“I have an idea,” Forsyth says after Elgar’s woken from his post-breakfast-and-meds nap. “But we must include Pip in the conversation.” He points to his phone, which is already on the kitchen counter, along with a fresh pad of paper from Elgar’s office, and a pen.
“Uh, no,” Elgar says, the gummy, fuzzy feeling the meds left in his brain sizzling away at the sight of the tools. “Nuh-uh. Not happening.”
But Forsyth isn’t listening. He’s already calling Lucy, speakerphone on.
“Hey, Freckles,” Lucy says when the call connects. “’Sup?”
“I wanted to discuss an option with you. With both of you,” Forsyth answers, leaning on the counter and his folded arms. Even this looks noble and poised, the perfect distillation of the lordling in thought. Or maybe the Shadow Hand.
While Elgar watches Forsyth—the way he presses his fingertips to his bottom lip as he listens, the elegant tilt of his head—he is struck all over again with the awe that this is a man he created, this is someone Elgar Reed thought up and who is sitting right in front of him. Forsyth, meanwhile, catches Lucy up on their conversations in the hospital, and the one in the store with Maddie.
“ConClusion?” Lucy says. In the background, Elgar can hear Alis chanting, “Ma, Ma, Ma, Ma!” She obviously wants Lucy to stop paying attention to the phone. “Shush, baby girl, I know. Here, here’s your book.”
“’Ook!”
“Exactly right. ’Ook.”
Forsyth huffs out an exasperated sigh at Alis’s word. He must still be trying to correct her baby mumbles, and Lucy is teasing him.
“Yes, ConClusion,” Forsyth says, pulling her attention back to the call.
“Interesting choice,” she says, and Elgar winces. Maybe the dig was deliberate, but even if it wasn’t, he knows why she’s surprised. It’s not exactly the kind of con he’d have chosen to say yes to before he’d met her. “And what, you want to set a trap there? Around all those people?”
Forsyth winces and rubs his eyes. “The Viceroy is already going to be there. We know that for a fact. If we let this opportunity slip by, then we are once again in the dark. We will have to wait for him to strike. And that may result in us being caught unaware, and you . . .” He trails off, looking up at Elgar.
“And if he’s not at ConClusion?” Lucy asks.
“He will be,” Forsyth says, and Elgar’s not sure who he’s trying to convince more—his wife, or himself. “Where else would the Viceroy seek his revenge but during Elgar’s moment of glory in front of his adoring fans?”
“At the screening of the film, you mean,” Elgar says. “Oh, god.”
“But if we are prepared for him,” Forsyth insists, “we can stop him. We can contain him.”
“We can kill the son of a bitch,” Lucy growls.
Elgar would be shocked at her bloodthirstiness, if he didn’t understand her fear of the Viceroy so clearly now. “So, all we can do is dangle me like a . . . like a cat toy,” he blurts, “and invite the bastard to come after me?”
“Yes,” Forsyth says, and then he grins slyly at the paper and pen beside him. “I do have one more thing to try, though. Elgar, you are the Author, yes? You Wrote Pip and I out of the books once before. Maybe you can Write the Viceroy back in. And ensure he stays there.”
“No,” Lucy says, even as Elgar jerks away from the island with a “no!” of his own.
“No?” Forsyth asks, straightening, bewildered.
“No, kill him. Don’t write him back. Write his death,” Pip says, pleading now. “He’ll go after Kin and Bev and Wyndam if we send him back, you know he will. Or he’ll find another way out again. He’ll rip apart every realm there is to get back here. Kill him and end it, like I should have done on the top of the Ivory Tower.”
“Yes,” Elgar agrees. “But no.”
“Elgar,” Forsyth says. “You must write. We have already spoken—”
“This is different,” Elgar confesses, sweat beading on his forehead. “The screenplay, that’s only recounting something that’s already happened. What you’re asking . . . this is new. This is . . . I could hurt someone.”
“That’s the point,” Pip snarls.
“But someone else—”
“Then don’t write about anyone else!”
“I don’t think I—”
“Enough,” Forsyth booms over them both, and Elgar shrinks away, startled. “Pip, it will do you no good to bully him into this. And Elgar . . . peace. We must try. Do you see? If we can prevent the Viceroy’s plan from coming to fruition, if we are to protect all the people he will be surrounding himself with, the people you know he will be using, like Maddie and Juan, then is it not worth your . . . discomfort?”
Elgar fists his hands and feels shame turn his face red. “I . . . guess so. Yes.”
“Very good,” Forsyth says. He pushes the paper and pen toward Elgar.
“Make sure to write something else into the passage, to let us know that it worked,” Lucy adds hastily. “Like, I don’t know, a chime sounding, or a firework going off, or something? I want to know that the bastard is dead.”
Elgar takes both implements, and returns to his stool on the island. He uncaps the pen, presses its ball to the page, and then hesitates. “You’re . . . you’re not going to stand there and watch me, are you?” It’s weird, having Forsyth there, his creation watching him do something so intimate. It’s like your kid watching you have sex to make another kid.
Forsyth gives him a searching look, and then says, “No, I suppose not. I shall be upstairs if you need me.” He picks up his phone, clicks off the speakerphone, and lifts it to his ear. “Pip? Yes, Elgar is . . . patience, bao bei.”
Elgar nods, and waits until the sound of Forsyth’s conversation has disappeared into the guest bedroom. Then he turns his attention back to the page. The tauntingly, infuriatingly familiar blank page.
