“Why cannot this wait until the morning?” Dusk said as she, Reeve, and Leaf descended the steps from the town hall to the dark square. The fires had burned out, and a few townspeople were furtively beginning a cleanup effort.
“Because my dad may log me out pretty much any moment.”
“Of course,” Dusk said, looking unconvinced, “because he is known for his decisiveness of action.”
“Well, no… you know what, never mind. You’re already out here, just give me a break, and let’s do this.”
“You do not want your mount?” Leaf said as Reeve walked past the horse.
Reeve turned so she could face Leaf and walk backward toward the middle of the square as she spoke. “No. It’s going to be hard enough getting me in and out in the amount of time I have there. I don’t want to have to worry about where I’m going to hitch a horse, then have to get it before I get to the extraction point.”
Dusk stopped, and so Reeve and Leaf stopped as well. “You are certain you want to begin with Neecrus?” Dusk turned to face away from Reeve and Leaf and began moving both hands through the air as though painting with unseen brushes.
“Yeah. If that’s the realm you know the least about, it seems like the most likely place to find a Level 4 AI, the thing that’s keeping the game from pausing while I’m logged out, or hopefully both those things.”
“Very well,” Dusk said, her tone making no attempt to show support for the idea. Her hands moved for another few seconds, then she drew them toward her before reversing the motion and pushing her palms forward as if against stiff resistance. A pinprick of smoke left her hands and drifted away, growing as it did to form a ring. Reeve walked after it, watching it expand until it was large enough that she’d be able to step through without stooping. The ring finished its drift and hung rotating in place.
“You made that look easy,” Reeve said quietly.
“I have had time to practice,” Dusk said.
Reeve frowned. “Yeah, I get it. Sorry.” She leaned forward and looked through the portal. “Where exactly will I be?”
“We know the capital of Neecrus—Morbeet—only through descriptions and a few dated maps. But this gateway should place you between the outer and inner walls of the castle at the corner farthest from the main gate. It will likely have little traffic, with your arrival and departure unobserved. Beyond that, we know almost nothing, so you will need to determine whether you should make for the castle’s keep or some other location in the castle or surrounding city.”
“Sure, no problem, that won’t be hard at all,” Reeve said, her enthusiasm dropping. She squinted into the darkness on the other side of the portal and her skin prickled. “Are those…”
“There are stories,” Leaf said, “of necromancers in Morbeet.”
Reeve stood upright, closed her eyes, and chose a well-worn mantra to repeat several times in her head, evolving with each iteration. My confidence grows when I step outside of my parents’ comfort zone, she thought. My confidence grows when I step outside of my parents’ comfort zone, which sometimes involves also stepping outside my comfort zone. My confidence grows when I step outside of my parents’ comfort zone, which sometimes involves also stepping outside my comfort zone, especially when there are zombies.
Reeve opened her eyes and looked at Dusk and Leaf. “When we were deciding where I was going to go first—“
“You made that decision with little interest in our suggestions,” Dusk said.
“—maybe so,” Reeve said, “but you could’ve led with ‘There are zombies in Neecrus.’”
Something almost entirely silent shot past Reeve’s ear on a path that would pass between Dusk and Leaf. Before Reeve could comprehend what she was seeing, Leaf reached out and grasped the trailing end of the thing, which Reeve then saw was a bird. Leaf held the animal upside down by its feet as Dusk pulled out a dagger and swiftly sliced off its head, which fell with a disturbingly hollow thump to the ground.
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“Ohmagod!” Reeve said. “What the fudge?” She looked at the head and saw that it was an owl and that it was missing one eye. The beak moved, and Reeve flinched, then looked at the body Leaf still held aloft, which looked ratty with feathers missing in places. The wings were opening and closing, as though testing the air. “What? What!? What what what!?”
Dusk bent at the waist and impaled the top of the head with the dagger. Both the beak and wings went slack.
“Whaaaaaaaa?” Reeve managed.
“Let me expand upon what I said a moment ago,” Leaf said. “There are stories of many necromancers in Morbeet. Many stories of many necromancers.”
Reeve pointed her naginata’s blade at the owl head. “That was an undead owl?”
“You must strike them in the seat of their thoughts to put them down,” Dusk said.
“Pretty much always the brain,” Reeve said quietly. She turned and looked again through the portal. “You’re sending me into zombie land, alone, in the middle of the night?”
Dusk looked unsympathetic. “Shall I remind you who devised this plan?”
Reeve frowned.
“But,” Dusk said, “if the time of day is part of your concern, I can assist you with that before you depart.” She broadened her stance and began casting a new spell.
Reeve looked from Dusk’s quickly moving hands to Leaf, who gave no indication of Dusk’s intent.
As Dusk approached the end of the complex sigil she was tracing from memory, her hands slowed and she closed her eyes.
“Gaaaah!” Reeve cried and flung one arm across her face as light drowned her vision. Slowly lowering the arm, she blinked, keeping her eyes squinted nearly shut. “What is this?”
“This is what we refer to in our world as ‘daytime.’” Dusk said, a smile playing at the corner of her lips.
Reeve turned and looked through the portal. The previous view, which had been nearly impossible to make out, had been replaced by a brightly lit view of the inner and outer castle wall between which she’d be appearing. “What do you mean ‘daytime’? You can just change the time?”
“I can just change the time,” Dusk said, and Reeve could feel the satisfaction in the half-elf’s matter-of-fact statement.
“Everywhere?”
“I have changed our time here to coincide with the sun’s apex.”
Reeve looked up at the sky, then back down. “Noon?”
“Noon.”
Reeve looked around at the now well-lit square. A few townspeople talked quietly while squinting up into the brilliant blue sky, but others were carrying on as though nothing had changed. “They don’t find this really freaky?” Reeve said.
“The first time it happened, of course,” Dusk said. “By now, most in Thhia will have heard that my sister or I are at the root of such events. They remain an oddity, certainly, but our people have come to accept them. The peoples of other realms? I do not know how they respond on these occasions.”
“Regardless, there will be many bone-tired souls across the realms this evening,” Leaf said.
“Almost a twelve-hour time change,” Reeve said. “Worst jet lag pandemic ever, without even traveling at all. And it’s noon everywhere in this world?”
Dusk almost smirked. “You know that planets are round, not flat, yes?”
Reeve placed her weapon-free hand on her hip. “Yes.”
“Then it cannot be the same time in every town in every realm. But, Morbeet, while farther north, is only slightly more westerly than us, so it will also be daytime in ‘zombie land’ when we send you off alone.”
“Or not alone,” Leaf said.
Feeling relieved, Reeve turned to Leaf.
Leaf shook her head. “No, not I,” she said. “As you know, I must stay and safeguard Dusk. But it seems your father has not abandoned you entirely.”
Reeve looked in the direction toward which Leaf inclined her head and found a honey badger trotting across the square. “Ohmagod. Bunce?”
The honey badger gave no sign of response but continued its approach until it stopped between Reeve and the portal.
“You coming with me?” Reeve said. She was embarrassed by how much hope she felt at the possibility.
The honey badger stared through the portal for a few seconds, then trotted toward it, took a low leap to clear the bottom lip of the rotating smokey ring, and paused on the other side. Bunce’s head swiveled from side to side, then she turned and trotted to the right, passing out of view.
“Guess we’re going!” Reeve said. She quickly nodded to Dusk and Leaf and stepped through the portal. On the other side, she looked in the direction Bunce had gone to make sure she could still see the honey badger, then turned back to look through the portal into the market square. “Two hours, OK?” She whispered. “Right here again. Two hours sharp.”
“I understand your plan,” Dusk said, “despite it being, as you sometimes say, ‘half-baked.’ I will reopen the aperture in two hours.” Her expression soured. “I will not be enjoying much rest tonight.”
“Lucky for you,” Reeve whispered, “you made it not night.” Reeve couldn’t help herself and smiled as she saw Dusk’s expression turn even darker. “Have a good afternoon! See you at t—“
The portal snapped shut and Reeve found herself looking down the length of a grassy bailey that ran between the inner and outer walls of the castle in the heart of Morbeet.
“Someone’s even sassier than she used to be,” she said to herself.
Bunce was almost to the nearest corner of the inner wall. Reeve would lose sight of her as soon as the honey badger turned it. Reeve took a quick step to follow then stopped and slowly raised her gaze to look along the battlement that ran along the inside of the outer wall.