A Lightbringer Carol

A LIGHTBRINGER CAROL

by

CHRIS LESTER

BEING A STORY OF METAMOR CITY

Copyright 2010 by Chris Lester

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STAVE I. FATHER’S GHOST

December 18th, Year 2000, Cristos Reckoning

Santa was dead, to begin with. There was no doubt whatsoever about that. The after-action report was signed by the field commander, the director of operations, the secretary of the Office of Sidhe Affairs, and the chief battle-mage. Janus had signed it — and Janus’s word could be counted upon for anything he chose to put his name to. Old Saint Nicholas, the Sidhe Lord of the Yuletide, was as dead as a door-nail.

It didn’t stick.

Mind, there was no reason Janus would have expected it to. The Sidhe Lords were ideas incarnate, and the idea of Yuletide was a powerful one indeed. Untold millions of children waited each year on the night of the Winter Solstice, firm in their belief that a jolly old man in a magic sleigh would visit their homes, bringing toys for the righteous and coal for the wicked. On the Long Night, when the veils between the worlds were thinnest, the power of that faith was strong enough to call forth the Sidhe Lord from the Dreamlands, to cloak him in flesh and bone and send him on his way. For one night each year, a being more powerful than some demigods was loosed upon the world, and no ward or threshold could bar his passing.

It was the sort of thing that gave Janus nightmares. The Fae were mad, every last one of them, from Titania herself to the lowest pixy. Anyone who invited such a creature into their homes was begging for disaster, no matter how jolly he seemed. Even worse, Santa’s yearly invasion sent disruptions through the very fabric of reality, weakening the barriers at a time when the mortal world could least afford it. Janus himself could have filled a large warehouse with the horrors he had vanquished on the annual Long Night patrols.

And now, three days before another Winter Solstice — when he should have been drilling his troops on anti-Fae tactics and setting wards around sensitive positions in the City — he was instead cooling his heels in a small waiting room, somewhere in the upper levels of the Citadel.

Word had come down from Lothanasi High Command: the Starchild wanted a word with him.

The door to the waiting room opened, and a young teenager dressed in brown robes poked her head in. “Agent Starson? The Mistress will see you now.”

Janus rose from the chair, smoothed the front of his uniform, and followed. The acolyte led him down a short corridor and into her Mistress’s study. Bookshelves lined most of the walls from the floor to the five-meter-high ceilings. Enchanted glass spheres hung from the ceiling, bathing the room in a warm light that reminded Janus of a late summer afternoon. The stone floor was covered with thick, soft rugs that swallowed his footsteps. On the far end of the room, an ancient longbow and an Elvish shortsword hung on the wall above the fireplace.

“Ahh. There we are.” The voice came from a feline theriomorph who sat in an armchair beside the fire. She wore a simple white robe that matched her fur and contrasted with her mahogany-brown eyes. Age was hard to guess with many of the Cursed; had she been a stranger, Janus might have pegged her in her early fifties, instead of the thirteen-odd centuries he knew her to be. She held an old leather-bound book in her lap and a cup of tea in one hand. Janus wasn’t sure why immortality seemed to give people a fondness for tea and old books; maybe they were the only things in the modern era that still seemed familiar.

Janus lowered himself to one knee and bowed his head. “I come as bidden, Your Eminence.”

Merai hin’Dana — last priestess of the Lothanasi Order, prophet of Eli, and living saint to the church that bore her name — snorted at him. “Janus, if you ever call me that again in private I’ll have you scrubbing floors in the temple for a month. Come have some tea with your great-grandmother and stop being ridiculous.”

Janus blushed. Obediently, he approached and sat in the chair beside her, took the cup that was offered to him, and drank.

Merai nodded her approval. “So. How is your life treating you, dear?”

Janus’s grip tightened on the cup. “Very well, ma’am. Thank you for asking.”

“And that nice young lady you work with? The operations officer. How is she doing?”

“Candace? She’s doing well. She earned two commendations and a promotion this year.” Had the old woman called him here because she was lonely? She had thousands, if not millions of descendants running around the Empire; calling herself “great-grandmother” omitted at least sixty “greats” that should have gone in front of it. Couldn’t she have found one of them to keep her company? Someone a bit less busy, perhaps?

“Ah, wonderful! And you’ve had a promotion yourself, of course. The High Command tells me you’ve been doing some excellent work in your new position,” Merai said.

“Thank you, ma’am. I’m glad to hear they said so.” From her perspective, he supposed, five years as a field commander probably did constitute a “new” position.

Merai peered down into her tea for a moment. “They also said that you haven’t been taking any of the leave you have coming to you.”

“No, ma’am.”

“Care to tell me why not?”

Janus shrugged fractionally. “I haven’t needed it. You know our heritage, ma’am; I haven’t had an illness yet that I couldn’t cure with the Light-Healing.”

Merai snorted again. “Heavens, child, you don’t need to come down with the flu to take a day off. Haven’t you ever wanted a vacation?”

Janus frowned. “This city is my charge, ma’am. My responsibility. I couldn’t leave her unprotected.”

“Unprotected? Janus, dear, you’re very talented and an excellent agent, but you’re not quite so important as all that. I think Metamor City will survive if you take a week off now and again.”

Janus blushed again, amazed at how easily this woman could make him feel like a child. “To be honest, ma’am, I don’t think I’d know what to do with myself if I was away from work for that long.”

“Well, let’s start small, then,” Merai said. “The Solstice is coming up in a few days. I want you to take the night off.”

Janus nearly dropped his teacup. He sat up straight in his chair and stared at her. “What?”

Merai’s feline ears twitched backward; apparently he’d said it louder than he intended to.

“You heard me,” Merai said. “From sundown of the Long Night to sundown the following day, you’re relieved of duty.” She pulled an envelope from between the pages of her book and passed it to him. “Since I know you’re the type who likes everything in writing, here are the orders from High Command confirming my decision.”

He took the envelope in numb fingers, stared dumbly at the seal of the High Command on the back. “Why?” It was all he could force out between his teeth.

“Because this vendetta of yours with the Holly King has become an embarrassment to the rest of the Order.” For all that Merai came across as sweet and kindly, there was no mistaking the iron in her now. Her red-brown eyes pinned Janus to his seat, a hint of white fire glowing in the catlike pupils. “Bad enough when the reporters caught you lugging in his severed head two years ago. Imagine what we had to say to the children! But last year was even worse.”

Janus winced, remembering the shattered wards at Lothanasi Headquarters, a lump of coal by his office door, and the Fae ribbons that had threatened to strangle poor Candace if he went after Santa again. “He outmaneuvered me,” Janus admitted. “Fae don’t normally deviate from their patterns that much.”

“The Lothanasi can survive being seen as fanatics,” Merai said, her voice cold and hard as ice. “We cannot survive being seen as incompetent. If a Sidhe Lord breaks into our stronghold a second time, the public will start to question why they’re trusting us to protect them. If that happens, we’re finished.”

“You know as well as I do: we can’t keep him out if he decides to come back,” Janus said quietly. “Not unless…”

The old cat-woman’s lip twitched. “Unless I came out of retirement? I probably could keep him out, if it came to that. But no; he’s had his fun. If you can manage to avoid provoking him again, I suspect he’ll give us no further trouble.” She pointed a clawed finger at the envelope. “Which is why I’m removing the temptation for you.”

Janus just resisted the urge to crumple the letter in his fist. “And what am I supposed to do while my people are out there doing my job without me?”

Merai smiled beatifically. “It’s the Yuletide, Janus. The season of peace and good-will to all. I’m sure, if you think very hard, you can find someone who’d like to share it with you.”

###

Janus did not give up without a fight, not even where the Starchild was concerned. He sent a formal letter of appeal to the Lightbringer High Command, asking in the politest possible terms for them to reconsider their rubber-stamp approval of Merai’s decision. That earned him a phone call from the Director, who pointed out that the Starchild had once dethroned an entire Pantheon and he should consider himself damned lucky to be getting off with a one-day suspension. As the last surviving priestess of the Order, Merai outranked everyone in the High Command, but she rarely exerted that authority. She left the day-to-day operations of the Order in their hands because she trusted their judgment —- and no one on the High Command was going to jeopardize that arrangement because of one field commander’s injured pride.

So it was, as the Long Night approached, that Janus issued final instructions to his lieutenants and took the lift up to his quarters. Many Lightbringers kept apartments or condos elsewhere in the city, and only used the barracks at headquarters when they were working a swing shift or some other extended assignment. Janus, by contrast, lived in his quarters, and had done so since he enlisted in the Order at the age of eighteen.¹ Many in the Order assumed that Janus did this because he was miserly, but nothing could be further from the truth. Janus thought very little about money, and had retained the services of a skilled accountant so as to go on thinking of it as little as possible. Material wealth was a distraction from his work, and he was content to let an expert deal with such things while he focused on more important matters. If he should ever become disabled in the line of duty — the word “retirement” was not even in his vocabulary — he knew that he would be well provided for. Beyond that, the finances meant nothing to him.

Once he was locked inside, Janus placed a set of wards on the doors and windows; not enough to stop Saint Nicholas, should he appear, but enough to buy him a minute of advance warning. He laid Elemacil, the holy sword of Metamor, in its stand by his bedside table. He changed into his workout gear and busied himself for two hours with the treadmill, weights, and punching bag that took up most of his living room. He took a long shower, scrubbing harder than was strictly necessary, then re-dressed in a plain t-shirt and boxers.

Janus looked at the clock; it was now shortly after seven. Outside, on the Street, the first incursions were sure to have happened by now. He dialed the intercom to Ops, but no one answered. He was just wondering what to do next when a knock sounded at the door.

“Who is it?” he asked.

“Candace, Boss.”

Janus frowned. What was Candace doing here? Could it be a Fae trick of some kind? “Recognize: Alpha Seven, Gamma, Wolfram.”

He thought he heard a sigh from the other side of the door. “Delta Five, Nine, Upsilon. Now open the door, your dinner’s getting cold.”

Dinner? Somehow the thought had slipped his mind. Usually he ate just before leaving on patrol; now that he thought about it, his stomach stirred in sudden awareness of its own hunger. He temporarily lowered the wards and opened the door.

Candace wore a civilian sweater and blue jeans and had let down her hair to fall in soft, wavy curls around her shoulders. She held a cafeteria tray full of food on one arm and a wrapped Yule present under the other.

She gave him a lopsided smile. “Good Yule, Boss.”

“Good Yule, Candace.” Janus was momentarily distracted by the way the light refracted in her eyes. They were hazel, and seemed to change color every time he saw her. Right now they looked sort of pale green, but turned to a reddish brown around the pupils. Janus admired the delicate, almost artistic complexity of them.

“You want to take this tray before I drop something on you?”

Janus blinked, abruptly realizing that Candace was balancing three plates and two mugs on a tray with only one hand. “Oh! Of course. My apologies. Please, come in.”

His quarters weren’t really furnished for entertaining guests, which at the moment seemed unfortunate. He set down the tray on his desk, pushing back the computer terminal and keyboard to make room. Candace took one of the mugs and claimed a spot on the foot of his bed, while Janus sat in his desk chair.

“Here. Happy holidays,” Candace said, handing him the present.

Janus wasn’t sure he was ready for any more surprises tonight. “Thank you. But … I didn’t get you anything.”

“I guess that just means I’m a better person,” Candace said airily. “Oh, wait. You saved my life last year, so I guess we’re even. Go on, open it.”

Curious, Janus did so. Inside he found a long knitted scarf of black, white and gold, with the twin cross of the Lothanasi in a repeating pattern. The initials JS adorned each end of the scarf. It was obviously hand-made and felt soft, thick, and warm.

“This is extraordinary,” he said, and meant it. He looked in vain for any sign of a loose or dangling thread. “You made this for me?”

Candace grinned, the light of obvious pride dancing in her eyes. “I’m glad you like it.”

Janus looked down at the scarf again, running his hand over the fabric. He couldn’t even imagine how long it had taken to make this. “The craftsmanship is superb. I didn’t even know you knitted.”

She shrugged. “I had to find something to keep me busy while I watch those patrols.”

Janus smiled. “I suppose so.”

He hung the scarf on one of the coat hooks by the door, adjusted the ends so that it hung evenly, then sat back down and turned his attention to dinner. “So what’s going on out there? Any news?”

“I have no idea,” Candace said, in a tone of voice that said she was supremely happy about that fact. “I’m taking the night off.”

Janus frowned. “They put you on suspension, as well?”

“No, I just took the night off,” Candace said dryly. “Gillian’s a big girl, she can hold down the fort without me. I haven’t gotten the solstice off in four years.”

Janus took a bite of stew, chewed, swallowed. “I don’t know how you can stand it,” he said. “With everything that could happen tonight, to not know what’s going on…”

Candace reached across and put a hand on his arm. “You trained them well, Janus. Trust your people. Trust yourself, that you picked the right men and women for the job. And trust me.”

“You? You aren’t even working tonight.”

“Exactly,” Candace said. “And if I thought you’d screwed anything up, I’d be up there covering for you. But you didn’t, which means I get to relax.”

Janus snorted a laugh in spite of himself. “All right. So what are you going to do with this night off?”

“Go to the candlelight service at my church,” Candace said promptly. “Then go home, get a good night’s sleep, and go ice skating in the morning with my brother and his kids.”

Janus took another bite of stew. “Sounds very … civilian.”

“It’s fun!” Candace said. “You ever been ice skating?”

“When I was a child,” Janus admitted. “My mother took me, sometimes. I think she thought it was a ‘bonding experience.’” He paused, thinking back. “Mostly the ice seemed to bond with different parts of my anatomy.”

Candace giggled. “Yeah, that happens. Sometimes you’ve gotta fall down a few times before you get things right.”

She kept him company through the meal, chatting about inconsequentials, repeatedly steering him away from any talk of work. When he was done, she took the tray from him and stacked up the dirty dishes. “I’ll take these down to the cafeteria for you.”

“I appreciate that, thank you.”

“No problem.” Candace lingered in the door a moment. “Listen, I know you’re probably going to be climbing the walls in here. If you decide you want to get out and you want some company, let me know.”

Janus looked past her at the wall, suddenly uncomfortable. “I … appreciate that, Candace. But I can see your family’s important to you. I’d hate to intrude.”

The light in Candace’s eyes faded a little. Her free hand came up and touched lightly to his shoulder. “It’s not intruding if you’re invited,” she said softly. “Good night, Janus.” She turned and left, walking quickly away before he could even think of a reply.

###

The hours passed slowly. Janus had never been one to indulge in alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, television, or any other vices that might dull his senses or distract him from his duties. He busied himself for a time at his bookshelf — which was filled with treatises on military history, books on leadership, biographies of important warriors, and other useful topics — but after a while everything he read began to remind him of work. Disgusted, he finally turned out the lights and went to bed.

He awoke at midnight to an unearthly blue light and the sound of metal scraping against stone. Before he was even fully awake, his hand went to the bedside stand where Elemacil rested—

And closed on empty air.

“Looking for this, my son?”

Janus looked up at the foot of the bed. A pale, glowing form sat on the edge of the bed not half a meter from Janus’s own feet. He was a white-haired and grizzled-looking man, too heavy-jawed and battle-scarred to be called handsome. He wore the white battle dress uniform of the Lothanasi Order, the name STARSON visible on his shoulder patch. Elemacil appeared to sit on his lap, though the man’s translucent form gave the impression that the sword was floating. The man drew a whetstone along the surface of the blade, and the scraping sound came again. The Elven sigils on the blade glowed a brilliant blue that matched the nimbus around the man himself.

Janus’s eyes narrowed. “You aren’t my father.”

The specter smiled faintly, the crow’s feet deepening around his blue-white eyes. “And what makes so sure of that, Janus Asariel Starson?”

Janus felt the sharp inner resonance of his Name, his true Name, being spoken by one who knew him. No faery knew his full Name, and few mortals did, either.

“Impossible,” he whispered. “My father would not have left a ghost. He was a good and righteous man. He died peacefully after a lifetime of service. He earned his rest in the realms beyond.”

“I gave my life in service,” the ghost agreed. The whetstone scraped loudly against the sword blade. “My life was my duty. You understand this.”

“I learned it from you,” Janus agreed. He still refused to believe that this was truly Father’s ghost, but he found himself using the word you in spite of himself. Purely for the sake of argument, he reasoned.

“But tell me, my son,” the ghost said. “What becomes of the warrior when his war is over? Who is the serviceman when his service is ended?”

At this, the ghost raised the hand that had been grasping Elemacil’s hilt. A thick, heavy chain encircled his wrist and ran to the pommel of the sword, shackling it to his body.

“I forged this chain with the choices I made in life,” the ghost said gravely. “Every time I put my duty before love … every time I sacrificed my desires for the good of the Order … every time I used work to hide my growing sense of alienation from my fellow man, the chains grew thicker and stronger. At the last, when death should have ended my labors, my spirit joined with Elemacil to continue them. I could not enter rest, Janus. I had forgotten what rest was.”

Janus could think of nothing to say to that. He stared at the Elven blade and wondered if it was true — wondered how many other warrior spirits might have become joined with it in its ten thousand years of service. He had known the sword possessed intelligence, but the possibility that it was literally haunted had not occurred to him.

“If this is true,” he said at last, “why have you never spoken to me before?”

“The power of the Long Night permits me this brief time to speak to you,” the ghost said. “Always before, the blade was in service to its duty on this night. Tonight it rests from its labors, as do you. And so I have this chance, this one chance, to save you, my son.”

“To save me?” Janus asked. “To save me from what?”

“From this!” the ghost cried, rattling his chain. “By all Nine Hells, Janus, I would save you from this prison! Every day you forge a chain like mine, one that would bind you ‘til the worlds end! But there is still time for you, my son. I have made intercession for you with the realms beyond, and secured a chance and a hope for you to escape my fate.”

Janus swallowed a lump in his throat. “You always did look after me, Father. What … what is this hope you speak of?”

“You will be haunted,” the ghost said, “by Three Spirits.”

Silence fell between them.

“Forgive me, Father, but that doesn’t sound particularly helpful.”

The ghost smiled sadly. “My son, without their visits you cannot hope to escape the path I tread. Look for the first of them tonight, at the hour of one.”

Putting his whetstone away, the ghost carried the sword back to its stand.

“Father, wait,” Janus said. “Please. It’s … it’s been a long time.”

“So you believe me at last, do you?” the ghost said quietly. “I cannot stay, and it is unlikely I will ever be permitted to speak to you again. But as long as you carry the sword, know that I am always with you, Janus. The chains of my duty have seen to that.”

The Elven sigils flared, and the chain began to retract, disappearing into the pommel of the sword. When Father’s hand reached the hilt, his glowing form was suddenly and violently pulled inside it, like a bedsheet being pulled through a small hole. There was a final, brilliant flash of light, and then it was gone, leaving Janus alone in the darkness.

---

Stave II. The Ghost of Solstice Past

The hour of one approached, and silence reigned in the quarters of Janus Starson. He sat watchfully in the middle of the room, his sword close to hand, all senses attuned for any further sign of supernatural incursion.

The sword. He wasn’t entirely sure he trusted Elemacil at the moment. His wards had shown no sign of disturbance from the outside, so the ghost — whatever it was — must have somehow been inside the room when they were placed. There were few places a spirit could hide from Janus’s aura sight, but he had to admit that the sword was a possibility. The secrets of its making had been lost long ago, and Elemacil clearly had a will of its own. All the same, it was the best weapon he had for facing down a spirit of darkness.

Janus glanced at the intercom again. No help would be coming from that quarter; all of his communications devices had stopped working as soon as the ghost departed. He’d tried the door, only to find it sealed shut behind another ward — this one facing inward. Someone had taken great pains to trap him here, and whatever power was at work, it far exceeded his own.

For now, anyway. The Long Night was a time of great strength for Outsiders, but its power was fragile. As soon as the first light of dawn struck the city, that spell would shatter and he would be free. All he had to do was watch, and wait, and kill anything that tried to come for him in the meantime.

Unless, of course, the ghost was telling the truth. Unless his father really was trying to make intercession for him with the realms beyond. Unless these Three Spirits, whatever they were, really did intend to save him from some kind of eternal prison.

Janus clenched his teeth and flexed his hands into fists. “Trust not your eyes,” he growled. After a moment he said it again, louder, repeating the old litany from memory:

Trust not your eyes;

The eyes are the weakness of the flesh.

See with the mind, which pierces the veils of deception.

Trust not your ears;

The ears are the weakness of the flesh.

Hear with the heart, which resonates to the word of truth.

Trust not your hands;

The hands are the weakness of the flesh.

Touch with the soul, which is one with the essence of all things.

The words rang in the stillness of the room. The clock beeped once as it struck the hour of one.

Then the sword began once more to glow.

“A valuable lesson.” The voice was a strong, clear alto; one used to wielding authority. It came from the sword and echoed far too much for the size of the room, as if the speaker were at the bottom of a well. “One of Tessariel’s litanies, I believe. She had a fondness for the common tongue.”

A glowing mist rose up from the sigils on the sword and coalesced into the form of a theriomorph, a tall woman with long black hair and the face of a wolf. She wore the tunic, leather jerkin and leggings of a medieval scout, but Janus could see the holy symbol of the Lothanasi around her neck. A field medic, then — one of the junior priestesses responsible for keeping soldiers alive until they could reach the temple. Her body retained a faint glow, which made her stand out against the darkness of the room, but otherwise she seemed quite solid.

“Are you the Spirit whose coming was foretold to me?” Janus asked.

The wolf woman snorted, in a way that reminded him uncannily of Merai. “Well, that’s a fairly ridiculous question, isn’t it? Come now, Janus. How many spirits do you usually have showing up in your bedroom?”

Janus narrowed his eyes. “On Solstice? I couldn’t say. I’m usually working tonight.”

The Spirit grinned at him with a mouthful of very white teeth. “So you are. Which brings us to my business here. You may get up, if you wish; I’ll not harm you.”

Slowly, Janus rose to his feet. “What shall I call you, Spirit?”

The woman’s ears pricked forward. “Why? Do you expect to believe me?”

“That depends on what you say.”

The Spirit looked amused. “Very well, then. My name is Karenna.”

Janus stared at her. Not only had she given him a name — something no faery and few Outsiders would have done — but it was a name he knew well from the history of the Order. “High Priestess Karenna hin’Elric? Merai’s guardian? Caller of the Council of Athos?”

Karenna’s ears laid back. “Among other things. I confess, I didn’t expect you to recognize my true name. Most people called me Raven in those days.”

Janus bowed deeply. “Your life and works are a great interest of mine, Mistress. It’s an honor to be in the presence of one who played such a pivotal role in our history.”

Karenna made a disgusted sound. “I didn’t make history. History came down on me like an avalanche and I did my best not to be crushed by it.”

Janus nodded thoughtfully. “I suppose it would have seemed that way, at the time. But you kept the Order alive in our darkest hour. You were faithful to your purpose at a time when everything around you was uncertain. I’ve always admired you for that.”

“Mm. Yes, I suppose you would have.” She stretched out a hand, palm upward. “Walk with me. There’s something I must show you.”

Janus hesitated for a moment, but his supernatural senses gave no hint of darkness around Karenna. He took her hand, finding it cool but solid to the touch. In her other hand she took up Elemacil, and the Elven sigils glowed warmly as she grasped the hilt.

She swung the sword through empty air, and the space parted like a curtain before them. Cold winter sunlight streamed into the room beyond, a vaulted hall of plain grey stone. Before the window sat an altar, which bore the twin cross of the Lothanasi and the remains of the dawn sacrifice.

“This is the old temple at Metamor Keep,” Janus said, looking around at the simple torches that lined the walls. He reached out and ran his hand over the stone, felt the texture of it under his fingers. It felt as real as the priestess herself. He went to the window at the back of the hall and looked out at a bright winter’s day: the snow-covered rooftops of little cottages, surrounded by a curtain wall of gray stone, all atop a long, sloping rocky ridge that rose in the center of the valley. Beyond the fortress-town lay a fertile expanse of farms and fields, nestled between the Dragon Mountains on one side and the Barrier Range on the other.

Janus was struck by the tranquil beauty of the place. Metamor Valley had been a world of glass and steel for the better part of three centuries; the ground was concrete, the creeks and streams were underground, and even the mountains were overshadowed by the towers that rose between them. The rugged gray stronghold where he now stood had become an elegant spire reaching toward heaven, a Citadel as modern in its appearance as anything man had built. The memory of this world survived only in a few dozen paintings, and in the minds of the Immortals who had been there.

A shuddering boom rang through the hall behind him. Janus spun into a fighting stance. His hand reached instinctively for his scabbard; only when his fingers closed on empty air did he remember that Karenna still held Elemacil. The Spirit stood off to one side of the hall, watching with interest but not alarm.

“Sister Raven!” A young woman’s voice rang through the temple, angry and strangely familiar. It was followed a moment later by the woman herself: a slender feline theriomorph with white robes, white fur, brown hair, and red-brown eyes.

“Grandmother Merai,” Janus said, staring at this image of the Starchild in her youth. She couldn’t have been more than eighteen. He found himself moving toward her without thinking about it.

“She cannot hear you,” Karenna said. “These are only the shadows of things that have been. Watch, and listen.”

“Sister Raven!” Merai shouted again. She clutched a scroll in one fist, her claws digging into the heavy parchment. “I know you’re here. I would speak with you!”

One of the doors along the side of the hall opened, and another copy of Karenna came forth. This one looked a little older, and a great deal more careworn, than the field medic who served as Janus’s guide. She wore the white robes of a priestess, like Merai, and her raven-black hair was developing streaks of gray. She gazed at Merai calmly, her pale blue eyes bearing no particular expression.

“Perhaps you could speak a bit more quietly, then,” Sister Raven said. “Really, Sister Merai. After being gone more than a year, this is hardly the welcome home I was expecting.”

Merai held out the scroll like an accusation. “Your work has preceded you,” she snarled. Opening the scroll to a place she had marked, she read from it. “Whereas the original Creative Spirit is by necessity numinous and ineffable; and whereas the presence and nature of this Spirit exceed the compass of the mortal mind; and whereas the mortal mind, in its weakness, shall ascribe form to the shapeless, and limits to the limitless; and whereas the mind of our beloved Sister, Merai hin’Dana of Metamor, had been influenced a priori by the noble but misguided ideals of Patriarch Akabaieth of the Ecclesia (may he rest in peace); it is now the declaration of this holy Synod that Sister Merai hin’Dana, having encountered the true and ineffable Presence of the Creative Spirit on the Mountain of the Sun, did with all innocence and human frailty perceive this presence as a vision of the teacher Yahshua, whom the Followers of the Way worship as Master and Savior of mortal-kind.” She threw the scroll to the ground, as if she could no longer bear to touch it. “Innocence and human frailty. What a fine way to say I’m out of my wits!”

“Merai, please be reasonable,” Raven said.

“Apparently I can’t, can I?” Merai shot back. “I’ve been too influenced by noble but misguided ideals.”

Raven turned and went over to the altar, coming closer to Janus in the process. She busied herself with cleaning up the remains of the sacrifice: the stub of a candle and a single white dove whose blood had been spilled into the basin. “There were those at Athos who were convinced you were a traitor,” Raven said. “We’ve hung a lot of traitors over the last two years, Merai. I’m afraid we’ve set a bad precedent with it.”

Merai came up behind her, crossing her arms. “Those were daedra-worshipers who were deliberately trying to corrupt the Order.”

“Aye,” Raven said. She was still calm, but there was an edge in her voice now. “And after all we sacrificed to root them out, you cast down the gods and rendered the whole matter irrelevant. I know your heart was right, but if you had intended to destroy the Order you could hardly have done a better job of it.”

Merai’s tail lashed in agitation. “I did what I had to do.”

“And now I have done the same,” Raven said. Janus could see that her hands were shaking.

“Hellspeak!” Merai swore. “You could have supported me! You could have said I was telling the truth!”

Raven struck the twin cross in a sudden blow, knocking it off the altar and across the room. Karenna, watching from the sidelines, winced at her show of temper. Raven wheeled on Merai.

“And then what?” she demanded. “We all queue up to be baptized by Father Hough? Find husbands for us to submit to? Trade our priests’ robes for maternity gowns?”

“Of course not!” Merai said. “That’s all Pyralian rubbish. You’re talking about culture, not religion.”

“Religion is culture!” Raven snapped. “Do you honestly think you can have their Savior and not get their bondage along with him? You naïve, ignorant child! Destroy people’s religion and you destroy their identity as a people. Did that never occur to you, when you were casting our gods to Earth?!”

Merai retreated a step, then another. Raven followed her, clenching her fists like she wanted to strike the woman.

“You shattered our world, little prophet,” she growled. “And I have spent the last year fighting to salvage something from the wreckage, something that will let us hold our own against Pyralis and the Ecclesia. I could not do that and spare your pride in the bargain. Be grateful I managed to spare your life.”

Merai stared at her for a long moment, her jaw clenched, the tears welling up in her eyes. “What is to become of me, then?” she asked at last, her voice thick with the emotions she was clearly struggling to contain.

Raven’s body language softened, as did her voice. “You will always have a place here,” she said. “You will be well cared for. There are many duties at temple that can still fall under your charge.”

A muscle jumped in Merai’s jaw. “But my visions will be forgotten.”

“Not forgotten,” Raven assured her. “The acolytes will record them all most accurately, I promise you.”

“Ignored, then. The Council of Athos will not acknowledge Eli as Creator, or Yahshua as his Avatar.”

“They will not,” Raven agreed.

Merai looked down at the floor for a long moment, seemingly lost in thought.

Raven came up and put a hand on her shoulder. “I am sorry, Merai. But mark me: if I do as you ask, our granddaughters will kneel before bishops and serve their husbands like slaves. No vision, no prophecy, no word from on high is worth that.”

Merai looked up at her, and a fierce new light arose in her eyes. She stepped back, away from Raven. “No,” she said, quietly but with conviction. “You’re wrong. We can follow Eli without losing who we are. There’s a third way. A better way.” She lifted the twin cross of the Lightbringers from around her neck and threw it to Raven. “And if you won’t find it with me, then I’ll walk it without you.”

Raven stared at her, aghast. “You would forswear your oath to the Order? To me?”

Merai turned her back on Raven and began walking toward the exit. “You’ve already forsworn me. I owe you nothing, Madam Lightbringer.”

The words hit Raven like a physical blow, and Janus could imagine why: Merai had addressed her like a civilian, not a fellow priestess — and worse, like a stranger.

“Merai, please,” Raven said. “Think for a moment. What do you mean to do?”

“To go and walk in this shattered world you say I’ve created,” Merai said. “To listen. To learn. To help, where I can. Until I find the path that will save us.”

“__Alone? __” Raven asked.

Merai half-turned and smiled over her shoulder at her — but it was a worn and weary smile, one that belonged on a much older face. “I’m the Prophet of Eli. I’m never alone.”

Then she walked away, and Raven watched her as she left.

She never looked back.

###

The image of the temple faded, until Janus and Karenna were once more in his quarters. Karenna slumped in his office chair, looking utterly drained.

“Well, Janus?” she asked. “Are you still impressed with my singularity of purpose? You see what it cost me.”

Janus sat down near her on the edge of the bed. “I thought you reconciled with Merai.”

“Many years later,” she agreed, wearily. “Such a little span of time in the world, and I wasted so much of it: estranged from the woman I loved like a daughter.”

“She wasn’t very fair to you,” Janus said. “You were right about how the Pyralians used religion.”

“But she was right, as well,” Karenna said. “There was a third way. I may not have liked her methods, but gods’ blood, she found it.” She looked up at him, the tears glistening in her eyes. “My duties in life were many, Janus, but my first duty was to the people I loved. At times I forgot that — more often than I care to admit, in fact. And those are the only moments I truly regret.”

Around them, the room changed again. It was still the field commander’s quarters, but the furnishings changed, as did the lighting, which now appeared to be mid-afternoon. The image of Janus’s father appeared; not the weary ghost he had seen earlier, but the man in his prime, fit and strong and filled with a titanic sense of purpose. He stood in the loose-fitting tunic and pants that he preferred for combat training, and he had a wooden practice sword in his hand. Across from him on the practice mat, similarly dressed, was a twelve-year-old boy with white-blonde hair, carrying a practice sword of his own.

“Attack,” Father ordered.

The boy charged in low, feinting left, then darted to the right and slashed at Father’s free arm. Father parried the blow, then struck out with a straight kick, pushing his off-balance attacker to the mat.

“Too slow,” Father said. “Even an ogre wouldn’t have bought that feint. Again.”

The boy came in again, faster this time, but Father swatted the blade aside with a contemptuous flick of the wrist. The boy had overcommitted to the attack, and Father used his momentum to flip him over and onto the mat. “Amateurish,” he said. “You’re better than that. Use your training.”

Undeterred, the boy came up for a third attack. This time he was cagey, testing Father’s defenses with a few quick probes, then withdrawing out of range before Father could press the attack. Two, three, four times he struck, each from a different angle, each one blocked or deflected — but Father’s defense on his lower left side was just a little slower than anywhere else. The boy saw it, and made as if to strike at Father’s left knee. Father turned his body, rotating the weak spot away from the boy in order to draw him in, but at the last second the boy spun and launched the real attack: a roundhouse kick at the side of Father’s right knee.

The kick connected solidly, making the knee pop. Father bellowed and had to put a hand to the mat to keep from falling, but he still had enough presence of mind to block the boy’s follow-up attack. The wooden swords shook with the impact, one that Father’s heavy wrists could tolerate much better than the boy’s slender ones. The boy’s grip on the handle weakened, and a vicious counter-blow from Father made him drop it entirely. Before he could react or dance out of range, Father followed up with a straight punch to the face. The wooden hilt of the sword in his hand added force to the blow, and the boy’s nose erupted in blood. He fell back on to the mat, screaming.

“Focus past the pain and heal yourself,” Father growled. He suited words to actions and focused the Light-Healing on repairing his own injured knee. The boy was still crying when he completed the healing and rose on his now-mended leg.

“What’s the matter with you?” Father demanded. “You think they’ll give you this much time on the Street? It’s only pain, boy! Pull yourself together and fix it!”

“I c-can’t!” the boy sobbed. “Hurts — can’t think — gods—”

“The gods won’t help you!” Father retorted. “You’d better start acting like a man, or you’re going to end up on some daedra’s dinner plate. Now focus, damn you!”

“What are you doing?!”

Father turned to the door. Janus turned, as well, and saw Mother rushing in, fear and white-hot anger mingled on her face. She knelt by the boy’s side, and a glow of light surrounded her hands as she placed them over his face. When she withdrew them, twenty or thirty seconds later, the boy’s nose was intact, though his face was still a mask of blood. His cries subsided into sniffles.

Mother rose and turned on Father with death in her eyes. “What in the Ninth Hell is wrong with you?”

Father glowered at her. “Lisbet. You’re interfering with the boy’s training.”

“This isn’t training! It’s sadism!”

“It’s going to keep him alive!” Father snapped. “You know what’s out there, what he’ll have to face!”

Mother got right in his face. She was only a couple of centimeters shorter than Father, and she looked him squarely in the eyes as she spoke. “This ends right now, Asariel. If Janus still wants to be a Lightbringer when he turns eighteen, he can apply to the Academy like everyone else. Until then, you keep your gods-damned hands off my son.”

Father’s mouth twisted in disgust. “You want him to abandon his heritage, like you did.”

Mother’s eyes flared with a sudden, blue-white light. “No. I want him to decide for himself what his heritage means. Not to have the decision forced on him, like it was on me.” She went over and helped the boy to his feet, then led him to the door. “I’ll have my attorney contact you about the visitation rights. You won’t be seeing him alone anymore. I’ll see you in court.”

The boy looked back at Father as he left. Janus could see the conflicted emotions playing out across his young face: anger, guilt, fear, longing. The boy almost said something to Father, then apparently thought better of it.

Janus couldn’t remember what he’d been about to say.

The door closed again, and Father froze in place as the scene ended. Karenna put a hand on Janus’s shoulder, but she remained silent, waiting.

“He wanted what was best for me,” Janus said at last. “He always did.”

“So did your mother,” Karenna said. “Why do you suppose their ideas of what was best for you were so different?”

Janus considered the question. “Father was a warrior,” he said. “He saw the darkness in the world and knew he had to fight it. Knew I would have to fight it, as well.”

“And your mother?” Karenna asked. “Did she believe that fighting darkness was unimportant?”

“No, of course not,” Janus said quickly. “But … Mother picks her battles differently. Right now she’s running a medical mission in Sonngefilde. Before that she was working for the rights of indigenous peoples in Fan Shoar. She can use physical violence when necessary, but she prefers not to.”

“She has a healer’s heart,” Karenna said. “My own mother was the same way.” She gestured at the practice mat in front of them, which was still stained with the boy Janus’s blood. “Do you think she was wrong to protect you?”

Janus looked at the blood, then at the frozen image of Father. “I resented it for a long time,” he said. “I blamed myself for the injury; if I’d been as good as I was supposed to be, I wouldn’t have gotten hurt. Wouldn’t have disappointed Father. Wouldn’t have made her so angry that she kept me away from him.”

“And what do you think now?” Karenna asked.

Janus clenched a fist. “I wouldn’t treat my own agents that callously, much less a child. A good leader motivates his people with inspiration and encouragement, not terror. Father’s intentions were right, but he was out of balance.”

“It is a difficult thing, is it not? Balancing love and duty.”

For no particular reason he could name just then, Janus thought about Candace, and how she was taking the Solstice off to go skating with her family. “I suppose it is. I wonder how Candace does it.”

“A good question,” Karenna said. “But one that another will have to answer, I fear. My time with you is ending.”

The scene around them faded, and once more they were back in Janus’s quarters. Karenna placed Elemacil on its stand, and the sigils on its side began to glow once more.

“Look for the second Spirit when the clock again strikes one,” she said, “and the third on the stroke of midnight.”

Three nights? Janus wondered. How can the magic of the Solstice last for so long?

But before he could ask the question, there was another flash of light, and the spirit of Karenna hin’Elric vanished.

---

Stave III. The Ghost of Solstice Present

Janus checked the clock on his bedside table: 12:07.

“Impossible,” he muttered. “We weren’t gone for more than an hour.” He turned on the lamp and checked the wall socket; the clock was still plugged in. He went over to the window and drew back the curtains; a heavy fog filled the air outside, obscuring everything more than a couple of meters away, but it was certainly closer to midnight than midday. 12:07 AM, then, and not PM. Somehow nearly twenty-four hours had passed during his journey with Karenna.

And where exactly had she taken him? Into the Dreamlands? Into some sidelong dimension that ran beside the past, where they could witness events but not participate in them? Or was it some part of the realms beyond, of which the Lightbringers knew nothing?

Wherever it was, time apparently flowed differently there. That wasn’t unheard-of; there were confirmed reports of people entering the Dreamlands, becoming lost, and emerging hundreds of years later. Losing a day was a minor inconvenience by comparison, though he was sure that his agents must be desperate to know what had happened to him.

He tried the intercom again. Nothing. He tried his cell phone. The battery was dead. He tried the door. The ward still held it from the outside, shutting him in. He spent an indeterminate amount of time examining the ward with his aura sight, trying to find a weak spot, but Janus was much better at placing wards than disarming other people’s. He tried attacking the ward with Elemacil, but the blade stopped dead a centimeter before it touched the door. The Elven sigils glowed red and the handle grew hot, as if warning Janus not to try that again. He tried battering the door with one of his dumbbells, but it bounced off with no effect — not even a scratch on the wood.

Having exhausted his options with the door, Janus turned back to the window. After disarming his own protective wards, he undid the latch and slid the window open. A cold wind blew into the room, but Janus’s body had a high tolerance for changes in temperature, so he was not overly concerned. He peered out over the ledge and into the empty gray fog.

The city below was eerily quiet. He would have expected to hear skimmers moving past on the skyways below, or air traffic overhead, or the fans from the tower’s ventilation system, but he heard nothing but the sound of the wind.

“Hello!” he shouted. “Can anyone hear me? Hello!”

The sound of his voice echoed back out of the mist, but there was no other reply.

Janus considered the wall of the tower below him. It was twelve stories down to the nearest skyway — about fifty meters, give or take. He’d climbed greater distances in his training, but that was on natural cliff faces, not the ice-coated side of a skyscraper in the dead of winter. And as much as Janus believed in being prepared, he did not keep mountaineering gear in his bedroom.

He would have to correct that oversight, when he got the chance.

The odds didn’t seem friendly, but he was through waiting around like a prisoner. If he’d lost a day in his journeys with Karenna, then Grandmother Merai’s restrictions on him were lifted. All he had to do was get back down to the Ops Center. Candace would help him find a wizard to dispel the wards on his room, and then they could start investigating this haunting properly. If he had to, he would call in Abigail Preston to get to the bottom of it — probably at time-and-a-half holiday rates, and damn the cost.

He changed into his full combat gear and slid Elemacil into its scabbard across his back. After hunting around in his closet for a while, he found a set of hand claws that he had picked up during a trip to Yamato a few years ago. He hadn’t been satisfied with them and had decided against supplying them to his agents. Right now, though, anything that might give him a little more grip would be helpful. He laced up his boots, put on his gloves, slid the hand claws over the gloves and strapped them on, then climbed out onto the window ledge.

He was three and a half storeys down before he decided that this had been a bad idea. The windows in this part of the tower were small and widely-spaced, the facing stones were smooth and tightly fitted together, and there were no ornamental ledges or other decorative features that he could get a good grip on. The design was intentional, to keep potential enemies from scaling the walls to reach the barracks wing; he’d never thought he might need to do the reverse. He was just considering whether to try climbing back up when heard something new over the sound of the wind: the distant whine of lift turbines.

“Hello!” he shouted. “Can you hear me? This is Agent Starson, requesting assistance!” He thought about this for a moment, then decided a more direct approach was probably better. Swallowing his pride, he shouted, “Help! Please, help!”

The sound of the turbines increased in pitch, which meant the pilot was ascending, accelerating, or both. The sound grew nearer, as well, though Janus still couldn’t see anything. He continued shouting for help until, at last, the headlights of a swoop appeared out of the fog. It was a lean, streamlined model, pilot dressed in hot pink racing leathers with white and silver accents. A fully-enclosed helmet hid her face from view, but there was a quizzical tilt to her head as she looked up at him.

“Hello!” Janus said, feeling greatly relieved. “Thank you for coming. As you can see, I’ve … gotten myself into a bit of trouble. If you could just carry me down to the skyway, I’d be very grateful.”

The pilot gave him one slow nod, then maneuvered her swoop up close to the side of the building. Janus carefully got his leg over the saddle, then let go of the wall and slid onto the seat behind her. The swoop sank a little under his weight, and Janus wrapped his arms around the pilot’s waist to steady himself. The pilot flashed him an “OK” sign, which he interpreted as a question. He nodded. She rocked the pedals forward to accelerate, nosing the craft downward as she did so.

The skyway came up out of the fog before them, and it looked as deserted as it had sounded from his bedroom window. The front entrance to Lothanasi Headquarters appeared on his right.

“Thank you,” he said to the pilot. “Anywhere around here is fine.”

To Janus’s surprise, though, the pilot did not pull over. Instead the swoop shifted into the fast lane and accelerated, leaving the tower behind.

“Wait! Stop!” Janus said. “That was where I needed to be. Go back!”

The swoop slowed down but did not stop. The pilot popped open her visor and looked back at him over her shoulder. Mismatched eyes of blue and amber peered out at him from an impish, elfin-looking face. Her mouth split into a grin.

“Sorry, Janus!” Callie Linder said. “I’ve got other orders tonight.”

“You!” Janus’s gratitude at the rescue warred with his desire to throttle the little thief. He briefly considered thrusting Elemacil into the swoop’s fuel cells. Given that he was currently sitting on top of them, though, he should probably consider a wiser course of action — such as throwing himself from the vehicle at highway speed.

“Me!” Callie agreed cheerfully. “No hard feelings about those daggers, I hope?”

“No hard feelings? Those were the Marshak’s Teeth, the best armor-piercing blades known to man! Priceless artifacts!”

“Yep,” Callie said. “I’ve never seen a dagger punch through six inches of armor plating before. If it makes a difference, it was for a good cause.”

“Having you arrested would be a good cause,” Janus growled. “But … since you’ve probably just saved my life, I’ll leave that for another day.”

“Mighty generous of you, sir,” Callie said, sweetly.

“Where are you taking me?”

“Valley South borough,” Callie said. “There’s something I’m supposed to show you.”

Slapping the visor back down, Callie turned her attention to the road and accelerated once more. The fog grew so thick around them that Janus could no longer see the concrete below them. How Callie could fly in this, Janus had no idea; even her luck seemed like it should have limits. As they flew, though, the fog gradually shifted from dark grey to white, until at last they broke through into the dazzing sunlight of a bright winter’s day. Immediately they were surrounded by skimmers, swoops and pedestrians — so many, in fact, that Janus couldn’t believe that he hadn’t heard them as they approached. He looked behind him for the fog bank, but it was nowhere in sight.

Up ahead was one of the public squares that hung suspended between the city’s towers, a small elevated park surrounded on all sides by skyways. Trees in large planter boxes ringed a flagstone courtyard with a large white fountain in its center. The square around the fountain had been converted to an ice skating rink, where thirty or forty people of all ages were … cavorting, Janus supposed was the best word for it. Whether slipping and stumbling about with the uneasy legs of the newly initiated, or zipping around in artful loops and turns, everyone Janus saw had abandoned any pretense of solemnity, caught up in the childlike joy of the moment.

A very small part of Janus ached to see it. When was the last time he had let go of his discipline and reserve like that? When was the last time he’d been able to afford such frivolity? He could not remember.

Callie took them in a slow loop around the square, hovering just above the regular flow of traffic. None of the other vehicles honked at her in passing, or even seemed to take any notice of her existence.

“Is this another vision?” Janus wondered aloud. As soon as he said it, he realized it must be so, for there was no other way they could have passed from foggy night to bright winter morning in bare minutes of travel. “When is this?”

“Can’tcha tell?” Callie asked. “It’s the first of Yule, of course! The Long Night’s over, people are celebrating. But I guess you usually spend the day sleeping in.”

Janus grunted acknowledgment of this. His keen eyes caught a glimpse of a familiar figure out on the ice: Candace, with two children in tow. Her niece and nephew, he assumed. She held one little hand in each of hers, leading them carefully around the rink, grinning as she urged them on in a steady stream of encouragements.

The children fell down, of course; repeatedly, one at a time, or both together. One time they tangled Candace’s legs in their own, sending her sprawling on the ice along with them. Candace just laughed and carefully helped them to their feet, and then they were off again.

“Set me down here, please,” Janus murmured. Callie did so without comment. Janus found himself drawn to the edge of the rink, staring fixedly at Candace as she approached: grinning, puffing steam, her cheeks flushed, her brown hair peeking out from under a knitted cap, her hazel eyes sparkling green and gold in the bright winter sun. She wore a wool riding coat, brilliant red trimmed with black, which stood out amid the ice like a ruby on white gold. Janus thought she had never looked more beautiful than she did in that moment, with all her cares and duties laid aside for the pure joy of living. Janus wanted to freeze the moment in his memory and carry it forever: This is what happiness looks like. I never knew.

He raised a hand and smiled to her in greeting, but she turned the corner and passed by without ever seeing him. He should have expected as much. His hand fell back to the railing in a cold thump.

“She can’t see you,” Callie said, coming up to stand at his shoulder. “These are just shades of the things that are.”

Janus cocked an eyebrow at the expression. Street Rats like Callie weren’t known for flowery language, but Karenna had said something very similar the night before. “And what does that make you — Spirit?”

The thief tipped him an ironic salute. “For today, I’m your chauffeur,” she said. “Maybe by the day’s end you’ll know me better, man.”

Janus snorted, but chose not to pursue the matter further; his eyes had been drawn back to Candace. She’d returned to the rink’s entrance and was helping the little ones off of the ice, where they were met by a slender, dark-haired young man with eyes much like his sister’s. He escorted them over to a park bench, where some dark, steaming liquid was dispensed from an insulated container; hot chocolate, probably. The kids sat and sipped, looking content, and Candace joined them a moment later, where she set to pulling off their ice skates and replacing them with boots. Once they were properly shod, the adults cosseted them into a nearby skimmer. Janus went back to the swoop with Callie and gestured for her to follow, as Candace’s brother pulled out into traffic.

They followed the skimmer south, to an aging but comfortable-looking townhouse on the second skyway level. Candace’s father came out to greet them — Janus recognized him from her last commendation ceremony — and the kids promptly latched themselves onto their grandpa, breathlessly recounting their adventure. The gray-haired man listened attentively and made encouraging noises in all the right places, all while gently but persistently ushering his grandchildren inside.

Candace hung back by the skimmer, watching the scene with a strange, conflicted expression.

Her brother noticed it, too. “What’s up, sis?”

Candace visibly shook herself; rubbed her eyes, blinked. “Sorry, Glenn. Just a moment of angst. I’ll get over it.”

Glenn followed her eyes to the front windows of the house, where Janus could see that the grandfather had taken the children to the kitchen — apparently to check with their mother and grandmother on the status of lunch.

“Dad seems to be doing better lately,” Glenn said. It came out a little too casually; forced positivity.

“Not well enough,” Candace said. “You didn’t see him last Tuesday, after that shopping trip.” She crossed her arms and shook her head. “He needs a new heart, period.”

Glenn did not gainsay this. “Did you tell him your idea for that?”

“What, taking the Curse? Yeah. He shot it down. Says he doesn’t want to adjust to a new body at his age. Not even for a chance of regeneration.” She raised a hand and then dropped it, as if the movement could encompass a world of short-sighted stupidity. “I was just thinking, ‘Are you gonna be there for my kids? Are they even gonna have the chance to know you?’”

“Well, if—” Glenn started, then shut his mouth.

Candace glanced over at him, a frown creasing her brow. “What?”

“It’s nothing, Candi.”

Candace glowered at her brother. “You’re not gonna distract me with that stupid nickname again. Come on, seriously. What were you going to say?”

Glenn looked off down the road, scuffing one foot against the sidewalk. “I was about to stick my nose in your personal life. I’m sorry, it’s none of my business.”

Candace put a hand on his shoulder. “Like I told Janus last night, it’s not intruding if you’re invited. Go ahead.”

Glenn closed his eyes a moment, took a breath, then turned around to face her fully. “Okay. Actually, it’s about Janus. If you want your kids to know Dad, you might want to think about finding a different boyfriend.”

“Janus isn’t my boyfriend,” Candace said, too quickly.

“He’s your something,” Glenn said. “In five years we haven’t seen you once on Solstice Night. Then Saint Merai locks up Janus and you decide you can take the night off?”

Now it was Candace’s turn to look away. “He needs me. And I need to make sure he’s safe.”

“Because you love him,” Glenn said.

Candace closed her eyes. Janus stared at her, the breath caught in his throat. He expected her to deny it, to say the idea was absurd. The silence stretched, full of more meaning than words.

“I must be an idiot,” Candace sighed. “Who falls in love with a monk? Honestly.”

Glenn put an arm around his sister, squeezed her shoulder. “Why did you, if you don’t mind my asking? Isn’t he sort of … prickly?”

Candace chuffed a near-silent laugh. “That’s one way of putting it.” She mulled over the question for a long moment. “The public only sees Janus with his game face on. That attitude is part of his armor. Inside HQ, he loosens up a little, shows us the man behind the badge.”

“And what do you see in the man behind the badge?” Glenn asked. Janus found himself leaning in close to hear her answer.

Candace looked up, her eyes glistening brightly. For an instant, Janus could have sworn she was looking right at him, somehow aware of his presence, if only on a subconscious level. “I see courage,” she said. “Loyalty. Honesty. Honor. And also pain — this deep, terrifying loneliness. That’s why he’s such a workaholic, you know? I mean, yes, part of it’s because our job is protecting people from things that want to eat your face, which is sort of a strong motivator…”

Glenn laughed at that.

“…but part of it’s because the job gives him purpose. Forward momentum. He keeps doing the job because then he doesn’t have to wonder who he is when he’s not doing the job.”

Janus thought of his father’s words: Who is the serviceman when his service is ended? He pictured an old, ragged ghost, unable to continue his work but equally unable to be free of it; not because he was damned by some divine judgment, nor even because he was trapped by the power of the sword, but simply because there was not enough substance to him to break free. Everything that he was, everything he that he understood as himself, had been part of the sacred charge that the sword represented. Elemacil was not a trap for lost souls; it had become a haven for souls too faint, too broken, or too obsessed to leave it. As Father had said, the chain was one he had forged himself.

Janus wondered how much of a chain he had waiting for him.

“Seems like he would be a hard man to build a family with,” Glenn said quietly.

“Maybe,” Candace admitted. “But I think he’d be good at it, if he let himself try. He acts like a dad to the younger agents — kind of a strict and grumpy dad, but there’s no doubt he loves them. And he’s very protective of children, which is part of why he gets so, um, worked up about the Santa thing.”

Glenn snorted. “Now I’m imagining what Solstice Night would look like at the Starson house. A bunch of blonde moppets gathered around the chimney, armed with satchel charges and automatic weapons.”

Candace giggled. “Don’t be ridiculous. Mom would make sure they all understood that satchel charges are an outside toy.”

Janus laughed with them both at that. As absurd as it was, the idea was curiously charming.

“I guess he suits you,” Glenn sighed. “Maybe that’s the secret: Not finding somebody perfect, just finding someone who’s compatibly deranged.”

Candace punched him in the arm. “Worked for you and Yanlin, obviously.”

“Point,” Glenn admitted. “I hope he wises up soon and sees what he could have with you. You deserve to be with someone who appreciates you.”

“Aww, you’re sweet,” Candace said. Then she gripped his coat and demanded in a harsh voice, “Who are you and what have you done with my brother? Candace to HQ, we’ve got a changeling here!”

They both laughed, tussling and squabbling until they both fell into a pile of plowed snow. Candace started trying to dump snow down Glenn’s shirt. By the time they stood up again, the serious heart-to-heart was gone beyond recall, and Candace entered the house with a little of the same joy Janus had seen on her face earlier that morning.

After a moment’s hesitation, Janus followed them inside, where he took up a spot at the junction between the living and dining rooms. He watched as Candace and her brother rejoined her sister-in-law, their parents, and their children for a day of food, games, silliness and celebration. Janus absorbed it all, transfixed, as this band of happy lunatics taught him the meaning of another word. This, he realized, was what family looked like.

Darkness fell outside, the festivities wound down, and Glenn and his wife loaded the children into the skimmer for a visit with the other set of grandparents. Candace stayed with her mother and father for a time, talking quietly around the fire. The conversation turned to her father’s health and the ongoing treatments it required. His heart was the most immediate concern, but apparently his lungs, kidneys and digestive system were also having their share of troubles. In his eavesdropping, Janus learned more about the pervasive indignities of old age than he had ever wanted to know. He withdrew, feeling uncomfortable.

Callie met him at the door, her eyes filled with a knowing sympathy. “More Dad stuff?”

Janus nodded. “I remember when my father grew sick. Pancreatic cancer … he’d always been strong, brave, capable. In less than three months he just … faded. Withered. From field commander to invalid … then gone.” His vision blurred, and he wiped at his eyes, two short, frustrated movements. “For Candace it’s slower, more gradual. She’s watching him fall apart in pieces.” He gripped the railing of the front steps, felt the cold touch of the metal burning his skin. “I don’t know if that’s better or worse.”

Callie came up behind him and squeezed his shoulder. “Maybe neither. Maybe it’s just different.”

Janus opened a hand to her, conceding the point. “She’s never told me about this. If I’d known…” He hesitated. What would he have done, really? Last night he’d refused to even have dinner with Candace and her family. Because…?

“What are you afraid of?” Callie asked quietly.

Janus looked up at her in alarm. “What?”

Callie gestured at his face. “It’s in your eyes. That look you get, when you know what you’ve gotta do and you’re not sure you can do it?” She shrugged. “You see it a lot, growing up on the Street.”

“I suppose you would,” Janus murmured. He looked back through the windows into the house, saw Candace holding her father and mother’s hands. Praying, maybe, or just sharing a moment of solidarity.

“I want to help her get through this,” Janus said. He felt the stirring of determination in his own words, the ring of conviction in them. “I want to be there for her.”

“Is that part of your duty, as her commander?” Callie asked.

Janus clenched his jaw, hearing the ironic lilt in her voice. “No. As her friend.” And more than a friend? He still wasn’t sure.

What are you afraid of?

He turned away from the house, back to Callie’s swoop. “Let’s go,” he said.

Callie climbed on in front of him, raised the swoop into the air, and they were off.

The fog rolled in around them again as they flew. Janus expected Callie to take him back up to Lothanasi Headquarters, but instead she stopped at the entrance to a rooftop garden, built atop one of the shorter towers in Valley Central. Maple trees stretched their bare branches skyward on either side of an arched, wrought-iron gate. The flagstone path curved past evergreen bushes of holly and juniper, disappearing into the mist.

“My time’s almost up,” Callie said. She pointed at the tower beneath their feet. “Your next guide will join you when the clock strikes midnight.”

Janus dismounted from the swoop, looked at their surroundings, looked back at Callie. “You’ve given me much to think about. Thank you.”

Callie tipped him a casual salute. “We aim to please. Or at least to serve.”

Janus smirked. “And who is ‘we’, exactly? You never did tell me who you are.”

Callie’s eyes widened. She put a hand to her chest. “What? You don’t think I’m Callie Linder?”

“Callie Linder’s talents are impressive,” Janus allowed. “Control over space and time isn’t one of them. So why wear that shape?”

The Callie-who-was-not-Callie shrugged. “Think of it as a metaphor.”

Janus quirked an eyebrow. “A metaphor for what? Trickery? Deception?”

“Spontaneity?” the Spirit countered. “Embracing the moment? Finding joy in the middle of darkness? That’s the great thing about metaphors, Janus. They’re … adaptable. All I’ll say is this: I’ve been with you in spirit before. Standing right at your elbow, and you’ve never known me.”

Janus felt cold. “Often?”

The Spirit smiled bleakly. “Every year.”

Janus looked away. “Tell me this, Spirit. How much longer does Candace’s father have?”

The chimes on the tower clock began to ring. The Spirit rose into the air, looking down on him as the mists swirled around her.

“Don’t ask me,” she said. “I’m a live-in-the-present sorta gal. But you can try asking your last guide about it — if you dare.”

“What do you mean by that?” Janus demanded.

The Spirit was far above him now, and fading rapidly from view. “Farewell, Janus Starson!” she cried. “Remember, embrace the moments! They’re the only ones you get!”

The hour bell tolled — bong — and the mists swallowed the Spirit completely. Everything around Janus grew abruptly silent, except for that one, lonely sound.

Bong. Bong. Bong. The temperature plummeted. Ice formed on the branches of the maple trees as he watched.

As the bell tolled for the twelfth time, the air became deathly still. Even the fog seemed frozen in place.

And then Janus saw it: a tall, robed, and hooded figure, approaching him out of the night.

---

Stave IV. The Ghost of Solstice Future

Janus drew his sword and waited. Elemacil glowed bright with warning, casting a blue-white light that turned the fog nearly opaque around him.

The Phantom that appeared out of the mist was tall, fully a head taller than Janus himself. It wore robes of midnight blue, trimmed with white — the vestments of a priest of Nocturna. In the old days, before the Great Fall, Nocturna had been the Mistress of the First Hell, the resting place of the righteous dead. Her servants had performed the funeral rites for all who honored the gods, even the Lightbringers themselves. Nocturna was the psychopomp, the guardian of the Dreamlands, and the bearer of omens — one of the three gods who could, at times, foresee the future.

The future. You can try asking your last guide about it — if you dare. Right.

The Phantom made not a sound as it approached. It moved without gait or footsteps, gliding over the ground, its robes trailing like smoke behind it. The sword’s light grew brighter as it came, but no amount of light penetrated the darkness beneath the Phantom’s cowl. Elemacil’s subverbal intelligence pressed its simple thoughts against his mind: Power. Danger. Threat. Flee!

Janus was astonished. Flee? Elemacil was always ready for a fight; Janus hadn’t thought the idea of retreat was even in its vocabulary. If even Elemacil thought this Phantom was outside its weight class—

Janus put the sword away and bowed, waiting. The Phantom came to a stop before him, its robes still fluttering in a wind that Janus himself could not feel.

“Great Spirit,” he said, in tones of deep respect. “I honor you.”

The Phantom made no reply. It did not attack him, either, so Janus took this as an encouraging sign. And they say I can’t be diplomatic.

“I have already been visited by Spirits of the Past and Present,” he said. “They have shown me much, and taught me much. I suspect that you, Great Spirit, have come to show me the Future.” Janus looked up. “Is that so?”

The Phantom’s cowl shifted, folding in on itself slightly, as if the unseen being had made one slow nod of its head.

Janus nodded himself, once. “Very well,” he said, pushing back the entirely-too-reasonable fear that now twisted in his stomach. “I … know that you are here to do me good—”

In its sheath behind him, Elemacil gibbered disagreement with this.

“—and I am ready to learn what you would teach me. Lead on, Great Spirit.”

The Phantom raised one arm, exposing a long-fingered and ghostly white hand. It gestured toward the path that led into the park, then waited. Taking the hint, Janus went first, the Phantom following like a cold breath behind him.

The air seemed to warp and twist ahead of them, images distorted as if by a misshapen lens. The shadows closed around them, until Janus could barely see the next stone in the path ahead of him. He continued on.

Between one step and the next, the terrain changed beneath his feet. The flagstones were replaced with the soft scuff of heavy carpet. He looked up and watched as the shadows melted away, replaced by an image of Grandmother Merai’s study. The ancient Prophet sat in her familiar chair by the fire, cup of tea in hand. A Lightbringer agent stood at attention before her, waiting.

It was one of Janus’s own proteges, Agent Kelsey Stanton: a tall blonde woman with a strong chin and deep, serious eyes. The jagged white scar that ran diagonally across her face was familiar to him. Several other scars, including the line of vampire bites along her throat, were not. Her white battle-dress uniform was spotless, but the tension lines in her face showed that she had been awake for far too long. She had aged noticeably from the way Janus remembered her, but whether most of it was from time or hardship, he could not tell.

Kelsey bowed to Grandmother Merai. “Agent Stanton reporting as ordered, Your Eminence.”

Merai nodded in acknowledgment of this. “At ease, Commander.”

Kelsey straightened into a relaxed parade rest.

“So,” Merai said. “How did it go, dear?”

Kelsey frowned slightly. “We’re still putting together our reports for High Command. I don’t have the final numbers yet…”

Merai waved a hand. “I can read reports just as well as High Command can. I’m not that old.” She smirked.

Kelsey bowed her head slightly. “Ma’am.”

Merai sighed. “Do sit down, Kelsey. You’re making me tired just watching you. You’ve had a long night.”

Uncertainly, Kelsey sat down in the chair facing Merai. “Thank you, ma’am.”

Merai poured her a cup of tea and passed it to her. “At any rate, what I really want to know is how it felt for you. This was your first Winter Solstice as field commander, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“So?” Merai gestured with her teacup.

Kelsey took a sip of her own tea and leaned forward, arms braced on her knees. “It was … stressful. We had incursions in six different parts of the city, at one point. I’ve never had to juggle that many tactical situations at once before. Not outside of simulations, anyway.”

Janus winced. That wasn’t as bad as some Solstice nights he had handled, but it was on the far side of the bell curve.

Merai nodded to Kelsey. “And what happened?”

Kelsey managed a hard smile. “We beat them back, ma’am. All of them.”

“Our losses?”

“Thirty-four injured agents, but only two of them serious. Both stable, now. Ten injured civilians that I know of, all stable. No deaths.”

“Impressive,” Merai said. “And the trophy count?”

“We’re still counting,” Kelsey said. “But it’s somewhere between seventy and a hundred confirmed kills.”

Even Merai looked astonished at that. Slowly she set down her teacup. “My,” she whispered.

Kelsey bared her teeth. “I guess the Winter Fae thought we’d be an easy target this year.”

Merai’s feline tail lashed in amusement. “Well, I’m glad you disabused them of that notion.”

“Yes, ma’am.” In a more subdued tone, she added, “We were trained by the best.”

Merai raised her cup in a salute. “So you were.”

The Phantom passed in front of Janus, blocking the tableau. It gestured, and the shadows folded around them once more.

“I see,” Janus said, thoughtfully. “I’ve … always been afraid of what would happen to the Order after I was gone. Wondered if the city would be safe without me.” He thought back to the image of Kelsey’s face: tired, battle-scarred, but victorious. He felt a profound sense of relief, a weight lifting from his shoulders: I’ve taught them everything I know — and they’ve learned it as well as I could have asked.

They’ll be all right. Just as Candace had said they would.

Candace. No sooner had he thought of her than the shadows parted again. They were back in the park, but the time had shifted: the gray, directionless light of an overcast winter day pushed its way through the fog. Janus became aware that the snow-covered gardens around the path were marked with stones: rectangular slabs of marble or granite, each one carefully cleared of snow. Marker stones. Not a park at all, then, but an ashyard, where the cremated remains of the deceased became food for the gardens. One dies so others may live. It was part of the old Lightbringer mantra.

The ashyard was deserted today, save for one woman in a red and black riding coat. She knelt before one of the larger markers, a white marble spire surmounted by a twin cross. She held a single rose of deep crimson in her gloved hands.

Candace had aged gracefully, but she had aged. Her long brown hair was thatched with gray, and worry lines had formed around her eyes, her mouth, and her brow. Janus wasn’t sure, but it seemed that several years had passed between the two scenes. She certainly looked more tired than Kelsey.

“I … came to say goodbye,” she said, looking up at the marker stone. “It’s been long enough that…” She stopped, swallowed, tried again. “I loved you,” she said. “Truly. Deeply. Probably madly.” She breathed a laugh. “I don’t know why that’s easier to say now, when you can’t hear me. Maybe because I don’t have to worry about whether it’s proper anymore. Nobody cares what you say to the dead.”

She fell silent for a while, turning the rose this way and that between her fingertips.

“Remember when I used to bring you dinner? You’d get so busy before a mission — trying to get everyone else ready — and you’d just forget to eat.”

“Like last night,” Janus whispered. He came and knelt down beside her, close enough to touch her if he’d dared. He didn’t try; he had a horrible feeling that his hand would dissolve into illusion if it touched her. Or, worse, that she would be the one to dissolve.

“You worked so hard to take care of everyone else,” Candace said. “I thought, ‘At least I can take care of you. At least you’ll let me love you that much.’”

Her fist tightened on the rose, warping the stem. The flower’s petals trembled in her grasp. “I wasted the best years of my life waiting for you.” The words came out ragged, anger and pain and grief twisted together. “Waiting for you to see me, to give me just the slightest inkling that you could love me back.” She squeezed her eyes shut. Two heavy teardrops fell and landed on her gloves. They stayed there, glistening up at Janus in mute accusation.

“I should have known better,” Candace said. “You were married to the job. To your duty. I thought I could convince you to change. Idiot.” Whether this last was directed at him or herself, Janus couldn’t tell.

After a moment she went on. “I’ve been seeing another man. Alan. He’s … good. Kind. Honorable to a fault, which reminds me of you. We’ve been together a while now, and … and last night he asked me to marry him. And I said yes.” She shrugged. “Too late for children, probably, but he wants me anyway. Which I’m sure will confuse my mother.” With these last words, she recovered a little of the dry, ironic humor Janus had always appreciated in her. “Anyway, we’re thinking about adopting. Even if that doesn’t work out, though … it’s time. I’ve been sleeping with your ghost long enough.”

She laid the rose against the marker stone, then stood, brushing the snow from her legs. “Good-bye, Janus. I hope, whereever you are, you finally found a place to lay down that sword and rest. Don’t … you know. Don’t come looking for me, or anything. I’ll be all right without you.” She removed the glove from her right hand, kissed the tips of her fingers, then pressed them against the stone. “I finally understand that, now.”

She turned, then, and walked out of the ashyard without a backward glance. As Janus watched her go, she noticed the inscription on one of the stones she passed: BELOVED HUSBAND AND FATHER.

He turned and looked at his own marker. It read: JANUS ASARIEL STARSON: IN HIS DUTY HE NEVER WAVERED.

As an epitaph, it felt rather hollow by comparison. He bowed his head and let the tears fall, silently.

After a time he felt the presence of the Phantom beside him. He looked up. The faceless hood seemed to regard his marker stone thoughtfully.

“Great Spirit,” Janus rasped. “One answer I beg of you: Are these visions of what shall be, or only of what might be?”

The cowl turned toward him fractionally. A questioning tilt of the head.

“A man can change his ways, if he chooses,” Janus insisted. His voice shook a little under that pitiless, faceless being, but he pressed on. “Already, I can assure you I am not the man I was three nights ago. I was out of balance, like my father before me. I see it now! Does that count for nothing?”

Again the long, pale hand appeared from beneath the robes, and pointed at the inscription on the white marble. But Janus saw a faint trembling in its fingers.

“No!” Janus sobbed, and he didn’t care one damn about his composure anymore. “Don’t tell me this can’t be changed! My father’s ghost moved heaven and earth to give me this chance! Don’t — don’t tell me it was for nothing! Give me a word, a sign, anything! Show me I can wipe away this stone!”

Somewhere, ominously, a clock tower began to toll the hour. In desperation, and on an impulse that would have been unthinkable three nights before, he reached out and clutched at the Phantom’s robes in supplication. There was a sudden rush of wind, and the robes enveloped him. They pressed against his face, his arms, his legs, driving him flat onto his back on the cold, snowy ground. He thrashed this way and that, gasping for air — until suddenly the ground grew soft and warm, and the robes atop him became bedsheets, and the tower bells became the low, insistent beeps of the alarm clock.

---

Stave V. The End of It

Janus sat up, blinking. The light of a bright, clear winter’s morning slanted in through the window. Elemacil sat quiescent on its stand by his bedside table. Janus took the sword in hand, opening his senses for any warning it might choose to give him. The blade responded to his touch with quiet, nonverbal interest, like a dog pricking its ears at its master’s voice: watchful, but unconcerned. He put it back on the stand and looked at the clock, which was still beeping with his usual nine o’clock alarm. After a moment, he turned it off.

He tried the intercom. “Janus to Ops. Report.”

Kyle’s voice came back a few seconds later. “Ops here, nothing to report. Mornin’, boss.”

Nothing to report? Janus had been out of contact with his people for three days, and there was nothing to report? He’d been expecting some temporal distortion from his travels, but…

“Kyle, humor me a moment. How long do our internal sensors show that I’ve been in my quarters?”

To his credit, Kyle did not balk at the odd question. “Gimme a sec to pull the records up … looks like you went in at about five o’clock yesterday afternoon, so that would be … sixteen hours, give or take.”

Yesterday afternoon… “It’s only the twenty-second?”

“Yep. Happy first day of Yule, boss.”

“Thank you,” Janus said absently. “All in one night…” After a moment the implications of this sank in. He clenched a fist and shook it, grinning. “Yes! They did it all in one night!”

“Pardon, sir?” Kyle asked.

Janus realized what this must have sounded like, over the com. “It’s all right, Kyle. I’ve just had a … remarkably positive encounter with a unique set of spiritual entities.”

“We were breached?” Kyle said, alarmed. “Again? And I didn’t catch it?!”

“I don’t think anyone could have caught this,” Janus said. “The effect came through Elemacil, not from outside. But I went … somewhere. Check the spatial distortion sensors around my quarters, between the hours of midnight and about two A.M.”

“On it.”

While Janus waited he rose, stretched, and went to his closet to dress. He grimaced at the long line of suits and uniforms. Not appropriate for the occasion. He dug around in the back for a while and came up with a pair of work jeans, and a red sweater that his mother had bought for him when he was eighteen and on his way to the mountains for training camp. Luckily it still fit, though it was a little tight across the chest. An extra ten kilos of muscle would do that.

Kyle’s voice came back on the intercom. “You were right, boss. There was a disturbance, starting right around midnight and continuing until dawn. Damned subtle work, though; it was real quiet, never anything big enough to set off the alarms. Whoever did this had major finesse.”

Janus smirked. “Somehow I’m not surprised. Thank you, Kyle. How’d the rest of the night turn out?”

“Pretty quiet, for a Solstice. I guess somebody decided to give us a break this year. Count our blessings, huh?”

“Oh, believe me, I intend to,” Janus murmured. Then, “Carry on, Kyle. I’m still off-duty until nightfall, so I’m heading off-campus. Call my mobile if you need anything.”

“Uh, sure, boss,” Kyle said, sounding puzzled but not displeased. “It’s a beautiful day out there. I hope you enjoy it!”

Janus just grinned.

###

It took him two stops to ask for directions, but at last he found the little park in Valley South Borough with the ice skating rink. As he eased his skimmer into a nearby parking space, Janus was momentarily afraid he might have missed them. But no, there was the bright red of Candace’s riding coat, spinning and looping around the ice. After another moment he spotted Glenn, who had apparently taken custody of the kids for a while so Candace could practice her skills — or maybe just show off for her niece and nephew.

There was, thank heavens, a booth renting out skates in one corner of the park. They even had a pair in Janus’s size. He adjusted his new scarf around his neck, wrapping it a little tighter against the cold, then went to the benches at the edge of the ice to put on the skates.

He was halfway through lacing up the second skate when Candace turned around and spotted him from halfway across the rink. A half-second of surprise, and then a radiant joy bloomed across her face. Janus could have sworn the temperature rose ten degrees in that moment. She came to him as fast as the crowds would permit, flashing that broad, brilliant smile, for him. Just for him.

She skidded artfully to a stop, making a little spray of ice shavings as she did so. “Well, hello there!” she said. “I guess you changed your mind. Got tired of being stuck in that little room?”

For a moment he felt the old awkwardness trying to take over, trying to push him back into stiff, safe formality; back into the shell where he took no risks and could be hurt by no one. He pushed it aside.

“Actually, my quarters are fine.” He smiled; seeing her like this, relaxed and happy, made it easy for him. “I just wanted to see you.”

There was a certain look that Janus had noticed on people when they were confronted with unexpected honesty. It signaled a kind of uneasy self-awareness, the emotional equivalent of seeing someone naked. That look flashed across Candace’s face for an instant, before she masked it with her usual dry humor. “Hey, you see me all the time at work. I don’t change that much when I’m out of uniform.”

“Yes, you do,” Janus said, equably. He nodded to the ice. “I was watching you out there, with the kids. You looked so … free. I’m the one who doesn’t know how to change out of uniform.” He finished lacing the second skate and rose to his feet. “And I think that needs to change.”

Candace’s smile slipped again, but her eyes were bright and glistening as she met his gaze. She came off the ice and approached him, searching his face for … Janus wasn’t sure what. At last she reached out and touched the ends of the scarf she had made for him. When the smile came back, it was not dry or ironic, but something warm, and tender, and hopeful.

“This looks like a good start to me,” she said.

“I hope so.” Janus swallowed the lump that had suddenly appeared in his throat. “I should warn you, I … was never very good at this. Not much practice.”

Candace’s eyes twinkled. Yes, she’d caught the layers of meaning in that confession. “I know.”

“I’ll make mistakes,” he warned her. “There’s a chance we’ll both get hurt. I don’t want to hurt you, but—”

She held a finger to his lips, and he fell silent.

“It’s okay,” she said. “Sometimes you’ve gotta fall down a few times before you get things right.”

She opened her hand to him in invitation.

Janus took it.

###

Merai hin’Dana stepped back from the polished obsidian of the scrying mirror, letting the enchantment fade. She put her hands on her hips and nodded in satisfaction. “Well, those two seem be off to a good start. Finally.”

Her companion crossed his long, lean arms, and a chuckle came from the darkness inside the blue-and-white robes. “What a splendid bit of manipulation, Lady Starchild. Quite worthy of your father, I must say. The old fox would’ve been proud.”

“I didn’t need Kammoloth to teach me how to manipulate people for their own good,” Merai said dryly. “I learned that from Sister Raven.”

“Of that I’ve no doubt,” said Lady Nocturna, who was just entering scrying room as they spoke. The fallen goddess was dressed in a simple white blouse and midnight blue slacks, which she brushed at as she walked, trying to remove the lingering traces of chalk dust. “She’s a strong-willed old soul, to have tarried so long on this side of the Veil.”

Merai smiled at her. “Did you see her safely home, then?”

“Aye — as far as I can tell, stuck on this side.” That was as harsh a gibe as Nocturna would ever make at Merai for causing their exile. Merai opened her hands in ambiguous acknowledgement. She could not be sorry for her decision, but Nocturna had earned the right to put the occasional dig in.

“Thank you for your help,” Merai said sincerely. “I had a feeling her perspective would be instructive for young Janus.”

“Just be glad we had the sword to use as a focus,” Nocturna said. “She’s thirteen centuries gone; I don’t think I could have called her back across without it.”

“It seems Elemacil was a double blessing, then.” Merai turned halfway back to her other companion, letting her gaze encompass them both. “Do you think Asariel will be able to rest now? I regret that we couldn’t do more to help him.”

“That will depend on what Janus makes of his choices,” the hooded figure said. “Asariel invested all his hopes in the boy.”

Nocturna nodded agreement. “If Janus can make a good show of starting down another path, then at some point — in five or ten years, perhaps — his grip on the sword should weaken, and he can be led across.”

“Assuming, of course, that we are all still here by then,” the hooded figure said brightly. “Which, given the recent portents, is by no means certain.”

“Right.” Merai seemed to rouse herself, taking a deep breath and letting it out again. “So much for family matters. On to the next crisis.”

Nocturna gestured to her. “After you, Lady Starchild.”

Merai headed back toward the heart of the Citadel, to summon their allies for the much more serious work ahead of them. Behind her, Nocturna turned to their companion.

“Klepnos, can you please get out of my robes now? That’s rather disconcerting.”

The trickster god threw back his hood and grinned at her. “Sorry, milady; I’m afraid I’ve found it rather addictive. I do so love getting into the Spirit of the season.”

FIN

Footnotes

1. This was incorrectly stated as 17 in the podcast version and corrected later- MGC