by Alex Steele
When I looked into the chest, everything ceased to make sense and a wave of dizziness washed over me. It was...bigger on the inside. The chest had no bottom that I could see. Darkness swirled inside it, littered with specks of light that almost looked like stars. The longer I looked into it, the larger it seemed to grow, taking on a strange gravity that tugged on me. I leaned closer and closer, the urge to jump into it filtering in through the back of my mind.
I shook my head and pressed my hands over my eyes, breaking the strange spell. “What the hell is this thing?”
“Unfortunately, I’m not sure,” Sakura said, eyes flashing dangerously. Her magic was always quiet. A subtle thing that lurked in the shadows making your hair stand on end. Right now, I felt the threat of it pressing all around us more tangibly than I ever had before.
“I’m not sure I should be sticking my hand in there.”
Sakura sighed and crossed her arms, glaring at the chest like it was to blame for all of this.“Normally I would agree, but she said there is something you need in there.”
“And you believe her?” I asked, my eyebrows threatening to join my hairline.
Sakura waved a hand at me. “She rarely lies outright. There’s no fun in that for her.”
I glanced at Swift, who simply shrugged. “She insisted she was your guardian. I doubt she’d try to kill you.”
“You all sound so confident,” I muttered as I turned my attention back to the chest. Looking directly at it seemed to encourage it, so I did my best to watch it from my peripheral vision as I reached for the opening.
The skin on my hand prickled as a shiver of cold crawled over my skin. That was strange. I kept expecting to hit the bottom, but there was nothing. Annoyed, I stepped closer and peered inside.
A bright pair of eyes stared back, then something wrapped around my arm and yanked.
Twenty-Three
I spit snow out of my mouth as I pushed up onto my knees. My breaths sounded harsh in the absolute quiet. All other sound was muffled by the snow. I blinked rapidly as I looked around, trying to get my eyes to focus. Brilliant purple fronds of wisteria swayed overhead in a gentle breeze.
I struggled to my feet, feeling off balance. Something wasn’t right. Wisteria didn’t bloom in the winter. The snow was cold against my bare feet, but the air didn’t match its chill. A soft, flowery scent drifted past me on the wind. It reminded me of something...
A flash of movement caught my attention through the trees. I took a step toward it before I even thought about what it might be. That made me hesitate, but I shook off the fear. Somehow I knew nothing would hurt me here. At least not badly.
The creature’s tracks, barely visible in the snow, led deeper into the woods. I followed them, increasing my pace until I was running after it. Abruptly, the trail stopped.
I looked around in confusion and found a fox watching me from a snow-covered boulder. Its pure white fur shone brilliantly in the sunlight breaking through the thick branches. The tip of each of its three tails were red as blood. Two yellow eyes transfixed me. Intelligence and mischief lurked in their bright gleam.
“Took you long enough, Blackwell,” the fox said, before resuming licking its foreleg.
“How do you know my name?” I asked, narrowing my eyes in suspicion.
The fox sighed and rolled its eyes. A puff of smoke enveloped the creature and I tensed, concerned it had been injured until a woman stepped out. Long, black hair flowed around her shoulders. The emerald green kimono she wore set off the brilliance of her eyes. I swayed forward, tempted to fall to my knees and declare my undying love for her.
She lifted a slender hand and snapped her fingers...
...and my brain came back online.
“I’m going to kill you,” I snarled at Yui. I’d been swooning like some kind of love-struck teenager. It was embarrassing. And only served to remind me how easily she could screw with my mind.
She grinned at me. “There’s the Blackwell I know and tolerate.”
And to think I’d almost started to miss her. “What the hell is this place? And how did I get here?”
“I invite you to my home to give you gifts and you greet me with insults.” She let out a put-upon sigh, bracing both hands on her hips. “You have no manners.”
I rolled my eyes. “You jerked me through a weird box after wiping the memories of two people who are very important to me. You’re the one lacking in manners, not me. Where am I?”
She waved a manicured hand in a circle. “Right here. Obviously.”
A muscle by my eye twitched and a grin spread across her face. She was enjoying this.
“Yui—”
“So impatient,” she huffed. “Where is hard to explain, but like I said, this is my home. Sort of. One of them, anyhow. And you’re here because I needed to give you something.” She pointed at a tree to her left. “I hid it in that tree, and you need it to rescue Bradley from Purgatory.”
“How do you know about— you know what, never mind. You wouldn’t tell me anyhow. Okay, how do I get it out of the tree?” It wasn’t hollow, and there wasn’t anything obvious like a door. It looked like any other tree.
“Ask nicely.”
I leveled a glare at her as I approached the tree. Ask nicely. That was the least helpful instructions I’d ever received. I ducked under the overhang of wisteria and stopped in front of it. The tree’s trunk was gnarled and twisted with age. It was one of the bigger trees out here, but not the biggest.
“May I...please have the—” I realized I didn’t know what, exactly was hidden in the tree. “...thing. Please.”
Nothing happened. The tree didn’t so much as twitch. I turned around to ask Yui what now, and found her doubled over with laughter.
“Seriously, Yui? This isn’t funny.”
She kept laughing as she straightened and walked over, drawing an intricate rune in the air in front of the tree. Her fingers moved faster than I could follow — she was even faster than Bootstrap. The bark of the tree twisted and curled inward, then went strangely transparent.
She reached inside, her hand passing through without resistance, and pulled out a stick. It didn’t look special in any way. It was made of a pale, silver wood and bisected by a leather bound grip. Faint engravings were barely visible on the worn wood.
“You’re too easy sometimes.”
“I want to apply for a new guardian,” I muttered. “Is this supposed to be special? It looks like something I could get at a thrift store.”
“Swift will know what it is, but since you are ignorant, I can explain. This is Apollo’s bow. The first he made.” She held it out toward me.
I took it tentatively. The wood felt warm in my hand and a thrum of magic ran through it. The engravings darkened with a subtle sheen of gold, defining the lines of the runes that decorated it. The pale limbs of the bow shimmered into existence, tugging lightly on my magic as they manifested.
Holding it, there was absolutely no way to mistake this for a stick or a common bow. As surely as I could feel the destructive power of the mayhem magic flowing through my veins, I could feel the potential for destruction in this weapon.
“Apollo, as in the Greek god?”
“Yep. That’s one of his names,” Yui said, as if that was a perfectly normal person to acquire weapons from.
“And how did you get the bow of a literal god?” I asked, my eyebrows rose even higher.
“A game of janken.”
She looked completely serious, but she’d looked the same way when she’d told me to ask the tree nicely for the bow.
“Right. Are there arrows to go with it?”
Yui shook her head. “No, it draws on something else to create its own arrows.”
That sounded ominous. “Like what? My magic?”
“Something like that.”
I took a deep breath. Arguing with Yui only ever made it worse. “Have you been here the whole time you’ve been gone?”
“I’ve been here and t
here. But don’t worry, I’ve still been watching you stumble around like a child in the dark, making sure you don’t off yourself.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose between my thumb and forefinger. “Yui, just answer the question for once.”
With a deep sigh, she finally looked me in the eye.“The more scarce I am right now, the better. The powers that be are displeased that I’ve been...interfering.”
I frowned. Last time she said something like that, I ended up getting blindsided by a visit from Fate and he broke my katana. I was not looking forward to a repeat. “Interfering with what?”
She cocked her head to the side. “You, of course.”
“Is Fate going to come break something else after this little meeting?”
“No, I was much more careful this time,” she said with a smug grin. “He can’t see you here. It’s beyond the reach of even Fate.”
“Sounds like a nice vacation spot. How do I get back?”
Wind rushed around me, sending a chill down my spine. “Like this.”
Twenty-Four
I was airborne before I even had time to realize what was happening. All the air was forced out of my lungs as my back hit the tatami mats. The bow flew out of my hand, skittering across the floor. Sakura had a shuriken at my throat before I could react, and I couldn’t blame her. My reappearance was sudden, to say the least.
“Are you Logan Blackwell?” she asked suspiciously, the point of the shuriken threatening to draw blood.
“Last time I checked I was.” I stayed perfectly still, not even blinking, as she examined me. Magic smacked me all at once like a wet blanket. My eye twitched involuntarily as it slid down my body.
With a curt nod, she pulled the weapon away. “Glad it’s only you.”
“Did you think I was coming back with a friend?” I asked as I sat up.
She pulled me up to my feet. “Perhaps.”
I looked around, belatedly realizing that Swift and Hiko weren’t in the room. “Where is everyone?”
“Training.” Sakura said, waving a hand at me like it should have been obvious. “You were gone for over two hours.”
“Glad to see everyone was super concerned about my sudden disappearance into a suspicious box,” I muttered, brushing the remnants of snow off my legs.
Sakura didn’t respond.
I turned and found her staring at the bow like it was a snake that might rear up and bite her. “Do you know what that is?”
Her hand tightened on the shuriken. “No, but I know I don’t like the way it feels. It’s dangerous.”
“I need to talk to Swift. Are they in the dojo?”
Sakura nodded absently, still glaring at the bow on the floor.
“Thanks.” I picked it up tentatively, conscious of the power of the weapon. Not that I could set it off accidentally. Right now it was just a bow without ammunition since Yui hadn’t given me the arrows. Her comment about it drawing on something else did worry me a little, which was why I needed to talk to Swift about it.
I turned around to leave and found the room empty. Sakura had disappeared, as per usual. With a shrug, I headed toward the dojo, eager to shake off the strangeness of my visit to Yui’s…home. That place hadn’t felt right.
When Fate had dragged me somewhere, it had always seemed completely real. With Yui, it felt like I was in a dream. If getting thrown out of the box hadn’t been so jarringly real, I would have thought I’d never left the house.
Instead of the sounds of fighting I expected as I approached, the dojo was silent. And empty. I slipped back outside and traveled the familiar paths of the garden. The sun warmed me a little, but it was still cold outside. I finally found Hiko and Swift sitting on a bench talking. Though it looked like they might be having a disagreement.
Swift’s shoulders were tight. She always pushed them back and jutted her chin out when we argued, like she was raring for a fight.
“Swift, there’s something you need to see,” I interrupted, waving the bow at her.
She started and whipped around, her brow furrowing when she saw what I was holding. “What is that?”
I wrapped my hand around the leather grip and once again, the limbs of the bow manifested. The pull on my magic felt stronger this time — almost uncomfortably so.
Hiko stood slowly, smoothing down his long, white beard. “That’s not your average bow, is it?”
I held it out to Swift. “I know what Yui said it is, but I want Swift to confirm it.”
She took it carefully, eyes widening as soon as she touched it. I wasn’t sure if the bow would collapse back to a simple, wooden handle as soon as I handed it off, but it held its form. Her lips moved silently as she traced the faint runes engraved on the silver wood. She stared at it for a long moment, as if entranced.
“This can’t be real.”
“Looks pretty real to me,” I said with a shrug.
Hiko walked up beside her, shaking his head tiredly. “Yui is a strange one, even for a trickster.”
Swift looked up, eyes crackling with magic and excitement. “Is this really Apollo’s bow?”
“According to the trickster that wiped the memories of two of the most powerful mages I know, yes,” I said, still skeptical. The bow was something, but I wasn’t willing to trust what Yui said without question. She danced around the truth as much as she could.
Master Hiko’s frown deepened and he leaned away, as if he wanted nothing to do with the thing.
“Holy shit.” Swift cradled the bow reverently in her arms as if it was a baby and not a powerful weapon created by a god. “This is...holy shit.”
I raised a brow. “So far the gods haven’t exactly been our friends. I’m not sure this is cause for this much excitement.”
“Did Yui tell you how to wield it?” Master Hiko asked.
“She answered that question the same way she answers all questions. I asked if arrows came with it, and she said the bow drew on something else, but wouldn’t explain what.”
He held out his hand. “May I try it?”
I handed over the bow feeling a little relieved someone else would be the guinea pig for once. Master Hiko was someone I trusted to take the risk as well. He had more experience than me and Swift put together.
He turned the bow over in his hands, inspecting it with a scowl. Satisfied, he nodded. “Follow me.”
I fell into step beside Swift as we followed him out of the back door of the garden, taking the same path Sakura and I had to train on the mountain. Swift was practically skipping with excitement. I’d never seen her like this.
“Where exactly did you go when you disappeared into that box?” she asked, tearing her eyes away from the bow.
“I’m not sure. Yui wouldn’t explain except to say it was a place where...a certain god couldn’t see us. It didn’t seem completely real.”
“Is that where Yui has been all this time?”
I snorted. “Yet another question she wouldn’t answer plainly.”
Swift rolled her eyes. “To think we were worried.”
“She did say that certain people were unhappy she’d been interfering.” I shrugged. “It’s possible she’s in real danger, but it seems she can protect herself just fine. Especially if she can hide from the gods in that place. She also said I’d need the bow to help rescue Bradley, so she’s been watching us somehow.”
“It’s still strange that she not only knows about Bradley, but is helping us rescue him. Something about it doesn’t sit right with me.”
“You think she has some secret plan in mind?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
“She’s a trickster, which she keeps reminding you of. And she has no problem using people, even those she’s known for a very long time. It’s just…” she hesitated, shaking her head. “She’s using you somehow. Maybe not in a way that’s harmful, but if you’re being used, it’s always better to know what the other person is after. We have no idea what Yui wants, other than to make mischief.”
I
brushed my hair back and found a leaf stuck in it. I flicked it away in annoyance. “You’re right. I’m just not sure how to figure out what she wants considering she won’t answer any questions I ask.”
Swift frowned. “I’ll think of something.”
Master Hiko stopped and looked around. “Here should do.”
We were a — hopefully — safe distance from the house and surrounded by tall trees with hefty trunks. It was as good a spot as any considering we weren’t sure exactly what the bow did. Perhaps it wouldn’t do anything special at all. I wasn’t going to count on that though.
Master Hiko drew the bow back. He waited, eyes shut in concentration. The weight of his magic thrummed over us in steady waves that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I rarely saw him use magic, and it was easy to forget how powerful he was when he was stumbling around drinking.
The magic built, pounding against us in increasingly powerful blasts. The mayhem magic twitched restlessly beneath my skin, ready to protect me. I could feel Swift’s magic responding as well.
Abruptly, it all stopped. Master Hiko lowered the bow with a frown. “I cannot wield this bow.”
“She said it drew on something else. What could it be if not just magic?” I asked, a sinking feeling growing in the pit of my stomach.
“You should try,” he said, extending the bow to Swift. “I am an old man after all. Perhaps I’m rusty.”
I snorted. “Not likely.”
Swift didn’t hesitate, taking the bow reverently. There’s no way she’d pass up a chance to try out something like this.
Just like Master Hiko, she drew back the bow, aiming at a large tree straight ahead. Her eyes narrowed in concentration. Smoky pink magic leaked from them, blending in with her hair. The familiar heat of her magic blazed around us. She was giving it all she had.
It built and built, making my skin crawl. This was like letting a bear breathe on the back of your neck and trying not to flinch. Every instinct demanded I do something even though there was no real threat.
