It took a bit, considering the… enthusiastic partying going on around them, but I eventually managed to pull Tristan and Vanessa aside. Sarah came too, as we moved to a slightly quieter area behind one of the cabins. The celebration was still going full-force nearby, but at least we weren’t right in the middle of it. And once Vanessa had used a quick few strokes from a field-engraver against the nearby cabin wall before activating the spell she’d put there, the noise faded almost entirely. Finally, it was quiet enough to think. Quiet enough to talk.
“So, what’s up, Flicks?” Tristan was asking, giving me that usual lazily confident smile while catching Tabbris by the hand and helping her twirl in a circle while she gave a quick giggle. “Tell me you don’t have another world-ending threat you’re trying to deal with already,” he teased.
Oh boy. Grimacing at his phrasing, I glanced toward Namythiet on my shoulder for a moment before pushing myself to respond. “Not exactly. It’s more a world-ending threat we already knew about, and the world they’ve already ended. A world that’s been ended repeatedly, actually.”
With that, and having gained their complete attention, I explained what was going on. As gently and quickly as possible, I told them about the entire time-travel loop, about Elisabet, and about Dexamene. I explained that the two were stuck on the Meregan homeworld, hiding out from the Fomorians who had already taken it over. And that their only chance of getting out of there was for someone to rescue them. Preferably before the Fomorians figured out that one of the Committee members was there and sent a full-on assault to raze the planet getting at her.
Halfway through the explanation, as soon as it became clear that Dexamene was in trouble, I saw Tristan’s hand snap out to grab his sister’s arm, squeezing it tightly. His face grew more distressed throughout the rest of it, mouth opening once or twice to interrupt. But he stopped himself, listening to all of it despite what was obviously a mounting rush of emotions.
Finally, I ended with, “If anyone can keep Dexamene safe for awhile, it’s Elisabet. Okay, maybe there’s a few others that could do it even better, but she’s still a decent choice.” My head shook quickly, “I mean, I think she’ll be okay, Tristan. As long as we get both of them out of there.”
“Yeah,” Tristan’s voice was firm, the boy already turning. “As long as we get them out right now.”
Vanessa caught his arm, head shaking. “Where are you going?” she quickly asked after giving me a distressed look. She was worried about her brother running off and doing something crazy.
“To save my friend,” Tristan informed her. “Look, Prosser’s over there. We just tell him we need to get to Aiken’te’vel, pop over, grab Dex and Elisabet, then pop back again. Easy peasy.” Despite his casual words about how easy it would be, I could hear the stress in his voice. He was clearly just this side of losing it, having been violently emotionally dropped from a celebrating mood to the realization that one of his closest friends was in horrific danger.
“You’re right, we can tell him,” I confirmed immediately. “But he’s not going to go immediately. It’s not that simple, Tristan. With the Fomorians there, we can’t just pop out, hope we find them, and then jump back. We don’t know how their banishment would interact with a portal leading directly here. Or where Dexamene and Elisabet are. We’ll need help, resources, an actual plan.”
The boy’s mouth opened, and for just a second, I thought he might snap at me. He was panicked, the thought of Dexamene being taken by the Fomorians driving almost all rational thought out of his mind. His eyes were wild with terror, reminding me again that he, more than most of my friend group, actually knew first-hand just how bad those monsters could be. He’d seen them during his travels with Petan. And I had no doubt that visions of what could happen to Dexamene if they got hold of her were running wild through his increasingly terrified mind.
But he stopped himself from snapping, which honestly was pretty impressive. I wasn’t sure I could’ve done the same if it was someone I cared about the way he clearly cared about Dexamene. He caught his reaction, forcing it back with visible effort.
Sarah was there, hand touching the arm that Vanessa wasn’t. “Jophiel,” she said simply.
“Right,” I quickly agreed with a nod. “Jophiel needs to be here too. She might have ideas about how to get there, grab them, and get out without problems. And she’ll definitely have an idea of how to find them. Like, a spell or something once she’s on the actual planet, even if her recall still doesn’t work.” Swallowing hard, I focused on Tristan. “We’ll get Dexamene out of there.”
He was still freaking out, obviously. I was pretty sure he was practically to the point of trying to literally punch his way through to the other universe in order to find his friend. But he knew. After all the years spent with Petan, not to mention getting his family put back together, Tristan knew better than to run off half-cocked with no plan. Hard as it obviously was, he managed to force down his blinding rush of panic, and gave a very short nod. “Find Jophiel,” he said in a quiet, yet forceful voice. “Whatever you have to do. I–we’ll get things ready here. We’ll talk to people–my parents. Our parents. Mom’ll have a plan too. And Dad, he jumped worlds a lot. We–they’ll have something.”
Leaving Sarah and Vanessa with him to focus on that, I turned. Tabbris and Namythiet stayed with me, the three of us heading quickly through the bustling, loud crowd as I looked for someone in particular. Not Prosser. He might have some idea of how to locate Jophiel, but I had someone else in mind. Unfortunately, it was impossible to find anyone in this crowd. If anything, the celebration had gotten even louder and busier by now. There were so many people. Every few steps, someone popped out to talk at me about how glad they were I was okay, how awesome it was that Fossor was dead, and so on.
Finally, I looked to Namythiet. “Hey, you know Athena, right? Think you could fly up and figure out where she is in all this?” I figured she, of all people, would have a good idea of either where Jophiel was, or how to find her. She seemed like the type to keep tabs on her old crewmate.
With a quick salute, the little pixie flew straight up into the air, then out over the heads of the crowd. I watched her go for a second, before looking back to Tabbris with a wince. “I really suck, huh? Can’t even let people have a single day of celebrating the death of one of the most evil pieces of shit in the universe before being like, ‘by the way, now we have this whole other life and death problem.’ What’s wrong with me?” I was only partially joking. Seeing the look on Tristan’s face as he realized how much danger his friend was in, thinking about the terror in his voice at the thought of the Fomorians getting her, made my soul want to shrivel up.
Tabbris, however, quickly shook her head and grabbed onto me. “Nothing!” she blurted. “Don’t be stupid.” Her small fist punched me in the back mid-hug. “It’s not your fault bad people do bad things. And if Dexamene hadn’t gone there, you never would’ve gotten back here, you never would’ve stopped Fossor, and he would’ve killed all the Heretics! He would’ve killed everybody! Then the Fomorians would’ve figured out he was the only one they had to kill to cripple the entire Seosten defense, and they’d take over everything!” The kid’s voice was as firm as I’d ever heard it as she glared up at me intently. “Sometimes people have to do the scary thing to stop the terrible thing.”
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A smile, weak as it was, found its way to my face as I hugged the girl tight against me. “Do the scary thing to stop the terrible thing,” I echoed thoughtfully. “You know what? I think that’s a pretty good motto for this whole world. You should copyright it, we’d make millions.”
In response, Tabbris just hugged me even tighter, face pressed against my shirt as she quietly murmured, “I don’t think that’s how it works, Super-Reporter.”
Before I could respond to that, Namythiet returned. She came zipping straight down, blurting, “Found her! I said you need to talk about something important, so she’s waiting over by the docks. Errr, not the really busy ones, the old broken docks that way.” She pointed while zipping back and forth with excited energy.
Thanking her, I headed that way. Even more people wanted to talk, or shove food at me, or just offer me a high five. A few offered a few words about their own histories with Fossor, times people they cared about were killed by him or his minions. Mostly his minions. All of this, the jubilant party, the fact that so many people had a story about losing someone (or a lot of someones) to Fossor, it all reminded me that it wasn’t just my family that was fucked with over the course of that fucker’s life. These people, some of the humans had horror stories going back a few hundred years. And the Alters? Some of them had stories that went back millennia. They had lost friends, children, entire families to that piece of shit. And had spent all these years, all that time, believing he was completely invincible, that he would never be stopped.
No wonder they were all so happy. No wonder they were having this party, and barely noticed that I was distracted. And like hell would I argue or dismiss them. Yes, saving Dexamene and Elisabet was important. But I wasn’t going to fault these people for being happy.
Thankfully, no one really pushed too hard. I was able to smile and nod and say a few words as I slipped through the crowd, which was only getting more rambunctious as the minutes went on. People were drinking, cheering, even screaming at one another. Not in anger, just… pure bliss. Joy. Between all the drinking, the screaming, a few playful fights, and tables laden down with food that had been brought out, this place was nuts. It was like a mixture between what I assumed a college kegger and some kind of viking feast would be like. With more magic involved.
Yeah, it was nuts. But eventually, Tabbris and I (with Namythiet flying above our heads) managed to slip through the far edge of the main crowd. To the right was the main dock, where people were lined up to jump into what had to be freezing water, judging from some of the squeals.
But the broken dock to the left, still cast in shadows far from the main party, was almost empty aside from the single figure who stood there watching me. Athena. She was patiently waiting, her eyes clearly evaluating me even through the shadows. It made me pause briefly before I took a breath and continued that way.
“Lady Felicity,” the Seosten greeted once I was close enough to easily hear without raising her voice above a quiet murmur. “I wasn’t able to say this before, but it is quite good to see you and your mother returned safely.”
“I–thanks. And thanks for being there today.” Biting my lip, I stepped up onto the wooden dock, listening to it creak under me before adding, “I’ve got a lot of people to thank, actually.”
A very slight smile seemed to touch the woman’s face, though it was hard to see that clearly through the shadows. “And many more who wish to thank you for what you accomplished.”
“Only with a lot of help,” I pointed out, shifting a bit self-consciously. “I never, ever would have gotten that far without everyone who showed up. I’d be dead. My mom would be dead.”
“As, I believe, would a great deal of the Heretic population,” she pointed out gently. “You have gone through quite a lot, and have earned this victory. Do not doubt that. You had help, yes. But if I have found one thing over the course of this life, it is the bridge built by others that allows us to reach our greatest accomplishments. Sometimes, all we can do is build upon the bridge, taking it one step closer to the other side. Other times, it has been completed and we may race across. But whatever the case, any goal we reach for cannot come without striding upon stones laid by those who have come before. It is good to remember your allies.”
Taking that as a convenient jump-on point, I nodded quickly. “Yeah, you’re right. And speaking of remembering allies, umm… there’s sort of a situation we really need to do something about.”
So, over the next few minutes, I quickly explained what was going on yet again. Tabbris piped up now and then, while Namythiet fluttered around worrying about how Jophiel was going to react. Which actually confused me a little bit, as I didn’t know she’d had much, if any interaction with the woman. But it sure sounded like she knew her pretty well.
In any case, I managed to get all of it out, leaving Athena silent as she considered. “Yes,” she finally murmured, “Rescuing Elisabet and this Dexamene is the new priority. But, as you say, simply creating a portal and jumping through hoping to find them before the Fomorians arrive is… inadvisable. Giving those creatures any link here to Earth would be incredibly dangerous. Even if it doesn’t allow them to bypass the banishment spell, it may give them a loophole they could exploit.” Her head shook. “Allowing them any access to Earth is a nonstarter.”
Feeling the approach of someone through my item sense, I turned a bit to see Tristan approaching along with his mother. “Are you saying you won’t help get Dex back?” the boy demanded, sounding like he was basically just this side of completely losing it.
Sariel quickly put a hand on her son’s shoulder, stopping him. Her voice was gentle. “That’s not what Athena meant, Tristan. Only that we must be careful.”
Athena, in turn, nodded to her old crewmate. “Precisely. I only mean that opening a portal near Aiken’te’vel is not the correct move. Fortunately, we have other options available to us.”
Sariel seemed to realize what she was talking about, head turning a bit. “You mean–”
“I do,” Athena confirmed. “I believe it may be the best opportunity we have to retrieve the two of them safely, without leaving a path for the Fomorians to follow or take advantage of.”
“Um.” After blinking back and forth between the two, I glanced to Tabbris, who offered me a shrug. “You guys wanna share with the rest of us? Cuz I’m not sure what–”
“The prototype ship,” Tristan suddenly put in. “The one that could jump universes. You guys have been working on it, right? That’s what you want to use to get over there. Except not there. You want to use it to get to the right universe, the one Aiken’te’vel is in, but far enough away that they can’t find or do anything with the portal signature.”
That made me do a double-take, processing his words. “Wait, will that work? Can the prototype ship jump like that again?”
“We have been working on it, as Tristan surmised,” Athena confirmed. “While the system is not perfect, I do believe it can manage a jump there and back again. If we set a jump-point far enough away from the Meregan world that the Fomorians could not find it before any lingering transportation energy was too far gone to be useful… then yes, I believe that would be workable.”
“And we know the gun works!” Tabbris abruptly piped up. As everyone’s eyes moved to her, she turned pink and slipped back behind me to hide with a mumbled, “Well, we do.”
Smiling despite myself, I reached back to catch the girl’s hand and squeezed it while focusing on the others. “If that’ll really make the jump, then when can we do it?”
Tristan’s mouth opened to blurt something (probably ‘right now’), but his mother squeezed his shoulder before speaking up instead. “Very soon. We need to run checks over the ship, make sure it’s up to the job. And give people time to rest and recover after today’s fight.”
Tristan didn’t like the idea of waiting. That much was obvious. But he gave a reluctant nod before tersely pointing out, “Dex and Elisabet don’t get to recover until we get them out of there.”
“Tomorrow,” Athena informed him. “Get some rest tonight. If they’ve lasted this long, they can last another twenty-four hours. We will gather a few important people and ensure that the ship is prepared. With any luck, this will be a simple, quick retrieval mission. We get in, find those two, and get out with them. But one never plans for the best case scenario.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “And speaking of not planning for the best, can we find Jophiel? Cuz she needs to know what’s going on.”
“I can find her,” Sariel noted, giving me a sympathetic look. “You do not have to come talk to her if you would prefer to be with your family right now.”
“I would prefer that,” I confirmed. “But I need to be the one to tell Jophiel. After what Elisabet did to get me out of there, after what she’s–I need to be there. I owe her that. But you guys might wanna make sure you’re ready to stop her from portaling her way right over there the second you tell her where Elisabet is. And hey, speaking of Elisabet, once we get her back, maybe she can fill in a few blanks.
“Like how she ended up there in the first place, and why she’s been cut off from Jophiel and the Committee.”