“How are you feeling?” I asked Thayen.
“Better,” he mumbled. “Got my ass handed to me.”
“We’re all in over our heads,” Mom said. “Don’t let that giant oaf discourage you. Just getting me out of there was one hell of an accomplishment. They were holding me to get you,” she told me with a pained expression. “The runes on my arms are impeding my powers, but I know they can’t simply be broken. The symbols must be cut in a certain order, otherwise it will never work.”
Thayen frowned as he looked at her forearms. “What is that? Death magic?”
“Nah. They called it something else,” Richard said. “My memories of that place are hazy, though. They didn’t let us hear much, but I know they’ve got some powerful magic they’re working with. Only they’re still trying to figure out how to make it all work in this living realm.”
Mom nodded. “Yes. I remember that. The magic they have is fit for another world, beyond the living and the dead. One of the clones let that slip after I woke up and found myself practically helpless.”
“This is all kinds of insane,” Soph murmured. “How on earth will we get Isabelle and the others out? Brandon said he was trying to help, but he blew it for us, big time.”
“I haven’t seen him before,” Mom replied. “Not while I was awake, anyway. They kept sedating us, only allowing us to stay awake to eat and drink water, for the most part.”
“Did they do anything else to you? Or you, Richard?” I asked.
I’d already tested his soul. I knew it was him, and boy, was I glad to see him. Thayen had brightened up a bit, too, finally reunited with his best friend. The wolf shook his head slowly, frowning as he tried to remember. “You know, I’m trying to think back on my stay there, and it’s all just a giant confusing fuzzball. I’m not sure. I don’t think they did anything to me, but I can’t say with absolute certainty, either.”
“What matters is we’re okay,” Mom assured him with a warm smile. But the light faded from her eyes as she brought up the others. “We have to get Isabelle out of there. Voss and Chantal, as well. But Isabelle is important. She’s been there the longest, and they never woke her when we were up. They never fed her at the same time as the rest of us. The clones went to great lengths to stop her from communicating with us. It means something.”
All roads kept leading back to Isabelle. It had started with her. I had a feeling, deep down, that it might end with her too, though I wasn’t sure what that would mean. It was just my instincts sorting through future possibilities and distant probabilities.
“How are you guys holding up?” I asked, looking at Jericho and Dafne.
“My fires are weak. I need to sleep,” the fae dragon said.
Dafne nodded in agreement. “This place really is sucking the life out of us, isn’t it?”
“I’d snooze for a week,” Soph grumbled, leaning against the palm tree as she sank her fingers into the warm, golden sand. “Or a month.”
Mom sighed deeply. “It’s definitely this place. It’s in its design, I mean. It feeds off the living. The clones have set sleeping hours. They’re useless and brainless, otherwise. And I mean that quite literally. They simply don’t think properly unless they sleep.”
“Gah, there is so much we still don’t know about this place,” Thayen said.
“We’ll figure it out,” I replied, then gave Mom an apologetic frown. “And we’ll figure out how to break the runes on your arms. Myst helped us with the circle symbol. Maybe she can help us with the others, too.”
“I’d need the scheme of the spell first,” the Valkyrie said, emerging from the cluster of palm trees behind us.
Thayen jumped to his feet, instantly angered. The rest of our group froze, carefully eyeing her as she moved toward the beach. There were bruises around her neck, black as ink, from where Haldor’s whip had held her.
“The scheme?” I asked.
“A set of runes like those would require a scheme. It would be written somewhere, otherwise the spellcaster would forget the order in which they were set.”
“Then how’d you know to break the circle one for teleportation?” I replied.
“It was luck, more or less. Long story short, the circle rune is always broken first. Depending on the creature or entity upon which the spell was cast, an ability will be released with the broken circle rune. I presume that in Viola’s case teleportation was sorely needed, and the spell may have simply reacted to that. Everything else, however, must follow its scheme. Our magic is highly reactive,” Myst said, then looked at Thayen. “I see now that I should not have left you.”
“Oh, really?” Thayen replied dryly, crossing his arms. After what we’d just endured, his curiosity had turned into something more bristly. He was annoyed, much like the rest of us. In the end, our safety and survival trumped everything else, and it felt nice to see Thayen standing up for us.
It seemed as though both he and I had had strange encounters with even stranger beings. Thayen had Myst, while I had Brandon. For a moment, I wondered where these journeys of ours would end. One thing was indisputable, though—whatever we’d waded into here was only just beginning.
“I’m not used to working with others. Especially your kind. I’ve never had dealings with your kind before,” Myst sighed, holding his gaze.
“By ‘my kind,’ you mean the living,” Thayen replied. “I take it you’re made of the same cloth as Brandon, more or less. He identified himself as a Berserker of the afterlife. What are you, then? Apart from your eyes and shady ethics, there’s not much else I see you have in common.” Oh, he was definitely annoyed. She’d come to us like a beacon of light, yet she had obvious faults. These attempts at distancing herself from us had upset him, leading to a considerable shift in his demeanor. Deep down, it made me ache a little. I didn’t like my friends and family suffering, even in the slightest.
“A Valkyrie,” I interjected, and it made Myst’s strange eyes grow wider. “I heard Haldor. It didn’t take long to put two and two together. Sort of.”
She sighed deeply. “You weren’t supposed to know about us. Then again, this whole place wasn’t supposed to exist, so I guess… I guess the confusion and this awful mess was inevitable.” She sat on the sand, crossing her legs. “I might as well tell you a few things. I’d hate for you to be stubborn enough to use your glamor on me,” Myst added, giving Thayen a stern look.
“Where is Brandon?” I asked, the adrenaline finally wearing off. I didn’t want to relax, but I couldn’t help it. My body was tired. It demanded a break. Yet even now, I wondered about the Berserker who’d played us, ruining our mission—but who had also brought my mother back to me.
Myst shrugged. “I don’t know. As soon as you left, I got out of there. Took me longer than I’d hoped, but I found you first. I’ve been following you since the Port. Just so you know, I’m pretty sure they’ve moved your friends from there after your visit.”
“Do you know where they are?”
She shook her head. “Berserkers took them. Vanished. I have no way of tracking the bastards. I’ll look, though.”