by Elizabeth Lo
“You’re still alive?!” she screams. “I thought I killed you! Your duplicate should have died the moment it was born in that hellscape!”
Blood drips down my arm; I can barely move them.
We’re retreating! Sucre yells in our minds.
He lashes his tail urgently, facing the broken gates with his rump to us. Tugging at Lafayette’s collar with my good hand, a painful Teleport takes us to the top of Sucre’s back just in time. Annabelle just claws her way up Sucre’s leg and then hurls Artemis up like a sack of flour.
Bounding away, Sucre thrusts himself into the air, leaving us clinging to his fur, every nail, finger, and toe clawing for more and more pink hairs to hold on to. Annabelle and I are each holding onto a guy of our own. One of them screaming in terror, agony, or something along those lines, and another grimacing in pain from some unknown source.
The explosions follow us in the air, blasting Sucre from the side, the back, and the front. Bulldozing his way through the air, Sucre only slows once the Summer Palace is just a dot in the distance.
The impelling force of gravity plus the slippery quality of cat fur drags me off. Air whistles in my ears, then trees ravage and claw at me. By the time I can refocus and summon the wind again, the ground hits me hard enough to taste the impact in the back of my tongue.
Lafayette grunts upon impact, and Annabelle struggles to muffle the screams coming from Artemis as Sucre touches down right next to me.
“We…” I say, breathless, still lying on the forest floor. “We couldn’t even make it past the first hallway…”
Sucre pants heavily through his mouth, and though his wounds seem relatively minor, there’s still blood clumped in his fur and his back is arched as he sways with each breath. I’m sure it isn’t easy to get blasted with that many Decomposition spells.
As for me, the cold dirt against my back is the last thing I feel before falling unconscious.
“Mid. Mid, wake up.”
My eyelids don’t want to respond. My hand twitches. One finger. Then the rest follow. Someone has my hand clasped in theirs.
One eye manages to flutter open halfway. Then a little more. Then the other eye…
Above me, dark green leaves flutter with a calm, rustling tune with a robin’s egg sky behind them. The trees are not particularly tall—the top hair of Sucre’s ears could brush the uppermost leaves if he stood on all-fours. But from here, on the ground, they look miles deep into the sea of blue.
I try to push up to a seated position again. A strong hand pushes me up and helps me against a solid tree trunk.
“I’m sorry.” My voice leaves me halfway through. I swallow a bunch of times to get my throat in a more functioning form. “I’m sorry,” I repeat.
My eyes finally open enough to assess my surroundings. Lafayette, seated next to me, has a face that looks a little pinched. There’s a vein popping out from his forehead, and he has a hand firmly pressed against his right temple.
Annabelle is propped up against a tree across from me, eating a piece of dark chocolate I’m sure she had stashed somewhere in her outfit. She looks a little worse for wear. A chunk of her skirt is missing, and a good layer of dirt overlays all the pale colors of her outfit.
We’re in the middle of a small clearing in the woods. I look past Annabelle’s shoulder. Someone’s missing.
“Where’s Artemis?” I ask.
Annabelle’s face falls.
“He’s… trying to get himself together…” she says, looking away.
None of us say anything in response.
My right arm is once again beginning to swell. Like before at Hadrien’s Ridge, it’s bruised all over again. My left arm is only slightly better. I guess I pushed myself too hard with that Telekinesis—neither my fingers or my wrist can move. It was like trying to hold a door shut, only to have it burst open and hurl me off to the side like a ragdoll.
Lafayette catches sight of my battered appendages as well. He, himself, has seen better days, but he doesn’t seem to pay attention to his own injuries.
“Let me see,” he says quietly.
Holding my hands gingerly in his, he pulls out from one of his many pockets a small bandage roll, and like before, he gently wraps my arm up without saying a word.
“Lafayette?”
“Hmmm?”
“Are you okay?”
He doesn’t respond.
Finishing his rudimentary first-aid treatment, he promptly stands up and strides away into the woods, not giving me another glance. His walk isn’t as smooth as before—there’s a slight limp to it now. I would follow him, but I can barely move.
At least I can form a fist still. That’s a start.
Note to self: Don’t try to hold a crazy superhuman in place with Telekinesis.
The trees next to me creak. I spot Sucre instantly, sandwiched between them like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. I wonder how he fits in between those small gaps. He’s taking a cat nap right now, and I can imagine how tired he must be. Regeneration and fighting are not easy for us inferior single-souled beings.
But at least he can sleep. For me, a headache is coming again. Right on time. I have a feeling this one’s going to be pretty bad—sharp, right through my temples, and running along the top of my head. All I can do is sit as still as possible and wait for the splitting pain to recede, hoping the wind blows it away.
More and more time passes. Lafayette doesn’t seem to be coming back. How long has it been? Time in the forest seems to inch along, yet every time I glance up, the sun is in a different position.
Lafayette could easily just walk away right now. No one’s going to stop him.
In fact, he shouldn’t really have much reason for being here in the first place. Really… why is he here? Why was he fighting Glorieux? In fact, after fighting her, how is he not dead? I guess I had underestimated his actual skill in combat and strategy—there was, after all, a reason he was promoted so much. But… there’s something more. No human could survive against a fight against the ever-Regenerating Glorieux.
No normal human, that is.
My suspicion starts to tease the edge of my mind. I’ve never really looked at him with True Sight activated, have I…
Should I?
It would feel weird to do it to someone I already know.
But…
After sitting around a while, the headache finally ebbs enough for me to move again without spikes of pain.
Annabelle isn’t here anymore. Sucre hasn’t moved, and neither have I, and the clearing feels empty.
I activate True Sight once again.
There are two bodies crouched in the woods to the right of me. I assume that’s Artemis and Annabelle.
And… to the left of them is a dual-souled body on his own, leaning against a tree.
Lafayette has had two souls in him this whole time.
I have a fair amount of questions. But right now might not be the best time to ask them. Seeing that slumped figure is a little worrying.
Standing up like a newborn foal, I saunter off in his direction. Sporadic spurts of magic are left here and there around the forest as if he was having a hard time keeping his composure. In addition, it’s weird how his magic wasn’t ever as potent as this.
Stop worrying, Midnight. I’m sure it’s nothing.
But the closer I get, the faster I walk. Eventually, his voice reaches my ears enough for me to decipher what he’s saying.
“I told you to shut up and stay out,” he growls.
To my relief and worry, he’s not talking to me.
He’s not himself right now. His eyes are not focusing on anything, and they keep squeezing shut again and again.
“You told me already…” he mutters. “I’m not letting you take over. This is my body, Orion. I will still be in control…”
Orion?
Lafayette lets out a gasp and coughs. With a hiss, he slams against the tree I happen to be leaning against, sending shudders through the trunk and d
own my spine.
“Stop it, you bastard. You’re corrupting again. Get a hold of yourself…”
The shadows start dancing and bending. The tree’s shadow, hiding me still, twists and curls wretchedly while more starts climbing its way up my legs.
Shadows?
“Hello,” the shadows begin to coo.
I’ve been found out.
“Why are you here?” Lafayette’s voice resonates in my left ear, scaring me. His body is part shadow now, and it looks like he’s about ready to disappear at any moment. He leans onto the tree with his right arm, his back to the growing shadows. It’s almost as if he’s protecting me from them. His resiliency doesn’t last long as another spasm ripples through his body, and he grabs for his temples. “Stop it! You can’t become like them! You know that!”
“Sister,” the shadows say. “Sister, sister…”
The smooth voice that had played in the shadows multiplies, splitting into many different pitches and octaves of voice, rumbling and howling everywhere all simultaneously like a choir of demons. Shadows grow everywhere, and the surrounding area is plunged into darkness.
It’s a projection. Something only skilled magicians capable of manipulating light and sound can do. Whoever this spirit was must have been very gifted in magical arts.
“Sister…” it says again. “I missed you… I missed you…”
“Where are you?” I call. “Who are you?”
“I tried… I tried to get back at them… I made a mistake… I made a mistake… WILL YOU FORGIVE ME?”
The shadows begin screaming nonsense, blaring in my ears. The wails have a mixture of insanity and sorrow, and the sound rips a hole through me.
“Will you forgive me?” Lafayette shouts next to me, his voice reaching a decibel level I didn’t know he was capable of. He starts intermittently clamoring indecipherable syllables as if he’s trying to stop himself mid-yell.
“I couldn’t do anything!” the spirit cries.
Lafayette, still hunched over me, starts to shake from the yelling.
“I hid it from you,” the shadow continues. “I’m sorry. I knew all along and… I’m sorry. But…” the spirit’s voice rises in pitch. “You have to understand. I wanted a normal life! But no! NO! THEY TOOK IT AWAY!”
The yelling turns to screaming.
“Stop!” I yell, my hands swatting uselessly at the shadows. “Calm down! It’s okay… It’s a dream.”
Since when have spirits ever acted like this? Were shadows not as rare as I thought they were? Projecting and bending light like this was something I thought was Black’s specialty… Black…
“I’m sorry…” it says.
“Whatever you did wrong… I’m sure the guilt must have torn you apart,” I say, holding my hands out as if I was taming a dragon. As if I was facing Black.
The pulsating shadows slow and relax.
“Your sister…” I continue. “I’m sure in one way or another, she’s forgiven you.”
“Have you forgiven me?” the lost spirit asks, still talking to its own past demons.
“Even if they haven’t forgiven you…” The shadows agitate at the mention of that. “That doesn’t mean you’re any less of a person. You made a mistake. But don’t we all make them?”
The shadow starts to calm down.
“Don’t worry,” I say. “I’ll set you free, okay? I’ll break this curse holding you to Lafayette.”
But saying that somehow resets the spirit back to its raging self.
A large shadow darker than darkness rises from the ground and looks at me with a beady red eye. I’m met with a spitting image of my brother, and it takes everything I have to not completely lose it in this moment. Glowing scarlet eyes in the place of Black’s loving ruby eyes, with peril written all over its face.
“Midnight…” it groans. “Why?”
“What…?” My heart seems to have stopped, seeing the oh-so-familiar face of my brother after two long years. “Black?”
“It’s my fault… It’s my fault you’re here. I know why you’re here… To null the curse…”
I blink at the shadows in confusion. My feet root themselves to the ground.
“How… How did you get here?”
“I’m sorry,” it whimpers helplessly. “They took it away from you… This want… This desire… The only way to fix this is…” It looks at me with a hungry, depraved expression. An expression I never thought I’d see on the mellow face of my soft-spoken brother. “To kill them.”
“Dammit, Orion…” Lafayette breathes. “You can’t do this again. Stop going back to the past.”
“No!” it shouts.
If before in Hanbury, I got a taste of the true extent of the curse, then it’s only now that I get a taste of true… bloodlust. Bloodlust towards this curse who’s changed people beyond their control. A person’s mentality, it seems, can be very, very manipulated. This curse amplifies every single negative emotion in them.
This is my brother speaking to me—this is what my brother thought. But it’s not what my brother wanted to happen.
“I want the illusion back…” the corrupt spirit says to me. “I want to live in the illusion again!”
I look at the irrational Black in front of me. His skin, though slightly transparent, is the same ghostly color. Pitch black hair. But the eyes are different. They’re ravenous and hollow; orbs that are filled with nothing but emptiness. Pupil-less. Hating.
There’s no time to hesitate.
Black… I have to save you. I have to save you and Soren and Glorieux and Lafayette. All of them.
“We couldn’t stay in that happiness forever, Black,” I whisper. “I have… responsibilities. There’s no way I can be happy like that ever again.”
“Responsibilities?” Black asks, his eyes dimming and darkening slightly. They’re their original color now. “What… responsibilities… do you have that are so heavy?”
“I have to undo a curse…” For a second, Black seems to freeze in place, his eyes slowly widening. “I’m going to use Fantastique’s Stone to do it. You know? That urban legend that…”
“No…” he mutters. “No. No, no, NO!”
He screams, yelling and caterwauling into the air. Crows many meters away flurry off just from the noise.
Shadows begin to climb. Lafayette slumps further down onto the tree.
Did I just skip a breath?
Shadows tickle my hand even though I can’t physically feel them. I’m sinking into the ground… No, I’m disappearing.
“Stop!” I yell. “Stop, Black! Think about this rationally.”
I start to fall apart even more, wildly looking around for any sort of solution, but he suddenly stops. For a few seconds, he hangs there, not a breath coming in or out.
Then he takes in a sharp, deep inhale, pausing the chaos.
“Midnight,” he says slowly, a serenity returning to his gaze. “Help… I can’t control myself for long. I need magic. Usually, he and I would have to spar with each other for hours until I’m able to regain control of my own desires. But we have neither the time nor the energy to do that. Could you… perform a magic transferal?”
A magic transferal…
I shake my head, embarrassed.
He sighs, but there’s a faint smile on his lips.
“Oh, Middie… what have you been studying these past two years?” His face falls, reading me like an open book once again. “But even if you could… you’re too weak right now to do anything.”
The spells I have… Decomposition, to destroy. My eyes and my body, to cheat. I’m a monster of black magic.
All the more reason to die today, right?
But it’s also all the more reason for me to panic as my mind grasps for ideas that aren’t there. I need to do something… but what?
“I can do it,” a feeble voice behind me says.
I spin around, coming face to face with Artemis.
“I have the magic and the spell.”
Artemis nervously steps forward and reaches for Lafayette’s hand.
“Be careful,” Black says, his voice starting to shake as the pulses in the shadows begin to overtake him. “My magic might reject it.”
Artemis hesitates. But then a strange resolve comes over him.
“It’s okay,” he says. “I have the same magitype as you.”
Black’s eyes start to flicker out, but I catch a glimpse of surprise flash through them.
“Is that so…?” he says absently.
“Yeah.”
My brother turns more transparent and then fades away as if he was never there.
“And plus,” the silver-haired magician says with a smile. “I’ve always wanted to meet my infamous cousin.”
As he takes Lafayette’s left with his left and his right with his right, blackish sparks burst from their crossed arms. Their arms glow the color of my eyes, then a bluish flash blinds me. The last thing I see is a calmly smiling Artemis who realized that his demon was nothing more than just another lost boy.
In the next instant, Lafayette falls over onto the ground next to me, groaning in pain. It takes me a moment to realize Artemis has also been knocked unconscious.
When I crouch next to Lafayette and poke his shoulder, he flinches, but relaxes once he realizes it’s me. Sighing, he places his hand on top of mine, leaning his head back onto the ground and closing his eyes.
“Are you okay now?” I whisper.
His gives the slightest nod.
“He’s back to normal…” he says, finally, after waiting for a moment. “It just… hurts like hell, is all.”
“You have a lot of explaining to do,” I say as sternly as I can manage, but inside, I breathe a sigh of relief.
He chuckles to himself, patting my hand.
“So do you, Mid.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Midnight
“So… My brother has been in you this whole time?”
Lafayette chuckles at my dumbfounded expression.
