So! In what I can only describe as a shock to me, I have actually finished this story a chapter earlier than expected. I was aiming for twenty five: I hit twenty four. It may be time for some kind of celebratory dance.

But before I get my groove on and send innocent bystanders to therapy, I would just like to say a huge thank you to everyone who commented last time round - thank you Kichiko, yukatalamia, Takishia, , Lethe, CalliopeMused, Lunair, Shelli, Queen of Slayers, Shang Leopard and last, but not least, the wonderful Anterrabae.

Thank you for reading; especially thank you to those who stuck with this story despite the massive months-long gap in the middle of it. Your patience, prodding and ass-kicking was very much appreciated! I have really loved hearing your thoughts, your comments, your criticisms and your kindness and patience in actually reading the beast. Thank you, whether you've been vocal or silent – it's still amazing to me that anyone reads what I write! You have massively improved this story.

Last part: lyrics belong to Dido's Here With Me.

Thank you!
Ki

Ripples Part Twenty Four

I didn't hear you leave
I wonder how I am still here?
And I don't want to move a thing
It might change my memory

The dress was beautiful. Midnight blue and patterned with lilies that burst on it like stars, it stopped at her calves and contrasted sharply against the long red fall of her hair. Lace framed her cleavage and the small silver pendant that hung there. In it, Phi looked strange and untouchable.

It was the last gift from her mother. Marie Thetis had even managed to determine what Phi wore for her funeral. The thought made her smile, and then made a lump rise in her throat until her smile fractured like glass.

"Baby…?" Her father sounded tired and hoarse, as he had for the past fortnight. "Are you ready?"

She composed herself. They had spent most of the night watching the pyre burning down, unable to drag themselves from her until there were only ashes and the last of the smoke wreathed against the dawn. Now it was time to bid her goodbye.

"Yes."

He opened the door cautiously, and she glanced over. In his suit, a deep indigo also chosen by her mother, he looked almost austere, bar his rumpled hair and red-rimmed eyes.

"You should brush your hair," she said.

"Does it really matter?"

"Mum would...she'd want you to. She'd tell you not to ruin her big day."

That drew a ragged laugh from him. "All right. Wait outside. I'll be down in a minute."

She left the house gladly. There was a hollowness about it now. Visitors had come every night in the two weeks since her mother died, and her father greeted them with shadows of his smile and kind words, but he was not the same. Phi thought he might never be again, and often, she was tempted to look – and held back.

The beginning of the summer seemed an age away, a looking-glass world of illusions. How naïve she had been then, a child, fierce and selfish and unknowing.

She lived between past and future, her present pressed between the two until it seemed slight as a butterfly. She was caught in a welter of grief, knowing that all things must end and that too many already had.

Phi began to understand how her mother must have felt, the same dreadful need to try and squeeze all the happiness from the future that she could. It must have been so easy to keep looking, to whisper the great lie to the mirror every night: it's for the best.

And so when those thoughts nestled in her skull, she went out to the lake, and thought of the boy with fire in his eyes.

Some nights that was too painful, and so she would wander until her feet took her back to one of them.

Finn always came thundering down the stairs, hauling her into a hug and a gabble of news. All his gossip drove away the ghosts, bringing her back to the real world.

In Celia's house she let Jodie Slone mother her, because she missed it.

Celia would never again be so fearless – that memory was always there, crooking her little finger. And when make-up and magazines ran out, when words drifted into silence, Phi realised that Celia needed her. There was no one else who could understand what it meant to be human among the Nightworld, to know your own helplessness and yet hand yourself to them time and again.

Riose never cared what time she came to call, but he was invariably rumpled from sleep. It had taken nearly a week to heal his wounds, even with Chatoya Irkil's help.

He understood her dilemma, the same hard choice he made every day. Neither of them spoke about it. It was okay to sit in silence with Riose until she felt calm enough to leave. He reminded her why she held back, what she might awaken if she meddled in the future.

Jo refused to let her mope indoors – they went out into the woods or to gigs or to the shops, the wildcat hopping along gamely on her crutches. In a dizzying swirl of entertainment and crowds, Phi could never forget that she was just one of a multitude, and her problems shrank into insignificance.

So if she could not shake her loneliness, at least she was not alone. They made sure of that, and she loved them for it.

She was unsurprised to find all of them waiting outside the house with their families, dressed in the blue of mourning. They would be the first outsiders to come to a pod funeral since Aurora's death.

The world was changing for the pod – the future was ahead of them, and for the first time in years, they had no idea what it held.

She could have told them. But she held back, and every day, she chose. Every day, she refused to give up the gift that Zeke had sacrificed his life for.

Her freedom was all she had of him. Freedom, and the frail memory of the boy with fire in his eyes.

X - X - X - X - X

In his bedroom, Don Ivan lay in an endless maze of pain, addicted to a drug that no longer existed. He was hunted endlessly by monsters; he was drowning, burning, stabbed, choked, tortured. In his mind, he screamed and screamed, but no sound came from his mutilated throat.

He could not recall Ryar leaning over him, declaring that she had no way to heal him. He would survive or he would die, and that was all. The drug would devour his flesh before it burned itself out, and perhaps he would be left with enough of his organs to live.

All his beauty was shrivelling, melted into pus that burst from the sores on his body, dropping out with clumps of golden hair. He cooked in his sheets, stewed in his addiction and his pain. Only his mother could bear to touch him, and her visits had become fewer as her possessions slowly emptied from the house, as the divorce papers dropped through the letterbox while her bruises faded one by one.

Alone in the dark, he was forgotten, erased, a dirty secret.

And downstairs, Laurence Ivan drank and drank, and his slurred words echoed in the empty house.

"All her gifts are poisoned."

X - X - X - X - X

The lake was crowded in the sunset. The pod and the wolves stood uneasily apart, a barrier crossed only by Jess's generation, who talked loudly about the thick-headedness of youth, who hugged old friends and insulted old rivals. The pyre had burnt down to ashes, the scent of smoke gone from the air.

They fell silent at the sight of Phi and her friends, but people moved aside to make space for them. If a few murmurs arose, no one seemed to want to meet the challenge snapping in Jodie Slone's eyes, or question the little flames that Finn made dance casually along his knuckles until his father nudged him.

Then she heard a clamour, and Phi turned to see the pod in disarray.

Ryar had come.

She couldn't feel Ryar's power any more, but Phi remembered how immense it had been, how unmistakably the parent of her own. No matter how ordinary she appeared, Ryar couldn't hide what she was from the pod.

Some knelt; some took off their hats, and one woman covered her eyes as if she shouldn't look upon their creator. Awe was on every face.

She was curiously modern in a suit, her long hair held back in a loose knot. Her eyes were mild, sad, and she paused to pull people to their feet as she passed.

Then she reached Phi and her father – and she curtsied. Gasps arose.

"I came to pay my respects," she said. "She was an extraordinary woman."

"She was," her father said, too low to be heard by the crowd. "I am lost without her."

"Dad," Phi whispered. She couldn't bear the desperation in his voice.

"If I thought they could do without me, I would leave now," Daniel Thetis continued. His grey eyes were fierce. "And if you lead them, I could."

"No."

"They're your people."

Ryar gestured to the crowd. "They aren't my people. They came for you."

"They came for her," he corrected, husky.

"Today, perhaps. But tomorrow she will be gone, and the goodbyes will be over. And they will still come to you, because they love you, because they want to comfort you, because you are their hope. She was their prophet – their goddess. They respected her, they worshipped her, and they probably feared her if they had any sense. But Marie was as far beyond them as the stars. You are a part of them. You are their leader. Not me."

He was silent, looking at her as if he saw more than a legend. Perhaps he did, just as he had seen her mother all those years ago when she was a lonely, caged idol and he a boy who dreamed.

"I can see why men fought for you," he said at last.

"I can see why she died for you," replied Ryar, very gentle. "But it wasn't your fault."

Surprise and guilt flashed on his face – and Phi realised that he had blamed himself, that her father somehow thought this whole inevitable end was his responsibility. "I..."

"It was her choice," Ryar said. "Respect it. Respect her, and say your goodbyes. I think she'd be – rather irate if you did anything else."

He gave a long sigh, and said, "I don't want to say goodbye."

"You must," the Drax said, and Phi knew fresh pain at the truth of it. It felt so final, as if she was severing whatever remained between her and her mother – as if it made her mother unreal, forgotten, nothing but dust and memory.

"I know," her father said finally, and he held out his hand to Phi. She took it, clutching him as if she were a child again, and he led her to the end of the pier where the ashes were gathered in a little pot.

They stood together, seer and dreamer. The breeze plucked at her hair, drying her tears. She knew what had to come. Then her father turned and beckoned Ryar.

She joined them, face kind and puzzled.

"You were our beginning," Daniel Thetis said. "It seems...only fitting that you should send her back to the water with us."

She nodded, grave, and picked up the pot as carefully as if it held her heart.

"Your journey was long, and has seen its end," her father began, and Phi joined him, faltering, as Ryar scattered the ashes onto the lake. "May the ocean take you to its deepest heart: fly in its storms, sleep in its tides. And may the waters bring you back to us on the crest of every wave, until we are one."

The ashes gleamed like silver before the water swallowed them. The scene blurred; she was so tired of crying, but every time she thought she was done, Phi found she missed her mother all over again.

"I wish we had something better to give her," her father mumbled.

Ryar looked at him with such pity in her eyes. Then she said gently, "There was a people once who used to sing back the sun every morning."

It seemed to Phi that she heard Zeke again, speaking of slavery and calling back the sun. The longing that struck her was so fierce it hurt.

"They sang their dead into the underworld too, so that they could take a last piece of life with them, even if it was only the memory of sunlight and fragile love."

"Yes," her father said. "I think she would like that. There was a song that was ours…"

His eyes were young then, pushing back the years. Phi saw in them the man who'd danced with her mother in the living room – who'd had that same soft, enchanted look, as if Marie Thetis was the center and the soul of his world.

"It's still yours," Phi whispered, squeezing his hand.

He gave her a sad smile, and they both turned to the waters where Marie Thetis was indistinguishable from the sunlight on the waves. So softly she had to strain to hear him, he sang that old, sweet requiem to the wife he had waited years to lose, and never ceased to love.

Somewhere, beyond the sea...

She was a child again, watching her parents dancing in the living room: her mother was gold in the firelight and forever bright and beautiful and laughing...

Somewhere waiting for me, my lover-

His voice cracked and the melody dwindled, dying with the sunlight…

But another voice had caught the song; her own, the words rising up with a potency and a truth that Phi hadn't truly understood until now. It stung her throat like tears, that song; it broke her heart all over again, but she sang for her mother and hoped she was proud.

-my lover stands on golden sands and watches the ships that go sailing…

And she wasn't alone – Ryar overlaid her, pure and thrilling and full of sorrow. Others folded into one another like the waters until the pod was one unearthly choir, their fragile, forbidden love chasing after her mother on the last of the sunlight.

I know beyond a doubt, my heart will lead me there soon – we'll meet, beyond the shore; we'll kiss, just as before...

Then it was not only her mother she serenaded, but a boy who had burned for her, who had loved her beyond all hope of his survival. It was he who stood on alien shores, waiting for her as he had waited every night beside the lake – surely turning to her once more full of delight.

Happy we will be beyond the sea and ever again…

She sang of love, she sang of loss, she sang out her heart and hoped that somehow it would be carried on the last of the sunlight to the places where impossible dreams came true: behind the stars, between the rain, at the centre of the earth, wherever it was that wonder began.

I love you, she thought. That will never change. I love you beyond doubt or despair, beyond death.

Oh, gods, but how I miss you.

X - X - X - X - X

Afterwards she did her duty. There were conversations that she barely remembered. Jess pulled her into a hug and they cried together for a while. The pod shared endless memories of her mother; laughter and tears filled the air.

Mrs Ivan came and offered tentative condolences, as if she expected to be slapped away. She spoke with Phi's father for a long time; no one disturbed them.

Finally, it was late enough for most people to leave. The crowd dwindled and Phi slipped away from her friends. She knew they were trying to look after her, but she needed space. She felt hemmed in and on display, as if even her grief wasn't her own but part of some public outpouring.

She sat on the edge of the pier and dabbled her feet in the water. In the fading light, it was the same dark grey as her mother's eyes and oddly comforting.

Until he sat down beside her, she didn't even know Blue Malefici was there. Cross-legged, he watched the water with a cynical gaze as if it concealed secrets he was hungry to use.

"What do you want?" she said flatly.

"Nothing, yet." His voice was bored, his body relaxed.

"Then why are you here?"

"To remind you of the future," he said. "Perhaps you've forgotten in all this emotional clamour, but an hour and a day of it belongs to me."

Her throat was dry. "I haven't forgotten."

"Good. Your mother left me a prophecy." He drew out a piece of paper, and with a pang, Phi recognised her mother's writing. And then she frowned.

There was nothing on it but his name, a date, a time and a single line of description.

"Or rather," he continued, "she left me the promise of a prophecy. From you, little mermaid."

It seemed she couldn't get enough air in her lungs; she was dazed, bewildered, wanting to weep and to laugh because even now her mother was looking after her.

"All I promised you was an hour and a day."

In the gloom, his smile was a curl of shadow and light. "And I am prepared to bargain."

There were a thousand questions crowding her mind. She took the paper; rubbed it between her fingers to make sure it was real. "I want an hour and a day."

"An hour or a day." The words were whiplash-fast, suddenly cold. "Take care greed doesn't make you unwise."

Above his smile, as cold and dead as the moon, his eyes were unflinching. She remembered his hand arond her throat, the pleasure slick on his words when he spoke of violence.

"Why shouldn't I be greedy?" she demanded, ignoring how her hands shook on the paper.

"Why shouldn't I take my day and my hour now and toss that scrap into the lake?"

She swallowed. "A day for a day," she said finally.

"Done."

The pier creaked as he stood; he was only a slender silhouette, a dark space in the world, and then he was gone.

She was left with the paper and the words that had intrigued him enough to offer her some small escape.

His name. A time. A date. And a line of description.

The dark core of Hades, where power beyond all once was and can be again.

She crumpled it into her bag, suddenly desperate to be rid of the future. In the summer night, the darkness seemed too close, too personal, merely another place where he waited for her, the last hour of her life mere dust in his fingers.

X - X - X - X - X

Her friends came and sat with her for a while, but she couldn't dredge up anything more than automatic answers. She felt wrung out and emptied, as if she was only a shell whispering dreams of the ocean.

They left her with words or hugs, or awkward jokes in Finn's case. When the water grew too cold, she left the pier but found herself unable to join the others around the fire that someone had started. The sight of Riose so close to Celia, smiling his little half-smile and pretending nothing had changed, made her ache for him. He didn't know what was to come. He didn't see the hairline fractures already a web across his heart, didn't know that he would break for love of Celia.

Call it fate. Call it chemistry. But whether science or superstition, it was an inevitability she was powerless to stop. She couldn't bear to look at them, to break their fleeting peace.

She went instead to the green slope that led onto the rushes, and stared at the flattened patch of grass. Zeke might just have left it, might be about to return. Phi sat there, watching the sky, and part of her wished that the stars would fall like tears, like jewels, so she could know that the world had been forever changed by his absence as she had.

The crunch of undergrowth alerted her: she looked up to see Ryar.

"The tide will turn soon," the Drax remarked, in a tone that implied it was somehow significant. Maybe it was to her.

"I thought it had turned," Phi said tiredly.

She didn't know what Ryar had to smile about; a soft, faint smile. "The new moon is here tonight."

"That's nice," she mumbled.

She didn't see the Drax frown.

"You miss Zeke, don't you?"

The question hurt; it made anger flare up in her chest. She wanted Ryar to leave her alone, to let her heal. "Of course I do. Do you miss Avy?"

Ryar didn't flinch. If there was reproach in her face, it didn't show in her voice. "Not really."

"Hard to love the sister who stole your husband, right?" Phi said pointedly.

"Avy? I don't think so." She sounded...amused, and interested despite herself, Phi turned to look at her.

"But you said she was his great love-"

"I said he had only one great love." She gave a slight shrug. "Believe me, no woman could compare with Fireblade's love for himself."

"Then why..."

"I trusted you," Ryar said simply.

A broken laugh slipped from her. "You shouldn't have. I nearly killed us all. If Zeke..." Her throat closed, and she could go no further.

"Did he tell you what he was called?" Ryar asked conversationally. She was so serene, so untroubled.

"Angel," she said numbly. "Djinn. Devil."

Ryar nodded. "He was called all of those things, but they were just guesses. He had another, truer name once."

She stared into her earnest face, forever young, forever beautiful in a way that Avy could never have seen. "Does it matter?" she said quietly. "He's gone. And he was never any of those things to me."

Those violet eyes were puzzled. "What was he to you?"

She turned away, folding her arms as if to hold the warmth of the day close to her heart. She couldn't bear the compassion in Ryar's face, in any of their faces. "I loved him," she said angrily. "Isn't that obvious?"

"Yes," Ryar said. "You loved him. Do you still?"

"Of course I do!"

Ryar scrutinsed her as if trying to fathom something – then her eyes widened, she took a breath and said, "You don't know, do you?"

"Know what?" Phi cried out. "I know that I loved him. I know that he died for me, and you just stand there as if nothing happened, as if it doesn't even matter! And...and everything is different – I want the sun to explode, I want the stars to fall so that I know that it isn't just me, that everyone knows he's gone and that the world is emptier because of it."

There was something close to horror in Ryar's face, in her wide eyes and her parted lips. Then she gathered herself and said, very softly, "I didn't know that you..."

"Now you do."

"And if I told you that a star might fall? That the sun might explode?"

Phi stared at her. "What do you mean?"

She gestured over the lake, to the patient stars and the hollow sky.

And there was a flare of light, a pinpoint that grew until it was something wild and fiery was tumbling through the air. A shooting star. A moment, a breath, a blink, it was gone.

"Make a wish," Ryar said wryly.

Phi struggled with her anger, savage, wounded, because it seemed as if the Drax was making fun of her. "Do you think that makes it any better?" she demanded. "Because one stupid star fell?"

"You really don't know, do you?" Ryar breathed.

Phi gazed at her, wondering if she had gone mad. "Stop saying that! Know what?"

"I told you he had a truer name," Ryar said slowly. "But I thought you knew what it was."

"I don't! What does it matter what he was called?"

"It matters," Ryar said, and suddenly she was hauling Phi to her feet, she was pointing at the horizon where something seemed to be glowing – as if the sun had risen again, as if something had called it back. "He had a thousand names, Phi, but only one that knew what he was and what he will be and what you love."

What he will be…

And her heart was thundering in her chest – she was wild and trembling and turning to Ryar with her hair loose and red as fire, wracked by terrible hope and equally terrifying love.

"What?" she gasped.

Ryar leaned in close, and Phi heard the joy in her fierce whisper.

"Phoenix."

And Phi was gone – she was running past her father and her friends, her dress streaming in the wind, chasing a fallen star. Her discarded heels lay on the ground; calls followed her into the woods and out to the cave where he had blazed so brightly.

She forgot the past. She forgot the future. There was only now, and here, and a wish on a fallen star.

And him, the beginning of wonder.

And I won't leave
I can't hide
I cannot be
Until you're resting here with me

~*~ Fin ~*~