What came next was a feast in the sunken pavilion thousands of miles under the sea. Somehow, the witches—or perhaps it was the pavilion itself, Sorrel supposed—conjured a feast of various seafood dishes consisting of tangy sauces, beds of rice and crispy fried seaweed. They drank rich, jewel-toned tea served in porcelain painted in the traditional Lemurian styles, with large flowers and bright colors that would glow if exposed to darkness.
Over this feast, the group celebrated the success of the mission—as well as taking the time to inform Coppelius as to what had transpired during his cursed sleep and make plans as for their next move against the Spider-Queen.
“I’m sorry to say that I can’t let you stay on Lemuria much longer.” Kiana leaned back in her chair, gripping the armrests as she surveyed the four of them: Coppelius, Sorrel, Gwynn, and Delphine. “There’s not much that I can do against an opponent like Annwyn, not when they hold so much power as a trading partner.”
Delphine sighed and slammed down her teacup. “This was my home!”
“And you were leaving already because of Coppelius’s arrival,” Kiana pointed out. “As for what you do, Lady Delphine, I understand if you want to leave for one of the Middle Worlds and I will gladly assist you in doing so if that is what you wish. But these three might appreciate your expertise.”
Delphine’s expression darkened. “You don’t mean—“
“What?” Coppelius interrupted as he squeezed Sorrel’s hand beneath the table. “I want to find my father, do you know where he is?”
“No.” Delphine did not look at him. Rather, she was shooting Kiana a rather mighty, steely glare indeed. “But I know what your plan is and I don’t like it.”
“You don’t have to like it.” Kiana crossed her legs and lifted a teacup. She turned to Coppelius. “If you truly want to find your father’s whereabouts and learn more about the inheritance that was left for your father, I would recommend going to Otso.”
“The witches.”
Sorrel was surprised to hear Coppelius say that. “You know about the witches?”
“I did—but I never realized I was looking at one of them.” Coppelius tilted his head. “I’ve heard stories about the Astral Coven, but I’ve also for the most part tried to stay out of their path.”
Kiana laughed. “Normally, a wise strategy for those who aren’t involved in our affairs. But you’ve been involved from the beginning.”
“Yeah you have,” Delphine muttered. She then cleared her throat and spoke more clearly. “You want me to take them to the old hag who raised me.”
“Yes.” Kiana smiled, but there was something more to it, Sorrel realized.
“I never wanted to return there, you know.”
“I do.” Kiana paused, and she met Sorrel’s eyes briefly. “But I think your foster-mother might take interest in two bright stars like these two.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“I do.” Sorrel found her voice, standing up. “The Spider-Queen and her forces are on the move. They destroyed our home and they’ve come into the heart of the Society of Worlds looking to destroy people who did nothing to her, just because they could end her reign!”
All eyes were on her, including Gwynn’s. Sorrel long knew Gwynn’s silent pleading, the way those big brown eyes would look up at her and beg her to sit down or stop what she was doing. She wouldn’t do so this time.
“If the witches can help, then I’m not afraid,” Sorrel declared.
“You’re brave and stupid,” Delphine huffed.
“Hey!” Coppelius glared at his cousin.
“What?” Delphine leaned forward and picked up her teacup again. “I was just telling the truth. But maybe brave and stupid is what we need. The stars know that waiting and playing the long game isn’t working out so well.”
“Then you’ll help us?” Sorrel’s heart soared.
“Yes, you’ll need someone to help with that hag.” Delphine raised the teacup to her lisps signaling the end of the discussion. At least, on her end.
“Excellent.” Kiana smiled like a cat. “I’ll arrange for a ship and some supplies for the journey. I intend to have you off of my planet before the next sunrise.”
“Guess we might as well eat as much as possible,” Sorrel said as she sat back down.
Kiana only laughed, an airy sound.
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The Governor of Lemuria was true to her word. The first glimmers of dawn on the distant coasts of the archipelagos nearing Avalon painted the sky a deep violet by the time Kiana escorted the party out to the private ship she’d scored in the spaceport.
“While I enjoyed your company, please do not return.” She said so with the biggest smile and the most cheerful voice that Sorrel had ever heard. “That is, unless you manage the impossible.”
Like defeating the Spider-Queen.
“We’ll see you in six months, then,” Sorrel joked.
Kiana let out a little sighing laugh through her nose. “May it be so, Sorrel Marchand.”
And with that, they were boarding the East Sun and taking off into the stars again. This time with a new friend—as much as Delphine could be called one—and her sister in tow. Which was more than Sorrel had hoped for just two days before.
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The East Sun was a nicer ship than Sorrel had ever known. The interiors were sleek and white, with gently-twinkling lights on the control panels and lining the space between the walls and the ceilings of the rooms within the ship. There were also a variety of amenities and many sleeping spaces, all of which were individual. There wasn’t much to the cargo hold, and there were a lot of wide windows looking out at the stars streaking past in straight lines with the fast-travel autopilot on.
It was the kind of ship that was built to rarely break down, but complicated to fix if an error ever arose. The controls were easy enough and mainly centered around automatic functions, without much of the sensitivity or control afforded by less civilian-centered spacecraft. Furthermore, it was a star-cruiser, the kind of ship was used by the wealthy elites like the kind who would have a vacation home on one of the archipelagos of Lemuria. Which made sense, given that it was probably the type of ship that Kiana Albion would have the best access to given the circumstances.
But something about it left Sorrel uneasy. Everyone had been quick to divvy up rooms and retire for the night, with the girls choosing one corridor and Coppelius taking a room far on the other one. All of them, except for Coppelius, had been awake a long time. Even though it hadn’t felt like it once they’d entered the Sunken Pavilion.
But Sorrel found herself wandering the East Sun’s halls, feeling the vibrations of the smooth white floors beneath her feet, the humming of the ship and all its systems keeping them alive. For she had dreamt when she’d first attempted to sleep, and the dream lingered now in her waking mind.
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She did not remember that first part, how she had ended up where she did—but she recalled that she had been strolling through a garden, unlike any she had ever seen. There were flowers that appeared to be made of jewels, trees bearing fruit of silver and gold. There were pavilions in an architectural style Sorrel did not recognize, with oddities like lifelike statues and fountains that were wonders of aqueduct technology.
It was night in this garden, but not a dark one. The moon was full, with a bluer cast to it than the ones that Sorrel usually saw, with a million stars like the freckles on her cheeks, in colors of white, blue, pink, violet, and green.
For how long she wandered, she did not know. Only that she was alone with a sense of peace, no urgency.
Then she came across what looked like a castle wall, covered in slithering ivy. She had removed the crystal blade from the sheathe on her belt.
She’d slashed through the ivy, revealing a door made of oak that radiated an ancient power, like the forest reserve back at home on Perrault. She remembered how the carved iron handle to the door had been cool to her hesitant touch, at first. When her fingers closed around it, it burned.
Still, the door opened to a corridor that was completely filled with shadow. The moonlight could not even illuminate the floor in front of her.
Curiosity, Sorrel supposed, was still her hamartia in dreams as much as in waking, for despite the cold and the dark and all the warning signs, she entered the corridor. When she took three steps in, the door shut behind her. There was a series of clicks as the locks tumbled into place with a grim finality. Still, Sorrel did not stop, continuing forwards as if in a trance.
“Little Traveler, how you tread into waters far too deep for your comprehension,” a woman’s voice crooned in the dark, followed by an ancient and terrible laugh. How that laughter still rang in her ears, now that she was awake!
Sorrel did not tremble or hesitate. Instead, she drew the blade from her belt, and a light shined within—and she caught sight of the dark lady.
It had caught the dark lady off-guard, Sorrel remembered that from her expression.
She was pale, with a gaunt and harshly beautiful face. Her eyes were like little rubies, flashing in the light. A scar shaped like a spiderweb surrounded her right eye. She wore a cloak made of spiderwebs, a tiara of silver and ruby, and a gown of black that blended with her infinitely-long hair, and it all transitioned into the starless night surrounding them.
The woman had reached for her with long, spindly fingers right before Sorrel had managed to wake up.
Sorrel still felt cold as she sat down on one of the large couches bolted into the floor. She drew her arms around herself and pulled her knees up to her chest. There was no warmth or solace to be found. Only the memory, and one thing Sorrel knew to be true.
That was the Spider-Queen, and she was watching Sorrel.
Sorrel had no idea what it meant for their journey. Did she know what they were up to? Was she appearing in dreams to look in Sorrel’s head?
Kiana Albion had told them that she and her sister had great magical potential. Could Delphine’s former mentor and foster-mother perhaps teach Sorrel to use the power? She knew Gwynn had tapped into something back in the depths of Castle Arcadia. Seeing what they were up against so vividly had her considering the power that supposedly lay within her veins. If tapped into, would it be enough, or at least help?
She supposed she’d have her answers soon enough.
The sound of footsteps drew her out of her own thoughts.
“I thought I might find you here.” Coppelius stopped, standing at the threshold between the corridor his room lay in and the lounge. “May I join you?”
Sorrel smiled. “Always.”
He obliged, but he sat on the other end of the couch entirely, a distance between them. “Couldn’t sleep?”
“I tried.” Sorrel lowered her legs to the floor and stretched an arm over the back of the couch.
“Bad dreams?”
She nodded.
“I get them too.” He looked off, out the window at the stars trailing by. “I think every good mage does.”
“Why?”
“I think there’s something about magic that’s tied to our abilities to connect to others, to the galaxy at large.” He looked as if he were considering his words carefully, wasn’t entirely certain himself of what he was saying. “The ability to reach out, and to be heard? I think it echoes across our dreams and it makes it easier to find what is, was, and will be.”
Sorrel hesitated. “Does it mean anything, then, that I saw the Spider-Queen?”
Instead of freezing or looking afraid or upset or something of the like that Sorrel expected, he shook his head and laughed. “I see her often enough too. If the dreams were enough for her to find me, she would have caught me a long time ago.”
Sorrel’s shoulders dropped in relief. “Thank the stars. I worried I was putting you in danger by staying.”
“You’re not.” He reached awkwardly, placing a hand on her shoulder. “I might have died if it weren't for you.”
Sorrel’s face warmed, remembering the embrace and the kiss. “Well, I think it’s what anyone would have done.”
He tilted his head. “Maybe I was hoping you’d do it because it was me.”
“Oh.” Sorrel could see galaxies in his deep indigo eyes, a connection. She hadn’t planned on kissing him—it was just something that had felt right in the moment. Wasn’t that how all the fairytales ended too?
But she hadn’t really thought about what it meant beyond that. “You love me then.”
“Of course.” He frowned. “Why else would I—“
He cut himself off, and coughed awkwardly. Sorrel took the opportunity to move in closer.
“When I first woke up in your home, I felt safe for the first time.” His cheeks turned red and he turned away from Sorrel. “I haven’t felt like that in a long time.”
Sorrel reached out for him, her fingertips hovering over his cheek.
He wrapped his hand around her, and turned back to meet her eye-to-eye. “When I saw you, it was like I was home again. And it scared me.”
“And what about now?” Sorrel asked. “What do you see?”
“I still see the same thing.” He smiled. “But I don’t want to run from it anymore. I want home to be with you. Wherever that is.”
“So do I.”
She could see galaxies in those deep cobalt eyes, endless possibility and promise. She closed her own, and leaned in for the taste of stardust.
Before she could, however, the ship rumbled. She pulled away but held tight to him all the same as she looked around to see the lights on the ship turning red. The stars had stopped, and outside she could see a fleet of ragged, tricked-out ships that were certainly not regulation-approved. At least, not anymore.
“Space pirates,” Coppelius hissed.