“Ah, I should have listened to them. I should have listened. Why don’t I listen to people who know better than me?” Alyssa ground her knuckles into the sides of her head as she stared at the burning ember hovering in the air.

They were well away from the bedehouse. Tzheitza was right. She shouldn’t have ever gone near there. Not only had she not gotten anything useful out of the trip, but she got something unwanted. Something potentially dangerous. The marble of a glowing coal was demonic in origin. That was literally all she knew about it. The thing was probably not anything good to have around. A part of her wanted to just dig a deep hole and forget about it. Permanently.

That just gave her a bad feeling. What if it was some demonic seed, meant to be planted? She would be playing right into the demon’s hands.

Tenebrael had been right too. Except not even completely right. Tenebrael had said that her elder brother would offer up exactly what Alyssa wanted on a silver platter, but the consequences of knowing or accepting that platter would be dire indeed. At this point, Alyssa felt like she had all the consequences but none of the platter. She didn’t even have a wooden plate with some leftover slop on top.

The analogy was getting ridiculous, but that didn’t make it untrue.

“Should I just blast it off to the moon? It probably wouldn’t hurt anyone way up there, right?” Unless the demon was expecting that to happen. What if planting it carved a giant pentagram up there? Since knowing about the plague and losing faith in Tenebrael helped the plague along, a giant pentagram would probably cause a million outbreak incidents even if it literally did nothing magical at all. “Maybe I should blast it into the sun.”

Except that might be even worse for all the same reasons.

“I bet Irulon would like to examine it.”

“That’s scary in its own right. What if she does something? Ugh…” Irulon would probably be careful with it. She was being careful with her sister, or so it seemed. Alyssa hadn’t actually seen Octavia since the night she got captured. Octavia was being held in a pit in the ground. Not the pit, just a man-made hole with some heavy security measures around it. The building had been constructed on short notice, but Irulon and the Pharaoh had spared no expense.

They hadn’t said in so many words, but Alyssa had a feeling that they were holding out for Tzheitza’s potion. A cure that would do more than just kill. Or the Pharaoh was, at least. From the few interactions Alyssa had witnessed between Irulon and Octavia, they didn’t seem to care for each other much.

“I wonder if one of Tzheitza’s potions would destroy it.”

Kasita had her back flat on the grass. They were just a bit south of Lyria, not quite out of a small wooded area. She looked fairly relaxed for having encountered a demon inside a nightmare brought to reality. Then again, she was probably still in the throes of post-stress relief.

While Alyssa no longer needed to cling to the angelic staff, her stress was far from gone.

Leaning to one side to look up at Alyssa, Kasita frowned. “Didn’t you want to avoid mentioning your visit to the bedehouse?”

“Yes. Absolutely yes. But I might have to. I thought I might be able to take it down to Tenebrael’s temple in Teneville and just chuck it inside, but… First of all, I think that building is just a facade. Secondly, even if I had Izsha at this exact moment, carrying it wouldn’t be easy.”

“Maybe don’t mention the bedehouse. Just say you found it. She knows you talk to invisible monsters all the time. Well, not in the last month, but the point still stands.”

“I don’t want to lie to her…”

“Aren’t you already doing that by not telling her that you went to the bedehouse in the first place?”

“That’s… a lie of omission. Which is…” Alyssa leaned back against a tree, sighing. “Which is just as bad, really.”

“Exactly! So just don’t tell her and get her to get rid of it.” Kasita flopped back against the grass, staring straight up. “Please. I don’t like it.”

“Me neither.”

“It really is… grating on my senses.”

Alyssa looked down at Kasita, taking her eyes off the ember for perhaps the first time since the demon had pulled it from her pockets. What she saw lying on the ground was perhaps the opposite of serene or relaxed. Kasita looked almost like she was in pain. Her teeth were clenched in an irritated grimace. “Sorry,” Alyssa said, biting her lip. “You’re not feeling… strange at all, are you?”

“Ufu~ Worried about me?”

“Yes,” Alyssa answered without hesitation. “I am. You might have strong-armed your way into being my sister, but I do care for you like one.”

A silence hung in the air. Not an uncomfortable silence. It wasn’t even a long one. Kasita ended it with a smile, shrugging her shoulders against the grass. “Don’t worry too much. I’m fine. It’s just that staff and that ember in the same place are… You know when you get a headache?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, I don’t know that feeling, but I imagine this is something similar.”

“I won’t worry too much about a headache. As long as you’re not feeling anything… demonic.”

“Doesn’t seem to be the case. Things around you are weird—in a good way, honest—so I won’t dismiss anything outright. But you have heard from both Irulon and Tzheitza that there has never been a known case of the plague in monsters. So I think I’m pretty safe.”

“If you do meet a demon ever, don’t take off its mask. Don’t shake its hand. In fact, you should probably just run away without saying a word.”

“Advice noted.”

“Good,” Alyssa said, taking her eyes off Kasita to stare at the ember some more. “Now more than ever, I wish Tenebrael were around,” she mumbled to herself. “Why oh why did I think it would be a good idea to go inside that place?”

Kasita propped herself up on her elbows, offering the ember a glare of her own. “Why not just send it to her?”

Alyssa blinked twice. She had heard the words, but parsing them was… troublesome. “Send the ember? To who?”

“Tenebrael.”

“Uhh… You are aware that the whole reason we went there was to try to contact Tenebrael, aren’t you? If I could just hand it over to her, going to the bedehouse wouldn’t have been necessary at all.”

“Not hand it to her. Send it to her.”

Alyssa… just shook her head. “You’ve lost me somewhere.”

Kasita shuffled up to seat herself properly on the grass, straightening her back as she looked up at Alyssa. “Weren’t you saying that your phone could send things to people? Send it to Tenebrael. Let her deal with it. Maybe it will get her attention enough to come and stop by.”

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Another brief silence passed between them. This time, Alyssa was the one to break it. With laughter. It started out as just a small chuckle, thinking of the absurdity of it. Through the laughter, Alyssa felt better. Like a weight had been lifted off her back.

“Hmph. Well, if you don’t want my help,” Kasita said, flopping back against the ground. “I try and I try, but do I get any respect?”

“I’m sorry,” Alyssa said through her dying chuckles. “It’s just… that’s not how the phone works. I can’t send actual objects through it.”

“Then why did you say you could?”

“I meant pictures. It sends pictures. And videos too, I guess, but… but…”

“Alyssa?”

Alyssa held up a finger. “Wait. I can send pictures. You… might be a genius.”

“Finally, my respect.”

Calling her phone to her hand, Alyssa turned back to the levitating ember. A single tap of her thumb had her in camera mode. After centering the ember on the camera, a second tap took the picture. She almost tapped for the messaging app, but stopped.

The camera had not been in video mode. She was positive of that. Yet the ember’s red glow still shifted and weaved around like someone was gently blowing on it to stoke it into a flame. In fact, comparing them side-by-side, the image on her camera was a perfect reflection of reality. Everything else about the image was otherwise still. The grass in the background wasn’t swaying with the gentle breeze. The leaves weren’t rustling.

It was just that ember.

If the goddamn devil breaks my phone, I swear I am going to murder him, Alyssa thought with a grumble as she attached it to a message to Tenebrael. She half expected it to fizzle out the same way calls did, but it didn’t. As far as she could tell, the message had gone through. She waited for a moment, but the message never went on read. Still, it was a step. Maybe that would get the angel’s attention. Of course, unless she popped up this very instant, it wouldn’t solve her immediate problems.

Still, she was pleased. It felt like progress.

Now hopefully I don’t drop the silver platter, slip on it, and break my neck.

Just in case, Alyssa quickly deleted the picture. Maybe it was paranoia, but she really didn’t want to break her phone. Or get demonic corruption inside it. Not while she and Tenebrael weren’t talking on the regular.

“Done?” Kasita asked, sitting up again.

“Yeah,” Alyssa said as she slipped the phone back into her pocket. “Yeah,” she said again after a minute. A part of her was still holding out hope that Tenebrael would pop up at any second. But… that might be fool’s hope.

“What now?”

“I… I don’t know.” Admitting that felt like being shot in the chest. Though Alyssa had never actually been shot in the chest, so perhaps it was more like her insides being torn out with a sharp blade.

“You don’t know? You always have some idea. Some goal you’re driving for.”

“Those ideas don’t just pop into my head whenever I will them to! I have to think sometimes. And…” Alyssa glared at the ember. “My ideas haven’t really been the best as of late.”

“Have they ever?”

Alyssa turned her glare to the suddenly innocent-looking sister. “I rescued you, didn’t I?”

“Okay. So that’s… what, one out of a hundred?”

Crossing her arms, Alyssa started drumming her fingers over her bicep. “Alright then, genius. What’s your great idea?”

“Like I said. Take it to Tzheitza. Tell her you found it lying around. Get her to dump one of her potions on it. Then… that’s it! Plan complete.”

It was the same idea that they had discussed just before taking a picture of the ember. Alyssa was reluctant. Not only was she sure to reveal her previous whereabouts to Tzheitza, but she ran the risk of infecting the woman. Or whatever the ember was intended to do should someone touch it. Doing so, even accidentally, would be a pretty terrible way of paying back someone who had helped her so much.

There really weren’t many other options, however. Tzheitza’s potion, Tenebrael’s feathers, and the staff were the only things Alyssa could think of that might be able to affect and destroy a demonic artifact. She knew, just knew, that if she could get the staff to work for her like it had for Adrael, she would be able to destroy it without issue. But she couldn’t use it. Aside from smacking things with it.

The last and only time she had tried that, it had only sent the ember flying. Alyssa wasn’t much interested in losing the ember in the middle of the forest.

After waiting for another minute with no sign of Tenebrael dropping everything to show up, Alyssa nodded. “Alright. We’ll try your plan. When it fails spectacularly and ushers in a demonic apocalypse, I’ll be sure to rub it in before we die horribly.”

With a static-like flicker over her body, Kasita was instantly on her feet. “Ufu~ I expect nothing less.” She coughed twice, smile sliding from her face. “This… isn’t really going to cause an apocalypse, is it?”

Alyssa just shook her head. “I certainly hope not. Come on, this thing is probably infecting the air just by being here.”

Keeping the ember close-but-not-too-close, Alyssa popped her last Empty Mirror. With that in place, they Alyssa started walking toward the city. Kasita stayed out, providing some idle chatter that mostly went in one ear and out the other. Alyssa was fairly certain that Kasita was actually just as nervous as she was. The banter was just to help distract and keep both their minds off the uncomfortable subjects.

Alyssa appreciated the gesture, even if it only partially worked.

When they got within sight of the city wall, Kasita hid herself within Alyssa’s… wherever she usually hid herself. No rocks popped into either of her pants pockets, so she was somewhere else. Probably hiding behind Alyssa, maybe inside her staff’s leather holster. Doing that would put the most distance possible between her and the ember. Though it did mean she was awfully close to the staff. At least the staff wasn’t malevolent.

Thanks to it being near the end of the work day, fieldworkers and farmers were heading into the city in large groups. The gate guards checked every single one of them, still paranoid about the possibility of more infiltrations, though, in the past month, their searches had grown lax.

None of that actually mattered for Alyssa. She was invisible. Fractal invisibility wouldn’t be revealed by any simple spell, but she doubted they were using any spells. All that did matter about the farmers was that their presence meant that the guards didn’t close the gate between groups.

Alyssa might have to go talk to Oxart about just how easy it was to slip inside the city without really trying. The captain wasn’t technically a member of the city guard anymore and didn’t have anything to do with the gates, but she could pass on a message to Decorous. Oxart might not like Alyssa much, but Alyssa liked the woman a whole lot more than she liked Decorous.

Making a note to bring it up the next time she had potion deliveries to the Central Garrison, Alyssa made her way through the city. She kept to as many back streets and alleys as she could in order to avoid even the remote possibility of accidentally bumping into someone in the more crowded areas.

The sun was just about ready to dip beneath those rings in the sky as Alyssa made it to Tzheitza’s potion shop. She was pleased to find the main area completely devoid of customers. That would have made this whole thing much harder than it needed to be.

“Hey Tzheitza, I’m home,” Alyssa called out as she dropped her Empty Mirror. “Tzhei? I uh… could use some help, I think.”

Alyssa didn’t have to wait long before the door to the back room opened from within.

Tzheitza took one look at the ember floating in the air before promptly shaking her head. “Am I gonna regret asking what yeh got there?”

“Probably.”

Grumbling something unintelligible under her breath, Tzheitza approached.

“Wait. Don’t… get too close. It’s uh, dangerous. Probably.”

“Yer not making me feel any better.”

“Sorry. I, uh, just—”

Kasita interrupted, speaking with far more clarity. “We found it on our way back from the Observatorium. Right outside a sealed plague house.” That got Tzheitza to tense, but Kasita wasn’t done. “At first, we thought it was just a coal dropped from… something and Alyssa was going to snuff it out. But its proximity to the plague house made us nervous. We watched it for a bit and the ember’s glow never lessened.”

“Right.” Thank you, Kasita. “So we figured bringing it to you would be the best option. If nothing else, maybe one of your potions could destroy it.”

A heartbeat of silence passed before Tzheitza just shook her head. “Yeh should have Messaged the containment unit.”

“But that’s just the thing,” Kasita said. “The plague house didn’t look like it had broken containment. All the walls were in place and the doors and windows were properly sealed off.”

Tzheitza gave the mimic a look. One of those ‘you should know better than this’ type of looks. “Put it in a number two flask and bring it back here. I’ll get some equipment ready.” With one last look of mild disappointment to both girls, she returned to the back room. “And use up one of yer Messages to contact Trik.”

“See? I told you she wouldn’t be upset.”

“I think that was her upset,” Alyssa grumbled as she moved up to the counter to carry out Tzheitza’s instructions. A number two flask was conical in shape with a long narrow neck. Almost like the stereotypical mad scientist’s beaker except a much wider cone, a rounder bottom, and a slimmer neck. Even with the narrow neck, the glowing marble fit inside. Alyssa took great care in letting the ember down slowly, not wanting to accidentally crack the glass in haste.

With the ember gently resting on the bottom of the jar, she let the levitation spell drop. Only after watching it carefully for a full minute and finding no disastrous consequences of letting it drop did Alyssa relax. It wasn’t melting the glass. No fumes were coming out the top. She couldn’t even feel any heat while holding her hand over the mouth of the flask.

She almost grabbed the flask with her bare hand before deciding that she might as well keep being safe about it. With another Levitation card vanishing from her deck, the jar slowly listed to one side then the other before steadying in front of Alyssa.

“Let’s just hope Tzheitza’s potions work.”