by Kalyn Crowe
She dropped her arms and smiled a little.
An abrupt throat clear came from the doorway.
Sybil stood there with her same perfect hair and spire-like self.
Leyla turned and bowed.
"I hope I am not interrupting."
I said, "Lady Durandus. I'm sorry I didn't hear you arrive."
The hem of her coat floated across the floor over each of her even steps. "I did not want to startle you, Lady Tash."
Leyla and I exchanged a look.
"Lady Voclain, may I speak with her alone for a few moments?" said Sybil.
The amount of respect she showed both surprised me and didn't. It was a strange feeling.
Leyla nodded and left the room with a little wave my way.
Kepi came out from behind my stack of pillows.
"Lady Tempest." Sybil bowed her head and then sat in Conrad's chair a few feet from the bed. She folded her hands in her lap.
I let myself linger too long before I came back to her eyes.
She noticed but said, "Ansgar has told me what he knows of you. I understand you have some of Philomena's memories."
"It's true." I swallowed. "I've read her journal as well."
She breathed slow and steady, but something about her face said how hard this came for her. "I." She closed her eyes. "I let her go when I should not have." She looked away.
"I can't imagine how you must feel, but you can't blame yourself. What would anyone of thought in your situation? She wanted to push you away, Sybil."
"To save me? Selfish."
"Selfish? She loved you." An echo of the conversation with Leyla, so she feared I'd treat her as I treated Sybil then. Everyone seemed so keen to hold on in worry, except for Ansgar and Rhys. It felt like, well, they trusted me, my judgment, more than the others.
Sybil seemed to consider my words. "I know she loved me," she said after a long pause. "However, that did not stop her from leaving me in agony."
"Do you think it was different for her?"
Her face and eyes turned hard. They encased fury. "I loved Philomena in a way that you are only starting to become aware is possible again." She gestured toward the door.
No. Toward where Leyla left.
She said, "Your lives are a mirror. The boy Rhys, so like Ansgar."
I paused. "I don't think it's the same with Rhys as it was Ansgar."
"No?" She narrowed her gaze. "What do you remember of him?"
Warmth welled up in my cheeks. "Well, I didn't remember a lot, I'm sure, but of him, only a conversation, a glance." I trailed off. "Travere said Ansgar and Philomena would have been together if not for his vows to the Order."
She raised her chin and lifted a brow. "He told me that, too."
We looked at one another for a long moment. "What did Philomena say about it?"
Sybil refolded her hands and didn't answer right away. It was as if she weighed something in her mind. "Very little." Another pause marked her small remark.
Kepi sat and waited as always, but this time, she watched Sybil.
She returned Kepi's stare mere seconds before she darted her eyes back. Then she said, "After an accident in college, they became fantastic friends. Yet, the circumstances of this event led them to keep a distance from one another."
"So, they were never romantic?"
She sighed. "No. I can not be sure how Ansgar felt. Philomena confided in me that rumors did occur about her and Ansgar."
"Did you believe they were only rumors?"
"I did. Mainly because Philomena said they let the rumors exist. They did not try to silence them." Sybil shook her head and laughed a little. "She said rumors are an impolite way to ask questions and she would not answer them. Yet for me, she called me her red flame, her fire. She let me know everything." Tears welled in her otherwise steel gaze. "I let her down by believing her lies, rumors she bore herself."
If I spoke, I feared I wouldn't hold the same composure.
She said, "The night when she told me she was pregnant, I felt such an idiot — a fool. I tried to use Form tracing to prove Ansgar was the father. I aimed to disgrace them both." She stood and walked to the window.
"But she didn't let you."
She rubbed her forearm. "No. She said it was not Ansgar, but would not tell me who it indeed was. I began to doubt my worth, my judgment. I am a Formist, a finder of what is." She turned back. "Yet I doubted everything. Each word she ever said, each moment we shared. That last night I told her how impossible this all seemed and left, for good."
We both sat without words for a long moment.
With a softer voice, she said, "I do not think it came easy for Philo in retrospect."
I heard her swallow.
She adjusted her cuff. "After she died, I poured over the scene. I barged into Ansgar's office." Her fingers stilled. "I asked him if he sent the team to her house. Fool as I was, I asked about the baby, about if he was the father."
I leaned forward on the bed. "Why was that foolish?"
She didn't turn entirely from the window. "I grabbed Ansgar's hand and used a Spirit charm to ask. He was not the father, and he did not know who it was. So ignorant in my rage, I did not think to find out if he warned her. I did not ask how beautiful she was on her last night alive. I could have known he helped save you. Twice now." She looked out the window again. "And where have I been? Useless."
"You brought me back."
She startled and turned.
"I'm sorry. Everything that happened should have been different." I looked in her eyes. "Thank you for taking the charm."
She scoffed a little.
"I mean it, thank you for being brilliant as ever to figure it out, and for having Conrad bring me back."
Her expression softened. "Who is speaking?"
I pushed my hair behind my ears. "I am, all of me."
Her brows drew together, and her jaw set. "So you are the girl I see and the woman I love. It is hard to accept that you are not two people, but this." A moment marked her search for a word. "This continuation." She returned to the chair and crossed her legs.
Sybil Form traced me before this all started. "Were you suspicious of my Attunement at the school? You traced me and then spoke about Philomena."
"A person inherits the same Anima Attunement as their same-sex parent at the time of their birth. It is not understood why. Attunement remains the same even if a person changes sex, showing a tie to something beyond the body. Yours was not an exact match to what it was, but it was not alarming that a child would be so close to their parental Attunement. The charm might have hidden and held the difference. A trick to hide the true Attunement since your Chimera skin alone could not."
Perhaps it was also a trick to protect it from Travere and guard the trust I placed in Kepi.
Sybil smiled to herself.
"What is it?" I said.
"Sometimes, I feel I am no longer the person I was when we were together. However, at this moment, remembering how clever you were, it is as if no time has passed." Sadness fought for a place in her now subtle expression. "Yet you hardly know me now. Of all people."
"If it makes you feel better, I created this life because I couldn't let go of my plans against Travere. All the while, I blamed everyone else for all my misfortune. And you talk about feeling like an idiot."
"It does not make me feel better." She smiled a little more and let her gaze drift to the side. "It makes one wonder why we can not seem to carry the good as well as we hold on to the terrible." She chuckled a bit and shook her head. "Always the enigma, Philo. Meredith. Whatever your name, your existence does pose a question of self, does it not for you?"
I nodded. "It does, but it's not a new problem. You questioned if you were your past self a moment ago."
"Indeed, true." She tilted her head down and away from me again. "Perhaps we must accept the uncertainty, or embrace it, for it shows we have grown and changed. We have lived." Her eyes closed again, the muscles in her long neck str
ung tight. Then she looked at the disk on the side table.
I smiled a little. "Even before the disk helped me remember anything, I felt sadness and wonder around you. There were no memories of you yet. Maybe they were never separated from my soul."
Her lips quivered a little. "Is that right?" She glanced at the doorway and back. "Am I why you have feelings for the girl?"
I shook my head, but I couldn't know. "It wouldn't be fair if that's the case. She worries I'll push her away, too, though."
"You will not wish to."
Those words drove into the same dark old place which hated Travere. A place that still loved Sybil. Part of my soul shadowed in guilt for the trade of Tilly's freedom for Leyla's magic and family.
"No, but I have to set things right, or else all this I've put us, and everyone through, is for nothing."
She looked back and gave me a single nod. "What did you see of Travere in the disk?"
"A couple of conversations, mainly about the Chimeras and Thirteen. Evidence enough to know he set up Philomena and the Voclains and what he did to his family."
"I see. Ansgar has filled me in on your conversation at the Counterbalance. I have documented the traces of Travere left in him as well." She tightened her lips and narrowed her eyes at the disk. "What would it take to see more of the past?"
"I used Form filaments to pull out the memories I did the same way I did for the charm. The charm emptied. My guess is there are layers in the disk. Maybe patterned layers inherently in souls. I might need to change the pattern, or at least not Weave the Form seal so haphazardly to collect the rest."
Sybil curled one side of her mouth upward. "Travere placed many trusts in Philomena. Perhaps the past still holds the answers to the future. Specifics, like an Attunement, are traceable by a Formist. Knowing what I seek, it may be possible to find other markers in memories. I wonder if we could not travel through the disk chronologically using Form and Weaving." She touched her chin. "Thirteen can assist us. She made this disk, but I assume she did not create this patterned lock. There were reasons to remember what you did, when, and how you managed."
I said, "There was a Weaving lock before the Counterbalance. It needed a specific shape to open."
"Then we must hope we can find clues to open the patterns guarding her memories. Knowing Philo, she wanted to protect them as she did her office. You have yet to solve your puzzle." She grinned.
Kepi cooed and turned in a circle.
I lit up. "Maybe so, but what we can't find in the disk, you could piece together from your memories."
"The East nearly detained me after Travere sent me there. He must have reasons of his own to keep us apart. I would be happy to help see his plans unraveled in any way I can."
I reached for the disk.
She leaned forward and touched my hand. "When you are well. I will not let you die again."
Only then did I notice my fingers still shook.
I deflated, but she was right.
"Rest now. We have a plan. There is no corner of Zirore's Natural Plane where he can hide forever." She stood and walked toward the door but stopped and said, "I wish for you to know; I am grateful for the pain which saved my life that I might see you again." With that, she left.
I nearly chased after her.
✽✽✽
I wore new boots now. Shiny black leather and clean soles. Complete with a pair of white spats to the knee. I strode forward; each step kicked through my perfect pearl coat.
Kepi rode on my shoulder; she sat proud and puffed.
I had done enough for now.
Rhys walked beside me as Conrad led us through the vast, dimly lit passageway.
Leyla and Eda were already in the courtyard with Kat and Gunnar. Sybil, too, as I understood it.
Up ahead, and to my surprise, the Faragos stood off to the side.
Bora gave me a curt nod, but Duri bowed.
She softened her harsh brow. "There are many things which come to mind, but I shall only say, thank you for Duri's life."
I gulped and bowed.
"Do not rest on your renewed name." She rolled her shoulders back and looked down her nose.
Duri looked at his boots, but then perked up and smiled a little.
I took it as my queue to pass on.
Ansgar knelt by Tilly further down, near the only door to the courtyard's ground level. The one Leyla told me about many days ago.
Tilly wore a purple silk ribbon as a sash over one wing and under the other.
He said to her, "I often think back to that time, I thought to let you and your mother go was the right thing to do." He shook his head and leaned on his knee. "I'm sorry we were blind."
She cocked her head and flapped her wings.
Rhys said, "She's trying to say it isn't your fault, High Templar, sir."
Ansgar turned and stood. "I hope you are right." He bowed to us. "My Lords and Ladies."
Rhys touched my shoulder and then walked over to Tilly. "You look nice, Lady T."
She dipped her head.
Ansgar said, "It is good to see you on your feet." The "Vivify" charm hung around his neck.
I said, "I told you it wouldn't be another twenty years."
Kepi wrapped her tail around my neck.
He chuckled.
Together we approached the end of the hallway.
He said, "Thirteen is also excited to see you again. We wrote her presence in Pinnacle off as a by-product of, well, you'll see."
Conrad waited by the gate. He smiled at my spats and pushed open the door.
The sun hit my face, and so too did the yellow and blue glow of my creation. "What have I done?"
Before anyone replied, Thirteen stepped forward. "Lady Tash." She winked. "I peeked at you while in the High Hall's hospital, but never awake were you, nor could I fit in your room."
Happy as I was to see her, my mouth hung open.
She tilted her head and said, "Ah, yes, you have not seen this, we are calling this, what is it? 'The Conduit,' Lady Durandus?"
"Yes." Sybil came near. "What do you all say to the idea of Thirteen guarding this? The Counterbalance is no more. She needs no longer hide."
I looked up at Thirteen.
She bared her fangs in a delighted grin.
"Travere can no longer hide either." Conrad walked forward and drew on his pipe.
Ansgar said, "The East has agreed to a small search party to enter their borders. I have an idea of who to send." He adjusted his sword. "After some preparation."
"You don't trust them?" Conrad said.
Ansgar subtly shook his head. "After Sybil's report, I fear they don't trust us."
Conrad nodded and watched a ring of smoke waft away. "I have a trusted duo working on infiltration just in case."
I tilted my head and looked at him.
He said, "Yes, you know them."
The shopkeeper and my decoy, it would be nice to see them again.
Kat and Gunnar stood nearby. The blackbird perched on the rim of her hat.
Eda and Leyla were close by with Odion.
When we met eyes, Leyla walked over and past Sybil. She gave her a sidelong look on the way.
I just smiled.
She blushed and smoothed her hair.
Rhys stood by my side with Tilly. "You broke the world." He shot me a half-grin.
"I." He was right. When I agreed to come back, and when I tried to stay. When I dared to save it all again, new connections formed, and old ones rekindled. The confusion, the journey, made me a little more whole.
I looked up again.
Gold and azure glinted off the embroidered sparkles of dresses, Rays on jackets, and scale and fur alike. The glow showered over all of us, together.
I stepped forward, alone with Kepi, and peered into the Maw. The great Apex sphere floated within. The Capstone Seal had unfurled as the cone in Phase had. It's petals cupped an enormous tunnel of Apex and Abyss.
The Animas alternated. Filaments whic
h were once the pillars now stretched and spiraled through one another in an interlocked embrace. This new seal grew from the Maw's petals skyward. It passed through a ring of perfect white fog and the Counterbalance's flying stones. It ended in the highest sky and framed a familiar golden portal rimmed in floral filaments.
I looked at Kepi. Primal Apex. The Highest Lady. The Tempest.
"You wanted me to free Abyss."
She flicked her tail.
"So, there's more. There is something undone."
Kepi cooed crisp and sharp. Her call echoed as nothing had before.
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