Every ounce of frustration I felt at our plan’s failure is swept away by Striga’s arrival. My beloved is here, my hero, and she’s come to save us. I love you. I love you. I love you. One day, I’m going to save you. “How the hell did you get here?” Delilah snarls. “I brought her,” says Howl. She’s back from wherever she vanished, fresh bottle of booze in hand, sitting atop the wreckage of a chair. “Tricky finding the right path, but pathfinding is a specialty of mine.” Striga tilts her head, attention focused on Delilah. “Interesting. Your body betrays the fear you feel quite clearly, which means you know you can’t beat me. Even with the blessing of Mars, you’re still so astonishingly weak.” Delilah shifts stance and the red haze around her intensifies. “I’ll make you eat those words, you arrogant bitch!” The witch explodes into action, lunging forward with supernatural speed and ferocity. I bounce on the balls of my feet, eager to see how my sweet Sophia tears Delilah apart. Knife against spear is a terrible matchup from the start, especially with the corrosive edge of those knives doing absolutely nothing to Striga’s weapon, but the heroine sacrifices her reach advantage and lets Delilah past her guard just to make it sting even more when she effortlessly deflects or parries every attack the witch makes. She’s toying with Delilah by playing pure defense and ignoring openings. I’m enraptured watching her work, and I’m not the only one; no one makes a move to interfere with this duel. Striga kicks Delilah away, sending her skidding to a halt amid the ravaged furniture left by Agatha’s spell. “Inadequate,” the heroine says calmly. “Try again.” The witch abandons her form, becoming a rapidly growing mass of spiders that surges toward Striga—but then she stops, shudders, and pulls back. The other spiders never touched Striga, I suddenly realize. All the little castoffs skittered away from the heroine. “None of that,” Striga chastises. ᴛhis chapter is ᴜpdated by 𝓷𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓵⁂𝓯𝓲𝓻𝓮⁂𝓷𝓮𝓽 Delilah emerges from the swarm with a cry of pain, clutching her head and shivering. “What did you do to me? How did you do that!?” Striga starts walking toward the witch. The remnants of the swarm flee from her approach, most of them melting back into Delilah. “Quite easily; it was a simple repellant charm I borrowed from a comrade. If that’s all you have, there’s no reason to continue this farce. Lay down and die like a good girl.” Why won’t you call me that? whispers a part of my brain clearly still recovering from the shock of briefly dying. It would be wildly inappropriate to be jealous of Delilah right now. I’ve definitely never fantasized about a situation exactly . Delilah screams in anger. Her form shifts again, rippling and bubbling. A giant spider leg tears its way out of her back, then another, then a dozen more that all twist and extend strangely. The witch comes at Striga from as many angles as she has sharp, chitinous limbs, trying to overwhelm the heroine with more attacks than she can counter. Striga counters them all anyway, moving in that perfectly precise way to parry, dodge, or slice each grasping limb. Legs are cut and twitch on the ground while Striga remains untouched. Delilah can’t even scratch her. “Pathetic,” Striga scorns. Then she finally goes on the offensive. Her spear finds its mark again and again, each strike carefully calculated to slip past her enemy’s defenses. She drives Delilah back with deliberate force, cutting her off from every direction except the one that leads where Striga wants her. When Delilah’s back hits a wall, Striga disarms both her knives in one fluid motion. The black blades clatter to the floor and are kicked away from their owner. Delilah’s breathing is ragged, her body dripping spiders from a dozen wounds. Striga, not even winded, lowers her spear and tilts her head again. “Pray,” she says suddenly. “Pray to your god for the strength to kill me. I take no satisfaction in executing a worm that can’t even fight back. Give me a real fight, Delilah. Or was that sad little display all the power you were given for betraying humanity? How disappointing.” When Striga laughs, it’s nothing like Sophia’s laugh. Sophia laughs like an angel, musical and radiant and so beautiful in joy. Striga’s laugh is the scrape of a knife against stone, the eerie cry of the banshee that promises nothing but death and ruin. She’s not just wearing Delilah out as some kind of attrition strategy, she’s playing with her food. She’s toying with a witch that just ran circles around the rest of us. God, that’s hot. Delilah rasps, “You think you’re so much better than everyone. You think you’re invincible, don’t you? I’ll show you how wrong you are. MARS!” she screams. “Give me what was promised! Give me the strength you showed me! Satisfy our pact!” The red glow around Delilah, which had dimmed as she was pushed back and took wounds, flares up brighter than it ever has—a surge of blazing crimson, a red so harsh it burns the eyes. Striga stabs her spear through Delilah’s heart. Silver light wreathes the spear and devours the red aura. The crimson glow is drawn into the spear, pulled by some great, invisible force. The red light is swallowed by silver until only silver remains, sapped from the witch’s flesh. Delilah screams in pain and a second voice screams with her—the voice of Mars. Delilah sags as the last of the red glow leaves her. There’s something frail about her, like she could break with the lightest shove. Withered. Powerless. It’s what she deserves. Striga withdraws her spear, grabs hold of the witch, and tosses her in our direction. Delilah crumples against the floor in front of us, gasping for breath and clutching at the wound in her chest—the first one to actually bleed. “She’s served her purpose. Ferromancer: finish it.” My gaze is still fixed on my beloved, so I don’t see the end of it. There’s a moment’s pause, a quiet “I’m sorry,” and a bang. Striga watches it happen without emotion. My Sophie, playing the role of Striga. Playing everyone’s hero. Ruthless, measured, controlled. Perfect. “You’re incredible,” I tell her honestly, the words leaving my lips before I can question whether they should. “You planned all of that, right? Used Delilah as bait to get at Mars?” Before Striga can answer, Harlequin pops back into existence a few rows down with a spray of confetti. My resurrection had to be more dignified than that. The clown looks around, then cartwheels over to the corpse of Delilah and kicks it a few times. Striga sweeps her gaze across each of us in turn. Her attention lingers on me for only a few seconds before she moves on to the next, but it still feels warm and fuzzy. Then she nods. “Good,” she says. “None of you made a pact with the egregores.” I bet she has the sight too, like Howl knowing I was a dreamer and seeing something in me that made her call me a monster. She flicks her gaze back to me. “To answer your question, Archon: yes, I did. I’ll explain more once we return to the Ossuary. Howl, your analysis?” Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. The archer grimaces. “This place is fucked. Feels like pretty active interference, too; I could feel the realm—or its master, I guess—easing up to let me find you, then shutting me out again. I don’t have any confidence in my ability to get back here later.” I have a lightbulb moment. “I might be able to help with that, actually.” I summon the golden disc again, grin, and press it. In an instant I’m back in the mountains, and then with a second click of the triskelion I return to the theater. “Takes me to somewhere in the Olympic Mountains. Some kind of lookout tower.” Howl breathes in sharply. “That region is a dead zone for crossing the barrier. Nothing slips between around there.” “I’ve long suspected it,” Striga says. “Tying her ‘city of the gods’ to the second Mount Olympus is exactly Hastur’s sense of humor.” “You knew who Hastur was before we went in,” Ferromancer says, tone just shy of accusatory. There’s an edge to her voice that wasn’t there before. “Mars and Venus, too.” “You’re no stranger to keeping others in the dark for a tactical or strategic purpose,” Striga answers calmly. “Do not take offense when the same logic is applied to you.” I take a bit of silent satisfaction in that response, given what I went through not long ago. Ferromancer says nothing. Agatha, to my shock, is the one who steps forward with a frown and asks, “Was this all a test? It seems like you already knew everything we’ve just learned—did you know about the conduits? About the Jovians and their origins?” “You’ve earned answers,” Striga promises. “I will grant them. But we should not tarry here; dawn approaches.” Agatha blinks. “Dawn? But it’s only been—oh, no.” She pales. “It was getting lighter when I hopped back to Earth,” I say. “I’m guessing Hastur messed with the flow of time while we were going through the Mars and Venus visions.” Striga flourishes her spear, sweeps it through the air, and speaks a word of power: “Open.” A hole is torn in the world. The seam of reality is cut, an inkblot becoming an abyss, and then that abyss is trapped between two pillars of marble carved with the faces of owls. My curiosity is piqued, but I don’t waste time pressing when I’ve already been promised answers. I’m the first through the portal, stepping through with one last dreamy look at Striga. This time, there’s no flash of golden eyes as I cross the threshold. Strangely, I wasn’t expecting there would be; I don’t really understand the King in Yellow yet, but… it feels like we earned our way out. That feels like something she would respect. The Morrigan greets me on the other side of the portal, presiding over her garden maze from that flowering throne. “Welcome back, Archon,” she speaks in my mind. The others follow shortly, Harlequin next and Striga last. She brought the corpse of Delilah with her, which is quickly taken by roaming vines and dragged away into the endless green surrounding the “throne room” of the maze. I’m giddy, but the mood among the others is mixed. I can’t really tell how Ferromancer is feeling thanks to her mask and armor, but her posture feels tense. Agatha finds her way to my side and gives me a shaky smile, eyes nervous. Harlequin is Harlequin. Howl is scowling. Striga takes her place beside the Morrigan, leans her spear against the throne, and turns to us with a sigh. For a moment, I see the exhaustion in a dozen little details, but I doubt the others notice; I know Sophie’s face like no one else. She says, “You’ve earned the truth, so I won’t draw this out or dissemble. Yes, this operation was a trap, and a test, and also exactly what you were told it was: an attempt to learn more about the World of Glass and its most important landmarks. Jupiter’s prison must be studied if we are to prevent his escape, and it is damnably difficult to reach; as Howl suggested, the master of that dimension tightly controls access to the centerpiece of the game. The best way to get Howl and her pathfinding to the pit’s proximity was placing her in a group that Hastur wouldn’t be able to resist meddling with. That proved fruitless, but Hastur seems to have rewarded my ambitions anyway with the artifact that Archon demonstrated. It will have to be tested, of course.” “How much did you already know?” Ferromancer asks, her voice carefully neutral this time. “All of it? You seem very familiar with the King in Yellow.” “Yes,” Striga answers immediately, evoking a fresh round of grimaces and shifts in posture from everyone but me. “I’ve spoken with Hastur before, and more than once. From what Howl tells me, you were shown the same performance that I was. I do not like her and I do not trust her, but she is an existence utterly beyond our ability to punish, so I will accept her aid when I can lure it out of her.” “Ah,” Harlequin muses, “we were bait twice over.” Striga nods. “I won’t deny it. As a group you were meant to draw the attention of Hastur and her ‘children,’ but there were multiple reasons for that move. Delilah was the guaranteed sacrifice; I had no doubt she would make a contract with Mars and call upon it when pushed and angered. While our mantles turn us into conduits for the pretenders, that connection only runs from us to them. Pacts like Delilah made create a two-way connection that can be exploited to injure the god on the other side.” Left unspoken is the obvious: if any of us had made similar pacts, Striga would have used us in exactly the same way. She might have felt bad about it, but she wouldn’t have hesitated. “You called it a test,” Agatha says, frowning with more contemplation than frustration. “I think I can guess at parts of that, but…” “Until tonight,” Striga says, “I have been very, very careful in who I trust. I have kept secrets not out of habit but because every conspirator inducted into my war is a new risk factor that might spook the enemy into escalation—into making more Texas witches. They have avoided doing so because it damages the World of Glass and harms their ability to feed, but if they perceive the game as lost they will not hesitate to flip the table. So, yes, I was testing you.” “Why now?” I hurry to ask before anyone else can speak up. “Why bring on so many people at once? You said you’ve been careful ‘until tonight,’ so what changed?” Her expression darkens. “The enemy is getting closer to their endgame. Within the next year, escalation will become inevitable. One of the gods—likely Mars—will force a change in the battlefield that could prove apocalyptic for humanity. Mars and Venus must be stopped before one of them ascends or Jupiter escapes, and I can’t do that alone.” “What about Minerva?” Howl asks, eyes narrowed. It can’t be a coincidence, right? Striga retrieves her spear, sticks it in the ground, and floods it with silver light. “I imagine you were told the Catastrophes are Jupiter’s champions. Delilah was, very briefly, a champion of Mars. Nine years ago, I became Minerva’s. There are only a handful of us, scattered across the world, and we are all devoted to the salvation of humanity and the complete destruction of Mars, Venus, and Jupiter. Minerva’s gift is what allowed me to drain Delilah’s. And to preempt the question, none of you meet the criteria to become another of her champions; think of it like becoming a paladin and you’ll be halfway to how strict her standards are.” Agatha winces and Howl grumbles. Paladin girlfriend, hums my brain. Paladin x succubus fanfiction. Let me be your temptation, Striga. Let me hit and I’ll let you purge. These are normal thoughts to have while talking about a threat to all life on Earth and how to stop it. “I understand you may be unhappy about being deceived,” Striga says. “I am asking you to set that aside, because I need your help.” She needs me. Sophia needs me. “You’ve seen the face of the enemy now, and you know the true aim of the Jovians. You resisted what Mars and Venus offered. You endured the World of Glass without breaking. You’ve seen the truth of the world laid bare. Join my cause. Work with me. Please, help me save humanity from the parasites that want to devour us.” “I’m in,” I answer immediately. “I’ll do it.” Anything for you, my love. “I as well,” Harlequin says with a wide grin. “You already had my answer,” Ferromancer says. “We will talk about this, but I haven’t changed my mind.” Howl sighs. “Same here. I’m annoyed, but I get what’s at stake.” Agatha swallows, bites her lip, then nods. “Okay. Me too.” Relief crosses Striga’s face—again, too small and brief for most to notice, a dozen microexpressions gone as quickly as they appeared—and she says, “Good. Thank you. There is much work to be done, and I have a role in mind for each of you, but the hour is late; I’ll be in touch through the Morrigan in the coming days. For now, you should all get some rest and try to return to your normal schedule—except for you, Archon. I’d like a word.” I very valiantly do not scream in joy when Striga says that. “Of course!” I chirp, still probably coming off a bit starstruck in my enthusiasm. Ferromancer knows exactly how I feel about this, of course, and Howl and Harlequin might be able to see something with their freak vision, but Agatha… could probably figure out with her weird vision if she used it. Fuck. Whatever, not important. The others file out—Agatha and Harlequin tossing curious looks, Howl rolling her eyes, and Ferromancer saying nothing. I need to talk to my teacher, but it can wait. Anything can wait for my beloved Sophia. “Walk with me,” she commands, and I’m more than happy to follow.