like Swiss cheese.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Across the wall, something exploded sending a geyser of dirt and fire into the air. A person howled in pain. Grandma Frida must have scored a direct hit.

Another mortar answered, splashing crimson fire against the motor pool. The front wall curved outward, bulged, and fell.

Magic cracked above my head.

“Bern?”

“She opened the portal directly above you.”

On the tablet’s screen, a tankette rolled out from behind the motor pool to face the southern wall. It was barely larger than the average full-size SUV. A 40-barrel stacked projectile volley gun rose from the tankette’s roof. Unlike normal guns, stacked projectile batteries had no moving parts. Each of the barrels was stacked with bullets that had no casing and no primer. The bullets were fired electronically when a pulse was sent through the barrel. The rate of fire was insane.

The tankette brayed like a donkey, burping its entire arsenal in a fraction of a second.

This was the closest I had ever come to an actual war zone.

“Linus?” Grandmother Victoria said.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can. I’m a little busy at the moment.”

Cornelius ran into the Wedding Cake and came to stand next to me. Konstantin was close behind. I pulled the chalk out of my pocket.

At the foot of the hill, Krause was straining. I could see her arms shaking from where I stood. She had already opened two portals today and whatever she was pulling out of the third one was draining every last bit of her magic.

“I have the kids, Zeus and Sgt. Teddy,” Runa reported. “I’m activating.”

Magic flared in the distance, somewhere in the main house, a bright smudge across my mind that shone and vanished.

Leon jogged into the pavilion like he didn’t have a care in the world. He hopped over the chalk boundary and landed by Cornelius. I crouched and finished the circle in two quick lines.

“We have lightning,” Bern reported. Whatever she was summoning was about to come through.

“Today,” Grandmother Victoria ground out.

“On my way,” Linus said.

Something drummed on the Wedding Cake’s roof like hail. Creatures fell into the Compound in a monstrous waterfall.

“If he isn’t here in thirty seconds, go ahead and do it,” Victoria said.

An acrid stench spread through the air. The roof to the right of me broke, and a creature fell into the pavilion. The size of a medium dog, it had no head or neck. Its body resembled a leathery sack, fish-belly pale, splattered with whorls of neon orange and turned on the side, so the opening served as its mouth. Four pairs of spindly long legs supported the sack, while two smaller limbs thrust from its belly, armed with three clawed fingers.

Leon shot it. It jerked and died.

“Arrived,” Linus announced.

An explosion of blinding white burst in my mind’s eye. Grandmother Victoria, unleashing her power like a sun going supernova. She blazed and vanished.

I sank a punch of power into the circle. The chalk lines flared white and then all sound vanished. Another creature fell into the Wedding Cake through the hole and bounced off the invisible boundary of the circle. The four of us were cut off from reality by null space.

On the patio Alessandro’s circle ignited with orange. A tornado of amber sparks spun around him. He jumped and hung suspended, the current of magic whipping around him. It suffused him, setting his skin aglow. He shone like a star.

This was the second time I’d seen it, and it took my breath away again.

Alessandro’s eyes blazed with power. He looked like a god about to unleash his righteous wrath.

His magic detonated. The blast rushed from him in a radiant pulse. The creature scuttling around on the floor trying to bite through the invisible wall on null space died. At the bottom of the hill, Krause collapsed, screaming. I couldn’t hear her, but I saw her straining.

Anyone or anything within a nine-hundred-meter radius of Alessandro had their magic ripped away from them.

Konstantin slow clapped. “Ever the showman, cousin.”

“Three cars incoming,” Bern reported.

We had given Arkan what he was waiting for.

I collapsed the circle. Keeping it up was like holding a weight, light at first, but growing heavier with every second.

Konstantin stepped out and twisted himself into Smirnov’s shape. “So it’s not environmental after all. Good to know.”

We had just given away one of Alessandro’s secrets to the Imperium. It couldn’t be helped.

The cars disgorged their occupants. I tapped the tablet, zooming in.

Arkan. In the flesh. Average height, athletic build, pleasant face. Nothing at all remarkable about him. He could have been a businessman, a lawyer, a high school volleyball coach.

Another man got out of the car and came to stand next to him.

I went ice-cold.

A woman screamed into my earpiece, a sound of pure fury, and I knew it had to be Lilian.

Alessandro leaped out of his circle, wrapped in glowing magic, and strode into the pavilion. He stared at the two men, and his face was full of rage.

Franco Sagredo stood next to the man who had murdered his son. He wasn’t restrained. Nobody was holding a gun to his head. He didn’t look in distress. He stared in our direction, derision on his face.

Arkan waved.

“What a charming family reunion,” Konstantin said.

“One more word, and I will shoot you,” Leon said, not a trace of humor in his voice.

Franco raised his hands. Orange magic clutched at them, and he leveled a rocket launcher at us.

I ran.

We dashed out of the pavilion and down the stairs. Behind us the Wedding Cake exploded.

Leon sprinted to the other side, where the wall was still intact, pulling his guns as he ran. Cornelius took off toward the main house.

Alessandro turned and walked up the stairs back onto the wall. A hole gaped in the pavilion, but it was still standing. The reinforced walls resisted the blast.

The hill was a sea of flames. Someone was walking through them, like a ghost conjured from fire.

There was no pyrokinetic in Arkan’s roster.

The wildfire parted and I saw the mage’s face. Adam Pierce.

How? He was supposed to be incarcerated in an impregnable prison in Alaska. He was supposed to spend the rest of his natural life surrounded by ice and cold.

There has been an event in Alaska.

Oh my God.

Alessandro didn’t even see him. He was looking at Arkan and his grandfather.

I took his hand.

“È un uomo morto,” the Artisan said.

Franco Sagredo was a dead man.

A wall of flames surged ten feet high and rolled toward us. The temperature spiked.

“We have to move.”

He gave no indication that he heard me.

“Mom, I need a bullet,” I said into my mike.

“I’ve tried. The fire is too hot.”

How the hell was Adam generating fire hot enough to stop high caliber rounds? No pyrokinetic could . . .

He gave him the serum. Arkan gave the Osiris serum to a Prime. Holy shit.

The fire was roaring like a living creature, deafening. He would never hear me.

There was nothing we had to counter that. This was Armageddon.

A dark object arced through the sky. For a second, I thought I’d imagined it, but then my brain processed what I was seeing.

“No!”

Linus’ mech landed on top of Adam Pierce. The two men vanished in a white-hot ball of fire. The blast wave of heat smashed into us, picked me up, and threw me against the wall.

It didn’t hurt nearly as much as it should have.

I opened my eyes. Somehow, Alessandro had wrapped himself around me, his magic cushioning the blow.

Linus died. For real this time. Nobody could survive that.

“What was that?” Arabella demanded.

“Nothing.” My grief and fury jerked me to my feet.

The flames had vanished, and the mech was glowing red.

They killed our grandfather.

Static crackled in my ear.

“Frida,” Linus’ voice said in my helmet. “I need a bit of help. I’m stuck in my mech and it’s quite warm in here.”

Oh my God.

Next to me, the Artisan bared his teeth. “My turn.”

“Go. I have your back.”

He lunged through the gap in the pavilion and jumped off the wall, his magic flashing as he landed. I walked through the gap after him and stood at the edge of the ruined wall.

Franco scoffed and started toward his grandson, pulling two maces out of thin air. He didn’t go for the guns. I knew what he wanted. He wanted to beat and humiliate Alessandro. Alessandro had disobeyed, and Franco counted on their family connection to either enrage his grandson until he became sloppy or make him hesitate.

He was wearing the headphones like the rest of them.

Another wave of Arkan’s soldiers ran up the hill toward Alessandro. Magic sparked among them. Some of them sprouted blades. They were Arkan’s best combat mages. He’d kept them in reserve for just this moment. Alessandro tore through them like they were paper dolls.

Franco was on a collision course, heading directly for him. They were like two knights sighting each other across a medieval battlefield. Nothing was going to keep them apart. Arkan was watching it like it was a movie.

There was no place to draw another circle. The wall was strewn with rubble. That was okay. I didn’t need one.

Twenty-five yards separated Franco and Alessandro.

I took my helmet off and dropped it by my feet.

Twenty.

I sent my magic spiraling forward. Its tendrils found the impenetrable wall of Franco’s mind.

Fifteen.

My magic wrapped around the old man’s consciousness, locking me onto my target.

Ten.

Let me show you how much I love your grandson.

The black wings tore out of my back, and I screeched.

Not just the harpy. Me. The harpy and siren combined into one. I didn’t hesitate, I didn’t hold back. I gave him everything.

My magic bored into Franco’s mind like a laser.

The granite crag that was an antistasi’s mind resisted.

I kept screaming, the torrent of sound geysering out of me.

The granite quaked.

Soft fuzzy blackness crept on the edge of my vision.

You have all of me forever.

I fed the last drop of my power into my scream.

The stone mountain of Franco’s mind cracked.

He fell to his knees, his eyes blank.

I was still screaming. His mind had vanished, but I couldn’t stop.

I had to stop. I had to . . .

“I love you,” Alessandro’s voice said from inside my memories.

I grabbed onto the sound of those words and fell silent.

It was so quiet. The people had stopped fighting and running. They stared at me and some of them stared at Franco, kneeling in the grass with a blank look on his face.

In that silence, Alessandro and Arkan clashed, too fast to follow. They cut and carved at each other, striking, kicking, stabbing. The fight stopped. Everyone watched the two of them twist and spin. This was the point of the whole thing. This was exactly how it was supposed to end.

I walked off the wall, through the gap, and down the hill. Nobody tried to stop me. They parted before me like the proverbial sea.

Arkan was lightning fast despite his age, and he had decades of experience, but Alessandro was faster, stronger, and younger. Skill clashed with fury. Blood flew and I couldn’t tell whose.

Arkan opened a gash on Alessandro’s arm. Alessandro slipped around the blade, fluid, unbothered by the cut, and smashed his heel into Arkan’s kneecap. Arkan’s leg folded. Passive field or no, the raw force of that kick delivered enough impact. Like a suit of chain mail, Arkan’s magic didn’t permit a blade or a bullet to penetrate his skin, but it couldn’t completely cushion him from a powerful blow.

Arkan slashed, protecting his injured leg, and Alessandro drove his elbow into the older man’s face. The blow snapped Arkan’s head back. Alessandro struck out, trying to trip him, but Arkan twisted at the last moment, and sliced at Alessandro’s face.

A thin line of red split the skin below Alessandro’s left eye. He grinned as if Arkan had given him a gift.

The resolve in Arkan’s eyes broke. In that moment he must have realized that he wasn’t good enough. He wasn’t going to win this fight.

His mind lit up.

Magic crackled around Arkan. I didn’t see it but in my mind’s eye it was a black wave, dark and empty. It crashed against Alessandro and tore into me.

It was like someone had ripped me free of reality. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t do anything except watch Arkan’s mouth twist into a grim smile in slow motion. In front of me Alessandro stood frozen, his arm raised, his hand balled into a fist.

Arkan smiled wider.

Black glyphs appeared on Alessandro’s skin, spinning over his arms and neck, and burst with brilliant light.

The magic gripping me tore.

It was a one-shot arcane circle drawn onto human flesh. Arkan’s magic grasped all large objects within his immediate vicinity and froze them exactly as it found them. It was exceptionally powerful but very fragile. The circle I had drawn on Alessandro’s flesh was designed to take that initial blast of magic and use it as a fuel to spin and slide across his form. That movement shattered Arkan’s hold. His magic crumbled.

For a delicious second, Arkan’s eyes widened. Fear slapped his face.

Alessandro pulled the null blade out of its sheath, activating it, and stabbed Arkan in the stomach.

The assassin stumbled back. His mouth gaped, in disbelief or pain, I wasn’t sure.

Smirnov stepped out of the crowd. Arkan’s gaze snagged on him. Smirnov twisted and became Konstantin again.

“The Imperium sends its regards,” the prince said.

Alessandro freed the blade and swung. The top half of Arkan slid aside and fell on the grass.

It was over.

Finally, finally it was over. We had laid a trap and it had worked. It was okay to feel things now. It was okay to let go.

Alessandro turned away from Arkan’s corpse and saw me. He crossed the space between us and hugged me to him. He’d lived. He’d survived. My knees shook all of a sudden. If he hadn’t been clamping me to him, I would’ve fallen.

Konstantin turned to the remaining fighters. “Does anyone else want to challenge the Imperium?”

Arkan’s people scattered.

Arabella ran out of the hole that used to be our front gate carrying a huge pincher-like tool. “Where is Linus? I have the jaws of life.”

She’d left the grandmothers alone.

“Why aren’t you protecting the south side?” I called out.

“Protect it from what? Sgt. Heart is there. There’s nothing for me to do.” She saw the mech still glowing. “Hold on, Grandfather, I’m coming.”

Alessandro was staring at me. His face was bleeding, his left sleeve and the arm underneath it were shredded, and there was a strange look in his eyes. He looked a little deranged.

“Are you okay?” I asked softly.

“I’ve never been better.”

The sound of a car’s horn made me turn. A black SUV was making its way up our hillside driveway. It didn’t look like FBI SUVs.

Konstantin frowned.

The SUV came to a stop. It had diplomatic plates.

Three men got out. The tallest of the three looked familiar. Athletic, handsome, dark hair, piercing grey eyes. Where . . . Mihail. Konstantin’s brother.

Arabella pulled Linus out of the mech.

Alessandro’s eyes turned dark. “We had a deal.”

“I’ll handle this,” Konstantin said and started toward the men.

A quiet argument in Russian ensued.

Linus sprawled on the grass. Arabella heaved the jaws of life onto her shoulder and came over to stand next to me.

Mihail sidestepped his brother. Konstantin blocked his way. Mihail pushed him aside. Konstantin stumbled as if hit by a car.

Mihail marched toward us, his gaze locked on Alessandro. “Come with me.”

“I affixed my seal,” Konstantin growled.

“Yes, and our uncle changed his mind. His seal is heavier than yours, brother.”

“What do you mean, come with you?” Alessandro asked.

“My orders are very clear. I am to come back with Orlov, and if you’ve killed him, I am to bring you in his stead. Come quietly. It will be easier that way.”

Arabella stepped in front of Mihail. “I don’t like that deal. How about you take this slightly damaged corpse instead. If you insist, I can throw in a brain-dead Italian count.”

“Too soon,” I told her on autopilot. They were out of their minds if they thought they could just take Alessandro.

Mihail stepped to the right.

She matched him.

He looked down on her. She was a foot shorter than him.

“Move,” he ordered.

“Move me,” she told him.

Mihail reached out and tried to gently push her aside. Only she didn’t move.

“I don’t know what you are, but I’ve had a bad day,” he said. “Getting in my way is not healthy.”

“Oh you had a bad day?” She pointed behind her at the Compound. “I live here. Look at my house. Now look at me. Turn yourself around, get into your car, and drive back to wherever you came from, and maybe I will let you walk away.”

Mihail glanced at Konstantin.

His brother shrugged. “Those are your orders, not mine. I did my job.”

The muscles on Mihail’s jaw bulged. He raised his hand, very deliberately put it on Arabella’s shoulder, and shoved her out of the way. Arabella took half a step, caught herself and shoved him, knocking him two steps back.

Mihail inhaled like an enraged bull. He swung at her. Somehow she dodged and slammed her shoulder into him. The prince flew back, landed hard, and rolled to his feet. Something hot and feral flared in his eyes.

“No, Misha, no,” Konstantin warned, putting every drop of big-brother authority he could muster into his voice. “Not here.”

Mihail’s face trembled.

“She’s a civilian. Misha!”

Mihail’s body tore. An enormous monster spilled out, shaggy, ursine, with massive horns crowning his head. It just kept going and going, expanding, huge, enormous, enraged.

My House has a long affinity with bears. You might say we’re practically family. Oh no.

Konstantin swore.

Arabella laughed.

The colossal bear creature opened his maw and roared.

Arabella’s body erupted, and the Beast of Cologne surged out and roared back.

Konstantin gaped, his mouth slack.

They were the same size. Arabella was a little taller, but Mihail was thicker and heavier.

I turned to Konstantin.

He raised his hands. “My brother. The Bear of Kamchatka.”

I looked at Alessandro. “Did you know?”

He nodded. “I didn’t think he’d show up.”

Monster Arabella took a running start and slammed into the Russian Bear. The ground shook. They rolled down the hill, ripping, biting, clawing.

Linus got up and walked over to us. His hair was smoking a little bit and his skin was very flushed.

“Well,” he said. “That’s something you don’t see every day.”

“I know we were going to wait,” Alessandro said, watching my sister trying to stomp on the bear. “Let’s not do that. Let’s get married.”

“Right now? It’s been a long day.”

“Not today. But soon. Will you marry me?”

“I already told you I would.”

“Do I get to walk you down the aisle?” Linus asked.

“I haven’t decided yet. I’m still mad at you and Benjiro Heart is very nice to me.”

Alessandro laughed. I wrapped my arm around his waist, and he put his good arm around me.

Everything was going to be all right.