I shook the spell from my hands and all but slid on my knees down toward them. Carefully, I lifted them from the sanguine puddle that had formed. Slipped them onto my bed as I took them in. Their clothes were tattered to the point that they'd no longer deserve the designation and their face was tight and pained.
"H-help," they said. Their voice but a puff of strength that barely held.
I swept my head toward Sphinx. "Get Melissa and Amber, it's an emergency."
"Is it?" Sphinx asked.
"Do I need to add, please? Cause please, this is an emergency."
Sphinx gave a slow feline blink before it leaped from the balcony. I turned back to the person that seemed to be dying and saw that their eyes had cracked open. They were blue as the horizon and swooped with the most beautiful hint of joyful sorrow.
"No people, please?" they asked.
"Don't worry they're. . . well. . .good," I said. "They're really good."
"But can we trust them?" they asked.
I gestured at my eyes. "We can and I have ways to see beyond liars."
Then examined them more closely. They were an embroidery whose threads had come loose. I was fresh to the Omensight, but I could tell that wasn't a good thing. As I focused though I noted a brightness about their spine. It was coiled tightly before it spun to the extremities of their body—when my eyes noted pubic hair as flung them back to the person's face. They mistook my expression.
"It's an old spell. Some sorcerous surgery to align things better about myself. . .my body."
"I totally understand," I said and I really did. Melissa's aunt—one of the few Knitcrofts to not go into the fabric tradition—had done similar for myself. Before I was Nadia. We shared a smile of shared struggle.
Bam! The knock at the door shocked us from the connection.
"Temple, you didn't give Sphinx the key," Amber yelled.
I patted my pocket and felt the edge of the wood then hurried to the door As I opened it I had only then realized the image I presented. Besides the pool of blood on the floor, I had a nearly naked—and surprisingly stunning—person in my bed. The perfect image to your recently divorced wife.
"Nadia, what the f*ck?" she asked.
Amber winked. "Seems you're into more than teachers"
"Just get inside," I urged. Slammed the door once they did. Melissa finally noted the blood—again, it was everywhere—and hurried to their side.
"What'd you do to them?" she asked.
"Nothing!" I hissed.
Melissa fluttered her fingers against her collarbone. It must've been some cue because that was when the symbiosnake emerged. Slid out from above her collarbone to slip round her neck like a crimson choker. It's head in the position where a pendant would be. The thing stained Melissa's neck as her blood dripped down into her chest.
"Belay current mutation order. Expedite and maintain sewing nails for," she voicelessly muttered some calculations, "five minutes. Set fiber to suture-silk."
The command finished, the symbiosnake dove back into her skin—it parted like sand against its nose. Half a minute later the mutations Melissa demanded took effect. Her nails—a reflective steel that extended to her wrists when her fingers closed. She tapped each nail to her wrist attaching silk to needle in eight individual threads. Her fingers blurred and her twin pupils rolled from each other to follow two threads at a time. Where her hands lingered, wounds closed.
A smile inched across my face to see her work. Before. . . everything, I would be laid up in her bed doing homework each night. Watched as she'd practice her sewing. Whether fabric or flesh she had the same look of intensity. Her eyes fluttered while her tongue blep'd between her lips like the cutest little puppy.
"So, who did do this to you," Amber asked the wounded stranger in my bed. She had claimed the chair across from it and had made it the throne from which she'd carry out her interrogation.
"A cult," she answered. Amber wound her hand.
"Yes, but which one? The Dancers Of Death's Orchestra, the Bats Sullied Sky? I need something to work with."
"I think they called themselves, the Lurkers in the. . . Deep?" they answer-asked.
"Hmm," Amber said. "Most of the cults in this region were squashed by this place's Lodgemaster last I checked."
"Well they did," snapped. Then hissed as a needle pierced one of the wounds on their inner thigh.
"Okay, they did," Amber allowed. "What'd they want? Cults only move when they think there's something out of it. Otherwise they get their kicks from jerking off over liturgy."
"I-I can't say," they said.
Amber gave an understanding nod. Then tapped Melissa's shoulder removing her from her flow.
"Stop, junior," she said.
Melissa grumbled, "I'm not your junior."
"Amber, alls below why are you stopping her?" I asked.
"They're trouble we don't want," she said. "If it wasn't something they'd get in trouble with some boss about revealing the secrets of they'd just tell us. No one struggles to say their family was abducted to be used as a sacrifice for Sacrifice."
"Melissa?" I asked.
She was conflicted—her lips pinched whenever she was. "Before I left Mom said the roads are confusing out here. Maybe Amber's right?"
"Oh, careful with all the praise there princess."
"I thought I'm junior?" she asked.
Amber smiled, "Remember, flattery will you get anywhere."
Melissa rolled her eyes. While the person—only half stitched up—was astonished. Tears rolled down the edge of their cheekbones. Slowly rained onto the sheets.
"They wanted the axis mundi," she said.
"What's that?" Amber asked.
"It's a—,"
"A Staircase, technically," I said. "But we call a Staircase a Staircase, and use axis mundi to mean a temple-sorcery to pierce down into the Underside."
"Fancy," Amber purred. "They kick you out of your house then."
"No," the person said, "they stole it. We hadn't just built an axis mundi; we made one as a shrine."
Her eyes landed on me while mine landed on that night. My dad's killers had made an impossible escape, but right in front of me was someone who just said it really was possible. I all but lunged at them eyes wide with homicidal yearning.
"How many did you make?" I asked.
She stammered. "One."
"When?"
"A month ago. They've held us hostage since." Before his murder.
"What research group were you?"
"AoSI. We work for the—,"
"Lodge." It lined up. It all lined up.
"You two, out," Amber barked.
I turned to her, my face broad in exaltation. Hers was stone, smooth. She led us out of my room into the hallway. It had a green carpet and ensconced lamps up and down the hallway—no other doors but my own. A trick of Remembrance used in most inns and hotels. You could only perceive the door you had a key to. Dad called it, 'the Mother's Prayer," an old formation said to have been made back at the beginning of the Changeover. Said it was made by a child as a bundle of them hid and begged their dead mothers to keep them safe.
"Amber," I whispered, "it lines up."
"Nadia," Melissa whined.
"It does," I snapped.
Melissa stepped back. Amber held out her hand pacifying me.
"It's one way it lines up," she said.
"But," I stammered, "i-it does."
"Maybe too well."
Her insinuation fell like sand upon the forest fire of my thoughts.
"You and princess are children of the NewNet. Your psychic defenses aren't that robust. I bet no one's rooted through your head that hasn't warned you they would," she added.
My hands explored my hair. Pulled at locks in examination of my own thoughts. Searching for the sign I was tampered with. That maybe I just heard what I wanted to hear. I paced slow enough that Melissa caught up to me. She stopped me. Guided me back to Amber.
"They were lying," Melissa said. "When Sphinx came to get us Amber said she'd tap my shoulder if they weren't telling the truth."
"You're not the only one with special eyes, Temple. Too much of her story was either delivered poorly or "
"It lined up," I whimpered.
"Too well," she said. "Most of their story wasn't true. What was was an off delivery of it.."
"Their wounds were weird too." Melissa said, "They were shallower on one side, and they were cut to have the most blood spill not impair function. At least if they were healed quickly enough."
"All of their lines, rehearsed. Their costume, chosen. They set bow to your heartstrings and played you. I bet they even threw in an early, 'can we trust them,' to help bring you close together," Amber said.
She called every bit of it down to the we. My mouth warped into a sneer. Fingers crossed and already hot as I drew on a thousand possible paths for me to torment them. Met Amber's gaze and found it to be cool.
"I don't want to play games," I stated.
"Then we don't. Do what you gotta do, Temple," Amber said.
"Wait, do what?" Melissa asked.
I had already pushed free of her. Threw the door open and stomped through their blood. They looked up at me with hope only to realize it was wasted upon a woman's dreadful fury. I split infinity and let fire touch the bed. In an instant it was consumed by chalcedony.
The person fell from their suddenly aerial position. I pounced atop them. My hand-spell ready with my nails set between their eyes.
"Truth. Now." I said.
"What'd they say to you," they said.
"I want the truth," I reiterated.
"Alright," they said. Gone was the meek worry and exhaustion that lightened their voice. Instead it was thin and tinny. Like everything was a cute little joke.
"What gave me away?" they asked Amber.
"The big one, you stalled when you said you couldn't say. Most people when they're that messed up are quick to say everything. Especially if they were an AoSI member who had their super special research stolen. Let me guess, you're an infiltrator focused on sabotage."
"Infiltration focused on rapid information acquisition. Sabotage takes too long," they said.
"Of course it does," Amber rolled.
I squeezed shut the burgeoning confusion. Dug my fingers deeper into their skin.
"Who are you?" I asked.
They looked away coquettishly. "I really hooked you didn't I," they said. "But sure, I'm Secretary."
"That's a job not a name," I said.
"For them it is," Amber said. "They're the Lodge's spies. All of them take the name Secretary and have their actual name stripped from their mind."
"Ohhh you're well informed," Secretary said. "Fan of the craft?"
"When it's done well," she answered. Secretary gave a look of fake shock.
"So what's real?" I asked.
Secretary settled their eyes back on me. They cut a smile that didn't match right—the eyes like you were looking at the saddest thing but a mouth like you were so pleased it was sad.
"Which do you want to be?" they asked.
I tasted copper in my mouth. Sphinx sidled next to me and leaned all their way into me.
Sphinx hummed, "Is this the way you want to travel?"
It made me—unfortunately—have to think about it. Slowed my heart that banged on the door of sense. I knew I'd have to kill people eventually, but I only wanted it to be those five. I wanted it so badly that Secretary could see it in me. Plucked it from me most likely. The horizon wasn't far enough especially when it was in their own eyes.
My hand lowered and I shook free the spell. Melissa reached out for me, but found only Sphinx's fur. The two of them shared a look that I didn't see. I only felt the fierce desire for distance directed at her.
"You're infiltration not torture. Leave Temple alone, and answer the question," Amber ordered.
"Ugh, why when you already have the answer key?" Secretary asked.
"Want to see if you'll cheat."
"Smart," Secretary tossed. "AoSI facility attacked, yes. Me as AoSI, obviously no. The attack wasn't months ago. It was a week. Only picked up something was off because of the news of examinees disappearing from this location."
"And the shrine?" I asked.
Secretary smirked, "True."
My hand fell on Sphinx's head and gave it scritches. Focused on that than the fact that it didn't line up anymore. Maybe there was still some way it all made sense, but it wasn't in the room with me. I looked back to Secretary.
"What do you want from us?" I asked.
"First, help me deal with the cult's agents downstairs. Then, help me go snag the information from the research facility."
"What's in it for us?" Melissa asked. Then flicked to me and then Amber for approval. Amber gave her a small thumbs-up.
"What all you examinees want: a prelim exemption pass. All Lodgemembers in good standing—even us spies—are allowed to grant a maximum of four a year. If you want them then fetch doggies," they said.
"We don't need them," Amber said.
"We'll do just fine without them," Melissa added.
I killed the discussion. "I only have two spells."
Secretary looked scandalized by my admission. While the other two's faces fell low. It was just Amber's theory, but after how badly I was played the scales had fallen from my eyes. Even if everything didn't line up with the past that didn't mean this way couldn't still lead to my future.
"We'll do it," I said.
Secretary clapped gently and suddenly I remembered they had no wounds and their clothes were perfectly pristine—they wore a suit over their flat but supple chest, and a high waisted skirt over stockings in black leather boots. I blinked my eyes rapidly, but the memory was already set.
"What Court are you?" I asked.
They smirked, "Remembrance, darling."
"That's for researchers."
"And spies," they corrected.
"That's the other thing, you looked too pretty. Real amateur sh*t," Amber said.
Secretary pouted, "Forgive me for wanting to leave a pretty corpse at any time. Now, if you hadn't already noticed your fellow examinees have already been incapacitated. Oh, listen, you can hear your chance to do your job walking right toward us."
We all turned to the door. I flicked on the Omensight and peered beyond the wall. A vague form creeped ever so slowly—they even slid their feet to test for squeaks in the wood with their toes.
"Temple, tell me when they're in front of me," Amber said.
Step step step step—now! "Go go go," I insisted.
Amber held one arm out and shaped a hand-spell with the other and then fell into space. Their body seemed to shrink the way a ball did when sinking into deep mud. With the Omensight it looked like Amber had disappeared beneath the threads of the world. Wait—she came out. Her arm took our problem in the neck. Curled tight into a one-armed chokehold. Then Amber fell back into the room the way she left.
"Mr. Meek?" I asked confused.
Amber pointed at the sheepish boy in her arms. "Now this is a great infiltrator. You'd bet the loudmouth downstairs would be the one. Cultists think so much of themselves."
Secretary rolled their eyes. "Alive please."
"I'll get him," Melissa said. Her mouth yawned open to reveal elongated fangs. She sunk them into Mr. Meek's arm and held him there as she pumped a familiar toxin into him. I recognized the stillness which had come over him. His pupils dilated and reflected the nothingness behind his eyes. Wherever he went it was deep in the quiet. Amber lightened the hold enough to not suffocate him.
"How long before re-application?" she asked.
"His size and that dose, I'd call it two hours," Melissa said.
Secretary stood and looked Mr. Meek in the eye.
"Works for me," she accepted. "What's the plan for the rest downstairs?"
Amber stretched as she spoke. "My favorite. I call it, 'Sir, you'll have to leave the theater.'"
"Cute title, but they outnumber us if you forgot," Melissa said.
"True but we outnumber them in what really matters," Amber gestured to Mr. Meek's slumped body, "information. They struck down the others using stealth. You only do that when you're not strong enough to win a stand-up fight. The moment they attacked and didn't get us was the beginning to their end. Plus, they only have soldiers"
I nodded along but Melissa was still unconvinced. "Okay, but it only takes five summoners working together to wield the same power as the link above them."
"Oh junior, it takes five to approximate the power of the link above. It's not really the same thing—though they are all using the same Court which can definitely help," Amber said.
I pointed out, "Whether real or approximate, there's only four of us. And all of us have soldiers."
Sphinx shook its head. "No. Only two, you and the maiden of Mutation."
My face scrunched in confusion—Amber's entity wasn't of the soldiery, but what about the lindwurm and—she clapped her hands once, a command of our attention. Then formed her hand-spell and lightly blew across her fingertips and I watched as breath became butterflies.
"Nadia, I promise we'll talk later, but yes Nahey's a Baron. Doesn't look like it and that's exactly how we like it," Amber said. A proud smile on her face as she stared at the clump of butterflies.
"Where's your entity in the Chain?" Melissa asked Secretary.
Secretary examined their nails. "Baron, but I don't see how it's relevant—," they said.
"You're needed in the plan," Amber said. "It is still your mission after all."
Secretary shared an annoyed smile with the room. Then formed a short series of seals before the hand-spell took shape, and we all remembered the Baron was already there. Specifically, it sat atop the dresser of the room, legs crossed, and in an outfit that looked like a butler. I hadn't known what a butler was until then, but the information just slid into my mind as if it always belonged. When I took in its face I scoffed and rubbed my eyes as if it could scrub away what was in front of me. The Baron's face was my dad's—same generous smile as if he had so much happiness to share, same eyes that crinkled with pleasure that he got to see you again.
"Why does it look like my dad?" I asked.
"Nadia, restrain yourself," Sphinx said.
"No, it looks like my dad. Why?"
Secretary hummed. "It's not Blotomisc's fault. He always adjusts to the psychic waves of others."
The Baron—Blotomisc—lowered its head in apology. "I only wish to provide what would make people comfortable. Familiar faces tend to do the trick. Though I apologize if I misjudged."
Sphinx bowed its own head, "No apologies—."
"Yes, apologies. I'd rather stare at your real face than this," I said, altogether unwilling to be met by a face I'd never see again. Let alone see it speak without his voice.
Sphinx glanced at me before it raised its own head—its lips tight with restrained thoughts.
"Okay, so how do we win with two Barons and two Soldiers?" I asked.
When I turned to face Secretary my back was to Amber. It was with my back that I felt her press into me. She was soft—her chest spread across my back as she pulled me close—and her grip was firm as I couldn't get away. Amber laid her chin atop my head and cooed softly.
"Deep breaths, Temple," she said first. "We win with you. Same way you helped me nab our first cultist is how we bag the others. So, relax and use those special eyes of yours so we can get more info on 'em."
My own exasperation with her antics had leaned ever so gently against instability in my heart. Somehow she just balanced me and as a result I barely cried when I activated the Omensight. She slowly turned me—the lilac world shimmered like the setting sun on a lake in the summer—then guided me to my knees. Tilted my head just so, and said, "There."
I focused my gaze to the ground and once again felt my vision paw at the world sliding aside the threads of its tapestry to see deeper and deeper. First the light threads of carpet then the sturdier flooring. I reached the first room and breathed deep like you'd do before lifting a heavy weight then began again. It was harder this time because of the distance I needed to cross to even attempt to see through the floor—don't forget I was maintaining a gap already—and I felt my moisten. Tears. You'd think they'd make the task harder, but instead they marked an expansion of myself. Flames ate away at my image of the world as everything sharpened again and I could see everything within the tavern two floors below us.
In that unknown area where my self was woven with Sphinx came a throbbing of pride.
"Causality is but a pane of glass that dulls the truth. Congratulations on tossing away another one," Sphinx whispered.
"Can you see them?" Amber asked.
"Yeah," I answered. "What am I looking for?"
"Any clue as to how they beat all the examinees," she said.
I could see the lines that tied the cultists to each other and to the bodies around them. When I tried to touch them I felt my cheeks moisten again—would I break through again—but instead Amber squeezed me and I lessened the pressure on the thread that'd lead me through time.
"Temple, you okay?" she asked.
"No," Sphinx said. "Nadia, don't reach for defeat past the victory you've already gained."
"I need the answer," I said.
"Yes, but now is the time to see broader and note the answer within the present."
The scene below me distorted so that the entirety of the tavern was in view. I even caught some of the lobby and noticed something strange. Under the Omensight everything was a touch of lilac—though now a smidge darker since my advancement—but where the tavern met the lobby I realized something.
"The color's wrong," I said.
"Color?" Amber asked.
I nodded and gestured to the threads only I could see—a habit I've yet to break. Where tavern met lobby was a gradation of color, but under the Omensight color meant the world. It meant Courts. This color was an ocean at its darkest. Where time and light would go to die. Whatever it was, had woven itself to the backing layer of Realspace.
"Sounds like a field-ritual," Amber said. A response to the thoughts I'd spoken aloud—it was like the understanding broke itself in the prism of my mouth in anxious escape. Then I realized she had said it was a field-ritual. A combination of more than two Summoners casting a spell in unison—strengthen their power—with the spell in question being the establishment of a field. An area of Realspace tainted with a Court's nature overriding local Real. The singularly focused variant of conceptual zones.
"Courts?" Secretary asked.
"Seas and Gloom probably. With the cult called the 'Lurkers in the Deep,' I'd hazard that their little group worships the Court of the Abyss."
"The lady at the front desk did have a sea angel looking entity. It tracks for me," Melissa added.
"You can stop now, Temple. Come on back," Amber said and rose to her full height.
My eyelids fell and when I opened them again the "panes of causality" had returned to me. They let me see that Melissa's hands were shaking. I examined my face and my hands came away bright red—blood. Sphinx leaned over and ran its tongue against my cheeks—it was textured with each ridge grazing my skin with just enough friction to be enticing. Melissa's worry gave way to confusion and then she blushed. Sphinx had licked away my tears. . . and I liked it.
"I'm okay," I blurt out. "My eyes heal after the spell every time. They're normal. . ."
I trail off because though causality had returned its glass it wasn't the same as before. There was a crispness to everything—details you'd miss otherwise became glaring, like how the wood grain in the floor told the story of a forest fire but the wood of the wall spoke of heavy rain.
Sphinx rumbled with pleasure. "They're better. Revelation leaves its mark even when its brilliance dims to the basem*nt of memory."
"So, they're better," I said, not quite focused on parsing Sphinx's poetic dialect at the time.
"Any guesses on the field-spell?" Secretary asked.
Amber dismissed the question. "No need to guess. Nadia, did the weird color backing thing look like a solid color or like it had faded?"
"Faded. The Court felt deep but also like it had bottomed out and just begun to rise," I said.
Amber chuckled, "Yup, the cultists gave our exam competition a 'bender.'"
"As in the bends?" Secretary asked.
"And a clever pun since they used it on drunks." Amber continued, "their field-ritual dropped the pressure incrementally on them. The normal dizziness you'd feel was masked by the booze."
"Then you drop the pressure so fast it'd make them feel like their skull slammed against concrete, shocking the brain," Secretary said.
Amber shot them two thumbs up. "Exactly, which means the ones who have to go down there to face the lot of them will be me and Melissa," Amber said.
I shot to my feet and whirled on Amber. "No way. I have an actual weapon," I said.
Melissa yanked me back to face her. She said, "Stop deciding for me. That's not us anymore remember? Besides, Mutation is never without weapons."
Secretary chuckled and jeered at me. "It's not even the point. I don't have any spells that let me adjust to levels of barometric pressure. Do you?" they asked.
"Just how it goes sometimes, Temple. My bag of tricks runs deep and I have a Baron. I'm already dense enough that their spell would struggle to keep me down. Mutation is just wiggly enough to ride along the pressure waves. This is just a case of a place you can't go," Amber said.
I looked around for anyone to take my side—no one did. Especially not Sphinx. I could feel worry radiate in waves from them all fixated on me. So I released my puffed chest.
"Okay," I said.
Amber smiled softly before she called out to Secretary. "Can you break the Mother's Prayer?"
"What!" I exclaimed. The Mother's Prayer was used almost everywhere. It was the cornerstone of most privacy formations. For many it was often the only formation of privacy they knew. I looked to Secretary and saw them grin in annoyance at the question.
"It'd undermine the faith people have in the Lodge if I answer that," they said.
"I have no faith in it. Melissa has perhaps negative faith," Amber said.
Secretary pointed at me, "They have a smidge."
"It's needed for the plan," Amber said.
Secretary huffed and pushed back from the wall they leaned against. Slipped through the door and waved us into the hallway to follow. We piled in there and Amber eyed the stairway. I watched Secretary reveal how much privacy was an illusion people like them maintained to spy on people like us. Their hands curled into a double hand-spell while Blotomisc took position behind them, hands at the ready to clap.
"Remember what came before," Secretary incanted. Then cast the spell in time with Blotomisc's clap. A tone rippled down the hallway in a range you couldn't hear. It was for the floor and the walls—a reminder of a time before they were marked and forgot the sight of their architectural kin. My eyes flicked from Secretary to the walls, and I remembered that there were six rooms on both sides of the hallway. I could actually acknowledge them.
Amber whispered, "Mark this down, Temple. This is the way smart summoners fight: gather enough information and cheat to victory. Safest way to win, and kill someone up the Chain."
She walked past Secretary as Blotomisc helped them up.
"Really, took you casting this as a two-hander and you needed to dual cast with him? Wasteful," Amber tossed at Secretary. "Now it's time to kill the lights."
She formed a hand-spell and said to me, "Temple, turn those eyes of yours on. This is a teachable moment. Princess, if you and the sh*t spy have a form of conceptual sight you might as well watch. Might pick up a trick."
I flickered on my Omensight and winced. Nahey was. . . brighter than expected. Amber as well. With an even sharper corona of brightness at their edges. I quickly adjusted and witnessed Nahey split apart from the spell, but I noticed the thread—albeit extremely thin—that connected each individual clump of Nahey to each other. Nahey was still one.
"First," Amber said, "your entity is an imposition on Realspace. Sure, at the soldiery it's more of a negotiation, but as it graduates and ascends the Chain it'll be more of itself than the world can handle. Let's it start breaking rules like being in only one place at a time."
Nahey slipped through the floors in the same way Amber moved through the wall. I set my sight to the floor and opened it so I could peer into the tavern below. Nahey hung close to the ceiling, set itself into corners and random spaces.
"Second," Amber began, "ritualizing a spell is generally a good idea if you want to give yourself a bit of a force multiplier and the spell is a one-and-done. It's less of a good idea when you need something constant and stable like a field. No matter how good you're trained, it's never easy to maintain a unified focus. Someone's going to lapse, and the longer you hold it the more out of pace they become. Makes your field—which should feel like a singular voice holding the perfect note—into something more patchwork. A quilt of wills that doesn't line up quite right."
It was then I realized that the Nahey's had all settled on the borders of each cultist's control.
"Means when I contest, I'm not facing the will of ten summoners in one fight. I'm fighting one summoners five times. Which at our distance is a light warm-up," Amber said.
Nahey's incandescence peaked and then puffed out beyond their bodies.It imposed itself onto Realspace—ripped wide the patchwork field the cultists erected—and revealed the yawning dark that sat below the abyss. Water, pressure, and the vestiges of light swirled down the drain Nahey had formed. It went to the same place Amber had when they stepped through the wall.
The cultists did as people normally do when the lights go out—they wandered. Hands out and probing in search of anything familiar. As if the sudden darkness had taken their memory with them. It wouldn't have helped because they all started moving far enough away that they couldn't guess where anyone was.
"They're scattering," I said.
"Good." Amber crowed, "When it's Quiet in the House, you can't see anything but what I want you to see. Can't hear anything but what I want you to hear. Missed this spell."
Amber then snapped to grasp Melissa's attention. "Ready up junior, it's your turn."
Melissa rolled her eyes at her ever-shifting status with Amber. She clasped her hands together and formed a hand-spell with a seal that looked as if her two hands had become one. Her skin flipped up and over like sequins under a child's gliding hand—scales appeared in the wake leaving her arms gauntleted. While muscle rewove itself beneath flesh before they doubled and doubled once again in threadcount. Her arms bulged and capped with sickle-claws. From the sharp snap of bones I knew there was more changing under her the scales that coated her body. When her bones snapped back together Melissa had doubled in height—the ceiling was low and forced her eight foot body to slump. Her gorget of toxin-tipped spines bunched with her shoulders. Her face bent ever so slightly to afford a wider mouth of thresher-like fangs.
"Oh," I said, though it came out husky and moanish.
Under the Omensight the process was just that beautiful. Her—herness—doubled with her size and there was so much more to. . . appreciate. I swallowed as softly as I could, but Melissa noticed. She blushed—which in this form brought a sunset-y peach to her cheeks—and then purred. Did she think I liked purring? It rumbled in a place only my bones could feel. A massage from the inside. The vibrations died at my extremities and then I saw how smug she looked. She'd just proven that I maybe did like purring.
Amber pulled a syringe gun from her storage spell. Handed off a few vials for Melissa to fill up with the toxin from her fangs. When that was done she pressed in close.
"Hold onto me," Amber said. "You'll need to grasp the ceiling right when we slip into the tavern. Try not to drop me."
"No promises," Melissa rumbled.
She swallowed Amber inside her arms. Amber formed the hand-spell needed and the two of them fell sideways through the world. Through the floor below us. Into the tavern—Melissa caught the ceiling with her claws—and Amber initiated the final step. In that sightless soundless dark she had subjected the cultists, they never had a chance to realize that they were prey.
Amber formed the hand-spell that summoned the spotlights. In unison the beams of light banished dark and created a small field around each cultist. Ironically, it isolated them from each other even more—they had stopped groping for the wall, their only way out. Instead their attention fixed on the sudden light.
Melissa let go of the ceiling and the duo flipped in air to land down below. The cultists heard nothing—Amber didn't want them to—and I watched as the two of them divided the room in half. Five targets for each of them. I have no idea which targets were luckier.
Sure, Melissa was nervous—it was clear in the way she circled each one just beyond the edge of the light. She needed that extra bit of confirmation they heard and saw nothing. Affirmed, she'd lunge forward and take them in jaws. Fangs piercing up from below the ribs while the upper set plunged down through the neck and shoulder. While her fists held them by their arms the way a parent would swing their child—I doubt the cultists were reminded of such happy memories. They weren't reminded of much because Melissa's size meant she delivered an equally oversized load of toxin that flooded so hard in their veins and arteries that a few of their more frail capillaries burst. Between the toxin and the shock they were out fast, and Melissa scuttled away on four limbs to the next one.
"So, is the Mutant one single?" Secretary asked.
I hissed, "She's my ex-wife."
"Great. Then she is."
I clenched and released. Then looked to Amber who waltzed—literally she was dancing—through the tavern to a song only she could hear. The syringe gun bobbed in the air as the partner to her steps. None of the cultists had a chance when her hand lunged into their tiny circle of perception and clasped fast about their wrist. They weren't prepared for her to spin them into her chest. It looked like they screamed when her needle found them in the neck—all her previous smiles seemed dim to the way she grinned when they did. Their lids shuttered as they slumped in her arms. Partners unable to keep up. She dropped them and spun on.
Back in the room, I felt Secretary's nails trace my arm.
"Do you only watch, or do you actually bring something to this little team?" they asked.
"I don't know. We hadn't talked about that yet," I said.
Secretary hummed amusedly. "Sure, and I just haven't 'talked about it' yet with lovers who sucked at the making love part of the job."
I did my best to ignore them.
"Some of them I kept around though,"
I failed. "Why?"
"They were cute. Like you," they said.
My face flushed from anger at the intimation of my own uselessness and the forward way they presented it. They made their dip when they said it too—sounded airy like when I thought I was "saving" them—and I was disgusted that it still worked on me.
It took two minutes to tranquilize all the cultists. Amber gave a flourish and a bow to signal me through the floors. When Secretary and I joined them, Amber was already patting down bodies. She had amassed a small stack of token pouches on a table.
"Are we really robbing them?" Melissa asked.
I shrugged. "I mean, they would've attacked us too."
Melissa waved her hand. "Oh I'm not worried about the cultists. Amber's robbing the examinees."
"I'm gathering my fee," Amber said.
"Really?" Melissa asked.
"Yeah junior, it's expensive being on the road. It's why I charge a 'Saved your life' fee to anyone I save. Helps me pay for the top shelf stuff. Which if you excuse me," Amber said as she wandered behind the bar to loot it too.
Secretary shrugged—they really didn't care. Just went and conducted their own examination while I sat on a table next to Sphinx and near Melissa. When we regrouped they held up a key and a ledger. They opened it flat so everyone could see.
"Keys are obviously to their ride. There's a van hidden nearby," they explained.
"The ledger's about a van?" I asked.
"No." They stared flatly, "The ledger's a list of examinees. Everyone they had on record as buying a train pass ahead of time for this station. And by the number of checks they nabbed everyone on the list so far."
"Why?" Melissa asked.
Secretary smiled. "That's what the other half of my mission is about. If I'm lucky it'll be something fun like unethical sorcerous experimentation."
From how they said it you'd almost be convinced that would be fun.
Secretary flicked to look at me, "That's where I think you'll come in. We'll be going undercover."
"No," Amber said. Her face was dark as a stormcloud and her voice was bled dry of humor. "She's not trained for infiltration."
Secretary shut the book and held it aloft. Snapped their fingers and I watched as the ledger discorporated into light like Mom did. They pointed at me dismissively.
"You two have earned your exemptions. I want to know she's worth it as well. Unless this is where you'll leave her behind to help your own odds," Secretary said. Tone as if they were offering up the option to Amber and Melissa without any judgment.
"Then we'll also come," Melissa said.
"You three can do that in the privacy of your room," Secretary said and sent Melissa blushing mad. "For this, I need a brute. Nobody else or no exemption."
"Deal," I said. Amber shook her head ready to explain why this was a bad idea. Then gave up when our eyes met and I said, "please, no spoilers."
Amber softened and shrugged. "Glad you can joke. Don't die, Temple, there's so many drinks I've yet to share with you."
"It's your life. I already know my thoughts don't matter," Melissa said. Her breath caught and I knew she had so many thoughts that she wished I thought mattered. None of them would change that I needed that exemption.
"Glad that it's settled." Secretary twirled their finger, "Now, gather up these examinees and load them into the van. We still have night to burn."
I hated being ordered around as did Sphinx, but this was the way I had chosen for us. Together we dragged each examinee to the van that Secretary said was outside. They sped toward it as if they remembered exactly where it was. They stared at the ledger like the words would rearrange themselves to blow the whole plot wide open—I gave up calling for help by the third body. It took me maybe fifteen minutes all together.
"Can you drive?" Secretary asked.
"Only scooters," I said.
"Fine." They tapped their temple and leaned to the right into the breeze. Only to snap back like a reed when they received what they had sent for. "I'll drive."
I circled the van with Sphinx, but when I opened the door Secretary frowned at me.
"Nope, you're riding the examinees. Also put your entity away. Can't believe you just have it walk beside you all the time."
"How?" I asked. It hadn't fallen beyond my notice that Nahey didn't flit around Amber all the time. The same way that it was only today that I had saw the symbiosnake despite the long drive here. It must've been such a commonly learned technique that it warranted their look of complete astonishment.
"You really don't know?" they asked.
"I don't."
"Wow, you're cute. Maybe even hot, but gosh so dumb. Didn't pay attention to mommy and daddy's instructions?"
"They died before I could get any."
The admission swept Secretary's thoughts out from under them—a point for me. Then their face fell back into a wry enjoyment of the world.
"You'll have to tell me the story on the way. Now, back of the van."
I shut the passenger door and made my way for the back. Opened it up and climbed atop the bodies and laid down—tried not to imagine if this would be how my corpse would lay if I had gotten to die with Mom and Dad.
Sphinx climbed in after me and pulled the doors shot with their paws. Clambered over bodies and loomed over me. Its face blocked the moon through the van's back window.
"Breathe, Nadia," the sphinx said. "I'll be gentle when I enter. Just, try to relax and let me in."
I bit my lip and nodded. Though I couldn't relax. I blame the way Sphinx said their instructions—it was what I told Melissa our first time. When my thoughts Sphinx tipped itself forward into my chest. Folded itself down until it could slip within the fibers of my spirit's muscles. I felt full in a way I hadn't felt before. My fingers gingerly touched just below my navel in awe that all of Sphinx had hidden itself within me. Then I smiled as I thought about the feeling and could already see the shape my fingers had to make to form the spell. I wondered if it counted to the four I'd need.
Secretary pulled out from the hiding spot and set the van onto the road. We were off. I felt every bump and stone we rolled over. Even through the bodies that cushioned me I couldn't not feel how rough the road was. I tried to put it from my mind.
"Did you really pick me because I'm a brute?" I asked.
Secretary smiled by their words—I just knew they did. "Yes, but that's cause I love brutes. People like Amber aren't those I'd trust to have my back. Even if I had what they wanted."
"You're a spy," I said.
"Yes, so I'm an expert on knowing who not to trust."
"And Melissa?"
"Malleable until you hit something she'd believe in. I can't take the risk of someone with a conscience getting in the way."
"I have a conscience," I said.
Secretary laughed at me. "No, no you don't. Maybe a while ago you did, but not now."
"If I lacked one I'd have killed you."
The car took a bend. "That's not how it works. If you had a conscience you wouldn't have been ready to kill me at all. There was no hesitation in your eyes. I was already a corpse."
I was silent.
"That's what makes you a great brute though. You were ready to put me down the minute you felt I had to be. That's the kind of quality I look for. Then you got extra credit when I saw how well you took correction from your entity. Just a few words and you ran the numbers. Realized that there wasn't that much reason to kill me—at least not then."
"That makes me a brute?"
Secretary laughed as we rolled fast down a hill. "The kind I dream of finding every mission."
I didn't ask anything after that, and instead tried to enjoy the bruises the road created as we neared our destination.
