Mira kept count of the minutes like a game.
She used to keep tallies of things growing up—normally, they were days. One mark on the wall or a journal for each day that passed. They were never really countdowns as much as they were a tracker. A tracker for how many days she could go without breaking a bone. A tracker for how many days her father could keep sobriety before falling off the wagon again. She’d gotten good at keeping track of time.
Now she counted the number of seconds Jovie screamed for as the Cardinals clicked a dial on the cuffs clamped around the Scepter’s wrists.
Fingers dug into her shoulder, holding her in place and, while she would have liked to believe that the reason she hadn’t moved, hadn’t done anything to try and help the Scepter in the cage, was because she didn’t want to give herself up, it was the furthest thing from the truth.
Mira was afraid.
She didn’t enjoy the feeling. It was paralyzing, knowing that you could set yourself free, get the upper hand by driving an elbow into a rib and forcing distance between you and the person beside you and being too terrified to act. Not because of what would happen to her—that was always a consequence of a fight that Mira was well acquainted with, but what would happen to Jovie? The other Scepters or half-sights in the area?
It took a deal of effort, ignoring the screams and cries from Jovie further ahead, and the only way she managed to keep herself sane, aside from apologizing silently to Jovie, was by looking at the ID badge that she could snag from the Cardinal beside her.
“Enjoying the sight yet?” asked Ronin and Mira cringed at the glee in his voice. “It’s always a satisfying thing putting the rats in their place.”
There were so many things she wanted to say. So as not to blow her cover, she grit her teeth and said, “What is it about the cuffs that do that? You never told me.”
Ronin frowned. “Where have you come from that you don’t know?”
“New transfer. Am I supposed to be able to read your minds?”
“No, I imagined you’d be up to speed on the inventions.” The Cardinal waved with his free hand towards Toby, who was still clicking the dial, and Jovie, still on the ground with blue dust wicking off her appendages like hungry flames, sparking like embers before they could properly take form. “Courtesy of Jax’s steed, those cuffs are enforced with energy from the Omnecron. It’s the opposite to everything cipher is and severs the connection to the stars themselves.”
A glaring signal to the jackalope herself. Mira at least had to admit it was effective, and she shuddered a little at the thought. Standing here, she was the slightest bit grateful that she hadn’t been blessed with Sight. In this context, it may as well be the same as a curse.
She heard Toby huff as she toned the cuffs down, Jovie’s cries of pain calming into groans. Even through the pain in her face, there was something defiant in her posture, the look of murder in her clouded white eyes. Her body was still trembling, still locked in place from the pain and most, if not all, Jovie was able to do, was scream behind her lips.
The young Cardinal crouched, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Not so scary without your cipher, are you?”
Jovie bared her teeth. “Scorfa traditza,” she hissed.
“No. You don’t get to call me that when I’ve simply chosen the better option, the better use of this”—he motioned to his left eye with a bit of a flourish—“undeserved curse. Understand this, Celez Vesza,” Toby said, snagging Jovie’s face by her chin before roughly pushing it to one side. “Not everyone is as blessed as you.”
“It’s amazing, really,” Ronin huffed, “how much she’s so cracked up to be. You would think that a rat of her stature wouldn’t be as easy to contain.”
“It’s easy,” muttered Jovie through bared teeth, propping herself up on her forearms, “when you’re holding my niece captive!”
Now the man straightened up. “Ah. Now Jax’s intel makes sense.” He looked at the younger boy, a toothy grin on his face. “Had we known all we needed was the tyke, this would have been over ages ago. I don’t know what Holst and Jax were waiting for.”
“Good luck with that endeavor,” taunted Toby. “The girl turned out to have better uses elsewhere, so your travel here was in vain, Celez Vesza.”
Mira felt her mouth dry. No. No, there was no way.
Jovie stilled, her vibrating arms growing still, her hands in fists. Toby reached to grab the cuffs in an attempt to turn the dial.
He never got the chance.
The Scepter’s arms came up, smacking Toby in the jaw with the metal. Bright blue ran up Jovie’s arms, lighting up her pale skin a faint shade of cyan and she flexed her fingers. Small darts of cipher shot forward like bullets from a gun, piercing through the young Cardinal’s maroon jacket.
Ronin let go of Mira’s shoulder and as he took a step forward to assist the young boy, Mira held a foot out, tripping him. He hit the floor and she knelt, pressing a knee into his lower back as she watched Jovie ball her hands into fists and slam the cuffs into the ground. The metal splintered on the first hit, cracked on the second, and fell away on the third. Blue light pulsed from the woman’s features and as she took a look around the area, Mira recognized the stiff, mechanical movements.
Her thoughts were only confirmed when Jovie stood up, rolled her neck, and briefly turned her head to survey the area as though she’d never been here before.
In her observation, the Scepter’s eyes were bright, neon blue. The telltale sign of Soma’s presence.
Soma, using Jovie as her Vessel, raised a hand towards Toby, who screamed and scuttled out of the containment chamber. A button clicked, air hissed and up went the clear wall separating Jovie and Soma from the rest of them.
Ronin rolled to one side, throwing Mira off as he grabbed onto a wall corner to hoist himself up. She shuffled back to create distance and, as the older Cardinal raised his arm to throw a punch, he paused at the sound of fists on glass.
And the sound of something cracking.
The plexiglass was shattering with every smack of Jovie’s fists against it. Understanding hit Mira in the face; the Cardinals may have prepared to hold other Scepters and half-sights, but they’d never been prepared to hold both Jovie and Soma in their cells. She could tell by the look on both Ronin and Toby’s faces, both of whom had forgotten about her as a threat and went pale as the Spectacle, using her human as a Vessel, strode out of containment and held out her hands, tendrils of stardust reaching like a set of fingers.
Toby looked around the room, his two-toned eyes landing on a counter nearest to Mira’s right. A gun, among knives and scalpels, rested atop it. He lunged to push her out of the way, but Mira was quicker; she wrestled with him to grab hold of the gun. She ripped it from his hands and held it out, fingers on the trigger. Toby took a few steps back as Mira pointed it between the two Cardinals.
It was a strange thing, holding a weapon designed to kill. She’d never been trained in using any weapon aside from her knuckles and her feet. For a time, it was all she’d ever really needed, but brute force wasn’t going to do anything when a bullet was all it took to end a life. And she wanted that on her side.
Soma stretched out a hand, sending sharp darts of cipher towards the containment cages, shattering the glass with the combined effort of slamming fists from the Scepters and half-sights hungry for freedom.
Alarms blared the minute the walls came down and a rush of humans poured out in a wave and the blue in Jovie’s eyes faded out to white. In the standoff, the Scepter looked the Cardinals up and down. Any emotion on her face had disappeared, gone and replaced with something else. Mira couldn’t help but feel a little intimidated and infatuated by the change.
“The Spectacle sends her regards,” said the Scepter, before shooting out darts of cipher from her fingertips in the direction of the men’s chests. They landed true and pierced clothes, skin, and bone, exiting from the other side as the grunts fell to their knees and slumped.
Mira lowered the gun a fraction, pointing it towards the floor as Jovie came over and lightly took the weapon away, turning on the safety. “Before you shoot yourself in the foot,” she said, handing it back. “Keep it in the pocket of your coat.”
Mira just nodded, doing as she was told while ignoring the hammering of her heart, which she wasn’t sure was caused by fear or something else. She examines the bodies of the Cardinals and, for a moment, considers that maybe they could get away with stealing an original if it wasn’t for the fact that they looked like they’d been torn apart by a spray of bullets. “What next?”
“Soma and Magic found an ID badge on the second floor,” Jovie replied. “Which means we’ll be able to make it to the elevators to find Val and Delia on the lower level.”
“You’re sure Delilah’s there?”
Jovie paused. Her body went stiff and rigid, but not as a result of being merged. This stiffness was one born of fear and worry and Mira sympathized with the woman’s doubts. It was always possible that the Cardinals were lying just to get a rise out of Jovie and taunt her a bit. Still, if the Cardinals weren’t lying, then what would they need Delilah for? Where would they need to bring her?
“I have to hope she is,” Jovie whispered, barely audible over the wailing of the sirens. “I can’t lose her. I refuse. At the very least,” she added as a bit of an afterthought, “we have an ID to get us down there. The Scepters and half-sights we freed will at least give us time and a distraction. And, hopefully, most of them will get out of here alive.”
Mira nodded and slipped the lanyard off Ronin’s neck before placing it around her own. “Well,” she said, “ at the very least, we can at least double our chances by having two.”
Jovie gave her a small smile and Mira smiled back, feeling a little bit like a child who’d gotten her ideas praised. “Let’s go,” said the Scepter, taking Mira by the arm. “We have somewhere to be.”
Cardinal HQ was coated in red, from the lights in the ceiling to the blood on the floor. Mira couldn’t differentiate between it all as she and Jovie ran down hallways and jumped over stairs. She just hoped she wasn’t covered in it by the time this was over.
Birds screamed and ran past them; some approached with murderous intent, but Jovie felled them easily with darts summoned from nothing at her fingertips. They still had one more floor to travel through and Mira didn’t know if she could handle seeing more bodies in the stairwell, corpses on the tiled floors. Sure, they were the enemy, but it made her stomach churn seeing the sheer number of them, slaughtered by Scepters and half-sights powered by years of rage and contempt.
When they arrived at the second floor, Soma and Magic were halfway down the hallway leading into the main lobby. Her brother wasn’t carrying the duffel bag anymore and Soma, resting on his shoulders, had her tendrils wrapped around his head as though they were a set of noise-canceling headphones. As the distance closed between them, though, Mira could see Soma shuffling her hooves as though she were uncomfortable on her brother’s shoulders.
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“Magic!” shouted Jovie, pointing down one of the hallways. “We have to go this way!”
Magic only nodded, then slowed to a jog as he approached them, one hand waving the ID badge ringing Soma’s neck back and forth. Mira smiles and does the same, but Magic didn’t make any snide comments, no joke her way about how they only needed one ID badge—knowing Magic he should have been even just a little annoyed with her even if he didn’t mean it.
Yet, when the group of them walked towards the elevator and waited for it to arrive (all the while keeping an eye out for other Cardinals should they approach), Magic was silent, head slightly tilted upward and looking at the lights. Mira assumed he could hear, seeing as he followed Jovie’s instructions, but Jovie was also pointing and using her hands to give directions.
“Mags, you okay?” she asked.
Magic said nothing, only lifted a hand to scratch at Soma’s face. The rabbit didn’t look pleased by the action, ears pinned a little bit back but she didn’t prevent Magic from doing so.
“Magic—”
“It’s fine,” he muttered, still staring at the lights. “I’m fine.”
So he could hear her. Mira looked up and down the hall for reassurance before attempting the conversation a second time. “You sure? You look … distracted or something.”
“It’s fine,” he said again. “Focus on the goal.”
Mira didn’t believe it for a second and she was about to open her mouth and try to prod him into admitting to her what it was that was bugging him, but he waved her away and pointed to the elevator, which lit up to signal the arrival of the car.
They took up space in the four corners, an uneasy silence between them. Mira looked between Jovie and Magic, the former of whom was staring at the number on the elevator wall, waiting for it to ping. She looked half here and half not, like she was daydreaming.
“I can’t find their pulses,” said Jovie. Mira could hear the fear layered in it.
“You’re sure they’re down here?”
“They have to be. I won’t settle for less.”
Mira couldn’t find anything else to add after—what else was there for her to say?—and kept most of her thoughts to herself after until the elevator dinged and the doors opened to reveal a long hallway, lacking the warning lights and sirens from the above floors.
They were, though, greeted by a pair of very confused Cardinals who didn’t know whether to call for reinforcements or accept their fate.
Luckily—or unfortunately—they didn't have a choice in the matter. Soma leapt off of Magic’s shoulders, barely hitting the ground before jumping onto the Scepter, perching on the woman’s shoulders. Together, the pair made quick work of the Cardinal grunts with darts to the chest, similar to the ones Mira had seen Jovie dispatch earlier.
“Start opening the doors,” Jovie demanded. “We’ll be right behind you for cover.”
Mira set off on one side, her brother hesitantly going towards the other. He was sluggish and late to react when it came to opening the doors, to the point where Jovie had to remind him to open the doors. It was odd for Magic, who was normally very observant and she wished she had the chance to debrief with him. But they had bigger things to take care of and Mira promised herself she would check in with him once they were safe and back at Alaric’s.
The first door Mira opened was a bust. It was an empty room that looked like one you would find at a hospital, though she strongly doubted that room would be used for treating patients.
The second and third doors revealed similar rooms, though one was more machine heavy than the other.
The fourth room, Mira struck gold. Or, perhaps, not gold, but blood.
She wasn’t expecting to find the missing librarian on a table laying on his side, feet and hands tied to the edges. His shirt was clipped up to reveal most of his side and hip which was glossy with blood. Bruises dotted most of his skin as though he’d been jumped by multiple people and a portion of his jaw was already beginning to swell. By the time Mira reached him, she didn’t even know if Val was conscious, let alone alive, but he was whispering something under his breath which was enough of a sign for Mira and she leaned her ear towards him to make out the wisp of breath forming two small words.
“Help me,” he rasped.
“I’ll do what I can,” Mira replied, starting with the bindings at his hands.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, piccantatori …”
She couldn’t remember if she had screamed for her brother or Jovie that she’d found the librarian, but as she was untying the ropes that kept Vallian bound to the table, she spotted Magic lingering in the doorway. He was looking between them, eyes going first to her then to Val and back again. There was a vacant kind of look in her brother’s eyes, the same kind he usually had when he wasn’t all there.
He couldn’t afford to vanish on them now.
“Magic!” Mira shouted, just finishing up with the ropes binding Vallian’s hands. “Come over here and help!”
Magic took a hesitant step inside of the room as Mira pulled the ropes free, untangled them and unwrapped the librarian’s ankles. As she wrapped Vallian’s arms around her shoulder to help him sit more upright, she expected her brother to do the same on the other side. Vallian was taller than the both of them, sure, but Magic at the very least wasn’t too much shorter, which meant he’d have a much easier time helping Val to his feet than she would.
Except when Mira looked over to see if her brother was assisting, she found him with the knife Alaric had given him pressed against Val’s throat.
It wasn’t hard enough to draw blood, but the librarian stiffened at the metal at his neck and Mira felt like she was somewhere else entirely. The brother she’d grown up with didn’t casually threaten murder. He’d made threats before and gotten into his fair share of scrapes, but she’d always known those to be bluffs unless his hand was forced.
Magic might have had the look of murder in his eyes, but everything about him was saying something else. The tremble in his hand was a hesitation, the lack of eye contact was avoidance. Everything about him was tense and angry and Mira knew she should’ve tried to get to him earlier.
“Magic,” she said softly, “put the knife away.”
He pressed it a little harder into the side of Val’s neck, free hand meddling with something in his pocket. Vallian himself stiffened and began to murmur some kind of repetitive phrase under his breath like a prayer.
“Mags,” Mira said again, “I don’t know what’s up with you, but we need him.”
Her brother didn’t respond aside from a deep breath and the hand previously stuffed into his pocket shoving into her shoulder closest to her chest. Clenched in his fingers was a stack of four to five papers and when she managed to pry his fingers free and look through them. The more her eyes skimmed over the information, the more she felt her mouth dry.
The papers were experiment notes.
And, aside from one name she didn’t recognize, they were all signed by Val. Including information on Chrome’s mine collapse.
Mira let Val’s arm fall away from her shoulder as she took a better look at the papers. Among the papers for the mine collapse was a whole section just dedicated to information about the Spectacle and Jovie. What their abilities were together, what they could do apart. Information one could only gather by having some kind of relationship with another human being.
A wolf in sheep’s clothing.
They’d come all this way for a traitor hiding right beneath their noses and yet, for some reason, it made no sense. For someone working for the Cardinals, he was kept here and locked up like a prisoner. She didn’t know what they were looking for, but they certainly didn’t have any issue with roughing up one of their own. Which Mira couldn’t see making sense if they relied on his notations.
“Magic,” Mira said, slowly putting the papers in her pocket. “I know you’re upset, but this isn’t—”
“I refuse to risk my life for someone like him,” Magic whispered, the words sharp as the steel against the librarian’s neck. “Not when half the shit I live through is because of him.”
“Magic, I—”
“Don’t pull that with me, Mirabellis. Do not even think—”
“What’s the hold up?” Jovie called from the doorway. “We need to get going, we …” The Scepter paused, looking around the room. She must have realized, then, that the absence of her niece meant that Delilah was, in fact, not here. Realization colored Jovie’s face an unhealthy shade of pale—paler than she was—and when she strode over to repeat her question, Magic tightened his hold on the knife handle. Before Mira could talk over him, her brother spoke loud and clear with a glare sharp and deadly aimed in her direction.
“I refuse to believe that we’ve wasted everything for a Cardinal!”
If it was possible for time to freeze, the entire room felt suspended within a moment in time. Mira looked between everyone, taking the sight in. Val, bruised and blooded. Her brother, shaking and wounded. Soma, ears up in shock. Jovie with her wide eyes boring into the librarian with a kind of intensity that surpassed anger. No, this was a knowing stare and when Jovie crossed the distance, she lowered Magic’s arm as if to relieve him of his duty as Mira snagged her brother’s jacket sleeve and pulled him out of the way.
“Is it true?” Jovie asked, her voice no more than a whisper and shaking with rage. “Is it true, Val?”
But Vallian, incoherent and not all there, only apologized in sobs beneath his breath. They were quiet, but Mira recognized them from before.
“I’m sorry … I’m so sorry Del … miz piccantatori…”
The slap radiated throughout the room before Mira could process it.
Jovie struck with such force that Vallian fell sideways off the table, grunting in pain probably from landing on his injured side. Mira cursed under her breath, rounding the corner to find the Scepter stradling and pinning the librarian to the floor, one hand wrapped around his neck. Soma was on the floor now, too; whether she’d made that choice on her own or was tossed off in the struggle, the jackalope was shaking out her fur and making loud plea-filled noises to get her Vessel to stop. Mira made a single attempt to drag Jovie off, but the woman shot sparks in her direction and she backed away.
“Did she know?!” Jovie shrieked, pushing into the man’s throat. “Did she know what you were?!”
“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry—!”
“Answer me, you fucking vulture, did Delia know?!”
“Yes,” Val rasped, his feet scrabbling along the ground. “Yes!”
Jovie struck him a second time, screaming a variety of colorful words in a language Mira didn’t understand. Val’s screams and pleas came to an abrupt stop and in the chaos, it took Mira an additional few seconds that the man hadn’t just stopped speaking, but that Jovie was pressing so hard against his throat that simply couldn’t.
“Where did they take her? Where did they take my niece?!”
Soma made a loud noise that sounded almost like a shriek, leaping forward to land on the woman’s shoulders, tendrils shooting outward from her antlers. They snaked around the woman’s chest, arms and wrists, and yanked back. Mira crouched beside Val and helped Soma to pry Jovie’s hands away from the man’s throat and, once Jovie let go, Soma forced the woman to her feet while Mira stayed by Val, who struggled for air, coughing and gasping on the ground.
Jovie was screaming against the Spectacle, but the rabbit was stronger; Soma subdued Jovie after a minute of struggle, the woman’s eyes a piercing blue. From what Mira could see over the table, her brother still hadn’t moved. He was just standing there and when Soma, using Jovie’s body, knelt beside the librarian and healed a part of the gaping wound in his side, she saw Magic wince and walk towards the door.
“Don’t leave without us,” Mira called.
She didn’t expect an answer back. She had a feeling Magic just needed space to come to terms with everything, but the reminder didn’t hurt.
“Where did they take the child?” asked Soma.
“The Maidenwoods,” gasped Vallian, forcing himself to sit up a bit straighter and Mira held him by the shoulder to keep him stable. “Holst took her. Jax’s orders. He wants you both in exchange …”
Soma looked around the room, ears twitching. For once, Jovie’s physical body did nothing in response to the rabbit’s curiosity. “Take him with us,” ordered the jackalope. “His expertise may serve us well.”
“You aren’t concerned about everything else?” Mira asked, wrapping Val’s arm around her shoulder as she urged him to his feet.
The Spectacle paused on her way to the door, then glanced back at Mira as she hobbled over with the injured man. In that moment, she’d wished Magic was stable enough to help her lug the librarian who was several inches taller than her to make a difference in assisting him.
“I will help him on our way out,” Soma said. “Follow me out. I will pave the way.”
Mira nodded and allowed Soma to steer Jovie out of the room, the rest of them following behind. She made eye contact once with her brother, the pain and hurt written in every frown, every crease of his face. But there was nothing else for them to do aside from reconsider their information and go from there, so Mira motioned for her brother to go ahead of her while she and Val followed at a distance.