less. She told how while the wedding guests had been watching the struggle between Finnegan and the dragon, the women of the Fantomaya had reached into her dead body and claimed her soul, how they’d carried it across the divide between the Abarat and the Hereafter, and hidden it in the womb of a woman who was very close to giving birth.
“So this was all planned out?” Finnegan said.
“I really don’t know, to tell you the truth. I don’t see how it could have been. The Fantomaya just wanted to protect my soul, and when they saw a chance to hide it—somewhere no one from the Abarat was going to look— they took it. The child was born a few hours later. But you had already worked most of it out for yourself, hadn’t you?” Boa said. “I saw the confusion on your face several times. You felt something for the girl but you didn’t know what or why. I’m right, aren’t I?” She took a half step toward him, her hand going up to his face. “There’s nothing to feel guilty about,” she said. “You weren’t seeing her. You were seeing me through her. I was her prisoner. I had no defense against her. All I could do was stay locked up in that head of hers and watch her despicable little life go by year after year. Wondering what was happening here. Always, always thinking about you. Wondering who you’d married now that I was dead.”
“Finn, it’s all lies,” Maas insisted.
“Then none of it can do any harm, can it?” Finnegan replied.
“You should be careful with your affections, Finnegan Hob. There is a greater wickedness close to you than the crimes any of the beasts whose bones we stand among may have committed. Some of them were weak. Some of them were stupid. And some had masters who demanded they do terrible things. But there were innocents here too. You know that, Finnegan.”
“You’re right. I concede it. I killed in anger. I killed in loneliness. I will make my peace with the spirits here. But not now. We have other problems right now.”
“By other problems, you mean Midnight’s Empire?” Maas said.
“Since when did it become an Empire?” he said.
Maas shrugged.
“I don’t know that it ever did. That’s just the way Mater Motley spoke of it. The darkness that’s gathering. It’s her work. She will see herself Empress of the islands if she has her way.”
“Is darkness so terrible?”
“This darkness, yes. And it’s spreading like the plague. I think a woman with your skills might know a thing or two, Princess,” Maas said, turning to Boa.
“Don’t listen, Finn. He’s doing exactly what I told you he’d do. He’s trying to poison our happiness.”
“What skills, Maas?” Finnegan said. “What are you talking about? If you have something to say—”
“He has nothing to say,” Boa said quickly. “It’s all dragon slime he means to coat me with. I’ve been in their jaws before, Finn. I know how they stink. The closest he gets to having any real humanity in him is when he dines on it.”
“Nicely done, Princess,” Maas said with sour appreciation. “Inflame his rage with talk of dragons and maybe he’ll forget that he really doesn’t trust you.”
“Enough, Maas,” Finnegan said sharply. “Just because the stars have gone out, and the world is likely to go with them, it doesn’t mean I’ll simply forgive every utterance that spills out of you. An insult is an insult. And trust me, Maas, one more word spoken against my Princess and your head will fall farther than any star.”
Whether out of fear for his life or from a genuine sense of contrition, Maas laid his clawed hands, right over left, across his heart.
“Forgive me, Finnegan Hob,” he said inclining that burdensome head, “I have been too long in the company of the dead. I have forgotten simple courtesies.”
“Not good enough,” Boa said.
She took hold of Finnegan’s hand, and he felt a surge of cold power move down her arm and through her palm into his. It felt as though his arm was actually gaining muscle mass, and he was glad of it. There would be enemies out there in Midnight’s Empire that had only risen up now because the circumstances were propitious: he would need all the strength he owned to protect Boa from their assaults. It wouldn’t be easy, but with her help he would find a way to get them to a place of safety, assuming such a place existed.
“How do you feel?” Boa asked him.
“Good,” he said. He shook the arm she’d touched as though it had been asleep all his life and was now waking up.
“It feels a lot stronger than it did before you . . . what did you do?”
“Just rolled away a stone,” Boa said, “that had been between you and what was always in you. Take out your sword.”
He did so, the blade making a sound like the chiming of a perfect bell as it slid from the sheath.
“It’s never felt so light before.”
“Nor has it ever been so sharp,” Boa said, making a pass over the sword with her hand. A gleam of light ran up along the blade. “Now,” she said softly, “use it.”
“Use it to do what?”
“What it was meant to do. Kill.”
“Maas?”
“Of course.”
“He has no harm in him, my lady.”
“I say he does, Finnegan. Trust me. Kill him. Then we need never to think of him again.”
Maas made no attempt to move while his fate was considered. He simply waited, his hands still pressed to his chest.
“He has nothing left, Princess. Look at him.”
“I’d forgotten how much hard work you can be,” she said. “You never could see what was right in front of you.”
“You’re right in front of me, Princess. And right now you’re very hard to see. I’m trying. I really am. But there’s something . . .”
“Of course,” she said with weary irritation. “There’s always going to be more of me to find. Or it would all get boring very quickly, wouldn’t it?”
He opened his mouth to speak, but she was there before him.
“You’re going to tell me this isn’t the time for games, because ‘very soon the world’s going to end’ and I’m here to say if it really is going to end then we may as well have some fun before it’s all over.”
“Agreed.”
“Good. So let me have my fun.”
“Doing what?”
“Finishing the job!”
“You’re both crazy . . .” Maas said, the words passing around the boneyard like a rumor, gathering force with every echo.
“Very likely,” Finnegan said.
“You think?” Boa said. “All those years locked away. All those years grieving. Making me crazy. Oh, I know crazy. I’ve had more than my share of crazy.”
“It’s over.”
“Almost . . .”
“No, it is. Whatever’s out there, we’ll deal with it together.”
“Finn, you’ve got to finish what we’re doing here.”
“It’s done.”
“But the dragon still has a head on his shoulders.”
“I’m not killing him, Boa.”
“Fine. Then I will.”
“You don’t want his blood on your hands.”
“Don’t tell me what I want,” she said.
“These are powerful spirits, Boa.”
