This Is Where The Magic Happens

“I don’t understand, what is this about?”

Saga straightened her back, buttoning again her green suit jacket.

Mister Dachs placed a hand on his wife’s knee, stopping the bouncing of her leg. “She already told us she doesn’t know, honey. We have to wait for Jev.”

Missus Dachs crossed her arms. “Since when we have to wait for him? We’re his parents.”

“Since we dubbed him Chief. Now he will be busier than us, so we have to adjust to his schedule.”

“He called for us!”

Saga drummed her fingers on her knees.

Steps came down the hallway and Saga looked up in time to see Jev entering while unbuttoning his suit jacket. His attendant stopped by the arch with a hardcover green book in their hands.

Missus Dachs sat properly and Mister Dachs straightened, both following their son going straight to Saga to kiss her forehead, then sit at her side.

“I know you both were about to start your new missions; I hope you informed of your delay, but I intend to be brief.” Jev signaled the attendant, who placed the open book the size of their torso on the small table in front of him, stepping back without a sound.

Jev glanced at the book and turned it around, pushing it towards his parents at the other end. Then, he rested against the back of the couch, wrapping an arm around Saga’s waist to pull her back with him.

His parents leaned over the book and Saga wet her lips, looking at Jev. His eyes locked on his parents.

“What is this, Jev?” Missus Dachs looked up at him.

Mister Dachs looked at the cover of the book before falling against the back of the couch.

“Chief,” Jev corrected her. “You’re not speaking with your son, you’re answering to your boss.”

“That’s bullshit. We have always been your parents!”

Mister Dachs signaled the attendant closer to whisper on their ear.

“That’s not why I summoned you, but we can talk about that on a future meeting.” Jev pointed at the book. “I should be the one asking that question.”

“I don’t understand, son.” Missus Dachs turned to the attendant, giving his husband a glass of whiskey. “Some water, please.”

The attendant turned to the Chief and his wife.

“A cup of valerian tea for Saga, please.” Jev ordered.

The attendant nodded and left while Saga looked at Jev.

“Chief,” Jev insisted his mother.

Mister Dachs let his empty glass in the small table, rubbing his mouth.

“Jev, for the love of-”

“Irma,” Mister Dachs turned to his wife, touching her arm, “stop. Look at him, we’ll go nowhere like this. Besides, the record exists; it’s not like doing like we don’t know will help us.”

Missus Dachs looked at him, “Then why did you did it?! We agreed to not let anyone else know about it. Why do you ruin us like this, Bernard?”

“The records are narrations of facts,” Mister Dachs explained, “and we have to do it even if we don’t like the facts. That’s what your mother entrusted me to do.”

“Ah, so now you do listen to my mother,” Missus Dachs gave him her back.

“I have always listened to your mother,” Mister Dachs muttered, ruffling his hair.

The attendant let the cup in front of Saga and circled the small table to let a tall glass filled with water in front of Missus Dachs.

“Thank you,” Jev nodded at them. “You may leave.”

He waited until the attendant’s steps echoed no more down the hallway to bring Saga the tea set. She kept her eyes on his while taking a small sip, then a longer one, readjusting herself with him once again.

“Does that mean Oma knew?” Jev asked.

Mister Dachs put his head on his hands.

Missus Dachs placed her tall glass on the small table with enough force for the water to spill out. “What were you doing checking past records?” she shouted. “It’s not your job.”

“I found it by chance,” he waved a hand. “What’s important is that I saw it and that there was no resolution whatsoever, so-”

“A resolution? Jev, are you asking us to answer for something that happened fourteen years ago?”

“Yes.”

“What is this bullsh-!”

“Yes,” Mister Dachs whispered. He looked up at Jev. “We needed help.” He stretched his arms to the sides, “It was bigger than us. Your grandparents were there, the whole Superior Circle was informed, it was submitted to vote. But we were the only ones involved,” he shook his head. “We made everyone believe there was no other option and swept it under the rug. We’re not proud of it.”

Saga turned to Mister Dachs and downed her tea, leaving the empty set on the small table.

“It was our only casualty,” Mister Dachs pointed at the book. “The only casualty in all my years as Chieftain. I didn’t know how to deal with it and it was not my decision.”

Saga covered her lips with her hand.

“What are you going to do now, son?”

Jev watched them, “Compensate them.”

The couple in front of him straightened.

“What?!” Missus Dachs blurted out.

Jev stood up, bringing Saga up with him, and buttoned his suit jacket. She imitated him while he closed and took the book. “That was all I wanted to know,” he said. “A vehicle is waiting to take us to the city, so I recommend you to finish your preparations to leave.”

Jev looked at Saga, who took his arm, and guided her to the hallway.

“Wait a moment, Jev!” Missus Dachs got up. “What are you going to do?! What do you mean, ‘take us’? What does ‘leave’ mean?”

It was nice to have space to think, though. All of the sensory overload he’d experienced for the past two hours were but background traces now. Not completely gone, just reduced to tolerable levels. So he could look at her, and understand her, but only when she was speaking his tongue, which meant the Icruxti language was truly a different speech and not just meaning obscured by static and echoes.

Actually, he was curious now. It was worth spending the breath.

“You learned our language well.”

She didn’t pause her work. “Picking up languages is a talent that runs in the family.”

“It’s not just that.” If she had learned it from the world of diplomats or scientists, he doubted she would have such a colloquial cadence. Some of her phrases, in fact, he recognized from his time traveling with Dust Drifter groups. “You sound like you’ve spent a lot of time around humans.”

Now she stopped. For a moment, Arensky wondered if he had insulted her in some way; maybe that was an offensive comparison in their culture?

But the pause lasted barely two seconds before she continued. “I had a good teacher.” She tugged the last strip into place with brisk finality, tearing off the excess with her short talons.

Arensky couldn’t count himself an expert on Icruxti emotion. But without the blinding flare around her silhouette, he found someone less alien, and more human, than he’d expected. He could read regret in her tone and in the way her gaze dropped to the side. 

He decided to change subjects. 

“What do they want with me?”

Calire was rummaging through her kit of supplies. “I’m not sure. We don’t get too many humans that make it this far. You’re going to have a trial, I think. An evaluation?” She pulled out another glass vial, this one with a teal liquid inside. 

Oh great, more mystery drinks.

"I... really shouldn’t be doing this,” she said with something like a half-laugh, half-grimace. “Come, sit up. You said you take liquids better upright, didn’t you?”

Arensky narrowed his eyes. “Tell me what it is first.”

“Liquid Lexicon. It’ll help you understand them. Us. Our language.” She glanced over her shoulder again. “I don’t want them to know I’m giving you this. As far as they know, this is an emergency intervention.”

“Why are you, then?” Arensky asked. “Why help me?”

“Because you deserve to know what your cross-examiners are saying about you. I'm not going to be there to translate. You'll be on your own."

Nothing new for him. "You're saying I should defend myself?"

Calire tilted her head from side to side. "I don't think you should say anything, actually. They might get mad.”

“You’re giving me the ability to understand what they’re saying but not letting me do anything about it.”

“Ye- I mean, no!” Her feathers bristled. “Just sit up. Drink this.”

“I still don’t know why you’re helping me,” Arensky pushed back, pausing to catch his breath. The effort of conversation was starting to take its toll. “If I can’t do anything about it… spare me the details. So what do you want me to do up there?”

“I don’t know!” she hissed, balling her fists in frustration. “You’re the second one, and I messed up the first time, so you’re basically the first one, and I’m not letting it happen again.” She closed her eyes, dispelling the charged aura that had flared up around her. “Just… figure out some way to stay alive and preferably in this area.”

-

1023 words

A little bit of chit-chat and caretaker time. Calire is trying so hard to be chill and calm but ah! a human! she gets to talk to a human! he is talking back to her! She must make sure this one makes it through.

Arensky's just tired man, he was betrayed by his travel group and dragged up to no-human's land where the air is too thick with Dyne to breathe, and then given miracle seltzer to help clear that up, and now he's making small talk with a bird girl about languages.

I pick my way across the grass with care. In this section, it's difficult to tell where the overgrown graves and the narrow walkway border one another these days.

He's waiting for me, in the same place- I don't have to count along the headstones or spot for the elegant curve of marble among the crosses anymore. I know my way by heart.

Then again, of course he's waiting for me. He never leaves.

'I made a mistake.' I'm speaking before I even get within three paces of the plot, the wind pulling the words from my mouth and the mizzle drinking them dry. 'I did something I shouldn't have. And now I don't think I can undo it.'

It's not yet done. Only said, only promised; but, no, I'm a coward. I planted the seed. Nobody would have thought it possible without my say-so. I had so many opportunities to recalculate, and took exactly none of them. I am so desperate, gagging and champing at the bit, for somebody else to take responsibility for this.

Pull back the curtain, though, and it's just me grimacing behind a different mask.

I rip up a fistful of weeds, letting their snarling edges whip at my bare palm. I shouldn't be using a visit here for such shameless self-flagellation, but where else am I going to go? Everyone else will either be in the offices, drafting and redrafting, honing how we're going to sell this one to the public and to the European Court of Human Rights, or else drinking to our last normal day for a long while. I spilled out onto the street, out of my suit, willing to do anything not to have someone ask me about another detail I wish I hadn't overlooked, and settled on here.

Reporters don't come to find you in a graveyard. Protestors don't throw beer bottles and bay for your blood behind sweet little English churches, notable only for the sprawling dead behind and the tight-knit congregation.

'Here.' I put down the basket of carnations with too much force. They'll be dead by next week, but what else does a florist have that can go outdoors at this time of year? 'I can't walk this back. I…'

I want to bubbles like a boil on my tongue. My eyes prickle. It's not fair.

What I really want is never to have had the idea to begin with. To have never sat down with a notebook in the hopes of getting it onto paper and out of my mind. I should have known it'd never leave me that way, should have buried it deep, made it my cross to bear and nobody else's.

All writing it out proved was that it could be done. It would work. Even as my pencil sketched out mortality curves, herd immunity calculations, initial thoughts on what would be needed to make this happen, I hated myself as much as I was mesmerised.

Rain drips down the headstone, crocodile tears that caress the rivets of his name. The white lettering has worn away: you'd have to read it like Braille. Or, like me, you'd have to know every careful stroke by heart.

'It's not my decision to make.' I tell the marble shadow helplessly. 'It might not even happen, it might…'

I know better. I can make as many excuses for my own lapses as I like, but the truth remains; I believe in this plan. I believe in the benefits. I want to see them realised.

I sit heavily in the damp grass. Like it'll bring him back.

I'm not so self-centred as to believe myself original. Doubtless, some clever professor or intern too sharp for their own good has thought through the same lines as I did. At some point, though, they remembered that the people of this country are more than numbers and statistics. For all the benefits we will reap, there will be a cost. There will be deaths, numbers on a spreadsheet, grieving families screaming like their souls have been ripped from them. There will be pain before any joy.

'I should resign.' My fingers twist a blade of grass, twirling it absently as cold rain slides down the nape of my neck like the hands of a ghost pressing through my clothes. 'But it's too late. They'll do it anyway. If I'm not at the helm…'

They'll change course. Once this proves irrevocably unpopular with the public- which, oh, it will, we must make no mistake. Once the initial efforts are over, we've hit on our first real ethical stumbling blocks, and the bodies start rolling through the crematoria, the media will be all over it like leeches to blood, and a steady hand will most certainly be required to keep us steady. If not me, then who?

I have no doubt I'll take the fall in the end. I'll stand before the Court and let pretty little lies about how I didn't really know drip off my tongue like honeyed vinegar. They won't believe a word but, much like my predecessors of nasty, unethical science, they'll have no choice but to plea-bargain for my results. Fortunate, then, that mine will amount to much more than senseless sadism. My name will be in all the ledgers, etched in blood, but I've no doubt we'll all walk.

'I can't let them do this.'

I can. I did.

'I can't…'

I've written my resignation three times today. Each time I get to the bottom, my fingers erase every single word as though they don't belong to me. And they don't. They belong, until further notice, to the government of the United Kingdom, and to His Majesty's pleasure. The chains that bind me to my work, though, are all of my own forging.

I wipe my face with the back of my hand, unsure whether I've been crying or my face is wet with drizzle.

“Who are you?” She asked, just as he went into human form and fell backwards, raising his head to see her.

“Hello!” The branch cracked, and fell, sending him to the ground with an “oof!”.

He heard her laughter as he stood up and rubbed the dirt off his legs, offering a dusty hand to her. “I’m Petrius.”

“Oh, you’re the raven I saw yesterday!” She blinked in surprise, beaming. “You may call me Claudia. Do you have time?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” He shrugged. Most days he would be under one of his brothers’ wings, off hunting with the wolves or making fabrics out of deerskin. Other times had them stealing other birds’ eggs, despite their parents’ orders not to do it for fear of the victim being a swan or one of those crows.

“Come along, then.” Claudia smiled, going into bird form as he did the same.

The pair flew over a litany of conifers. Mist from the morning faded upwards, settling as clouds blotting out the sky’s hues.

He wondered where they were going, as a ruin came into view. It lacked two of its four walls, the remainder forming a corner with a single slit window, an arch and a decent chunk of its middle floor hanging on.

A small stream flowed in front of it.

Claudia landed and shifted first, drifting her hand over the archway. “This is my little alcove, I come here if I think it might rain.”

“So you think it’s going to?” Petrius sat upon the grass, looking up at the sky and thinking it would be fine. The grass held no such droplets either.

“I don’t think so.” She sat down near him. “It’s just a nice spot.”

“Then don’t jinx it!” Laughter followed from the both of them, hers fading first, akin to a rook’s caws.

“So what do ravens do?” He watched her trace her fingers into the water. Fish hopped and bounced upwards, one bouncing near enough she pulled her hand anyway.

“Uh, we hunt I guess. Wander the woods, hope not to find any bad eyes.”

“Bad eyes? What’s that about?”

“No one’s ever told you?” He tilted his head a slight, Claudia doing the same. She drooped the other way, and he followed, before telling her the story as his brothers told him.

“Oh, how interesting, my dad never tells me such stories. He always speaks in lessons.”

“Would you like another one?” Petrius gave her a pearly white smile, as he reached his hand into the water and splashed it at her, a fish flopping onto the ground along the way.

She gasped for all the birds to hear, her arms raised out from her cloak, drenched with her hair. “I had my quills in here!”

Petrius descended into laughter, broken for a moment when he got soaked too.

Favours got exchanged and returned upon the stream, the pair splashing their afternoon away.

“Hah, you missed!” He stuck his tongue out, going into raven form as to avoid another splash.

She kicked more water at him, and sat upon the grass to squeeze her hair out.

He shuddered at the clothes stuck to him. Drenched, soggy, the cold water weighing him down. Almost like the rain in a way.

“How do we get back?” He asked, watching a mischievous grin appear on her face, tutting him.

“Like this.” She turned into a rook and shook water everywhere, spreading her wings out.

When she didn’t revert just yet, he did the same, his feathers all the more lighter for it.

The flight back to the crow court’s entrance went without remark. His heart spiked in dread and relief when they landed, though he went into human form to find he was still drenched.

“Will I get to see you again?” Petrius asked, wondering if it was a silly question.

A jackdaw’s caw cut him from his thoughts.

Claudia glanced up at it too, her face alighted in alarm as she looked back to him and shrugged as if nothing happened. “See you later.”

—

Under the rumble of the ground caving, Illis rolls and slams in too-hard ground and spits dry leaves, and when he stops rolling he wants to throw up. And then he opens his eyes and yelps.

The world is grey and silent and spiky, and wavy like metal reflections. Uneven floorboards and dead roots litter the ground, and crumbling low walls mark one wasting field from the other.

«It is rude to enter without knocking.»

Illis startles and climbs to his feet at the crackling voices speaking together. A figure stands behind him, and it looks like it came to life right out the colored glass windows of the temple, even if dressed badly in greys and dull browns. Three other figures float near them, more golden smoke than people. The glass-figure blinks, with eyes all gold. «How did you get here, child?»

Illis flinches as too many voices come out of its mouth and looks down at the ground. «I'm– I'm sorry, I didn't mean to! I was just trying to get the ball.»

«I don't care about that. You're in my domain. You are neither child nor avowed of mine, and I have no acolytes.» It tilts its head, slowly, and without worry. «So how come you're here?»

A shiver runs up his spine. «I– I don't know, I really don't I swear, I just fell. I'll get out, I'm so sorry, I just– Eek!» he yelps, stepping back as the figure moves too fast and kneels in front of him. It's so tall that its clawed hand lifts Illis's face to make their eyes meet.

Between one breath and the next, Illis gets lost in the gold. He comes back to the figure throwing it's head back and laughing. «Oh, this is simply too good.» The smoke-people at its back float closer and around him and speak quietly. It takes him by the arm, and Illis flinches because it's exactly how dad does it. «Come on, let's go.»

«No,» he yells and plants his feet. He didn't expect it to, but it works.

The figure sighs and turns around. «Child, the sooner we go and the better it is for everyone.»

«Go where?» Illis cries, trying to pull away from the figure's hold. «I don't even know who you are!»

«We are going to the Edge and the Pillar. They will know how to instruct you,» it says and drags them forward.Illis claws at its glass hand, but it's like trying to move water. It snarls. «Stop. I am trying to help you set on the path of your duty.»

«I don't know what you're talking about,» Illis yells. He pulls again, but the glass figure is holding him too strong. His eyes burn. «I wanna go home.»

«This is your home!» Smoke hands push him forward, where the glass-figure pulls him, and he yelps. «Now come along.»

«No! No, no, no, I don't wanna.»

The figure yanks him forward so it's face is close to his. «That does not matter, child. We do what we must, and you are no exception. Run, and you will doom milions. So do not run.»

Illis sobs and shuts his mouth. He won't cry — he won't, he won't —but the tears make the hold on his arm blurry and his hands are clammy and he can't tug off the glass figure. «No, no, that's not me, let me go!»

His skin burns and tingles under the glass figure's hand. The smoke people talk low and far and he can't hear them well, and the glass figure growls. Illis's heart slams against his chest like it too wants too run. «Child–»

«Let me̶ g̸̢͍̍̕o̵̞̙͗̅̏!»

The tingling under his fingers pulses. A light shines from his hand, putting colorful shapes in his eyes, but the glass figure flies back and into a dying tree with a grunt. The smoke people fly up with loud chitters, but he only hears them say "godling" and "follow" and "found" before he's running. He doesn't know where, he just needs to get away from the glass figure and away from the dead fields and out of what here is.

Through burning eyes he sees the orange dried leaves over dead roots of the flat circle where Sarine threw Azai's ball. He fell to get in. He closes his eyes, and stumbles on a root, and the world goes spinning on its head.

He lands in a pile of leaves, and everything itches and burns and his throat is closed up and the plants are screaming. He opens his eyes, and the forest greets him back from outside the dead ditch, green and alive, and Azai's blue ball is next to him. He's home. He's home, he's home, he's home, and his eyes burn and his skin still tingles and the plants are too loud but he's home. There's voices far away calling his name, and he thinks it's Jialee's mum and Tedo's dad and they're looking for him. His legs shake getting up, but he gets the ball and gulps down the dry in his throat to yell for them and–

«Illis?»

«That's a pretty name.»

«It's good to know it.»

Three voices ring in Illis's head, echoey like in the other place and he recognizes the smoke people.

He flinches and stumbles and turns around. There's no one, but there are hands on his shoulders and on the sides of his head and he freezes.

«We told you not to run.»

«Why did you think you could run?»

«You can't hide from us.»

«We know you now.»

"Illis!"

Illis gasps. The bushes rustle, and lantern-light turns the forest orange before Jialee's mum appears. "There you are! You scared everyone," she says, already halfway into the ditch. He's frozen and shaking and he can't get words out of his mouth, and he just buries his face in her shoulders when she picks him up. "It's okay, it's okay, you're safe. Let's get you home." She puts her hand — real and warm — on his back. The cold invisible ones don't move.

❊

Under the rumble of the ground caving, Illis rolls and slams in too-hard ground and spits dry leaves, and when he stops rolling he wants to throw up. And then he opens his eyes and yelps.

The world is grey and silent and spiky, and wavy like metal reflections. Uneven floorboards and dead roots litter the ground, and crumbling low walls mark one wasting field from the other.

«It is rude to enter without knocking.»

Illis startles and climbs to his feet at the crackling voices speaking together. A figure stands behind him, and it looks like it came to life right out the colored glass windows of the temple, even if dressed badly in greys and dull browns. Three other figures float near them, more golden smoke than people. The glass-figure blinks, with eyes all gold. «How did you get here, child?»

Illis flinches as too many voices come out of its mouth and looks down at the ground. «I'm– I'm sorry, I didn't mean to! I was just trying to get the ball.»

«I don't care about that. You're in my domain. You are neither child nor avowed of mine, and I have no acolytes.» It tilts its head, slowly, and without worry. «So how come you're here?»

A shiver runs up his spine. «I– I don't know, I really don't I swear, I just fell. I'll get out, I'm so sorry, I just– Eek!» he yelps, stepping back as the figure moves too fast and kneels in front of him. It's so tall that its clawed hand lifts Illis's face to make their eyes meet.

Between one breath and the next, Illis gets lost in the gold. He comes back to the figure throwing it's head back and laughing. «Oh, this is simply too good.» The smoke-people at its back float closer and around him and speak quietly. It takes him by the arm, and Illis flinches because it's exactly how dad does it. «Come on, let's go.»

«No,» he yells and plants his feet. He didn't expect it to, but it works.

The figure sighs and turns around. «Child, the sooner we go and the better it is for everyone.»

«Go where?» Illis cries, trying to pull away from the figure's hold. «I don't even know who you are!»

«We are going to the Edge and the Pillar. They will know how to instruct you,» it says and drags them forward.Illis claws at its glass hand, but it's like trying to move water. It snarls. «Stop. I am trying to help you set on the path of your duty.»

«I don't know what you're talking about,» Illis yells. He pulls again, but the glass figure is holding him too strong. His eyes burn. «I wanna go home.»

«This is your home!» Smoke hands push him forward, where the glass-figure pulls him, and he yelps. «Now come along.»

«No! No, no, no, I don't wanna.»

The figure yanks him forward so it's face is close to his. «That does not matter, child. We do what we must, and you are no exception. Run, and you will doom milions. So do not run.»

Illis sobs and shuts his mouth. He won't cry — he won't, he won't —but the tears make the hold on his arm blurry and his hands are clammy and he can't tug off the glass figure. «No, no, that's not me, let me go!»

His skin burns and tingles under the glass figure's hand. The smoke people talk low and far and he can't hear them well, and the glass figure growls. Illis's heart slams against his chest like it too wants too run. «Child–»

«Let me̶ g̸̢͍̍̕o̵̞̙͗̅̏!»

The tingling under his fingers pulses. A light shines from his hand, putting colorful shapes in his eyes, but the glass figure flies back and into a dying tree with a grunt. The smoke people fly up with loud chitters, but he only hears them say "godling" and "follow" and "found" before he's running. He doesn't know where, he just needs to get away from the glass figure and away from the dead fields and out of what here is.

Through burning eyes he sees the orange dried leaves over dead roots of the flat circle where Sarine threw Azai's ball. He fell to get in. He closes his eyes, and stumbles on a root, and the world goes spinning on its head.

He lands in a pile of leaves, and everything itches and burns and his throat is closed up and the plants are screaming. He opens his eyes, and the forest greets him back from outside the dead ditch, green and alive, and Azai's blue ball is next to him. He's home. He's home, he's home, he's home, and his eyes burn and his skin still tingles and the plants are too loud but he's home. There's voices far away calling his name, and he thinks it's Jialee's mum and Tedo's dad and they're looking for him. His legs shake getting up, but he gets the ball and gulps down the dry in his throat to yell for them and–

«Illis?»

«That's a pretty name.»

«It's good to know it.»

Three voices ring in Illis's head, echoey like in the other place and he recognizes the smoke people.

He flinches and stumbles and turns around. There's no one, but there are hands on his shoulders and on the sides of his head and he freezes.

«We told you not to run.»

«Why did you think you could run?»

«You can't hide from us.»

«We know you now.»

"Illis!"

Illis gasps. The bushes rustle, and lantern-light turns the forest orange before Jialee's mum appears. "There you are! You scared everyone," she says, already halfway into the ditch. He's frozen and shaking and he can't get words out of his mouth, and he just buries his face in her shoulders when she picks him up. "It's okay, it's okay, you're safe. Let's get you home." She puts her hand — real and warm — on his back. The cold invisible ones don't move.

❊

“What was you?” Keshawn demands, exasperated, just slightly, because even a few years out Clarence still acts like the people around him should catch his shorthand. It’s like he hasn’t gotten used to the idea that there are people he didn’t grow up with around. 

“Okay, so, way back, before we developed the contacts to deal with this kind of thing, sometimes we’d find animals,” Clarence says, miming something the size of a smaller dog, like he’s implying they were usually smallish animals. “Fucked up science experiment animals, sometimes, but usually normal ones. And, like, lost pets you can leave at the animal shelter, obviously, but other animals, well, we didn’t know. 

“So this one time there was this guy, he was some kind of exotic animal trafficker or something I guess, I don’t know, we didn’t get an explanation on it because we killed him first. I mean, not like that! He was trying to kill us while we were only trying to talk to him, so we killed him back. Anyway, he had, like a shitton of snakes. All different kinds.” 

“There was a body in a warehouse,” Keshawn says, slowly, still carefully believing that Clarence tried to talk the man down first. “Your territory. It looked like maybe his contact turned on him, but no one ever found what he was smuggling.” 

“Okay, I feel like you’re describing a lot of unsolved murders, but if he was, like, overkill riddled with bullets, and blood smears all around, yeah, probably. It was only the two of us so it took a while to drag all the snakes out, and that’s why we got marks all over the floor, and we had to steal a truck and everything to get them all out of there. And we don’t know anything about snakes, right, so we have to look up a video on how to take care of them, and there was one that had instructions on how to build snake houses and everything! Like this guy really seemed to know what he was talking about. We thought it was right! 

“So we build these little habitats, and get all the snakes sorted by what kind they are, and then we took them to the zoo, like usual, in that little building they set aside so we could do night deliveries. I mean, they kept leaving us notes telling us to stop doing that, but they also got a sturdier trailer, so what was the real answer, am I right? And so we carefully arranged all the snake habitats there, and left a note on the door warning people it was full of snakes, in case anyone had phobias or anything.” 

“At the zoo?” Keshawn asks, figuring that must be the sort of thing that gets people not hired, but there’s something about it, niggling at the back of his mind. He’s heard this story from another angle, he could swear it. “You... left a note. With a little cartoon of snakes.” 

“Well, you know, the note only said Warning: Snakes, so I thought an illustration was in order. Anyway we thought those were a safe way to house endangered snakes, you know? But the zoo got so upset they made a whole segment about that guy was wrong about building snake habitats, literally that morning on the morning news, and then people got so curious about it that it made it onto syndication, and then everyone was mad about our snake containers in public, even though they didn’t say our names or anything. I mean, they couldn’t. No one knew it was us, I guess. I kind of thought the news would’ve guessed at some point.” 

“I remember that,” Keshawn says, news clip flashing through his mind. “My friend was the one who did that PSA. She was so upset about someone doing that to a ton of endangered snakes, like they were giving a gift to the zoo or something – before that, they thought it was someone pranking them, leaving animals in their office all the time. But then everyone figured it was someone poaching animals as some kind of unholy donation.” 

“We saved them! From a snake trafficker!” Clarence says, pained, like he’s looking for Keshawn to tell him he did the right thing. It’s just that Keshawn’s pretty sure leaving random animals at a zoo overnight isn’t the right thing at all, and he trusts the people he knows with zoology degrees on that front. “All of those were animals we rescued from, like, supervillains or whoever. We were helping them! The zoo was really mad?” 

“I mean, they had no idea where you were getting them, and the animals often seemed distressed, so. Yeah.” Keshawn shakes his head, because of course they seemed distressed. He’d be distressed, too, right after getting rescued from a mad science lab. “They did appreciate that, for the most part, your notes got longer and more legible.” 

But it was recently that he'd been told the full story of the other facet that made him different from everyone else. One that tied back to legends he'd always been curious of, that now, he'd been told he was a part of.

And one he'd told no one, not even his sister.

"Then what has it been?" Lyari demanded, keeping her voice low. "Your wandering does no good for our image, and in fact—"

"I am aware," he snapped. Lyari's expression hardened, but Azar sighed deeply. He reached out, gently placing his hands on her upper arms. They were bare, as her colorful dress had no sleeves. "Sister. I have been speaking with the guests that you turned away days ago."

"What?" She lurched away as if he'd burned her. "Those outsiders? Whatever for?!"

"They have told me more of their mission. To make the Biomes better, to better all of Dridon! They wish to spread their influence across the continent."

Lyari scoffed, crossing her arms. "And how do they plan to accomplish that?"

"The same way they arrived here." Azar looked out of one of the tall windows on the wall. The Emergent was aptly named: a sprawling building in the trees, above most of the canopy of the Jungle Empire. With that height, he could see the distant gray clouds that barricaded the edge of the Biome, killing anyone who tried to pass.

Lyari followed his gaze, her eyes widening for a moment. Then, she sighed, clearly angry. "You cannot be serious," she hissed. "The chances of them being Drifters—"

"Then how do you explain their enchanted diamond arsenal?" He looked at her. Lyari fell silent, before her expression turned solemn.

"You wish to galivant off with these heathens? What of our station? Our empire? All of the time put into bringing order to this Biome, and you wish to abandon it?"

Azar paused, then gently put a hand on her arm again. "I will be bringing order to all of the Biomes, expanding our influence. I must be the one to do this, Lyari, as you must stay here to keep it in check."

"Why you?" she asked, frowning at him. "Why must it be you?"

Azar hesitated. Lyari's frown deepened to concern.

"Brother?" she asked.

"It is... complex." He made himself meet her eyes. "But I believe I am being called by The Great Abyss to this path, that It has set it before me. To something far grander than we can truly comprehend."

He used his ability as he said the words, giving them more credence, more...power. It was one he didn't fully understand, but using it was nearly as natural as breathing.

Lyari believed in and followed The Great Abyss, and had always dreamed of glory, reaching for it even when most would assume she had all of it in her palm. And it was these beliefs that his charmed words reinforced.

Slowly, Lyari nodded, just as Azar had hoped. She smiled, reaching up to put her hand on his. "If you believe it, then I suppose I should encourage you to follow Its will."

Azar smiled back, and for once, it didn't feel so hollow. "I am glad, sister. I will make you proud."

Gently, he kissed her forehead, then embraced her. She hugged him tightly—her care was ever evident behind that brash exterior.

Minutes later, he walked through the Emergent door, and there stood the guards who would accompany him to meet those strange, powerful outsiders. The lead, Droksa, bowed first as he arrived, the five of them wearing glittering armor of bronze imbued with emeralds.

"Is everything accounted for?" he asked.

Darling startled, nearly dropping his clipboard. Barbara Martin, Trench’s secretary, did drop the pen she’d just picked up.

Trench walked out, not wearing his jacket. His hair was somewhat rumpled in the back, and he approached with a somewhat slower stride than usual. “Barbara. Any messages?”

“Director!” A consummate professional, Barbara quickly composed herself. “No new messages. I am afraid I do not have your evening paperwork compiled yet, but it will be soon.”

“Great, thank you.” Trench gave her a small smile, then pulled off his glasses and held them up to the light. He made a small, disapproving sound. He reached for his jacket pocket for a cleaning cloth, apparently realized he wasn’t wearing his jacket, and sighed. “I forgot my jacket. That’s a violation of the dress code.”

“I hardly think anyone is going to object to the Director briefly stepping out of his office without a jacket,” Darling said brightly, hopping up. “What are you doing?”

Trench blinked slowly at him, still holding his glasses in one hand. “Darling. I’m sorry. I didn’t see you.”

“Understandable, given that you’re not wearing your glasses.” Immediately, Darling had to hold up a hand to counter the argument that he could see brewing on Trench’s face. “I know, I know. You were wearing them when you first came out. I was joking.”

“Oh.” Trench just stood there for a moment. He was certainly not functioning at optimum capacity. “Yes. You were. And I presume you were waiting for me. Would you like to come with me while I retrieve my jacket?”

“Certainly.” Darling fell in step beside him. “I thought you would be taking your afternoon nap.”

“I was.”

Darling raised his hand and tapped his watch. “It’s early. You shouldn’t be done.”

“Mm.” After stepping into his office, Trench laid his glasses on a shelf. He took his jacket from the coat stand and slowly pulled it on. “I did lie down. I slept.”

“But hardly for your usual length of time.”

Trench shrugged. “I had nightmares. Going back to sleep didn’t sound appealing. So I decided to get up.”

That was extremely unusual, which certainly said something about the severity of the nightmares. However, instead of raising that point, Darling simply handed Trench’s glasses back to him to clean. “Well, I was in fact waiting for you, so perhaps you’d care to accompany me to my lab?”

Movements still sluggish, Trench took out a cloth and cleaned his glasses. Despite the sluggishness, his eyes had brightened by the time he put his glasses back on. “For what?”

“A private presentation of my latest invention. Further development of containment techniques.” Darling caught Trench by both hands, drawing him closer. “You know just how much I love giving you private presentations, Director. Especially when you, um. Reward me for my hard work after.”

Trench chuckled, which was not something he did often. “Well. We do have extra time before I need to do my evening paperwork.”

He leaned in, giving Darling a sweet, gentle kiss. Darling closed his eyes and leaned him, head tilted at an angle which would avoid their glasses becoming entangled.

She's starting to think the prince liked her better when she was asleep — perfectly still, perfectly beautiful.

Then again, she has to admit, she's not thrilled with him these days either. She liked him better before he was a King. Back then, he was her prince — her savior, whisking her out of the forest, his back steady and strong atop his horse as he carried her to a safety she hadn't known in ages.

But she is not a glass-cased corpse, and he is not a hero. He is just her husband. She is just his wife.

And she does not want any more apples, poisonous or otherwise.

She wants cakes, and dancing, and the forest floor beneath her feet. All the things that shouldn't be done, now that she is a Queen.

She tucks the fruit into a pouch to feed to her horse later, and turns back to her mirror.

—

"Snow White is the fairest of them all."

If she had known the true reason behind all her troubles, she would have smeared her face with dirt until the mirror changed its mind. She would have happily made herself ugly if she could have continued her life as it had been, carefree and sweet.

She remembers a time when she was sweet. A naive and cheerful girl who sang with the birds and danced with the dwarves. A girl who didn't fear fruits or family. A girl who just...lived.

What's so good about being beautiful, anyway?

She turns her face left and right in the mirror, tracing the lines of her cheekbones, her lips, her nose, and tries to imagine them differently. She distorts herself, sucking in her cheeks, puffing them out, pushing her features this way and that like a child making faces. This way, she is a pig. That way, a horse. Another twist of her lips, and she is a duck, a chicken, a swan.

But when she stops, it's still her: the same face she's always had. A face beautiful enough to drive a stepmother to murder. A face that trapped her under a glass coffin first, a gold crown now, and she's not sure how much difference there is between the two.

Is it her fault? Has it always been her fault?

"Mirror, mirror, on the wall," she murmurs. Irony burns sore in her throat like an illness — or is that just the lingering shape of the apple that was caught there for so long? The pain of it has never fully faded.

The mirror in her room is not the same as the one her stepmother once spoke to each day, but she doesn't need a magic glass to hear its awful, impermeable truth.

"Snow White is the fairest of them all."

She slams her hand against the frame in frustration. It cuts her fingers to pick up the shards, then cuts her cheeks as she presses them to her face, but she doesn't care. A few thin lines of blood are little price to pay against all her apparent beauty has already cost her.

—

When the King comes to understand why their mirror has shattered to pieces all over their chambers, he goes silent, then has her imprisoned in a room far up in the north end of the castle — his beloved princess, locked in a tower.

He's not a monster, of course. This is his wife, and he wants his lovely bride to still be comfortable. He's just worried about her, he insists, brushing the pads of his thumbs sadly over the cuts on her face.

There is a soft bed, a grand piano, two chaises longues to recline against in case she feels faint. Nothing sharp, no needlework or knitting, but he lets her have some paints, oils and watercolors and delicate canvas. A few things she inherited from home, too — her mother's jewels, her father's books. Some of her stepmother's things as well, though she's never been brave enough to look. She still remembers the taste of poison, and shudders.

And a hand mirror, because lovely ladies still ought to be able to preen themselves, even in captivity. She won't, though.

Restlessness is gnawing at her from inside her bones. Her teeth are gnawing too, gnashing at her cheek as she paces back and forth across the short length of the room. She tries to busy herself with the quaint hobbies she's been left with, but honestly, these activities are too idle.

She tries more than once to choke herself on the jewels. It never works. Her body has known this feeling of unwelcome dangers in her throat, and it won't accept them again.

After a while, there is nothing else to do. She sits with her stepmother's things, and begins to look through.

—

The castle is far behind the fair maiden now. She worries that they will be after her to bring her back any day now — but does it matter? They won't recognize her anymore anyway.

She licks the side of her lips, reveling in the bumpy edges of her skin against her tongue with satisfaction. Her face is wrinkled and spotted, but she lets the hood fall freely around her shoulders. The worse she looks, the better.

Her stepmother never understood the treasure she'd had all along. The spell to turn her to a hag was the best thing she'd ever done, if only the woman had been able to stop competing with a child long enough to realize.

Vian doesn’t know how these survived, only just hidden behind a single hidden door. They’d torn through the mekanismo kvinobla’s belongings, untrained soldiers charging into the city’s highest towers, burning and breaking anything they’d come across. They, her and the Renaskiĝi per fajro, saw bones on the stairs as they climbed those steps today, broken and scorched as the walls. Maybe it was the work of the last devotees while the mekanismo kvinobla’s power, and bodies, were crushed or the Renaskiĝi per fajro herself might have known what would happen, that something would happen, herself something between a god and a machine (“Theos ek mēkhanēs,” a god who was a girl once told Vian, whispered like a secret from a dead world) and more than both of them.

The Renaskiĝi per fajro cheers when she pulls a dress made for a body not exactly human free from the ash and rubble. More than human, some would say. Vian would not as the Renaskiĝi per fajro beckons her over in the sunlight streaming through shattered windows, a lead manacle around her remaining wrist.

“Help me,” orders a woman who was content to let their city die out over a few generations. Who burnt Vian’s eye out, watching satisfied as her mind boiled Vian’s skin. A woman, god, machine, tyrant that Vian is going to let loose again in all her power. Once the Renaskiĝi per fajro is dressed.

Vian could refuse. Their bargain was Neferu pretending at being part fivefold mechanism again, nothing else in exchange for slowing the city’s…decay. For everything the Renaskiĝi per fajro is capable of and ended up necessary for, these clothes are complex things, made with a chorus of attendants in mind to gild the living pieces of the city’s living, multipart machine. And the Renaskiĝi per fajro is no longer something to worship. Vian broke the five-part mechanism until only one damaged piece remains, begging her to help it dress itself out of gray prison clothes.

The Renaskiĝi per fajro laughs at her of course, with a voice bred to command armies, when Vian doesn’t move. “You won’t help me, little general?”

The Renaskiĝi per fajro’s eyes travel down to the gun at Vian’s hip—the Renaskiĝi per fajro’s once, a piece of history for a shelf—waiting to see if she’ll reach for it. To see if Vian is strong enough to kill her and weak enough to try. There’s a light in those eyes, like that pyrokenetic energy Neferu loved, and a hungry smile on her face. The fivefold mechanism was always hungry, bodies burning through energy to match their minds and every part of the city their minds commanded.

Vian reaches forward, lifting one of the dress’s sleeves from a distance. It shakes, she wasn’t made for telekinesis, but holds well enough. She bows into a sweeping curtsy, her remaining eye meeting Neferu’s.

“Your dress, unua menso.”

The Renaskiĝi per fajro is hungry and as Vian straightens she thinks the Renaskiĝi per fajro will have to learn to fucking starve.

Neferu huffs and laughs again, climbing inside the dress’s layers, her one hand flying to finish its ties herself. “Difficult. But I absolve you.”

The Renaskiĝi per fajro sets the last pins of a dress that sweeps the floor, ash pulling itself away from her steps until she stands in front of Vian, almost who she was when she stood over Vian like a god and took her away. She raises that same hand to cradle the blind side of Vian’s face, dragging a nail around the edge of Vian’s eye. Vian refuses to so much as blink.