“It’s over now,” Rushkin said. “You’ve killed many of my hunters, but no more. These are the final days of the enmity that lies between us. I will take my nourishment from you and all of your maker’s creations and put an end to you, once and for all.”
There at least, John knew he was safe. Long before the night of the terrible fire, he’d taken his painting from the farmhouse on Wren Island and brought it to the studio of another of Rushkin’s proteges—the one who hadn’t been with the monster long enough to fall under his sway. Barbara had painted over it and now kept the painting safely stored away in her studio, hidden in a cupboard along with all of her juvenile work. In return for her help, John had told her the secret of bringing numena across from the before, sharing what he knew of it from having observed Isabelle at work, but it wasn’t a knowledge that Barbara had cared to practice. She brought one across— because of curiosity as much as to test him, John had supposed—but then no more.
“I’ve got enough trouble being responsible for my own life,” she’d told John. “I don’t need the extra grief this’d bring.”
John only wished that Isabelle had felt the same. While it was true that he owed his existence to her gift, he’d rather have remained in the before than to see so many of the others she’d brought across die.
“You know,” Rushkin was saying, “I miss Benjamin the most. He was with me for a very long time indeed.”
John couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“You’re incapable of any emotion except for greed,” he told Rushkin.
“Now you wrong me,” the monster said. “I might have a failing or two when it comes to interacting socially, but you have only to look at the work I have produced to know that what you’re saying is a lie.”
John shook his head. “You might get someone like Isabelle to buy your lies, but don’t bother trying them on me.”
“The work speaks for itself.”
“You work is hollow at its heart,” John said. “It’s all flash and technique and glossy lies—no different from its maker. Something rots under the surface of both you and your paintings. The trouble is most people don’t peel away enough of the veneer to see it.”
Anger flashed in Rushkin’s eyes, but he quickly suppressed it. “So now you’re an art critic?” he asked.
“Merely a good judge of character,” John replied.
Rushkin shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. Your opinion changes nothing. In the end, I will prevail and you will be nothing more than ashes and memory.”
“Isabelle will stop you.”
He would convince her, John vowed. Even if it cost him his life.
Rushkin laughed. “I doubt that. Isabelle is already hard at work on a new painting to feed me.”
“Another lie. I heard her turn you down.”
“And yet, she’s painting even as we speak.” Rushkin waved a hand casually to the doorway behind John. “See for yourself, if you don’t believe me.”
John hesitated, suddenly unsure. He had heard her refuse Rushkin’s offer, hadn’t he? Or did he have to distrust his own memories now, as much as he did Isabelle’s?
“I’ll take her away from here,” he told Rushkin.
“How do you know she wants to go?”
“I’ll convince her.”
“Then she’ll simply complete the work elsewhere, but I will still have it. Give it up, John Sweetgrass.
I have won. I will always win.”
John turned abruptly and strode into the hallway. He tried the doors as he went along, flinging them open, until he came to one that was locked. The key was still in the lock. With one quick motion, he unlocked the door and shouldered it open to find that Rushkin hadn’t lied. In the room Isabelle turned away from the canvas she was working on to face him. She looked angry until her gaze alit on his wrist and the bracelet he was wearing.
John ... ?” she asked uncertainly.
All he could do was stare at her. He was rendered immobile by confusion. By shock. But most of all by the enormity of her betrayal.
Isabelle dropped her palette and brush on the table beside her. Wiping her hands on her jeans, she stepped toward him.
“Is that you, John?” she said.
“How
He started to retreat from the room, but she caught his arm to keep him from leaving. When he pulled free, she grabbed hold of him again.
“No,” she told him. “This time we’re going to finish a conversation without one or the other of us walking away.”
John couldn’t help himself. “I never abandoned you,” he said. “No. But you didn’t stay either, did you?”
“You didn’t want me.”
Isabelle shook her head. “We both know that isn’t true. I can’t tell you how many nights I lay awake, wishing you’d come back to me, wishing everything could just be like it was before that day in the park.”
“Yes, but—”
“And since you told me that you always knew when I wanted to see you, I know the only reason you didn’t come back was because you didn’t want to. I might have sent you away, but you’re the one who chose to stay away.”
“You didn’t want me,” John said. “You wanted time to turn back and rewind to before that night in Fitzhenry Park.”
“Didn’t I just say that?”
John sighed and tried again. “You believe that I’m dependent upon you for my existence. That without you, I’d be nothing.”
“No. But I am responsible for your being here.”
“You made a gateway, not me. You didn’t make any of us. We existed elsewhere first.”
Isabelle nodded. “I did the paintings, but you chose to come here. I know that. 33
“So what are you trying to tell me?”
“I ..... Isabelle had to look away. “It’s not easy to explain.”
“Then perhaps you can explain that,” John said, pointing to the painting she was working on.
The figure taking shape on the canvas was of a vengeful, red-haired angel. Working wet-in-wet as she was, Isabelle was eschewing detail for emotive power. The enormous wings that would rise up behind the figure were still only blocked in, and there was next to no definition in the figure itself, but the sword of justice held aloft by the angel was clearly defined and there was no mistaking the stern cast to her features.
“This is going to deal with Rushkin,” Isabelle told him.
“How?”
“Once I’ve brought her across, she’ll protect all of us. If Rushkin ever tries to hurt any of us again, she’ll deal with him.”
“It won’t work.”
Disappointment reared in Isabelle’s eyes. “Why not?”
“We can’t touch him,” John explained. “None of us that you brought across can. He’s a maker, and because of that we can’t harm him. I don’t know why, but that’s the way it is.”
“But when his numena came to Joli Coeur ...”
“They could never have made good on their threat to you,” John finished. “Because you’re also a maker. None of us can harm a maker.”
Isabelle shook her head. “No, he—the one calling himself Bitterweed—he wasn’t pretending when he grabbed me by the throat. If I hadn’t gone with him, he would’ve killed me.”
“He could kill me, or any of your friends,” John said, “but the threat he presented to you was good acting, nothing more.”
He could see Isabelle’s confidence visibly deflate.
“You didn’t know,” he said, trying to comfort her.
“I should have listened to you a long time ago,” she said. “I should have stopped bringing anyone else across
