Due to my hasty retreat from the Palace of Ghosts, I’d found myself traversing Brightgate on foot. Descending and ascending hills in the hopes I’d outrun the horrors I’d seen. A failed venture when what haunted me was…me, and despite all the spells and Sorcery I’d accrued up until that point there was none that let me truly escape myself. Delay, deny, delude, but never truly divest. So for all my running, all I’d earned was the briefest reprieve of thought as I fell into my body, fixating on the way my legs burned like matchsticks whose flame was beautiful agony.

When I returned to the suite, I found it quiet, empty and was thankful for it. The idea that Melissa or Amber would see me like this—chest heaving, shirt sweat-stained and translucent, my eyes dull yet haunted—frightened me. They would’ve asked questions. Maybe not the right ones at first, but Amber was incisive; the more I tried to hide my feelings and thoughts the more she saw—a consequence of her Court. Technically, I could’ve always stonewalled her, but if Melissa was there then honesty would’ve been my only route.

I crossed the suite to my room and drifted toward the bed. Allowed myself to fall into the plush embrace of pillows and the downy comforter. I rolled over, shook out the flames of pain in my legs, then removed my sorc-deck from my pocket. Waking it up, the clock on the home screen stated there was only a handful of hours left before sunset—I’d lost most of my pre-mission prep time to my mad flight across the city. I groaned and let the device fall to my chest.

It wasn’t like I had much to prepare. Unlike the event’s intended guests, I didn’t see a reason to come in formal attire, and I lacked combat attire. The only weapon I owned was Mother’s Last Smile, not really something you bring on a stealth mission. Ultimately, the only thing to prepare was myself and…Sinaya. The realization that I’d failed to prepare the subject of this whole secondary objective I’d convinced Secretary and Lupe of crashed into the forefront of my thoughts, spawning a massive headache.

Then my chest buzzed. Well, my sorc-deck did, but the vibrations seeped into my skin. Lifting it up, I saw that it was an unrecognized address calling me. I answered and a square projection of my unknown caller materialized in the air above me. The image was dark, not entirely black, and as I stared I slowly made out the nuances within. There were unmoving shadow shapes, most were such, but one shifted constantly, almost nervously, before what turned out to be its face opened to unveil bright teeth—fangs, like mine if a bit squatter.

“I can see through your shirt” Sinaya stated, his voice one I’d recognize even in death.

I glanced down at myself. “Huh, so you can. Like what you see?”

“Nadia—”

“Orchard,” I said, “call me Orchard.”

Silence swayed through our call as my reprimand and instruction landed on Sinaya. His silhouette nodded, slightly smiling before re-committing to a frown.

“Orchard then, better?”

“Immensely.”

He groaned—probably rolled his eyes too, but I couldn’t see for sure.

“Are you still in the city?” he asked.

I answered, “Yeah, I am.”

“Why? I told you to leave.”

I rolled my eyes. “You did, but I told you—even though you were too invested in that one-sided conversation of yours to notice—that I wasn’t leaving. Not without you.”

“Give up on me,” he said, his voice breaking. “I’m the Angler Knight. Your enemy. It’d be so easy.”

“Sinaya, ask the Angler Knight if I’ve ever chosen the easy option,” I said.

“You haven’t,” he whispered. “You’re too committed, you obstinate woman.”

“Exactly,” I said, “and it’ll be my obstinance that’ll break you out.”

“What? Orchard, there’s no out for me,” he said. “Marduk won’t let me go.”

“Of course he won’t,” I said, “he’s a bully and a monster. The kind of person who craves control over everything, never lets anyone go and will have you pay the cost of their desires. Making you chip away at yourself piece by piece until you’ve abetted every atrocity in the hopes that it’ll be the last one. Sinaya, there’ll never be a last one.”

Sinaya’s silhouette shifted, becoming something akin to a boulder—I think he was curled up. Holding at himself like a child would when the world’s turned out to be far too much to handle. I sucked in my lower lip, gently biting it, concerned I’d said too much, that he’d hang up. So I let the silence in and allowed my love to find the words to his feelings.

He whispered, “You think I don’t know that? I’ve tried so many times…so many.”

“Can you try once more, for me?” I asked.

“I don’t know. This would’ve been easier if you killed me,” he said.

“Not for me,” I said. “Besides, it might have been easy for you, but it wouldn’t have been just. You’re a victim too.”

Sinaya scoffed, “I’m his right hand. His heir! No one would think I’m a victim.”

“I do,” I said, pushing myself up to a sitting position, “and that’s why I’m going to ask you this. Do you want to be free?”

“Orchard, it’s not—”

“No,” I cut him off. I needed him to feel, not rationalize. “This isn’t about possibility or likelihood. It’s about what you want. Do. You. Want. To. Be free?”

Sinaya scoffed, then chuckled, and broke. “More than anything,” he said.

“Then pack a bag.”

Silence, and then, “I already have,” he said. “It’s the same one I’ve had for ages now. On the off chance that…on the off chance. Good luck, Orchard.”

“So you respect the Court of Luck, but not Hope?” I asked, lining the question with a brightness.

“Of course,” he said. “With Luck, you always know it can break bad. So unlike Hope, it doesn’t feel like a betrayal when it does. I’ll…see you soon?”

“You will,” I promised.

Sinaya ended the call, and with it the black square projection dissipated to reveal Amber standing in the doorway to my room. Her fingers pinched at her eyes in disbelief and pain.

“Does this have anything to do with you leaving this morning?” she asked.

A wan smile crossed my face. “Aww, you missed me,” I said.

I slid from the bed and crossed the room to the corner where I’d laid my bag down when we first arrived. Fishing out clothes to replace the ones I’d sweated through. Drawing out the process so I could gather myself.

“Temple, you just disappeared on us. No note, no messages, I was worried,” Amber said.

“I’m here now, aren’t I?” I asked.

Amber laid her hand on my shoulder and asked, “Where did you go, Temple?”

Having gathered my things, I stood and crossed back to the bed, still unready to meet her gaze as if that’d prevent her from seeing through me. The clothes I picked out were tossed onto the bed, and without great fanfare I began to strip—socks first.

“A walk, are you happy?” I asked.

“Temple, you don’t go on walks,” she argued. “You don’t wake up early. You roll about and moan for maybe a good hour after you should get up.”

“That’s because I find sleep comfortable,” I said. “Do it right and you don’t have to think…that’s it really. I woke up and was just so congested; my brain was chock full of this disgusting thought slime that I couldn’t get rid of.

I hopped around as I tried to pull off a sock that seemed to adhere to my skin from the sweat. Amber placed a hand at my waist—guiding me down to the bed—and rested my foot against her thigh as she removed the sock. Gathering both of them in her hands.

“I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” she said, softly.

“Alls below, it’s not about you or Melissa,” I said, trying to stress how much it wasn’t their fault. “It’s me. The thoughts were about me and how I laid in that bed pretending to be human.”

In one motion, I whipped off my shirt. Tossed it to Amber—she’d decided to gather my clothes. Amber tucked the shirt beneath her arm and took my hand. Her thumb rolled small circles into my palm. It was intended to be comforting, but I needed two hands to take off my pants.

“Temple, there’s nothing wrong with ‘pretending’. You wear a mask long enough and—”

“Maybe for my mom,” I snapped, “but not me.”

I took back my hand, undid the top two buttons, yanked down the zipper. Employed that ridiculous hopping maneuver you do when pants have to come off, but you refuse to get up.

“For me, it needs to be real,” I stated.

Amber scoffed and grabbed my pants by the legs.

“And gallivanting to save some ‘butch in distress’ is real for you?”

She planted a foot against the bedframe and pulled, slipping my pants off and reeling me toward her—made me face her. I held my ground for what felt like an hour but was more like twenty interminable seconds.

“Maybe,” I muttered. “Is it really that bad to try and help people?”

Amber shook her head, paced away from me toward the center of the room. She bundled up the clothes and dropped into my chair. Her breath was steady, but her hands tense, the tendons taut and visible as she folded my clothes.

“Yes it is, Temple,” Amber said. “You don’t actually know what you’re getting into, and if this ‘mission’ becomes a fight—which these things always do—you’ll advance your curse.”

I hadn’t thought about the risk of that. Amber was right on that point, but what was a curse to a friend that needed me? A love that craved freedom?

“Ugh, spare me the regrets of your life,” I said. “This is worth it.”

“Really, okay,” Amber said, “but understand this, Temple, these aren’t anywhere near the regrets of my life. This is me trying to keep you from becoming another Nemesis!”

“I’m nothing like her—”

“Yet,” she stated. “But I’ve been down this road before, and I know where it ends. Chasing after every lost cause, throwing yourself at every problem, it’s the exact kind of shit she pulled. Dragging me and my siblings into it every time.”

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Amber’s voice rose—I don’t think she realized she was yelling.

“And every time,” Amber continued, “it ended in slaughter. That’s the thing, Temple, whether its Nemesis or the curse I’ll bear forever—if you forgot—their extremity wasn’t reached in a day. It was grown from the seeds of every ‘good deed’ she’d set her sights on!”

I know I didn’t realize I was yelling.

“Then shoot me!” I yelled. Punctuating the command with the snap of my bra against my wrist—I’d finally gotten it off, and immediately used it as ammo. Throwing it into Amber’s face.

She pulled her head free from one of the cups. Held it in her hands like it was the most fragile thing. When she turned from it to me, I saw the nerve I’d struck was a deep one. Making her hands quiver as if she’d gotten zapped fiddling around with some Old World generator.

“Don’t joke about that,” Amber said.

“Who said I was joking?” I asked, pantomiming a search across the room for my accuser. “It’s the only sensible thing after all. No matter what I do, I’m ruined…I’m ruin.”

My voice fell soft as my eyes unfocused. The vision from the Palace of Ghosts formed in the theater of my mind. Projected against the far wall behind Amber. It zoomed in tight on her face as she swung from the noose I held in a tyrant’s grip.

“If you’re right, then every good deed I try will make me into more of a monster,” I said. “While if I do nothing, staying as this thing that only lives to kill—”

“What you’re trying to do is more than that. It’s righteous,” Amber asserted.

“It’s still killing, and if that’s it for me—all I can ever be—then I’ll be a monster of a different sort,” I said. “A bomb waiting to go off—literally. Alls below, it’s like that Tenken-bumon lady said, ‘where hybridae are found, apocalypse isn’t far behind.’”

“Those sanctimonious fucks don’t know anything, Temple.”

Falling back into the bed, I despaired, “Do we? Does anyone? If my parents did, they’re gone. Whoever made the White Wombs might, but they’re using those kids as weapons. Did you know when they’re born they make their parent explode? Talk about a thing me and them have in common.”

Amber neither shook her head nor nodded. She just looked down at the folded stack of clothes in her lap. Maybe she thought there was a more efficient way to fold them.

She said, “Temple, you didn’t kill your parents. I mean, if your dad was City Killer, he’d have lots of enemies. Most of them made long before you were born.”

“Still, it’s not like having a hybridae for a daughter makes it easy to stay undercover,” I said. “Amber, I have to balance the scales, okay? So yeah, maybe I rescue a butch. Help Lupe kill Marduk and end his little dictatorship. Get Secretary a few ranks up within the Lodge.”

“You’d be helping Nemesis then,” Amber stated. “He’s her enemy. You’re better off letting the two fight each other.”

I pushed off from the bed. Stalked across the room toward Amber. This time, Amber was the one evading my eyes. Good, because as I loomed over her I felt close to discovering a way to light someone on fire using just a glare.

“I am not helping her,” I corrected. “Marduk’s enough of my enemy based on what he’s done to Sinaya and Lupe alone, and killing him gets me points that puts me closer to the #1 spot in the exam’s ranking. That’s how I’m going to kill Nemesis, remember? It was our plan.”

Amber searched the floor. “Do you have to do this with Secretary then? Your curse—”

“Was something they found out about at the same time as us,” I said. “Now, stop blaming them.”

“I’m not,” she said, “but them not knowing then was a blessing. Them knowing now is a temptation. Your curse comes with a leash, Temple. What happens if they pull it?”

“Better a leash than a muzzle.”

A breath, shallow as a wheeze yet heavy as the gasp of a dying man, emerged from Amber. It was a low blow, I know that, but she had no right to speak of canine accouterments. Even if only in metaphor.

She whispered, “Temple, I’m sorry. A thousand times I’m sorry. I just…if you want to be more, then okay. I only need you to know that I’m out here fighting so hard for you, so don’t become less. So you don’t become her.”

Amber’s hands moved quickly, wrapped around my waist, allowing her to bury her face into my stomach. She peeked up at me with those raspberry eyes of hers that gleamed with an inner fire of want, need, and hunger.

“Please, don’t do this, Nadia,” she said. “When someone needs to die, let me be the one to kill for you. When there’s a party, let me pick out clothes for you. If you’re hungry, let me cook for you. I’m willing to be everything for you if it’ll keep you as you are.”

There, there was the crux of our difference. She wanted so much. Loved me—me—too much.

“Amber…” my voice trailed off, compressed beneath the weight of her feelings. Choked into submission by the frame with which she saw me as an idol to be frozen, eternal.

Sensing my weakness, she whined, “Nadia, could I ever be enough for you?”

I should’ve said no. I could’ve tried to lie and say yes. Instead, I was weak, to her beautiful eyes, to the comfort her presence was in my life, and unwilling to break her heart or mine before my mission that night.

I stroked her, cooed, “You’re already everything I need you to be.”

Holding her head to my stomach, I used her as a secondary source of balance. Slipped off my underwear and placed them on the stack of my clothes she held for me. The corners of her eyes crinkled in accordance with the false smile that slid against my skin.

“How do I smell?” I asked, in a poor attempt at changing the subject. Amber’s eyebrows swam toward each other in confusion. So I explained, “I need to know if I need a shower.”

Her face smoothed out—I thought she was pleased to be given a task. I thought this could heal something before I left. So I remained still as she sniffed my skin, her face trailing down toward my thighs. Then she glanced up at me. Her usual genial expression returned.

“Perfect, Temple, you smell perfect,” she said.

I smiled back, and turned from her, changing into the clothes I’d picked out. Amber left taking mine and some of her laundry over to the nearby laundromat. It didn’t matter that our suite had a built-in washer and dryer. We both needed space, and neither I nor her wanted to bring up the fact that I could’ve sworn I felt fangs graze my skin.

* * *

Despite skipping a shower, I still arrived late to the meeting at Secretary’s place. Arguably it wasn’t my fault. The address they’d given me led down toward the docks—far beyond what could be considered to be the edge of the district’s residential areas—and from there to a squat building whose paint had been stripped away by the ocean’s breeze over the years. Shoving my sorc-deck into my pocket, I entered the place ready to discover that this was something of a secret hideaway for Secretary. In one sense, it was, and in the other, well…

“A pub, really?” I asked, claiming a seat at the table Lupe and Secretary were stationed at.

It was a good table. With a clear view of the ships in the harbor in one direction. In the other, every exit in the building—save the one in the back leading into the kitchens. Secretary pushed a basket of fries and fried shrimp in my direction.

“Do you have something against them, little brute?” they asked.

I glanced toward the rest of the room—sailors, from the brawny to the rotund to the whip-thin were in full attendance for a night of drinking, gossiping, gambling, and a few were even dancing. One of them caught my eye, a deeply tanned woman with an undercut and three eyes who winked with the one at the center of her forehead. My attention returned to Secretary, who chose that moment to go back to sipping their dark walnut-colored ale.

“No,” I said. “It’s a nice place. I just…”

“What?” they asked.

Lupe’s fingers drummed against the table. It’d not been long, but the scars on her face already looked better than when I last saw her having lost most of their redness. She stole a fry.

“Alls below, play this game of yours later,” Lupe said. “Nadia expected to see your place. Where you live. Which, unless there’s an apartment upstairs, then that’s not here.”

Secretary rolled the glass between their hands. Eventually, a tornado formed within the ale, and they stopped to admire the way it spun. Only to look up once it stilled and died.

“True, but also a little false,” they said. “Secretaries above rank four hundred—those without assets to manage—live in the dormitories. They’re like the residences you’re all staying at. Though ours tend to be two to a room. That’s where I sleep.”

Gesturing with their ale, they added, “Here, I live. It’s a quiet crowd. The beer is cheap, and the shrimp are fried fresh. Alls below, if you catch something you can bring it here and they’ll fry it up for you. The cook’s bonded to Imagination and pairs everything with the most interesting sauces and dips.”

“I get it,” I said.

“Do you?” Lupe asked. “I would’ve sworn they hang out in those fancy bars where every cocktail is Conceptual or something. Look how they dress.”

“The clothes are uniform,” I explained, glancing to Secretary to make sure I could—they nodded. “It’s not really their choice in the matter, is it?”

Secretary sniffed—the closest to a laugh they’d made since we first met—before draining their glass. “No it is not. Though we try every year to petition an allowance from the Lodgemaster to at least let us wear jeans.”

Lupe asked, “So, a lesbian sailor pub is your ‘place’ because it’s casual?”

“It’s because I like the ocean,” they said. “Don’t know why, but I always have.”

“How come you don’t know?” I asked.

Secretary slammed their glass down, ending this line of inquiry.

“We have a mission to do,” Secretary said. “Now, you said you have a key. Where’s the door?”

“Close by,” I said.

I led us from the pub down to the shipping yard not too far away. It’d been a lifetime, or what felt like one, since the night of the wild hunt. Only recently I’d stopped looking for signs of proof that everything I’d done and seen was real. Yet despite the distance from that night, both temporal and emotional, there wasn’t any great difficulty navigating the labyrinth of containers. My heart could never forget the location of that Staircase—I’d met Sinaya there after all.

When we arrived I instinctually looked down at the spot where I’d burned a man to death. He wasn’t special for that reason, and to be honest I don’t remember what made him special. The corpses in the rearview of my life were towering long before him. I removed the narrow slate of Abyss blue quartz from my other pocket. Immediately, the mural depicting whalefall and jellyfish reacted. First was the low keening cry of a whale’s death, and then the jellyfish peeled themselves off of the shipping crate. Escaping their two-dimensional origins for our three-dimensional world. Swirling in a pulsating dance of bioluminescent greeting.

“This is our door,” I said. “Ready?”

Secretary waved me forward, lead on, little brute. I stepped into the mural-turned-Staircase trusting—and hearing—Secretary and Lupe not far behind me. We crept close together in the darkness. Our feet seeking the step made from what felt like sea glass, and when peered at was completely translucent to the oppressive black that surrounded us from top to bottom. Even the walls—if there were any—were too dark to discover and too far for me to feel.

“Lupe, any chance you can make some light?” I asked.

She pretended to ignore my request. We still weren’t on the best of terms. Secretary noticed this and repeated my request which Lupe honored by removing her shades and opening her eyes. Instantly, I felt the teasing warmth of a creeping dawn, and my jaw clenched from the pain of sudden illumination being foisted upon me without warning.

“Alls below, that’s so bright,” I groaned.

Lupe chuckled at my pain. “It’s what you wanted. Now keep walking.”

I attempted to shoot her a glare but paid dearly for my spite. Lupe’s eyes were the sun at noon, white and sharp. While the tributary scars of her face filled with the molten blood of that celestial body. She didn’t wince or moan—I never asked, but I figured and hoped that her body took the change better than I did mine. Lupe could be pissed at me forever, but I never wanted her to be in pain. So I swallowed my gripes and pressed on within the claustrophobic aura of light that surrounded us, appreciative that we at least caught the detail that our Staircase did have walls, turquoise, and made from coral.

As we descended the spiral Staircase, I felt the shift from Realspace to the Underside take place. When I’d done it the other way around it had felt like water slipping from my body as I broke the surface. The sensory metaphor still proved apt, as I could feel the dry touch of the Real fade away. Replaced by the suffusing chill—likely due to the throne we were infiltrating belonging to Abyss—of the Conceptual which lifted away my flesh as if it was dirt and the Underside a cleansing soap. It traveled up my neck, my face, and then past my head. I’d become a being of molten-white scales over orange-hot Metallic spirit flesh.

“Little brute, step softly,” Secretary hissed.

Fair advice as this was a stealth mission nominally, but I’d stopped moving. It’s childish to admit, but I still found the transition from Real to Conceptual so interesting that I needed to pause. A fact I informed Secretary of, and a half-beat later realized the implication—someone was ascending the Staircase. Working fast, Secretary shaped a hand-spell pulling a gun free from a flock of glowing lights. Lupe opened her mouth, and I heard the churning forge song at the heart of the sun softly echo from her throat. She reached in and pulled free a butterfly knife befitting our close-quarters situation.

“This can’t be an extended engagement,” Secretary warned.

Lupe said, “We strike together then.”

“On me,” I decided.

Bereft as I was of Mother’s Last Smile, I brought my fingers together into a flat diamond-esque shape to make spearheads of my claws. Then we waited, each step echoing from below at a register louder than what preceded it. A brassy clang that tolled with the promise of violence—no one could discover us. No one would. I’d see to that, curse or otherwise.

When the last step was taken, clang ringing in my ear, I flowed forward as if falling. All my weight driving behind a thrust meant to initiate and close out the engagement. My claws struck air, and a hand clasped about my wrist. They pulled me beyond my balance—onto my toes—only to wrench my arm behind my back. I’d gone from spear to shield and put to immediate work as they interposed me between their life and Lupe’s butterfly knife.

With their other hand, their fingers dove into my hair, pulling back my head so my eyes could track the solar flame of Lupe’s blade as it stopped just shy of my throat. It was with a third arm—how many did they have—that they reached forward, flicked the safety back on Secretary’s gun, and stole it from her grasp.

“Alls below, I have the worst luck,” a recognizable voice said.

Lupe withdrew her knife. Secretary gasped. The attacker pushed me up the stairs into Secretary’s arms. Quickly checking they were alright, I whirled around hurrying back to my feet—Mom always impressed the importance of not lying down in a fight. Then my arms fell as I wondered what advice Mom would have for a situation like this.

As what stood just a few steps below us, was me.