Walking into the foundation area where we had discovered the runes carved into the floor earlier, I was hit by how much colder it felt before. This didn’t make sense for being in D.C. in the summer, let alone an insulated area like this.

But I had a good idea why.

“Glitonea,” I said, glancing around, eyes settling on a dim, blue glow from around one of the stone pillars.

“How, though?” Steph asked.

I shook my head. “Beats me. A different sort of magic, right? I mean, if I can use my transmutation magic when the ‘magic’ is shut off, and the magic that shuts it off is rune-based, it would make sense that other rune-based magic could still work. At least in a certain way.”

“That last part gets me. Has to be limited, because otherwise Glitonea would be out by now.”

“She’s that powerful?”

“Jericho, she’s one of the Nine.”

“Right.”

We rounded the pillar to find a wispy blue light rising out of the ground. It cast glittering reflections on the surrounding pillars and ceiling above like a blue sun on water. Steph’s eyes met mine and I knew what she was thinking—this wasn’t good.

My eyes darted about, mind playing tricks on me with the light and shadows. At any minute, someone would jump out and try to attack us, I was certain of it.

Steph approached the light, muttering, “This isn’t good. It shouldn’t be here… Why is it here?”

“Certain runes have been activated,” I said. “This place, it had to have been made as an area that could amplify magic, or maybe as a backup for Gertrude in case other magic failed.”

“Or… Maybe it was put here before her time.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” I countered, turning to look at the runes around us on the ground, trying to scan the area for my digital display and analysis. “She came to it by chance?”

“It was put here… to draw her… to it.”

I turned to see why Steph was talking weird, then noticed that she was standing in the light, starting to float. Her hands went out to the side, her eyes rolling back until only white showed, her skirt fluttering as if there was a wind. I felt no wind.

“Oh, fuck,” I said as I ran to her, grabbing hold to pull her out of the light.

Movement. Something large coming at me. It hit like a sledgehammer to the gut and tossed me over, slamming me into the wall. I rolled, expecting another attack, then pushed myself up to face what I was certain had to be Glitonea.

It wasn’t.

Standing in front of me, wings spread and talons at the ready, was Ebrill. I blinked, confused.

“What—” I started, but she slammed into me again, the force of her attack nearly knocking me to the ground. My attempts to throw her off failed, and in a flash she had an arm around my throat, spinning me.

From this new angle, I saw Steph on the floor, wraith knights all around her, with swords held high but not attacking. Why weren’t they attacking? Steph sat up and threw a fireball to my left, out of my sight, but still the knights didn’t move.

She wheeled around, but I couldn’t see what came next because Ebrill lurched sideways, pulling as I attempted to get my chin between her arm and my neck.

“Why…?” I tried asking, but got only a grunt.

This didn’t make sense—it was still daytime. Had to be! To say nothing of the fact that Ebrill wouldn’t attack me like this. Unless Glitonea had found a way to turn them against us, to confuse them… and wake them during the day?

Oxygen was getting thin in my brain and my muscles cramped with exertion, but I gambled and cast frost footing beneath us. My hope had been that it would cause Ebrill to slip, but no such luck. Instead, I slipped and managed to break out of her grip, so that I landed on the ice and rolled aside, then stood, hands ready.

“I’ll blast you,” I bluffed. “Don’t do it. This is me.”

The red in her eyes flared, and she took a step toward me. My hands raised again as I glanced over to see Steph dive behind a pillar and cringe. I still didn’t see her attacker, but knew I needed to get Ebrill under control so we could go and help.

“It’s me,” I said to the gargoyle. “Jericho. I went back in time, found you, saved magic—in a weird way. It is me.”

The corner of her mouth curled, a voice very not her own emitting. “How pitiful, little Jericho. You think that highly of yourself, when all you’ve been is a puppet?”

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“You’re not Ebrill,” I said, rethinking my attack strategy.

A hint of humor. “I’m not… but I took her body.”

“Glitonea,” I said, eyeing the runes. There had to be a way to reverse this. If she had taken over Ebrill’s body, that meant the gargoyle was still in there, somewhere. Hurting her wasn’t an option, but how could I win, here?

Part of what I had been learning recently was that I could control quite a lot about my surroundings with my transmutation power. It was all mental, in that I had to believe I could do something before being able to do it. In theory, there wasn’t much I couldn’t change or do, but my mind had a hard time grasping that.

Applying such thought to this scenario, I realized such powers had to be the answer. Focusing on Glitonea up in her room somehow affecting Ebrill, I concentrated on pushing her out. My thought process involved imagining Glitonea and her glowing runes on her flesh, then drawing a string down here to Ebrill and cutting it free.

Only, it was like taking a step only to find no ground beneath your foot. I mentally fell, caught myself, and shook my head clear—in time to catch one of Ebrill’s knees with my face. Pain, blood, me staggering backward. If it came down to hurting this woman I’d grown to care for or letting a possessed version of her kick the shit out of me, which would it be?

My hand went to the ground, an idea taking over. Focusing on creating a hole, I smirked, waiting. Nothing happened. No hole.

Ebrill stepped forward, then glitched! Like a holograph, she cut out for a moment, then was back. Something was very off here. I moved the ground again. This time, she vanished completely, replaced with an image of the Little Mermaid floating in front of me as if in the water, lasers shooting out of her eyes.

Okay, now I knew this was way off. For one, as ridiculous as it sounded, I’d drawn that exact image once when I was twelve. This was familiar, but not many would know about it.

Even the mermaid herself seemed to think she was a gargoyle still, as she laughed, Glitonea’s voice coming through to say, “You coward. In the face of your worst nightmare, you can’t stand and fight?”

“My worst…”

A shooting pain went through my eyes. My mind was pounding, stomach spinning. None of this made sense. I had to use the runes, figure out… Wait a minute. They were there, on my screen. As I willed myself to be able to understand them, it happened—briefly, barely, but it worked.

“Illusion,” I said, recognizing the pattern. “It’s all an illusion!”

Understanding what it was, I was able to focus on the specific runes causing the illusion and shut it off. The rune I’d affected when trying to make a hole was integral. Another nearby showed a connection. Activating some, while deactivating others, created more scenarios, more tricks of the mind.

Steph screamed, calling for me, and for a moment I saw through her eyes, then was pulled back into myself but able to see her illusions, too. The knights were facing a monstrous serpent, some of them freezing as stone, others turning to ash. Flames leaped up around them.

Then the gargoyle faded, the fire was gone, the ashes and frozen wraiths… all gone. Steph fell to her knees, a whimper escaping her lips, and I ran to her side, holding her close.

“It’s over.”

At least, for us. Now my screen was showing a pattern, the words ‘illusion’ written in the upper right-hand corner. I had learned a rune spell, and saw which runes gave it direction.

“Here,” I said, looking at the runes on the ground and those on the digital map floating before me. With them overlaid I was able to see that there were similar patterns, and the ones glowing at the moment might have been others activated by Glitonea. At least, that was my guess.

Focusing on my map and then trying to use my powers to deactivate specific runes, I wanted to test the magic, see what the effects were.

“Nothing?” Steph asked.

I shook my head, but then had an idea. The runes on Glitonea’s body hadn’t been flat like on my display, but curved around her body. What if there was a connection there, like they paired up in different ways, like Chinese symbols in writing? It wasn’t only the symbols and which were used, but in what order.

Considering this, I made my screens compute different combinations, seeing if it would tell me how to use them. It made the combinations, but left the rest up to me. I was left feeling like A Boy and His Blob for the NES, and these combinations were my jelly beans. If you don’t get the reference, seriously, go look it up. One of the best games ever, along with the old-school Zelda, Contra—the list goes on.

Suddenly, another rune lit up across the way! I deactivated it, then another, this one causing my back to ache. It was like playing whack-a-mole, except the mole had some voodoo effect type magic.

Finally, I’d had enough of this and simply turned off all runes. The result was that I felt naked. Worse than that, all eyes throughout the world were turning in my direction, like the Eye of Sauron in the Lord of the Rings movies. I’d be spotted soon. That wouldn’t do.

I couldn’t make much more sense of the runes, but there were clear patterns like with the illusion spell. All I had to do was figure out how to understand the rest of the patterns, and we’d be set. For now, I activated the runes again, setting up that barrier to keep the magic eyes from seeing us.

Using the rune spell I’d just learned, I redirected the illusion spell up to where we had left Glitonea. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the shrieks of terror that came down from her moments later.

Distant, echoing shrieks.

Steph looked at me with confusion, then summoned her wraith knights. All were there, all looking down on us with their faces of darkness, hidden under their helmets. Then they were gone.

“Make it stop,” Steph said, clearly referring to the screams.

I nodded, then sent illusions to Glitonea not of her greatest nightmares, but of simply being cast out, sent into a prison of space and emptiness. Floating, forever. In reality she was still in the house, but unless she could look beyond the illusion, she wouldn’t know that.

She would figure it out soon enough, I was sure, but didn’t think she would be able to counter the runes I had put in place.

As far as I was concerned, I’d figured out the trick to keep her out of our hair for the time being.

But, if I had learned one new rune spell, I could learn more. In time.

“You… hungry?” I asked.

Steph laughed uneasily, clearly trying to push out the horrible images she had seen, and gladly took my hand as I helped her up. We made our way upstairs, discussing the various possible uses of the rune magic, and soon had downed some juice and chicken skewers. Steph found a couple of dark chocolates in one cabinet, and we sat on the couch, sharing those and simply being with each other, enjoying it.

“Come on, let’s get some rest,” Steph said, curling up next to me on the fancy cushions. She hadn’t even finished the words, when her deep breathing started, showing that she had already drifted off to sleep.

I considered getting up and carrying her to the bed, but hell, I was damn tired, too. Instead, I leaned my head back, closed my eyes, and drifted off to sleep.