Guinevere watched in horror as the flaming face rose from the darkness of the mirror, its great gaping maw opening wide to swallow the four upstarts who dared defy its manipulations.
“This is the last push!” Tobias said, his voice steady and unwavering. “We just need to find the core and steal the light from the crystal.”
Guinevere wrenched her gaze away from the mirror’s face and saw Tobias looking at her, full confidence in his eyes.
It’s up to me. I’m the one who can end this.
Guinevere nodded, looking at Tobias with the same resolute confidence.
Steal the crystal’s light. Destroy the mirror — and destroy the heart of Saoirse’s power.
The Queen-pretender’s false rule ends today — at my hand.
The only question was: where was the crystal? Guinevere couldn’t well steal the crystal’s light unless she knew where to direct her all-important arte.
Tobias and Sheena stepped out in front of the oncoming fiery face. They didn’t have their swords, but there was a steely set to their gazes that could cool even the great rage that blazed towards them.
“You will not devour us,” Sheena said, her voice carrying over the roar of the flames. “Your power is ended.”
“Don’t be so sure about that,” came the lilting, arrogant voice of Saoirse. And in came the Queen-pretender, not some ghostly projection but just as solid as the rest of them, her scarlet scepter in hand, a wicked grin on her face. She leapt from a high place straight down towards Tobias.
“Guide them the rest of the way?” Tobias asked, glancing at Sheena.
“Count on it,” Sheena said. Tobias gave a quick nod, and then leapt aside, dashing off into the darkness. Saoirse’s obsession proved predictable as ever, and without even the scantest glance at the others, she pursued the Knight in black.
“You can see the crystal?” Alice asked, characteristically unperturbed.
“Through the great maw,” Sheena said, as the fiery face of the mirror blazed closer, hotter, the heat scorching Guinevere’s face. She flinched back, but then watched the face more closely.
It’s… moving too slowly. Isn’t it? Or is it…
“Have you noticed?” Sheena asked, casting a look at Guinevere.
“It’s… not moving,” Guinevere said, and suddenly all of her fear fled her heart at the realization.
“Just a last, desperate ploy,” Alice said with a smirk. “The Mirror’s power depends on us being isolated, captive by its manipulations and terrors. Now that we’re free, it can only try to reclaim what it lost.”
“Through the jaws of flame, the crystal awaits,” Sheena said. “Ready?”
When Alice said nothing, Guinevere looked at her, and found the child gazing expectantly up at her instead. Guinevere looked at Sheena, and found the same look in her eyes. She took one last look at the fiery face roaring its false roar, and pressed her thumb and middle finger together, readying the glyph arte.
“Let’s go,” she said.
The three of them raced forward, Sheena leading the way. The Mirror roared, its rumbling shaking the ground beneath their feet, its heat blistering Guinevere’s skin.
But that was all it had left. Knowing that, Guinevere had no fear. She ran as fast as her feet could carry her, following Sheena’s lead right through the open jaws of fire, and all around her, glass began to crack and fracture, fault lines forming in the endless dark. Sheena reached out, and touched one of these fragments, and it shattered, a shattering that made Alice flinch. When she hesitated and fell behind Sheena and Guinevere, Guinevere reached out and took Alice’s hand, guiding her onward.
Through the shattering, they entered a tiny cylindrical chamber. All around them, a steady pulsing made the walls throb, shuddering and twisting like the walls of a human heart. There in the center, suspended by sinewy crimson threads, gleamed a bloodred crystal the size of Guinevere’s open palm.
Guinevere raised her hand, and the violet glyph appeared. She glared at the crystal, took a breath, and snapped her fingers.
Light was stolen from the crystal. And when the crystal went dark…
The Mirror shattered.
Guinevere, Alice, and Sheena tumbled out to land back in the underground chamber, the True Inner Sanctum of Saoirse’s palace. Water poured out of pipes around the perimeter, its noise sudden against what had been so quiet and empty within the Mirror. And in front of them, the huge frame of the Mirror stood tall…
But within, the glass had been shattered. There was no life left in it. The Mirror was destroyed.
“No!” Saoirse screamed, farther out from the Mirror, facing off against Tobias towards the edge of the grand stage. “What have you done?” She struck her scepter against the floor, and a trio of tones rang out in a powerful, commanding harmony.
But nothing else happened.
“Your power is broken,” Tobias said, drawing his obsidian sword, returned to him now that he was out of the Mirror. Guinevere and Sheena likewise had their swords now, and Alice had reclaimed her trunk. “It’s over.”
Saoirse’s eyes widened, a mingling of horror and rage smoldering within them. And then, she smiled, a smile that sent a shiver down Guinevere’s spine. “Then we die together, you and I, Tobias,” she said.
A great rumbling suddenly shook the ground, so violently that Guinevere was flung to her knees, barely catching herself before her face would have struck the floor. Her wrapped, injured hand screamed in protest. When she was finally able to look up again, there was a vision of chaos — and then welcome white fluff and a joyous pink tongue.
“Ava!” Guinevere cried, embracing her faithful friend. “How I missed you in there. Are you all right?” Ava licked her once and then stood back, wagging her tail and spinning in a circle to show that she was well. Past her, Guinevere saw Akko reuniting with Sheena, and Flynn joining Tobias.
And thank goodness that they were all together so quickly. Because the vast chamber of the Sanctum was collapsing. Dust was raining down from the ceiling, a ceiling run through with widening cracks. The ground kept rumbling, and the walls began to crack and crumble, the pipes that fed water — and passengers — into this chamber suddenly blasting out water at twice the pace, so that the perimeter pool started to rise up, flooding the huge central stage.
“The whole palace is coming down!” Tobias said, racing with Flynn back to the others. “We need to find a way out, before we’re buried.”
“You have a plan, don’t you?” Alice asked, wiping dust from her face.
“It’s developing,” Tobias said. “Flynn, recon!” Flynn dashed off, darting around the stage, eyes and ears and tail alert.
“We’re at the bottom of everything,” Saoirse said, laughing. “We’re all going to be buried together.”
“You didn’t know this would happen, did you?” Guinevere asked, looking at Tobias, fear clenching her heart.
“I knew it was a possibility,” Tobias said absently, his focus on looking up and around, eyes darting, looking for an escape. “I was hoping it wouldn’t go this way, though.”
“Naturally,” Alice said. “Oh, Flynn’s found something!”
Flynn barked twice from the side of the stage opposite Saoirse, where water was already lapping up to drench the dog’s paws. A moment later, though, the water slid away, leaving Flynn standing on dry ground.
It took Guinevere a moment to figure out what was happening. But when a second rumbling nearly flung her off her feet again, she recovered quickly and realized…
The entire massive stage was tilting, Flynn standing towards the side coming up, Saoirse down at the side that was tilting down, sinking into the water. And up above them, where the stage was rising towards, the ceiling and walls were transforming, great holes opening up as huge chunks of debris rained down.
“It’s going to be a very touch-and-go escape, is it?” Alice asked, raising her voice over the roar of destruction.
“It seems so,” Sheena said. She darted up towards the rapidly rising far side of the stage, and the others followed, stumbling and staggering, helping each other up with every shaky step. Alice was sometimes pulling her trunk after her, sometimes bracing it to use as a crutch to help her climb higher. Something broke in the world below them, and a huge geyser of water shot up ahead of them, showering them in a frigid spray. Guinevere winced, grimaced, hating the sudden, unannounced drenching — hadn’t they gone through enough water to get down here? She stumbled forward, grasped onto the edge of a step, and her heart lurched as she looked back.
The stage had now tilted at a forty-five degree angle, the descent behind her a dizzying, unpleasant drop. They’d just reached the edge of the stage in time before the slope was too much to climb, able to hold onto the edges of steps and the stage itself to stay in place. The stage rose a little higher, and Guinevere, raking wet hair out of her face, feared it would rise too high and none of them would be able to hold on, or that the stage’s fragile balance would suddenly break and they’d all go crashing back down to earth.
And then a deafening crack sounded high above them. Guinevere’s ears popped, and her heart lurched as a massive boulder of marble plummeted down, just barely missing the high edge of the stage. Another geyser erupted, drenching all of them in icy water, and then a section of the wall broke open, and the stage came to a rough, grinding halt.
“Come on!” Tobias cried, ushering them forward. Guinevere looked up, shocked to see what fortune had favored them with. A wide slab had fallen to crash against the edge of the stage, somehow not sending it back down to earth but instead connecting to it and forming a bridge up to the ground floor of the palace.
With a gasping effort, Guinevere heaved herself up, and ran with Ava to the bridge. Sheena was helping Alice onto it, and then Guinevere and Ava followed her, while Sheena and Tobias took up the rear. Flynn was ahead of them all, their guide through the chaos, deciphering the unpredictable calamity erupting around them to pick out the one true path forward.
Across the bridge, they didn’t find any greater stability on the palace’s ground floor. All was crumbling, breaking, falling, the entire palace sinking bit by bit, the earth opening up beneath it like the Mirror’s fiery face, a great maw ready to swallow up all that Saoirse had built.
The destruction of Saoirse’s wicked seat of power at Guinevere’s hands would have delighted her, if she wasn’t in a mad, desperate scramble for her life. As a cloud of dust erupted and she slowed to wave it out of her face and keep her footing when she couldn’t see, she found herself caught between trusting Flynn’s guidance and terrified that there was no way out, that she’d be trapped here, buried and suffocated under miles of scarlet marble and paintings of Tobias and severed heads of Saoirse’s former suitors.
And then she was through the dust, but that brought little relief. A staircase had collapsed, so that they had to climb up it with hands and feet. Ava was able to leap atop one pillar, and then clamber up a sloped wall to the top, but that path wouldn’t serve humans. Guinevere hauled herself up, with Sheena and Tobias right behind her. Racing along the crumbling corridor, she felt closed in, trapped, and glanced at a passing window for some relief.
But there was none to be found. This corridor had sunk, so that the cracking window provided only a view of compacted rubble and the growing darkness of their would-be tomb, if they didn’t escape.
There was no easy path to safety. A section of the ceiling broke apart, crashing through the floor, leaving a twisted ruin for them to pick their way across, tiptoeing narrow beams as the whole palace shook and shuddered, Alice hugging her trunk close and maintaining astonishing balance. When she wavered once, Guinevere touched her lightly to steady her. They clambered up to a higher floor, only to find that this, too, had sunk beneath the earth. The palace was falling faster than they were climbing. At this rate…
Up ahead, Flynn barked an encouraging double-bark. The hall tilted here, so that Guinevere was looking up at him, but the sight of his reddish-brown tail wagging, and the way Ava responded with equal cheer, lightened her heart. Trust the dogs to find a way to safety!
When she and Alice reached Flynn, they found him indicating a spiral staircase, leaning on its side, but up above, out of sight, were glimpses of daylight, of sky, of the outside, of blessed freedom! Flynn barked once more and raced up. “Good boy!” Alice cheered, hurrying after him, and Guinevere followed right on her heels, Ava at her side. At a violent shake of the palace, Guinevere was flung against one wall, and she winced as bruises flared with new pain up and down her torso. Sheena helped her regain her balance with strong, steady hands, and then they were climbing together, racing up twisted, tilting steps through a cacophony of cracking stone, shattering glass, and shuddering, quaking earth.
But then they reached the top of the stairs, and burst through darkness and dust to the outside! A blue sky stretched above them, clouds fluffy and light, the sun still high and bright, as if this was just another lovely day in Wonderia, ignoring the calamity of the shattering palace. But then, why shouldn’t the sky be of good cheer? The Queen of Hearts was defeated, her palace destroyed, her enslaved subjects liberated!
But it would still be a trek before Guinevere could share in that celebration. She was outside, yes, but safe ground was still nowhere in sight. Three balconies had fused together in a tangle of twisted metal and shattered marble, and those formed a steep slope to a toppled tower, and that to a shattered section of roof, and all of it up, up, up…
“Where can we get off of this death trap?” Guinevere asked, lungs and legs burning as she ran up the slope, vaulting over a tilted railing, desperate for a chance to breathe.
“Farther up!” Alice said, annoyingly energetic. “Flynn seems to have found an exit.”
“There won’t be any easy way to safety,” Sheena said, calm and composed farther behind Guinevere. “But I think I see what he intends. If we’re swift, it should work.”
Guinevere looked up along the twisting, ramshackle path they were following, but she couldn’t see any clear destination or exit. Whatever Flynn was nobly leading them towards, she would just have to trust his instincts, and hope they were fast enough to make use of it. Her hands scraped against shattered ceiling tiles, but there was no time to worry about pain now. Then up ahead, Flynn barked a warning and Alice let out a yelp, and Guinevere looked up to see a trio of metallic card soldiers hauling themselves up onto the roof, fleeing the catastrophe — right into the path of Flynn and Alice.
Flynn leapt right at one of them, knocking it off its feet, and that was enough for it to stumble, fail to grasp a handhold, and fall into the yawning abyss below. But the other two made it up, and Alice, while nimble in evading a questing spear, had no weapons to defend herself with. She had her trunk, but it was bigger than Alice, and while she could carry it somewhat, it would make more of an unwieldy shield than a weapon to batter foes with.
And on this narrow path, Guinevere was closer to the danger than Sheena. She was the only one able to get to Alice in time.
She raced to Alice’s aid, drawing her sword though her wrapped hand protested. She slashed at a lancing spear, screaming and putting her whole body into the attack, giving her just enough strength to knock aside the card soldier’s thrust and then follow her momentum right into it, barreling into it with her body rather than slashing again. The soldier was close enough to the edge that it toppled right over, and then Guinevere turned to the second one, thrusting for the vulnerable place beneath its helmet, and —
She struck true! Her sword pierced metal, the card soldier shrieked, and then Guinevere yanked her sword free, and the soldier fell over the edge. Guinevere gasped, a stabbing pain shooting up her arm, but she didn’t let that take the fight out of her just yet. She whirled around, surveying the shuddering, sinking landscape, but found no more foes. Only one card soldier, desperately clinging to the edge of the roof, but Alice skipped over to him and gave him a swift kick right in the face. Down went the metallic soldier, its shrieking cry cut short as two walls toppled towards each other, crushing it between them.
“That was fun!” Alice said, beaming at Guinevere. “Did you see me? Wasn’t I amazing?”
“Yes,” Guinevere said, biting back a thousand sharp retorts. And then she, surprising herself, actually smiled.
“You were wonderful too, of course,” Alice added, only after she saw Guinevere’s smile. “Thank you, my ever-trusty defender.”
And then they were running once more, sprinting after Flynn, who leapt up one balcony, then to another, and finally atop a steepled tower on its side, a grand scarlet bell poking up through shattered roof tiles, and barked encouragingly, quite sounding to Guinevere like that was their final stop.
Guinevere sheathed her sword and vaulted a rail, hauled herself up a wall, and then clambered up the steeple to see…
A train car. That descriptor was somewhat generous, as it had an open top, and could only seat six, and just had a hand crank to move it, no engine, nor connectors to link to other cars. But it was sat atop a train track, its metal wheels fitted along the metal rails that would lead them…
Oh. Oh, I don’t like that at all.
The tracks the “train car” sat upon sloped steeply down at a sudden, sickening angle, twisting one way, then the other, towards actual solid earth far below them, beyond the gaping pit that was swallowing up Saoirse’s palace.
It was not ideal at all. Not in Guinevere’s book. It looked more like a death trap than transportation to safety. But considering the options… which, as she surveyed the landscape around them, amounted to precisely zero other options… it would have to do. Somehow.
If our luck, as outrageous as it’s been so far, manages to hold a little longer, that is.
“Oh, that looks like a grand escape!” Alice said, beaming. Of course. “Suitably climactic for such an adventure. Well done, Flynn!” She wheeled around, looking ready to call something out to Tobias… and then her eyes went wide. She cried out, a cry of panic, and Guinevere whirled around, fear clenching her heart.
——
Tobias kept up a distant rear as they made their escape. Partly because he knew he could handle the terrain better than Guinevere and Alice, and thus had a better chance of catching up to them if he fell behind, but mostly because of…
Saoirse.
They’d left her behind in the True Sanctum when the stage had risen and they’d found a path up and out, but he didn’t trust that was the end of her. He kept glancing back, alert for one final play that she was sure to make to prevent their escape — or, more accurately, his escape.
So far, so free. But he wasn’t letting his guard down until he was safely beyond the collapsing palace. And even then, if he never saw Saoirse’s dead body with his own eyes, he’d never trust that he was truly rid of her.
He’d just seen Guinevere and Alice admirably dispatch a few last desperate card soldiers when he heard the familiar click of a scepter against marble behind him. He whirled around, brandishing his sword, and was once again face-to-face with Saoirse.
“I knew you wouldn’t leave me so willingly,” Saoirse said, smiling a manic smile. Her usually perfectly-coifed scarlet hair was a messy tangle, her immaculately made-up face smudged with dust and dirt and debris. Her gown was torn in several places, and there were bloody scratches on her arms and neck. Two of her fingernails were broken.
And there was a wild, hungry gleam in her eyes, a frenzied, desperate energy that set all of Tobias’ nerves on end. People with that kind of mad desperation were capable of anything. And Saoirse was a more capable foe than most, even with the source of her power broken.
“Well?” Saoirse asked, taking a step towards Tobias. He took a careful step back from her. “Don’t you have any words for me, Tobias? You aren’t following your friends. So despite your noble fighting stance, you intend to stay with me, don’t you? You’ve finally awakened to your love for me.”
“Don’t misread the situation,” Tobias said, glaring. “Die with your palace. Leave me be.”
“Oh, there’s the ferocious beast beneath the stoic façade,” Saoirse said, her voice a lustful purr. “Now direct that beastly energy towards a better pursuit. Come, Tobias. Don’t deny where you heart belongs.”
“Not with you,” Tobias said. Saoirse took another step towards him, and he, rather than stepping back, prepared to finally attack, seeing no other way to stall her advance.
But before he could launch his attack, there was a loud crack, and he was thrown back as the ground before him exploded. He hit his head against a stone rail, and was dazed for a half-second, long enough to slide down towards a new opening to the void. Panic gave him speed, and he grabbed hold of the same rail he’d struck and heaved himself up, pulling himself over it to gain some ground. But as he sheathed his sword and started to race towards the exit Flynn was indicating far up ahead…
“Tobias!”
Saoirse called out for him. He turned back, because her voice wasn’t wild, or craving, no. She sounded terrified, a new kind of desperation filling her — helplessness.
There she was, her scepter dropped, clinging desperately to the edge of a metal beam, dangling over a yawning abyss that had already swallowed so much of her palace, of all that she’d built, all that represented her wicked reign.
“Tobias, help!” she cried, letting out a genuine yelp of panic as the beam slid a few inches further towards oblivion, creaking threateningly. “Please!”
Tobias watched her for a moment, his heart catching in his throat. It would be one thing to strike her down with his sword in combat. It would be one thing to not know what happened to her, and leave her to being buried under her palace.
But to see her helpless there, to be close enough to save her, and choose not to? Even if she was a wicked tyrant, the core of her power was destroyed, and now she’d dropped her scepter, too. She was harmless. She didn’t deserve to die this way. No one did.
Tobias leaped back over the rail, and tested his footing. The ground was steadier than he’d hoped — and Saoirse was now only a couple of feet away.
“Tobias!” she screamed, her hands slipping as the beam swayed once more. Tobias gazed into those eyes, eyes that had only moments ago been filled with a manic, mad hunger for him, that had still been so full of the selfish tyrant she’d always been.
Now, though? Now, they were terrified. A vulnerability he’d never seen in her called out to him.
Keeping one hand on the rail, he edged towards her, and reached out with his other hand. But he was too far away. He needed another six inches, and even stretching as much as he could…
He needed to let go of his lifeline. He tested his footing once more, found it as steady as he could hope for, and let go of the balcony rail. Minding his balance, he reached out, and grasped Saoirse’s wrist.
“I’ve got you,” he said. “Hold tight. I’ll pull you up.”
“Tobias,” Saoirse gasped, gazing at him with stunningly soft affection and gratitude. Tobias leaned back, started to pull her up…
And then cried out at a sharp pain in his forearm. He gasped, then, staring wide-eyed at Saoirse.
She had dug her nails into his arm. And with her other hand, she was holding tight to the metal beam…
Pulling away. Towards the abyss, towards oblivion, towards death with her palace.
“You’re mine,” she said, and that wild hunger was back in her eyes. “You have always been mine. And now, finally, you’ve touched me of your own accord. Finally, you’ve reached out to me yourself. You’ve shown your true heart, and there is only one way forward from here.”
“Saoirse!” Tobias yelled, grabbing onto the balcony rail behind him to keep from being hauled over the edge with her.
“And now I hear your name on my lips,” Saoirse said, smiling. “Oh, Tobias. It’s time. Time for us to be one, to face the great beyond hand in hand. Come, Tobias! Follow me into death!”
“Let go!” Tobias cried, pulling as hard as he could. But even with her magical power shattered, hunger and wild desire lent Saoirse a strength he couldn’t rival. He slipped an inch towards her, then another. Her nails dug deeper into his skin, and blood trickled down his hand. The ground crumbled, and his toes were over the edge. Just one more good pull from Saoirse, and he’d be falling, and there would be nothing he could do. He pulled as hard as he could, but only slid a tiny bit towards her again.
“Let go!” he shouted again, but Saoirse only laughed, and then set herself against the beam, ready to pull, the final pull that would drag Tobias into death with her…
But then it was Saoirse crying out in pain. Tobias gasped as her grip loosened, and hope burst in his heart like the brightest dawn as he saw Flynn was here, biting hard into Saoirse’s wrist. She struggled, tried to keep her hold on Tobias, but with a scream, she finally let go. Flynn let her go the instant she released Tobias, and then she was falling, crying out Tobias’ name as she plummeted into the shattering darkness deep down below.
Before Tobias could even catch his breath, Flynn was barking at him and racing ahead. Tobias hauled himself over the railing and sprinted after him, just as the ground where he’d been standing completely gave way, and so much more began to shatter and collapse behind him. He leapt from a balcony to roof tiles, and his foot went through one of them. Flynn grabbed a mouthful of Tobias’ sleeve to help pull him free, and then they were running side-by-side, with Alice, Guinevere, Ava, and Sheena up on the toppled steeple urging them onward. Tobias and Flynn leapt the last several feet, clambered up the steeple, and then all of them together slid down into the hand-operated train car. Sheena hit the brake release, and that was all they needed to get moving. The tower was tilting them forward, and gravity did the rest. The car hurtled down the track. Guinevere and Alice let loose screams — Guinevere of abject terror, Alice of childish glee. Wind whipped at them so hard that Tobias had to squint against it, one hand holding tight to a safety rail, the other holding Alice’s collar, who also braced herself with her trunk. Sheena steadied Guinevere with a grip on her shoulder, while Flynn and Ava leaned into their humans, Ava mimicking Flynn’s footing and posture to steady herself like him.
The palace exploded behind them as they shot down the track, the car lurching left, then right, hearts and stomachs of its passengers doing somersaults before it leveled back out. The tracks shuddered, and Tobias wondered if he’d taken too long, if it was all going to crash and burn when they were so close to safer shores.
And then his heart leapt into his throat as the tracks did shatter. Their car was tossed up, and then started falling through the air towards the ground. Nauseating free fall seized the car’s passengers, and Tobias fixed his eyes on the edge of the abyss, that perilous line between annihilation and salvation, hoping, willing them to land in the green grass, not dash themselves against the stone and plummet into the darkness.
And then his feet hit the floor of the train car, and he saw what he had to do. Seizing Flynn under one arm, Alice under the other, she held tight to her trunk while Tobias raced forward and then leapt free of the car. Beside him, Sheena did the same with Guinevere and Ava.
The car crashed against the edge of the cliff and shattered into a thousand pieces. But Tobias, Alice, Sheena, and Guinevere, along with their animals, and even Alice’s trunk, all landed on solid, stable ground, fell into tumbling heaps, and lay several yards away from the edge, gasping for breath, gazing up at the sky which seemed to be spinning, though that was absurd, as the echoes of the crumbling, shattering, sinking palace reverberated across the land.
It was impossible to know just how long they lay there, catching their breath, taking in the truth that they were alive, that they were safe, and that the Queen of Hearts’ palace, and the Queen of Hearts herself, were destroyed. Some time after the collapse of the palace started to go silent, only distant echoes sounding up from the depths of the abyss, one by one, the four of them and their animal companions sat up and stared at each other. Dirty, disheveled, dust and debris clung to them all the more since they’d been drenched by a pair of geysers before the desperate flight. Wind had tangled and tousled their hair into unrecognizable, ridiculous shapes.
And one by one, they burst into shared laughter.