“Give me the compass,” I said, “and we’ll leave you at the next outcropping.”
Vila peered over her shoulder at the approaching stone where the Haunted Man waited.
She glanced at me, her eyes wide, no doubt realizing that without any steel, she couldn’t Coinshot away. She was trapped. In her surprise, she forgot to hold onto anything but the compass.
I had not planned on that.
“No!” I screamed, immediately dropping my parasol and reaching for Vila. I serendipitously caught her by the lace of her frilly coat.
“You saved me?” she asked. “Don’t you want me to fall?”
“Harmony no,” I said.
She clocked me in the face with the compass, which honestly was a bad move on her part. I instinctively let go of her.
As Vila fell, I keeled forward, trying to catch her again, but serendipity is a fickle thing, and my hand missed hers by a hair. Horrified, I watched the mists swallow her. The sudden shifting of my weight, however, threw me from the claw.
Suddenly weightless, I feared this might be the end.
Then I felt air pushed by large wings. A claw snatched me and dropped me on the outcropping next to the Haunted Man.
I slid to a stop just shy of the edge, my custom Miele Jedon boots sending pebbles clacking over the side. Bless those shoes and their fashionable yet grippy soles. (You can get a pair at Ardenne’s on 9th. They’re custom, yes, but drop my name, and the clerks there will be keen to help.)
Heart thumping, my breath coming in gasps, I searched the top of the outcropping. “The compass…we should scour the cliffs!”
Tabaar-KeSun landed and opened their other claw. The compass rolled out, and I snatched it up. Before I could thank them, the Haunted Man took my hand and stared at me with intense, desperate eyes. Given his usual scowl, this new expression was as foreign on him as cheap perfume would be on me.
“My dearest Nicelle,” he said, gifting me a rare smile.
“What is it?” I asked, inspecting myself for wounds. Though I’d lost a few buttons from my blouse, at least I hadn’t lost the whole shirt, which always happened to Jak at this point in his stories. “I’m fine. I promise.”
“You almost fell,” he said, cupping my cheek in one of his large, rough hands.
Heat boiled up from my heart, and I couldn’t help but smile back. How far we had come from our first meeting!
“You silly man. You’ll never get rid of me that easily,” I said. “It’s you and me exploring the cosmere together forever. Just like we promised.”
I let him pull me close, his familiar scent of hellfire and cedar filling me. With the knuckle of his finger, he lifted my chin so that I looked into his stormy eyes.
Was he going to kiss me? Did I want him to? By Harmony,yes.In that moment, I realized I’d wanted this for the last six years, every time he’d appeared and (inevitably) upended my life.
“Nicelle…” he said, his voice low and breathy.
“Yes?” I rolled up onto my toes and leaned into him.
“I am so very sorry.” He lifted the Compass of Spirits, inserted the aluminum key, and turned it. The little rings spun until they flowed with ethereal light, which inverted in on itself with a giant pop I felt in my soul more than heard with my ears.
I fell forward onto my knees, the Haunted Man’s presence no longer there to hold me up, though the afterimage of him activating the device hung in the air for a moment until it puffed away like smoke from a burnt match.
He had done it. He’d finally entered the ghostly dimension.
And he’d done it without me.
He’d bloodybetrayedme. Rustingusedme.
I will spare you the ugly details of my following tantrum, though I did yell some of the delicious curses I’d learned in my time with him. At the end of my fit, my immaculate makeup was smeared, my hat and its raven feathers lay in tatters, and Tabaar and KeSun were suddenly there in their human forms.
“He’s gone!” I shouted. “Along with the only way to finish the job, and now we’re stuck a thousand miles from home in the space between continents!”