Zekia frowned and then righted her brow quickly before Ashwood saw. She knew Wesley’s name, just like everyone this side of Uskhanya did. Only, she also knew his favorite color and his worst nightmares. She knew him well enough that sometimes it seemed like he was a character in a story she had created, each line and curve of his mind a reflection of her own imagination.

Wesley Thornton Walcott, she said to him, uttering a name she knew so many people had whimpered right before their death.

“It’s because of you that we were able to achieve so much,” Ashwood said. “Because of you, I can take the realm that is rightfully mine and carve our new world from the blood of those who challenge me.”

Zekia felt Wesley shake his head inside of her mind and the action jolted her enough that her own head threatened to sway.

Malik, he said. My name is Malik Akintola.

Zekia dug her hands into fists to keep from screaming.

Malik.

The digging wasn’t an effective technique, because her hands started to shake so much, and then bleed from her nails, that she had to shove them quickly behind her back.

You need to listen to me, Wesley said. I can only protect you if you let me, remember?

Zekia swallowed.

Malik, she said. MalikMalikMalikMalik.

Her big brother wasn’t gone and a part of her wasn’t even surprised. She had sensed it, maybe, all along, and perhaps that was where the desperate urge to please Wesley and make him a part of her new family had come from.

This was the boy whose destiny she had stolen. Whose future had been thrust upon her before she was even old enough to know his face.

“Little warrior,” Ashwood said. “You still trust me, don’t you?”

MalikMalikMalik.

“I trust you,” Zekia said.

Ashwood smiled, but she wasn’t speaking to him. She was speaking to her brother, whispering in her mind and watching over her even now. She was speaking to the boy who would make the world okay again, just like she had seen in that vision.

Malik would fix it all.

Malik would fix her.

“Good,” Ashwood said. “Because I need you more than ever.”

I have to ask you something, Wesley said. I have to ask you to make a choice.

Zekia hadn’t made a real choice in a long time. She wasn’t sure that she still knew how. Somewhere the realms had gone off-kilter and no matter how often she tried to steady them, or pull all the fragments together to create a new and level line, nothing was quite like before.

Zekia didn’t trust her decisions or her thoughts, or even her magic.