Poison Sleep (34 page)

Marla opened her eyes in a strange bedroom. Genevieve sat beside the bed, working on some knitting, of all things. “Can’t you just, like, wish complete sweaters into being?” Marla said.

“Yes, but it’s more satisfying this way. Besides, it’s a scarf. For you. For those harsh Felport winters.”

“I didn’t think we’d ever see you again,” Marla said, sitting up. “Is this your palace?”

“As good as new. And a bit less, ah, architecturally eccentric. The past fifteen years were a sort of never-ending bad dream, and you helped wake me out of it. For that, I thank you. Without Reave’s constant assaults, my mind is much clearer.”

“Dr. Husch says you can come back to the Blackwing Institute, if you want. She’s got some rooms for you—not a cell, just rooms. She thinks you could help with the therapy for the other patients.”

Genevieve grimaced. “Marla, given the things I can do…I’m not sure it’s such a good idea for me to do more than briefly
visit
the world outside this dream. There have been other people with my power in history, and most of them disappear at some point. I think because they realize it’s better for everyone that way. There are probably a lot of floating bubble universes out there, ruled by little gods like me. I’m happy to have visitors, but I should stay away from your world. I just wanted to thank you for not killing me.”

Marla laughed. “Don’t mention it.”

“And…I’m sorry for the loss of your friends. Ted. Joshua, even though he proved to be a villain.”

“Yeah. Thanks. And Zealand, too. He died trying to save you.”

“Well,” Genevieve said. “As to that, I have something to show you.” She beckoned, and Marla followed her into a hallway lit with skylights.

“You should rent this place out for corporate retreats,” Marla said, and Genevieve laughed—a sane, comfortable laugh, which did good things for Marla’s battered heart.

Genevieve opened the door to her library, and there was St. John Austen, restored to life—and Zealand, his hands crawling with green, his face as lined and strong as ever.

“Holy
shit,
” Marla said, and turned to Genevieve. “You—he—is it really
him
?”

“I feel like me from the inside,” Zealand said, approaching and clasping her in a hug. “Though I’m not sure how I’d be able to tell the difference. Genevieve spent a lot of time inside my head, getting to know every snap and crackle of my neurons, and she managed to resurrect me here, just as she did with St. John Austen. I won’t be taking any trips to the world I knew, alas—I’m not quite
that
real. Such a provisional existence could be disturbing, I suppose, but I find such epistemological dilemmas irrelevant when the alternative is nonexistence.”

“You sure sound like Zealand,” Marla said. “The slow assassins were pissed when I told them you’d died for a good cause, too.”

“I wish I could have gotten to know your Ted better,” Genevieve said, “and given him a sort of life here, too.”

“He was a good guy,” Marla said, but she’d save her memories for when she was alone, and could mourn him properly.

Marla chatted a bit longer, and embraced St. John Austen, but declined the offer of a drink, even when Genevieve mischievously assured her it wouldn’t make her sleep for forty years or have any other fairy-food-like consequences. “I should really get back,” Marla said. “Everyone’s still a little freaked out, and I have to do some damage control. But, ah, before I go…”

“I see what you’re thinking,” Genevieve said. “And, yes, of course I can do that. But you’re thinking it’s a
boon,
a gift I might deign to grant you. That’s not true at all. It’s the least I can do, after all you’ve done for me.”

“So it’s not, you know, too big an undertaking? I mean, I don’t want you to strain yourself, after all you’ve been through….”

“Consider it done,” Genevieve said, and draped the finished scarf around Marla’s neck. She grinned. “Even that last personal favor you want. And if you ever wish to see me, just call my name, all right? You’re always welcome here.”

“I’ll send you a Christmas card next winter,” Marla said, and Genevieve sent her home.

Rondeau and Marla sat at Smitty’s diner in a corner booth, the torn red vinyl seats mended with strips of black electrical tape. They ate their pancakes and hash browns and eggs without speaking for a while. “Ted’s funeral was nice,” Rondeau said finally. “Who was that cute girl with the glasses? His daughter? She wasn’t standing with the rest of his family.”

“I don’t know,” Marla said. Ted had been ashamed of his liaison with the girl from the chess club, and there was no reason to embarrass him in death, though Marla had been a little surprised and pleased to see the girl at the funeral, along with Ted’s family. She’d been pissed, too, though. They’d all shut Ted out, made him live on the streets, but once he got knifed—in what was, officially, a random and unsolved bit of street violence during the chaos of the blizzard—they all came to his funeral. Ah, well. Loyalty these days wasn’t what it used to be. Look at the way Nicolette had turned on Gregor. Marla didn’t trust the chaos magician any more than she could eat the moon, but she didn’t trust most of the other sorcerers in Felport, either, so what did it matter? She’d rewarded Nicolette by giving her some of Gregor’s holdings, after divvying up the rest of his estate and Susan Wellstone’s more substantial assets among the sorcerers who’d helped her during the battle with Reave. Nobody was happy with what they’d received, everyone arguing that they deserved more for their service, and Marla hadn’t exactly been diplomatic, snapping that they were lucky to even
have
a city. Only the fact that she’d just saved Felport from destruction staved off open revolt, and there were a lot of simmering resentments toward her now. Marla had actually offered Langford the bulk of Susan’s assets, because he’d done so much to stop Reave, but he’d refused—he liked doing research, without any responsibilities beyond following his own interests. If he’d actually taken Marla up on her offer, the other sorcerers probably would have hollered for her head. She owed Langford a new laboratory in exchange for that drop of Gorgon blood, though.

“So the rumor is you did some crazy giant magic damage control,” Rondeau said. “The common folk sure aren’t
acting
like they just saw the city overrun by monsters.”

Marla shook a blob of ketchup onto her plate and stabbed a forkful of hash browns. “Well, I don’t mind if people give me the credit, but it’s all Genevieve’s doing. I asked her if she could smooth the waters. She’s a powerful psychic, after all. So she reached out to every ordinary citizen in Felport who saw something they couldn’t explain, and tweaked the experiences into short-term memory, so they faded like the memory of dreams. There are some state investigators here, responding to early reports, but the mayor’s chilling them out, telling them people just went a little nuts during the blizzard, and the witnesses don’t have much to say. It’ll blow over.”

“Damn,” Rondeau said. “That’s big stuff. I’m glad Genevieve’s one of the good guys. Well, I mean, basically.
Eventually
.” He eyed Marla’s last uneaten strip of bacon, but apparently had the good sense not to reach for it. “So how are you handling, you know, the Joshua thing?”

Marla shrugged, looking down at her plate. “It doesn’t make me eager to go out and start dating again, that’s for sure. But Genevieve helped me with that, too.”

“How so?”

“I didn’t want to forget about Joshua entirely. Getting betrayed by a guy because I was too besotted to be suspicious? That’s a valuable lesson. But Genevieve did help me forget one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“The experience of fucking him. Because they say when you sleep with a lovetalker, you can never really enjoy sex with anyone else again. They just don’t measure up. Why would I condemn myself to a life of disappointment? So I don’t remember a thing about sleeping with Joshua now. I don’t even remember enough to miss it.”

Rondeau laughed. “If you ever want to, you know, make
sure
you can still enjoy sleeping with other people, my door is always open.”

“In your dreams, Rondeau. Only in your dreams.”