Caleb gazed in awe at Starlight Spires.
What a beautiful city. And it’s massive! This kind of scale…
There’s nothing like this on Earth. That tower over there, it’s what… five hundred stories? Five hundred floors, and it’s one of the smaller ones.
And way over there… Millennium Vista… thousands of floors. A veritable city inside a single massive spire. All of Grimoire wouldn’t even take up a tenth of it. Take an actual city, and even that wouldn’t fill Millennium Vista. Maybe one of the biggest cities on Earth, but even then, you could fit two or three of those inside this one city.
Chelsea, Gwen, and Lorelei came here with Isabelle. The last stop before getting her to the Library of Solitude. But even though they’ve been here before…
Caleb smiled. Chelsea and Lorelei helped lead the way with Gwen, but even though they knew their way, they were still constantly looking around, taking it all in, their amazement clear on their faces.
“Are there more people here than last time?” Lorelei asked.
“I believe so,” Gwen said. She pointed from the bridge they were on to a spire to their left which seemed to be undergoing renovations. The renovations were coming along swiftly, thanks to clever applications of magic. “That spire was abandoned when we last came here.”
“But they weren’t working on it back then, right?” Chelsea asked. “What changed?”
“Oh,” Lorelei and Will said at the same time.
“You guys figured it out?” Addie asked.
“Yeah,” Lorelei said. “Think about it. There aren’t just a little bit more people than last time. There are tons. Hundreds at least, if not thousands, it seems.”
“Why would so many people suddenly be here in this city?” Will asked. “It hasn’t been that long since you were last here, either.”
Lorelei nodded. “And there’s a ton of extra activity. So many people on the move, working hard at a fast pace. Considering what’s happening in the rest of the Dominion…”
“Oh!” Caleb and Chelsea said at once.
“There they go,” Lorelei said with a smile.
“What, what?” Addie asked.
“Locations are being devoured by Darkness,” Caleb said. “But people have managed to escape. So many people losing their homes, running, looking for somewhere safe…”
“There aren’t that many better places,” Chelsea said with a nod. “But… how long is Starlight Spires going to last? If the Endless Night reached this place… where would everyone go, then?”
“Let us endeavor to keep that from happening,” Gwen said. She paused atop a flight of stairs to point out from this terrace to a lower platform. “Look how hard everyone’s working to help each other. There are few other places that can support these kinds of efforts. I believe the Library of Solitude’s protective field envelops this Location as well, but considering how the Bastions have failed to prevent the Endless Night, we cannot rely on that.”
Down below, Caleb saw a plaza that looked as if it was normally an open-air marketplace. But stalls and carts had been converted into aid stations, with people working swiftly and efficiently to organize the influx of refugees. There were stations for finding out what kinds of aid people needed and then seeing that delivered, stations for making sure families and friends found each other and people didn’t get lost in the crowds, and dozens of people directing traffic, talking loudly but kindly as they helped organize the flow of newcomers. They went up and down the lines, comforting those who were frightened and emotionally distraught, having only just recently escaped the flood of Darkness. They passed out food and blankets, talked with those waiting to be seen, and resolved disputes and issues that popped up far from the aid stations.
“There are lots of children,” Chelsea said. “And… they’re actually talking to them. Even being nice to them.”
“What’s so surprising about that?” Addie asked.
“Starlight Spires has a cultural disinclination towards children,” Gwen said. “The residents prefer children be neither seen nor heard. This… is a surprising turn.”
“Why don’t they like kids?” Addie asked, pouting.
“Because children are noisy and annoying, or something,” Chelsea said, shrugging. “Honestly, seeing how they’ve turned over a new leaf… who cares, now? Seeing they actually had some warmth hidden in their stone-cold hearts is a sight for sore eyes.”
“Were Isabelle and Delilah okay when you were here?” Caleb asked.
“Oh, yeah,” Chelsea said.
“The residents ignored them, for the most part,” Gwen said. “There was no outward antagonism or rejection. But they’ve always been willing to give visitors more leeway.”
“And when people show up really in need of help, they pull out all the stops to make it happen,” Chelsea said, grinning. “My opinion of these people just shot way up.”
They continued on. Having started in the largely empty outskirts, they now started to mingle with crowds, and so stuck closer together. Caleb hoisted Addie into a piggy-back ride, and she was incredibly excited about that. As they walked, Addie kept trying to beat Chelsea, Lorelei, and Gwen to the punch with directions, since she now could see from Caleb’s eye level, and kept pointing and calling out, “That way!” and “Tower sighted!” and things like that.
Once, an aid officer came to offer them assistance, but they quickly turned him away. “We’re not refugees,” Chelsea said. “Just passing through. Help the ones who need it.”
It wasn’t just aid stations and renovations that were going on. Several verandas, terraces, and plazas had been turned into stages for outdoor concerts, magic shows, or plays. Some were turned into playgrounds for children to let off nervous energy, and zoos, pools, and parks were bustling with activity. Signs were up at many of the events proclaiming that there was no cost of admission.
“It’s not just about food, clothing, or shelter,” Lorelei said. “After what these people have seen…”
“Yeah,” Caleb said. “They need something to smile about.”
They reached Millennium Vista in time, and followed the flow of traffic. Caleb was astonished at how well-organized everything was. The city was absolutely gargantuan, and yet was designed only for foot traffic — he hadn’t spotted a single vehicle anywhere, aside from tour boats in plazas with ponds or canal systems, and those were only for contained attractions. The bridge leading into Millennium Vista, Millennium Crossing, was as wide as a six-lane highway, and clearly separated into a dozen lanes for foot traffic — six for entering, and six for exiting. The lines never stopped or stalled, and even though their pace slowed because of the crowd, they were constantly moving towards their destination.
“It’s really just the entrance plaza where we have to be careful,” Chelsea said. “Stay close and don’t lose sight of each other. It gets kinda chaotic in there.”
“I’ll keep sight of everyone!” Addie said from Caleb’s shoulders. “I won’t let anyone get lost!”
“Atta girl,” Chelsea said, grinning.
They walked only a little bit farther when Addie suddenly cried out, “Oh!” At the same time, Will muttered, “I figured it out.”
“What’s up, you two?” Caleb asked.
“The name of the Human Realm!” Addie said. “Right?”
Will nodded. “I thought of one, too.”
“Wait… you guys were still thinking about that?” Chelsea asked. “After everything we’ve been dealing with?”
“Gwen said we could come up with a better name for our world,” Addie said. “So why not? And I finally figured it out!”
“So who’s going first?” Chelsea asked.
“Ladies first,” Will said, nodding to Addie.
“Ever the gentleman,” Caleb said.
“Okay!” Addie said. “I think we should call our world… the Secret Magic Kingdom!”
“That’s way more applicable to the Enchanted Dominion, though,” Chelsea said, raising an eyebrow. “After all this time, you just came up with a longer name to their world?”
“No, no,” Addie said, shaking her head. “See, our world is the ‘secret’ one, because we’ve kept magic a secret from everybody!”
“The secret’s out now, though,” Caleb said.
“Oh,” Addie said. She sighed. “And I spent so long working on it…”
“Give it another try later, kiddo,” Chelsea said with a smirk.
“What about you, Will?” Caleb asked.
“I thought we could call it the Celestial Expanse,” Will said. “Stars here are really representative, and in most Locations in the Enchanted Dominion, there aren’t any stars in the sky. But in our realm, that’s not the case. And the universe is constantly expanding, so that we can’t actually measure how big it is, so… that’s what I thought of. It’s more than Humans or Enchanted, and our realm is more than just Earth and the Moon. There are hundreds, thousands of galaxies out there that we haven’t touched.”
“It sounds kinda sci-fi, though,” Chelsea said. “And… I dunno, it makes our realm sound so… crazy huge.”
“It is crazy huge,” Lorelei said, chuckling. “Even the Earth by itself is big, but there’s so much beyond it, more than we can imagine.”
“That’s what I’m saying!” Chelsea said. “The Earth’s big enough. Do we need to give it a name that constantly reminds us of how tiny the Earth is in the grand scheme of things?”
“I like it,” Caleb said, smiling.
“You’re just backing up your bestie,” Chelsea said, rolling her eyes.
“No, I do,” Caleb said. “The universe is gigantic, but… it’s never made me feel small or insignificant. I look out at the stars and get excited every time. There’s so much out there, whole worlds that we’ve never seen, let alone touched. Just think of all the adventures people are going to keep having for generations, long after we’re gone. We’re never going to run out of new things to see, new places to explore.”
“It’s exciting,” Will said, nodding.
“It’s freaky,” Chelsea said. “I prefer how the Enchanted Dominion is set up. I can make sense of the Locations. And this is a nicer place to visit than Mars or Saturn.”
“How would you know if you’ve never been to those planets?” Caleb asked.
“We know what they look like,” Chelsea said, pursing her lips. “Mars is just a red desert, and Saturn’s a big ol’ ball of gas. No cities, no people. And they’re lacking all the variety of Earth or these Locations. You can’t describe Earth in just one thing like the other planets in our solar system, can you?”
“Deserts, forests, oceans, tundra,” Lorelei said. “There’s certainly a lot more variety on Earth than any planet we’ve been able to observe.”
“That’s what I’m saying!” Chelsea said. “Space is huge, but it’s boring, so what’s the point?”
“How do you know it’s boring if you haven’t seen all of it?” Addie asked.
“Don’t take the boys’ side,” Chelsea said, glaring.
“I’m not taking sides,” Addie said. “I’m saying what I genuinely think. And I think space is exciting. So there.”
Gwen, who’d remained silent through all of this at the front of the group laughed. “I think… I’ll just stay out of this discussion,” she said.
“Gwen, no!” Chelsea cried, throwing her arms over Gwen’s shoulders. “You can’t be on their side, too!”
“As I said,” Gwen said, and she and Chelsea went back and forth, Chelsea trying to get Gwen to confess which side she was on, and Gwen laughing and abstaining.
The conversation died off as they finally entered Millennium Vista, and Caleb, Will, and Addie all got to take a moment to murmur, “Wow.”
The entrance plaza really was quite chaotic. There was a general pattern and rhythm to the traffic, but it wasn’t as specified with lanes as Millennium Crossing, and people did occasionally move laterally, not just straight along in their lines. Gwen, Chelsea, Lorelei, Will, and Caleb all stuck close together, Caleb still carrying Addie on his shoulders.
“We’re heading to the lift marked ‘Transportation’,” Gwen said. “Addie, can you spot it?”
Addie took a few moments searching, then pointed. “That way!”
Caleb grinned. “Thanks,” he said. Addie giggled.
They found their way to the grated lift, large enough for several dozen people to board at once. There was a lift operator, which Caleb found odd. One of his favorite things in elevators was pushing the buttons, but he had to leave that to someone else? He wasn’t even allowed to touch them?
And yet, if he’d been allowed, he wouldn’t know where to start. There were hundreds of buttons on the inner wall of the lift, and he couldn’t figure out a rhyme or reason to them. They were combinations of letters and numbers. The first button at the bottom left was labeled GH23. After that was T12, then 45P, and so on, going up and up with seemingly random combinations.
“Where to?” the lift operator, Grantham, asked.
“Second Transport Terminal,” Gwen said, “I think. With passage to the Sea of Tranquility.”
“You got it right,” Grantham said, tipping his cap. “Second Transport Terminal it is.” He pressed a button towards the bottom, labeled X5N.
I’m glad you’re here, Grantham, because I never would’ve guessed that was our button.
Grantham slid the grated door shut and pulled a lever, and the lift began its descent. There was a steady whir of machinery, a faint clu-clunk of gears ticking along, and Caleb smiled. He’d always loved sounds like that. When he was a kid, he’d spend hours inside antique shops checking out old clocks, wind-up toys, and weird contraptions, listening closely to the sounds they made. When he’d been gifted his pocket watch Talisman for his twelfth birthday, he’d spent more time holding it up to his ear, listening to the faint tick-tick-ticking and gazing through its glassy portions at the machinery at work than he had actually using his magic.
They made three stops on the way down, gaining and losing passengers at different floors. Caleb gazed out at what little he could see from within the lift, trying to reconcile what he saw with what Grantham described the floor as being, and supplementing all he couldn’t see or hear with his imagination.
And then they reached their destination — the Second Transport Terminal. Grantham opened the door and bid them a good day, and they headed out. Down a short corridor, they emerged into a wide, circular chamber with surprisingly low amounts of traffic. Along the walls, from left to right, were numerous doors — thirty-six in all. Each had a different emblem above it, and signs at gates in front of them indicating where they led to. Caleb saw a door marked for Sunset Square, among many other Locations he’d never heard of. And then, all the way to the right…
“There it is!” Addie cried, pointing. “Sea of Tranquility.”
No one was going into or coming out of that door. It was silver, with faint tracery along its surface like crystalline, placid waters. Above the door, the logo was that of a still, glassy lake.
“This takes us there,” Caleb said, “but how do we get back?”
“The Sea of Tranquility is a Returner Location,” Gwen said. “Once your business there is concluded, it will send you back to where you arrived from.”
“Convenient,” Chelsea said.
“That all depends on where you arrived from,” Gwen said. “It has no traditional exits, so it can never send you anywhere else. It will always return you from whence you came, and nowhere else. And you cannot remain there forever.”
“Well, it’s convenient in our situation,” Caleb said. “Everyone ready?” Nods and murmurs of assent went around, and Caleb opened the door. All he saw was a sheet of white light, like the doors that led from one Daylight Bastion to another. But he knew how those worked, so he stepped through the light…
And into a brand new place.
The Sea of Tranquility lived up to its name. All around, as far as Caleb could see, was nothing but glassy, perfectly still, water, all the way to the distant horizon. He stood upon that water, as if it had no depth at all. Only when he took a step did the waters ripple gently, returning to glassy, tranquil stillness moments later.
Above stretched a blue, clear sky, calm and beautiful. And ahead of Caleb, the only landmark in the entire sea…
Was a silver door.
“This is what no one else has ever seen, right?” Caleb asked, approaching the door. “According to Maxwell.”
“And as far as I’ve heard, yes,” Gwen said. “There is never any mention of a door here. Whatever purpose has brought you here, it has something different in store for you than for all others.”
“It’s so beautiful,” Addie said, as Caleb lowered her to walk on her own. She tested out walking around on the waters, then running, then stomping, but no matter what she did, she couldn’t get the waters to splash. Only slight, gentle ripples. She lifted her feet to touch the bottoms of her shoes, and then brought up her hand. “The water’s wet. But it doesn’t really act like water otherwise.”
“It wouldn’t be the Sea of Tranquility if a little girl could make it splash wildly,” Chelsea said. “How about you just take it in?” She stood gazing at the horizon with a wistful expression. “It’s really calming, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Addie said.
“It really is,” Caleb murmured, taking some time to just gaze out across the glassy expanse. It was possible that what awaited through the door wasn’t so tranquil, so he wanted to take this place for what it was first.
But after a while, he did approach the door and place his hand on the doorknob. It was cool to the touch, smooth, without even the slightest imperfection. “You guys ready?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Chelsea said, and the others agreed. “Let’s go.”
Caleb turned the knob and pushed the door open, then stepped through.
He felt like… something flipped. A brief sensation of vertigo, and then all was normal. And through the door, the scenery barely changed. The daylight sky from before turned to night, a cool, tranquil night, the sky a deep blue, almost black. It was dark, but…
This isn’t the Darkness.
It was somehow… even more peaceful than the daylight sky. Faint, tiny pinpricks of stars twinkled above, more scattered and fewer than in any night sky Caleb had ever seen. But their lights reflected on the glassy Sea, like tiny diamond shards scattered across the waters.
Caleb turned to address the others…
And stared.
Wait. Am I…
He turned in a circle, looking all around.
…alone?
He stopped, having completed a full turn.
Chelsea. Addie. Lorelei. Gwen. Will.
They were nowhere to be seen. Neither was the door he’d come through.
Here in this peaceful night, he was all alone.
He looked down, staring at the water between his feet. He shifted his footing, just slightly, and a small ripple went out from there.
When the sea returned to normal… he was no longer alone.
She was here with him.
Caleb looked up to see the Blue Lady, the Woman of Time, the one he didn’t have a proper name for.
The one who spoke without speaking.
She gazed at him, wearing the same slightly sad smile she always wore. Then she bowed her head, looking at the water. Caleb followed suit.
His breath caught in his throat.
For the first time, he could see through the water. There was depth here — great depth. He stood atop the water, on the very surface, and he couldn’t descend below. But he could see now, and below…
Gears. Cogs. Flywheels. Pistons. Mechanisms, clockwork mechanisms. They floated in a deep, endlessly deep, blue ocean.
All were still. Just like the waters they rested within.
“This is…” Caleb started. He looked up, and saw the woman gazing back at him. “The… River of Time?” The woman nodded. “But… she’s not moving. Everything’s still. And inside, all that machinery, within the water, I thought…”
She’s alive. The River, she’s what I’ve always seen. That hasn’t changed.
But I was only seeing part of her. She’s alive, these waters are alive. But along with that…
Clockworks. Machinery, mechanisms, a mechanical element that I never saw before. I see it now, when I Phase Step. I thought that was just part of my transformation, part of the new Phase Step, but that thinking was too shallow.
The Phase Step lets me see things I can’t normally see. It lets me see how the River of Time really is, more than I could before.
Water, living water. But also… mechanical.
And here, at the Sea of Tranquility… so still.
“It’s part of the River of Time,” Caleb said softly. “A place where her waters are still, where time is stopped… forever?” He looked up.
But the woman was gone.
The door had returned.
“So that’s it, huh?” he asked. “I’ve gotta figure things out on my own. Or… well, not entirely. I still have two more places to go. I don’t have all of the pieces yet.”
He approached the door, but paused with his hand on the doorknob. He turned back, looked all around, and then down, at the endless depths full of clockworks and living water.
Still, so still. Time, frozen, unmoving.
This is the Sea of Tranquility. A pocket of stopped time — how else could it be so still? How else could the waters remain almost entirely undisturbed?
But what does it mean? What does it mean for me? Why was I called here?
Don’t forget a single detail of this place. It’s a piece of the puzzle.
He took in the water, the distant horizon, the calm night sky.
With a smile, he turned the doorknob, and went back through the door.
Daylight returned. The waters were opaque once more, obscuring the secret beneath the deeps. And Caleb was no longer alone. Chelsea, Addie, Lorelei, Gwen, and Will were here.
“The door disappeared!” Addie cried, pointing. “What do we do now?”
“Huh?” Caleb asked.
“What’s the point of a door that disappears the second you open it?” Chelsea asked, pursing her lips.
Disappears the second you…
Oh.
Caleb chuckled. “A lot happened,” he said. “Don’t worry, I’ll explain all of it.”
“A lot happened?” Chelsea asked. “But you didn’t go… oh.”
Caleb nodded. “Right.”
“Right, what?” Addie asked.
“Time Magic stuff,” Chelsea said. “Don’t worry. He’ll explain.”
Caleb laughed. The waters began to fade. The calming place began to disappear. And a moment later, they were all back in the Second Transport Terminal.
“Let’s find a place to sit down and talk,” Caleb said. “Gwen, is there a door to the Final Frontier from here?”
“Yes, in a different Transport Terminal,” Gwen said. “So when you’re ready, we can go directly to your next destination.”