Delilah immediately shielded her face against the blast of vicious, chill wind that assaulted her. It took her several moments to adjust, to open her eyes and see the landscape of the Storm.
It lived up to its name. Before her stretched a bleak, desolate landscape of barren, shattered rock veined with deep gouges and fault lines. Above was a dark sky and wildly spiraling clouds, buffeted like mist by the wild, violent winds sweeping across the landscape, throwing dust and debris into the air.
And far ahead, across the dark rock and beneath a dark sky, was a veil of darkness, a great wall of dark wind that blocked off whatever lay beyond.
“No landmarks,” Marcus said, standing tall and firm in the wind, not shielding his eyes or even squinting against the elements. “But it seems clear where we must go.”
“Through the veil,” Maribelle said. She stretched out her right hand. The air around it shimmered with golden light, and the very fabric of reality seemed to tear open, revealing an impossible nothingness through the opening. Out of this tear, blazing with gold fire, came a long, shining sword. The color in the entire world shifted, vibrancy appearing through the dark, desolate landscape as Maribelle brandished Takina. “I held you back for an Act Three that never came. For that, Dullan escaped yet again.” She looked back at the others, eyes blazing with determination. “There’s no more holding back from me.”
“Or any of us!” Isabelle said, perched atop Teddy’s shoulder, one of his big paws steadying her. In her hands she held a flute, the “True Flute” that looked just like the Piper’s Flutes but was, in truth, a gift from Lady Kodoka to Isabelle so long ago.
“No,” Marcus said. “We mustn’t hold anything back.” He tapped his staff against the ground, six bells ringing in beautiful harmony. The wild winds parted around the group, giving them a pocket of peace in the Storm.
“Ready?” Alice asked, looking with Rabanastre at Delilah.
Delilah nodded, her four Felines mimicking the action. “Let’s go,” she said.
Forward they marched, safe from the winds in the pocket of safety Marcus formed around them. The landscape was brittle and unsteady, but no evils attacked them. No villains appeared.
There was just the long, steady walk to the veil, accompanied by the howling of the vicious, relentless wind. Soon enough, they stood before the veil of darkness, and a deep sense of dread fell upon Delilah.
We haven’t faced any danger, but…
Through here. Through here, we’ll see what we’re really up against. The true test is hidden.
This place… it isn’t like Shadowland. It has so much of the living darkness, but not like I’ve ever seen it. It’s so violent, so volatile. Everywhere else, especially in the Library, it felt… controlled. Like someone was behind it, someone was pulling the strings. Valgwyn in the Library, Jormungand in Shadowland…
Nothing’s in charge here. This is the darkness untamed, unchecked.
And this is Lady Kodoka’s prison? A prison she chose for herself?
“We don’t stop here,” Maribelle said, earning a nod from Delilah. She swung Takina, golden light blazing bright and defiant.
The veil was torn asunder, a great rending tear opening tall and wide enough for their group to pass through. But in a moment, it began to close.
“Hurry through!” Delilah said, rushing forward. The rest followed suit, and they raced through the opening, making it safely through to the other side.
There they were greeted by an even more ruined, destroyed landscape. The cracks and fault lines in the earth were deeper, wider, more jagged and wild. It wasn’t a flat plain, but steadily rose through rough plateaus and rocky stairs, towards yet another veil of swirling, violent darkness in the distance.
The wind here was harsher, and Marcus’ protective bubble didn’t keep all of it out. Delilah pushed aside some of her hair with a hand, but it was a futile effort.
Always is with my hair. I like having so much of it usually, but with a wild storm like this, if the wind keeps picking up, it might be a real problem.
“What’s that sound?” Isabelle asked, looking up and around. Delilah paused for a moment, listening, and then she heard it. It didn’t stand out at first because it blended with the howling wind so well, but there was a separate howling. Something wild and untamed as the wind, but with emotion: rage, anguish, hunger. In that desperate anger and hunger, there was something so very…
Hollow.
“There!” Alice said, pointing. Tumbling down from the sky, a shadow on the wind, came wild, raging creatures. Gaping maws filled with vicious, ghostly fangs set beneath pairs of black pits for eyes, their bodies were long, ghastly, amorphous streaks, flickering here and there along their dark streaks with gleaming crimson light.
“Howlers,” Delilah said softly, staring in shock. Howlers formed of wind, formed of the living darkness that was so wild and impossible here.
“How do we fight wind?” Isabelle asked.
“It isn’t truly wind,” Marcus said. “It’s the darkness, like we’ve seen before. Older here, more powerful and wild here, but darkness all the same.”
“Here they come,” Alice said.
Down they came, dozens of Howlers on the wind, their howls filling the air with ravenous hunger. Redmond fired a pair of gleaming green arrows, piercing the lead Howler through the eyes. It roared with pain and spun wildly away into wisps of wind.
So many more Howlers were coming. And they were coming fast.
“Stay close together!” Maribelle cried, raising her free hand, palm blazing with white light. Redmond fired three more arrows. Two more Howlers were destroyed, and then the rest were upon them.
Marcus struck his staff against the ground, three bells chiming. A shockwave of light spread out in a flash, disintegrating four Howlers. Teddy and Rabanastre swung their fists, but the Howlers were hard to track in their wraith-like forms, turning this way and that. Rabanastre struck one hard on the mouth, but it only tumbled away, dazed for a moment, before charging back in. Teddy batted away any that came near him, but likewise couldn’t strike a finishing blow, only sending them reeling for a moment before they recovered.
Felix had the most luck. The swordmeowster’s twin orange swords slashed and thrusted, striking true again and again. Three Howlers were destroyed in a flash, and a fourth that came from behind was sliced in half by Nekoma’s sword. Orange and purple Feline stood back to back, covering each other, while Redmond continued to thin out the still tumbling horde from the skies, aiming for those farther towards the back to spread out their numbers. Reginald stood beside Delilah, the butler-cat’s steady blue glow reassuring, his whip like lightning as it struck Hollows out of the sky.
Beside them, Maribelle also had great luck. Takina blazed with golden fury, her blade slicing clean through Howler after Howler, blasting them apart with light. When foes approached her blind side she danced away gracefully, as if she could sense their presence, and sometimes raised her free hand, white light blazing like a shield to repel fanged monsters.
Alice saw the sword-wielders and grinned. She flicked her wrist, and a streak of bright silver came forth, slicing through the nearest Howler. She spun, her scissors flashing again, tearing apart a Howler dazed by Rabanastre before it could recover. Isabelle directed Teddy, seeing the success of that combination, and soon he and Rabanastre were batting more and more Howlers towards the blade-wielders, funneling their foes into a whirling vortex of gleaming swords and scissors that destroyed all. Howlers who saw this and rushed to find ways around the outside of the group’s formation were met by gleaming arrows, a flashing whip, and shockwaves of light.
Unlike the Howlers Delilah knew from Grimoire, these beasts didn’t even try to flee. They never showed fear, no matter how many of them fell to Delilah and her friends. They just kept coming, viciously swarming them. Fangs came so close to Delilah’s face she stared in shock at her brush with death even long after Felix’s swords had ripped the Howler apart. Isabelle ended up hopping down from Teddy’s shoulder to a safer spot between his protective bulk and the sturdy armored form of Nekoma.
And then it was over. How long had it lasted? Delilah had learned quickly that time in battle seemed to stretch, mere seconds feeling like many minutes, and the aftermath always left her breathless. For a while, all of them stood there, recovering their strength as they kept wary eyes out for further attacks.
But none came. The wind howled and raged, but no monsters howled within.
On they walked, climbing rocky ridges and navigating around yawning chasms, until they reached the next veil of darkness. It seemed thicker, more impenetrable than the last, the wild darkness swirling so chaotically within.
“You will part before us,” Maribelle said, swinging Takina. Golden fire blazed bright, and the veil ripped apart…
For just a moment. In an instant, it snapped shut, a small shockwave pulsing out from it, causing Delilah to rock back on her heels.
“It’s stronger here,” Isabelle said.
“Together, then,” Marcus said, stepping beside Maribelle. He tapped his staff, and she swung Takina. Seven bells chimed, gold and white light flashed brilliantly.
The veil was torn, and the opening wavered, its edges writhing in violent anger at being separated.
“Let’s go!” Alice said, racing through with Rabanastre. Everyone else followed, and they made it through to the other side just in time, as the veil snapped shut behind them.
“And it keeps getting crazier,” Alice said.
Here the landscape was more destroyed, with even pieces of the rocky ground smashed away and forming rocky islands floating in the air, moving slowly in the wild winds. Great pits opened up here and there, with the landscape more volatile, ascending and descending towards another veil of darkness in the distance.
“Mommy’s really out here somewhere,” Isabelle said softly, gazing into the distance. “Do you think she’s at the center?”
“Why do you think there’s a center?” Alice asked. “Don’t you mean the end?”
“Every storm has a center,” Isabelle said.
“The eye of the storm,” Maribelle said. “I see…” She, too, gazed out towards the next veil, and then looked left and right. “Yes, it’s hard to see, but… the last veil curves around us. Like it’s a circular wall.”
“So each one’s a circle, and we need to reach the center?” Alice asked.
“It seems so,” Marcus said.
The eye of the storm…
That might make sense, too. If Lady Kodoka chose to be imprisoned here, positioning herself at the center makes her as hard as possible to reach, but also…
Could she be…?
Delilah kept looking around at the landscape, all wild and torn, destroyed and violent. She could see what Maribelle meant, could now make out the faint, distant curvature of the veil they’d passed through.
Everything circling around a center…
“Delilah?” Maribelle asked, looking at her expectantly.
“Oh, I was just thinking,” Delilah said, looking ahead. “Maybe after the next veil it’ll become clearer.”
“Then let’s go,” Alice said. She, Rabanastre, and Isabelle atop Teddy were already several paces ahead of the others.
“Oh come on, don’t rush ahead,” Maribelle said.
“What?” Isabelle asked. “It’s no big — whaa!”
She suddenly vanished, plummeting down out of sight, and Alice went with her.
“Alice!” Delilah cried, racing forward with Maribelle and Marcus. They came to a sudden slope that led down to a great, yawning pit in the earth. At the pit’s edge was Rabanastre, feet planted firmly, both arms outstretched, holding onto…
Alice!
“That was close,” Alice said. She was held around the waist by Rabanastre, and she in turn was holding onto one of Teddy’s paws with both hands, face scrunched up in effort. Isabelle, thankfully, was safe, cushioned against Teddy’s head, his free paw also holding her carefully.
“Watch where you’re going!” Maribelle said, taking hold of Rabanastre, and Felix and Nekoma joined her. Together, carefully, they started to pull the girls up and out of the pit.
“The pit wasn’t there a second ago,” Isabelle said. “I didn’t move at all. I just fell.”
“Same here,” Alice said. “Well, I mean, I moved a little, but I think it was right after we started falling, just to grab Teddy.” She heaved a sigh as she reached safe ground and could relax. She looked up at Rabanastre and held up a tiny fist, which he bumped lightly with one of his. “Nice save.”
“The pit just appeared?” Marcus asked, stepping to the edge. He tapped his staff lightly against the crunch rock, no bells chiming. A moment later, mingling with the howling wind, came this great, yawning rumble. Marcus raced to the girls, motioning towards a rocky slope up to a flat rise. “Move, move!”
They ran, as the rumbling intensified. Delilah didn’t dare look back, racing up the slope alongside Alice, shuddering as the rumbling shook the earth, making her unsteady on her feet. Maribelle helped her stay steady, running with a hand around her waist, and they soon reached the flat rise. Turning around, Delilah stared in shock.
The pit had widened, now at least a quarter of a mile in diameter.
And it was ringed with rows and rows of dark, stone fangs. Deep in the empty darkness were six glaring pinpricks of red light, vicious eyes gazing up at those who had escaped its grasp.
“There are monsters in the ground, now?” Alice asked, more in excitement than fear.
“There’s no stopping here, then,” Marcus said, already running ahead towards the veil. “Come! I’ll guide the way. Follow my steps exactly!”
“What, we can’t fight them?” Alice asked, following after Marcus nonetheless.
“If you want to punch the ground, be my guest,” Delilah said. “Or actually, don’t. I don’t want to lose you.”
Alice laughed, clear and bright in the wild, desolate darkness. “Fair enough,” she said. “Come on! Running’s exciting, too!”
They ran, as rumbling echoed throughout the earth in all directions. Isabelle screamed as Teddy, who carried her atop his shoulder even still, barely evaded a sudden crumbling in the earth that soon formed in to an ever-widening, fang-filled pit that glared up at them as they passed. The ground shook, but Delilah smiled as she was saved from stumbling by Reginald, the blue butler-cat staying close by her side, running with perfect poise.
Alice leapt onto Rabanastre’s shoulders and he carried her in a beautiful leap across a twenty-foot roaring pit, landing neatly on the opposite side.
“My steps exactly!” Marcus said sternly, running past them.
Alice hopped down from Rabanastre’s shoulders and followed after him. “Yes, sir,” she muttered.
They all came to a sudden, skidding halt as a pit opened up directly in their path. Marcus started left, but a pit opened there. Right — another pit.
“Marcus!” Maribelle cried, pointing. There was a downward slope a small distance back, looping around towards another rise. Marcus nodded, leading the way. Delilah’s heart pounded and she was starting to struggle to take a breath.
The problem with being a wannabe Hunter instead of an actual Hunter is that I never trained in Enhancement Magic.
I know I’m in really good shape. And I can run, a lot! But after everything we did before this, not even getting a break…
It was too much. Delilah was lagging, as the others kept the frantic pace undaunted. No one looked back. They had to keep their eyes forward, just like Delilah, watch for where Marcus went, and where pits opened up, for what paths were safe…
But they were getting farther away.
I have my Mobility disc, and it flies, but it’s so slow. The wind might be too strong for it, too.
The wind…
Delilah had felt the wind get stronger, bit by bit, as she fell behind.
Marcus’ bubble! It protected us, but it must need us to stay close to him.
I have to catch up! I have to run faster, or…!
Delilah was suddenly buffeted by a vicious, overpowering blast of wind. It was so strong, so sudden, she was stopped right in her tracks. She fought for another step, but she had to shield her eyes against flying dust and debris.
I can’t see! I can’t… where did they go? Marcus… Alice…
“Marcus!” Delilah tried to yell, but the wind stole away her words, carrying them far behind, away from those she’d followed. She fought her hair, letting it fly free behind her, and then managed to squint through her fingers.
Where…
Where are they?!?
She couldn’t see Marcus, or Alice, or any of the others. The landscape ahead was barren and empty, trembling wildly with the roaring of more and more pits opening up. She couldn’t even see the path they’d been following, the one that rose up and around…
No, there it was! She started ahead, fighting for each step. Nekoma was behind her, helping push her along.
If I can just follow the path… if I can climb up and see the veil, then I can get my bearings and try to find the others.
If I can just follow…!
Delilah stared in shock and horror.
The path was disappearing. A wild, fang-filled pit was opening up right in front of her, swallowing up the path she needed to take.
She turned right. But there was a pit, ever-widening.
She turned left, but there was just a sheer rock wall, too high for Felix or Redmond to jump, even if they hadn’t tried to while carrying her.
Back, to find a different —
But she turned around only to stagger, windmill her arms, and then frantically step back.
She was right on the edge of a massive, dark pit, blending in with all the rest of the rumbling and roaring that she hadn’t heard it expanding towards her from behind.
I’m…
I can’t…
Could Reginald make a bridge with his whip? No, that won’t work, not with them constantly expanding. Could Felix jump me over the smallest one? No, it’s too big already! Could I… could we… maybe…
But we can’t…
I just…
Delilah kept moving away from the nearest, largest pit, kept looking around at her options, surveying the ever crumbling, ever shrinking amount of ground she had.
But she didn’t have options.
But I can’t just give up. Not after all we went through just to get this far. There has to be a way. There has to! I’ll find it. The other took things too far, but she was right about one thing: I’m clever. I can find a way out. There’s always a way out!
Maybe I could let a pit monster swallow me, and then kill it from the inside? Force it to spit me out? I’d go flying, and then… maybe…
That’s way too risky. And probably stupid.
Nekoma’s chain! Maybe as a grapple for that rock wall, we could climb up it. Or she could anchor my Mobility disc so it can fly more easily.
Delilah formed her disc, but the instant it appeared, the vicious winds swept it away. All she could do was watch in dismay as the gleaming white disc vanished in the darkness.
It has to fly, but I never did work out a way to make it sturdier, to resist outside influences. It’s not like Caleb’s discs that anchor in the air, and if I had more time and training, if I’d thought about this kind of situation and prepared for it I’d be ready, I could do it!
So what do I…?
Three pit monsters had met at their edges, and Delilah’s last spark of hope was extinguished. She’d thought, with each being an individual entity, that getting too close to each other would cause them to stop, having reached the limits of space.
But instead they fused into each other, forming a ring of dark bottomlessness on three sides, with Delilah blocked by an impossibly high wall on the fourth side. The smallest gap of the chasm was hundreds of feet wide, much too far of a jump.
Is this…
Really it?
But then a spunky, defiant shout sounded, reigniting hope within Delilah’s heart.
“Hold it right there!”
Down from the sky came a streak of darkness, with two spots of blazing white light: Rabanastre in his black form, his eyes burning with white flame. He crashed into the earth on the edge of the pit monsters like a comet, shattering the earth with explosive force.
Perched on his shoulders, white eyes bright, grinning from ear-to-ear, was Alice.
Despite the power of the impact, the ground directly beneath Rabanastre’s feet didn’t waver.
But the pit beasts did. There was a roar, that tremor in the earth that wasn’t the earth itself but instead the vicious pit monsters, and it was a roar of pain. Ground crumbled and shattered, tore to pieces at the edges of the chasms and poured into the great pits.
Amazingly, the ground began to reform. It was destruction, yet that destruction led to the creation of new ground in the wake of the pit monsters’ demise. The death of the beasts made way for new earth, and the path was reopened to Delilah and her Felines.
Alice hopped off of Rabanastre’s back, heaving a sigh of relief. Her hair flew wildly about her, but she didn’t show a care in the world for it. Though it likely helped that her hair was so much shorter than Delilah’s.
“It sure is fun to rescue people,” she said, grinning. Rabanastre looked down at her, and Alice looked up. Her eyes narrowed slightly, then she sighed. “Overdoing it, huh? Yeah, okay. Sorry about that.” She snapped her fingers, and Rabanastre’s fur rippled, returning to white, while his eyes were pitch black once more. “It was worth it, though.”
“Thank you,” Delilah said, breathless.
“Sure thing!” Alice said. “Come on, let’s catch up to everyone else. Don’t want to stay in one place for too long around here, you know?”
They ran again, but took an easier pace for Delilah to keep up with. The wind was wild, but with her heart buoyed by her sudden rescue, Delilah wasn’t so bothered by it.
They climbed the rise, and found Marcus, Maribelle, Isabelle, and Teddy waiting for them, relieved smiles on their faces at the sight of them.
“We’ll keep a better eye out for each other,” Marcus said, placing a hand on Delilah’s shoulder as she entered his protective bubble. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Delilah said, smiling at Alice. “Come on. Let’s get through this place.”
They continued to run, dodging pit monsters as they followed Marcus’ steps exactly, and finally made it to the veil. Standing at its edge, Maribelle and Marcus together tried what had opened the previous veil.
But, like Maribelle trying to open the previous veil alone, the tear in the darkness swiftly snapped closed again. It was thicker, more violent, more powerful than ever before, and would not be conquered even by the might of Maribelle and Marcus combined.
“Now what?” Isabelle asked.
“Well, it’s just the darkness, right?” Alice asked. “Like Shadowland. How bad can it be? Maybe the key is more simple than we realized.” She started forward, and walked confidently straight into the wildly whirling veil of darkness. She got her head and shoulders in before Marcus grabbed her by the belt and pulled her out. She looked back at him, wind-tossed hair a total mess, an excited grin on her face that quickly turned into a frown. “That was so cool! What’re you stopping me for?”
“Perhaps with your strange powers you could pass through,” Marcus said, “but the rest of us would be unable to follow.”
Alice frowned a moment longer, then sighed. “Yeah, okay. You’re probably right. So what do we do?”
“I can try something,” Isabelle said, raising her flute to her lips.
“What’s a song gonna do?” Alice asked.
“Music is magic too, you know,” Isabelle said, sticking out her tongue briefly at Alice before resuming her position with the flute.
“Well excuse me,” Alice muttered, pursing her lips.
Isabelle began to play, a haunting yet hopeful melody pouring forth from the flute. It had that strange resonance Delilah knew so well from Piper’s Flutes, sounding so much deeper and wide-reaching than a flute of its size should. The melody swept over the group, and Delilah felt the magic in it. Like a tingling in her fingertips, like a flutter in her heart, like a warmth on her lips, there was more than music here. There was magic, the kind of magic that would baffle Grimoire’s mage-scientists, that defied the different magical “Classes” that were so easily categorized.
This was real magic, magic born of nature and the heart and creativity, born of powers Delilah could only understand in the faintest part.
And with that magic, with that music, the veil began to part. Not a violent tear, but like a curtain rolling back, inch by slow, gentle inch. In time, it was wide enough to pass through single-file, and they began to do so. Maribelle went first, then Alice and Rabanastre, then Delilah and her Felines. Marcus went through alongside Isabelle on Teddy, still playing her song as she passed through the opening. Once on the other side, she gently let the final note hang in the air, and then lowered her flute. The curtain of the veil closed, and the group was left in sudden, stark stillness.
“This is it,” Delilah said softly, her near-whisper sounding yet so loud in this place. She looked up, at the perfectly still shaft surrounded by a swirling cylinder of dark, vicious winds. Yet there was no sound. No movement within the final veil. And up the center of the Eye of the Storm…
Isabelle gasped. “Mommy!” she cried, leaping down from Teddy’s shoulder and racing forward. Maribelle was with her, both sisters running without a thought for anything else. A spiraling set of stairs led up, up to a platform floating high in the sky. Alice, Delilah, and Marcus followed the princesses.
At the top of the stairs, on the platform, was a woman. A woman Delilah recognized, because she’d seen her before. So long ago it seemed now, back in Millennium Vista’s music library, in the video message passed along by Lahain…
It was Lady Kodoka. It was Isabelle and Maribelle’s mother. She had the same apple-red hair, though streaked here and there with faint silver, and the same soft features that made her look far younger than she likely was. Yet she had a regal bearing, unmistakable in comparison to her daughters, even here on the stage, with her arms held high above her in obsidian shackles, even with her head hung low, her eyes closed, there was no mistaking her for royalty.
“Mommy!” Isabelle cried, racing forward. But Maribelle stopped her.
“Be careful,” Maribelle said softly, stroking Isabelle’s hair. “We don’t know what kind of defenses…” She looked up at the shackles, and cocked her head to the side. “Wait…” She stood, stepping forward slowly. Reaching into her shirt, she pulled out a key that hang from her neck on a chain. “Could it be…?”
“Where did you get that?” Isabelle asked.
“Mother gave it to me,” Maribelle said, staring at the key, and then the shackles that bound Lady Kodoka’s wrists. “It was the last thing she gave to me, along with her final words, before we were parted.”
“What did she say?” Marcus asked.
“She said I would have need of this,” Maribelle said, “when times grew most dire. When darkness stepped too far. When the Endless Night started its awakening.”
“You think they go to her shackles?” Alice asked.
“But how could she know?” Isabelle asked.
“We keep hearing that she chose this prison,” Maribelle said. “That she came here willingly. That she became a prisoner willingly. She always knew so much… she was always thinking so far ahead…” She stared at the key, taking slow, deep breaths. “I think the time she spoke of is here. Don’t you, Marcus?”
“Yes,” Marcus said. “Undoubtedly.”
“Plus, we need her,” Isabelle said, clinging to the hem of Maribelle’s dress. “She’s our mommy.”
Maribelle smiled. “Yes.” She stepped up to her mother and reached up, inserting the key into the lock of the shackles. With a simple, smooth turn, followed by a soft click…
The shackles dissolved.
Lady Kodoka stood still in her position of confinement, arms overhead, for a moment longer. Then, slowly, she lowered her arms. She lifted her head.
She opened her eyes.
Even imprisoned for what must have been so long, Lady Kodoka stood tall, taller and more regal than even Maribelle, and her pale blue eyes shone with light and life. There was confusion in her gaze, for a moment. But then she looked upon her daughters.
“Mari…” she said softly, eyes widening. “And Isabelle… you two have…”
“Mommy!” Isabelle cried, racing forward and wrapping her mother in a hug. “Finally! We finally found you!”
Lady Kodoka, tears in her eyes, stroked Isabelle’s hair. “Yes, my darling girl. You’ve found me.” She looked at Maribelle, a slightly more serious expression taking over. “How bad has it become? And how did you find me?”
“It’s all because of them,” Isabelle said, pointing at Delilah and Alice. “They beat the bad guys in the Revue of Night, revived Revue, and made it so we could reach the door to the Storm.”
Lady Kodoka looked past her daughters then to Delilah and Alice. “You two… saved me?” she asked. “Who are you?”
“Delilah Greyson,” Delilah said, bowing slightly.
“And Alice Greyson,” Alice said with a smirk, bowing next to Delilah.
When the girls looked back up, Lady Kodoka was staring at them with confusion in her eyes, and…
Fear.
Slowly she spoke, one word, as a question.
“Greyson…?”