[Butcher: You’re a fucking coward, Sixteen.]
I didn’t bother replying. There was no point. How he hadn’t gotten bored of trying to goad me yet, I wasn’t sure. The worst of the Chorus had all hounded me non-stop for the first few days after Nothung fled, and that was even worse than it sounded since inheriting Footloose’s power meant I no longer needed to sleep.
I rolled over, careful not to lose my page or my concentration on the pennies I had secreted away into forgotten corners. Becoming a Brute, it seemed, did not mean I couldn’t find my cell’s cot horrifically uncomfortable. My eyes returned to my book—
A clicking, uneven purr slithered through my thoughts, drawing an unconscious shiver out of me. [Deimos: Layers upon layers… Mmmmm…]
That… was new. And unpleasant. Deimos?
[It is evil you anticipate?] The purr swelled, devolving into uneven exhales I only recognized as chuckles from passed on memories. [How long will it be, I wonder, before she comes for you?]
I stiffened, peripherally aware others were speaking up, the loudest jeering, Deimos laughter buoyed by theirs. She wouldn’t, would she? Surely not. Not after what happened. As if summoned by my fretting, officers guarding the perimeter of the building snapped their weapons up out of idle readiness to attention.
No… No… [Deimos: Ke ke ke.] [Belial: Speak of the devil.] [Rotlimb: Oh please, oh please…] [Diamondback: Not long at all, it would seem.]
They opened fire, and chaos ensued. My spinning pennies stuttered, almost falling to the floor. I almost melted the bullets before clamping down on the instinct. It might not be them. It could be the Teeth. It could be anyone attacking the PRT. But no. No, I could feel it in my bones, something unspoken, unshakable.
“Elle.”
The wall swelled, a bulbous growth that grew from an amorphous mass into a shape I knew very well. [Footloose: Yo, what?] [Toro: Oooh…kay?] We had read so many books together over the months, among them the rest of the Narnia books, but that first one had always held a special place. But was it a lie? My heart clenched at the thought. [Footloose: Oh! Oh, y’all are into that, huh? Wouldn’t have thought!] [Edict: Is that thing dangerous…?] [Deimos: Delicious.]
“Come, fortunate favorite of the Queen.”
I grimaced, folding in on myself and only belatedly realizing Elle had begun to make the simply awful cot into a proper bed, its softness molding around me. God. Even after everything… she still cared? [Klaus: Get your mind out of the gutter, Foot!] [Toro: Fucking whatever. If this weird shit gets us out of here, then I’m all for it.] No! My attention snapped back to the fighting outside, where family was being shot at.
“Elle, please. This isn’t helping. Just…” [Footloose: You ask the impossible, good sir.] [Rotlimb: Listen to your, uh, freaky wolf friend and get out of here!] Words failed me. If they were willing to go so far as to attack the PRT to try and break me out, then what could I say that would convince her to leave? [Butcher: Worthless, scared pussy.] “Just get everyone out of here.” Useless. Pointless. Fuck. Fuck. “Go.”
[Alchemist: Very eloquent, June darling.] The wolf’s attention shifted, rising with its hackles. It was already pandemonium out there. What could be drawing her attention? [Deimos: Ke ke…] Had one of our friends been hurt? [Delible: Would you stop giggling like some sort of demented lizard clown?] What was hap—? I flinched, my eyes snapping up as well at the sheer velocity of what I’d felt. Was some—? Another?! [Deimos: I do as I please, Lethe cursed.] Two more bullets damn near exploded into my range, making it unequivocal. Someone was sniping out there. The PRT? Special ops units use— [Edict: Special ops units use—] … ugh, more of these unwanted memories... [Edict: —snipers for Blast… err, shit. Now I feel bad…]
The wolf’s low growl as it stared up through the ceiling drew my attention, and my heart constricted all over again, the turmoil above us fading into the background. [Toro: Good, lean into that feeling, shitstain.] She didn’t get it, did she? There was no rescue without a hostage. There was no love without… “Elle, please…” [Klaus: Oh, June, honey…]
“No.” My pennies wobbled again, many falling to the floor. It was the wolf who had spoken, but not as Maugrim, the White Witch’s captain. Tears pricked my eyes. Hearing Elle’s voice after a week apart… Fuck, I hadn’t realized how much I’d needed to hear her. I wanted to wake up from this nightmare, to just wake up already in her arms, to just let it all out as she held me tight. [Quarrel: Ugh. I’m gonna be sick.] [Belial: You can have that, Juniper. But you cannot have it here.]
The seal on the door released, and my heart nearly stopped as Legend walked into the room, his star flecked cloak of impossibly dark cloth almost floating around him. I hadn’t seen him since after the fight, when I… when I surrendered to him. [Rotlimb: When you squished that girl like a bug, you mean.] I grit my teeth, and forced myself to focus on Legend as he asked, “Might I ask you to listen to your friend?”
Elle’s construct bent its knees in response, one of its back legs crossing behind the other but otherwise didn’t reply. [Rotlimb: Girl, that’s a fucking compliment. You were straight savage!] Legend took it in stride, pressing on without concern, “Meteor is here of her own choosing. Please stop, or I must make you.”
I nervously eyed the shadowy apparitions that had followed Legend in, and as expected, Strobe was among them. Basically every thread about the Triumvirate featured someone rekindling the old argument about whether he should still be counted as a member. But that was stupid, because how were you supposed to give hope if you were dead? No, Legend had inherited that role after Rukh killed Strobe. [Toro: Served him right getting dusted, the self righteous prick.] That power alone would probably be enough to take out everyone in our crew, and Legend had that plus two more I didn’t recognize at his disposal. Elle had to—
I froze. All around the street above us, the metal in range began to shift and vanish. Street lamps, manholes, cars—everything I could touch up there was being subsumed. I knew this feeling. I knew it well. Elle was changing things. Fuck, it felt like she was changing everything. Changes of this magnitude, meant she was having a very, very bad day, and yet…
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The wolf bared fangs of gleaming white. “No. Running.”
… but she spoke. A construct speaking with its own voice was normal—hell, this one in particular spoke to me the night before Providence—but Elle spoke. Twice. [Klaus: Is… is that significant?]Very significant.
“I see.” The apparitions shifted, and my breath caught in my throat. “I give you one last chance to recon—” [Footloose: Yo, they’re about to fight over you! How flattering is that?!]
“Legend, sir, wait!” Therese? If I hadn’t recognized the voice at the door, I doubt I could have pulled my attention away from the brewing conflict. I turned, and instead of the armor I expected, Therese was in casual attire, her clothes and hair disheveled and the domino mask over her eyes was askew, obviously hastily applied. “You’ll want to hear this.” [Klaus: Oh shit.] [Rotlimb: Well look who the cat dragged in.]
But it wasn’t her who held my focus. That honor belonged to my mother, who stood next to her in full PRT officer attire, helmet tucked under her arm.
“Parley, Legend.” Elena fixed Legend with a tight smile, her features on full display. Absolutely nothing hid her identity. [Butcher: Hn. The traitor comes to save her daughter. Surprise surprise.] [Belial: Ah, Elena, as expected. I wonder what she has conjured up to spirit you away, Juniper.]
Wha— But she’s unmasked! Why?!
[Belial: Why indeed. This will be interesting.] “You are not one of my staff.” Earlier, he had spoken with only his voice, but faced with an unknown aggressor, his words were layered as if spoken in sync by a ghostly choir. “Who are you?” [Rotlimb: She’s just being a dumbass.]
“Elena Anders, at your service,” she answered without hesitation, doubling down on revealing her identity and leaving me dumbfounded. “Though you would know me better as Heavensword.” [Toro: What the fuck.] [Alchemist: Quite an interesting turn of events, one must admit.]
Klaus?? Do you have any idea what she’s doing??
[Rotlimb: Hellooooo. Being a dumbass, like I said.] [Klaus: I have absolutely no idea…] Strobe shifted, but there was no sign of his signature blue-white lasers. Casual but ready, his expression made inscrutable by his shadowy body like all of Legend’s apparitions. “I had expected you to be fighting amongst your compatriots,” Legend remarked, his voice still ethereal. “To what do we owe the dubious honor of the Teeth’s presence this evening?” [Rotlimb: I swear that crazy bitch is always doing shit that makes no fucking sense when it involves you.]
“I am here to negotiate the release of my daughter.” [Rotlimb: See? Told you.]
“Ah, intriguing.” Legend spared me a glance before returning his attention to Elena. His apparitions never once looked away from her. “Yes, I see that now. I presume you have a means of communicating with your people. Call them off, and we may parley.”
“You presume incorrectly, nor would I, even had I the means. It would rather ruin my proposal.” She looked away from him, her eyes casting over the ceiling with a gleam. “I shall begin by confessing I coordinated this little soirée. I used my sway over the Teeth to convince them of the lie that my daughter is the new Butcher and being held against her will by the PRT. More importantly, I did so within Labyrinth’s range, knowing she would warn the rest of her teammates.”
She… what? [Belial: Ah. Yes, I see.] [Footloose: Yo, I am so confused right now, not gonna lie.]
Elle’s wolf did not appear impressed with her apologetic tilt of the head, but Elena forged ahead regardless. “You and yours do not trust me,” she said, pointedly ignoring her own hypocrisy, “and you would not have listened, had I told you your planned jailbreak was almost certainly doomed to fail. And so I gave you what you expected, plans of perfidy, and maneuvered you towards our only true chance.”
“I am ordinarily in favor of villains monologuing,” Legend remarked, openly glib, “but lives are at stake. I will only entertain your theatrics for so long, Heavensword.” [DZ: Wait wait wait. She wanted your team to believe she was betraying them, so they would betray her, which she needed in order to betray them? Am I getting that right?]
“Then I shall be brief. The Teeth are attacking your headquarters, and I will rain devastation upon everything and everyone nearby.”
“Mother, stop it!” The words left my lips before I realized what I was saying—what I was admitting. [Edict: Ha…] [Rotlimb: Ugh. I’m gonna be sick.] I might have imagined the sheen in Elena’s eyes, but I couldn’t focus on that, couldn’t take back what had been said. [Klaus: Oh Elena… How long has she waited to hear that…?] There was only the path forward. “Stop it right now. What is this madness supposed to accomplish?!”
Her lips twitched, the faintest hint of a smile. I had no doubt what she wanted to do, but she held back, refusing to lose sight of what was happening. “Because you and your crew, who were here to negotiate a mutually beneficial path forward, will openly capture us all and in so doing solidify public perception of yourselves as making a turn for the heroic. The PRT’s PR dilemma will be at an end.” [Caterpillar: Yes, that could work.] [Belial: Clever girl, is she not? I approve.]
You’re mad, all of you! I sprang to my feet and gestured wildly at the concrete walls, as if to remind her what, exactly, I was really here for. “Even if the PRT went collectively insane and decided to play along with your lies, I refuse. I— I murdered Pan— Am— Goddammit, I belong in here! And I’m not gonna let you hold people hostage in some fucked up self-sacrifice ploy over me!” [Diamondback: Stop arguing against your own freedom.] [Toro: Jesus, would you quit it with the fucking pity party already?]
Elena stepped forward and lifted her hands, and I caught myself thinking she was beckoning me in for a hug. She gripped steel and drew it over the thin skin beneath her eyes, blood oozing freely in dark trails down her cheeks as a crown bloomed into existence upon her brow. “The past is dead. Don’t cling to it like your foolish mother.” [Delible: Oh, Elena…] [Diamondback: You are wasting her sacrifice for no reason.] Real tears mixed with blood. “All I have ever given you is pain and suffering. If I can at least give you back your future, then I will be satisfied.” [DZ: Fuck, dude…]
“Why are you just sitting there?” I was not crying as I whirled on Legend. “All that power, you can stop all of this right now!”
“Why are you?” The choir was gone. Had he always sounded so small without them? [Klaus: It’s no good, June. Elena will have covered every possible option. She had to know he would be here.] “What good is your remaining here? What ill does it spawn?” [Belial: You have been outplanned, Juniper.]
Elle’s wolf stepped forward, and the walls meeting at the corner of the room began to curl in and away from each other, giving way to a rough hewn, cracked stairway covered in vines. A wrought iron gate littered with patches of rust slipped into existence at its apex as Elle’s wolf tucked its head around my leg and tugged me towards it.
The last of my pennies fell to the floor, and I felt the tug—the fugue. [Toro: Goddammit…] [Klaus: No. June, no.] [Belial: Tsk.]
“You’re afraid.” I blinked, languid, my eyes drifting to Therese where she still stood by the cell door, alone. [Footloose: I dunno why y’all are gettin’ pissy. Sixteen’s super fun when she lets go!] “Of the harm you can do. Of not knowing what’s you anymore.”
I didn’t reply. Couldn’t. The words were too hard. I just needed… to sink. [Delible: C’mon, June, don’t do this!] [Klaus: Fight it!]
“It’s too much for just you, and having powers doesn’t make that any better. You don’t believe in yourself.” [Butcher: Ugh.] [Alchemist: Thought we were getting somewhere for a moment… Alas.]
Sword Mother frowned. Disappointed. “This is not help—”
“But you’re not doing this alone.” The cute girl’s hands glowed, pretty, pink and pastel. Then all of her. “Please forgive me.”
She hugged me, and I woke up.
“Now let’s go save your friends.