I approach the Morrigan’s throne with confidence I don’t feel. I want her to be an ally, but I’m terrified of making her my enemy. Ferromancer stays by the entrance, giving me a nod of reassurance. “Be truthful,” she warns quietly. “No matter the question, be truthful.” I nod back. “What kind of war?” I ask the Morrigan. I have the temptation to be glib even now, but I don’t want to be disrespectful, not here. This isn’t the time for snarky Rachel. “The war between witches and magical girls? Sidereals and solars? Or do you have another war in mind?” The central clearing of the Morrigan’s garden stretches and stretches as I walk, her throne remaining fixed in the distance. The corpse, in still repose, speaks again. “One war feeds another, the engines of conflict feasting on wounded hearts as blood nourishes the soil. You know a few wars, as you have said; what do they feed, and what do they feed upon?” I stop trying to get closer to the throne; I doubt I’ll be able to until I answer her questions. Another interrogation, joy. But at the end of it, I’m hoping I get some answers to my questions. “I guess it depends on the region,” I say with a shrug. “There are parts of the world where war is a lot more literal and hundreds or thousands die each day, swept up in bloody regime change or territorial expansion. There are magical girls and witches there, too. I don’t know what those wars feed except themselves.” I’ve never cared to know. “And here?” the Morrigan prompts in her surprisingly beautiful voice. “What of our homegrown bloodshed?” “There’s not much blood being shed,” I answer with a frown. “Coterie and Vanguard play by rules of engagement that keep the death to a minimum all around, and the more I learn the more it sounds like half their conflict is just to appease the political forces they’re trying to manipulate for a shared good. Visage isn’t even pretending their war is real, it’s all spectacle for the crowd. The Catastrophes bring bloodshed, but we treat them like natural disasters, not soldiers. The only real war being fought is against the Syndicate, which seems like the only faction in the area that actually cares about magical girls versus witches in and of itself.” “And tell me,” the Morrigan commands, “which of these wars are desired by the Jovians who granted us power?” Now there’s a question. What makes a war desirable? How could I know that when I know so very little about the Jovians and their motives? Would they wish for the bloody wars, or for the wars of distraction? Are the Catastrophes successes or failures? What do the Jovians gain from any of this? What’s their end goal? How involved are they in the operation of each faction? I can’t know any of that for certain, but the Morrigan thinks I should be able to deduce an answer from what little I do know. She’s leading me to something. Unbidden, an old conversation with Mordacity floats to mind. We’ve had so many late night chats about everything from magical girls to video games, but right now I can’t get one particular phrase out of my head. She’s said it so often it might be her favorite phrase. Slowly, carefully, I say, “‘The purpose of a system is what it does.’ The Jovians do their research before they empower their chosen. Pandora selected me after extensive profiling. If they didn’t want witches to join Visage, they wouldn’t pick those witches. Vanguard, Coterie, Syndicate, their ranks only grow because the Jovians allow it. Maybe a few could slip through the cracks and be misjudged, but it’s consistent. They all keep getting new members, so that must be a desirable outcome, because otherwise they’d tighten their selection process and exclude the kinds of women who are motivated to join those organizations. And the same is true of mages in war-torn countries, of warlords and vigilante murderers and all the rest. If they didn’t want a war, they’d stop feeding that war. But they feed them all, so they want all of those wars. The answer is all of them.” I blink and I’m halfway down the path, much closer to the throne than before. The Morrigan’s cold-burning eyes stare down at me implacably and without emotion. Her voice, warm and rich, floats into my mind again. “You have sight, and for this I offer praise. But how far does it reach? Tell me, Archon: what do you think of the Jovians?” Ferromancer asked me this question before, when she interrogated me in her workshop. I’ve had time to develop my answer, so this time it comes quick and smooth. “They gave me power, and for that I’m grateful. Attention is effortless now, and fame and fortune are but a bit of effort away. I love being a witch. I don’t know why they make Catastrophes or Syndicate witches, and to be perfectly honest I don’t care. I’m selfish like that.” I pause. “But they’re also the reason that someone I care about deeply is in constant danger. The solars empowered her and gave her the mandate that is going to kill her. The sidereals tell me they only want her distracted, but I can’t trust their word. If the Jovians mean her harm, then the Jovians are my enemy, no matter what they’ve given me.” My fists tighten. “My only worry is that I’ll be powerless to stop them. That if I try, they’ll take it all away.” I’m closer now, just before the throne. A circular glass table stands between me and the Morrigan, and upon that table is a folded slip of paper. The Morrigan speaks, “I commend your answer. I possess great knowledge that you would be glad to learn, and three secrets I will share with you—if and only if you swear an oath of secrecy in turn.” My heartbeat quickens. Three secrets? What exactly is the Morrigan about to tell me? And is she going to take me at my word, or is this a magic oath? It has to be—I’d heard rumors about the Morrigan’s binding vows long before Ferromancer confirmed they were real—and I have no idea what the consequences for breaking it might be, but there’s not a drop of hesitation in me as I answer, “Absolutely. Just tell me what to swear.” She gestures to the paper in front of me. “Read from the script before you and my power shall do the rest.” Definitely a magic oath. I pick up the slip and unfold it. I quickly glance over it, because I’m not the kind of idiot to sign a contract without reading it, but I don’t find anything to contest. “I, the witch known as Archon, in exchange for the gift of knowledge and three secrets promised, swear myself to secrecy in matters of the Morrigan’s conspiracy. I shall not speak of that which I am about to learn except in the company of my conspirators while in places of true sanctuary. I shall not reveal the identities of my conspirators to any outsider, least of all to the Enemy we oppose. I shall keep the trust of my conspirators in the faith that it is given, as they shall keep for me.” The sky darkens. A weight falls around my shoulders like a heavy cloak draped by loving hands. My own words whisper in my ears. “I swear this with the Morrigan as my witness. I swear this without guile or deceit, in expectation of the same truthfulness in turn. I swear this by my own magic, may it turn against me if I forswear.” The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. The cloak grows heavier, weighing me down. The flame in my chest roars in answer to the oath I’ve sworn. I know with absolute certainty that my words are binding. Tʜe sourcᴇ of thɪs content ɪs 𝙣𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙡⁂𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚⁂𝙣𝙚𝙩 And then it passes. The sensation of the cloak around my shoulders vanishes, the flame of Prometheus settles down to a pleasant warmth, and the sky blooms clear blue once again. The Morrigan says, “The first secret I will share is this: your fears are unfounded. The Jovians will not take your power away—no matter what you do—because they can’t.” “What!?” I blurt. “What do you mean they can’t!?” The throne-bound corpse laughs in my mind, warm and pleasant and sympathetic, body remaining still. “I had much the same reaction when I was told. ‘Empower and guide,’ these are the restrictions placed upon the Jovians. They can empower, but they cannot disempower. I am assured of this limitation by the insight of Strix Striga. There is little of their rhetoric that she trusts, but she believes with conviction that ‘empower and guide’ is a true restriction—and that if they could take away her gift, they would have done so years ago, for she has long been their greatest opponent.” The implications of that are staggering. The Jovians empower witches and magical girls with gifts they can’t take back, pushing them into a conflict over which their control is purely manipulative. They can’t force us to do anything, but they keep that a secret to have another lever by which to move us. Are they counting on enough of us dying before we start considering rebellion, or is it just an acceptable risk to their true objectives? But all of that is secondary. It’s fascinating, but there’s something else that stuck out more: Striga. The Morrigan is in contact with Striga. The Morrigan was told this weakness of the Jovians by Strix Striga herself, probably in this very room. Striga, their greatest opponent. My gaze flicks to Ferromancer, who is suddenly just a few feet behind me, standing before the throne in her expressionless silver mask. “Your ‘reliable source’ about the solars. About Rhea, their emissary. You heard it from Striga, didn’t you?” The Witch of Invention nods. “Got it in one.” “Striga is the root,” the Morrigan explains. “A second secret: nine years ago, when I was young to my power and she to hers, Striga came to my stronghold and sought audience. We spoke of a great many things, and she convinced me to ally with her against our would-be masters. For nine years we have played a dangerous game. As we strive to learn, the Jovians strive to obscure, shrouding their intent as they draw ever closer to their goals. The pact was our design, a method to preserve as many of our kindred as possible in case the cold war ever burned hot. We thought it a coup, but we now believe it to protect the tools of the Jovians as much as it protects our own.” A secret I didn’t know about. A war she’s kept hidden even from me. And they knew. The Morrigan and Ferromancer, they knew and I didn’t. Jealousy and awe vie in my veins. Another side to my precious Sophie that I never knew—that I never even suspected. A secret entrusted to them, but not to me. Never to me. The Morrigan watches me. “You were chosen to obstruct Striga,” she muses. “The Jovians were confident that you would serve that purpose. Ferromancer has told me of your carry intense feelings for the heroine—that you desire Striga.” My gaze flits to the other witch again, burning with rage that she would bare my heart , but the Morrigan’s next line stops me cold. “It’s more than desire, isn’t it? There is a secret at the heart of you, so well-hidden I doubt even your Jovian handler could have noticed it. I could not see it when you walked the halls below, nor the halls above, and even now in my place of power where I am like unto a god I can only glimpse its presence, not a single detail of its shape or meaning. Your heart is more guarded than any I have ever seen, save Striga’s own. Will you tell me your secret, Archon? Will you tell me what you truly want?” To be with her. For her to love me. I want her attention and her affection and I want to hold her forever… but that’s only the surface of the star that is my burning love for Sophia. I want the lines beneath her eyes to go away and never come back. I want her to stop hurting herself for people who don’t deserve her kindness. I want the exhaustion to end. I want the pain to end. I want to keep her away from all the evils in the world, and I’ll bear them on my back if I have to. Because it’s killing her, and because some day, no matter how powerful and clever and perfect she is, she might slip. Some day a witch might get lucky and land a killing blow at the end of a pattern of three, and then it’ll all be over. My world would have no meaning and no color, and I can’t allow that. There are words that I have never spoken aloud, never typed, never shared. Words that rest in the deepest pit of my being, words that even the Jovians could never have overheard, words they could only know if they can peer into my soul and all this subterfuge is pointless and the war is already lost. Words that are engraved deeper than my name. Words that force their way out, past the terror and the hesitation, because I am so tired of being alone in my struggle. So I whisper, “I want to save her. Please, help me save her.” Help me save my Sophia. The Morrigan smiles, her corpse-mouth twisting, and it’s so gentle for something so macabre. “I will,” she promises with her telepathy, and for some reason I believe her. “Welcome to the conspiracy, Archon.” Ferromancer chuckles and I glare at her, but I can’t muster much anger through the immense joy I feel about the Morrigan’s promise. “You were a golden opportunity dumped in our lap,” my teacher confesses. “The payoff for all my years of doing everything those bastard cats asked. They still don’t trust me enough to let me in on what they’re really planning, but they sure trusted me enough to train their new weapon. Big mistake.” That gets me to smile, and I let out a small, quiet laugh. “I suppose I have to be grateful to you, teacher. Without your meddling, I might have walked right into whatever the Jovians have planned for me and Striga. But, if you’ll forgive me one quick indulgence, I have to ask: why does Striga trust the two of you? No offense, but she never struck me as the type to trust anyone. So what did she see in you?” Ferromancer shrugs. “I live here, don’t I? Don’t want the planet getting blown up ‘cause some alien cat decided they didn’t need it anymore.” That’s definitely not the full story, but I can wheedle it out of her later. The Morrigan has a more thoughtful answer, and one that surprises me: “It’s because I love people. Humans. It’s why I built this place to be a club and not just a fortress. If the machinations of the Jovians led to the death of every human being, I believe I could survive, here in my Ossuary. But I would be miserable without those laughing faces.” It dawns on me, wretchedly, that the Morrigan’s way of thinking is closer to Striga’s than mine is. Sophie loves people, I know she does, and I… don’t. I can’t. It isn’t my nature. Maybe that’s why she doesn’t trust me. Maybe that’s why she can’t get close to me. I don’t want to think about that. “What do the Jovians want?” I ask to distract myself. “Do you have any guesses?” “We are still uncertain,” the Morrigan admits. “But we are getting closer. We know where the answer lies.” “Where it lies?” I frown. “Like, in Forks? Or the Cascades?” The Morrigan smiles again, stretched skin creaking apart. “Here is your third secret: pocketspaces like my Ossuary are not the only dimensions linked to our Earth. There is another side of the world. A reverse side, cast in reflection. We call it the World of Glass, and it’s where you’ll be traveling tonight, on All Hallows’ Eve when the walls between dimensions are thinnest, alongside Ferromancer and four other conspirators. It is a world the Jovians cannot venture into, and we believe it is the reason they came to our world in the first place.” “And,” my teacher adds quietly, “it’s where some of us travel in our dreams.”