No Man Left Behind (The Worlds Behind Book 5) by W.R. Gingell

Author:W.R. Gingell [Gingell, W.R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-03-23T00:00:00+00:00

RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL

“We have two days left,” said Harrow. “Also there are little bits of reality getting soggy around the house. One of my⁠—”

“I beg your pardon?” said Athelas, rather blankly. He had awoken with the distinct feeling that life in general and this situation in particular was running away from him, but he had not expected the dissolvement of reality to happen quite so quickly.

“It’s not reality,” said Camellia. “It’s possibility.”

“Yes, but it’s reality for now—or it’s trying to be,” Harrow argued.

Athelas meditatively considered him across the breakfast table. Quite satisfactory. The child was learning to argue very quickly. A child that could argue could generally be reasoned with and reason in return—the blank façade that had been Harrow just a month or two prior would have simply acted and reacted in blind fear or obedience.

“I don’t know what that look means,” Harrow said, in a small voice.

“I really cannot be held accountable for how my face appears to you,” complained Athelas, and that was, as he had expected, enough to make the child grin in relief. “Are these pockets of…er, soggy reality or possibility likely to spread?”

“My chima was torn when I woke up this morning,” said YeoWoo. She had been silent from the time she arrived at the table, silent in consideration of something that she would no doubt keep to herself while it festered away inside until she exploded.

Perhaps it would be sensible to prick her a little later and let some of the poison out.

“I do not recall the occasion of its tearing,” Athelas said mildly.

“That’s because it didn’t tear,” she said, rather shortly. “It nearly did—while I was pulling Harrow back out of the flower at the Botanic Park. I managed to get away before it could, but this morning my chima is torn as though I didn’t.”

“How unpleasantly specific!” said Athelas. “And at the same time, how utterly useless to us!”

Marazul stared at him, and then at YeoWoo. “I think I must be tired,” he said. “None of this makes sense to me. How could her skirt be torn, and how is it both specific and useless?”

“He’s saying that someone, somewhere, has definitely made wishes,” Camellia said quietly. “And somewhere along the line, a possible timeline is starting to make changes in our lives.”

“I do not like that,” said Marazul, with great precision. “Not at all. Make it stop.”

YeoWoo said, “Neither do I. But it’s no use saying Make it stop; how do you stop wishes? I saw another me yesterday while I was helping Peregrine escape from the police station, but I’m not telling people to make it stop.”

“Unwish it!” he said, gesturing with both hands. “Unwish it all!”

“I am reliably informed that unwishing is not the solution to every problem,” Athelas said. “My heart, it seems as though something is scratching at the door.”

“Zero has arrived,” said Camellia, flitting past to answer the front door. She seemed, Athelas thought, uncommonly pleased by the fact.

He himself was also uncommonly pleased, the growing instability of their reality notwithstanding.

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