Delilah sat across from Alice, fixing her with an earnest, intent stare.
“I don’t know why we gotta do this right now,” Alice said, her white eyes looking away. “We need to look at the page, you know? Figure it out in context with the rest and all that. And everyone’s waiting for us.”
“Waiting patiently,” Delilah said. “We’re not holding anyone up. And I know you want to know, no matter how scared you are, whether or —”
“I’m not scared!” Alice snapped, her eyes flicking to black, meeting Delilah’s gaze. Silence hung in the air between them for several heartbeats, Delilah’s expression never wavering under Alice’s fierce glare.
And then… Alice faltered. Her eyes flicked to white as she bowed her head. “Ah, fine,” she said softly. “I… yeah, okay. We can try it.” She pushed herself to her feet and looked around Delilah, at Delilah’s four Felines. “You guys better keep things in check if this… doesn’t go well.”
“We will,” Delilah said, standing.
“Okay,” Alice said, nodding once. She took a deep breath, then let it out slowly, closing her eyes. Softly, she murmured, “Rabanastre.”
There was a moment of hesitation, and then a portal snapped open beside Alice. Out stepped her white anthropomorphic rabbit Summon, tall and muscular, his black eyes fixed in his usual sharp glare. He looked down at Alice as the portal snapped shut, and it took a few moments for Alice to look up at him.
“Hey,” she said meekly, managing a small smile. “Been… a while, huh?” Slowly, she held out her hand, closing it into a fist.
Rabanastre stared at that hand for a long, long time without moving. Delilah watched with bated breath, feeling the tension thick in the air. Alice hadn’t called out Rabanastre since he’d suddenly, shockingly attacked her on the Westward Plains. And while that attack had come in his black rabbit form, his white rabbit form was nearly as intimidating. Would he attack his Summoner, too?
When Rabanastre finally did move, Delilah and all of her Felines jumped, shifting in readiness, but…
All Rabanastre did was fold his arms across his chest and turn slightly away from Alice, letting out a harsh breath like a frustrated, angry sigh.
“Mad at me, huh?” Alice asked, and a weak chuckle couldn’t hide the anguish in her voice. “I… look, I… never knew. I never knew what kind of power you were drawing on, what I was using, it was all just fun and games and instinct, you know? I never thought about how I was doing things — how we were doing things. I just… did stuff.”
Rabanastre fixed his eyes on a point in the distance. They stood
in the Library of Solitude’s Inner Gardens, in a spacious courtyard. While Delilah and Alice, along with their Summons, were near the center of that courtyard around a white table, their companions weren’t far off. Marcus, Maribelle, Sarabelle, and Terevalde sat off to the side. Isabelle still remained with Caleb’s group, but they’d make sure to find her when it was time to leave.
This, also, was important to do before they left the Library. They needed to figure out what was wrong with Rabanastre, and understand how they could mend the rift between Summoner and Summon.
“It’s not like I chose to use the Darkness,” Alice said, letting out a sigh. “It’s… what was done to me. ‘Dark Eater.’ That’s… what I am. And I guess there’s bad stuff there, but I can also take in the Darkness and neutralize it, so —” she looked earnestly up at Rabanastre, “— we’ve gotta find a different way. I didn’t even know that Darkness powered your black rabbit form, but now that it does, now that I know, I can’t keep on using it. You know? I’m a Paladin now, and —” She cut off, turning to eye Marcus. “Hey, gramps. Can I… am I really allowed to be a Paladin when I’m… whatever the heck I am?” There was uncharacteristic vulnerability in the question, and Alice lowered her gaze as she asked, seemingly braced for disappointment.
“You already are a Paladin,” Marcus said with a smile. “And you could not be a Paladin if you were not worthy of it. Dark Eater or no, even with the remaining unknowns about you, it is clear as can be that you are no agent or being of Darkness, Alice.”
“But how do you know?” Alice asked, achingly, eyes still downcast.
“No agent or being of Darkness could have done what you’ve done, the way that you’ve done it,” Marcus said. His voice overflowed with warm, accepting kindness. “You saved Revue Palace from the Darkness. And you did that not with Darkness, but with Light. You are more a Paladin than many others I know with that same title.”
Alice turned on her heel, so Marcus couldn’t see her face — but Delilah could. She saw the embarrassment and also rare tears glistening in Alice’s white eyes. “Thanks, gramps,” Alice said, softly. Slowly she held up her right hand, gazing at the bracelet on her wrist, threaded with tiny gemstones, alternating colors between white and black. “I… never forgot. Eventide Archive. That test you did, and then you gave us these bracelets. I… you said I passed, right?”
“And you did pass,” Marcus said.
Delilah thought back to that test, before they’d followed the trail to the Drowned Palace, before they’d taken on the Revue of the Night and learned that the Drowned Palace was actually the Revue Palace, before they’d saved it, before… so much happened.
That simple test in Eventide Archive had taken her to a place of light, white light, pure and endless. A light that ran right through her, that left no shadow.
It had felt amazing, incredible. Like she could do anything.
And that test had been conducted for Alice, too. Both of them had passed, both had experienced something so amazing. And on Delilah’s left wrist, she bore a bracelet, too, threaded with tiny gemstones that shone with five colors — orange, green, purple, blue, and white.
Those bracelets had joined Delilah and Alice together, had blazed with a connection of white fire when they’d taken on Jormungand at the end of the Revue of the Night, in Shadowland.
You couldn’t do what you’ve done, the way you’ve done it, if you were an agent or being of Darkness.
Delilah looked up to see a small smile playing at Alice’s lips. Slowly, Alice looked up at Rabanastre. “We’ve gotta try to do things differently,” she said. “I know you’re mad at me for changing, but I couldn’t stay the way I was. I —” She paused, then, and Delilah recognized that pause, that thoughtful look in Alice’s eyes. Rabanastre was speaking to her, in that strange wordless way that Summons spoke to their Summoners. Alice’s lips parted in surprise, her eyes widened. “You… you’re… scared? Of me?”
Anger had seemed the obvious answer to Delilah, too. But to hear that Rabanastre had been — and perhaps still was — frightened of his Summoner…
It was like pieces clicking into place. It fit, in a way that rage did not.
The bond between Summoner and Summon is deeply intimate and personal. And our Summons rely on us. They’re given form by our wish when we call them, they become what they are for the sake of their Summoner.
If their Summoner was to change, change in such a big, such a fundamental, way, a way that rejected a power she’d used with her Summon for so long…
That would be terrifying, wouldn’t it? A Summon’s purpose, their joy and being, is to give their all for their Summoner, to live up to their wishes and dreams. For Alice to change in a way that rejects that black rabbit form, rejects the Darkness… that would feel like she’s rejecting him. Like she no longer has need for him. He’s used that form, that power, to protect her. To serve her. And now…
“That’s not —!” Alice started, then faltered, bowing her head. “Rabanastre, I…” And then she sighed, shook her head, and raised a small fist. Slowly, she looked back up at him, a hopeful smile on her face. “I would never reject you. I’m changing. Because I have to! Because it’s right. But I don’t want you to get left behind. So… what do you say? Will you change with me?”
Rabanastre always had an intense glare on his face, no matter the situation. It made it hard for Delilah to judge his actual feelings. And he fixed that glare on Alice’s held-out fist for a long, long time before doing anything.
But then, slowly… he uncrossed his arms, and lowered one large, furred fist to bump against hers.
Alice’s face lit up like Delilah had never seen before. There was an innocence that Alice never showed, an excitement, an amazement, like suddenly everything in the world was right, was good, was perfect. And then, suddenly, Alice darted forward, hugging Rabanastre tightly around the waist.
“Thank you,” she murmured softly, pressing her face against his fur. “Thank you. I’ll never leave you behind, I promise. I’ll never let you go.”
Hidden in that excitement was a truth Delilah knew Alice knew clearly. It wasn’t going to be easy. There was still a lot that Alice didn’t know about herself — that none of them knew about her.
But this was a big, hopeful first step.
And as long as they’re both in sync, they’re gonna be okay.
“Hey,” Alice said, pulling back and looking at Delilah. She nodded in a sort of commanding way, jerking her head towards Rabanastre. “Get over here, will ya?”
Delilah didn’t get where this was going, but she walked right over all the same. Stopping a few steps from Rabanastre, she met Alice’s white-eyed gaze for a moment. And then she glanced down, saw one of Alice’s hands clenched in a fist, and got it. She smiled, raising her own fist, looking up at Rabanastre. “We’re in this together,” she said.
Rabanastre bumped his fist against hers, strong but gentle. His glaring scowl didn’t change, but Delilah thought she was starting to see a bit of the nuance in that expression. It wasn’t completely static, and she thought it softened the slightest bit.
“Okay,” Alice said, breathing a sigh of relief and then turning to the rest of their group. “Now that that’s settled, let’s get to work, huh?”
“Let’s,” Delilah said with a nod.
They gathered around the table with Marcus, Maribelle, Sarabelle, and Terevalde joining them, putting together all that they had of the Book of the Key with the newest page Terevalde had led them to.
“Hey, it connects what we had to what we got from Irielle,” Alice said as they organized the pages together. They’d had their portion of the Book of the Key, which they’d found in Revue Palace, that started from the beginning and then suddenly cut off. Then they’d gained their pages from Irielle at the Third Bell Tower, two tablets, four pages in total, that were disconnected from what they’d already had.
And now they had one more tablet, one double-sided “page,” that fit right between the Third Bell Tower’s first page and the last page they’d had in the Book. And suddenly, things came together in a much more coherent way… to a point. They were still lost at the end of Irielle’s pages, but even so…
The first part continued from where they’d left off in the Book, completing a painting of what appeared to be one of the three Bell Towers, and yet, it didn’t quite look like any of the ones they had visited.
“Where is this?” Delilah asked, tracing her finger along the low, lakeside city’s skyline, and the spiraling Bell Tower in the center, which looked nothing like the other Bell Towers.
“It is the Secret Bell,” Terevalde said, in a tone of mingled reverence and grief. “Now, they call it the Lost Bell. In the Tragedy… it was destroyed. Parts have been rebuilt, but the city no longer stands as you see it here. Nor will it ever be whole again.”
Delilah gazed at the image with a pang of loss in her heart. This painting was how things were. How things were supposed to be. And it was now the only way the city’s former state could be seen.
She read aloud the text of the joining pages, finally able to make sense of them with the newest page: “To finde the wayfaerer’s rooste in forgotten rieliving days, stand forth. From darkest light, of loste travails last Terevalde bestowed, he found there the starrisen soulcrafte. O Sacred Bell, if seals are twined, ring once, but if not, ring twice, for hearts to hear the lightbaring peal and know the time is nigh.”
“Oh for crying —” Alice started, leaning back in her chair and letting out a loud groan. “Just write things clearly! Is it that much to ask?”
“Long ago, this would have been as clear as what you just said,” Terevalde said, a smile in his voice that didn’t show on his face. “Although it is partly a riddle, the pieces are harder to make out when the dialect has long since faded into distant memory.”
“Something about finding a ‘wayfarer’s roost’,” Delilah said. “But… relieving days? What does that mean?”
“Not ‘relieving’,” Terevalde said. “ ‘Reliving.’ The path to this city requires passing through the Corridors of Memory, a place where you relive the days of your life. The wayfarer’s roost is a waypoint between this city and the entrance to the Corridors of Memory.”
“So what does it mean by ‘stand forth’?” Sarabelle asked. “Do you travel down the Corridor, or simply stand strong…”
“An old phrase that no longer means what it once did,” Marcus said. “To stand forth, in this context, means to stride forth with purpose.”
“The simple action of standing had much deeper symbolism in days long past,” Terevalde said. “To stand was to make yourself known, to show that you were true to a deep, abiding purpose, that your determination was true and would not yield.”
“That’s way too heavy for a simple verb,” Alice said, rolling her eyes. Delilah, on the other hand — though she didn’t say so — thought there was something really powerful about that symbolism, and kept that old meaning close to her heart.
For some reason, I feel like all words used to be that way. Or like… they should be that way.
“So you reach the wayfarer’s roost, which is just a checkpoint, by going through the Corridors of Memory,” Alice said, shrugging. “Okay, next line.”
“That is a gross oversimplification, but we can work with that, for the moment,” Terevalde said. “The nuances and details are important, but for now, broad strokes will suffice. It is not yet time to make such a trek.”
“You’re in the next line,” Delilah said, looking up at Terevalde. “Can you talk about it?”
“I… can,” Terevalde said, composing himself. “In broadest terms, it’s simply recounting that I traveled to and returned from the darkest light, bringing back with me ‘strarrisen soulcrafte’ — there… isn’t a good way to describe that with today’s words. Essentially, a treasure, a treasure not of material or wealth, but of… passion. A creation of the soul, artwork that you can neither hold with your hands, nor hear with your ears, nor see with your eyes. It is a treasure that can only be rightly seen, held, or heard with the heart.”
“I’m just gonna shut my mouth off until we’re done analyzing this stuff,” Alice said, casting an exasperated look Delilah’s way. “You’ll bring it all together for me, right?”
Delilah chuckled. “I could,” she said. “Or you could try to pay attention. I think it’s fascinating.”
“Yeah, you would,” Alice said, and she smirked, but then held true to her word and kept her mouth shut.
“Finally, it talks about ringing this fourth Bell,” Delilah said, “but I don’t understand. Why is there a fourth Bell at all? What’s it for? Have we missed something?”
“The Secret Bell — now the Lost Bell — is only to be rung in certain circumstances,” Terevalde said. “It also need not be rung by the Keybearer, though that is preferred. It has no Bellkeeper, either, because it’s simple, as it says — you ring once, or you ring twice. The first ring is for if the ‘seals are twined’ — if the Key’s pedestals are all sealed, then you’ll need one further Bell to unseal them. If not, then ringing it twice… that… well.” He bowed his head, toying with the monocle that hung from his waistcoat, unused. “The Author and I… and Gio… we never did quite figure that one out. It was written in the Book exactly as we were told, but I am afraid I do not know what the double ring is for.”
“Wait, you don’t know everything?” Alice asked, breaking her vow of silence. “But isn’t that the whole point of you running along with us, to explain everything?”
“I am one of three,” Terevalde said. “In many ways, one of two — Gio was the least involved in constructing the Book — but that is the rub, there. There are things I can’t fully elucidate on my own. And even then, there are things that none of us knew or understood. Though perhaps we can learn together.”
“We’ll just have to pursue the truth together,” Delilah said with a gentle smile, particularly aimed at Alice. Alice leaned back, letting out a long, slow sigh, but didn’t object further. “So,” Delilah continued, “if we need to ring the Lost Bell, we’ll have to find and travel through the Corridor of Memory, to the wayfarer’s roost, and then to the city. The starrisen soulcrafte… is that something we need?”
“It would be a boon to you, yes,” Terevalde said. “It is not held at that city any longer, though — the Author managed to secret it out, protect it from the Tragedy. But we can speak more on that after we work through the rest of the text.”
Delilah nodded. “And then, if the Key’s pedestals are all sealed, we’ll need to ring the Bell once. If not… well, we should probably find out what the double ring is for, just so we understand things properly. It wouldn’t be good to go into things blindly.”
“No, it would not,” Marcus said, nodding approvingly.
“Shall we continue?” Maribelle asked.
Delilah nodded, turning the page. Here, Terevalde’s new page and Irielle’s first page joined together to provide a complete whole that they hadn’t had before. And that complete whole shocked Delilah to her core.
“Hollow Island,” she breathed in a taut, stunned whisper. For that was the illustration these two pages formed. The vast, green ocean surrounded the densely jungled isle, and in the center, the great mountain rising up to a hollow peak.
“You have been there?” Terevalde asked.
Delilah nodded. How could she forget? “We went through it to help Isabelle get back home,” she said. “But… what’s it doing here?”
“Let’s work out the text, shall we?” Sarabelle asked.
Delilah composed herself and read aloud, while all followed along. “My solemn travail begins here, and I leave behind my sacred charges. In wonder and heart I stood forth, not knowing the… cerrelase?” Delilah looked to the others, particularly Marcus and Terevalde.
“Cerrelase,” Marcus said, and Delilah realized she’d been far off the mark. She’d pronounced it with a soft C and ended with a sound like “ace,” but Marcus pronounced it so it sounded like “Care-a-liss.”
“Delilah’s way sounds cooler,” Alice muttered.
“A lost word,” Marcus continued, “meaning something akin to destruction, fallout, or collapse.”
That last definition sent a chill down Delilah’s spine. She continued where she’d left off, “In wonder and heart I stood forth, not knowing the cerrelase that worked to follow. Startwain draws too closed, and light runs the deeps. Had I known, would…” Words were smudged out, and Delilah had the feeling it was done so on purpose. Nothing was legible for several words, and then continued with a new sentence. “The Shepherd departs, leaving Hollow her charges.”
“So what’s going on here?” Alice asked. “It suddenly got all personal.”
“I didn’t know Em— the Author put such entries in the Book,” Terevalde said, leaning close, reading over the passage again and again. He turned the page forward, then back. “But it seems, if there are more, she’s spread them out, not put them all in order in one place.”
“So this is the Author talking about herself?” Delilah asked. “But… she lived on Hollow Island?”
“She did,” Terevalde said, nodding. “She was the Shepherd of the Hollows, but when she left with us on this quest of learning and study… she never went back again.”
“Shepherd?” Delilah asked, incredulity rising in her voice. “Of the Hollows? But they’re just… just monsters!” Memories of training against them in Grimoire flooded through her mind. Not just training, either — of how terrifying it had been when she’d faced so many Hollows at once outside Grimoire’s public library, and then been blasted away to Hollow Island with Caleb and the others, only to see even more frightening, more powerful Hollows. And then, in the Library of Solitude, the Darkness had frequently taken on the beasts’ shapes and abilities, so she’d fought nightmarish versions of already nightmarish creatures for so long, before fighting an endless horde of them to protect the Dream Forge…
“Monsters?” Terevalde asked, and the innocence in the question stunned Delilah. He bowed his head, toying with the unused monocle. “I see. Then… that is what has become of them since she left?” He looked up, meeting Delilah’s gaze. “Can you tell me more of them?”
“They attack Grimoire every single night!” Delilah said. And then she sat back, composing herself. “I… okay. Right. Let me… start from the beginning.” And she did, talking of Grimoire, of Hollow Hour, of the Hunters. And then how they’d attacked them on Hollow Island, and then how the Darkness took their shapes in the Library of Solitude. As she recounted both memories and broader knowledge, Terevalde listened intently. Once she’d finished, he was silent for a moment in thought.
“The Hollows are… well, they live up to their names,” Terevalde said. “They are hollow. They have no soul, they are vessels that operate on the will of another. For eons, Hollow Island had a Shepherd, the last being the Author. Without a Shepherd… Darkness must have seen an opportunity and taken hold. But I cannot say more for certain without seeing for myself.”
“But if they’re confined to an island, why do they attack Grimoire every single night?” Alice asked, pursing her lips in thought.
“There are spaces and times where rifts open up between the Enchanted Dominion and the Human Realm,” Terevalde said. “Hollow Island is a space with many such complex rifts. If Hollows attack your city every night, that is not the only city.”
“That’s right,” Delilah said, having read and heard about other mage communities on Earth that also faced a “Hollow Hour” of their own every night.
“If Darkness fills them and give them wicked purpose,” Marcus said, “then, as long as they knew of the rifts, they would eagerly charge through.”
“So, what, do they come in unlimited supply?” Alice asked.
“Yes,” Terevalde said, earning an incredulous black-eyed look from Alice. “Hollows replenish those lost almost immediately. The overall population fluctuates, but without a Shepherd to control things, I can imagine they would go beyond replenishment to extreme replication.”
“How does that even work, though?” Alice asked. “Seriously? There’s no end to them, no matter what?”
“Why are the Hollows that appear in Grimoire different from the ones on Hollow Island?” Delilah asked. She didn’t like walking over other people’s questions, but this was a question that had struck her long ago when she’d first been to Hollow Island, and now it came to the forefront, and she didn’t want to let it escape her mind unasked.
“Different?” Terevalde asked. Delilah explained, and he toyed with his monocle as he listened. “Interesting… perhaps it has something to do with passage through the rifts? I do not know. I’m sorry. As for how they replenish themselves… it is how they were made, how they function. I don’t understand the inner workings, and I’m not sure even the former Shepherd does.”
“Did you know about any of this, gramps?” Alice asked, eyeing Marcus.
“I know almost nothing about Hollow Island or the Hollows, I’m afraid,” Marcus said. “They weren’t appearing in Grimoire when it was my people’s city, and I have not put any effort into studying them since they did start appearing.”
There was so much to take in, so much to try and understand. And all of it had suddenly become so much more complicated.
Hollows are supposed to have a Shepherd? They aren’t naturally blood-thirsty monsters?
But as Delilah thought on that, and what Marcus had said about them not appearing in his city, she realized something — Hollow Hour hadn’t always existed. If she was remembering her history correctly, Hollows hadn’t started appearing in Grimoire until roughly five hundred years ago.
We didn’t always have Hunters, either. The Guardian Guild used to be all there was to defend the city, but after a few years of Hollows attacking every night, the Hunter Guild spawned from the Guardian Guild to specifically focus on that threat.
But… it’s still so…
It was so much. And it was too much right now, when Delilah was trying to understand the Book, and the Key of the World, and to stop the Endless Night, and to be a Paladin, and…
Slowly, she took in a deep breath, then let it out. “Right,” she said, nodding. “Let’s just keep all this in mind for now. We don’t have to focus on it right now. Let’s move forward.”
“Sounds good to me,” Alice said, sitting back, tilting her chair onto its back legs.
Delilah turned the page to the last complete image and text they had, given by Irielle. There was an illustration that was haunting yet beautiful, of a bombed-out, charred ruin of a city amidst an ocean of fire. Slowly, Delilah read, words that still made no sense to her: “To go where all else nigh availe to tread, there lies untraveled road. Loste travails help shattered souls meet, collide, in pyurifying ascent. One, three, toogether is all, apahrt is lost. The fires will choose.”
“There’s that phrase again: ‘loste travails’,” Sarabelle said.
“It was used for you before,” Alice said, eyeing Terevalde. “What’s it mean?”
“It means…” Terevalde paused, eyes downcast, flickering with some old hurt, “a journey — often short — that comes at great pain. Something is lost in the quest.”
“You lost something to get the treasure?” Alice asked.
“Yes,” Terevalde murmured in a soft, haunted voice.
“It’s spelled differently,” Maribelle said, pointing. “It’s ‘loste travails’ here, but the next sentence ends with ‘lost’ spelled like it is today. Was that an error?”
“No error,” Terevalde said. “Good catch. Loste travails is as I described, but that specific spelling of the first word, with the silent E, is an important signifier for that phrase. Otherwise, lost means as you understand it to mean. But let us walk through this from the start.”
“Is that city a real place?” Alice asked. “Is there really an ocean of fire?” Her white eyes glittered with excitement.
“It is very real,” Terevalde said, not sharing Alice’s excitement. “It was an important point on our journey to understanding, but it should not be necessary for the Keybearer.”
“Are you sure?” Maribelle asked. “It was included in the Book. And every detail, every bit of understand of what you went through, will surely help us, won’t it?”
Terevalde bowed his head. “I…” he started. “It is… difficult to speak of. But… yes. You are correct. I —”
“Delilah, Alice!” came the voice of Isabelle, running to them across the garden path. “Big news, big news!”
Delilah and Alice both looked, and saw that Isabelle wasn’t alone. Delilah immediately rose to her feet, excited at the new arrival.
“Twelve!” she cried, smiling as the Paladin of Shimmerveil Pike, a living clockwork doll, came following in Isabelle’s wake, never hurrying, always composed. He came to a stop at their table and bowed with surprising elegance for his short, rounded form and clockwork joints, and then smiled up at Delilah and Alice.
“It is good to see you both again,” he said in his musical voice. “And you as well, Marcus, Maribelle, Sarabelle. And someone I do not yet know.” He bowed again, to Terevalde this time. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance. I am Twelve, Paladin of Shimmerveil Pike.”
Terevalde introduced himself with just his single name, no last name or titles that might add more to what little Delilah knew of him so far. “It is a pleasure,” Terevalde continued. “Are you… perhaps… one of Doctor Flamel’s creations?”
“Doctor Flamel was the teacher of my creator,” Twelve said. “I am the twelfth and last of Rickwell Redding’s creations, and he failed to pass on his knowledge to a successor as Doctor Flamel did.”
“A pity,” Terevalde said, bowing to Twelve. “I hope that you live a long, peaceful life, difficult as it may become in these dark days.”
“I thank you,” Twelve said with a smile, turning his attention to Delilah. “But I have no fear of the dark days. They will not last much longer, thanks to Delilah and Alice.”
“You got that right!” Alice said, but Delilah couldn’t handle the praise, blushing and ducking her gaze, which didn’t help when the one giving the praise was only half her height.
“What was the ‘big news,’ Belle-Belle?” Maribelle asked.
“He’s gonna tell it,” Isabelle said, coming to sit at the table with the rest of them.
“Yes,” Twelve said, nodding once. “First of all, I managed to procure one of your lost pages.” He dug into the satchel at his side and pulled forth a familiar-sized wooden tablet, handing it to Delilah.
Delilah took it reverently, staring at Twelve in awe. “Thank you,” she said. “Truly. This… I didn’t think we’d find another page so soon.”
“I’m pleased that I could help,” Twelve said. “Also, it pains me to report that Shimmerveil Pike has been taken. Darkness took it, though it has since been contained and will not spread further to any Bastions connected to Shimmerveil Pike.”
“Your Bastion’s gone?” Alice asked, eyes wide.
“Not gone,” Twelve said, calm but serious. “Taken, for the moment. But once the Night’s forces are vanquished, we can reclaim it. I and all of my Sub-Paladins and administrators were able to evacuate safely, and I take solace in that success.”
“Oh, thank goodness,” Delilah said, breathing a sigh of relief.
“Yes,” Twelve said, smiling. “Furthermore, I may not be able to aid you further — not in the near future, anyway. I have been called to a very special mission, one of great secrecy. But it will be to your benefit, I assure you.”
“A mission?” Delilah asked.
“Why a secret, huh?” Alice asked, frowning.
“Because it is too important, too vital, to risk the enemy knowing even the slightest detail,” Twelve said. “Don’t worry, Alice, Delilah. All will be set right. We will not fail.”
——
Sal smiled up, up, up, through the Darkness, at two battered, bruised, nearly broken Paladins high above his throne.
“How…?” came the weak, incredulous gasp of Maestro Siegfried, greatest warrior of all the Paladins. His sword was shattered, his shield rent in two, his armor gashed and bloodied. “You… your weakness was…”
“A ruse,” Sal said. “And you fell for it spectacularly, I must say.” He nudged his foot, tipping over the corpse of a Paladin, sending it tumbling into darkness.
To join thousands more.
“Why stall now?” asked Lady Kodoka. She, too, was bloodied, leaning heavily on Maestro Siegfried, nursing a broken arm. “Kill us, if you’re so mighty. Let us join our charges.”
“So you can absolve yourselves of your magnificent failure in a swift death?” Sal asked. He clucked his tongue. “No, no, that won’t do. You need to live. You must stand as witnesses to this battle.”
“Battle,” Maestro Siegfried scoffed. “We were… barely even able to… fight.”
“And now you know,” Sal said. “Now you see, and now you despair. The Endless Night cannot be stopped, not by all of the power and forces that you can muster.”
“Then why leave witnesses?” Lady Kodoka asked. “Why, if we are to die so soon anyway?”
Even with so much pain and injury, even weighed down by grief and failure, she still holds herself as tall as she can. She still speaks and glares at me with such pride, with such noble disdain.
“To join the Darkness is different from death,” Sal said. “But no, that doesn’t matter. I leave you alive for a very important purpose. You, the two greatest of all Paladins… must deliver a message.”
“Message?” Lady Kodoka asked, arching an eyebrow.
“Yes,” Sal said, smiling broadly. “Tell the Greyson children and their companions, as many of them as you can find. Tell them: I am coming.”