[15] God's Blessing on This Wonderful World!

"Parody. That's the word. I kept thinking satire, but no, satire's too smart. Satire requires subtlety. Subtlety is an alien concept here, apparently, so what we have is parody. A brash, boorish joke. Blunt, like whapping you over the head with a baseball bat." The arm holding the umbrella jerked to demonstrate. "We have here a parody of a real world. Distorted, depthless, purposeful only to wring a few droll laughs out of a brainless audience. That's the word. Parody."

Shannon Waringcrane paced the breadth of the road at the last traversable segment before the debris left by the landslide rendered it, if not impassable, difficult to pass. Shielded from the rain (milder now) by the umbrella, she unconsciously and gently rocked her other hand close to her chest as it cradled Olliebollen's limp form.

"And no sign of Dalt. Left me. Got in the jeep and left. Where's Wendell? Did anyone see Wendell?" She implored the few faces aimed her way with eyes as stringent as her voice. "Wendell must've gotten in with him. Just a pair of buddies on an adventure together, making a new map together. Left me! Of course they'll have to crawl back. I've got the key home. But it's over. If Dalt thinks this relationship is continuing another minute—another second—he's delusional. De-lu-sional."

"He told me," said Sansaime, hunched over Makepeace's corpse, her face buried against his chest, voice one pitch below a sob—exercising the slightest degree of control—"he told me we'd travel the world together. He was going to leave Whitecrosse, y'know. Become a wandering knight. He felt like he had no home and—and I'm the same, I suppose. Our home would be each other. That's what he told me: Our home would be each other. Whispered it into my ear that night. Oh. Oh, why."

"Of course Mother's going to worry. Of course! I'll be home just a little bit late and she'll go berserk. Drink herself into a stupor. Jay do you realize how much she was drinking because of you? No of course not. Didn't think about her for a second I bet. Too busy mooning over fourteen-year-old girls. Disgusting. Are you that pathetic Jay? Guess it must be genetic. Like father like son. Parts from the same mold."

Off to the side, Charm curled into a ball in the mud and sobbed, but sobbing was all she ever did, so who cared. Dead nuns lay strewn about her. Even the ones Mayfair reanimated had, after some time, dropped back to the ground and stopped moving.

"I guess it's karma. You picked the one fourteen-year-old girl who enjoys chomping arms. And whatever she did with that—that dragon. I guess she controlled it with that staff or whatever! Parody. Complete and total parody."

"Shut the fuck up," said Jay. He sat with his back against a rock. Hands over his face. Water running off his hat.

Sansaime's head lifted off Makepeace's chest. "That girl... Mayfair."

"Mayfair, right. That was her name. Who are you anyway? Another absurd caricature? Well, who cares. I don't know why I'm standing here talking. Jay, get up. We can't just sit here. If Dalt won't come back we'll have to walk, since you so sagely destroyed the other car. Sure Dalt's gonna love that by the way. Hope his insurance covers that. Actually, no, considering how he acted, I hope his insurance doesn't cover it. Now come on. I'm ready to march thirty miles, how about you?"

"Why," said Jay.

"To go home of course! Jay, you've lost. It's over. You're going home. There's no discussion about it." Her shoulders slumped despite the rigidity of the rest of her posture. "You have to see that. Look around you."

"Where did Mayfair go," Sansaime said.

"Got in the jeep with Dalt and drove off," said Shannon. "Who knows why. Dalt didn't see her bite the fairy thing's arm off, so maybe he thought he was protecting her. Wendell should've known though."

"Wendell didn't get into the jeep with them," said Jay. "As for Mayfair, she'll do what she said she'd do. Get through the Door. She took Perfidia with her, after all."

Dalt and Wendell were both probably dead. He missed whatever happened to Wendell, but the man wasn't here now. Dalt meanwhile was last seen doing Mayfair's bidding and driving her away. She must've used the staff to revive him. Telling Shannon would only initiate another headache. Maybe Shannon was being willfully ignorant anyway, to spare herself.

Sham staff. Didn't actually bring people back to life, did it. Only necromancy: corpses into puppets. And they baited him up here for it. Now Makepeace was dead too. Jay with nothing to show for it.

"Well she can't," Shannon said. "As I keep mentioning, I have the key. Perfidia doesn't."

"I guarantee Perfidia can open the Door with or without the key." Jay fiddled his bat between his hands. "You know that too, Shannon."

"Who's Perfidia," said Sansaime, her voice flat and her words delivered tersely.

"She's the devil who built this place—Why am I even telling you!" Shannon made to toss her hand, remembered the cradled Olliebollen, and stopped herself. "None of this matters. If Dalt and Wendell went to the gate that's only another reason why we should go too. We certainly can't allow them to bring that girl into the real world. That'd be disaster. Complete and utter disaster."

"They're in a car. It's impossible we catch up. Accept it, Shannon." And let him sleep. All he wanted to do right now was sleep. He didn't want to think, didn't want to decide, didn't want to walk. Let him sleep.

"Catching up or not. Letting them through the gate or not. That's not the point, Jay. The point is we made a mess—yes I'll say we, yes I'll admit I've made errors too—we made a mess and it's our duty, our responsibility, to fix it. That's what it means to be an adult, Jay. That's what—"

Sansaime was up, behind Shannon, gripping her head with one hand and holding a knife to her throat with the other.

"Give me the key," Sansaime said. "Give me the key now."

"Oh what the fuck Sansaime," said Jay.

The umbrella fell from Shannon's hand, although she kept her gentle grip on Olliebollen. Once the instinctual shock subsided she rolled her eyes. "Excellent. Another lunatic."

"The key. Give me the key."

Jay expelled a drawn-out sigh. He gripped the bat but failed to muster the willpower to lift it in even a token gesture of threat. After what happened already, this joke couldn't possibly matter.

"Why do you even want it Sansaime. I thought you didn't believe in God." Or was it Olliebollen who didn't. Or Flanz-le-Flore. Everything jumbled and nothing shone sharply.

"I give not the slightest care for any god or any religion," Sansaime spat between clenched teeth, her eyes a wide and wild pair inside the blotchy piebald pattern of her face. "I need that key for but one reason. I must kill her."

"Mayfair." Jay nodded sleepily, things slotting together. "I guess that was why you were here to begin with."

"Before it was for gain." A few more jagged jerks of her eyes, but the rapidity with which they shifted slowed, as did the frantic edge of her voice. "I was offered something money cannot buy. But now—Now—" Her voice caught, she swallowed a sob. "Now it's simply what I must do."

"Sansaime," said Jay. "Come on."

"Put down the knife and let's discuss this like reasonable people," said Shannon. "No. Impossible in this world. Must be the air!"

Sansaime squeezed her eyes shut as a grimace stretched her mouth. Jay thought idly that if he possessed even a modicum of energy he could have rushed and beaned her before she even noticed him coming, but he did nothing until her bloodshot eyes opened again trailing a fresh stream of tears or maybe just rainwater, who knew or cared.

"Killing is not," she said, "it's not, it's not a natural knack of mine. I'm no murderer, I swear, though you must have a wretched view of me now—Oh well, they all do, they all did. I was hired because I was the only one who'd be in the right place, at the right time... I'm no killer."

Jay figured the fairies in Flanz-le-Flore's court that melted after her needles ran them through might disagree, but given fairies were apparently subhuman to the other sentient races of this world, someone might be able to maintain such a whitewashing opinion of themselves even now.

"I'm no killer, which is why—which is why—" The dagger drooped.

"Come on. Let's end this joke Sansaime."

"Which is why I'm giving you the choice," Sansaime said, bringing the dagger to Shannon's throat again and causing a shallow red line to appear. "I'll slit her throat, I will if I have to, and I'll kill you afterward, 'hero.' You've bested me before but only thanks to that fae friend of yours and she's not able to help you now, is she? Might not be able to help you ever again, looking the way she does. Give me the key and you and your sister live."

"And simply strand me here, great," said Shannon. "Might as well kill me in that case!"

A sharp and uncomfortable grinding sound cut the cold air and Jay realized it was the sound of Sansaime's teeth. "I've no mind to stay in that world of yours. Nothing of interest to me there, or anywhere. When my business is done I'll return what's yours if that puts your mind at ease. I've no grudge against you. Only her. Only her."

Jay wanted to shrug and say whatever, it didn't matter, who cared, but Sansaime's comment about Olliebollen stuck in his hazy mind. Despite everything, he didn't want to see his sister exsanguinated in front of him.

"Why'd you have to make a scene out of it," he said. "Shannon was gonna go home through the Door anyway. You could've just gone with her."

"As if I would willingly let a maniac—or anyone in this world!—go to Earth," said Shannon.

"There's that and there's speed," said Sansaime. "You're slow, hero, and no doubt she's slower. I intend to kill that girl fast. Now stop talking about it and give me the key! If you don't want her in your world then let me do my work and you won't have that problem."

"Just give her the key Shannon."

"What! Just—just give her—"

"Do you have a choice? The sooner we get this crap out of the way the sooner I can go find somewhere to sleep."

Shannon gave him a death glare but if he had some genius idea to escape this situation his brain wasn't letting him know. Without Olliebollen he was only a guy with a baseball bat after all.

Only himself, Jay Waringcrane, in a world Perfidia no longer controlled.

Hm.

Eventually, after a trickle of blood ran down her neck where Sansaime nicked her, Shannon with performative reluctance reached her hand into her pocket and retrieved a fist that when slowly raised to shoulder-level opened to reveal an old-fashioned key.

A quick motion and the key disappeared. Sansaime shoved Shannon at Jay and danced back, the dagger-blade a single gleam as she swiftly scaled the landslide's debris while keeping an eye on anyone who might do something. "Bury him," she said as she crested the peak of the wreckage. "Give Mack a proper burial, if nothing else do that."

Then Sansaime, like everyone else, was gone.

"Well?" Shannon wiped her neck, rolled her eyes at the blood, and stooped to retrieve her umbrella while keeping Olliebollen safe against her chest. "Well, let's go after her! Otherwise we're stuck. Let's move! Don't simply stand there!"

Fatigue encompassed all. Jay hardly thought. He shrugged slumped shoulders and shook his head. "Follow her if you want."

"If I—no. Nope. You're coming with me. I won't be—I won't be stranded here, Jay. At least do this for me, Jay. Don't you realize the trouble I'll be in? I have to be back at work in four days or I'll lose my job."

"That's what you care about?"

"Better than caring about absolutely nothing!"

One final glance at Makepeace's body. It looked asleep. Jay wanted to sleep. He turned and started with slow staggered steps back toward the monastery. There'd be a dry place to curl up in at least.

"Jay. Jay! Jay! Fine. Fine! I'll go myself. I'll go by myself, like always!"

She turned sharply and tried to climb onto the debris mound while carrying both her umbrella and Olliebollen and slipped on the first step and shot a sharp hiss to the sky.

"Sansaime will probably cut through the forest," Jay said, "take a shortcut off the main road to save time. You'll lose her there if not before then. After that you'll be lost. That's all I'll say about it."

Shannon was stubborn, though. Maybe she could manage it by sheer force of will. Who knew, who cared. Jay continued up the last part of the incline to the monastery's front gate—now accompanied by a gigantic gaping hole in the wall where the ground gave out—and into the courtyard. The fire was completely out, but much of the roof of the main building was missing and smoke still rose in patches. Scorch marks streaked the stone.

The chapel, though, divided from the main building by most of the courtyard, remained untouched. Jay trudged there, found the doors unbarred, and finally, for the first time in forever, escaped the rain. The instant he no longer felt water perpetually pelting him his sogginess became inescapable fact.

Without candles, the interior of the chapel was a dark set of angles, and he fumbled around until he bumped into a long chair-shaped object he assumed was a pew. A thin cloth was draped over the seat and that was enough. In the dark he removed his clothes, used the cloth to dry himself, then gathered a few other cloths from adjacent pews and wrapped himself in them as a blanket before lying down and resting on his side.

Only the sheer discomfort of the hard wooden pew kept him from instantly falling asleep. Not long afterward, the chapel doors opened. A sharp pair of footsteps clip-clopped down the aisle, before stopping at another pew closer to the front. An umbrella shut. After that, Jay fell asleep, thinking: twenty-eight days left, if Perfidia was even alive at the end to collect.

—

Waking put an impassable gulf between Jay and the events of the night prior. He remembered them, but as something distant and small. Buried under this fantastic feeling only restful sleep bestowed. He wasn't sure how long he slept, but the sun shone bright through the stained glass. However long it recharged him. Over 100 percent, if that was possible. The kind of sleep capable of eradicating permanent raccoon eyes—although he was pretty sure those were genetic. He lifted a head that had lain on the pew's hard wood the whole night without the slightest pain in his neck or shoulders and stretched his arms into a fulfilling yawn. His hands tingled with minor burns, he became cognizant of a few loose cuts scattered across his skin, but the pain only seemed to emphasize the intense ease inside him, strength that made him think he could sprint a marathon.

Then he remembered his sister. A brief frown contorted his jaw muscles—but even that wasn't enough to dispel his mood. He looked to the front of the chapel for her but either she'd left already or she was concealed by the pews. His eyes drifted to the impressive altarpiece blazing gold in the filtered sunlight, rows of statues in lavish robes looking in praise to a heaven where angels thronged around a serene and cloud-wreathed Christ. Christ watched Jay back warmly, his expression seeming to say: All's right with the world.

"Sir Hero," said a pleasantly dry voice. From the entrance a nun approached. The backs of the pews concealed all but her upper body, which looked ordinary and human, but the clip-clop of four hoofed feet on the tile gave her corruption away before she reached Jay's aisle and her full appearance became apparent: a centaur. A deer centaur, at least based on the delicate thinness of her legs. Over the equine—or cervine—torso was draped an extension of her white nun's habit, adorned by a pattern of crosses.

"Good morning," Jay said.

"It is, in fact, afternoon," said the deer. "We have taken the trouble of drying your clothes while you slept; I come to return them to you." She extended a bundle topped by the Cleveland Browns hat. "Please do put them on before going out; my sisters would be mortified if you approached them in dishabille."

"Not you though."

"No. I mortify myself."

After the deer left, Jay got dressed, put his bat on his shoulder, and went out. Warm sunlight fell from a cloudless sky, beautiful enough that it took several seconds basking in it before Jay became aware of the lines of corpses arranged in neat rows in the courtyard.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Three rows of seven. Twenty-one total. Half burnt to some degree. Some looking like a shotgun blew them apart. And at the end of the final row, Makepeace John Gaheris Coke, his shield on his chest.

"Three still missing," said the deer, who had lingered. "Plus Sister Charm swears she saw Charisma killed, only for her to rise again and fly off into the forest. Leaves precious few of us. Perhaps that's for the best."

The distance between this sunny day and the previous began to bridge, but Jay turned away to keep it from coming any closer. His mood was too rare to spoil needlessly.

"There any food?" he asked the deer.

She led him into the main building. Smoke scent punched him in the face but the entry hall—and the archbishop—escaped damage. The big plant was where it had always been, thankfully without Theovora to give it voice, and Jay passed it with a stray thought: A lot of those girls outside must have died trying to keep the fire from spreading this far. He remembered the ones pushing past him in the corridors with pails of water. Hurrying to their deaths. And in the end, the rain did more to put out the fire than any of them.

Through a side door they entered a mess hall. On three long wooden tables a few figures sat. Jay didn't see Charm (who also hadn't been among the dead), but picked out Theovora slumped with her face on the table. Besides her there were only six other nuns. And also Shannon Waringcrane.

"—utterly retrograde," Shannon said, pacing the aisles between the tables. "Just because you look unreal doesn't mean you have to be unreal. Nunneries, chastity, these were concepts invented to control population—and women—in pre-birth control times. But these concepts are antiquarian and more importantly inefficient. Productivity relies on maximizing the value each human can contribute to society. Arbitrarily excluding certain classes of people from societal opportunities based on gender, race, or handicap only limits the ability of those people to facilitate the functioning of the greater machine. If you want my advice, burn those frocks. Ignore this 'archbishop' who insists you do nothing but sing hymns all day. Educate yourselves and work together to produce something with real value to this world. If you create value, you have value. No matter what you look like. And nobody can change that."

Only a couple of faces looked at her, and those that did wore the same expressions of those that didn't: abject misery.

Shannon noticed Jay just as he sat down to the bowl of gruel the deer set for him. The runny gray paste couldn't have looked more appetizing and he quickly shoveled spoonfuls into his mouth even as Shannon's footsteps tromped the tile toward him.

"Finally awake! Still sleeping the entire day away, I see."

She sat across from him and he ignored her. All his effort went to eating and each bite amplified his mood even more.

"Dalt and Wendell still haven't returned. I took a better look at the path this morning, it's unlikely they'll be able to return even if they want to. That in mind, the logical action seems obvious to me. We proceed on foot back to the gate—"

"The Door," said Jay.

"The gate. We proceed on foot back to the gate. Even if Bal Berith can open it without the key, Dalt wouldn't strand me here. The situation must be that either he or Wendell got hurt and they had to get to a hospital fast. I've turned over hundreds of possible explanations and that's the most plausible. They rushed to the hospital, but of course they'd return for me afterward. If we follow the road and reach the gate, we'll save them the trouble of a longer trip."

Convincing herself only slightly better than she convinced him, Jay supposed. What caught his attention was the front pocket of her jacket. Olliebollen's head emerged halfway from it, beady eyes set over an empty, partially open mouth. Her filaments were dustless and lusterless. Instead of shining she was only gray and dry and the hollows of her sockets ringed dark to match the eyes of the woman who carried her. After a single dull look, Olliebollen sank back into the pocket and disappeared.

"So the fairy woke up," Jay said as he finished off bowl of gruel and received immediately a second from the deer.

"Oh, yes. The 'fairy.' Its name is Ollie," Shannon said. "I wanted to let it rest somewhere soft but I didn't care for the way those nuns were eyeing it."

"Ollie," Jay said idly between swallows.

"Anyway, once you finish your lunch—or I suppose breakfast for you!—we're leaving. In the daylight, the wreckage covering the path doesn't seem so bad. Most of it slid off into the ravine and the nuns managed to apply themselves and remove some of the rest."

Jay said nothing. Saying anything would cause an argument, and he was enjoying his meal too much to ruin it. She babbled on, sometimes sharply, sometimes calmly, sometimes with her ire turned toward Jay and sometimes toward Dalt or Perfidia or "that horrible little girl" or the world of Whitecrosse in general.

When he finished three bowls, got up, and went back out into the main corridor, Shannon followed, continuing her current point: "—At the very least, Dalt will know to call Mother, he has her cell number and the home phone number, and more importantly Mother has his so even though he'll invariably forget to call she'll be able to contact him. Assuming he's not a complete imbecile—emphasis on assuming—he won't say anything that'll make her flip out entirely. She won't be happy, of course. It's Thanksgiving. Didn't think of that, did you Jay? Didn't think she might want the family together for Thanksgiving. Of course not!" Among the nuns, only the deer accompanied them. The rest remained in the mess hall, expressions miserable.

He took one last glance at the archbishop. Prognosticator of the future, apparently, even without Perfidia's guidance. What did he see now? Thank fucking Christ he couldn't say what it was, if it was anything at all.

In the courtyard Shannon told the deer: "You intend to bury these bodies soon, right? Surely even feudal-era people like you understand the health risks associated with rotting corpses? Not to mention the smell. Leave them in the sun any longer and they'll bloat."

"Of course, Lady Heroine," said the deer. "Events have left the rest of my sisters in a bad way. Only Charm was particularly amenable to do anything—despite her injuries—but she rushed off this morning to search for her sister. Anyway, I'll implore them to action."

Jay knelt by Makepeace's corpse as Shannon explained germ theory to the deer, describing unseeable microscopic organisms that teemed on the surface of unclean things, carrying disease and infection in their single-celled bodies. Makepeace. Looking so peaceful in death, a smile twisted on his lips. Jay supposed this was Makepeace's escape.

Once, Makepeace told Jay: You and me are the same. Something like that, the kind of speech a hackneyed villain gives the hero, based on ridiculous perversion of truth to force a last-minute thematic throughline between a protagonist and antagonist otherwise connected by nothing more than arbitrary technical details of plot. Makepeace wasn't a villain. No. But that speech had been wrong. Makepeace and Jay weren't alike at all, not in any meaningful capacity, not now at least. Maybe when he said it. But not now.

For Jay, death was no escape.

He pried the shield with its white crosse from Makepeace's cold dead hands. Lighter than Jay expected. Barely a thin sheet of metal, something that should never have been able to block the things it did: Bear claws, dragon's breath. Unless something more than physical matter did the blocking.

"And how are we supposed to believe in this," the deer said. "These... bacteria. If they cannot be 'seen'..."

"They can be seen. With a microscope you can see them."

"I cannot see them."

"Take it on faith then. I know what I'm talking about. Anyway, thank you again for your hospitality, I'd give you some money except I doubt USD goes far here."

"It was no trouble. It is our honor to pay host to a hero and heroine from the other world. If God's grace exists, it exists in you alone of those who walk in this world. That, at least, is something I can 'take on faith.' Farewell."

The deer remained behind, empty in the face, not waving even as Shannon waved, while Jay with his sister following marched down the courtyard, between the open gates of the monastery, and down the mountain path.

Down, over the settled wreckage of the slide, down, winding back and forth, down, past the ruins of the giant cross fallen in several pieces, down. Twin tire treads remained deep in the mud where they walked, small pools of water standing in the deepest depressions. Blue sky beaming above.

Near the base Jay stopped. Shannon stopped shortly behind. "What?"

He tucked the bat under his armpit and rested the shield against his knee. He extended his hands, palms facing upward. "I burnt them last night. Think I can get them healed?"

Shannon's eyes boggled in stupefaction. "Healed?" She recovered: "Well, we had a first aid kit, but it was in Dalt's truck when you got it swept away in a landslide, so you'll just have to forbear until we make it home."

"I'm not talking to you."

The small gray head of Olliebollen lolled against the edge of Shannon's pocket, bulging it in and out with aimless activity. The black insect eyes looked at him despite the odd angle of the head.

A sickly smile spread her lips.

"I can't."

"You can't," said Jay. "What, you still need time to rest?"

"I can't," said Olliebollen, "ever again." She laughed, coarse and rotten.

"You can't or you won't. I get you're upset but—"

"I can't! I can't! I can't! Don't you get it? I AM NO LONGER WHOLE!"

Emerging from the pocket a slithering slouching thing one arm clenching the fabric deep and the other arm not there, a stump of dead flesh clumped where Shannon cauterized it.

"I am less than 1 now. The art of my soul is shattered. My animus ripped asunder. I'm worthless. I'm a tiny twig on the forest floor, snapped in half because something stepped on me. Heal! Heal? Heal..."

"Have you even tried yet."

"Jay," said Shannon. "Ollie just lost an arm."

"I thought disfigurement wasn't an excuse," said Jay, "to be unproductive. Isn't that what you told those nuns."

"Jesus Jay what I meant was—"

"Have you tried?" He drilled his gaze into the fairy. His palms remained outstretched. "Have you tried."

Olliebollen's face shifted. By degrees. From mania to disgust to a resigned, apathetic humor, a shrill singular laugh spat.

"I don't want to try."

Fine. Jay lowered his hands, picked up the shield, and continued down the path.

"Better be careful, hero! Better be careful! Cuz this time when they cut you up or spill your guts or leave you bleeding to death with a dagger in your throat—this time there won't be anyone to save you! Nope, not this time! This time you'll see. This time you'll see how much of a hero you are. How much of a hero without little old Olliebollen, that's right. That's rightrightright!" Punctuated by fiendish, twittering laughter.

"It wasn't me who hurt you," he said.

"Doesn't matter. Nope, doesn't matter at all. You were a lie. One way or another you were a lie. The Master—she knew. The Master knew and still she—still she—"

The rest turned to ashes. The rest didn't matter. Jay, having started only a few steps prior, stopped again. They'd reached the base of the mountain. Ahead stretched the forest and the trail continued into its darkness. Leaves rustled in a gentle breeze and between the trees on either side of the trail was strung a large spiderweb.

YOU CAN NOT GOE THIS WHAY HERO

"Oh," said Shannon. "This one again. The spider with the abhorrent spelling."

Lalum. Alive.

Or maybe only reanimated. "You met her?" Jay asked.

"She told us where you were. Good thing too, because Bal Berith wanted to make us run out into the forest."

So not reanimated. Actually alive. The strands on the web shifted. "Lalum," Jay said casually, walking forward while tapping his bat against his shin, "don't tell me you're trying to slow us down for Mayfair. Come on. You know you can't stop me. Your sisters up at the monastery didn't even try."

The strands shifted: NO! NOT THAT. I AM NOT YOUR FOUE! An image of Lalum drew itself into the web, hands clasped, pleading. I WANT TO HELP!

He tried to pick out where Lalum herself was among the trees, just in case, but nothing moved except leaves in the wind. "Blocking the path isn't helping, Lalum."

"I'll handle this," said Shannon. "Look. Miss Spider. Lalum. My brother and I have somewhere very important to be and it's imperative we get there quickly—"

As she spoke the web changed, and while Shannon prattled on in spite of it, what it said made Jay stare in disbelief.

THE FAERIE QUEENE YET LIVES.

Accompanied by a drawing to render any ambiguity null: a winged woman wearing two old beat-up boots. Flanz-le-Flore.

"Actually, wait. Wait. I can't handle this. It's irking me too much." Shannon pushed ahead of Jay and placed her hands on her hips as she regarded the web. "Fairy is spelled F-A-I-R-Y. Queen is spelled Q-U-E-E-N. No extra E at the end. Got it?"

After a shy pause, the words changed to Shannon's spelling.

"There we go. Perfect. Proper spelling is important. Standardization of language is essential to eliminate errors and misunderstandings. It's simple professionalism anyway. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt given your sisters don't seem particularly well-educated, but try to do better moving forward, will you?"

I AM SO SORREE. I WILL DO MY BEST. Another picture of Lalum, crestfallen.

"S-O-R-R-Y. There we go. Good. You're learning. Just don't forget."

Jay snapped out of his thoughts and waved a hand at Shannon. "No, shut up, wait a second. Lalum, you're telling me Flanz-le-Flore is alive?"

I SAW HER WITH MY OWEN EYES!

"O-W-N. Come on where would you even get the extra E from."

Slowly, made even more slowly due to Shannon's sudden need to correct every spelling, grammatical, and stylistic error, Lalum related her tale. Whenever possible she resorted to pictures to convey meaning, which actually made her easier to understand. It went like this:

After Lalum told "the other heroes" where to find Jay, she continued along the road toward the monastery, having no other home to go to. Because of her injuries, she moved slowly. Eventually, bright lights appeared ahead, accompanied by a loud noise, and through pictures and roundabout descriptions Jay and Shannon eventually figured out what she saw was Wendell's jeep—containing Dalt, Perfidia, and Mayfair—driving away from the monastery. Lalum tried to get the jeep's attention, but it sped past without slowing.

Only a little sad at being so ignored—and also a little relieved—she continued on her path. It was some time later when the atmosphere of the forest changed.

Levity and mirth rose up among the greenery, laughter and song cheery in its timbre yet filling Lalum with a deep sense of dread as everything around her seemed to come alive. She scurried to a hiding place and watched carefully. That was when she saw her: Flanz-le-Flore, the fairy queen.

Jay asked: Whole? Not with her face melted off? Not with her fingers shattered? (Snapped brittle in his fists.)

Right. Flanz-le-Flore, not a single wound on her. How? Lalum didn't know. Had not, in fact, known Flanz-le-Flore was hurt until Jay told her. Jay supposed, if magic were involved, anything was possible. Some fairy in Flanz-le-Flore's court could heal, maybe. Did it matter? To Jay it mattered. All Jay could see was that horrid melted face, all he could feel was her fingerbones in his grasp. And like Lalum she lived. None of them ever died. Only Makepeace died.

Fairies swirled around Flanz-le-Flore, those who remained from her court, maybe new ones she produced—and together they carried something. Someone. Lalum, gripping the edge of a large tree root, lifted her head slowly to see.

It was a man, lying limp but still breathing, his head slowly tossing back and forth, light shining on the discs that covered his eyes. Lalum recognized him. He was a man who'd been with "the other heroes"—with Shannon's party. On the web Lalum drew a picture of him: Wendell.

"I knew it! He's alive," said Shannon. "Of course. I'm only surprised Dalt left him. Oh well. We'll have to collect him before we leave."

Lalum's story wasn't finished. As she stared at the man drifting through the air on the back of fairy magic, she felt that familiar unsettling sensation of eyes watching her. She dove back into her hiding place, she cowered, she held her breath to wait for the singing to stop and the air to return to normal. It didn't. The song grew louder. Her heart pounded. Should she run? Should she stay still?

She squeezed her eyes shut but it didn't matter. Flanz-le-Flore floated down in front of her.

Please, Lalum begged her. Please don't kill me. I only wish to go home. Please!

The same groveling she did before in the court, before Flanz-le-Flore sicced wolves on her. Hopelessness congealed in her gut, she begged as a formality, she knew she was doomed. The hero wasn't around to intercede on her behalf this time.

But Flanz-le-Flore said simply, smilingly: "Give the hero a message. Tell him Queen Flanz-le-Flore very much wants to see him again. Tell him to come visit. Tell him I am waiting."

That was all. Lalum opened her eyes and watched Flanz-le-Flore and her procession carry Wendell deeper into the woods. The song subsided. The air returned to normal. And Lalum was free to finish her trek.

Not all the way, though. She didn't want her sisters to see her. Not the way she was, so brutally maimed, swaddled in bandages. It was painful enough to be seen when she was well; this was too much. So she waited for the hero here. Charm had passed earlier, and Lalum (while hiding) tried to warn her about Flanz-le-Flore, but she didn't heed it and disappeared into the woods. That was all.

"Well thank you very much for the warning but we'll be on our way now," Shannon said. "We'll talk to this Flanz-le-Flore character and get Wendell back."

"Shannon, she wasn't being friendly when she said she was waiting for me."

"Oh, I'm aware Jay. Well aware. Given how that little girlfriend of yours acted I can only assume you're not exactly a charmer. I'll be the one who talks to her. I'll convince her, one way or another."

Sure. Become a rat in the process. Maybe Jay ought to let her try. Only problem was he'd be a rat first, and Olliebollen wouldn't or couldn't help him turn back.

Still, Jay wasn't spending the rest of his life hiding in the monastery. "Thanks for the warning, Lalum, but I have to keep going and the forest is in my way. I still have my bat, I have this shield too. I'll figure something out."

I NOUGH AN OTHER PATH.

"K-N-O-W. And 'another' is one word," said Shannon.

"Another path where?" asked Jay.

AROWND THE FORREST. THREW THE MONTAGNES. TO THE KASSEL.

Amid a slate of corrections, Jay said: "The castle. Castle Whitecrosse?"

YES! A SECRET PATH. BUT SAFE.

"That's all well and good," said Shannon, "but unfortunately, we're not going to the castle. We're going to the gate, and we need to be there as soon as possible, on top of needing to retrieve Wendell. So thanks again, but you can leave now."

"Why lead me on this supposedly safer route, Lalum. Why help me?"

BECAWSE YOU SAVED MY LYFE, HERO.

True. Jay did do that. And certain details of her story provided verisimilitude. Why place Wendell on the scene if she didn't actually see him? At the very least, Lalum was no threat to him whatsoever. Flanz-le-Flore, on the other hand, easily could be.

Besides, the castle was where he intended to go from the start. Not to the Door, no matter how much Shannon yelled.

"Sounds good," he said. "Lead the way."

"What! What!" Shannon made a ridiculous undulation of her entire upper body as her arms shot straight to her sides. "What!"

"There's nothing at the Door, Shannon. Mayfair and Sansaime are long gone by now. And I'm not interested in dealing with Flanz-le-Flore again."

"You're kidding me! How after everything that happened do you think staying here is in any way a sensible option? Are you suicidal or simply moronic?"

What possible point could be achieved by arguing with her? None. He squashed the rebuttal forming in his head, resolved himself to remain silent to her entreaties. She lacked any way to compel him. He needed to remember only that. No more being sidetracked by what others wanted for him. He followed his path from now on.

"Lead the way, Lalum."

The spiderweb shifted and an arrow pointed to the side along the fringe of the forest, where a long strand indicated the exact route among the crags and jutting rocks toward a narrow ledge etched into the side of a rising cliff. With the mountains on one side and the forest on another it was impossible to tell where this passageway went, and vaguely Jay supposed Lalum could be leading him to some trap or ambush, if not of her own volition then maybe because Mayfair intercepted her en route and told her to. Or killed her and made her, with the staff. Possibly—outside chance, but possibly—Perfidia couldn't open the Door, and Mayfair needed his Humanity or Shannon's key. But if so, it didn't make sense for Lalum to lead them away from the Door. Lalum telling the truth sounded more plausible.

He did save her life, after all, like she said. Interceded for her in Flanz-le-Flore's court. It made sense, it would be natural, for her to want to help him. Unlike all the other leeches, Perfidia's pawns, who wanted him for such-and-such and needed him for this-or-that. Unlike Shannon and her crew, who sought to exert their will over him. Lalum was the only person with a legitimate, unselfish reason to help. The only one.

(She could still want your Humanity. She could still be a leech too.) He warded that thought away, turning and following her spiderweb strand. Somebody wanted to help him in repayment for a heroic deed. He believed in that. He had to believe in that. If he couldn't believe in that, then he would continue the way he always was: Doubting everything, undermining everything.

He put faith in Lalum.

Shannon, of course, did not. Among the litany of standard insults regarding Jay's idiocy or laziness or "incomprehensible prioritization," she called into question Lalum's trustworthiness, ignoring apparently that she earlier trusted Lalum enough for directions to find Jay at the monastery. Jay let all of it bounce off his back.

"Think about Wendell! Even if the spider's story is true, we can't just leave him. He could be hurt. He could need our help."

"Fine," Jay said, walking. "Go yourself. I'm not stopping you."

He felt an icy cold where her glare struck the nape of his neck.

"Fine! Maybe I will." Her footsteps stomped the way they do only when you're stomping them on purpose.

"Probably shouldn't take the fairy with you though. Flanz-le-Flore won't be happy to see her, I think."

Shannon said nothing, although her stomping quieted (it didn't stop completely). Jay picked his way across an old tree bent to bridge a gap between two stones. It was difficult to move over this rugged terrain carrying the Makepeace's shield, so he stopped and spent some time figuring out how to clip it to his back the way Makepeace did, only to find that doing so caused his jacket to sag so far back the collar choked him. Whatever. He'd deal with the awkwardness of carrying it. Or maybe he could get Lalum to do it for him. He tried to search for her in the thinning edge of the forest as he proceeded along the stony ridge, and only saw something that was maybe the tips of a few spider legs scrabbling.

Then, as Jay expected, Shannon's tromping footsteps came back toward him. Despite her businesslike attire she managed the path better than Jay had done, hopping from stone to stone until she was only a step behind him, exuding a palpable impatience that he wasn't leading the way faster.

"Alright! We'll go to the castle," she said. "At least there'll be some kind of authority there. A government. I'll explain the situation. They're sure to have some way to help. A way to recover Wendell. Another key to the gate maybe. At the very least they'll help me with you."

Whatever Shannon wanted to say. All Jay had to do was tune her out. Lalum didn't speak, Olliebollen no longer felt like it. So if he tuned out his sister, all became right in the world.