“And besides,” said Jack, sighing, “what do you expect us to be able to tell you? ‘Turn left at the River Styx then hang a right as you’re walking past Hitler?”

Lord Lost pointed four arms at Popcorn. “But did the boy not open this Gate?”

Jack faulted. “Excuse me, what?”

“How did you know that?” said Popcorn, shivering under the covers.

Lord Lost wrinkled his brow, thick oriange liquid oozing from the cracks in his skin. “You are positively smothered in quintessence.”

Popcorn cocked an eyebrow. “In what now?”

Sighing, Jack said, “magic. It’s magic.”

“Not quite,” said Lord Lost. “You see, quintessence is-”

His sentence was cut short when he flew across the room, splattering on the wall. The dog’s ears perked as it stopped chasing its tail, and Anti stepped towards the door, growling.

“Who you gonna call?” said Hannah, bursting in alongside Lydia.

Jack’s face dropped. “Wrong creature.”

Sneering, Lydia entered the room with her arm raised, kicking a squealing Anti aside. “But god, are you horrifying.” She looked Lord Lost up and down, grimacing. He was struggling beneath the effect of her gravity; she could feel his attempts at magic, but they were nothing to her. “You look like a five-year-old’s botched art project after it's been on the mantelpiece for fifty years.”

Hannah cocked an eyebrow. “Who keeps a botched art project for that long?”

Heaving an aggravated sigh, Jack said, “that’s not important.” He regarded Lydia. “What the actual piss are you doing?”

Eying him strangely, she kicked at the dog as it charged her. It yelped and skidded back. She said, “well, this is a demon, yes?”

“I think anyone with eyes could come to that conclusion, yeah.”

“Let… me go!” Lord Lost was scrabbling helplessly against the wall, gums bared.

Lydia smirked at him. “No.” She turned back to Jack. “And what with the cat-nivorous demon baby-”

“That’s never catching on,” said Hannah.

“It’s not exactly a stretch to assume that this one will start removing body parts bigger than a finger, is it?” She flailed her leg, sending Anti - who had been climbing up - flying onto the bed with a soft thump.

Palming his face, Jack shook his head. “Yep, that’s what I thought, but apparently he’s just lost. He’s so Lost he’s a Lord of it.”

She tilted her head at the demon. “Lord Lost? Are you being bullied?”

“Yes,” he cried, his soft voice hoarse, “by you!”

She squinted. Aside from the appearance, this ‘demon’ was softer than a kitten’s fur. “You consider this bullying? My, who knew demons were such snowflakes.” She released him, though reluctantly.

He staggered back to his - um… whatever magic had been keeping him upright. His two servants scampered over, nuzzling up against their master as he glared at Lydia.

“Terribly sorry,” she said, her sweet smile at odds with the triumph in her tone, “it was just a misunderstanding.”

“Yes,” said Lord Lost, rubbing his arms, “quite.”

Popcorn stammered, his arms slack as he screwed his eyes shut.

Hannah sidled over, patting his shoulder. “There, there. I know she’s scary at first, but she grows on you.”

Jostling himself, Popcorn stared at her, jaw slack. “No, that’s not it. Also, who are you? Did you come with Lord Lost?”

She frowned. “I’ve been here the entire time.”

He rubbed the back of his head. “You must have just faded into the background…”

“This isn’t a manga!”

Rubbing his face, Jack exhaled.

Well, that wouldn’t do. He’d chastised her for acting like she was in charge, but now he failed to take the initiative when he needed to; how could he hope to solve problems without controlling them?

She could help out, she supposed. It helped her, too.

“Shall we take this somewhere less crowded?”

***

But did he have to?

The trio were aboard Choo-chooin’s disc, sitting in a line at the front and facing their passengers.

Lord Lost was floating above his familiars, who were jumping up and wrestling with each other. One would frequently take a chunk from the other, which would grow back, before another chunk went flying.

Thankfully, the runes didn’t keep objects in, or things might have gotten messy.

Popcorn was sitting at the edge with his arms folded, looking down and muttering to himself.

The absurdity of the situation had overwhelmed him, especially with Lydia bursting in just to indulge her sadistic impulses. Still, she had snapped him out of it after causing it: he knew someone who was perfect for this job.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

She knew a lot about Gates and demons, and even had her own cosy library. Lydia probably had knowledge to give, but the dark muttering from the edge of the disc had dropped a suffocating silence over them.

He had insisted on going with them, even though it wasn’t necessary.

“Oi,” said Jack, Popcorn’s wild eyes snapping up to meet his. “What did you even come here for?”

He started laughing. Slowly, at first, but growing in pitch and volume until it was booming and maniacal. “Ahaha… this can’t be real. That’s it, isn’t it; it’s not real! I mean, what kind of reality can be this cruel? Why does the light in my life get stolen as soon as it comes? This is all fiction, anyway. None of it matters!”

Sighing, Jack stood up, striding over. “Those parents who are somehow still asleep, do you feel anything for them?”

“Well, I-”

“If you saw someone lying in the road, would you call an ambulance?”

“Well, obviously, but-”

“Can you feel this?” Halting, he brought his arm round in an arc, swatting the back of Popcorn’s head.

The teen leaped up, fists clenched. “What the hell are you doing?!”

Jack sat down, folding his arms. “Then it’s real, isn’t it?”

Slumping back down, Popcorn moped. “That’s even worse. I’m not an idiot, you know.”

“Debatable.”

He scowled. “I know what’s human and what isn’t. I just didn’t think it mattered; I thought he’d come through, and decided to stay with me. Be my brother. But I was wrong: you saw it yourself. I was the one who opened the Gate.”

“And came back with Anti.”

“Why do you think you did it?” asked Hannah, sliding over on her knees. “If you had to guess.”

He looked at his crossed legs, expression miserable. “It’s not a hard guess. Ever since I was little, I could see lights in the air, things that no-one else could. I thought it was special magic, just for me - but no-one even believed me. It was alright when I was young. Just an overactive imagination, they said. But then it got bad. My life’s a living hell; guess I went to the real one and brought back a souvenir.”

Hannah looked at him empathetically, but he refused to meet her gaze.

This was delicate. How should he approach it?

“These lights,” called Lydia. “What do they look like?”

“Weird,” said Popcorn. “They’re all different shapes, sizes, and colours. And when I focus and move my arms like this-” He edged his arm through the air as though he were performing surgery. “I can make them move. And combine.”

Hannah put a finger on her chin. “Like a giant robot?”

“Wrong genre this time,” said Jack, groaning.

Lydia frowned from her perch by the turtle’s neck. She wouldn’t move; if someone couldn’t hear her, well, that was their problem.

Really, who did she think she was?

“That’s how you opened the Gate?” she asked.

Popcorn nodded.

“And do you need to focus to see these lights, or are they always there?”

“Sometimes there’s more than other times,” said Popcorn.

She nodded. “I see.”

Jack cupped his chin. “What does that mean?”

She looked at him as one would a particularly eager lemming. “It means that the boy here has a gift. Remember my ‘funny dance’?”

“How could I forget?”

Beginning to crawl over, slowly and sensuously, she smirked. “That was me perceiving the path quintessence was taking - what he is doing isn’t the same, but it’s similar.” She looked at Popcorn with wonder. “Instead of just perceiving, he’s manipulating the existing pathways to channel gravity, and fold space in on itself.”

Jack stared at her blankly. “Pathways? What?”

Hannah frowned. “What even is quintessence?”

Starting, Lydia said, “didn’t you learn that in school?”

She shrugged. “I must have been too busy reading.”

With an aggravated sigh, Lydia said, “there are four fundamental forces that govern all energy and matter in the universe: gravity, electromagnetism, nuclear strong, and nuclear weak. Quintessence, which we once called dark energy, is the force that ties them all together. People can use it, too, if you can learn to sense it.”

“If it helps,” said Lord Lost, petting his dog’s head, “the boy is soaked in it.”

Blinking, Jack scratched his head. “I didn’t get any of that.”

Lydia grinned. “That’s because you’re a fool.” She jabbed him with her index finger, sending a shock through his fingers and up his spine.

He jolted, his insides vibrating as he collapsed to his side. He grunted. “As a wise man called Hippocrates once said, ‘yes, I am a fool, but I know I’m a fool and that makes me smarter than you.’”

Snorting, Lydia held her legs off the edge of the disc. Choo-chooin was slowing down. “That was Socrates, you oaf.”

“At least I got the ‘ocrates’ part right.”

The turtle came to a stop, Hannah patting Jack on the back as he rose.

“Don’t see why you’d wanna be friends with that,” he mumbled.

Hannah giggled, a sunny beam almost bringing colour to her monochrome face.

Alright for some.

Sliding off the disc, he patted down his frazzled beard.

Popcorn had returned to moping. “Look at me - so lonely I stole some demon’s baby. I’m a disgrace to my parents.”

Looking back at him, Jack said, “even if you are, it doesn’t matter. I know it’s tempting to live in your feelings, wonder what you could have done differently, but you can’t go back. And if you don’t step forward, then nothing will change.” He held out his hand, beckoning Popcorn off the disc.

The teen followed sheepishly, avoiding his gaze.

“This is the place?” said Lord Lost, followed by his familiars as he levitated after him. “It seems rather ordinary.”

Choo-chooin had stopped in a driveway, leaping the short gate that separated it from the path. Surrounding them was acres of grassland, a green canvas painted black in a tiny strand of road.

Trees dotted the landscape, and dark shapes moved around in the night. Probably animals.

He hoped it was animals.

In front of them was a bungalow, long and red and angled, the joints in the stones impossibly smooth. There was a chimney, but it billowed no smoke.

Hannah whistled. “Whoever lives here must have done something right.”

Anti and the dog - whom Lord Lost had called Platelet - ran off into the shadows, likely in search of something fluffy and adorable to turn into something decidedly neither of those things.

Jack stared off into the darkness. “Um… aren’t you gonna…?”

Lord Lost shrugged, a peculiar motion with eight arms - it looked more like he was trying to juggle his own appendages. “They will return when I call for them.”

“Right then,” said Jack, approaching a gnarled wooden door set between two curtained bay windows.

However, Lydia was already standing on the step, knocking hard enough to wake the dead - and perhaps even shake the stiffness from their joints while she was at it.

Sprinting over, Jack caught her arm, licking his teeth. “What are you doing?!”

“Hmph,” she said. “You’re very slow today.”

“I’m the one who knows her, so why are you knocking?!”

She harrumphed again. “Have your ears stopped working, as well as your brain?”

Before he could retort, the door flew open, revealing a haggard brunette woman in a red silk nightgown.

She was as tall as he was, her hair flowing down her shoulders in loose tresses. At first glance, she would appear skinny, but the way the gown clung to her revealed the tone and definition of her muscles. Her eyes were large, and expressive, but had dark circles beneath them.

Frowning, her nose was twitching.

“Hey, Lizzie,” said Jack, smiling nervously. “Sorry about how late it is, but I have a situation. Mind if I come… in?”

She wasn’t looking at him.

She hadn’t even noticed him.

All of her attention was on Lydia, her breaths whistling through clenched teeth.

“Get off my property, Blackwell.” She had a thick Scottish accent, and she spat her words.

Wicked Grin #6 (he had taken to cataloguing her more terrifying facial expressions, recently) broke out on her face. It was the kind of smile you would expect to see on a serial gambler who’s just won the lottery.

“Elizabeth McCann,” she said, “did daddy finally disown you?”

An invisible force hoofed Lydia away, sending her skidding back up the gravel. Planting her feet, she began to rise. Lizzie advanced on her, readying a hand with a snarl.

“Did I no’ just tell ye?” As though heat itself had died, the air around her hand began to freeze and crystallise, enveloping the limb in sparkling frost. “Get the fuck off my property.”