Even after the vines withdrew from his legs, Jim didn't budge.
Douxie sat on his knees, the glittering piece of Nari's heart in his hands.
Claire still stood in the corner, and she looked ready to cry.
Jim let Excalibur's tip clink to the floor.
"What am I supposed to do?" Douxie whispered to the heart fragment.
Excalibur thrummed in Jim's grip, and Nari's voice spilled from the stone in its hilt. "Time unfolds differently. Like a flower."
Douxie's attention shot to Jim. "What'd you say?"
"Not me. The sword." Jim indicated Excalibur.
If Douxie had gotten up any faster, he'd have vaulted through the ceiling. Nari's heart still in hand, he marched over to Jim. "How long has it been speaking to you?"
"H-how did you know it—"
"You weren't surprised. Now, how long has this been going on?" He enunciated each word, adding a bit more force with each syllable until Jim was sure he would melt under the wizard's scrutiny. In that moment, Douxie looked very much like Merlin.
"Since last night, but before that Blinky had it for a week, and it was acting weird then too according to his brother Dictatious."
"So, it began after the battle." Douxie closed one hand around Nari's heart piece and rushed to a shelf filled with thick volumes. He pulled Merlin's Grimoire and laid it open on the table, the repellant charm forgotten. With his free hand, he paged through two-thirds of the book before he stopped.
Intricate drawings of Excalibur from multiple angles filled two pages, including notes in Ancient Draconic about the blade, the hilt, and the stones set in it.
"I can't read all of this yet, but Blinky's helped me get through most of it. Merlin told me about Excalibur's twin emeralds. It was centuries ago." Douxie ran a finger down both pages. "Here." He pointed to a detailed drawing of one of the stones set in the sword's hilt.
Jim and Claire crowded close.
"But those jewels were amber when we first saw them, and later turned red, then green. Emeralds don't do that," said Claire.
"These do," Douxie said. "The Lady of the Lake—Nimue—wasn't always the monstrous creature Claire met when we journeyed to the past. She was once a woman of great beauty." He flipped to another section of the book.
The image made Jim think twice about breathing.
"She looks like an angel…" said Claire.
"A fallen one, perhaps," Douxie snorted. "Merlin and she were… involved for a short time, and she forged Excalibur for Arthur."
"What does this have to do with the emeralds?" Jim said.
"Nimue was going to make the sword hilt one solid piece, but someone convinced her to set emeralds in it." Douxie's finger trailed down to a symbol that resembled an open lily.
"Nari!" Claire said. "But why emeralds? Why any jewels at all?"
Douxie opened the hand holding Nari's piece of heart. He touched it gently. "She told me the story while we were on the run in New York. 'Two emeralds for Excalibur. One,' she said, 'represents love. And the other…'" He held in the last word, as if letting it escape were some great sin. "'The other is hope.' There is but one great emerald known to wizards. Anonwyn. You are acquainted with it. Merlin himself cleaved the jewel, and the bulk of it became the Heart of Avalon—what once powered Camelot before Krel had to rebuild it after the crash. But there are other pieces. Two of them, Nimue set in Excalibur, another Merlin used to make his staff, and yet one more became Kronisphere."
"You mean the Chronosphere?" said Claire.
"That is the more common term for it, yes, but Kronisphere is its name. The stone manifested great magical ability to foresee the future, so it was bound within a golden case to magnify those abilities. Unfortunately, the casing also allowed the stone to develop a mind of its own."
"It's alive?" Jim wiped a sweaty hand on his jeans.
"Not in the sense you're thinking." Douxie opened to another page in Merlin's Grimoire. "Over the centuries since its harnessing, Kronisphere has moved from owner to owner, showing each only their immediate future. This allowed some to cheat death for a time, but all eventually fell prey to Kronisphere's bent toward mischief. At a key juncture, it would leap from its possessor's hand, thereby keeping them from seeing their imminent doom."
"Back in Hong Kong, Zong Shi was looking into the Chronosphere when he died," said Claire. "He knew it was coming."
"But he wasn't fast enough to avoid it," Douxie said. "Kronisphere has been a force for chaos since its harnessing. Only one pure of heart can wield it without fear."
"Wait!" Jim laid Excalibur across the table, remaining stone face up. "Claire, what exactly did Nari say when Excalibur spoke that first time?"
"The same thing she said before I portaled her Titan to Arcadia. 'Chronosphere will make right.'"
"What if that's not what she said?"
"But we heard—"
"We thought we heard. What if it was, 'Kronisphere will make right'?"
"She used its name," Douxie said, voice low. "Names hold great power. Nari knew that. She wouldn't have used one without a reason. But I don't know of any connection between Kronisphere and Nari."
Claire's eyes jabbed through Jim.
"There's something we need to tell you, Doux," Jim said. "And you… might want to sit down."