Master Larad moved to the dais, standing next to Farr. “As interested as I am in learning about another world—this Earth on which you spent so much of your life, Your Majesty—Eldh is my home, and I cannot imagine not spending the rest of my years there.” He gave a sardonic smile. “Though the problem of getting out of the desert and returning to Malachor may require all of those years to solve.”

Farr grinned. “I imagine we’ll be able to solve that one, Master Larad. Camels aren’t the only way through the desert.”

Like the iris of an eye contracting, the circle above the dais shrank inward another fraction. The nexus was already not much larger than a door. They were almost out of time.

“What do you think, Beltan?” Travis said. “Which world do you want to be on?” Travis tried to sound noncommittal, even though he knew, without doubt, that he wanted to stay on Earth. Eldh was a world of beauty and wonder. But it wasn’t his home. It never had been.

“I want to be on planet Travis,” Beltan said solemnly. “My world is wherever you are.”

“Are you sure?” Travis said, wanting to laugh and cry at the same time. Could he really expect Beltan to spend the rest of his life on another world?

“I’m sure,” Beltan said, taking Travis’s hand.

Doubt vanished, and Travis grinned. “I guess we’ve done pretty well here on Earth. I think we’ll stay, if that’s all right.”

Beltan kissed him. It was.

Reluctantly, Travis pulled away. Now came two farewells he didn’t think he could bear. Only, somehow, he had to. He knelt before Nim. The girl had not said anything since he had awakened. Did she understand what was happening?

She did.

“I want to stay with you, Father!” she said, throwing her small arms around Travis’s neck. “And with Father!”

Travis hugged her tight. “I know, sweetheart. I wish you could stay with us, too. But your place is with your mother.”

“I do not believe that is so.”

Travis looked up, too stunned to speak. Nim turned around, tears staining her cheeks, her eyes wide.

“Mother?”

Vani knelt before her. “My brave daughter.” She brushed a dark curl from Nim’s face. “I love you. You must never forget that.”

“I won’t,” Nim said.

Vani bent, kissed Nim’s brow, and stood.

“I took her from you once,” she said, gazing at Travis, then at Beltan. “I cannot do so a second time.”

“You’re serious,” Travis said, finally managing to speak.

Vani nodded. “ T’goldo not customarily have children. So in Nim, I have known a joy I never believed I would know in my life. Nothing will ever change that. However, I belong in Morindu. It is my heritage, and my fate. I would . . . I would go with Hadrian Farr.”

She gave the former Seeker a glance that was suddenly tentative, almost shy. Farr gave her an astonished look in return. Then the hint of a smile touched his lips.

Beltan stepped forward. “Vani, you’ll never see Nim again.”

“I know.” The T’golmoved to the dais, standing next to Farr and Larad. “But it must be so. Perhaps someday Morindu will be a living city again, but that day is long off. Right now it is still dead. And a dead city, however full of wonders, is no place for a living child.” A tear slid down her cheek. “Love her, Beltan. Give her every joy you possibly can.”

Beltan nodded, laying his big hands on Nim’s small shoulders. She turned and buried her small face against his legs.

Bittersweet joy filled Travis. He would not have to say good-bye to Nim. Only there was another farewell he dreaded, and there was no putting it off.

“Your Majesty,” Larad called out. “You must hurry.”

Travis moved to Grace. He opened his mouth, but how could he put into words what he was feeling? Beltan was his partner, his soul mate, but Grace was his best friend. More than that. She was part of him.

“I’m going to . . . I’m going to miss your voice,” he said, and didn’t even try not to weep.

Grace brushed a tear from his cheek. “Don’t be silly,” she said. “That’s what telephones are for.”

He could only stare at her.

“I’m staying on Earth,” she said.

Beltan let out a great laugh. Even Nim turned around and clapped her hands together.

“But what about . . . ?” He glanced at Hadrian Farr.

“I’m not his case subject to watch anymore. And I think Fate has something else in mind for him. For both of us.” She glanced at Vani, then she looked at Travis again and smiled. “By the way, you still haven’t said if it’s okay if I stay here.”

It was too much. Joy and sorrow and love all melded into a single, shining emotion inside Travis, igniting like a new sun.

“Yeah,” he said gruffly. “It’s okay.”

Grace turned and waved at the figures on the dais. “Give my love to Melia and Falken and everyone. And remember what I said about holding an election, Master Larad. Tell them it was my last order. And tell them I cast my vote for you!”

Larad held up his hand in a gesture of farewell. Vani’s gaze was locked on Nim. Farr opened his mouth to say something.

There was one final flicker, and the three of them disappeared. As if a door had been shut, the image of the throne room in Morindu vanished. The nexus was gone.

“Good-bye,” Travis whispered.

He felt Grace’s hand slip inside his. He gripped it tight.

Beltan picked Nim up, holding her in his arms. “Are you going to be all right?” he said, his expression solemn.

The girl seemed to think about it, then nodded. “I’ll be sad some. A lot at first. But that’s okay, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he said, holding her tight. “It is.”

She rested her head on his shoulder.

Travis took a step forward, toward the place where Deirdre had vanished. He would never look into her smoky jade eyes again, would never hear the soft tones of her mandolin.

“I wish I’d gotten to say good-bye to her,” he said. “I wish I could have told her how much I cared about her.”

“She knew,” Grace said behind him. “I was with her, in that final moment. She knew everything, Travis. She sent it to me over the last strands of the Weirding. I wish . . . I wish I could describe what it was she saw.”

Travis turned around. “Try.”

He could see Grace struggle for words. “She sensed . . . Deirdre sensed how happy they were—the Sleeping Ones and the Imsari. They wantedto come together. They wanted to balance one another out. It was their whole purpose. But the Seven had known they needed the right catalyst for the union to work. The Imsari and the morndarihad both been changed by their history on Eldh. Alcendifar the dwarf changed the Great Stones with his craft, and the thirteen morndariwere changed by their union with Orú. Those imperfections would have kept their union from being complete without a catalyst.”

Travis looked back at Beltan and Nim. “Why Nim? Why was she the catalyst?”

“Vani was descended from Orú,” Grace said. “And there was fairy blood in Beltan. Northern and southern magic were melded together in Nim. I think it was that blending that helped the Seven and the Imsari to come in contact, to unite despite the way they’d been changed.”

“What about Travis then?” Beltan said. “Couldn’t he have been a catalyst?”

Grace rubbed her chin. “Both rune magic and sorcery are in him— werein him. But he wasn’t born with them inside him. Nim was. I think that made her a more perfect catalyst.”

Beltan tossed Nim into the air. She let out a shriek of laughter, and he caught her. “She’s perfect, all right.”

“The Little People must have known,” Travis said, looking at Beltan and Nim.

The sound of distant sirens drifted through the door. The earthquakes brought on by perihelion would have caused some damage. Travis hoped it hadn’t been severe.

Grace touched his arm. “Are you all right?”

He looked down at his hands. Again he felt the hole inside him. But it was all right. He had spent most of his life not being magic. He didn’t think it would be too hard to get used to being normal again. Who knew? He might actually kind of like it.