Feargus

  Days Until Rhian Returns: 3

  Crew and Company Placement:

  With me ? Everleigh

  The estate ? Peter

  The base ? Strauss, Evelyn, Alex, Teeth, Jakob, Adeline

  Oskari ? Michael, Marta

  The lair ? Rhian, Rhydian, Riz, Bells, Sebastian(?)

  Lawing ? Zack

  Gander ? Quinn

  Everyone was preoccupied with their own business around the base when Everleigh and I left, and the second we emerged from the hatch, she started running toward our destination. Obviously, I followed, and when we finally stopped, I recognized the area straightaway from the music note map. This one was located near Verena, not far from the old theatre.

  “’Ey, Everleigh,” I said, “before we do whatever we’re here to do, there’s something I want to tell you.”

  Everleigh sighed. “Okay.”

  “I’ve told Addie about everything, including knowing you first and placing you at the Gander to keep an eye on her. She promised not to say anything.”

  “Okay,” Ever answered. “Don’t do that again.”

  It was my turn to sigh. As much as I was excellent at secrets and lies, at least, outwardly excellent, I was getting inwardly tired of them, and I was hoping to tie a few loose ones up. “Why does it matter if people know we’re friends? We wouldn’t have to go into detail.”

  “Because.”

  I pulled my hat further down over my ears. We were still in the thick of winter, and it was an especially frosty evening. “That’s not an answer.”

  I knew Everleigh well enough by then to recognize the face she made when she was about to confess something emotional. In short: a bit like smelling an eggy fart.

  “Because I want them to like me.”

  “But they do, don’t they?”

  “Sort of,” Everleigh replied. “But soon they definitely will, and I want it to be because of who I am and what I do, not because I had you vouching for me.”

  “Fair play.” I shrugged and nodded. “I actually get that.”

  Everleigh stared at me for one, two, five seconds.

  “There’s something else, too,” I added, wanting to update her on our latest big move, all about Quinn, and what (little) we’d learned from her.

  “Can it wait,” Everleigh asked. “We’re going to be late.”

  Late for what? Well, I had one guess. “Aye,” I said. “I guess it can wait.”

  With that, Everleigh opened the hatch, and down we went.

  This music note was a lot like Zack’s music note in that there was a long hallway with several locked doors. We passed three of them before Everleigh unlocked the fourth with her mind, and we stepped into a sprawling library.

  Matilda and Delilah were sitting on the couch, and as always, the Writer’s quill bobbed beside her, and the Tinkerer’s doohickey spun above an open palm.

  Delilah, looking a bit sheepish, chewed her lower lip. But don’t believe that face for a second, mates. Delilah may not have been the best telepath, or the best empath, but as an elementalist? And frankly, as a lover? Aye, I’d be up for round two if I could convince my nether half. Anyhow, she smiled, and I smiled and waved. Beside her, Matilda lofted a hand, following it up with a gesture toward the chairs nearby where Everleigh and I took our seats.

  “Let’s save any other pleasantries for dessert,” Matilda said, as if reading my mind. Which she probably was, because that was her thing. But frankly, the woman had been so deep in my brain already when she was fixing my food-related problem, there wasn’t much I needed to hide from her at that point. “We’d like an update,” she continued.

  “Yeah, we’d like an update,” Delilah echoed.

  “I’ll let him explain,” Everleigh said. “I’ve been busy.”

  Matilda nodded, knowing. “You’ve done a wonderful job with the clean-up.”

  Everleigh pursed the corners of her lips.

  

  An Interview With Everleigh Gloom:

  “Thank you for joining us tonight, Everleigh.”

  “Okay.”

  “Speaking again on behalf of the people, some of them may have noticed you haven’t contributed any chapters in this leg of our wild and wondrous journey. The people may also be wondering: why is that, Everleigh Gloom?”

  “I’ve been busy.”

  “You can’t always just say you’re busy.”

  “I can.”

  “Well, the people might want a little more than that, Everleigh.”

  “I didn’t think the people would care to read about my cleaning up a dusty, old library and a dusty, old theatre. I mean, would you.”

  “I think you underestimate how nosy—sorry, how curious—the people really are.”

  “Oh well.”

  “Right—thank you for sharing, Everleigh Gloom. Perhaps one day you’ll grace the people with a short story entitled Everleigh Cleans a Thing. Otherwise, is there anything else you’d like to say to the people before we conclude our interview?”

  “Hi.”

  So, they still had her doing chores. Poor lass.

  While Everleigh picked at her fingernails, the duo looked to me.

  “Right, so, uh—Jakob’s alive and well, and staying with our friends at the moment,” I said. “He’s quite attached to Andrei Strauss, so I don’t foresee him slipping away.”

  Matilda and Delilah shared a glance, the quill twirling while the doohickey spun faster.

  “That’s wonderful news,” Matilda commented.

  I nodded agreeably. “He’d been spending time with Zacharias prior to that, staying at the man-cave. I wouldn’t say things are great, but they’re about as good as they can be between an ancient, traumatized adolescent and his estranged father.”

  Matilda nodded. “And Sebastian? Avis has been acting oddly.”

  “So, Sebastian’s traveling off-territory at the moment with my sister. He should be back in a few days, and then we’ll have to coordinate some kind of reunion when they both seem ready. Zack’s almost there—he’s even been writing an apology song.”

  “Yes, well, it’s one thing when he’s alone in his man-cave talking to you or tickling the ivories, but it’ll be another when he’s confronted with Sebastian face-to-face.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “I’m not too worried,” I said. “But what’s this about Avis?”

  Matilda sighed. “As I believe you already know, the city’s been made to believe that one day the Brothers would reunite and return home. Avis’s centuries-long orchestration has the Leberechtians calling it ‘the foretold return’.”

  Everleigh crossed her arms.

  “Aye, I’m familiar,” I answered.

  “As I’d mentioned,” Matilda continued, “I knew Avis was feeling Sebastian again, and I believe she was getting her hopes up preparing for the foretold return. But now she’s retreated inward, and her mood is unstable at best. Sebastian being off-territory does explain this.”

  “If her moods are unstable, can’t you give her a touch-up in the meantime?”

  Delilah laughed, and her doohickey whirred.

  Matilda cracked a barely discernible smile.

  “Between us, Avis is the more capable empath—by a league,” Matilda explained. “As you know, telepathy is ineffective against the Anima, and whatever has been done to her emotions, she did to herself. We were not involved.”

  “She tempered herself?”

  “She did,” Matilda answered.

  “Yeah,” Delilah echoed. “She did.”

  “I didn’t even know that was possible,” I said, looking to one of my favourite empaths for input. But Everleigh just shrugged. Which, for the record, meant, “Aye, I knew that,” in Gloomspeak. And I knew that because she wouldn’t have given her ignorance away if she hadn’t known. She’d have done nothing.

  The information about Avis was interesting, but all it did was reassert that the only one who could help Avis would be Avis, and the only ones who could convince Avis to help herself were the brothers and Jakob—if the poor lad even wanted to. I wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t.

  “Avis wasn’t always—well, she had a—come to think, perhaps you should ask Zacharias for a history on his wife. And if that’s everything—” Matilda moved to stand.

  “It’s not,” I said.

  Matilda’s quill rushed across the room, tickled my nose, and returned to her.

  I covered a sneeze with my arm.

  Everleigh stared.

  “Right, so, a few nights ago, I was leaving the bar where I work with my—with Adeline. One of our Partisan friends. We were accosted in an alley, and…”

  That’s when I told Matilda, Delilah, and Everleigh about what happened with Tag, and how later, Zack found Quinn and delivered me to her. I told them all about the Partisan reserves, and most importantly, about the congregation and what Quinn claimed to be their doomsday prophecy. I also explained our plan to bait Councilwoman Blanchett, and even though Matilda should have already learned about it when she and Ever fixed my food-related problem, I confirmed the facts about the rebellion, and that our aim was to destroy the Six.

  Ever squinted in my direction the whole time, while Matilda and Delilah looked away from me only long enough to make eyes at one another.

  “Thank you for letting us know,” Matilda answered.

  That’s it? I wondered. “That’s it?” I asked.

  Delilah’s doohickey paused, hopped above her hand, and began spinning again.

  “What else would you like?” Matilda asked. “Your information is interesting but hollow at best. Although if you’re looking for our opinion, something doesn’t add up. If the Six were truly seeking to reunite the brothers in order to bring upon the end of the world—again—would they not have sent their people to make it happen? They knew where Sebastian was, so it stands to reason, doesn’t it? And yet, you’re the one who’s awakened Zacharias and found Sebastian.”

  “Why would they build their whole doctrine around the reunion then?”

  Matilda’s quill twirled. “Control, obviously. And a fail-safe for them.”

  Delilah nodded. “You said they keep the congregation separate from the reserves, right? Well, if I had to guess, and I’m a fairly good guesser, I’d say they’ve told the congregation that the purpose of the reserves are to bring the brothers back into the world and reunite them, and the congregation are waiting for something that the Six want to ensure never happens.”

  There was that sharp pain in my eyeball again.

  You reckon Matilda and Delilah would mind if I had a quick snooze?

  “Of course,” Matilda picked up where Delilah left off, “if the brothers are reunited, we can still safely assume they would deploy the congregation. Not to incite another apocalypse, though that may be the path they take, but rather, to destroy the brothers once and for all.”

  I rubbed my beard. “Why wouldn’t they have just destroyed the brothers when they had the chance during the Divide? My understanding is they told Zacharias where to be with Sebastian so they’d be safe. If they were so afraid of them, why wouldn’t they have lied?”

  Matilda and Delilah shared another side-glance.

  Mates, there was always something about the story that didn’t sit right, something left hanging. Remember, before the Six were Anima, they were multi-mixed-bred Partisans. With Zacharias being the most powerful Anima at the time, they’d asked him to turn them, but Zack refused. And yet somehow, they learned the secret of the elixir, and made it happen for themselves, rendering all the storybook creatures extinct in the process.

  But how had they learned the secret?

  I looked between Matilda and Delilah. Matilda’s quill suddenly looked a bit soggy, and Delilah’s doohickey stopped spinning again.

  “No way,” I said. “It was you two.”

  “He’s really so perceptive, isn’t he?” Matilda asked.

  Delilah nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “So perceptive. And so cute, too.”

  Everleigh rolled her eyes.

  Matilda continued, “Yes, Feargus, we made our own deal with the Six.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “Did you know what they were planning?”

  Matilda nodded. “Yes.”

  “Why then?”

  “To help Avis.”

  I looked to Everleigh who just shrugged and shook her head.

  Matilda sighed, and suddenly, she looked like she could use a nap, too. “Extreme as their plan was, the world was in shambles. A wipe was not only necessary but inevitable—be it by them or the natural order. As per our demands, they promised to keep Leberecht safe, and they promised to keep the brothers safe but separate. For us, that meant a world in which Zacharias could spend more time with his wife who needed him, and less time managing his brother.”

  Everleigh wrinkled her nose and puckered her lips.

  This information called for a serious reaction, but more than I needed to scream at the top of my lungs, I needed answers. “Why not turn them yourselves, then?”

  “They didn’t want us. For one, we were hardly the force Zacharias was, and if we had turned them, we would have control over them as their makers. Their plan seemed sound, but we didn’t know they would make such a mess of the mystical world, and we weren't aware of their idea for Palisade.”

  “Yeah, we had no idea,” Delilah confirmed.

  “So let me get this straight,” I said. “You spilled the elixir secret and planned the Divide with the Six, all to reset the world and help Avis by keeping Sebastian and Zacharias apart?”

  Matilda’s quill shimmied, and she nodded. “Yes.”

  “And now you want to help Avis by reuniting the brothers?”

  “Yes. We made a miscalculation.”

  Who among us, right? We all go around doing what we think is best or right in the moment, and we can always anticipate there will be consequences, but we can’t always know them. Something as simple as telling V I loved her resulted in her death. How many other decisions had I made over the past months? And which ones would blow up in my face?

  Well, we’ll have to wait and see, but I really couldn’t tell you at the time.

  “Councilwoman Faust says she believes the keys to destroying the Six can be found all across Auditoria,” I said. “I’ve been assuming the brothers are part of that.”

  “Yes, probably,” Matilda agreed.

  “What else, then?” I asked. “Are you completely sure there aren’t any more of these mystical critters running around?”

  “As far as we know. But if there are, they would be quite careful, wouldn’t they? For now, the goal remains the same: reunite the brothers and Jakob, and bring them to Leberecht for the foretold return. We proceed from there.”

  “Frankly, mates, we don’t know Avis from Bob. We have no stake in helping her, apart from Zack being my friend now. But if reuniting the brothers means inciting the end of the world, we have a good reason to drop this task right here and now, don’t we? Where’s our incentive?”

  Delilah blew me a little kiss.

  I answered with a reflexive wink.

  Matilda’s quill circled her head before she spoke. “We may not be mystical keys, but we are incredibly powerful. Help us, and we will help you destroy the Six as we should have done when we had the chance.”

  Everleigh huffed out her nose.

  I nodded slowly, having a quick look around the library whose shelves were stacked with ancient texts.

  “All right,” I said. “Reckon there’s anything helpful in here?”

  Before Matilda and Delilah could answer, Everleigh chimed in. “I’m still going through everything, but so far, nothing helpful. Except—”

  Hopping up from the chair, she clip-clopped her way across the stone floor to collect a stack of books from a side table. She wandered over and handed them to me.

  “The top two are for Abby Blaze,” she said. “And the bottom four are for Andrei. I don’t care what you say about how you got them, just leave me out of it.”

  Everleigh Gloom was no dolt—she knew Strauss couldn’t read anymore. So what was she playing at? I opened one of the books meant for him. The first thing I noticed was the paper itself was thicker than any paper I’d ever seen in a book. The second thing I noticed was that there were no words. Just bumpy symbols that looked a lot like Symphonic. I ran my fingers over the page.

  “One of your friends is visually impaired?” Matilda asked.

  “Aye, so he was blinded by one of Zack's Anima creations as a message to Zack.”

  Delilah deflated and Matilda adjusted her spectacles. “I see,” she said. “Then yes, by all means, take what you need from the library. And to confirm, we’re all still in accordance?”

  Everleigh shrugged, but they weren’t looking for her answer, were they? Matilda and Delilah’s eyes were locked on me.

  “Aye, we're in accordance," I answered. "And if you all wouldn't mind, I'd really like to have a nap now."