by Lee French
Enion glared at her. “Still not like boy.”
“I’m getting tired of that excuse, Enion. We’re all stuck together. Get used to it.”
The dragon stomped to Drew’s foot, his swishing tail kicking up dirt, and touched Drew’s shoe with one claw. His tiny bared teeth dared her to object.
Though she had half a mind to force Enion into closer contact, Claire gave up. Dealing with Enion’s weird hate for Drew could wait until later. “Just remember, dragon. If he dies, we die too.” While probably not literally true, Claire needed to motivate Enion to help Drew. Besides, if she lost Drew, she didn’t know how she’d handle it.
Enion pouted. He also nodded.
Drew crossed his arms and gave her a small smile.
Iulia cleared her throat. “May I proceed, or do we need to reassure anyone else’s ego that cooperation is in all our best interests?”
With a roll of her eyes, Claire waved to make Iulia shut up and get started.
Iulia turned her back on them and extended her arm. The locket touched the node, and Iulia gasped. Streaks of red-tinted gold leaped into the air, forming tendrils of power. They arced in every direction, flaming out before accomplishing anything.
Drew gasped. Claire glanced at him and saw his eyes wide with surprise or shock, or maybe fear. A tendril streamed over Iulia’s shoulder to slam into Claire’s chest, hitting her locket. Ripples spread across her mist, radiating to her fingers and toes. Heat poured into her, threatening to boil her away. The tendril yanked her toward the node, like a fisherman reeling in his catch.
The locket on her chest sprouted to more lines of power. One burned through Drew’s sleeve and plunged into the brand on his arm. The other hit Enion in the chest. Claire heard Drew whimper and Enion squeak in surprise. With another tug from the tendril, she flew into the node.
Everything went white.
Claire blinked until her vision cleared. She still stood in the tunnel, lit by a soft, red-tinted glow without a source and filled with the scent of mushrooms and dirt. Despite standing in the same place, she saw no sign of the node, Iulia, Drew, or Enion. Her feet touched the ground. She reached out and ran her fingertips along the wall, feeling the cool, damp bricks and aging, crumbly mortar.
“Drew! Enion!” Her voice echoed into the distance with no response.
Thankful Drew had brought her dagger, she tightened her grip on the hilt and took a step toward the room. She paused and strained to hear anything. A swish of cloth made her check behind her.
The ghost she found made her narrow her eyes. “No, you don’t,” she growled. She slashed with her dagger, hoping to catch it before it finished materializing.
Her father’s Phasm parried the blow with his sword, forcing her to step back. Mark Terdan had been an experienced swordsman. Claire had no chance against him. She held her dagger ready, but out of his reach.
“Hi, Dad. We keep meeting in the strangest places.”
“Claire.” He nodded and rushed her, his cloak billowing behind him. He lacked any color, as he had the first time she saw him. Only now did she wonder at that. Kurt had been silvery mist too. He’d also only been dead for a few weeks, but he’d seemed to have more of himself and his memories than her father. After only a few hours, Claire had remembered most of her life and taken on swatches of color. In five years, Mark never took on ever a tiny spot of color. When he remembered her, he only seemed to have bare, vague recollections. Maybe he lacked something that Claire had, though she had no idea what that could’ve been.
“You can’t win against me,” Mark said.
“Yeah, I know. But, funny thing. That won’t stop me from trying. Courage, strength of will, and tenacity, right?”
“I should have let you die.”
“Am I supposed to fall apart or something? I’ve been there, done that with you. The Palace— Wait. This isn’t the Palace. The node has no memories of you. That means you’re just my memory. I can beat my own memory.” She rushed him, taking him by surprise. With her dagger, she hit his sword and scraped it down the blade to deny him the chance to stab her. Jamming her elbow into his gut, she kneed him between the legs and let her momentum carry them both to the ground.
Dirt puffed into the air. While Mark squirmed to evade her, Claire cracked her skull into his nose. It hurt, but not enough to stop her. She shook her head and pulled her dagger close. Mark disappeared in a puff of smoke and dirt.
“What’s your next dirty trick?” she shouted at the tunnel. “You can’t beat everything I’ve been through already!” She scrambled to her feet and leaned against the wall. Things sneaking up behind her needed to stop.
“Claire? What are you doing down here?” Justin jogged into view, wearing his green-tinted chainmail from the Palace. The genuine Justin had lost his armor and she knew it.
“You’re not real,” she sneered. “Gonna have to do better than that if you want to fool me!”
Justin’s shape shifted until she faced an amorphous mass of green mist. It lunged at her. Unafraid of it, she held her dagger out and watched the ghost-thing impale itself.
Claire snorted. “This is pathetic. You’re not even trying. Do you even want to stop me?”
A frigid breeze blew down the tunnel. She considered her own question. Maybe nothing wanted to stop her. Or had she gained enough power to rival whatever the node could bring to bear? No, that made no sense. The node had more power in one square foot than she could command.
She lifted her dagger and noted her reflection in it. The image reminded her of crafting the swords. Rondy’s path of least resistance idea flitted through her head. Her role here involved protecting Iulia from whatever came to try to stop her. But if the world preferred having a seal, the lackluster opposition made sense because it came from Claire’s expectations.
Which meant she only needed to sit and wait until Iulia finished. The massive manipulation of magic might attract something curious, but Claire had no doubt she could handle that without running through these stupid tunnels. In fact, Iulia’s working itself might defend her to make the seal happen.
Pleased to have an easy job for once, Claire sat with her back against the wall and stopped thinking. She tugged on the thread linking her to Enion. Nothing happened. Pinging Drew’s thread also had no effect. She breathed and listened, wishing for either of them to stumble over her. Both had the ability to disrupt the boredom she expected to set in well before Iulia finished.
To help, she focused on each, one at a time, hoping the nature of this place had the ability to bring them to her. In the Palace, wants always made things happen. This place seemed similar.
Chapter 27
Drew
“I don’t get it.” Drew stood with his fists on his hips, waiting for something to happen. “Iulia made it sound like we’d be besieged from the first moment by monsters and madness. But the ants we saw were even easier to kill than the real ones, and now there’s nothing.” He made an imprint of his shoe tread in the loose dirt of the tunnel and scuffed it for a lack of anything better to do.
“I don’t get it either. And I still don’t quite trust her. She said we’d be fine, but I’m not sure I bought that. She doesn’t have any incentive to help us. Once the seal exists, why would she care about either of us? I’m a ghost, you’re a male witch. We’re both abominations.”
“She gave me a crystal to work with. And she didn’t lie about the color of my aura.”
Kay huffed. “I’m not saying she’s pure evil. No one is pure evil. I’m saying I don’t trust her. That’s all. Maybe we should try to find Claire.”
Considering how little Kay had trusted Claire’s ghost yesterday, even with Kay’s earlier statement about her, Drew didn’t know what to think. He shook his head and decided to agree. At least Claire might have some other ideas. They could talk. Figure things out together. “And you propose doing that how?”
“I don’t know. This feels like a demesne, kind of. More like the Palace, actually, except blan
k. It’s the empty Shanghai Tunnels, like it’s showing us what we expect to see. But I expected something much different from this. I figured we’d be facing down real things in the real world, not metaphysical things in a metaphysical space. What were you expecting?”
“Nothing in particular. Maybe this is what Iulia expects. She’s the one doing the magicky work.”
“If Iulia’s the one in charge of how this works, that says something, doesn’t it? Why would she separate us? She wanted our help to defend her. At least, that’s what she said. What if she lied to us, and this is about keeping us out of the way?”
Drew shrugged. Everything about this seemed to require understanding the thought processes of a woman born two thousand years ago and tortured for almost that long by a man she hated. “Then why bother having us come along?”
“Because she knew the locket would draw us in no matter what?”
“You seem kind of paranoid.”
“Yes? When the worst possible outcome is my death, I feel justified indulging in paranoia.”
If Iulia lied had lied to his face, Drew knew two important things. First, he had less skill decoding lies than he thought. Second, they were screwed and needed help. “What’s your best guess on finding Claire?”
“Follow the binding. Wouldn’t hurt to think really hard about finding her.”
The suggestion sounded stupid, but Drew had nothing better to go on. He touched the brand through the hole in his sleeve and focused on Claire. While picturing her, he got the bright idea to force the binding to become visible. He pulled his finger away from the brand, dragging out a glowing green line. With a flick of his wrist, he sent the line spinning into the distance. Along with it, he felt his energy draining away.
“I have no idea what you just did, so it was all you.”
“I… don’t really know what I did either.” Drew set off at a jog, following the line.
“We’re following an unknown magical effect into the darkness of an unknown magical place. What could possibly go wrong?”
Drew laughed. The maniacal, not-quite-hysterical noise echoed off the walls. Hearing it tempered him. He needed to find Claire. Even if she had no better ideas than he, at least they’d be together through this process. And if anything went wrong, they’d be together for that.
The line fluctuated between pulling him faster and slowing him down, as if something interfered with it. Drew redoubled his focus on Claire.
Then he tripped over her legs and fell face-first into the loose dirt. Coughing and sputtering in a cloud of dust, he rolled onto his back. Claire scrambled to help him. She brushed dirt off his face. He laughed. Whatever mad hell they’d been thrown into, he could touch her. Nothing else mattered.
Claire hugged him and helped him sit up. He’d never relished an embrace more. This moment gave him hope. He wrapped his arms around her and held on.
“You found me,” Claire whispered.
“Yeah. I did a magic thing, and I don’t know what it was, but I did it and it worked, and now I’ve got you and—”
“You’re babbling,” Kay snapped. “Knock it off. You sound like an idiot. She’s a girl, not a fancy car.”
Drew giggled. “I don’t even know what that means, Kay.”
“Shut up, Kay,” Claire said. “You’re ruining this.”
Kay huffed in exasperation. “Kids.”
Claire pulled away first, smiling at him with enough joy to banish the worst doubts Drew carried. “I’m glad we can wait together.”
“Me too.” Drew wanted to savor the moment. Being able to touch her changed everything.
“Excuse me while I interrupt before you do anything too, er, interesting. We’re not exactly in a private or safe space. Potential impending Iuliapocalypse, remember?”
Drew coughed and blushed. “Right. Yeah. Um.”
“Kay, you’re kind of annoying.” Claire stood and offered Drew a hand.
Drew took the help. His cheeks burned hotter. “You can’t hear him, can you?”
“No. Just going by your reactions to him.”
“I guess we don’t need to do anything, though,” Drew said. “So that’s good. I thought the whole world would be trying to stop us.” He kept hold of Claire’s hand and let her lead him up the tunnel.
“I think the magic is used to having a seal, so it’s not fighting Iulia’s efforts.”
“Makes sense to me,” Kay said.
Drew nodded, finding the explanation logical. But then he thought about the path the magic had taken before. “Wait. If the whatever magic thing wants to flow back into the path it took before, doesn’t that mean it’ll reconstruct the Palace? And since she’s using the locket, wouldn’t that mean it’ll want to put you in the center of it as the heart?”
Claire blinked at him. At the same moment, she and Kay both swore with heat and creativity.
“I’ll take that as a yes. What can we do?”
“Fight it.” Claire held up her dagger. “We’ll deal with Iulia after. Because she had to know, and she wanted to use the locket anyway.”
Drew frowned. “Are we sure she knew? I mean, she was nice to me. She gave me a crystal and some advice.”
“Do we know if crystals witches use are supposed to explode when they break? Because the one she gave you did that. And I’m compelled to point out that she blew on it before handing it over. She may have been trying to kill or weaken us.”
“Why?”
“Maybe the same reason we wanted to dominate a ghost.”
The idea of Iulia dominating him through a crystal seemed far-fetched, but Drew knew his understanding of magic still had a lot of gaps. “If she knew, then I think she’s using us all. I also think she’s really good at lying and manipulating. Better than anyone I’ve ever met before.”
Claire glared at the wall. “I can’t help but wonder whether she’s more messed up in the head than she lets on. The seal is a good idea, but she’s rushing it and either doesn’t care about the consequences or is fine with them.” She poked the wall with her dagger, flicking aside pieces of soot-stained mortar. “If the world is trying to form a new version of the Palace around me, then I’m going to treat this place like the Palace.”
Drew watched Claire shove her dagger through the wall. Bricks collapsed and she shoved her way through. Curious about the other side, he poked his head through to find another copy of the tunnel. Ahead, Claire slammed through the next wall.
“You’re not going to win!” she bellowed. “I’m not your slave!”
“She’s cracked,” Kay said.
“Maybe.” Drew stayed a few paces behind, eager to avoid anything that might explode in Claire’s face. “Claire, if you’re at the heart of this thing already, or getting there, doesn’t that mean you can control at least part of it?”
She paused and glanced over her shoulder at him. Her mouth curled into a dark little grin, one he knew meant she intended to do something unpleasant to someone else. “Hold on to your glasses.” Before Drew could ask what she meant to do, she dropped into a crouch and slammed her dagger into the ground.
Loose dirt leaped into the air, filling the tunnel. They fell. The dirt gave way to white mist. Drew squeaked and scooped air, trying to swim toward her. Claire seemed unperturbed, falling with her boots down and arms out. The wind made her clothes flap and ruffled her hair. She reminded him of a superhero about to make a classic three-point landing.
“Relax,” Kay said. “When the ground gets close, cushion yourself with fog.”
The simplicity of Kay’s suggestion made Drew’s cheeks burn again. He watched and waited until the mist cleared and they streaked toward a flat plain of yellowish dirt with a globe of golden light in the center. Lines of red pulsed around the globe. As they neared the ground, Drew guessed the globe was large enough to hold a person inside it.
He pointed downward and billowed fog out to slow his descent. Claire plummeted. She hit the ground on one knee, cracking the crust and causing a shallow c
rater. As she straightened and stood, apparently unharmed, Drew floated to a soft landing beside her. They’d landed at least three hundred yards from the globe.
“This is my demesne,” Claire growled. “Not yours.” She ran at the globe, dagger held ready.
“Don’t correct her,” Kay ordered.
Having been about to do so, Drew shut his mouth. Instead, he braced for another run. “Is there a good reason not to use the mist to avoid running?”
“We can’t do that here. There’s no access to the place I fold space through. You can ride a snake, though.”
“They’re kind of creepy. Too close to sentient.”
“Don’t be stupid, boy. They’re pieces of me.”
Stunned by that answer, Drew watched Claire fade into the distance. She moved fast. If he wanted to catch up to her, he had no choice but to create a snake and ride it. He spun mist and jumped onto the resulting snake’s back, riding it like a surfboard. To keep from falling off, he made it give him spots to wedge his feet in.
They’d get there in time. He had no idea what to do when they reached that globe, but he had faith in Claire and Kay. And maybe himself. After all, they’d figured this much out and come this far together.
Chapter 28
Claire
Overhead, a flash of silver announced Enion’s arrival. His roar boomed loud enough to rattle the ground. The sound filled Claire’s heart with certainty.
She knew they’d succeed, even if she had no idea what exactly she wanted to do. Disrupting the seal seemed wrong, but she wouldn’t let Iulia—either accidentally or on purpose—recreate the Palace. There would be no new Caius and no new Knights. Even if the intent would put Claire in Caius’s place, she refused to allow that to happen.
When they created a new seal, it would fix the problem, not patch it the same stupid way as before.
Enion landed beside her and kept pace. “Enion find Claire!”
“We’re here to stop Iulia.”
Drew’s mist snake caught up, slithering on her other side. “I think—”
