“She spoke to me in my mind once, in the language of the merpeople.”
“Of all the strange, I guess it’s not the strangest,” Riley considered.
“And it wasn’t just a pep talk. She gave us something.” Sasha looked down at her own hand. “She gave us light. Didn’t you feel it?”
“I felt something,” Riley admitted. “Let’s hope it works.”
“We make it work. We’re ending it, and Nerezza, today.”
Riley turned to Doyle. “Sir Pessimism’s taking a turn on the Optimistic Highway.”
“She looked like you,” he said shortly.
“She what?”
“I saw you. That’s who she was, the form, for me. Whatever the hell it means, we make it work. We’re not losing this. I’m not losing you. So we end it. Gear up. Let’s get moving.”
He stalked off.
“Doyle’s happy,” Annika said. “He loves Riley. He’s going to get her a ring.”
“We’ll worry about the last part after we end the bitch. And I’m damned if I’m doing it in a dress.”
She peeled off, followed Doyle.
He stood studying the new items in the wardrobe. “You’ll be happier with this.”
“She looked like me?”
He took out Riley’s gunbelt, set in on a table. “I didn’t know you when you were sixteen, but yes. Your face, your hair, your eyes. Those are eyes I trust, and that’s what I felt. We’re not going to lose this.”
“All right then.” Riley put her hands on her hips, scanned her wardrobe choices. “This is more like it.”
In sturdy trousers and a leather vest with pockets for extra clips, she went back to the sitting room with Doyle. She picked up a hide canteen, sniffed the contents. “Water.” And strapped it on cross body. “Couldn’t hurt.”
Sasha and Bran joined them. Bran patted a leather satchel. “Salvaged from the boat. A few light bombs.”
“Water.” Riley offered Sasha a skin. “Any idea how long a hike?”
“I don’t know.” She turned when Annika and Sawyer came in. “I guess this is it. I thought—it seemed—as if we came together to find the stars, get them here. But this is it. We’re guardians, and it’s always been leading here.”
“We will guide you to the path.”
The three goddesses stood in the doorway of the terrace, backed by the warm light of the sun.
They walked together, two by two, down to a courty
ard where a fountain spewed rainbows, where flowers soared and spilled and fruit dripped from trees like glossy jewels.
People stood in silent respect. Children raced and waved.
They moved through a gate, past a grove, then a green field where a man and the boy working with him stopped, doffed their caps.
Riley heard the cluck of chickens, the coo of doves, the throaty hum of bees. A woman with a little girl on her hip smiled at Riley, dropped a quick curtsy. The little girl blew kisses. Others stood outside of cottages, tidy as postcards, hats in hands or hands on hearts.
In a small bay, fishermen stopped casting their nets and saluted.
“The people of Glass are with you.” Luna gestured as they crossed a stretch of white sand toward the path. Flowers and baskets of fruit, glinting stones, pearly shells heaped at the verge. “Offerings to the guardians, and wishes for a good journey.”