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Sunny fought not to let her attention wander after her companions. The desperate urge not to let them out of her sight pressed at her with hurricane force. But this might be the only chance for her– for any of them– to get out. She couldn’t afford to be distracted.
She should have asked for some wax, though. If she had, Sunny could have made a more nuanced circle. But by the time she’d realized it would help, they’d been fighting the Nightmare, and there had been no time since. As was, all she had was blood– handy, potent, but as a channeling fluid, imprecise. Sunny sucked at the fresh cut on the fleshy mound under her thumb. With her free hand, she directed ether like a brush to adjust a sigil drawn on the wall, fussing over a slightly streaky line until it was perfectly smooth like the rest.
She’d divided the wands among three circles against the wall. Affixing them had taken a bit more ether, conjuring a weak putty-like glue. It wouldn’t last long– conjured substances were only as stable as the magic you put into them, and her hasty use of the ambient ether created a substance that was flimsy at best. But it was enough to plaster the three tight bundles of eighteen wands to the wall.
Eighteen wands; not twenty, like Roman had said. One was missing when Sunny had inspected the case, and another was completely empty of charges. Sunny had slipped the uncharged wand into the remaining sleeve of her dress. It wouldn’t add any power to her rigged device, and these wands had meant so much to Vera. Roman might appreciate one being saved, given their comradery.
Sunny glanced down the hall. She heard the murmur of talk, but her companions hadn’t returned yet. That could be for the best. If they weren’t in sight, then they’d surely be too far away to be in any danger.
Especially West.
Sunny felt a pang in her chest and sucked air against it. The picture of the Investigator was a confusing whirl in her head now, thoughts and feelings and memories that she didn’t have time to sort out. That hat. The way he speaks. The way he fights. All of it was so like what she’d seen before. Drawing it all together, it felt so certain: West has to be Pip.
Except.
132. One-thirty-two. One hundred, thirty-two years.
The number revolved in her mind.
She’d only learned about Nuralli when she’d first met Pip. None lived in her cold homeland in the White North. From the moment she’d met him, Sunny had delighted in all she learned of her small and jovial ally; his lilting and loud way of speaking, his stories of growing up in the swamps of the jungle, the stories and songs of his people.
But it had stunned her to learn he was only six years of age. Not even a tenth of her years, but already a young man by the standards of his people, who rarely lived to be thirty.
Old age would have killed Pip four times over by now.
Not just Pip either. Her teacher, a human already well out of her youth when they’d parted ways, would be long since buried. Sungie’s kind only lived into their sixties. Honjo and Zilla were both Glamori, and would be just entering the second half of their lifespans by now– assuming that the adventuring life hadn’t cut their lives short.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
Sunny had so few lasting connections in her life. All of them would either be gone or so distant by the passing of time that they’d barely remember her.
And Pip above all would be gone.
Her heart twisted in agony of the truth. The thought hurt so much, she could barely breathe. She’d already had to be so stubborn to imagine he’d survived when they’d been betrayed in the first place. Every lass and lad to pass West’s blithe lips had scratched that bleeding wound a little deeper. And now, with all the clues amassed, to discover that thousand-times-cursed number: 132….
“Is it ready, bird?”
The question by her ear shook her back into the moment. Lím chirped at her shoulder, his small dark eyes studying her face. Blinking rapidly against the mist threatening her eyes, Sunny forced an exhale. “I think so,” she answered. “Though… I could make it s-stronger, if I had a bit of mana.” She side-eyed the squirrel pointedly.
“Hmph. You want me to give that spell back,” Lím snorted. “At least this time, you aren’t asking to waste its mana on some menial healing for an outsider.”
Sunny felt a flash of annoyance. “It wouldn’t have been m-menial, if it had let them s-survive.”
“It wouldn’t have,” Lím said flatly, “any more than it would make a meaningful difference here. You’ve done well with the circles; you don’t need that spell back.”
The witch answered with a dissatisfied grunt. There was no sense trying to argue– Lím had hoarded that last and only spell since the first day they’d arrived here, insisting it not be used unless it could guarantee their escape. She hadn’t enough time to try persuading him that this was its moment, and with the uncertainty of their plan, he wouldn’t likely agree anyway. What she had contrived would have to be good enough.
Sunny took one more glance down the hall, then stretched out her fingers, testing the ether in the air and adjusting the threads toward the curves painted on the wall. In her magic gaze, the crimson strokes glowed brilliantly as the ether met them. The flowing lines caught up the threads, folding and twisting them over each other in a construction far more complex than her fingers could form without drawing on mana.
Thanks to the circles, the shapework required of her was reduced, though not eliminated. She pulled on ether with darting fingers, seeking out just the right pattern to coax the wands into a reaction. The circles limited the output somewhat, but she still had to take care– if she went too far, the wands would set off all at once in her face.
All that was left to do now was to work slowly, carefully, to find the exact combination of form and input to start it all off.
***
Bright flashes met West and Roman as they stepped out. Sunny’s hands flew like a master bard dancing their fingers over a harp as they picked out spellwork. Where her magic brushed a wand, it would flare giddily. At each flash, she paused, observing intently for something beyond normal eyes, then continued again.
“Get on ahead,” West said, ushering Roman toward the further end of the hall. “But not so far I cannae see ye, aye? An’ if ye see another one o’ those damned strings–”
“Enough, Investigator!” Roman scowled, but finally did as he was told. West, unhurried, walked a few backwards steps after him, watching after Sunny.
A terrible flurry of magical bursts silhouetted the witch– but this time, they didn’t stop when she dropped her hands. “It’s going!” she called, grabbing Lím off her shoulder and turning to run. Seeing West still so close down the hall staggered her, and sheer panic lit on her face. “RUN!”
Still walking casually backwards, West said, “Aye, once ye’ve gotten beyond–”
The light of releasing energy blazed. Unable to see West clear of the danger, Sunny spun to face the oncoming threat, flinging out her wings to fill the space between West and the magic, and braced.
At the same moment, West surged forward, closing the gap between himself and the witch. Unprepared, she yelped as he caught her around the shoulders and shoved her behind him. At odd ends, they both toppled to the ground.
With rising horror, Sunny shouted, “You can't–”
In the course of a single second, every one to the last, the wands splintered. A sensation like a static shock swept down the hall in a wave. In a deaf moment, the hall flooded with a blend of off-blue, off-red, off-green shades that couldn’t quite be called colors. With one free wing, Sunny shielded them.
An instant later, the bricks of the hall split along a million weblike fractures, and the ceiling came raining down.