One week, it’s already been one week, is the girl ever going to leave?!

"Not quite a week," the little Empress corrected gently.

"Stop doing that."

"I can’t help it. You were thinking loud."

She was an original creation, something that had come directly from his hands, and originals could hear his thoughts when he wasn’t careful with them (the Childlike Empress had actually been the second creature to spring from his partnership with Raizel. As Magic had intended, Raizel would paint and then he would create it, breathe life into it, and thus the Empress of their most beautiful fantasy land had been born. Puck, the first, had a much more simple purpose; created as a kind of manservant to Asteroth and Raizel). Asteroth looked at her, and stopped pacing her throne room. "When is she going to leave?"

"When she’s ready."

"She’ll never be ready! She’s got no intention of continuing her quest. She’s waiting to go home! And that girl just isn’t coming back to the Goblin King!"

"She might," the Empress said with a smile.

"What if she sees me?" he sighed, falling into a chair. "She looks more like me than any of them did. Did you hear the way she talks? Doesn’t even sound like Raizel, she sounds like me."

"I heard her," she replied calmly. "Yes, she does speak quite the way you do. I didn’t know you even remembered the way Raizel spoke."

The look he gave her was deadly, but he went on. "And if she sees me?"

"Tell her who you are?"

"Not an option. Not even an option."

"May I ask you something difficult?" she said softly, her big eyes beseeching.

He leaned forward. "Since the day I formed you from Raizel’s painting, you’ve been asking me difficult questions. Go."

"What did you think when the first was born? Did you think of her as your child?"

"Jordanae. The first was Jordanae." The name came out as if pulled, his first thought to correct her, to spell out that yes, the first rose-born had a name. "Yes, she was my daughter," he said, not looking at the Empress.

"Then if she is the descendent of Jordanae, why is this not your child as well?"

"It’s not the same. You wouldn’t understand."

"When did you stop thinking of them as yours?"

"You were only permitted one difficult question."

The Empress smiled. "I only wish to know."

"When Necrodemos…that thing Nerissa made…took Morgan. I saved her daughter and then imprisoned him. I left them on their own after that. Morgan’s daughter didn’t even know who I was."

"Could that have stung your pride so badly?"

He shook his head, dismissing the notion of pride altogether. "Morgan, poor mad Morgan. She wasn’t the first, but I was afraid she wouldn’t be the last. They all looked so much like Raizel, they all lived their strange, long, lives and then they had to die. I didn’t want to see any more. The little girl didn’t know who I was, and I saw no reason to tell her. I vanished from their lives. I did the right thing. I’m no good for them and they’re no good to me. And now that I’ve told you this, Empress…please…make her leave."

"I’m sure you’re very sorry you endowed me with so much stubbornness now. But no, I will not."

"What do I have to do to get you to send her away?" he railed.

"Talk to her."

"This. This is what my existence has come to. My creations turn on me. Next Puck will be forcing issues with me. I won’t have it."

She only looked at him. "You know what you really want to do."

"Go back in time and stop myself from creating you?"

She laughed sweetly. "You want to help her."

"I don’t help anymore. Asteroth is retired."

A voice broke in. "Empress." It was Eris, standing still in the doorway. She’d known there was something strange about that man, but she had been unable to lay her mind on what, and she didn’t like being so close to him. "The Herald is awake."

"It’s time, Asteroth," the little girl whispered.

"No."

She sighed and stood, going to greet the Herald.

He didn’t care about her. Right. The great Asteroth had been reduced to lying to himself. Things had come to a pretty pass indeed.

He stood, gazing into the room at the sleeping Herald. He fought the urge to go shake her awake and give her a good swift kick out the door.

How selfish. Self-absorbed. Whining, petulant, cowardly, clumsy, bumbling, irritating…

And she looked the most like him.

And whether it suited her or not, she was also one of the most powerful Heralds he’d ever seen. Jordanae was a wonder and this one might have been able to put her to shame. She’d already destroyed the Southern Oracle with a deep subconscious expectation and it had to be wished restored. It was entirely possible that this girl could make something happen if she just wished it properly.

What a frightening prospect.

She still had no idea he was in the Tower, but he’d been paying strict attention to her behavior. He watched her almost every second of the day, interested and fighting it at each turn.

What irked him the most was possibly that the Empress had been right (he so hated it when she gave good advice he didn’t want to hear…it was almost worse than being subjected to Puck’s rhyming). He needed to talk to her. She needed to know what she was, what Necrodemos was, and needed to know, perhaps most of all, that she was the daughter of Asteroth. Not an original creation, not the offshoot of some race he’d invented. His daughter.

He wondered if it would change her.

He certainly hoped so. He wished fervently he had the kind of twenty-twenty foresight the rose-born enjoyed.

"Aeris, daughter of Callisti," he thundered, enjoying the chance to make a really impressive entrance. Being a recluse in the Ivory Tower for the past few centuries had its drawbacks; impressive entrances were sort of, well, out. "Awaken!"

Aeris mumbled something and rolled over, on her bad shoulder, apparently, because she proceeded to roll the rest of the way to lay on her stomach.

"Oh, for pity’s sake." He sighed. Of course, this one would ruin his first impressive entrance in centuries. He produced his staff in one hand, checked his robes once more to make sure he looked alright, and then raised his arms. He cracked the staff down on the floor, the sound echoing like a wicked thunderclap.

Aeris almost jumped up, tangling clumsily in the sheets, and then finally sat up on the bed, blinking at him in the bright white light of the room, looking completely mystified.

"Aeris, daughter of Callisti," he intoned. "I am Asteroth."

She looked at him, rubbed her eyes and blinked again. "You’re the man I saw," she said wonderingly. "I thought that was a dream or something…You look like me."

He couldn’t think of what to say next, he only stood, looking back at her.

"Asteroth," she said finally. "You can’t be Asteroth. He’s…well, he’s not you."

She had gone too far. He was completely insulted and hadn’t even been in the room with the girl for five minutes. "What do you mean I can’t be Asteroth!?"

"Prove it."

"Do you realize that I have gone totally out of my way to speak to you? That I have disrupted centuries of careful seclusion to give you a pep talk, you ridiculous creature?" he cried, the staff meeting with the floor again.

She was nonplussed. "I’m not in the mood for nonsense. Really. I’ve had a very difficult past few weeks. So prove it or get thee hence."

"You’ve had a…well, I’m dashed," he muttered. "This isn’t going at all how I’d planned."

"Why do you look like me?" she queried.

"Because you’re my daughter," he snapped, dropping the bombshell as if it were common knowledge. He had expected it to give her pause.

She retorted with gales of laughter, clutching her injured side. "Oh, boy, you really are mixed up," she told him.

Well, that was it. He was going to have to show her.

He crossed the room to her swiftly, surprising her, and she opened her mouth to protest, began to back away from him. Too late, he thought darkly, and grabbed her hand. It was like Raizel’s, a tiny, smooth, artist’s hand. She started to scream.

He began at the beginning.

Her scream died in her throat. Her blue eyes were wide. She was with him. Seeing his story.

He began with his life as a human being on the snow swept plain, and his first dream. Magic. He went from there, to Nerissa, to the crown. She let out a cry when she saw it on his brow, and her free hand tightened into a fist, her body remembering that long-ago time she touched it on Calypso’s brow, and it burned her. Yes, he thought, it burned me too, Aeris. We share that, don’t we?

Raizel, his Raizel and their perfect partnership, their perfect, doomed love.

Nerissa’s rage, how he’d turned his love to a rose, how Magic cursed them all. The wall of thorns, the growing rose. The first Herald.

Aeris let out a breath when she saw that. She looked as if she wanted to scream, really, but she didn’t. Just that long breath, that understanding dawning on her. She would have looked at him, except that she could not.

Nerissa’s creation. The man-shaped thing with black eyes and a smile that hid a grin. Necrodeoms.

The first time he conquered it, foiling Nerissa and saving Jordanae, twenty years old and looking less than ten. How it kept coming back somehow, drawn to the rose-born women, this perfect parasite.

He released her hand.

She was gasping. She turned her eyes to his, her chest heaving with her breaths. She scrambled back away from him on the bed.

"Shall we continue, Rose-born?"

She slowly calmed. Very slowly. The shock didn’t entirely drain from her eyes, no, but she was breathing more deeply after a bit, and her stiff posture had relaxed.

"Asteroth," she whispered.

He put his hand out, and a chair slid slowly across the floor. He sat down in it. "The same," he said, nodding.

"The first Wizard. The Wish Prince," she went on.

"We were discussing you, Aeris."

"My father."

"Well…" He thought about it. "Not directly, I don’t think. I don’t pretend to know how it all works. Perhaps your grandfather. With about a few dozen ‘greats’ in front of it."

She surprised herself by laughing a little, breathless, her blue eyes searching over his countenance for resemblance and finding it.

He didn’t smile. A frown very like her own crossed his face. "You even laugh like me. It’s sick."

"You mean to tell me you are the father of my race and you barely know any more about the entire situation than I do?"

He shrugged. "That’s basically it. I have solved a great mystery for you, though, haven’t I? Now you know where you came from at least."

"That’s not enough!"

"You know who you are and what your foe is, too." He spoke almost defensively.

She sighed. "The Sea Witch…Nerissa all the time…" She shuddered.

"Nerissa has no power to harm you. You were safe from her. At least, directly. She expended every creative effort she had to make Necrodemos. The thing about the tears…a deal is a deal, I can’t help you there."

"You know about that?"

"Of course I know about that."

"Have you been watching me?"

"No," he said honestly, and shrugged. "Don’t flatter yourself. I’m much too busy to spy you."

"Oh."

"Although I have been watching you for a while here and I must say, you are hardly a credit to me."

She was offended, but she didn’t argue.

He laughed at her. "Oh, didn’t need to hear that right now, did you? Well, too bad. If you’re tired of feeling so guilty, I’ll heal you and you can go find Necrodemos and save your friend and destroy him once and for all."

"That doesn’t seem the very likely outcome," she whispered.

"Well, of course not. But it’s worth a shot. At least you won’t have to keep feeling guilty."

"What about Sarah?"

"Oh, haven’t you heard? She came home."

Sarah had come home.

It seemed impossibly brave. It awed her. Sarah had had the strength to leave and return.

She looked up at Asteroth. "Heal me. I want to go on."

He smiled faintly, just lifted the corners of his mouth. "Are you certain?"

"If Sarah could come home, I can go on. I will go on." She looked down at the hand he had touched. She felt changed, in some growing, wonderful way. "I need to do this, I need to finish this. It’s important, isn’t it? It’s more than just me. Everything is more than just me."

"Aeris," he whispered, suddenly laying his hand on her shoulder and side, taking all the pain in one sudden shock of it that stole her breath, "there is hope for you yet. Go and save your friend."

She sat back, panting but not hurting anymore.

Asteroth stood, brushed off his robes. "I’m so glad we had this little chat, Aeris. And don’t come snooping around for me again. You won’t find me."

"Wait!" Aeris called.

"Yes?"

"May I ask one more favor? There is something I have to do…"