“Actually,” Linus said, “you were permanently banished after you declined to follow the rules we have in place at our home. Semantics, to be sure, but as a former employee of DICOMY, I know management can be a stickler for details.”
“Be that as it may,” Rowder said, speaking around them rather than to them, “until we can be sure that Arthur Parnassus and Linus Baker aren’t harming and/or weaponizing children, we’ll do what we must to protect the populace.” She smiled down at the children. “There is nothing to be afraid of. We’ll be going on a train trip to the city! Won’t that be fun?”
“We don’t talk to strangers,” Chauncey said. “Even if they offer us candy, because Dad and Papa said that’s how they’ll get ya.”
The skin under Rowder’s left eye twitched. “But I’m not a stranger. My name is Jeanine Rowder. I work for the government. I’m here to be your friend.”
“See something, say something,” Arthur said coldly.
Rowder cracked—and though she covered it up quickly, Arthur saw the flash of anger, black and severe. She was on edge, and Arthur thought it had nothing to do with him, or Linus.
When she smiled again, Arthur couldn’t stop himself from taking a step back. She looked like a predator on the prowl. “Yes,” she said. “Funny you should mention that. Did you ever hear who came up with that particular bon mot?” Without waiting for an answer, she continued. “An intern. An unpaid one, even. Why am I bringing this up now? Let me tell you.” She looked at each of the children in turn, then Linus, then Arthur. “Have you ever wondered why these children? Why, out of every magical child in the world, you were given these six?”
“Because they needed a home,” Arthur said, exactly what he’d said when asked the very same question in the hearing.
“It was a test,” Rowder said with no small amount of glee. “An experiment, one in which you were all subjects. The purpose of said experiment was to see if the Antichrist was capable of learning from others, and what that would look like. All of this? Your entire lives? Cooked up by a middle manager during a quarterly meeting upon receipt of your written request. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“I knew I was famous!” Lucy crowed.
“We’re never going to hear the end of this,” Talia muttered.
Arthur paused, cocking his head. Then, “Oh. Well. Thank you.”
Rowder stared at him. “Come again?”
“There appears to have been an unintended result from the experiment. I seem to have found myself with a family. Children, please thank Miss Rowder and the government for bringing us together.”
“Thank you, Miss Rowder and the government,” the children all said at the same time, neat as you please.
“More games, Mr. Parnassus?” Rowder asked, red spreading across her cheeks. “I should’ve known you’d—”
“Why do you want me?” Lucy said, and Arthur looked down to find him looking at Rowder.
Rowder flinched, glancing around at the large men standing on either side of her. Once she was certain she wasn’t alone, she smiled at Lucy. “You are very special. There is no one like you in all the world.”
He shrugged. “There’s no other Talia. Or Chauncey. Or David or Sal or Theodore or Phee. Why don’t you care about them?”
“I do,” Rowder said. “But with you, it’s different.”
“Why?”
“Because of what you are.”
“The Antichrist?”
“Yes,” she said as her men shifted uncomfortably, Marblemaw pulling a face, the tip of her tongue sticking out between her teeth.
Lucy nodded slowly, brow furrowed. Though everything in Arthur screamed to stop him, he didn’t move when Lucy took a step toward her. Given the hundreds of people standing in the streets, the near silence was extraordinary, only interrupted by the distant crash of waves.
Rowder did her best to appear unafraid, but even she couldn’t keep it hidden. Her mouth thinned, her hands trembled before she flattened them against her trousers. Her gaze darted side to side as she bumped shoulders with the men she’d brought with her, men who undoubtedly would grab the children if and when she gave the order.
But she didn’t, eyes growing wider and wider as Lucy stared up at her. The silence stretched on for ages.
Then a remarkable thing happened: as Arthur looked on, Lucy bowed his head, sniffling as a single tear tracked down his cheek. When he spoke, it was soft, quiet, barely carrying beyond the semicircle around them.
“I can see things,” he said, voice cracking, and it was then Arthur knew this wasn’t for show. “I don’t mean to. It just … happens, I guess. Good things, like knowing my dad was a phoenix before he told us. I knew the first time I saw him, waiting for me on the island. I knew because I saw something magical. Two suns. One in the sky, and one on the beach.”
His eyes welled, and he brushed the back of his hand over them. “But sometimes, I see other things. Bad things. Like … not the sun. The opposite: darkness. A black hole. Papa taught us about them. You can’t see them with the naked eye, but even the smallest of them can suck in all light.” He looked up at her once more. “That’s what I see in you. Your insides don’t have light. It’s all dark.”
Rowder laughed, but it sounded harsh, forced. She pointed at him, a long red nail at the tip of her finger. “I don’t know what game you think you’re playing, but it—”
“I’m sorry about what happened to your dad.”
Rowder’s finger began to tremble. It worked its way to her hand, her arm, her shoulder. It was as if the very muscles under her skin had turned to tectonic plates, rumbling awake after an ancient slumber. It spread through her, and her face turned white as her bottom lip quivered.
“It shouldn’t have happened,” Lucy told her. “The person who … hurt him didn’t do it because—no. That’s not fair. She had … spiders, in her brain. And she couldn’t make them sleep. It wasn’t him. Your dad. He didn’t do anything wrong. It was an accident. She lost control of her magic and…” He sighed, a long, breathy thing that sounded like the wind. “You get to be mad. And sad. And anything else because that’s what it means to be human. To have—”
Arthur couldn’t move in time. For all that he was, he was bound to the seconds and minutes and hours just the same as anyone else. Rowder’s hand flew up, viper quick, fingers extended and pressed together. She swung, meaning to slap Lucy across the face.
Only Lucy disappeared into thin air, the momentum spinning her around, causing her to strike the man next to her in the stomach. Lucy reappeared next to Arthur. “Holy crap,” he breathed. “I can teleport?” His arms went up and over his head as he jumped up and down. “Yes. Yes! This is the best day ever! I can’t wait for puberty. I bet I’ll be able to create universes and a delicious happy birt breakfast without making a mess of either!”
Arthur felt the fire in him explode. The phoenix spread its wings in his chest and screamed to be let out, to end this once and for all. With all his strength, he kept the bird at bay, not wanting to give Rowder the satisfaction.
“Easy, old boy,” Linus murmured, touching the back of his hand. “We’re in the end game now.”
“Make no mistake, Rowder,” Arthur said, his molten fury bubbling just underneath his skin, “that near miss still counts. That is twice an employee of the Department in Charge of Magical Youth has abused one of my children in the last week, and I am done with you and your ilk. All of you.”
“So David is a child!” Marblemaw shrieked. “I knew it! They lied! He’s not a forty-seven-year-old whose growth was stunted after being trapped between rocks for seven years!”
