“I… I’m sorry,” Fae said, wiping at her eyes. “I just…”
“It’s okay, silly,” Shana said, smiling at her, tears glistening in her eyes. “You don’t ever have to apologize for crying.”
Fae managed a smile. “Thanks.” She looked around. “But this… is this… the Palette in the Clouds?”
The entire city was in clouds. The streets were fluffy pink clouds, the stairs were fluffy pink clouds. Thinner clouds swirled above like mist, while shafts of golden light filtered down through them. There were many buildings all throughout, domed and made of white stone, somehow standing solidly atop the clouds.
But then, Fae herself was kneeling on the clouds, and they felt solid enough that she didn’t fear falling through. There was a fluffiness to their texture, which made them very comfortable to kneel in, but what would it be like to walk here? Looking around, the city was fairly populated, and lots of people were going to and fro, with no real difference to their gait from walking on normal streets save for a slight extra spring in most of their steps.
“Is that what it’s called?” Shana asked.
“Palette in the Clouds…” Heart murmured, turning in a slow circle. “Yes… it feels like… a forgotten memory. Or perhaps… some distant dream.”
“But you know this place?” Shana asked, looking excitedly at Fae. “I mean, I sorta know it, I saw it in this weird vision, but you actually know what it is? You’re here for a reason?”
“Yes,” Fae said, eyes still stinging with tears, a laugh caught in her throat. Shana’s enthusiasm and energy was always so infectious, but right now… it was somewhat painful.
I’m not going to be able to savor this, am I?
“We’re looking for an Echo of Truth,” Sonya said. “Only… we don’t have the amulet, do we?”
Fae hadn’t thought of that. She felt at her neck, but there was nothing hanging around it. She didn’t have her bag, either — no mirror, no candlestick bell, no sketchbooks. All she had were her clothes.
“Amulet?” Shana asked.
“It’s… how we find the Echoes,” Fae said. Slowly, she stood. The cloudy floor was soft beneath her feet, but it was solid enough, and more even than she thought it would be. It shouldn’t be too difficult to walk here. “The Echoes are how we find our way to the Orphan of the Dawn. One of them is here in the city, but…”
“But you don’t know where,” Shana said. She looked at Heart. “Is there any way to help them find it?”
“I wonder…” Heart said. “Perhaps there’s someone here who might know something. An Elder or Leader of some sort.”
“Right!” Shana said. “Find the guy in charge, and everything falls into place.” She looked at Fae, Olivia, and Sonya. “Ready?”
“Ready,” Fae said, and Olivia and Sonya nodded. Shana led the way, Heart and Altair alongside her, and Fae followed with the other two not far behind.
Fae noticed very quickly that the people of this city, while content to ignore the new arrivals at first, started to give them strange looks the more they walked around. At first, Fae thought they might be surprised at Heart — she herself was, too, even though Shana had described her before. Seeing Heart for the first time was surreal, and she certainly stood out from everyone else.
But when Fae noticed who the strange looks were actually directed at, she felt a nervous shiver down her spine.
The people were looking at her, Olivia, and Sonya.
They weren’t suspicious looks. Not frightened, nor angry. The way the people looked at the trio — stared at them, really — was with awe. Astonishment, as if something amazing had happened, something they’d waited for but hadn’t actually believed would happen.
“Hey, have you noticed?” Shana was asking, turning around and walking backwards to look at Fae. “Everyone here are artists. Isn’t that exciting? It’s like you fit right in.”
Fit right in? As if. Has Shana not noticed at all?
Finally, Fae couldn’t take it anymore. She shot a glare at the nearest person staring at her, a man around her father’s age, and he immediately looked away. “What’s with the looks?” she asked, stepping in front of him as he started to divert around their group. “Don’t just ignore me. Why is everyone staring at us?”
“I…” the man started, unable to meet her gaze.
“Please excuse us!” said another man — younger, maybe a few years older than Caleb. He motioned for the first man to continue on past him, and then came up to the girls…
And bowed.
“Please excuse our rudeness!” he said, staring at his feet, holding the bow for a long time. “We’re just… it’s difficult for us to believe you’re actually real.”
“But you think we’re important or special or something?” Fae asked.
“Oh, yes,” the man said, finally standing up straight again. He smiled, and that made Fae think of Caleb, too. He had messy hair and his glasses were slightly askew, boyish qualities that made him look younger than he probably was. “Honestly, we’ve been awaiting your arrival for so long that… well, we stopped believing it would actually happen. Though time is difficult in the Dreamworld, so perhaps it hasn’t been long at all. Anyway, I’m really not the person to explain all of this. The Artisan is the one who can answer your questions. In truth, he’ll want to see you. I can show you the way, if it’s all right.”
“We have our own reasons for being here too, though,” Sonya said. “And we’re looking for something.”
“The Artisan should be able to help you,” the man said. “And if not, he’ll likely have information that’s of use to you. If… that’s all right, of course. No one’s going to force you.”
“Let’s go,” Shana said. “It’s like Heart said — meeting the leader of this place would be helpful. And besides, I want to know what’s going on here. Don’t you?”
Fae nodded. “Yeah, I do.”
“Please, show us the way,” Heart said. The man smiled, seeming relieved, and then started on. Fae bristled at the stares that continued to follow her, but tried her best to ignore them. If this man was right, then the Artisan might have a good explanation for the people’s behavior.
“I’m Shana,” Shana said, walking beside the man. “Who are you?”
“I’m one of the Artisan’s apprentices,” the man said. “Call me Tio. Since you’re with the Dreamer’s Heart, then you must be the Dreamer?”
“That’s right!” Shana said. “But even though this place is in Dreamworld, it was really difficult to find. I’m… still not really sure how we did find it. Why is that?”
“We… don’t want to be found,” Tio said, looking away sheepishly. “After the Tragedy, we sealed the Key and retreated from the Waking World. And while it was likely we could trust the Dreamer, even that was no guarantee, and so… we hid away even from you.”
“I guess I can understand that,” Shana said. “Dreamers… don’t always do what’s right. But then you have the Key of the World here, right? My sister’s trying to find it, and she said she needs our help to properly use it. We’re trying to —”
“Please,” Tio said, holding up a hand. “I’m honestly fascinated by your questions, and I’d love to say all that I can. But it’s better if you share them with the Artisan.” He stopped before a building on a high plateau, a building that didn’t really look much different from any of the others. “This is his home. Please, come in.”
“Thank you, Tio,” Shana said, shaking his hand before entering with Altair and Heart. Tio looked at Fae and her group expectantly, but Fae said nothing, ducking her head and rushing past him inside with Olivia and Sonya.
Sorry. But I’d really rather not exchange pleasantries when we have important things to do here.
Beneath that, there was a sharp pang of frustration. The amazement of seeing Shana, the shock of being there with her, able to touch and feel and see and hear her, the emotional outpouring of crying with her…
And now this. It had only been a few minutes, but already her arrival in this cloudy city felt so distant. So many tears she’d shed felt as if they’d been for nothing.
I…
I thought I was getting a chance to be with my sister. But now I’m just getting pulled along by other people giving me weird looks and expecting too much of me.
The stunning relief of being in her own skin, being normal again, was so quickly undercut by the circumstances of the moment, and she struggled not to get lost in her frustration.
Inside the house was a single large room, and it was… a total and complete mess. Paintings, many of them half-finished, were pasted against the walls haphazardly, often overlapping each other. They were also scattered all over the floor, crumpled and wrinkled and curling at the edges, with only small, narrow paths of clear floor to navigate through them.
In the center of the chaos, standing on a step-ladder before a tall easel holding a huge canvas, was a man. In one hand he held an artist’s palette, in the other a brush, and his whole flamboyant, fashionably nonsensical of an outfit was splattered with paint stains in all colors. He was a lithe man, tall, with long blonde hair tied back in a braid, and a wild beard that was braided as well. Blue eyes shone behind half-moon spectacles with a wild, intense gleam as he slashed his paintbrush at the canvas like some psychedelic Viking going after a dragon with a sword.
“Master,” Tio said, his gentle voice not carrying very well. “Master, we have visitors.”
But the Artisan was absorbed in his work, laughing like a madman as he went at the canvas with outrageous brush strokes, half of the paint he pulled from his palette splattering all over him, the step-ladder, and the floor rather than reaching the canvas.
Tio cleared his throat, looking embarrassed. “Master!” he shouted, in a voice that was clearly not accustomed to shouting. “We have guests!”
The madman painter came to a sudden stop, paintbrush raised, dripping dark blue paint down his lanky arm. Slowly, his head turned, his eyes focusing on Tio. The maniacal gleam began to fade, though there was still a wild, creative energy in those eyes that would never go out. “Tio!” the Artisan suddenly cried, his voice surprisingly deep for such a skinny man, carrying a joviality Fae would much sooner associate with Santa Claus than the insane Viking painter before her. “My boy, it’s good to see you. But what are you doing? Is your next project finished already?”
“N-no, sir, but like I said, we have guests…” Tio gestured to Fae and the rest of them. “I thought you’d be extra interested.”
The Artisan slowly turned to look at the girls, blinking and eyes widening as if seeing them for the first time. Still his paintbrush was held upright, so that now his right arm was simply drenched in paint.
It’s his own fault for soaking the brush like that in the first place, though.
“My stars,” the Artisan said, paintbrush and palette falling from his hands and splashing paint all over finished paintings on the floor. He wiped his hands on his apron, doing a lot more good than Fae thought it would, given how paint-stained the apron was. “The three. The Vessels —”
“We are not Vessels!” Fae said, glaring fiercely at the Artisan. “And if you’re in league with Wasuryu, I swear —”
“Wasuryu!” the Artisan said, his voice and expression turning in disgust. “Certainly not! I apologize, young lady. I knew not what else to call you, save what was told us by the Fates.”
“The Fates?” Fae asked.
“Aye,” the Artisan said. He stepped down from his step-ladder, picking his way through the messy floor until he stood before her. “After the Key’s misuse and the Tragedy, when we sought escape from the Waking World, my predecessor went before the Fates for guidance. Along with their knowledge of how to take this city to where it now is, they also provided a prophecy: that three would come, and I apologize, but they called you ‘Three Vessels, fleeing the Wicked Dragon.’ They said that you would show us the way back to the Waking World, when the time was right, after the Key was turned once more, this time for Light. And we have paintings of you!” The Artisan suddenly raced across the floor to the far side of the room, where he pulled back thick curtains. “So that we would know you when we saw you!”
Fae, Olivia, Sonya, and Shana gasped.
Hanging behind the curtains, in a beautiful golden frame, was a massive painting of Fae, Olivia, and Sonya walking hand-in-hand in the clouds of the city. They were dressed the same as they were now, every detail perfectly captured.
“This was… painted by my predecessor,” the Artisan said. “He had a gift that few have had, a gift that did not pass on to me, I must admit.” He hung his head in dramatic shame.
“You mustn’t sell yourself short, Master!” Tio said. “Being different does not make you inferior, as you always say.”
Fae could understand what the Artisan meant, though. While the painting behind the curtains was marvelously detailed, beautiful and elegant — she thought it made her look too beautiful — the Artisan’s own paintings were abstract monstrosities that she struggled to make even the faintest sense of. Splashes, dabbles, wild blasts of color seemingly hacked onto the canvas in a wild frenzy… the Artisan certainly was different from his predecessor.
“This painting has been recreated and most homes have a smaller version,” the Artisan said. “No doubt the crowds recognized you. We have all awaited this day, you see.”
Fae suddenly felt light-headed. Before she knew it, she’d fallen, only at the last moment caught by Olivia, who held her with surprising strength.
“Fae!” Shana cried, kneeling in front of her, staring at her in worry.
“I’m… sorry,” Fae said, shaking her head. “I don’t know what that was. But it’s gone now.”
“No,” the Artisan said in a hushed voice. He swiftly crossed the room to kneel before her, studying her face intently. “You are… divided. This body is a Dream-construct, born of necessity, but is not complete. Because your body and soul are not in unison. Are they?”
Fae stared at the Artisan in shock. “How… did you know?”
“Your promised aid to us must wait,” the Artisan said, standing. “You can last in the Dreamworld a while longer, but not, I fear, as long as you may have hoped. Do not worry for us — we can wait.” He smiled. “We are well-accustomed to waiting, now. But you must seek the Orphan, am I correct?”
“We’re searching for an Echo of Truth here,” Sonya said. “Do you know where we might find it? The device that helps us locate them… it remained in the Waking World.”
“Ah, yes,” the Artisan said. “Tio. You know the Echo. You can show them to it.”
“I —!” Shana started, standing. “I… still have questions. I need to know about the Key of the World.” She looked down at Fae. “Our sister is looking for it, hoping to use it to stop the Endless Night, and… we were both supposed to work together with her.”
“Are you sure I’ll come back here?” Fae asked, eyeing the Artisan as she stood. She felt normal again, but with how fast that spell of dizziness had struck her, she was cautious — and grateful to Olivia for remaining close.
“Certain, my dear,” the Artisan said with a smile. “The Fates have said it. And if you are to turn the Key for the purpose of Light, with your sisters, then yes. You will have to return. But you must return when you are not Fractured as you are now.”
“Fractured?” Shana asked, fear in her eyes. “Wait, but Caleb’s Fractured! And he said that there’s no curing it!”
“Tell me of his condition,” the Artisan said, and Shana swiftly explained about Caleb’s eyes. “Ah, yes, Fracturing of the physical is something one must bear as best they can. But your sister’s Fracturing is not of the physical. It is a rift, attempting to split soul from body. That rift can, with difficulty, be mended.” He looked at Fae. “There is still hope for you, my dear. That hope lies at the end of a long, difficult road, and will require patience and courage to a degree rarely asked of anyone. But I can see that you have already had more asked of you than most. And you are not alone in your journey. That changes everything.” He let out a sigh. “Would that we had more time. But you must go. Shana, was it?” He turned his attention back to Shana. “I hope you will remain after she leaves. There is much to talk about, and I would not have you leave only half-prepared for what lies before you.”
“I will,” Shana said, though her attention was focused on Fae.
“Tio,” the Artisan said, nodding to his apprentice.
“Right,” Tio said. “Please, come with me. I can show you to the Echo of Truth.”
Fae left, pulled along by the whirlwind. Only a few steps after they’d all left the house, the sounds of the Artisan’s mad laughter sounded from within. Tio winced, clearly embarrassed.
“Two sides to your master,” Sonya said.
“Yes,” Tio said. “He really is an excellent teacher. But he… speaks of a ‘voice within’ that guides his painting. Though sometimes I wonder if that voice is perhaps too loud.” He led on with faster steps, as if fleeing the embarrassment the Artisan brought him.
“Are you okay?” Shana asked, walking close to Fae, opposite from Olivia.
“Yeah,” Fae said. “But… I guess I just…” She trailed off, struggling to say the words in her heart.
“I hoped we’d have more time,” Shana said, bowing her head. “But… even this is so much. I’m so glad that I got to see you, to talk to you.”
“After this… the last Echo is in Grimoire,” Fae said. “Are you back home?”
“Oh, no,” Shana said, sullen. “I… I probably could go home, for a little bit. But where I am right now… it’s really important to be there, and it’s the safest possible place for me right now. So I…”
“It’s okay,” Fae said, managing a smile. “I… if we saw each other in Grimoire right now, it wouldn’t be like this. So… it’s good that you won’t be there.” She looked away, blinking at sudden tears. “When I… get this figured out. Get my body back. That’s… that’s when I’ll come find you.”
“Right,” Shana said. “I’ll be waiting. To see you come running.”
Fae chuckled. “I’m not so sure about the ‘running’ part, but yeah.”
“Here we are,” Tio said, gesturing at a door in the side of a cloud wall.
“Already?” Shana asked in anguish. “But I… I thought we…”
“It’s okay,” Fae said. She turned and hesitated for a moment. But Shana made up for that hesitation, hugging her tight.
“Get your body back,” Shana said. “I’m thinking of you and hoping for you and praying for you every day. All the time. I know you’ll get better. I know you will.”
Fae swallowed tears, and opened her mouth to reply.
But dizziness seized her. Shana held her up, but noticed the sudden shift in weight, and helped her to sit on the cloudy floor. “Fae!” she cried.
“I’m all right,” Fae said, waving a hand. But as she looked, she thought that hand seemed transparent. Only for a moment, and then it passed. But she felt… out of sync. Like something wasn’t right. Like…
Like my body isn’t going to last.
“Get inside,” Shana said, lifting Fae with Olivia’s help. “Get back to your body, and keep going forward. Okay?”
“Right,” Fae said. But she resisted Olivia’s grip when she started leading her to the Echo. She just kept staring at Shana. She had so many words flying through her heart right now… why couldn’t she make any of them come out? Why couldn’t she figure out the right words? How…
How do I say goodbye?
“Go,” Shana said, her face full of determination, and clearly fighting back tears. “It’s only a short parting. We’ll be back together soon. So… it’s not… goodbye.”
At that last word, the tears started for Shana. Fae reached out, grasped her hand. She stared at her, tears stinging her eyes, and still the words wouldn’t come.
But Shana gave her hand a squeeze, looked at her in a way that said she understood. That somehow, miraculously, Fae’s thoughts and feelings were reaching her.
And then, Fae let Shana’s hand go. She went with Olivia and Sonya into the Echo of Truth. And as the door closed… until it was closed completely…
She kept looking at Shana.
It’s not goodbye.