Geneva flew to her side. “Allegra, is something wrong?” she asked. “You look flushed.”

Allegra groped blindly for Geneva’s hand with both of hers, desperately in need of an anchor to keep her from slipping further a-sea. After a moment, she regained enough composure to speak.

“What happens when Femera and Amali align?” Allegra asked. “When they eclipse one another?”

Geneva stared at her, dumbfounded. Allegra realized that she probably appeared unhinged, her tone frazzled and insistent for no apparent reason. All that she had ever reaped from the stars was cruelty, yet here she was, randomly contemplating the heavens.

“Geneva,” Allegra said, undeterred.

“They become star-crossed,” Geneva replied quickly. “There is intense light and darkness at the same time. I’ve only seen it once. Why?”

Allegra nodded. Star-crossed. That was it exactly. Two celestial bodies destined not to collide but to simply pass at a point in their opposite trajectories, so aligned that they might appear as one.

“That is the only way I can describe what I just felt inside,” Allegra said.

“Did you have a vision?”

“No. I saw nothing. Just a feeling. A very intense feeling.”

Allegra continued to stare straight ahead, as if searching for something she had glimpsed and then lost, as one might peripherally sense a comet or the ground shadow of something in flight. Geneva watched her with concern.

Allegra could feel Geneva staring at her, but she did not want to break the spell. The princess could discern a new focus, a pinpoint of light in the blackness of infinite space, like the sparkle of an approaching star. It was far away, dancing at the edge of her awareness, but, still, Allegra had the surreal sense that something was now searching for her. The emotion that now coalesced within her was not fear.

It was hope.

* * *

Everson dropped to his hands and knees, crying out against a phantom pain. His face glistened with sweat as if he had indeed engaged in some physical confrontation, but a frantic assessment assured him that his head was still attached.

Gone was the princess and the mad king and his bloody blade. Gone was the entire throne room and all its inhabitants. Gone even was the grid that had snared him into being an unwilling witness and participant. Everson was once again in the third chamber with its sepulchral silence, facing the now docile machine and kneeling upon the slightly rumpled apron.

He flipped around and sat heavily on his rump, wiping the sweat from his face and trying to process the dream or vision or time travel that he had just experienced. It had been so real, so palpable, and Everson guessed that it was of paramount importance that he remember every detail. These three strange machines The Which called Dogs had been waiting lifetimes to deliver their directives only to him, and it irritated Everson that their clues did not come complete with further instructions.

Was this last revelation a warning of what would be if he didn’t piece together the puzzle of the Prophecy just so? In which case, the promise of his own demise was not just a possibility but a probability. Not a very good motivational tool to take up the cause, Everson thought wryly.