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Soda laid on the too-soft bed and stared up at the gilt ceiling. She thought about the First Sorceress, the mysterious woman from the past who had tried to remake the world. What went wrong for you, she wondered, dissatisfied with the ‘crazy woman’ narrative she’d been presented. Had the First been dismissed and minimised in her ancient court? Had she been tired of the decisions of men leading to war and bloodshed? Maybe. The fiery magic that surged through her when she used the Stone felt like a righteous scream, ready to burn down the world. It frightened her, but it also felt familiar. She was also tired of feeling powerless.
And House Orleans? They threw their weight and money around to shut people up. People were impressed by the grandeur. She was impressed by the grandeur. They made her feel like she was the coarsest of bogans, a savage from the Antipodes. Well, that may be. But she definitely had power. She held the Stone, and wondered how long the niceties would last after they found the missing box. She couldn’t keep wearing the Stone, the curse would get her after the Ambrosia seed wore off. And the Dark Forest… The Stone warmed her hand in reassurance. She sighed, her thoughts knotting fruitlessly.
As she lay there she drifted, her mind wandering through the ornate hallways and passages of the house. After a while, she realised that the hallways had a lot of detail. All the detail. They were crystal clear to her behind her closed eyelids. She reached out to a vase on a plinth experimentally. Her hand passed through it, but it was surely there, real and solid, even if she wasn’t. She looked down and saw a faint, ghostly apparition in black cargo pants. Cooooool.
She immediately felt sneaky and nosy. She’d seen a lot of curious things in this building, maybe she could go have a look around? She drifted down the halls. When a pair of Enclave members, drunkenly ranting about some accord, appeared suddenly around a corner, she had nowhere to go. She froze with a guilty grimace, expecting to be reprimanded for unauthorised astral spying. But they didn’t see her at all, and walked right on by as she watched, amazed.
After that she floated more confidently. She swooped through locked doors and over the heads of exhausted workers, sleeping at their desks, ancient armouries full of still-sharp steel weapons glinting in the darkness, very modern-looking chemistry labs all decked in glass and white, and even something that looked like a medieval torture chamber until she realised they were sex toys and not torture devices laid out neatly in rows. She wrinkled her nose thinking about the weirdly oversexed Enclave members having freaky orgies in there. No thanks…She drifted past a room that radiated spells of concealment and dampening. She tried to peer inside and felt a familiar golden rush of recognition. Must be the room where the Book is kept. It made sense they’d lock it away from Evangeline.
She kept drifting, until she heard a familiar voice. She must have come to Evangeline’s rooms by accident, or maybe by thinking about her. It sounded like she was having a conversation with someone. Soda felt weird about eavesdropping on her and was turning to leave, when she heard the other voice: a cold, echoing whisper that sent prickles through her incorporeal spirit. She paused, frowning, and snuck a look through the big, old-fashioned keyhole at the door.
Inside was a warmly decorated reading room, with big plush chairs and books lining the walls. The curtains were drawn, and the grate in the fireplace was dark and empty.
Evangeline was sitting on the floor, cross-legged; a curiously childish pose. In front of her was the biggest toad Soda had ever seen. Or was it? It was shaped like a toad, but its hide was black with a seething oily rainbow sheen, and tiny wisps of darkness dripped into the air from it. Soda thought it was sitting in Evangeline’s shadow, but as it shuffled around, she could see it was attached, at least partially made from her shadow.
Its eyes, Soda realised with horrified fascination, were pits of fire. Like the boar!
“I thought she did really well,” said Evangeline earnestly to the creature.
“She did,” it whispered coarsely. “But she would. She has a terribly unfair advantage. The old crone uses her powers to pull Soda closer to the missing Artefact. She works against us, always.”
Evangeline frowned. “It’s just not fair! Haven’t I proved myself enough?”
“No. There is no pleasing the hag. She will use you up for her own ends, and then you’ll be twisted into a monster and abandoned in the Dark Forest. Just like I was, until I escaped.”
“My poor friend…” Evangeline patted the toad affectionately, seemingly indifferent to its oily stickiness. “You and I have been badly mistreated, haven’t we?”
“We have,” it agreed smugly. “But everything is going to plan. Pereira has extracted the information from the boy Soda mentioned. We have the diagram, and we can use Mwangi’s machine learning systems to match it to any existing image in any of the Enclave databases. With all the new data from the Lost and Forgotten Library, it’ll only be a matter of time before we find it.”
Soda’s heart skipped several beats. Kevin! She struggled to pay attention as Evangeline went on. She was talking so strangely, almost simpering. She sounded much younger, like a little girl.
“We’ll need the full cooperation of the Enclave to begin the ritual. It needs as much power as possible. Once it starts, there’s no stopping it again. When Rene understands what’s happening he’ll be furious, and he’s very powerful. He’s dangerous." She pouted. "What will we do about him?”
“Use the daughter,” croaked the toad. “He is foolish when it comes to her.”
“Yes, that’s a good idea. Carter did such a good job tonight," Evangeline mused. "He thinks we'll be adding a five year clause to the Covenant, but we just don't have time for that. I'm sorry to deceive him. And Soda, and the others. But it's for the right reasons. Soda mustn’t know anything until the very end.” She looked sad. “She’s full of promise and would be very useful in the new world. Do you think we could make her understand?”
The toad shook its squat head and looked mournful. “No my darling… you know she wouldn’t. You had the same hope for Rowan and she failed you in the end, didn’t she?”
Tears spilled down her cheeks. “I thought it would be her… it was meant to be her.”
“She tried to stop you that day in the monastery. It is her fault those children died. She was ready to give up on everything you tried to fight for with the Brigade. You know only the keku truly understand what needs to be done. They are cold companions, but I only pray my humble presence is enough for you, as it once was…”
Evangeline wiped her face, flushed with new determination and nodded. She picked up the dripping toad, making Soda pull a silent disgusted face.
“You’re my best friend in the whole world,” she crooned, pressing its oozing flesh up to hers. “You saved me when nobody else cared if I lived or died. I’m glad you came back to me.”
It closed its hellish eyes and purred. “The night of the ritual draws close. We can end all of this, forever. No more Enclave, no more human dominance, no more wanton destruction. No more Fate Herself, architect of all of this. Only the worthy, the good, the strong will survive… We will open the door, and we will go to her palace, and we will end things, so they may begin again. Death to Fate! Death to the hag!”
“Death to the hag!” Evangeline hissed with feral glee, her eyes reflecting the fires in the toad’s.
Soda blinked rapidly as the Dark Forest crowded into the edges of her vision. She felt the urgency of her panic pulling her back to her physical self like a snapped rubber band. She slammed back into herself and jumped up off the bed, immediately falling over under the weight of her sudden physical form. She stayed on the ground for a moment, her breaths coming in shallow heaves. She’d made a mistake. She’d made such a terrible, awful mistake. She had to get out of there. Right now.
Her whole body jittering with nerves, she stuffed her feet into the combat boots and left them untied, her fingers too dumb to navigate the laces. Her head was racing. How had nobody picked up that Evangeline was fucking possessed? Don’t they have tests for that sort of thing? They fucking should! Oh God, Kevin. She had to help him. She wondered about surveillance, perhaps too late. Summon, shape, release. She summoned (very quietly!) a web of gold and told it to make her soft and quiet and stealthy, to blend in and disappear from prying eyes. It wrapped her in a gentle warm blanket then settled into her skin.
Soda crept along the hallways, trying to remember the labyrinthine layout she’d been drifting through. There had been kitchens nearby, right? They’d have a door to the gardens, probably. Then where? She didn’t know, she just knew she needed to be as far away as possible from that writhing shadow toad and terrible nightmare voice. She thought about the Book, and swore lightly under her breath. She’d have to go get it. She couldn’t complete the ritual without it.
Her body shivered uncontrollably with adrenaline. This was supposed to be political, wasn’t it? About the Covenant, and government corruption? What the fuck was that! Soda feverishly reviewed the nightmare conversation. They were going to open the door… go to the palace of Fate Herself… what, like in the story of the First Sorceress? Wasn’t the whole point of that story that she accidentally ended her whole civilisation? Fuck. She tried to increase her hurrying.
Mwangi would never leave Evangeline alone with the Book, so he’d taken it and locked it up as fiercely and devilishly as he could think of. She found the secret door again and looked at its magical locks. They appeared complex and mysterious to her, slithering with Rene’s weird invisible magic, touched with the campfire smell and red colouring she’d come to associate with Loup. There were all sorts of alarms ready to go off, snaking off to different places in the house. Heart pounding, she tried to think creatively about the problem. How could she diffuse all the traps and alarms and bindings without setting them off?
A sudden sound of footfalls down the hallway caused her heart to miss at least three beats and then start up again triple-time. She forced herself to take deep, steadying breaths, and willed the blanket around her tighter, quieter. Very carefully, she pressed herself against the wall. It was Captain Flintock, still pink-cheeked, his cape sagging to one side a little.
Soda wasn’t about to be fooled by his dishevelled air. Everyone in this cursed fucking place was as dangerous as a viper as far as she was concerned. He was humming to himself placidly, doing a gentle sort of swagger down the hall that suggested he was taking himself for a midnight stroll. As he got closer, Soda carefully drew in a breath and held it. He walked right past her, taking a few steps past the door, before he chuckled, putting his hands behind his back.
“I know you’re there,” he said softly, “what you doin' skulking around?”
Golden magic boiled up within Soda, ready to unleash, when another voice, deep and velvety, answered from a nearby doorway.
“I had a feeling about the Book,” said Somnus, stepping out into the hallway. “So I was watching it. What are you doing here?”
Flintock scoffed. “Who in their right mind would try to untangle one of the Patron’s locks? You’ll loose your bloody marbles! It’ll worm inside your brain and turn you mad!” He sounded like he was on the wrong end of too many pinots. But he squinted at Somnus, looking foxy and clever suddenly. “However, I also had a feelin' about the Book, and wanted to come watch it. Ain’t that funny. Guess we should both watch it then.”
Fuck. Shit. Piss. Fuck. Soda panicked silently, trying to let out her breath in tiny gushes. She felt like she was drowning in imaginary water, and wanted to gasp for air.
“Oh, I think I can handle it,” said Somnus smoothly. She placed a scarred brown hand on Flintock’s shoulder, and he slumped to the ground, snoring gently.
“I’m going to walk away from this hallway to get help for Flintock,” she said calmly into the silence. “I expect it will take about three minutes.” And then she strode off determinedly in the opposite direction without looking back.
Soda did gasp then, sucking in panicked gulps of precious oxygen. She was going to have to have a serious discussion with the Sevenkin at some point. She rushed to the lock and stared at it, chewing her bottom lip raw. How did they do this in the movies? Usually it was something clever like cutting the main power. She thought about that, and thought about Penny’s magic box. It must be possible to suck the magic out of an area… cut off the power… Summon, shape, release. She exhaled and a warm wind blew, gently brushing away the spells and redirecting the magic into the surrounding building. She froze, waiting for alarms and SWAT teams, but the building lights just glowed briefly. She felt a hidden ocean of magic, and it shifted at her whim. Her hands shook. She snuck into the room and snatched the Book up, stuffing it under her jacket in the back of her pants like a shoplifter as it greeted her enthusiastically. Then she ran for the exit.
The cavernous kitchens were dark when she found them. She was edging her way to the door when she heard furious whispering and froze, crouching down behind a stainless steel kitchen island. She listened as the sounds of shuffling footsteps, followed by curses, bounced around the shiny tile walls.
“You stood on my tail!”
“Hold it up then, dickhead!”
“If you two don’t shut up right now, this whole place is going to light up like Christmas!”
“Where are we going anyway?”
“How should I know, she could be anywhere!”
Soda listened in baffled fascination to this exchange, then risked a peek around the corner. She saw Red first, low and crouching in the lead, his bulk shifting awkwardly as he tried to look at his injured tail. Darren followed closely behind, dressed in dark army fatigues, his face smeared with muck like a commando. Rowan was last, her only concession to sneakiness being a black suit instead of a blue one. She still tinkled with jewellery as she shuffled. Soda felt a huge rush of emotion well up inside her.
She stepped out from behind the counter and said in a loud stage whisper: “You guys are the shittest spies ever!”
They all jumped violently, Big Red’s fur bristling and his bushy tail puffing out like a feather duster. Rowan’s hands crackled with lilac that died when she realised who the voice belonged to.
“Soda! I nearly vaporised you! What in seven hells are you doing here?!”
“I might ask you the same thing!” She shot back, still in a maniacal whisper that seemed wholly unnecessary.
“Here to stage a dramatic rescue obviously,” said Darren, grinning.
“Good timing. Let’s get the fuck out of here right now,” Soda agreed, her senses straining. Was that the distant sound of running footsteps?
“What happened?” Red's tail lashed. “Are you hurt? We all felt the massive spell yesterday and thought we’d better come save you!”
“No, but…” she shuddered. “We have to go. I can explain everything later. I fucked it up, but I think we can still save it. What was the plan?”
“Sneak in, find where you were locked up, break you out, sneak out… or fight our way out…” said Darren, looking disappointed.
“You guys really came here ready to fight the whole of House Orleans for me?” Soda choked up a little.
“Soda,” said Rowan, her tone as serious as death. “I’m sorry. I’m the one who fucked everything up. I was selfish. Stupid.”
“Me too,” said Red. “We failed you, Soda. But we promise we won’t do it again.”
“I came because Lune made me and also I felt like a fight,” added Darren.
Soda spontaneously scooped Red up, then swung her other arm around to gather everyone into a tight, awkward bundle, including Darren.
“Thanks team, you’re the best,” she sniffled, then got a hold of herself. “Ok we need to leave. Now. Nownownow. What was the actual plan to escape?”
All three seemed put out by their rather anticlimactic success.
“Well! I suppose we should get on with it! Lune will fire up the Gate when Darren sends the signal,” said Red. “Put me down.”
“Right, sorry…” she dumped him out of her arms and looked worried. “The Gate is down a long and very exposed driveway from here. Oh… hang on a tic.” Soda felt at the golden net around herself and loosened it, then made a tossing gesture so it settled over the group. They all watched her with varying degrees of amazement as the camouflage spell settled into them and they melted into the shadows.
“Been busy?” Rowan asked faintly.
“Saved the world and then maybe fucked it again,” said Soda distractedly, glancing through the swinging doors into the kitchen. “Can we go?”
They crept out the back door, into a glorious formal kitchen garden heavy with the smell of herbs and cold night air. It was, thankfully, the same side of the house as the avenue that had taken her to the mausoleum housing the Gate, but it was still clearly visible as the nearly-full moon washed the whole grounds with bright silver light. They crept along next to the hedges, trying to let the shadows and the camouflage spell disguise them. After a few minutes that felt like an eternity, they heard a shrill alarm go off inside the manor and saw lights flickering on in windows all across its grand face.
“Fuck!” Soda said too loudly, then flinched back against the hedge.
“What did you do?” Rowan's eyebrow raised.
“I saw something I really shouldn’t have,” she said. “And then I took something I really, really, shouldn’t have.”
There were spotlights strafing the lawns either side of them and the hum of many spells activating.
“Can we please focus on getting out of here,” insisted Soda, feeling a lump of panic rising in her throat. The mausoleum was in sight. They might actually make it!
A figure materialised in front of them. Soda wailed as she realised it was Rene Mwangi, still in his luxurious blue smoking jacket, his face a cold mask. Everybody froze, but the Patron waved away Soda’s camouflage spell with a distracted hand to reveal their awkward crouches. Soda glanced at Darren for the briefest moment and the tip of his index finger twitched a little: keep going forward. Soda took a deep breath and stood up as straight as she could, walking to stand directly in front of Rene.
“I do not understand, Soda Jones,” he said casually. “After your success, why are you consorting with this scum again? Are you a prisoner? Do you require rescuing from these ruffians? Or perhaps, the hospitality of my house is lacking?” His icy politeness made Soda want to wither and die, but the urgent, lizard-brain fear of the scene in Evangeline’s room drove her.
“I need to get away from Evangeline and you do too,” Soda said, trying to sound as convincing as possible. “She’s… compromised.” What if he already knew? What if he was too? She bit her lip.
The Patron’s brows dipped a little. “What does that mean?”
“It means I saw her…” how could Soda even explain what she saw? “I think she’s possessed. Her shadow was all wrong, and she was talking to this… thing. A toad with fiery eyes.”
“Do you think I’m a fool?” Mwangi responded coldly. “Evangeline Lorenze is a prisoner of the Enclave, her every move is monitored.”
“Do you watch her when she’s alone in her room?” Soda shot back.
“Yes of course,” retorted Mwangi instantly. “Every moment.”
Soda was taken aback by that. She was sure she’d seen what she’d seen. But what? She was astral travelling and spied on Evangeline’s bedroom and saw her talking to her shadow? Her intense certainty wavered. What if she’d just been dreaming and she was being a dickhead and putting the world at risk? But no. She liked Evangeline. She wanted to help her. And never in her wildest nightmares could she have imagined that voice.
“She’s fooling you, alright? I know what I saw. We need to stop her before it’s too late.”
“I was tired of you and your insolence two minutes after I met you,” growled Mwangi. “You are a foolish, stubborn girl with no understanding of what is at stake here. It’s time you handed over that weapon.”
“Oh Christ,” sighed Soda. “Are we going to do this again? You want to try to take it? Rowan, why don’t you tell him?”
Soda glanced over at her friends and was pleased to see they had been carefully edging forward while she riled up the Patron. Rowan stood tall next to her.
“It’s true, Rene,” Rowan said loudly. “The Stone will answer to no one except Soda. And Soda is too stubborn to be manipulated. You should listen to her, just like you should have listened to me when I tried to tell you about Evangeline.”
“Ugh! You two! None of this would be happening if you had left well enough alone!”
“What are you trying to do to stop humanity from destroying itself, Patron?” Rowan spat the title like it was an insult. “What does the Enclave even represent now?”
“These sorts of arguments may seem clever to you, but right now, the Enclave represents the only way out of the apocalyptic mess that you and your wife created because apparently being famous and beloved wasn’t enough!”
Sirens wailing, soldiers incoming, world ending, and they still can’t resist the urge to scrap like bloody drunken cousins at Christmas, Soda thought sourly. She thought she might understand why the Stone didn’t want to be in the hands of these people and all their ‘good intentions’.
At least one thing had changed: she understood what needed to be done next. And it needed to start with Kevin. “Rene, please, they’re going to come for Gigi! I liked her!”
Mwangi’s face froze with fury, but was that a flicker of doubt? Soda could see black-dressed squads bristling with weapons approaching cautiously, waiting for a signal from the Patron to fire at will. They swarmed the lawns like insects in the moonlight, their faces covered by masks and goggles. She glanced at Darren again, who had managed to scooch a few more crucial steps. He gave a little nod.
“Being famous and beloved was never the point,” said Rowan calmly. “It’s always been about doing the right thing. But I think I lost sight of it. Maybe we all have.”
Soda felt the strange, mechanical grip of the Gate reach out to her.
“Maybe you did my love, but my vision has never been clearer.” Evangeline appeared beside Rene, her face full of concern. “Soda, what are you doing?”
“Angie,” Rowan gasped. Then the Gate swept them up and away.
Chapter Eighteen: A Shadow in the Night
Accidentally astral projecting, learning a terrible truth, staging a dramatic rescue