by Kalyn Crowe
Kepi cooed and narrowed her eyes.
Rhys reached for his sword but stopped. "How did he find us?"
Thirteen looked at Leyla's scroll. "Beyond the Tempest traces lay."
The guilt when I thought of bringing her here, I tried to warn myself.
Leyla even thought of it, but I couldn't silence her. Abyss, I couldn't even inconvenience her because I adored her so. I didn't let go like I had Sybil. "And now I've led him here."
Leyla shook her head but didn't speak.
"No, I told you to use the scroll." I pushed the nearly white hair from my face. It was brown before.
I tried not to notice the panic and guilt on Leyla's face.
"Mother, or Sister, if I may." Thirteen stayed low but moved forward.
"Of course."
"An open door may catch a fly." She gave me a fanged smile.
"A place he can't get back out of, the Counterbalance, ambush him." I held my elbow and touched my lips as Thirteen had.
She lifted and took on the same pose.
"Can you do that? Let him and us in?" I asked.
"Yes," she said. "I will be the bait and the one who holds open the door."
Kepi hit my face with her tail.
The birds circled above.
I said, "We have to hurry. Thirteen, open the way, but when he comes, be safe. Kepi can get us out, but I have already asked too much of you."
She gave me the warmest smile. "That you acknowledge such is a kindness. I will be careful, and as always, helpful." She sunk into the water, and a whirlpool opened.
Leyla looked over and nodded.
Rhys and Tilly did the same.
Kepi jumped down and walked to the edge.
"We jump?" I said.
She cocked her head and stepped off the ledge. Her feet splayed on the open air as if she still walked on the stone. The invisible bridge took her to the middle of the lake.
The water roiled into a torrent. Birds perched in the tree behind us and watched.
I looked at them and walked backward off the stone, onto the air, and stopped by Kepi.
She cooed in a light, delighted pitch.
Tilly glared at the birds and then followed.
Leyla kept her eyes up and her scroll in her jacket. She took deliberate, defiant steps.
Rhys came careening into her. "Let's go. I don't know how long the impossible will hold us."
A cushion of air formed an orb around us. It lowered into the water. At first, our descent came slow, but it sped as we traveled. Although the lake's depth swallowed us, we descended farther in our great bubble into utter darkness.
Each breath came loud as a gale in the silence.
In a moment more, a white light sparkled underneath. "Look down," I said.
"I can't tell where I'm looking." Rhys sounded a little panicked.
"Toward the light."
"So we're dead?" He held his eyes shut.
Leyla shook him and pointed.
We all looked down, but up at the base of a mountain.
"Are we falling upward?" he said.
"Bubbles do float."
We stopped at the surface of another lake, and we rose out of our new reflections.
This water, pale gray with only a hint of blue, touched a colorless mountain with a small cave entrance. Thick white fog obscured everything else.
From the haze appeared Thirteen, dry and glorious.
I finally saw her lower half. Her black feathers and fur created a crest down her back. They flowed into a long tail. Polished, iridescent onyx scales covered her sides and muscled canine shaped legs.
She walked forward on the tips of her long fingers and back paws. "I will see that Travere arrives. It would be best to seal him in the cave, I think. Here is a place of few boundaries. One is that I cannot follow you into the cave, for it is real and too small."
"All right, but whatever happens, let him come to me. It's the perfect prison until we can get him to tell us where Ansgar is."
"If he resists, perhaps I shall eat him." Thirteen tilted her head and smiled. "Just the legs, yes."
"Hopefully, that won't be necessary." I glanced at Leyla. "You two should hide in the mist here.
She reached for the scroll.
Thirteen raised her finger and stopped Leyla. "Not in here, Cousin. We are in a pocket of real, but this is a different place for magic. Anima moves through things here."
"What do you mean?" I said.
"Words hold less power in this land. Raw is this world between worlds. Invokers need not invoke."
"And a Weaver?"
"Here is why Mother's machinations were so powerful. A Weaver is almost unlimited here." She raised a finger. "Almost."
I walked over and reached up. "Thank you, Thirteen, for everything, then and now."
She hugged me with one hand behind my back. "We will see one another again, I hope. So nice to talk."
"We will."
With a smile, she jumped into the sky. The whiteness enveloped her, but the whirlpool in the lake stayed.
"Let's go, Kepi." I held my arm out, she hopped up to my shoulder, and we walked toward the cave.
Everyone stood right behind.
I tried it again. "You all should stay out here. The fog will hide you."
Leyla shook her head. She took my hands and couldn't speak. She didn't have to, those eyes said so much.
Tilly's said the same.
Only Rhys didn't stare. He scanned the sky, the fog, and watched the lake.
I said nothing but turned back toward the cave entrance.
Inside, we walked through complete yet airy darkness until we came to a tiled floor.
I stepped on one, and the floor lit with a strange lavender. The light didn't hurt my eyes even though the radiant tile stretched out in a large hexagon.
Kepi hopped off my shoulder in a blur of bright yellow and white.
Tilly stepped beside me. Her eyes glowed bright sea green as mine must also have.
We both looked back. Leyla and Rhys still had huge pupils, but their whites lit. Each light-colored detail on her clothes also seemed to glow.
My white coat and pale blond hair also caught the tiles' invisible luminance. "Can you see the light?"
Leyla nodded her hand, but she then pointed behind me.
The six Anima colors positioned midair in a circle.
"It looks like an Anima diagram." I stepped around it as it floated in space above the lit tiles.
Each sphere showed opaque and bright in this weird light.
I touched the yellow one at the top. A gold strand dripped from my fingertip like honey.
Rhys and Leyla came closer.
He said, "It's a lock." He touched the Conduction orb to the lower left of the Apex.
It didn't react.
"It's a Weaver lock." He touched his chin.
Leyla circled. She pointed to the Abyss orb.
I still held the yellow string. "Connect Apex to Abyss?"
Leyla shrugged.
"Zöv," said a deep but feminine voice, one I'd never heard before, but whoever spoke sounded certain.
It meant 'yes' in the archaic.
"Did you hear that?" I said. "A voice?"
Rhys turned his head like he was about to shake it, but didn't. "No, but I'm not surprised at this point."
I touched the Abyss orb, and the Apex string left my finger in a white flash. "So, all the opposites." Form connected to Spirit and Conduction to Resistance in the same way.
However, nothing happened.
I looked down the cave tunnel for any sign of Travere.
Kepi waited to the side.
I said to her, "Is this not right?"
She didn't reply.
Rhys said, "We can still ambush him here."
"Maybe. We need a jail, and this thing is a lock, right?"
He scrunched his mouth to the side. "I didn't study this stuff."
The three threads touched in the middle, but Phase
circled us.
I reached over and connected each orb to form an outer hexagon.
Phase connected everything.
When that didn't cause any reaction, I pulled a thread from every other orb. Soft orbs of light formed around each intersection of filaments. I connected those as I had the first set.
Inside the outer hexagon, five rays came from each Anima orb. Some touched other Anima, some connected to the white spheres. An illusionary cube within a cube formed. Space within and without. Here and not.
Leyla leaned in and held up the number five with her fingers.
"Five like the Order's symbol." Rhys leaned in. The white and colors played on his face. "Maybe the Rays originally symbolized Zirore and her daughters. Not the Anima without Abyss. Maybe like a symbol of their connection within Phase, the outside line?"
"It's possible. We tend to change the meaning of symbols over time." I pointed to the inner cube. "The meeting place." As I touched its very center, a central orb of white formed. It shot a thread of its own out at fantastic speed further into the cave.
It hit the wall near where Kepi sat.
The thread filled a vertical trough in the stone. It branched into three at both the top and bottom. Thin lines sprouted from each of the six offshoots and tangled together in a circular border.
"The world tree." I smiled.
It flashed in a blinding brightness and then disappeared. The circle stayed in the form of a wall of silver water.
Kepi stood.
Tilly turned from the portal and looked back into the tunnel.
Footsteps.
I clawed into the air and readied myself.
Rhys pulled his sword.
The indigo light revealed a face none of us expected.
I whispered, "Ansgar?"
He held something in his hand, his eyes moved around the room, but it looked as if he tried to shut them, to pull away.
I reached out for Leyla.
The next moment came in a shatter of glass and a flash of green.
A ring in my ears.
The cold stone under my head and back. Dust in my mouth. I hacked out a breath. "Leyla?"
Tilly screamed.
Again came the slip of a sword.
The High Hall's mail clerk said an ill-willed Apexist could overcharge a scroll. I touched a shard of glass. "Or a vial."
Rhys pulled himself up against the opposite wall. He held his sword out toward Ansgar. "A Conduction explosion? Why? You're working for Travere?"
Ansgar shook his head and abruptly laughed.
Tilly guarded the far corner. One wing hung limp.
He smirked and with a voice his, but not, said, "You have no idea whom you speak to, child." His eyes darted over. Unnatural. "Let us proceed then, Tash." He walked through the portal with an agonized grunt.
Rhys went for him, but I grabbed his ankle.
He said, "Mere, close the portal."
"Where is Leyla?"
He helped me up and held my arm.
I waved my arm through the dust. "Kepi?"
She cooed but soft and small.
The sound came from where Tilly guarded.
The weird light of this room caught the smooth shape of the black hunter coat. It laid over a still body.
Beside it sat Kepi, her ears flat and tail limp.
I knelt and propped up Leyla's head. "Can you hear me?"
Blood trickled between her lips.
A smooth arc of no dust or damage marked the coat.
Burns on Tilly created the reverse shape.
Kepi tried to protect them, but even she couldn't see this in time.
Leyla pulled in a ragged, shallow breath.
"Rhys, take her out of here, get her to Thirteen, tell her what's happened."
"Close the portal and come with me."
I didn't listen. "Tilly?"
She eyed me.
"Go with Rhys, get yourself healed. I won't have you die in that body."
She dipped her head under Leyla's arm and worked to lift her, but pain limited her movements. Blue blood streamed between her scales.
Rhys checked Leyla's pulse and then ripped off the hem of his shirt. He wrapped it around Tilly's wing and chest. "You're going after him. Aren't you?"
He was another templar best friend who saw through me. "I didn't think he'd have possessed him. Kat healed the bird." I wrapped my hand around the pendant she gave me. "I can save Ansgar."
Leyla's breaths were shallow.
He carefully scooped her up.
I moved the hair away from her face. "I can save everyone this time."
Rhys and I stared at one another.
Kepi jumped to my shoulder and wrapped her tail around my neck.
He managed a pained smile. "I'm not saying goodbye."
I squeezed his hand.
He swallowed and headed out to Thirteen with the girls.
Leyla opened one eye for only a moment. She extended her delicate fingers, and then her arm dropped.
A feeling. One buried deep within some part of my soul writhed to life. Old hate took its place in the shadow of my heart.
"Travere," I said between my teeth.
Kepi and I stepped through the silver portal.
31 - Between
The portal took us into another tunnel. This one made of dirt and roots curled around stones. They twisted and moved as I passed.
No footsteps came from ahead.
Dirt crumbled under my fingers as I dragged them along the wall. Behind me, each grain lifted back into place like it was never touched.
The chamber opened up into a vast spherical cavern.
A mirrored and inverted replica of the Capstone Seal and the Maw stood within — the Grand Counterbalance.
A grand Apex portal poured sunlight into the chamber from above. The golden, conical seal encompassed the entrance to Apex and pointed downward as a massive, gilded stalactite. Dots of light played as fireflies at dusk within. Six pillars hung around the cone. All latticed together as they were at the Capstone, only Apex instead of Abyss now. This construct cradled a ball of deep ocean blue, a sphere of Abyss.
Natural rocks floated around the Apex cone and pillars. Some stood stationary while others shifted between those and one another. Bridges and pathways formed and dissolved in slow, measured rhythm.
A thin strip of stone, much like the lake's outcrop, bridged the gap to the first platform and upward.
I headed for it.
A figure stepped from behind the Counterbalance on one of the stationary rocks higher up.
For the first time, Kepi hissed.
I strode over the outcrop, eyes locked on Ansgar.
No, I had to think of him as Travere.
A stone came around. Another and another floated into place above the last. This stairway took Kepi and me upward to his platform.
Then it split apart behind.
He acknowledged us with the slightest bow.
I didn't shift a muscle.
"I hope you do not begrudge me your rejection from college." His face didn't match his words. It looked strained. Ansgar still fought within the prison of his skull. "There is no reason to forgo manners, is there?"
I said, "Was that explosion your version of polite?"
"I could not be sure of what I was to meet. It was a distraction only, I assure you. Regardless, perhaps you are right to abstain from formal greetings, have we not met before, dear child?"
I walked near where a stone kissed and left the one we stood on. "I suppose in a way we have, both disguised."
His eyes looked surprised while his fists tightened.
Old emotions roiled.
Ansgar's loss of control terrified me, and I tried not to show it. I said, "You wear birds, the poor man at my school, those people in the street, and now Ansgar because you are a coward, Travere."
"Bold words."
Sweat pricked at my scalp even though the air froze my lips.
"Perhaps you should
reconsider them. You know I can give you your life back, reinstate the name 'Tash' as a respected one. I have witnessed your skills." He wrung his hands. "It would be shameful to waste them."
"Especially for you."
He cocked Ansgar's head and eyed Kepi. "How do you mean?"
Clever. Travere wanted me to say it, to prove I knew his plan and admit who I was.
"Let us get to it then." He smirked. "I always did wonder who put that baby in Philomena. Certainly not Sybil. So who? Ansgar? Apex, what a scandal." He laughed. "On the one hand, it made so much sense. But then why the sudden turn in character for such a loyal woman and dutifully vowed man? Was it a sudden turn? Were they whom I thought, or not? There were old rumors." He rubbed his fingernails against his arming coat, frowned, and refolded his hands. "When something ceases to make sense, it is so often because we lack the truth. Would you not say?"
"Sure." I hated to agree on anything with him.
"Then, my surprise at the failure of thirteen and fourteen." He came closer. "I should never have trusted. It is unusual for me to be so short-sighted."
I checked over my shoulder. A stone came around and connected to this one for a few moments.
He pointed. "Admit it. You stole that body and made yourself a monster instead of letting my mother live again as she deserves." His voice came out eerily calm.
"I wasn't alive then."
"Dear child, it is without question you are Philomena for all practical purposes. You have her gift in the same way, and you appear to have her mind as well." He stared.
I clenched my jaw.
"I heard what you said in the street. You looked at one of my projects and said something I had not heard in almost twenty years. Something I had not felt anew in those decades."
Duri, in tears, the scared snobby templar, and the remnants left behind flashed through my mind. "You killed those people."
"I would not have had you surrendered yourself." He flicked his hand around like what he said was so matter of fact. "Regardless, have you never done such a thing? Philomena condoned the melding of multiple souls into one for the thirteenth. We created a being to free us from spell sickness' ball and chain. The destruction of a few to save the many."
"That is never the way."
"It is your way. The night those templars tried to arrest you, you bayed this same creature to kill them. All to protect your children, your friends. Although I see the difference, those are the few and not the many." He chuckled.
