Content warning

Self-harm, mention of suicidal behavior

“I’m curious,” the voice of Sophia asks from right behind me, “was this a simple lapse in judgment caused by an overload of unfamiliar stimuli? Or do you always do whatever a pretty girl tells you? No, I suppose it can’t be the latter, or you would have blown your brains out like I asked.”

“You’re not Sophia!” I snap at the empty air, whirling around in search of any sign of the deimovore’s presence. There’s nothing but fog. “All you’re doing is pissing me off!”

“Let’s put that to the test,” she purrs, her stolen voice like velvet.

Sophia—the deimovore—steps out of the gray, puts her hand on my gun, and nudges the muzzle to press against her forehead.

“How do I look?” she asks. Her smile is angelic. Her emerald eyes sparkle with joy and mirth. She’s wearing a pristine white cardigan over a soft yellow blouse and a long pink skirt, and it looks wonderful on her. She’s beautiful. She’s perfect. I love her.

I pull the trigger.

The horrible simulacrum of Sophia crumples immediately, blood and brain matter oozing down the side of her caved-in skull. She makes a wet, sickening crunch when she hits the ground. Her one intact eye stares blankly at nothing. Her body lies still on pavement. Red seeps into the white of her cardigan, stains her blouse, and pools beside the ruined mess of her head.

I know it’s not her. I know I didn’t just kill the woman I love—couldn’t have, not for good, not since she’s a magical girl—but I’m still looking at her corpse. The face of Sophia, mutilated because I shot it. The corpse of Sophia, stinking and bloody.

I throw up. Hey, Agatha, I’m in the club now. I laugh at my own stupid, pointless thought, and my laughter comes out deranged. The sight of Sophia’s death is stuck in my mind, playing on repeat. Her perfect, smiling face. Pulling the trigger. Sudden absence. Blood and gore.

My hands are shaking. I return the gun that killed Sophia—killed the copy—to flame. What good is it anyway, against a monster that never dies?

“What do you want?” I ask it, voice rasping and hollow. “I’m not afraid of you.”

“I’m impressed,” Ferromancer answers, cool and collected and not Ferromancer. “Takes guts to shoot your girlie like that, doll. You’ve got a real future in this business.”

Howl laughs. “I knew you were a monster, but damn, that’s cold. ‘Course, you know you’re gonna have nightmares about this for weeks, right? Years, if you live that long.”

“What do you want!?” I scream into the fog. “What do you fucking want!?”

Prometheus roars with me and I unleash it in imp after imp, forging them into existence and sending them into the endless mist to burn and explode. I send them in every direction, tossed at random, and the red flame washes over me. Wherever we are, wherever the deimovore is hiding, I will make it feel my anger.

Something touches my shoulder and I jolt away from it. I throw another imp and watch flame disappear amid fog. No sign of the deimovore, but it’s still here, watching me, probably laughing at me. It’s enjoying this. It touches my shoulder again and this time I just grit my teeth and wait.

“I want to hurt you,” Sophia whispers in my ear. “I want to break you down and see what yummy fears shine through when we strip away all your little lies and defenses. Show me the real you, Rachel. Show me that trembling heart.”

“It’s Archon,” I snarl. “You’re not dealing with just another human, you vicious shit. I’m a goddamn witch. You’re gonna have to try better than that to get me running scared.”

“Archon?” asks my own voice. “No, I don’t think so.”

A droplet of water hits me, then another. It starts to rain. The fog pulls back.

In the early days of the new world, when everywhere was still adapting to the idea that magic was real and some people could level cities—in the days before Vanguard and Coterie brought their sides in line and instituted the pact—there was a fight in Forks that got a lot of people killed. A witch opened a chasm that would have swallowed up the city if she hadn’t been stopped. Striga hunted her down three times and executed her.

The chasm didn’t go away, and a lot of money was pouring into Forks, so a bridge was paid for and the magical girls helped fast-track its construction. An industrial bridge, a leviathan of concrete and steel. They called it the Owl Bridge for the woman who saved the city—after she refused more direct credit, of course. It’s the only bridge in town over a drop more substantial than a few feet into a gentle river.

The deimovore is standing by the edge, peering down into the black depths of the nameless chasm. She’s wearing my face—Rachel’s face—dark hair slick with rain and hoodie getting soaked. She looks miserable.

“We were nineteen and our whole life was behind us,” she says solemnly, sadly, pathetically. “A prodigy when we were young, but that natural talent withered away in college and we realized that we’d never really been special, just sheltered. Our new peers were all that smart, and most of them had worked harder for it than we’d ever felt the need to. We fell behind, and the gap kept widening. While everyone else was looking at majors and plotting their careers we saw nothing but tragedy in our future. Better it be on our terms, not theirs, right?” She turns away from the abyss and smiles at me, sad-eyed and sopping. “This is a good place to die, don’t you think?”

The gun is back in my hand, resummoned on instinct, and I fire the whole magazine into the monster pretending to be me. The Rachel copy jerks and staggers under the hail of gunfire, flesh ripping open and then melting back together just in time for another deadly impact. I fire until the gun clicks empty, putting hole after hole in my doppelganger, and the only thing that stops me from making a new gun to keep firing is that she starts laughing at me.

“Was that cathartic?” the deimovore mocks in my voice, already fully healed from all the superficial damage I dealt it. “I mean, wow, you finally got to kill yourself! Only, wait, I’m still standing, so I guess you failed again. Do you ever do anything right?”

“Why did you bring me here?” I ask. My voice is too tight. My breathing is erratic. I never wanted to come back to this place. I didn’t want to remember this part of that night.

The deimovore ignores my question. The false Rachel tilts her head. “Do you know what it means to devour someone’s memories? It means that, in a very real sense… I’m you. It would explain why I feel such overwhelming loathing for you, right? I mean, I remember everything you remember and I feel it like you felt it, so doesn’t that make me Rachel? Just… with a more discerning palate.” She licks her lips. “Any animal can fear its own death, but humans have more abstract fears that are so rich and delectable. You convince yourselves to be afraid of entire worlds that might never come to pass.”

“I don’t need the philosophy rant,” I say through gritted teeth.

The other Rachel laughs. “Of course, we get it enough from our friends, right?”

I hear Femur sigh from out of sight. “Maybe if you’d paid attention more, you wouldn’t be in this situation. Did you even open the books I sent you?”

Mordacity snorts, just as invisible. “Don’t be ridiculous, she’s way too stupid to understand any of it. She stopped trying to understand anything the first time she had to struggle, and look where it led her.”

I flinch. The deimovore smiles.

“Let me put this in more concrete terms,” it says with relish, adopting the pose and expression I wear when I’m about to spin a tale for Sophia. “Every year, you see your precious Sophia less and less. And you, delightful pattern-matching monkey that you are, make the connection that one year that sliver of time will drop to zero, and Sophia will stop coming home, and you will never see her again.”

No one lives forever. Everyone’s luck runs out. Even hers. Some day, worn down from overwork, Sophia will miss something. She’ll make a mistake. Her back will bend from the weight of the world she’s holding on her shoulders, and she will die. To the Syndicate, to a Catastrophe, to some lucky new girl who never expected to win that pattern of three. It doesn’t matter how it happens. Nothing will matter anymore, because Sophia will be dead.

“I can stop that,” I say, and I hate how raw my voice sounds. “I’m going to save her.”

The deimovore shifts again. Hair and eyes change color, features melt and reform, and once again I’m staring at a perfect copy of Sophia. Her laugh is soft and warm.

“You’re going to save me? Cutie, I’m the one who saved you.” Comprehension dawns on her face, that bright-eyed expression of understanding that I’ve come to cherish and admire. “That’s what this is about, isn’t it?”

That day on the bridge, the last dregs of sunlight still staining the evening sky, standing on the ledge and getting ready to jump. Sophia, running through the rain to grab my hand and pull me away.

“Stay at my place tonight, okay?”

Back to her dorm, to slip out of our damp clothes and crawl into bed together, sharing our warmth beneath her blankets. I sobbed into her shoulder, her neck, her hair. She held me as I shuddered and shivered and told her everything. And she told me:

“I’d miss you if you were gone.”

And I fell in love.

The deimovore watches me from behind Sophia’s face. It twists her mouth into a gentle smile. “I wonder,” she muses, the cruelty in her eyes betraying the light tone of her voice, “if she told you that because it was true… or because it’s what you needed to hear. Did she save you, or would she have done the same for anyone? I think we both know the answer.”

Sophia. My angel, but not my angel. A thousand evenings waiting for her to come home. A thousand canceled lunches. A thousand times that something else was more important.

“She saw another stupid, wounded animal, and she did what she had to in order to keep it alive. But that’s all. Because if she cared, then she would make time for you. If you really mattered to her, you wouldn’t be alone.”

The deimovore’s smile grows wicked, and I can’t bear to look at it contort my beloved’s face any longer. I turn away from it, but it’s right there behind me, even closer now. It laughs.

Sophia murmurs, “You’re afraid that if you tell me how you really feel, I’ll reject you. You’re afraid that I’ll hate you. Because you know, deep down, that I don’t love you back. You’re just another pity project.”

I can’t stop the wretched, broken sob that tears its way out of my throat. I dig my transformation-sharpened nails into my arms and carve bloody gouges. Hot red coats my skin and drips down to splatter against concrete and sizzle in the rain. I shut my eyes tight and concentrate on the pain—the physical pain, bright and hot and immediate, pushing out the sensation of the wound in my heart.

This isn’t Sophia. It’s playing on my fears. Extracting every ounce of dread and anguish. It knows me. It knows what I fear most. But it isn’t Sophia. It doesn’t know how she truly feels.

I can’t hide from my fear. I’m terrified of losing Sophia, either to magical violence or a heartfelt conversation gone horribly wrong. I’m a coward, and that’s why I’ve never told her that I love her. But I can’t keep running forever. I can’t let it rule me. And I can’t fail here, not when I’m inches away from meeting Strix Striga as a peer—as a fellow conspirator.

When I do, I’ll tell her everything. I’ll tell her that I’m Rachel, and that I know she’s Sophia, and that I love her. And then I’ll save her.

I open my eyes and stare down the deimovore. The monster licks its lips, its face lit up with the rapture of a filling meal. It’s devouring my fear, and I can’t stop that from happening—I can’t stop the fear in my heart, even if I know it might be completely irrational—but there must be a way to beat this thing. Fear will not rule me. This is just another puzzle to solve.

Everything that’s magic is bound by certain rules. The flame I use for transformation and creation has a finite quantity. Pocketspaces are highly limited in their function, and the best user of pocketspaces had to sacrifice everything else to attain that mastery. Magical girls and witches are immortal to regular humans, but they die to the rule of three against other magic users. The Jovians are more restricted than any of us, bound to the doctrine of “empower and guide.”

I don’t believe that the deimovore is an exception. Some random monster that our hunter expert didn’t even sound that worried about at first can’t be the one magic user to have unconditional immortality, so what the hell is its condition? Come on, Rachel, think this through.

In the woods, when it was chasing me, it shrugged off every attack. It rotted its way out of the foam I tried to encase it in, and then it ambushed me and stabbed me and got its lamprey mouth around my neck. And then—

I shift my gaze to my bloodied arms, rapidly healing from the injuries I inflicted. Healing quickly, but still noticeably healing. And I didn’t see that in my first round against this bastard.

When the deimovore had me pinned, it lanced my limbs to keep me stuck and bit down hard on my neck. But when Agatha knocked it off me, I was fine; no wound on my neck, nor anywhere else. No sign it had actually hurt me. I thought it knocked me down, but did it really knock me down, or did I just fall from surprise?

This whole time, this whole conversation, the deimovore hasn’t attacked me once. It’s been toying with my mind and goading me into shooting it, but it hasn’t done anything like it did in the woods before it knew what made me tick. Sure, it said it prefers the “abstract” fears, but surely it’d have an easier time extracting those fears if it cut off my hands so I couldn’t even try to fight back. So why hasn’t it?

It’s time to take another gamble.

I look back up at the deimovore, still wearing my beloved Sophia. Slowly, with effort, I push away the fear and force myself to smile. “Hey, deimovore. I figured you out.”

Sophia’s face twitches, an almost imperceptible crack in the mask—but I know her face better than I know my own, and I see it. Victory. “Have you, now?” Dismissive, indulgent, patronizing. But the crack is there.

“Your immortality,” I say, “it’s conditional. And the condition is this: I can’t hurt you… but you can’t hurt me. You’re all psychic attacks and manipulation, but you can’t actually injure me.” I pause for effect, and then I spread my arms wide. “Feel free to prove me wrong, though. I promise I won’t dodge.” My grin gets cockier, practically goading the deimovore to attack me.

For a moment, I think it actually will, and that I’ve lost the gamble. The deimovore twitches, hands becoming claws and then back to normal, its shadow flickering. It wants to rip me apart and make me scream.

But it doesn’t.

Hatred burns across the monster’s face, across my sweet Sophia, and it hisses in rage. “You think you’re so clever, don’t you? But I don’t need violence to hurt you.”

“That’s true,” I admit, “but more importantly: you can’t keep me here. Sure, you can do your little fog trick and keep harassing me with the voices of all my friends and peers, but I’m just gonna keep walking. And eventually, I’m sure, my teammates will find me. I bet they’re already closing in.”

To prove my point, I pick one end of the bridge at random and start walking toward it, not even bothering to fly. Another insult for the deimovore.

Sophia appears in front of me again, and as I walk past her she says, “Sophia Lane, 1431 Jasper Hale Avenue, Unit 209. The name and home address of Strix Striga, the nemesis of the Syndicate. How do you think Delilah would like that information?”

I pause, but only for a moment. “I’m sure Delilah would be thrilled to have her magic turned against her by the oath she swore to the Morrigan. Fuck off, fear-eater. Find easier prey.”

The copy of Sophia snarls defiance, her lips pulling back further and further—teeth sharpening into needles—eyes bulging and bulging and then popping, worms pouring from the empty sockets—arms and legs elongating, spider-like limbs bursting from her back—she lunges at me with claws and teeth and fury—

—and she’s gone. The fog clears, the rain stops, and the night sky shines overhead. I take a deep breath and let out a mountain of tension.

“Good work,” Howl congratulates me, leaning against the bridge railing.

I jump at her sudden appearance, and then I shout at her, “Why the hell didn’t you tell me the deimovore can’t hurt me!?”

[commentary]

Cookies to anyone who guessed why the bridge was important.

A special thank you to my Grandmaster-tier patrons, whose support has kept food on my table: CaosSorge, Crows Danger, Demi, Lirian, M, Mhai Wind, Moth Court, October, and PR4v1 Samaratunga.

If you like this story and want to see more of it, please go to the RR page and leave a rating or review! Web serials live and die on audience support, and this one is no exception. The better the story does on RR, the more people click through and read, the more motivation I have (both on a mental health level and on an “able to pay rent” level) to keep writing and to write faster.

The next scheduled break week starts on the 21st of September.

[/commentary]

“Agatha!?” I reach out for her but hesitate, unsure of what she’s going through or how I can help. I keep the deimovore’s “corpse” in my peripheral vision, wary of it using this opportunity to attack or escape.

The Visage heroine spews her guts out all over the forest floor. She clutches at her stomach and gurgles, eyes wide and shining, until the last of the sick dribbles out of her mouth and words start to pour instead:

“The colors—they’re all wrong, they’re not—too many, too many, too many! I don’t understand—I can’t—it won’t stop, make it stop, make it stop!” Agatha wails, her cries turning incoherent, and then she shuts her eyes tight and covers her face with her hands, babbling to herself in hushed whispers.

She dropped her glasses when whatever this is started—thankfully not in the same place as she vomited—so I delicately pick them up and offer them back to her, gently poking one of her hands to get her attention. “You dropped your glasses. They might help?”

Agatha scrabbles for her glasses and slides them back on. Her speech quiets, she takes a few deep breaths, and she opens her eyes again, nervous and hesitant. “Th-thank you,” she says. “Sorry, that was—it was intense. I’ve never had that happen before.”

“What did happen?” I ask.

My imps explode.

Instantly my gun is trained on the deimovore cadaver, but when the fireball clears it’s already gone. There’s another hole in the ground. The bastard thing escaped, and now it could be anywhere.

“Fuck!” I swear. “Shit on a whore! Ass! Piss! Goddamn it. I hate this place.”

Agatha takes in the sight of the tunnel and quickly unlatches her grimoire again, flipping through it with grim determination. “We should try to meet up with the others,” she advises, “since our combined firepower wasn’t enough to make it stay down.”

I keep my eyes peeled for any sign of the monster and float further off the ground so I’ll have more time to react if it tries another ambush from below. “Howl says the fuckers never stay dead. I tried to imprison it in hardening foam and it just dissolved the stuff, think your ice will do any better?”

“I’m not confident,” she admits. “Maybe we should run?”

“Running’s a good idea,” Ferromancer crackles through both our earpieces. “Howl is west of you, near the city limits. I’ll link you.”

“How am I supposed to figure out what direction is west?” I complain. “It’s not like I brought a compass with me—wait, does this world even have magnetic poles?”

“I’ve got it,” Agatha volunteers happily. “I saw Polaris on the way here.”

We fly away from the site of the deimovore attack with Agatha leading the way. I’m on watch the whole time, paranoid that at any moment the monster could return.

“So, the way my power works,” Agatha explains as we move, “is that I see ‘connections’ as lines of colored string. It’s… not a precise system, per se. Colors can have multiple meanings depending on context, and I’ve had to puzzle those meanings out through more conventional investigation; I only get the very vaguest sense of what a line could mean from my power itself.”

“That’s not as strong as I thought it would be,” I admit. “You always made it seem like—”

I cut myself off, suddenly aware I’ve said too much, but it’s too late; Agatha notices my slip and brightens like a lightbulb. “So you have watched my stream! What did you think?”

Internally, I scream. Externally, I laugh and scratch my head sheepishly. “Yeah, a few times. It felt awkward to mention. I like them! You’ve got a cute persona and come across as really personable. I loved your playthrough of Oxenfree.”

Agatha beams and blushes. “Oh, wow, thank you so much! That’s really nice to hear. Sorry, I know that’s totally not relevant here, I just—sorry, thank you.”

Aw, she’s insecure. Agatha’s still one of the less popular Visage icons—for reasons I can’t fathom—so she must be having a hard time comparing herself to the big names like Memento and Pearl Princess. It’s going to be so easy to make this girl like me.

“Um, so! When I tried to use my power on the deimovore, what happened is that I saw… wrong colors.” Agatha shivers. “It had strings connecting it to things I couldn’t see, and none of the colors of those lines were real. I can’t explain them, I can’t describe them, they were just—unnatural. They hurt to look at. It was like—like my brain was trying to absorb something too alien to comprehend. Too dense, maybe?”

I take another sweep of the area, watching for any movement between the trees or strange burrows in the dirt. “That sounds like a nightmare,” I sympathize. “Do you think it’ll be like that everywhere?”

“I’m afraid to check,” Agatha admits, “but I’ll have to sooner or later. Ugh, I really hope I don’t have to start over from zero. It took ages to learn what all the colors meant!”

“Hey, kiddos, still alive?” crackles Howl from both our earpieces.

I roll my eyes at Agatha, who quietly giggles to herself. “Yeah, yeah,” I say to Howl. “What do you want, old hag?”

“You’ll see me as soon as you break the treeline.” Ahead, the trees are starting to thin. I can almost make out the city beyond, though there’s a gray haze clouding the distance. “Now, tell me everything that happened with the beastie.”

So I do. By the time I’m done, we’re at the forest’s edge. Forks-in-Glass shines below a night sky clearer and more colorful than what light pollution would ever allow, an eerie mirror of the real city; polished and pristine, bedecked in billboards and banners. The names and likenesses of magical girls—and a few witches—are displayed with even greater abundance than in real Forks, the shadow of their glory cast across the whole skyline.

The Visage Spire—the twining towers in the heart of the entertainment district—looks taller here than it does in the real world. It looms over the city, glowing gently. The golden orb floating above is the most changed, with a strange texture I can’t make out at this distance and a horizontal seam running along the middle.

Howl is sitting on the roof of a house on the outskirts, her wolf beside her, a raven perched on her shoulder, and an unstrung bow—plain, wooden, and tall, nothing like the mechanical compound bow I’ve seen pictures of her using—in her lap. She hops off the roof as we approach, her animal companions following her.

“The deimovore is a problem,” she says instead of greeting us. “It’s a fear-eater, and now that it’s taken a bite of you it knows exactly what makes you afraid. Before it was guessing, which is why it switched to spiders when the bear in the woods didn’t get a natural reaction.”

“Arachnophobia is one of the most common fear disorders,” Agatha chimes in, happy to have something to contribute.

I glance around the area, wary of the deimovore sneaking up on us while we’re talking. The city is bright but empty, and it makes me think of walking past the mall at night when no one’s around. Liminal spaces, I think they call it. There aren’t even any cars tucked away in parking spots. An abandoned metropolis that’s still getting fresh electricity, distant turn signals still blinking between colors.

“It’ll be hunting you,” Howl interrupts my thoughts, “and waiting for a chance to get you alone. Forget the crude shapeshifting you saw before, next time it’ll have perfect mimicry of voices you’ve heard and faces you’ve seen.”

I grimace. “Great. Something to look forward to.”

Agatha adjusts her glasses, looking around even more nervously than I was. “Lots of places for it to hide.”

Howl whistles and her raven takes flight, skimming low to avoid the invisible ceiling as it moves into the city proper. “Huginn will give us an extra pair of eyes, but the deimovore isn’t the worst of it; those things are ambush predators, normally, hunting whatever mortals they can lure into their web.”

Harlequin was hunting monsters that had escaped to our world. It sounds like whatever passages are being made, they go both ways. Are they full portals like the one we entered through, or something stranger? Has there been an uptick in missing persons cases, or do they have a much stronger version of the veil than we do?

“If they see a mage, they stalk it to check if it’s panicking or calm. Deimovores never pick fights unless they can go straight for the bite, and they usually cut and run after a couple of misses. Whoever fucked our portal entry sent the monster to greet you, and I’d bet the same is true of the painflayers that went after Delilah and Harlequin.”

“Sorry, the what?” Agatha asks with alarm.

Howl chuckles. “I’ll explain on the way, let’s get moving. We’re headed downtown.” She sets off at a steady pace deeper into the city, Agatha and I following behind with a shared look of concern.

It’s actually Ferromancer who answers first—she must be listening to everyone, at all times, though I have no idea how she’s keeping track of it all. “Those two were dropped close by and found each other quick, though they weren’t happy about it. The knives were already out when a pack of skinless freaks with spiked chains and barbed hooks swarmed their location.”

“Painflayers!” Howl repeats with more cheer than normal. “Love those psychos. They come in numbers and they never retreat. They feed on pain like deimovores feed on fear. Their method is to paralyze their prey—chop the fingers and burn the stump, chain the ankles and break the knees—and start ripping in. They make a game of seeing how many wounds they can inflict before the victim bleeds out.”

Agatha goes pale and swallows. “Oh. I see.”

“Get used to it,” Howl says scathingly. “These aren’t play fights; no script, no cameras, just blood and violence. Weakness gets culled out here.”

“You’re such an edgelord, god. ‘Weakness gets culled,’ give me a break. Talk like a person,” I mock, leaping to Agatha’s defense as I float past another vacant, well-lit home.

Howl stops. For a moment I see deep irritation cross her face, but then she sighs, runs her fingers through her hair, and says, “Right. I am telling you these things because if you do not adapt quickly then you will get eaten. There are things in this world that can hurt you in ways no healing will ever fix—monsters that don’t care about the rule of three, or that don’t need to kill you to ruin your life. I’ve seen it. I’ve lost friends to it. Is that what you needed to hear?”

My sense of unease ratchets up a new notch. There are things in this world that can take me away from Sophia. I think about apologizing for Howl’s loss, but she can probably tell it doesn’t mean anything to me. “That… definitely changes how I interpret what you said. Still rude, but, yeah. Fair.” I hesitate. “I’m—”

Howl raises a hand to interrupt me. “Eyes up and weapons ready, we’ve got jitterhounds incoming. Short-range teleporters. Watch for smoke. Fenris, meet up with Muninn.”

Agatha frowns, but doesn’t say anything as she readies her grimoire. Howl strings her bow and pulls an arrow from a quiver that wasn’t there before. Fenris gives its master a nuzzle and then races off toward the city center. I refresh my gun. Teleporters, so I should be careful not to fire when my target is between me and an ally.

The gray haze is thickening into fog, obscuring distant objects and putting a chill in the air that I don’t feel. My breath mists. We’ve stopped in one of the more commercial areas within the suburb cluster around the University of Forks. There’s a strip mall to our left and a park to our right, and the road we’re traveling down leads past the campus toward the heart of the city.

Smoke billows out of the park, scentless and thick. It mixes with the fog, shrouding the whole world from view. Then the jitterhounds attack.

They look more like sculptures of dogs than real canines; their bodies are too sharp, like they’ve been carved into shape and left unpolished, then painted over to mimic flesh. Their legs are thin and lean and there are far too many of them—six, eight, ten, the number seems to change as they run. Their faces are eyeless and earless, but they have plenty of teeth.

They spring from smoke and rush us. I was expecting them to teleport in leaps and bounds, but instead it’s like they’re constantly flickering in and out of existence, or like someone sped up movie footage and cut out half the frames.

Howl still takes out three of them in as many seconds. Each arrow she looses finds the head of a hound with terrifying precision, one striking her target the instant it emerges from another short-range teleport. Agatha’s approach is to bombard the whole area with fire and ice, blasting indiscriminately. I plink away with my pea shooter.

More come, and the fog thickens. Agatha’s spells do nothing to part the shroud, leaving less and less of a window to shoot the jitterhounds before they’re on us.

“This isn’t normal!” Howl shouts. “Something—”

And then Howl is gone, and Agatha, and I’m surrounded by gray. No hounds come out of the fog. I take a step back, then another, gun held at the ready.

“Howl? Agatha?” No response. “Ferromancer?”

My earpiece whines, high-pitched and shrill, and heavy static blasts my ear. Then it stops, and I can make out the voice of my teacher. “Archon? Can you hear me?”

I let out a relieved breath. “Yeah, I hear you. Ferro, I’ve lost visual on the others, there’s this weird fog—”

“It’s not just you,” she interrupts. “I’m getting massive amounts of interference on everyone. I can’t connect any of you to each other on comms, and location data says you’ve all shuffled again. I think this is the work of our mystery foe. I can see the fog through the nearest window, but it doesn’t reach this high. I’m going to try and direct everyone to my location. Start moving and I’ll guide you.”

“Got it.”

I follow Ferromancer’s instructions, flying through the endless fog and turning left or right as directed. Every so often I fly just close enough to a street sign or a storefront that I can make it out, which only adds to the creepiness of my journey—each approaching shape gets my gun trained on it before it resolves into something familiar. I’ve never been this unsettled by fog, and I think I’m going to cut back on early morning walks.

A few minutes into my journey—no sign of the jitterhounds or anything else—my earpiece crackles again and Ferromancer asks me, “Do you have a weapon summoned?”

“The gun I pilfered from the heist,” I confirm. “Not sure how much good it’ll do.”

“Okay. You’re almost to the office, so here’s what I want you to do: I want you to put that gun in your mouth and pull the trigger until the magazine clicks empty or your healing factor turns off and you bleed out on the street, your brains splattered all over the asphalt. Can you do that for me, doll?”

I freeze in terror. That voice, so casual and self-assured, is perfectly Ferromancer. But those words can’t possibly be hers. “You’re not Ferromancer,” I whisper.

She laughs. She laughs and laughs and laughs, and as she does her voice warps and distorts, and then it settles into another voice. Another laugh. A voice I’ve heard so many times before. A laugh that I give all of myself, every day, to try and hear again.

“Oh, Rachel,” Sophia sighs, warm and soft and lovely and not my Sophia. “Always just a little too slow.”

I’m alone in the fog with the deimovore.

[commentary]

Get ready. Next chapter is my favorite in the whole book.

A special thank you to my Grandmaster-tier patrons, whose support has kept food on my table: CaosSorge, Crows Danger, Demi, Lirian, M, Mhai Wind, Moth Court, October, and PR4v1 Samaratunga.

If you like this story and want to see more of it, please go to the RR page and leave a rating or review! Web serials live and die on audience support, and this one is no exception. The better the story does on RR, the more people click through and read, the more motivation I have (both on a mental health level and on an “able to pay rent” level) to keep writing and to write faster.

The next scheduled break week starts on the 21st of September.

[/commentary]

Am I back in Forks?

My first thought coming out of the portal is that it dumped me in the woods outside the city instead of taking me to the World of Glass. I’m no tree expert, so I can’t say for sure if I’m looking at hemlocks or firs or cedar, but they’re all definitely evergreens and they all look familiar. The space between trees is a bit much, but only a bit; I found a clearing a lot like this one on my first outing as a witch, when I explored the forest around the mountains and had to punch a bear to scare it off.

Everything looks real, too. The leaves, the soil, the bark, all of it looks and feels like I remember. So I could be back on Earth, or this could be a perfect recreation. Either way, the fact that I’m alone means something went wrong with the portal.

I need more data, and a bird’s-eye view will let me orient myself, so I lift off and fly through the foliage. Or, at least, that’s what I try to do.

Takeoff goes fine, but as I ascend I can feel myself almost immediately slowing down. My flight meets resistance that gets stronger the higher I manage to climb until I’m only gaining inches, then centimeters, then even less. When I drift back toward the forest floor, there’s no resistance whatsoever and I move at normal speed.

Point for the World of Glass column. I frown. This is weird, and that almost makes it more interesting than annoying. I fly back up until I’m progressing in inches again, then raise my hand and watch as it slows down, encountering more and more resistance until I can’t see any movement. But I can still feel infinitesimal advancement, and I don’t have the sense that I’m pressing my hand against a barrier.

Science experiment aside, the reality of the situation is that I can’t get over the canopy. That could be the effect of an enemy magic user, or it could mean I’m in another dimension that just happens to look exactly like Earth. I set back down on the forest floor and consider my options. My surroundings are lovely, but I’m totally lost and I have no idea where anyone else is.

“Archon,” crackles the voice of Ferromancer in my ear, now clear of her mask’s distortion and coming out of my earpiece. “Can you hear me?”

“Loud and clear,” I respond, “and it’s a real relief. Shit’s fucked, Ferro. What happened? Where am I? Is this actually the World of Glass? I’m in a forest that looks pretty ordinary.”

“Something interfered. We were separated as we passed through the portal and scattered across the nearby area, but everyone made it into the World of Glass. I’m in an office building inside a replica of Forks.”

“Lucky. Hey, is flight weird for you, too? It’s like there’s an invisible ceiling, but it feels wrong. A slowing effect.”

“I’ve experienced it before,” Ferromancer says. “It’s not always active, but it’s a property of many parts of the World of Glass. I’ve got a friend big into philosophy, so I showed him the data and he compared it to Zeno’s paradoxes of motion; your movement is being divided into an infinite number of sub-tasks, so no matter how much progress you make you never actually get any closer to passing the barrier. In practice, it means there’s a ceiling inhibiting flight that you can never slam into, only approach, so it’s not like hitting a solid surface.”

I frown. “That sounds… unnatural. Like, obviously, it’s magic, but that feels like something someone put there with intention.”

“Quite possibly,” she agrees. “Feel free to poke around, but try to stay where you are; I’m trying to guide everyone to pair up, and you’re fairly close to Agatha. I’ll get in touch with her next and send her your way. Ferromancer out.”

“Roger.”

I hum to myself as the line clicks dead. What other experiments can I run while I’m waiting for Agatha? There’s a ceiling, is there bedrock? I should specialize an imp for digging.

Thoughts of idle experimentation are interrupted by the emergence of an unexpected shape from between the trees: a very ordinary-looking Washington black bear. Dark fur, brighter nose, adorable and deadly. What the hell is this guy doing here?

“You’re probably not a bear, yeah?” I ask the thing that looks exactly like a bear. I raise my voice a little. “Hey, buddy, if you are just an animal, I don’t have any food for you. Don’t pick a fight you can’t win.”

The bear steps further into the clearing, beady eyes locked on me.

I spread my wings, put fire in both hands, and shout at it, “Hey! Piss off!” If it’s a real bear, it should be thinking twice about attacking me; there’s no food around and black bears aren’t usually eager to engage with loud weirdos they don’t understand. But it probably isn’t a real bear, and unfortunately for it, I’m not afraid to use lethal force either way.

I draw on Prometheus and burn a gun into my hand: the SIG Sauer P320 semi-automatic pistol that one of my familiars grabbed off the floor as I was leaving the bank. Mike calls the P320 a “trash piece of shit whose only redeeming quality is how many cops shoot each other with it due to misfires.” Perfect for the kind of guy who thinks shooting at an immortal witch is a good idea.

I don’t have any experience with guns outside of video games, and the skills aren’t really transferable, so I poured transformation magic into the base copy just like I did with Thunderclap’s axe and the bow that Ferromancer bought for me—with corresponding change in appearance, picking up green accents and spiked edges. It increases the flame cost, but now I can actually expect to hit what I’m aiming at. I wouldn’t bring it out in any situation where civilians could get hurt, but in another world? Perfect time to practice.

The bear takes another step closer to me, slow and methodical. It’s not a real bear, I know it’s not a real bear, but a little part of me still doesn’t want to risk killing an innocent animal. I don’t want to be the one to escalate. I aim to the right of it and fire a warning shot.

The bullet, enhanced by magic, blows a hole in a tree and sends bark flying. Blood oozes from the wound, pulsating flesh exposed where there should be heartwood. Why is it always meat plants in alien dimensions!? The tree and the bear scream in shrill harmony, their voices unsettlingly human.

“Fuck it, we ball!” I yell before unloading another six shots directly into the bear.

Each impact tears fur and flesh, blasting holes in the creature’s body that run straight to the bone. Except, “flesh” isn’t exactly the right word; where the bear should bleed red, instead it drips black ichor, and more ichor clings to the bear-thing’s bones. Ooze melts over the monster’s skull where I shattered it.

The abomination screams again, and then it comes for me.

I fly away from the monster as fast as I can, forced to stay low to the ground by the invisible ceiling and forced to slow down by the risk of slamming into a tree and getting its blood all over me. The beast chasing me has stopped pretending to be a bear; it skitters toward me on chitinous legs that burst out of the holes I put in it, spindly and segmented and dripping oily ichor. The sound of its mutation is wet and sharp, a song of severing meat and sprouting bone. I keep firing as I fly, but physical trauma just seems to incite more growth from the monster—more limbs, more mass, and more speed. The stench of bile fills the air.

The chamber in my gun clicks empty and I resummon the whole thing to reload. Another five shots tear through the spider-bear, the rest going wide as I frantically swerve to avoid another tree. I completely obliterate the creature’s head this time, which does absolutely nothing to slow it down.

“Useless garbage,” I chastise the pistol as I unsummon it again. I make a bow instead and nock a foam arrow. Let’s hope this works!

The first arrow strikes center mass, the yellow foam expanding and hardening. That doesn’t do much, but the second and third arrows get tangled in the monster’s legs and bind them together on one side. The horrid beast keeps coming, but it has to drag the weight of its own paralyzed limbs with all the working limbs and I can see it slowing—at least until it grows even more legs to keep up. I can barely see anything left of its original shape.

I whirl around and try to lead the creature back toward the initial clearing, where Ferromancer told me to wait before I was attacked by this extremely gross shapechanging horror. Actually, wait—

“Hey, Ferro?” I call as I fly. “Can you hear me?”

“I read,” she answers quickly. “You’re moving. Something about a bear?”

“Horrible oil monster! Shifter! Too many legs!”

A pause. The spider monster pursues with feral speed, its segmented limbs splintering and reforming with each impact as it pushes itself to gain on me. I keep shooting, launching arrow after arrow, until a lucky hit sends it stumbling and momentum does the rest. The beast trips over itself into a heap of tangled limbs, and that’s all the window I need to rapid-fire arrows and cover it in foam. I keep firing until I can feel the cold air on my once-hot skin, the heat of Prometheus dimming as I spend my flame. The abomination is completely encased in hardened foam, but it’s not still; the foam mound shudders as the shapeshifter strains within.

Wary of the monster escaping its prison, I start summoning imps: a line of flamers and a line of melee, standard formation. I shiver in the sudden chill.

My earpiece crackles again, but this time it’s Howl whose voice comes through: “Still alive, kid?”

“Yes! Give me something useful!” A spot on the foam mound blackens like rot, and then it spreads. Ichor oozes through the membrane and begins to dissolve it. “And hurry!”

“Yeah, yeah. I call ‘em deimovores. Sounds like you already know about the shapeshifting. They feed on fear, so don’t let it bite you or you’ll be tangling with your worst nightmare. Crazy territorial, so there’s probably just the one. Oh, and watch every angle!”

I fire off a few more foam arrows to keep the monster pinned, but the foam added dissolves almost as quickly as it forms, and I’m running out of flame to spare before I hit the critical zone. “How do I kill it!?”

Howl laughs, low and throaty, and I can just imagine the smug look on her face. “Dunno. I’ve never fought one that stayed dead.” The line clicks.

“Fuck!” I swear out loud.

“That name is infuriating,” Ferromancer comments in my ear. “It has a Greek root and a Latin suffix. It should be ‘deimophage’ or ‘timovore,’ not ‘deimovore.’ Completely uncultured.”

The deimovore screams in its prison and two spidery legs pierce through the dissolving foam. Then it stops, falling silent and still. It’s planning something.

I reclaim the flame from my bow and add another fire-thrower imp to my cohort. “When I banish the foam,” I command my minions, “burn it to death. Spears, you’re on guard duty.”

I take a deep breath, roll my shoulders, and claim back all the flame I invested in the quick-hardening foam that was encasing the deimovore. The foam vanishes.

There’s nothing there but oil, severed limbs, and a hole in the dirt.

The deimovore erupts from the earth below me and slams me to the ground with the full weight of its misshapen, mutating body. Half a dozen thin, spike-tipped chitin limbs pierce through my arms and legs to hold me in place while another half-dozen lance the closest imps and toss them away like unwanted refuse. Each laceration stings on entry and then goes numb.

The core beneath all those spindly limbs, coated in black bile, doesn’t look like a bear anymore; it’s beginning to look like the body of a woman with my build and my features. The shadowed impression of my own face stares at me with oil-slick eyes, and as I burn a gun into my hand to shoot the monstrous doppelganger it latches its mouth onto my neck like a lamprey and bites.

Where I was cold, I am frozen. Ice spreads through my veins, all heat stolen by the deimovore’s hunger. The cold is in my brain, slowing my thoughts. The cold is in my arms, paralyzing my fingers. I try to pull the trigger on my summoned weapon, but I can’t move.

I call to Prometheus, but I can’t reach it. I call to any flame that will listen, but it’s all so distant. I grasp. I fumble. The flame is so close, but I’m swimming through a frozen lake. Trying to cup it in frostbitten hands.

Then the world goes orange and yellow and a wave of heat rushes over me. The deimovore is torn from my neck by a ball of fire that sends it flying. Ice follows fire, then lightning, and then fire again. Life returns to me, paralysis banished as the deimovore screeches in agony. I grab at the wound in my throat, but there isn’t one; the skin is unbroken, as if it never bit me, but I still feel the lingering sensation of the deimovore’s icy teeth. I bolt to my feet and glance in the direction the attacks are coming from, knowing exactly who I’ll see:

Agatha has arrived. The magical girl chants arcane syllables to send spell after spell rocketing out of her floating grimoire, but she gives me a little nod and wave as I make eye contact with her.

“Thanks for the assist. Let’s finish this bastard.” I summon new imps to replace the ones I lost and direct them to throw fire, then take aim at the deimovore and start shooting.

For the first time since this encounter started, the monster is on the back foot; it flees from our attacks, losing more to our combined assault than it can quickly replace. Something is happening with it, its shape writhing and dissolving, but before it can complete its transformation it gets blasted with a full triplet of fire, ice, and lightning.

The deimovore staggers and I seize that opportunity to command all my imps to rush the monster and bury it in flame. It cuts through a few, but not all, and then each familiar explodes on top of it with as much magic as I could put in them. Fire erupts and spreads, though Agatha is quick to keep it contained with precise usage of ice magic.

When the dust settles, the deimovore is reduced to charred bone with not a hint of dripping ichor. I shoot it again anyway, just to check. Nothing happens.

“Do you think it’s dead?” Agatha asks, adjusting her glasses and looking between me and the bone pile nervously.

I dismiss my gun and summon another batch of bomb imps, directing them to circle the corpse of the deimovore closely. “If it so much as twitches,” I hiss at the latest batch, “detonate.” With a watch set, I let out a heavy breath and can finally force myself to lose a bit of tension. I smile at Agatha. “Thanks again, I was in a rough spot there.”

“Of course!” she says with a shy smile. “I’m happy I could help. It’s, um, nice to meet you! Archon, right?”

I grin. “That’s me. And the feeling is mutual, Agatha Cain. I’m glad I was dropped near you and not the Syndicate freak or Harlequin. I’ve heard good things about your streams.” Heard, yes, definitely. Not watched. Not a fan.

Agatha blushes. “Oh, thank you! Have you—I mean, not that it matters, but—sorry, no, that’s a silly question.” The urge to confess rises in me, but I ruthlessly crush my inner fangirl. “So, um, this monster thing!”

“The deimovore,” I supply, glancing back at the beast in question. It hasn’t moved. “Feeds on fear, horrible shapeshifter. Probably playing dead, according to Howl’s intel. No idea how it works.”

“Here’s hoping I can help,” Agatha says. “Watch my back while I take a look?”

“Of course.” I summon my gun again and sweep my gaze around the woods, keeping Agatha in the corner of my vision at all times. She’s going to do the glasses thing!

Agatha latches her grimoire back onto her belt, brushes back her bangs, and takes off her glasses. Her eyes flare bright, gleaming with power, as she beholds the deimovore with her signature magical ability.

And then she doubles over and vomits.

[commentary]

I like the book girl. Girls with glasses need glasses to see (or not).

A special thank you to my Grandmaster-tier patrons, whose support has kept food on my table: CaosSorge, Crows Danger, Demi, Lirian, M, Mhai Wind, Moth Court, October, and PR4v1 Samaratunga.

If you like this story and want to see more of it, please go to the RR page and leave a rating or review! Web serials live and die on audience support, and this one is no exception. The better the story does on RR, the more people click through and read, the more motivation I have (both on a mental health level and on an “able to pay rent” level) to keep writing and to write faster.

The next scheduled break week starts on the 21st of September.

[/commentary]

[commentary]

And we’re back! Welcome back, gamers. What have y’all been reading lately? I have gotten sucked into The Gods are Bastards, a fairly hefty serial that has been giving me Ideas(tm) for other projects. Anyway, without further ado: more chapter!

[/commentary]

Since my encounter with Amaranth, I’ve been able to remember the dream. I only keep flashes, but those flashes are incredibly vivid, and they line up with what she described in our brief encounter.

I say, “A city of bleached white stone—”

“—beneath a bleeding sun,” Ferromancer cuts in.

“And beneath that city is a deep, dark pit,” the Morrigan finishes.

A pit that might be Hell, Amaranth had said with intensity, just before reverting back to her giggling sadist persona. The dream is the same for all of us. “That place is in the World of Glass?” I ask.

The existence of another dimension parallel to Earth—a proper dimension, another world entirely, not just a pocket—seems like the kind of thing that should overwhelm me with the grandiosity of all its implications, but, I mean… I’ve dealt with magic being real for ten years, and I’ve read plenty of stories with parallel worlds and hidden dimensions. Being a nerd has thoroughly prepared me to grapple with a situation like this one.

If anything, I feel energized, so much so I have to stop myself from bouncing on my heels. How many worlds are out there, just waiting to be discovered? How vast is the universe we’ve only just begun to perceive? Why does Halloween matter? Do other holidays have a similar effect? What secrets are waiting in the World of Glass?

The Morrigan answers the one question I actually spoke aloud. “Striga has seen it there.” Of course. “Only her, and only once. One of your primary objectives on the other side will be to locate the dreaming place and secure a stable pathway for future expeditions.”

Right. This is a mission. The cosmic revelations distracted me from one key detail in the Morrigan’s speech, but now I seize on it. “You said I’ll be traveling to that world with my teacher and ‘four other conspirators.’ Who are they?” Striga, Striga, Striga…

“I suppose it is time for introductions,” the Morrigan muses. Then she opens her dessicated, scoured mouth, and for the first time in this whole conversation I hear not her voice in my mind but noise from the Morrigan’s dead throat. This voice—I can’t consider it her true voice, even if it is her physical voice—is cold and ugly and rasping, everything her mental voice isn’t. In that awful, grating, unsettling second voice, the corpse witch speaks a single word, and I know immediately with every fiber of my being that it is a word of power: “Cleave.”

For a fleeting moment of frozen eternity, the world splinters: in the center of five gardens, five Morrigans on five thrones speak the same command, and five realities collapse into one. The mazes—the gardens—the thrones—the Morrigans—cleave together and become whole.

Where I stood alone, I now stand beside four other witches—no, three witches and a magical girl, though not my precious Striga—most looking as disoriented by the shift as I feel. And Ferromancer, of course, who hasn’t left my side and remains inscrutable.

Howl comforts her wolf, Fenris, with scratches behind the ears and soothing babble, seemingly the least affected by whatever dimensional fuckery we just went through. Though her words and actions are sweet, she keeps her vigilant gaze roving between the rest of us.

Harlequin manages to trip standing up, falling over themself in a heap and laughing at their own misfortune. As they clamber upright, the clown-themed witch claps for the Morrigan’s trick, calling, “Brava! Encore!”

One confirmed dreamer and one suspected dreamer. Was that a criterion for all of us?

Delilah is here—the mystery attendee from Ferromancer’s presentation, wearing an urban camo cloak over a black bodysuit and hiding her face behind a spider-themed mask—and clearly spooked by the transition; her fists are raised in a defensive fighting stance, shoulders bunched, head rapidly turning as she takes in each of the conspirators.

The fourth is someone I recognize, but not someone I ever expected to see in the Ossuary: Agatha Cain, a recent addition to Visage’s magical girl roster.

She signed on close to a year ago after operating independent for only a few weeks, and I was actually in chat during her debut stream. I probably shouldn’t reveal that fact while we’re working together in a secret conspiracy to save humanity from planet-destroying alien cats.

I’m a big fan of Agatha’s costume: a corseted black and white dress with long sleeves and a short, poofy hemline over dark tights and heavy boots. Rainbow-colored eyes shine and glitter behind round, oversized glasses, turning an otherwise gothic lolita look into something cute and dorky. A heavy book—more of a tome—is covered in sigils and chained to her belt.

Agatha’s power has something to do with information processing, though she’s intentionally vague about the specifics of how it works. What we do know is that it’s tied to her eyes and doesn’t work while she’s wearing her glasses; when she’s solving crimes on her magical girl route or showing off to her stream in puzzle games, she always takes them off dramatically right before she starts figuring everything out. She makes a point to keep them on when she’s streaming visual novels with a strong mystery focus—the bread-and-butter of her schedule—so she can approach each game’s central enigma “without cheating.” There’s a visual element, too; when her glasses are off, her eyes glow brighter and her pupils disappear.

The magical girl is frozen in place, eyes wide and staring, grimoire loosed from her belt and clutched tightly to her chest. I give her a friendly wave, which seems to startle her.

“Meet your allies,” the Morrigan says to all of us, once more communicating telepathically. “Together, you six shall venture into the World of Glass, locate a path to the city and the pit, and learn everything you can about the Jovians and their design.”

Delilah crosses her arms. “Six is very conspicuous. Is everyone here truly necessary?” She sweeps her hand between me and Agatha, her focus firmly fixed on the Morrigan. “Two of them aren’t even blooded, Morrigan. They’ll break on the other side.”

Harlequin laughs. “And shall we trust you on the other side, sweet Syndicate spider? Your knife hand twitches for our backs, dear Delilah.”

My breath catches. That’s why I didn’t recognize Delilah; she must be one of the Syndicate witches who keeps out of the spotlight, a crime lord operating from the shadows and pulling mortal strings. But why—

“Why would someone from the Syndicate work with Lady Striga?” asks Agatha, sounding earnestly baffled. So everyone got the Striga reveal, I can assume.

“She’s got a point,” I add to back her up. “I trust the Morrigan’s oath, but the Syndicate have a history of active hostility toward everyone who isn’t Syndicate, and that goes double for Striga. What makes you different?” I ask Delilah directly.

Delilah doesn’t look at us. “Do you see?” she asks the Morrigan, sounding annoyed through her mask. “Children and a partisan. They are unfit for a mission of this significance.”

“You’re being obstinate,” Ferromancer sighs. “Just answer their concern, Delilah. Don’t be a brick.” What do you know about her, teacher? What’s your history? Ferromancer must have known who Delilah was when she came to the demo. Have they worked together before?

After a moment of silent seething, Delilah hisses, “If I must,” and adjusts her cloak before taking a step back, turning to face the rest of us, and launching into a speech. “Yes, I’m part of the Syndicate. I assure you, however, that I’m nothing like those insipid fools playing warlord and picking fights they stand no chance of winning. My ‘peers’ are trapped in the old game, and they see this conflict as just another phase in an endless struggle over land and wealth and armies. Idiots. True power cannot be found in the material resources they so covet, nor in the influence that Visage and Vanguard and the Coterie all vie for. Striga has power. The Morrigan has power. And their power is the ability to do as they wish, confident that none can stop them, because they have better magic. No, I don’t care about ‘undesirables’ or putting on a crown; I’m after a much bigger prize. The Syndicate is a tool, one I intend to use like any other. Satisfied?”

It suddenly occurs to me that every faction in the PNW has a representative in this conspiracy. Delilah for the Syndicate, Agatha for Visage, Harlequin for Coterie, and absent Striga for Vanguard. For full coverage we’re just missing an independent magical girl and a witch working under Visage… and I know a way to solve one of those problems.

“Self-serving to the last,” Harlequin criticizes with a smile full of hate. “How typical.”

“Self-interest is the only real motivation,” Delilah bites back. “Be grateful I’m honest.”

“Enough of this,” Howl snaps, finally rising from her wolf to glare at the bickering pair. “We’re wasting moonlight. We only have a limited window to explore the other side before the portal becomes unstable. Striga built this team, right?”

My heartbeat quickens. That’s right. Striga is the mastermind, so she must have at least had input. Which means… she knows who I am. She rifled through her mental file on Archon, accepted Ferromancer’s sponsorship, and put me on the team.

Of course, that also means she put Delilah on the team. Does that make Delilah trustworthy? Or is it another of Striga’s cutthroat gambits? Delilah could be a sacrificial pawn, a piece of material to be traded away.

Howl’s question was directed at the Morrigan, who answers, “Correct. As Delilah wondered, you all have something to offer this quest. I would appreciate it if you could introduce yourselves properly and efficiently.”

“I’ll go first,” Howl grumbles, “if only to get it over with. I’m Howl, I’m not from around here, and I’ve made my way in and out of that other world more times than any of you have years. I’ll be your guide, and if things go really wrong and we lose the portal back I’m your best shot at making it home.”

“Elaborate on that last part,” Delilah demands, though I’m more curious about the absurd number of times Howl’s been to the World of Glass.

“No. Your go.” Howl returns to petting her wolf, and Delilah gets no sympathy from the rest of us, so she throws up her arms and relents.

“Fine! I’m Delilah, and I’ve visited that world twice. I have a kind of danger sense that keeps me warned about everything from faraway snipers to cursed amulets and tripwires. I’ll be the final say on if something is safe to touch. Now, why is the clown here?”

Harlequin cackles. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m the muscle, my morose malcontent. Harlequin of Coterie, at your service.”

“The meat shield, more like it,” Delilah mutters.

“I’ve also spent a lot of the past year hunting down the monsters that have been escaping from that side,” they add with a wider grin and a crack of their knuckles. I need to get them alone and ask them a billion questions about that.

“Monsters?” Agatha asks, having inched closer to me while all this has been going on. “What kind of monsters?” There’s a hint of fear in her voice, but she mostly sounds curious.

“Terrors untold without rhyme or reason!” Harlequin cheers. “Horrors and worse, no matter the season!”

“What the loon means,” Delilah interjects, “is that there isn’t much of a pattern.”

“Clock ticking,” Howl reminds us. “Glasses girl, who are you?”

Agatha blushes, and then she curtsies in apology and introduction. I adore her. “Sorry, sorry! Um, hi! It’s lovely to meet you all. My name is Agatha Cain, and I’m a magical girl with Visage. My power lets me see the connections between, well, I guess objects and people is the simplest way to describe it. It’s kind of a complicated power, but I’m confident it’ll help us decipher any clues we find on the other side. I’ve never been, though, sorry.”

“Neither have I,” I share, taking an immediate liking to this girl—immediate because I definitely haven’t watched her streams before or spoken in her chat or donated to hear her say my internet handle, nope. “Hello, Archon here!” I raise my hand and give a little wave. “I can copy things and transform them.” I burn Thunderclap’s melted axe into existence and just as quickly dismiss it.

Ferromancer speaks up. “Archon’s ability is able to perfectly duplicate objects with magical properties. It may allow her to copy objects native to the World of Glass. It will also prove useful in other ways.” She raises a gauntleted hand to her mask and removes a silver earpiece. “Demonstrate, if you would. A full set.”

I take the device, add it to my furnace, and copy it. Then I copy it five more times, once for each of us. Ferromancer’s object limit, surpassed.

“These earpieces are paired to my suit’s comm system, allowing me to monitor locational data and connect us to each other even in the absence of a signal network or in the presence of radio wave interference, details that I can confirm from experience are true to the other side. My name is Ferromancer, and I’ll keep us in touch with home base.”

Each of the conspirators takes an earpiece, with Ferromancer setting hers on the glass table where the oath paper has vanished. Even Delilah accepts one, though reluctantly, and slips it inside her hood.

“It is time,” the Morrigan announces, and then once more she contorts her ruined mouth and utters a word of power: “Open.”

In the middle of the garden path, reality rips apart. There is a hole in the world, and it grows. A pinpoint becomes an inkblot becomes an abyss, and then that abyss is trapped and caged inside an archway of flowering bone. The portal churns.

“You have seven hours,” the Morrigan tells us. “When dawn breaks and All Hallows’ ends, the portal will collapse. Go swiftly. And good luck.”

“Finally,” Howl says with an eye-roll, and then without another word she strides through the portal, wolf following, and vanishes.

Harlequin and Delilah are next, the two continuing to snipe at each other even as they cross the threshold and disappear.

“See you on the other side,” Agatha says, and then she’s gone too.

Ferromancer pats me on the shoulder. “Be ready for anything.” We cross together, stepping into blackness—

—a flash of golden eyes in the dark, a whisper unheard, a rough hand on my wrist—

—and out onto soft soil, sparse grass, and a scattering of twigs and leaves. A forest of dark trees, and a starry sky just barely visible past the thick canopy. I smell the earthy tones of the vibrant natural world.

But there’s no sign of any of the others. No Ferromancer.

I’m completely alone.

[commentary]

The gang’s all here! And then they’re not.

A special thank you to my Grandmaster-tier patrons, whose support has kept food on my table: CaosSorge, Crows Danger, Demi, Lirian, M, Mhai Wind, Moth Court, October, and PR4v1 Samaratunga.

If you like this story and want to see more of it, please go to the RR page and leave a rating or review! Web serials live and die on audience support, and this one is no exception. The better the story does on RR, the more people click through and read, the more motivation I have (both on a mental health level and on an “able to pay rent” level) to keep writing and to write faster.

The next scheduled break week starts on the 21st of September.

[/commentary]

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 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.

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 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 like this, 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.”

---

[commentary]

*Whistles innocently.*

A special thank you to my Grandmaster-tier patrons, whose support has kept food on my table: CaosSorge, Crows Danger, Demi, Lirian, M, Mhai Wind, October, and PR4v1 Samaratunga.

If you like this story and want to see more of it, please go to the RR page and leave a rating or review! Web serials live and die on audience support, and this one is no exception. The better the story does on RR, the more people click through and read, the more motivation I have (both on a mental health level and on an “able to pay rent” level) to keep writing and to write faster.

The next scheduled break week starts on the 24th of August. Next week! Next week! That’s next week!

[/commentary]

Wavecaller is one of the Coterie’s true believers. She’s an ecoterrorist like Sister Nature and works closely with her in Canada to wreck industrial plants, strand boats responsible for overfishing in places too costly to retrieve them from, and shut off oil pipelines.

Her power, as one might expect, is control over bodies of water, which makes her a powerhouse over the ocean and still fairly dangerous in urban environments where everything is hooked up to a water main. She’s not on Typhon’s level, but then who is?

Her costume is a blue fish-scale-patterned wetsuit with black accents. Her hair is slick, seeming perpetually wet, and her eyes are like whirlpools swirling with infinite depth. Righteous fury lingers in the grind of her jaw.

Before Wavecaller can turn her rage on me, I quickly clarify, “I don’t have any love for the Syndicate, if that’s what you’re worried about. I certainly didn’t expect her to start throwing around the worst readings of Nietzsche.”

“Yeah?” The other witch raises an eyebrow, still judging me with her strange-eyed gaze. “You seemed pretty chummy. Why keep talking to the reptile after she showed her true colors?”

“Intellectual curiosity,” I say honestly. “The Syndicate are a bunch of dead women walking, and I have that perverse instinct to study an insect as it drowns. It is, after all, only a matter of time until Strix Striga kills every last one of them.” I smile.

Wavecaller scowls. “We do our part, too. Don’t give all the credit to Vanguard.”

The two organizations work hand-in-hand when it comes to pact violation. Sometimes that’s a magical girl going full Punisher—murdering ordinary thieves and vandals—and needing to be put down, but more often it’s a witch crossing that line and putting too many lives at risk. Still, when there isn’t a breach to address, Vanguard magical girls are usually the first on the scene to stop Coterie witches from acting, or at least to minimize harm. “How do you feel about Vanguard?” I ask directly before taking another sip of cider.

“You ask too many questions,” Wavecaller accuses me. “Is that all you’ve been doing, just going around interrogating everyone?”

I wince and scratch my head sheepishly, playing it up in the hopes she’ll feel like she’s caught me in something and won some points. “That’s fair. Sorry, I’m still new to this. I want to learn as much as I can from more experienced witches. I want to find my place in witch society.”

“You didn’t act like this in front of Priscilla,” the other witch observes, still staring at me with naked suspicion. I’m starting to think she was awake for the entire conversation, not just the end of it. “Cut the crap and tell it straight: whose side are you really on?”

Hmm, how should I answer that? I bite my lip and look away into nowhere, thinking it over carefully. “My side is… me.” I smile again, this time brighter and more impish. “Maybe I’ll join Visage, maybe the Coterie, or maybe I’ll go it alone. But I don’t think I’m your enemy, whatever I choose. I like you, and I like your organization. I’d love to hunt and kill Priscilla with you someday, when I’m stronger,” I offer sincerely. I’d be doing my dearest Striga a favor.

It takes a few moments for Wavecaller to chew over my answer, peering at me closely with eyes narrowed, but eventually she relents, relaxes, and signals the bartender for another drink. “You seem like a bit of a freak,” she says, “but we take those. I believe you about the reptile, which is all I need.”

Yes! Victory! I silently congratulate myself over the last of my drink, and when I set it down I’m back in business mode. “You waited to pounce on the fash until she mentioned wanting to wipe out all magical girls, so I have to ask: are you a believer in the pact? I know you work with Vanguard, but do you respect them? If you’d like, I can share a few things about myself in exchange. I know I must seem pretty mercenary, but the truth is a lot sillier: I’m a fan.”

Wavecaller rolls her eyes at my last line, but she seems in better spirits now. “The enemy of my enemy isn’t always my friend. Give me a better reason and I’ll talk.”

“Because I can be useful to you,” I answer immediately. “Convince me I should petition the Coterie for membership. Tell me what makes you believe in their mission, and I might start believing in it myself. I already said I like what you do. The boat trick, the sabotage, it’s fun to read about, and I’m not the kind of moron who thinks global warming is fake or harmless. But I have to wonder: why are you and Sister Nature both witches and not magical girls, if what you really want is to save the world?”

The ecoterrorist witch blows out air and takes another drink before answering. “That… is a better question than I thought you’d ask. Fine. Yeah, I respect some of my opposites in Vanguard. The carbon removal project in Victoria is damn fine work, and when I heard about what they’re doing in the Arctic it gave me a sliver of honest to god hope for this burning world. But it’s not enough to just address the symptoms. It’ll never be enough, not while the bastards on top of the heap keep throwing fuel on the fire. Because there’s money in coal and there’s money in oil, and the people making that money don’t care if the world burns so long as they get a golden casket and another zero next to their bank statement. So I do my work, and so do my comrades.” Her voice gets sharper and more intense as she finishes by saying, “I am a droplet in the tide that will drown this planet’s murderers.”

“But you can’t just fly around killing them all,” I point out. “The pact ties your hands. Does that not frustrate you?”

“Of course it does!” Wavecaller snaps. “I’d love to get my hands on the slimy fucks in charge of ExxonMobil and drown them in their own precious crude. It’d feel real, real good. And then the next day, they’d appoint a new board that would make all the same votes, and nothing would change. So, fine. If it keeps the girlies in Vanguard from pushing back too hard when I hit an Exxon facility, I won’t go around murdering Exxon executives, and Exxon knows that. ‘Course, in turn, Vanguard better use that leverage to apply pressure their way. And credit where it’s due, that Striga bitch knows her way around leverage.”

I do not wrap my hands around Wavecaller’s throat and squeeze until I feel something crack when she calls my beloved darling a bitch. I only think about doing it. “Striga’s ruthless, that’s for sure,” I praise with a laugh that sounds real. “So Vanguard plays politics while the Coterie breaks what needs to be broken, but both are trying to fix the world. Is that how you see magical girls and witches?”

“The proper ones,” she mutters. “The way I see it, words like ‘heroes’ and ‘villains’ are labels for fiction, not real life. We’ve all been given power beyond what any human can have, and that carries a responsibility to use it for something that matters. The difference is whether you’re working inside the system or taking a hammer to it.” She glances over at Kira Kira and Sweet Tooth, still playing games on the couch, and her expression darkens. “I don’t think the Jovians see it my way, though. Not if they keep picking witches like that.”

I follow her gaze. “Maybe. I think there can be value in entertainment, but you’re probably right.”

Before I have the chance to say anything else and keep mining Wavecaller for her perspective, my attention is seized by an arrival I’ve been waiting for all this time: Ferromancer is finally here. My teacher steps out of a door from nowhere like Howl and the others vanished through, and for the first time I get to see what she looks like transformed.

Her figure is obscured by sharp, angular power armor and a black, hooded cloak. The metal of her armor is different from what I’ve seen in all her other creations: a dark silver instead of that deep blue tone, and seeming to absorb light instead of reflecting it. Her face is hidden behind a silver mask, the eyes and mouth of her helmet glowing the same bright orange as the energy lines running across the suit—another departure from the technology in her workshop, which glows green.

She’s carrying a metal briefcase with an electronic lock that I’ve seen once before, though I don’t know what’s inside it. “Something absurd,” she told me. No drones, no visible weaponry; just armor, a cloak, and a briefcase.

“Archon,” she calls over, voice distorted by her mask. “Your presence has been requested by the Morrigan. Come with me.”

That gets everyone’s attention. Looking around the room, I’m pretty sure Wavecaller, Kira Kira, and Sweet Tooth don’t know who Ferromancer is. Bombshell is giggling to herself. Harlequin doesn’t look any different, which could mean recognition or just being better at hiding their ignorance. I’d bet on the former, if Lilith knew.

“That’s my cue,” I say to the Coterie witch beside me as I rise from my seat and wave at Ferromancer in acknowledgment. “Thanks for the chat. Let’s do this again, yeah?”

Wavecaller frowns at me, a bit of genuine curiosity finally creeping into her expression. “We’ll see. Try not to piss off the old monster. The Morrigan’s no joke.”

I walk over to my teacher and she slips back through the open doorway without a word, so I follow. Bombshell stays behind, now fending off the pestering of the Visage witches.

The upper halls of the Ossuary are much like the lower halls, composed of breathing bone and splitting away into dozens of private chambers, most marked with sealed doors like the one that Bombshell took me to. Our footsteps echo in the silence, Ferromancer’s cloak softly swishing along the floor as her armored feet pound, and I can still feel and taste that gentle seaside breeze.

“So,” Ferromancer asks as we walk, “how was it?” It’s a little harder to make out emotion in her voice through the mechanical distortion, but I can hear a faint trace of amusement.

I think back over my experiences this evening. A lot’s already happened, and I haven’t even met the Morrigan yet. “It’s been interesting. They’re all very opinionated—the witches, I mean. They all had lots to say and were fairly open about it. They hate each other,” I laugh. “I knew that, I guess, but it’s different to hear it said so plainly. I had fun listening to what they thought of each other. I honestly wish I had more time to spend back there so I could keep hanging out with Bombshell’s friends and the other witches. I want them to like me. Well, not so much the Syndicate witch, Priscilla.”

“You learned what their organization really believes,” Ferromancer guesses.

“Fascists, apparently,” I sigh. “It’s a shame, ‘cause the idea of a witch-led crime ring is so cool! I wanted a witch mafia, not ‘we must exterminate our enemies and enslave our lessers.’ Very disappointed about that.”

“They aren’t unified in ideology,” she notes, “but supremacy is the consistent thread. A problem to discuss later. Tell me about before the witches, when you were down below.”

I’m mindful that the Morrigan could be listening—is listening, going by what Ferromancer said a few days ago—but then she would have already witnessed everything anyways, so there’s no point in being evasive. “I’m never going in as a mortal again,” I mutter. “Sensory overload, too hot and too loud and too everything. I didn’t feel like I belonged. But when I came back as a witch? That was magical. It was thrilling. I want to do that again, because I absolutely loved the attention.”

“Sounds like it was useful, then.” Ferromancer’s in her professional mode right now, cold and focused, so I can’t tell if she’s satisfied with my report.

“The Ossuary is fascinating,” I add. “I mean, I knew intellectually what an impressive pocketspace it was, but seeing it in person is something else.”

Being able to make a permanent pocketspace is a pretty rare ability. Lilith’s signature pocketspace—the Coterie’s meeting hall—is temporary, and so is the Minotaur’s labyrinth trap. Memento, one of Visage’s magical girls, can create a palace dimension that is also strictly temporary. The Morrigan and Ferromancer are a rare breed, and I doubt Ferromancer could create a pocketspace half as intricate as the Ossuary.

Ferromancer nods. “The craftmanship is exceptional. Feel free to tell her I said so.”

Ahead, the long hallway we’ve been traversing comes to a sudden end with another skull-arched set of doors, the Morrigan’s raven symbol glowing over chains. I’m nervous, but Ferromancer strides along at the same unhurried pace. She taps the raven and the chains vanish, and then she’s pushing the doors open and we’re stepping inside.

The Morrigan’s throne room is a garden maze below a clear blue sky. Twisting hedges stretch on into infinity, an unending wall of green broken by roses and dandelions and a thousand other flowers in a dizzying array of color. Placid ponds host frogs, cranes, and buzzing dragonflies. A path paved in bone winds through the garden to a throne of skulls blanketed in carnations and chrysanthemums, and upon that throne sits the Morrigan herself.

Most witches look… human, for lack of a better word. I have wings and pointy ears, but that’s hardly more than a costume. Cat ears, marble skin, glowing hair, they’re all just details. The core is still a human being. Not her.

The Morrigan is a corpse. She is bone and stretched skin, sunken eyes and scoured lips. She is a ruin of a woman in a gown of black feathers. She does not recline on her throne but is fastened to it, bound to it by flowering vines. Her eyes, twin embers of pale blue flame, are the only signs of life in her withered, long-dead form.

“Welcome,” she greets, face unmoving, her smooth, warm, rich voice echoing inside my mind. “Come to me, O visitor mine, and let us speak of war.”

---

[commentary]

Corpse! Lady! Corpse! Lady! Corpse lady my sweet.

A special thank you to my Grandmaster-tier patrons, whose support has kept food on my table: CaosSorge, Crows Danger, Demi, Lirian, M, Mhai Wind, October, and PR4v1 Samaratunga.

If you like this story and want to see more of it, please go to the RR page and leave a rating or review! Web serials live and die on audience support, and this one is no exception. The better the story does on RR, the more people click through and read, the more motivation I have (both on a mental health level and on an “able to pay rent” level) to keep writing and to write faster.

The next scheduled break week starts on the 24th of August.

[/commentary]

“So, like, the lone wolf thing, is that—”

“Wolves are pack animals,” Howl interrupts with a glare. “Lone wolves only stay that way if they die before they can find a pack to take them in. I don’t hunt alone, kid, I just don’t like being around humans unless I’m getting my hands on good food and good booze. I’ve got plenty of companions.” She reaches down and scratches her pet wolf behind the ears.

The wolf’s name is Fenris, I’m pretty sure, and she has a pair of birds named Huginn and Muninn. There’s a bit of speculation on the forums that she’s from Germany or further north, but her accent is light enough that I can’t be sure. “You said ‘humans,’” I note. “Is that excluding other witches?”

She curls her lip. “Horsepiss and hubris. A human with magic is a human with magic, not whatever the Syndies and the Cotters want to believe they’ve become. I see no demigods here.”

Howl’s voice is low and throaty, a little rough, but I don’t mind listening to it. Kira Kira and Sweet Tooth are entertaining, but they don’t compel me. Harlequin unnerves me. I want to solve Howl and find what makes her tick. “You’re very interesting,” I tell her, leaning on the bar counter and smiling. “Everyone wants to know where you’re from, what you want, and why you’ve come to this part of the world.”

“People are too bloody nosy,” she mutters, continuing to pet her dog. “The only way I let people know me is in the biblical sense. You want to know my deal? I’m not from around here, I want food and booze and sex, and I came to this rotten place on my own damn business.”

Prickly. Alright, different tactic. “Fair’s fair. But you called me over for a reason, so what is it? What does the mysterious Howl want with the new kid in town?”

“Wanted to take your measure,” she answers curtly. “Not often I meet another dreamer.”

My gaze sharpens. “You have my attention.”

Howl has the remnants of a meal in front of her: thin, flat strips of steak—only a few of them left now—and the scooped-out husk of a baked potato. She picks up a piece of meat and tosses it to Fenris, who snatches it out of the air with shocking agility for an animal that looked half-asleep a second ago. “I won’t say much around the vipers, but now you know something about me that few others do. I’ve got a question for you, in turn: what do you think of these witches and their factions?”

I chew my lip and consider how to answer. I think she’s probably looking for an answer that aligns with her own disdain for the powers that be, but she might see through a lie and judge me worse for it. “I think they’re fun,” I say honestly. “Before I became a witch, I was a fangirl. Coterie, Visage, Vanguard, Syndicate, I think they’re all fascinating—I think everything to do with magic and those who use it is fascinating. I’d probably enjoy a month or two with Visage, or getting to know Sister Nature and the Minotaur up close. They could be useful to me. That’s how I feel.”

Howl finishes her meal while I talk, chewing her steak thoughtfully. She washes it down with more beer, which arrived sometime during our conversation, and she takes her time drinking before she says anything in response to my little speech. One of the skeletal waitstaff takes her plate. She watches me in silence, head tilted and one of her long ears twitching, and then she grins with a vicious glint in her eyes. “I get it. You’re one of the real monsters, aren’t you?” She laughs.

I resist the instinct to freeze up, forcing myself to stay calm and visibly unbothered even as my mind races with questions. What does that mean? Why does she think that? What does she think she knows? “How’d you come to that conclusion?” I ask, injecting mirth into my voice.

“Don’t worry about it,” she dismisses with a wave. She gets up from her seat, the wolf rising with her, and starts walking off. “Be seeing you, monster girl.” Before I can say anything else, she slips through a door that wasn’t there a moment ago and vanishes deeper into the Ossuary, down some hall of creaking bone.

That’s three people who have recognized on sight that I’m having a weird dream. Three people who are probably having the same dream, though only one described it. And now this one, this wandering witch, seems to have learned something else about me just through observation. I need to figure out that trick, at least enough to defend myself against it.

Laughter from the other side of the bar pulls me back to the present. I still have three more witches to get a read on before Ferromancer arrives and we proceed to the final phase of tonight’s itinerary.

Priscilla, Riddlemaster, and Wavecaller. One Syndicate and two Coterie witches. Unusual to see those factions mingling, given their opposing views on the pact. Femur’s pet conspiracy theory is that they have some sort of backroom deal running, like the militant and public arms of the same movement, so he’d be delighted to hear about Priscilla and Riddlemaster drinking and laughing together. Of course, that’s probably one of those little secrets I can’t share without violating the sacred law of confidentiality—the guarantee that witches like Kira, Priscilla, and so on can be themselves in this space without fear.

I order a drink from the bartender and purge the previous round of alcohol from my body. Bombshell was the one to walk me through that trick, and I cannot express in any number of words how delightful it is to be able to cancel an edible on a whim. I’m here to drink socially, not get drunk; my alcohol tolerance is a lot higher as a witch than it was as a mortal, but a third drink in my system would be tempting fate.

I shift my attention to the other witches at the bar and listen in on their conversation.

“—meat-brained, empty-headed dimwits!” screeches Riddlemaster before pounding back what looks to be her eighth shot of the night.

Priscilla pats her shoulder and chuckles lightly. “You really have the worst of it, darling.” The Syndicate witch swirls a glass of red wine and idly sips from it. The drink looks nearly untouched.

“Of course I do!” the Coterie witch hisses. “The worst power those bastard cats could cook up, and do my ‘teammates’ care? Of course they don’t!”

Riddlemaster is local, while Priscilla’s home turf is relatively unknown but speculated to be somewhere in Seattle. I’ve heard of both, but I know much more about the former.

The cat-eared, dark-haired, gold-adorned witch has a sphinx theme so obvious it makes one wonder if that’s really her power or some clever piece of deflection, but once you’ve seen any fight she’s been in it becomes pretty clear that level of trickery is beyond her. Riddlemaster’s signature power is the ability to trap people in projected mental landscapes until they can solve her, well, riddles. The problem with her power is that it’s based on the victim’s perception, not her own; if someone gives a wrong answer with enough confidence and belief, the phantasm considers it just as solved as if someone gave the right answer. Which means her power completely fails to work on magical girls that are smart enough to solve it correctly—like Striga, for example, or her teammate Herbalist—and on magical girls too dumb or stubborn to realize their answer is wrong. Y’know, like Thunderclap.

Priscilla is a much more mysterious character. She’s one of the small handful of Syndicate witches that act as the “faces” of the organization, speaking to the public and making appearances while the rest of her comrades operate from the shadows. It’s known that her power has something to do with poison, but everything else is shrouded in rumor. She’s the type to wear red cocktail dresses and shining pearls, and you could almost mistake her for going untransformed if not for those too-green eyes and that serpentine tail.

As Riddlemaster continues her ranting, Priscilla looks away for a moment and I catch a glimpse of absolute boredom on her face. I make eye contact with her and wink, then raise my glass and call over, “May I join in?”

“Make yourself at home,” she drawls, interrupting Riddlemaster’s speech. “Riddles, darling, you might like this one.”

I sidle over and take a seat next to the Syndicate witch. “Archon,” I introduce myself. “I’m new in town. You’re Priscilla and Riddlemaster, correct?”

The cat-eared witch raises her empty shot glass and awkwardly clinks it against my half-full cider. “You’re alright, new in town,” Riddlemaster praises, the words falling out of her drunken mouth. “Beat that bitch of a bitch of a fucker, with the axe! Wish you’d caved her goddamned skull in.” When she’s not slurring her words, the venom and fury comes through loud and clear.

“I see you’ve been making your rounds,” Priscilla says with a calm, too-precise smile. “You’re quite the prolific networker for such a fresh arrival to our circles.”

I throw her a roguish grin in response. She has me pegged as an opportunist, I gather, so I’ll lean into that angle. Syndicate witches probably admire a bit of shameless amorality, right? “I like to know my options. Everyone here has something to offer, and I’d be a fool if I didn’t sample the menu before grabbing a plate.”

Priscilla casts a glance toward the quartet around the television screen and asks, “Is junk food to your taste, then? Or are you not a picky eater?”

“I’ll pick those goddamn eaters,” Riddlemaster mutters, getting lost in a fresh glass. “Cannonball!” she shouts the name of another heroine. “How is that a burger!?”

Engaging with Riddlemaster doesn’t seem particularly productive right now, so I ignore her rambling and focus on Priscilla. “Should I be surprised that a member of the Syndicate has contempt for the witches who play for Visage?” I keep my grin up and my posture relaxed, like we’re two contemporaries making fun of a third.

“Syndicate, bah. Such a crass name,” Priscilla laments. “I suppose that’s what happens when your opponent controls the media.”

Funny. I’ve never heard of the Syndicate pushing back on that label. Is it a battle not worth fighting, or does it serve their ends to cry censorship? “Do you have a name you’d prefer I use?” I ask, genuinely curious.

Priscilla sips her wine and smirks. “There are as many names for our organization as there are members. The truest, I think, would be ‘the Yet Uncrowned.’ It is our great purpose to one day prove that title false.”

“‘Uncrowned’ has a nice feel, a good sound. But how true is it, really? All I’ve ever heard of your organization is talk of a new twist on old crime. I’m getting the sense you’d call that propaganda.” I sip my own drink, watching the other witch closely.

Priscilla lets out a quiet, almost dainty laugh. “The greatest obstacle to our message might be a lack of education in the layperson; tell me, are you familiar with the works of the philosopher Plato? Or of his teacher, Socrates?”

Ah, so she’s a poseur. “Before my time,” I joke, before more seriously adding, “I’ve heard bits and pieces, but I’d hardly call myself an expert. Socratic method, Platonic ideals, and that’s about the extent of it.” All of it picked up from arguments between Femur and Mordacity, of course—including the detail that Socrates didn’t write shit.

“A step above most,” Priscilla assures me, keeping any backhandedness from her voice. “Allow me, if you will, to share a bit of their wisdom. In Plato’s Republic, he writes of an ideal form of government: a society ruled by a philosopher king, one versed in all studies and forming his administration from like-minded and like-educated peers. What Plato did not know—could not know, being born in such a foundational time of history—was how vast and multifaceted the well of knowledge truly is. An average human lifespan is not nearly enough time to learn all that is truly required for the perfect ruler that Plato described.” Priscilla pauses meaningfully.

“But a witch is immortal,” I say as prompted. “If not slain in battle, we’ll all live for the decades and centuries that would be needed to attain such heights. Some of us even have powers that can shorten that work, learning the knowledge of a lifetime in a few short years. That’s your meaning, yes?”

Priscilla’s smile takes on a warmer cast. “You understand. Think of what could be accomplished in a hundred years under the firm hand of a witch queen and her court of the learned. It would be a golden age for humanity. Thus, it is our moral obligation as witches to rule over our lessers and guide them away from their own… depravities.”

I keep myself from reacting visibly to that last word. “Magical girls are also immortal,” I note. “If their side of the war could be defeated without killing or disempowering them, would you rule alongside them as peers?”

Her lip curls. “They lack the will to power. In those who eagerly self-define as heroines, the morality of weakness has triumphed. They think very little of submitting themselves to the madness of the masses, and so shrivels their will. Strength is wasted on those without the drive to make use of it. Their kind have no place in humanity’s future.”

“You fascist pig,” snarls Wavecaller, who was apparently not as unconscious as I had assumed. She lifts her head off the counter and glares daggers at Priscilla.

Riddlemaster also must have assumed her colleague was unconscious, because a flash of guilt crosses her face before she starts stumbling over her words. “Whoah, hey, uh, let’s not throw that around so—”

“Fuck off,” Wavecaller snaps. “I take pity on you one time and spend my fucking truce night keeping you company, and you start drinking with that reptile bitch?”

“I—I didn’t—we were just swapping s-stories—pity?” Riddlemaster’s eyes start to water, and then in a flash she bolts to her feet and runs off.

I once read a rumor that Riddlemaster tried to join Visage first and was rejected for terrible stage presence, so she came slinking to the Coterie and begged for their protection. It seems her colleagues didn’t warm to her anymore than Visage did. I almost feel bad for her, but not really.

Priscilla sighs. “What a delightful woman you are, truly. A paragon of your breed.”

“Go on,” the Coterie witch sneers. “Call me a mongrel. A degenerate. You know you want to. I know what you are, so don’t even try to hide it. If it wasn’t for this place’s protections I’d take that head clean off, truce or no truce.”

“Unlike you, I see no value in such petty, wasteful insults, nor in such senseless violence.” Priscilla smiles with sickly sweet insincerity.

“People like you were killing this world long before the Jovians showed up,” Wavecaller hisses. “You don’t deserve the power they gave you.”

“I think I’ve had quite enough of your childish taunts,” Priscilla says with a forced yawn. “I’ll be going after the ‘teammate’ you so rudely chased off. Have a pleasant evening.” She rises, makes to leave, and catches my eye one more time before departing. “I hope to see you again, Archon. Don’t pick a side too hastily.”

And then she’s gone, leaving me alone at the bar with a villainess still fuming.

---

[commentary]

I’m sure this chapter and next won’t be controversial…

A special thank you to my Grandmaster-tier patrons, whose support has kept food on my table: CaosSorge, Crows Danger, Demi, Lirian, M, Mhai Wind, October, and PR4v1 Samaratunga.

If you like this story and want to see more of it, please go to the RR page and leave a rating or review! Web serials live and die on audience support, and this one is no exception. The better the story does on RR, the more people click through and read, the more motivation I have (both on a mental health level and on an “able to pay rent” level) to keep writing and to write faster.

The next scheduled break week starts on the 24th of August.

[/commentary]

It’s one thing to be starstruck because you’re talking to witches you know by reputation. Talking to witches whose streams you’ve watched? Witches that you may or may not have spent money on in the past? Witches who—no, I shan’t say.

I very bravely and impressively keep my composure and don’t flail about as Bombshell pulls me over to meet the Visage duo cuddling on a couch together. They both look up when Bombshell calls, but Kira quickly returns her attention to the video game in front of her while Sweet Tooth waves back.

“Bombshell!” Sweet Tooth cheers. “Oh my gosh it’s been so long, what have you been up to? Wait, don’t answer that, I can totally guess. And who’s this cutie?” The witch shoots me an inquiring glance, but before I can actually say anything she raises a hand and keeps going. “Wait, no, we should introduce ourselves first! Kira! Kira! Kira!” She pokes her couchmate in the shoulder with each repetition of her name.

Kira rolls her eyes. “I’m fighting Allant and there’s no fucking pause button in this game, give me a minute!”

“It’s fine, babe, it’s fine, you’re not going to kill him this run—no, I totally believe in you, no, I absolutely do, it’s just that you’ve been stuck on this boss for like an hour—aaand you’re dead. So now you can intro with me?”

Kira throws the controller down and hisses at the screen. “Bastard! Level-draining cocksucker! Do that move one more time and I’m poisoning your ass!”

“Babe. Kira. Kira!”

“Yeah, yeah.”

The two witches pose together, though neither actually leaves the sofa where they’re cozied up, Sweet Tooth practically draped across Kira Kira. Internally, I’m squealing at the confirmation that these two are definitely an item and not just baiting for the camera. The fact that I can’t tell anyone about this is my personal 9/11.

The first witch, holding up double peace signs, shouts, “I’m the candy-coated countess of all things cute and crunchy: your new favorite treat, Sweet Tooth!”

Sweet Tooth is a pastel explosion. Pink hair tied in twintails with blue ribbon, pink eyes full of sparkles, and a dress composed entirely of frills in pink, yellow, and blue, all of it in soft, pale tones. The sole exception is in her teeth, where normal human canines have been replaced by candy corn fangs. It looks more adorable than you’d think.

Her power as a witch is petrification, only instead of turning people to stone she turns them into candy. Most of her “crimes” amount to acts of petty vandalism and performance art that are quickly undone, as it’s public knowledge that her candy petrification can be reduced by running the victim—or object, as her power works on animate and inanimate alike—under saltwater. She’s a perfect fit for Visage, as she clearly values the attention more than she values actually causing harm.

She is also, like all witches and magical girls signed on with Visage, a streamer. Sweet Tooth is a Minecraft streamer, to be precise, and one of the main “villains” of Visage’s survival multiplayer server, meaning she does a lot of harmless pranks to the magical girl streamers and fights on the witch team in PvP events. She even designed her own custom texture pack.

The other witch, arms crossed and chin raised, introduces herself next. “This world is imperfect, so I’ll burn it all away. Fear the wrath of Kira Kira, the fury of the stars herself!”

Kira is a rage streamer. Her specialty is playing Soulslikes, but she’ll also drag other Visage streamers into grueling physics games that are designed to get you screaming when you inevitably lose an hour of progress to one bad jump. It’s good fun.

As a witch, she mostly performs random acts of destruction, though they’re not so random when you notice she really only destroys things that were already due for demolition or that Visage paid to put there. It’s just part of the game. Her powerset is explosive and cosmic, channeling the “fury of the stars” to throw around fire or mess with gravity.

Like every magic user, her powers are reflected in her transformation. The stars shine in her eyes, and her hair is a mane of drifting red light like some hellish nebula. The galaxy leggings and spiky leather boots are more mundane, and so is the spiked, sleeveless, bedazzled leather jacket. She’s not wearing anything underneath the jacket, but indecency is prevented by the swirling vortex of endless space where her heart should be, like a black hole drawing in stars. Both wrists are covered in chain accessories, a few of which have purple charms dangling from them.

This time I really, really can’t help it when I squeal out loud and clap my hands. “Amazing! Magical! It’s so lovely to meet the both of you. My name is Archon, and I’m delighted to make your acquaintance. Big fan of your content, sincerely.”

Bombshell takes a seat on the other side of the couch and adds, “I met her through work, she’s real fun. I think you’d get along.”

It shouldn’t surprise me how friendly Bombshell is with the other two, given she used to be part of Visage, but her style is just so different from theirs. Kira and Sweet Tooth are both, well, gamers, while I’m not sure if Bombshell has ever touched a video game. All her streams were beauty and fashion, wrestling commentary, or physical challenges.

“The new girl, yeah,” Kira says, slipping back into her more casual persona as she picks up the controller and starts playing again. “Heard you robbed a bank.”

“I did!” I confirm. Just standing feels awkward, but sitting right next to everyone also feels awkward, so I plop myself on the arm of the couch. “On Bombshell’s advice, actually. Got in a fight with the Blurs, nasty pieces of work.”

“I saw that!” Sweet Tooth chirps. “Oh my gosh, sooo glad I don’t have to fight freaks like those guys. But hey, that was some great presentation! Real sizzle, you totally know how to play to a crowd. Y’know,” she leans in conspiratorially, “we’re always looking for witches with real talent to liven things up, and Bombshell’s already vouching for you. If you’ve ever wanted to be on camera—and I know you do, don’t even try to deny it, you’re so the type—you just have to let me take you up the Spire to talk with Radiance. The benefits are crazy good, no lie, and we can help you workshop your branding and get nice graphics and merch and sponsors and—Kira, hey Kira, tell her how great it’d be to work together!”

Kira groans, attention still largely focused on the video game. “Babe, it’s Halloween. This is our night off. Do you have to do networking literally right now?”

“I’m just being friendly!” the other witch insists as she pushes her head against Kira’s shoulder and pouts. “You’re so grumpy! If you love what you do you’ll never work a day in your life and I am so, so, so full of love for everything I do so I never, ever work.”

“Bullshit,” Kira snorts. “Look, piss away truce night if you like, but I’m not helping.” Sweet Tooth sticks her tongue out at her partner.

Halloween is a special day in towns where witches and magical girls are common, more than just another holiday. There are a few urban legends about strange occurrences that don’t line up with typical conflict between magic users, but there’s no proof for any of those. Practically speaking, what makes Halloween important is the truce enforced by witches and magical girls alike, another rule of the pact between sides.

The truce didn’t always exist; it came about by tragic necessity. One year, right here in Forks, an overworked magical girl fighting an illusionist witch mistook a child in costume for a familiar. The result wasn’t pretty, and it wasn’t the only incident that night across the region. Now, even the Syndicate respects the truce night—mostly—under threat of Striga herself raining hell down upon anyone who breaks it.

I laugh lightly and smile at the pair. “You two have a great dynamic, it’s really fun to watch. I’ll admit, you’ve got me dead to rights on being interested in Visage, but we can talk about that some other night. I’m here to meet the scene, such as it is.”

“And we’re most mirthful to meet you,” says the third witch around the couch, the one hanging upside down over the back of it. I flinch at the sound of their voice, nervous at the sudden reminder of their presence. Their face twists in a macabre, garish grin.

I don’t know if Harlequin really is the most dangerous witch in this room, but they’d certainly be the hardest to kill. They’re the Coterie’s primary enforcer, and their superpower is a regeneration factor so strong they quite literally laugh off attacks that would kill a lesser witch. It turns off their sense of pain, too, or at least that’s what people assume from the way they lean into harm and juggle their own severed limbs—which pop off when cut with a spray of confetti instead of blood. That absurd regeneration extends to their familiars, too, which are autonomous clones indistinguishable from the main Harlequin. I could be talking to a copy right now and I wouldn’t even know it.

Harlequin’s costume is a riot of color, all bright and clashing. Greens and purples, blues and reds, white and black, everything mismatched and asymmetrical from their pointy shoes to their patchwork cloak. Their skin is like smooth marble in both color and texture, and a rictus grin is painted over their lips and cheeks that becomes more ghoulish when they smile. Their hair is the most ordinary part of their appearance, base blonde and kept in a ponytail, but even that is streaked with random color.

“Harlequin,” I greet cautiously. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

The witch laughs. “We can tell! But that’s fine. The pleasure of this meeting is all mine and all mine. We bore witness to your clash with that silly speedster set. Did you like it? Was it fun? Or is there anything you regret?”

“You’re such a freak,” Sweet Tooth says with affection.

“Fuck!” Kira adds, completely focused on her game again.

“Are you running into that every time on purpose?” Bombshell asks, teasing Kira.

I chew on my words, unsure of how to answer Harlequin. “It didn’t go as smoothly as I’d hoped, but I can’t call it anything less than a victory. I mean, the violence was satisfying, but I didn’t really get to finish.”

Kira snickers. Sweet Tooth swats her. Harlequin keeps smiling. “A tragic turn,” the clown witch consoles. “Next time, no doubt, you’ll take your revenge on that strange, dreamy girl.”

Dreamy. Does Harlequin know? Do they share the dream? I don’t let anything show in my expression, not in front of so many witches whose allegiances I can’t be certain of. “Probably,” I shrug. “I’m not too bothered either way. Can’t expect a perfect game every round, right? It’s all about the long run.”

Bombshell pumps a fist. “Perspective, woo! Keep that attitude, hun.”

“It’s greedy to expect,” Harlequin admits, “but then is not greed the very essence of a witch? We are, all of us, such spectacular sinners. What are your sins, sister?”

“Are they always like this?” I ask the others.

“Yes,” all three confirm at the same time.

“Noted. And not answering that, sorry. What’s your deal, anyway?” I perch my chin on my hand and lean in. “You get along great with Visage types but you’re a diehard Coterie loyalist, and you’re an enforcer for the Coterie despite only seeming interested in sadomasochistic mischief. Why are you playing the game, sister?” It’s a little more aggro than I’d be comfortable running against most of the witches in this room, but Harlequin’s jester persona is one that invites antagonism.

Harlequin claps, still unmoved from their place over the couch back. “Ooh, ooh, some fire, some ire! Yes, indeed, your eye sees true. I have my own reasons, just like you. My place is my place, where I am and I’ll stay. But there’s no game, none at all, just an honest, bloody fray.”

“That’s Coterie thinking for you,” Bombshell comments.

“Those guys are always so serious,” Sweet Tooth complains. “It’s all responsibility and purpose, even from the funny weirdos like Harls. It’s like none of them get that we’re the villains. That means we get to have all the fun! People love villains, villains are so much hotter than heroes and everyone knows it, mhm.”

Kira dies again to the same boss she’s been fighting and hisses at the television, but after a second she frowns and adds, “If we’re really gonna have this chat, I’ll say my piece: the Coterie are too idealistic and the Syndicate are too ruthless. Being a witch can be profitable without stepping into organized crime. There, ugh.”

“So why did you leave?” I ask Bombshell. “You still feel Visage, to me.”

The villainess laughs. “I hear that a lot. But it’s really simple: I got tired of scripts. When I fight, I wanna throw hands with the strongest foes I can find. I can’t chase those heights playing for the crowd, even if it was pretty fun while it lasted. I want to become… the strongest.”

A fresh bout of noise from over by the bar interrupts my train of thought, stalling my response. I glance over and see Riddlemaster laughing uproariously at something Priscilla said, who looks smug about it. Wavecaller is still passed out. The fourth witch in that area, Howl, notices my glance and catches my eye. She raises an eyebrow, and then she makes a subtle “come here” gesture with her free hand while chugging a beer with the other.

Bombshell follows my gaze. “If you want to meet that bunch, you should probably do it soon, before our third gets here.”

“Third?” Kira asks.

“You’ll see,” Bombshell says mysteriously, grinning.

I chew my lip. “Yeah, good point. Thanks for the conversation, Kira Kira, Sweet Tooth. We should talk again, but for now I want to finish my rounds. Nice meeting you.”

“Get in touch!” Sweet Tooth shouts as I push off the couch and make to leave.

“Be seeing you,” Harlequin smiles.

I head over to the bar and grab a stool on the opposite side of Howl from her giant wolf, as tempted as I am to pet that adorably fluffy giant.

Howl is one of the witches in this room that I know the least about, though I’m hardly alone in that. She’s a wandering witch, like Harlequin, only she has zero connections to any of the witch factions in the Pacific Northwest, or beyond. Her familiars are her wolves, but I have no idea what her power is; she fights with a pair of swords in melee and a compound bow at range, neither of her weapons seeming particularly magical. She was sighted all over Europe before coming to North America, with no rhyme or reason to her actions.

Visually, she doesn’t really look like a witch. She’s dressed like a detective from a cyberpunk story in a heavy brown coat over black, black, and more black. Blonde hair, short and choppy. Bright green eyes. The only thing to really separate her from any rando on the street is the fact that her ears are long and pointed, like elf ears.

Howl finishes off her beer, lets out a half-satisfied sigh, and looks me up and down. “Yeah, alright. Let’s chat, new girl.”

---

[commentary]

So many new girls! The girl population is exploding at an alarming rate. Yay!

A special thank you to my Grandmaster-tier patrons, whose support has kept food on my table: CaosSorge, Crows Danger, Demi, Lirian, M, Mhai Wind, October, and PR4v1 Samaratunga.

If you like this story and want to see more of it, please go to the RR page and leave a rating or review! Web serials live and die on audience support, and this one is no exception. The better the story does on RR, the more people click through and read, the more motivation I have (both on a mental health level and on an “able to pay rent” level) to keep writing and to write faster.

The next scheduled break week starts on the 24th of August.

[/commentary]

Hannah pulls me through the twisting halls of the Ossuary’s depths, away from the central chamber and past private nooks. The music falls away and is replaced by echoing voices, whispering and indistinct, some crying out in pain or in pleasure. The air is cool, almost cold, and I can feel a light breeze that comes from nowhere.

It’s obvious how the Ossuary can be used for sexual encounters, especially those of a more fetishistic variety; in that respect it really isn’t different from any normal kink club. The thing I wonder about, though, is what else it’s used for. I know the Syndicate as a whole hasn’t been banned from the Ossuary, even if individual members have broken its rules in the past, and there’s nothing in the Ossuary’s laws to prohibit witches of any faction from recruiting for supernatural familiars and mundane agents alike. You don’t need to resort to mind control to convince someone to serve you, especially if that service comes with a taste of magic that they can’t get anywhere else.

It’s almost a shame that my transformations likely wouldn’t appeal, though my creation magic could arm a pack of would-be minions well enough. Although, given the nature of my ultimate desire—the reason I became a witch—I don’t think it would be a good idea to involve anyone else in my activities. With the exception of my teacher, of course. The understanding we’ve reached on the subject of Strix Striga is a relief to me, even if I’m still a little nervous about Ferromancer digging into my personal affairs and finding Sophia.

The halls of the Ossuary are made of the same living bone as the central chamber: the impossible material that gives the place its name. Hannah leads me to a metal door like I entered through, except this one is covered in a thin sheen of glowing teal energy. At first it looks like a flat barrier, but as we get closer it resolves into chains of light crisscrossing the door, meeting in the dead center behind the glowing depiction of a raven in flight. Hannah places her hand on the raven and both the raven and the chains disappear.

I notice, before we go inside, that there’s something off about the doors and the room they hide. When I look away, I can’t really remember what was on the door, and no matter how hard I try I can’t picture the inside of the room until we’ve crossed the threshold into it.

“This room has an extra dose of veiling,” I say in wonder as I look around at breathing bone, a handful of leather armchairs, and a mahogany dresser. “That’s incredible. I knew from Ferromancer’s explanation that the Morrigan can manipulate the veil directly, but to have such fine-tuned control over it is truly impressive. Just what is that woman capable of? And how did she figure this out in the first place?”

Hannah shrugs. “Theory isn’t my thing. But hey, you can ask her yourself, right?”

That sends a chill down my spine. Oh god, I’m going to talk to the Morrigan. That was a critical item in Ferromancer’s itinerary for the evening. The final item, in fact. That’s not ominous at all, nope. It’ll be fine. I’ll be fine! Hahaha no, I’m scared shitless. Which means I should stop thinking about it. I have a first impression to make with a much lower stakes audience first.

Hannah becomes Bombshell again and I follow suit. I call the flames of Prometheus and let them envelop me in soothing heat. I’ve only known my power for a few weeks, but already it feels like an old friend. The form of Archon replaces the form of Rachel Emily, and immediately I relax and regain the confidence that left me in the chaos of before. With Prometheus burning in my chest—the furnace of power that is mine and mine alone—I know I have nothing to fear from a room of ordinary humans.

Thanks, buddy. Glad to have you. The furnace pulses with emotion mirroring mine and a vision of my own face smiling back at me.

“Okay,” I tell Bombshell. “I’m ready.”

I soar through the Ossuary’s halls back out into the main room, Bombshell following close behind me. The crowd greets us with a fresh cacophony of screams and shouts, but this time the sound doesn’t bother me. A few people take out their phones and are inevitably disappointed when they fail to get a photo, but most of the crowd is just cheering and waving. I wave back, laughing, while Bombshell poses next to me.

These are my people, now. My adoring masses. They all want me or want to be me, and most of them probably know my name after the bank job. To other witches, I know I’m still the new girl on the block; to these people, I’m a demigod. I can’t tear the grin from my face.

I blow a few kisses at random before diving toward the crowd and sweeping just over their heads, mindful of stray limbs. I do a few flybys, enjoying the wind on my wings and the way a hundred voices collapse into one unified chorus as I soar past. I’m probably giving most of the crowd a view up my skirt, but who cares? It’s probably all dark void down there anyway. Bombshell’s doing something similar on the other side of the room, joined by her simulacrum familiars flying in formation.

Then, as I’m pulling back around, one of the women I blew a kiss at—a punk girl with pink hair and piercings—does something that catches me completely off-guard: she pulls her shirt up and flashes me. For a few precious seconds I’m stun-locked by the two wolves in my brain having very contradictory reactions.

Wow! Nice tits! Bet they feel great to squeeze.

Is it creepy of me to look at her chest? I mean, I know she literally flashed me, but should I look away anyway? Or would that be rude?

The poisonous whisper of lesbian guilt is burned away as quickly as it comes. Right now, I don’t care about whether anything I’m doing is ethical or whatever under anyone’s framework. I put in the work, I nailed my performance, and I won two separate fights against magical girls. This is my victory lap, goddammit, and I deserve to enjoy every moment of it.

I stop in front of the flasher, wings spread, and hold out a hand. “Wanna fly?” I yell over the roar of the crowd and the pounding music. Her squeal is enough of an answer, so I scoop her up in a princess carry—thank fuck for witch strength, my scrawny nerd arms could never have done this on their own—and take off.

The pretty pinkette—I know that’s not a real word, and you can fucking sue me over it—screams in delight as I swoop and swish through the air. She holds me very, very tightly, which I very much appreciate. Life cold and hard, tiddy warm and soft, as they say.

I earned this, I repeat to myself in my head. If I still can’t have what I really want, I deserve to enjoy the next best thing.

Because, of course, as cute and plush as the girl clinging to me is, she’s still not Sophia. She’s pretty, and she’s attracted to me, but it’s not like I was so much of a wreck before becoming a witch that I couldn’t have hit the apps or the gay bars and fished for a one-night stand. I live in a city on the West Coast, there are plenty of thirsty lesbians in my area. I just… never cared.

I have a realization: the girl I’m holding, I could easily get her number. For a witch, it would be trivial to find a girl that’s interested in me, probably even one that shares my hobbies and tastes. I might be busy tonight, but I could come back to this club any time and have my pick of the crowd, just because I’m a witch. Because I’m powerful, and supernaturally pretty, and I have real magic. I’m special.

But not to her. Not to Sophie. Not to Striga.

Bombshell flies over to me and shouts, “We should get going. Can’t keep the others waiting, as fun as it is to play around down here.” She winks at me with that last line.

Good timing. My mood isn’t what it was a moment ago, but I’m not going to let a little ideating keep me down. I nod at Bombshell, then return my attention to the girl I picked up.

She still seems like she’s having the time of her life, looking up at me with flushed cheeks and bright eyes. I tug on her chin, get my thumb on her lip, and tilt my head questioningly. When she catches my meaning, she nods enthusiastically and leans in, so I kiss her rough and slip her tongue. The taste of her mouth is cherries and whiskey, which pair surprisingly well. I enjoy our sloppy lip-lock all the way to the floor, and then I release her gently and blow another kiss as I float back into the air.

There’s an impish part of me that wants to make a few copies of my crown and throw them into the audience before I leave, but the Morrigan might take offense if I start a riot in her club, especially if that riot is over gold that’ll go away before anyone can bring it home. So I restrain my mischief-making impulse and follow Bombshell up, up, and out of the ribcage chamber into the realm of witches above.

I was expecting the upper layer of the Ossuary to stay on-theme with the rest of it. Perhaps it would be the inside of a giant skull to go with the giant ribcage, or maybe a heart chamber, or anything to keep the appearance of a dead leviathan. At the very least, I was expecting it to be inside a structure.

The top layer of the Ossuary is a moonlit beach. A circle of bone rises out of a sandy shore by lapping waves, the full moon reflected on the water. The hole we passed through to reach this layer is a pit in the middle of that bone circle. Stairs are carved into the ossified platform, leading down to the beach proper.

“If you pick a direction and fly,” Bombshell tells me, “you can keep going forever, and all you have to do to return is to take one step back. That seems like the kind of detail you’d like.”

It very much is, but my nerdy love of magic is briefly eclipsed by my fandom shock at seeing the clientele of this strange, impossible space.

The platform is laid out like this: on the side closest to the beach, just next to the stairs, is another bar like the one below, staffed by skeletons and boasting compliance with regional health standards. Arrayed across the rest of the circle are sofas, lounge chairs, and benches, and next to each cluster of furniture is an expensive-looking widescreen television fixed in the air just outside the platform.

Seven witches inhabit this space—nine, now that Bombshell and I are here. Sweet Tooth and Kira Kira, two VisageCorp witches, are cozied up on a couch together, with Kira playing a game that looks like Dark Souls but with lower resolution and clunkier movement. Sweet Tooth watches and plays with Kira’s hair, while Harlequin, a Coterie witch, hangs upside down over the back of the couch and chats animatedly with both.

The four other witches are clustered around the bar. Two Coterie witches are there, Riddlemaster and Wavecaller, but Wavecaller is slumped over the counter, maybe passed out, while Riddlemaster chatters on with Priscilla of the Syndicate. A few seats away, a witch by the name of Howl drinks alone, her great white wolf curled up at her feet.

I recognize them all, of course. Riddlemaster, Sweet Tooth, and Kira Kira are local to Forks, but the other four reside elsewhere or roam. All three factions of witches in the Pacific Northwest are represented here, and one independent. I’ve had my debut to the civilian populace, first at the bank and then down below on the ground floor of the Ossuary, but now it’s time to make an impression to my peer witches. Time to prove that I am a peer, perhaps.

And then, before I can start running through the introductory speech I had planned, I’m being dragged along by Bombshell as she waves at the pair of Visage witches and calls out, “Hey hey! Kira, Sweetie, meet my new friend!”

Well then. I guess this is how we’re starting things.

---

[commentary]

Girls… soft and warm… chompable…

A special thank you to my Grandmaster-tier patrons, whose support has kept food on my table: CaosSorge, Crows Danger, Demi, Lirian, M, Mhai Wind, October, and PR4v1 Samaratunga.

If you like this story and want to see more of it, please go to the RR page and leave a rating or review! Web serials live and die on audience support, and this one is no exception. The better the story does on RR, the more people click through and read, the more motivation I have (both on a mental health level and on an “able to pay rent” level) to keep writing and to write faster.

The next scheduled break week starts on the 24th of August.

[/commentary]

The Ossuary isn’t that hard to find, if you know where to look. Since breaching it without the Morrigan’s approval is impossible, the only security concern is its patrons being targeted for choosing to frequent it, and that runs afoul of the pact.

There’s a portal to the extradimensional nightclub in almost every major city in the Pacific Northwest. Each portal rotates through a few dozen spots tucked away all across the city, with a few dedicated followers—some of whom have been barred from entering and can only engage by snooping—in each city tracking those locations and keeping maps updated on various sites and forums. If you’re the type to obsess over witches and magical girls, you’ll run into one of those maps eventually.

There’s still the problem of getting there, of course; the portals aren’t usually found until the evening, probably by design, and I used to rely on public transit to go anywhere far from the apartment. Now, however, I can fly.

The entrance itself is fairly noticeable, being an archway of skulls set seamlessly into a brick wall. The doors appear to be solid steel, but they glide open easily at the slightest touch. The portal, revealed behind the doors, is a featureless black void.

I step through without hesitation.

On the other side, a simple antechamber awaits. It’s largely featureless, just gray walls and a gray floor, except for a black stone podium in front of a sharply-dressed skeleton.

The skeleton greeter tips its pure white top hat as it gives a slight bow. “Good day, madam, and welcome to the Ossuary. Are you familiar with the rules of this establishment and the sacred laws of the Morrigan?” He has the voice of a kindly old man, genteel and weathered, which only mostly lines up with the clacking of his jaw.

“I am,” I confirm, rather delighted by the creature in front of me. There’s something so wonderfully old-fashioned about a witch having familiars that are walking, talking skeletons.

“Then you may proceed at your leisure.” A second black portal appears behind and to the left of the skeleton, just as blank as the first portal. I walk through with a nod of thanks and enter the Ossuary proper.

There are no pictures of the Ossuary thanks to its magically-enforced policy against recording, but I’ve still read plenty of descriptions from people who’ve been inside. I thought that would prepare me, but I was completely wrong.

The Visage Spire is a piece of architecture that can only exist in a world with magic, but at the end of the day a levitating structural component isn’t that far from what magnets are capable of. It looks impressive, sure, but it doesn’t look wondrous. A clever architect could probably achieve a similar effect with well-disguised steel cable.

The Ossuary is not a piece of architecture. The walls of the central, conical chamber are the ribs of a leviathan more vast than the sea’s greatest whale, the space between each rib filled not with sinew or brick but simply more bone, ten thousand outstretched limbs intertwining, and the whole thing expands and contracts at a steady rhythm like the structure itself is somehow breathing. A hole in the top of the ribcage leads to an unknowable realm of witches, while below is the twisting geography of the Ossuary’s mortal layer, where spaces for dancing and drinking are divided by pillars of skulls, and where winding hallways lead to private nooks. Candles drift through the air as if pulled by invisible string, burning cold blue and searing red to light the floor below and fill the world with color.

If the scenery and the skeletal staff give the Ossuary the vibe of a lich’s ziggurat, the clientele shift it toward a vampire’s nightclub instead. My gaze flits across the dance floor and through the lounge areas, picking out detail after detail.

There are the Halloween true believers, of course. Five girls wearing Harley Quinn, five others dressed as unbranded clowns. Freddie Mercury clinking beers with two David Bowies. A dozen variations of the classic “sexy witch” costume. A Sith Lord holding a Twi’lek’s leash. A pair of greasers, a pair of steampunk enthusiasts, a pair of sexy nuns. That much is about what I’d expect from an adult Halloween party, but that’s not all the Ossuary hosts.

Short skirts and tight tops, fishnet shirts and pasties, plenty of skin bared across the boys and the girls, and then add on leather straps, kitty ears, latex suits, and so many kinds of collars. There are as many people in BDSM-adjacent outfits as there are in fits like Bombshell tried to shove me into.

It’s a stereotype to say that the kind of person who desires a witch must be submissive, but it’s probably true more often than not. Witches and magical girls both hit all the classic desirability hallmarks of celebrity—attractive, wealthy, and famous—but witches have that edge of bad girl danger that tends to attract the more extreme personalities. If you want to have sex with a witch—and so, so many people in this room want to have sex with a witch—you’re probably into being dominated by women, or you feel very unreasonably confident about your odds of pulling a witch that wants to let you lead. I can see a few guys and gals around the floor whose outfits lean in a more dominant direction, but they’ll have better luck picking off the more desperate mortals in the crowd.

Mortals, huh? What a funny word to be using like it’s completely normal to say and think. At the start of this month I was one of the freaks in this room, only toward magical girls instead of witches (and one magical girl in particular). I was just another pathetic human pining after superhumans and wishing I could be with them, be like them, be them. And now I am them. Now I’m more than human, more than mortal, more than a leech or hanger-on. I’m the thing all these people are obsessed with. I’m a witch.

It almost makes me feel confident in my appearance! Almost. I’ve been trying to think of my outfit as another layer of disguise over my true self, but I’m not kidding anyone; I’m still incredibly nervous and embarrassed.

I came to the club in shorts, tights, and a leather jacket over a crop top. The black lipstick is mine, but the rest of my makeup was supplied and applied by Hannah. The pièce de résistance of my outfit, which I’m simultaneously most proud of and most nervous about, is a set of bright purple acrylic nails that glow in the dark, with two nails cut short for… signaling.

I take a deep breath, let it out, and merge into the crowd.

The air is warm from too many bodies pressed against each other and writhing. Chaotic music and the stomp of boots and heels vibrates through flesh and bone. The candles shine down, brighter than any flame yet casting so much shadow. A cacophony of light and sound and heat drowns me in its careless embrace, a maelstrom of skin and song and the stench of sweat.

There is a flow to the throng like the movements of celestial spheres through the heavens above, but I am an interloper passing by a foreign star and I do not belong among these orbits. It’s just a jumble of heat and matter, and the longer I stay here the more likely I am to crash, burn, and break apart. The girl beside me is dazzling in motion and her eyes are shining in the candlelight, but if I get lost in her eyes I’ll end up on the floor, and there are too many elbows and the breath of a hundred strangers is hot against my neck and cloying on my skin. I don’t belong here.

I slip out of the crowd and rush to the bar, nearly tripping over myself in my haste to get away from the panic attack I can feel coming on. I haven’t had sensory overstimulation that bad in years. My skin is still crawling.

I slump onto a barstool and wave a hand at one of the skeletons manning the bar, this one wearing a red bowtie and an immaculate white apron. “Pass me a shot,” I call. “Your worst vodka, if you please.”

“Coming right up,” she chirps, voice surprisingly youthful and peppy compared to the first one I heard talking. She plucks a bottle, pours me a glass, and sets it in front of me. “I’ll put it on your tab, Ms. Emily,” she says, and I get the feeling that if she could wink with an empty eye socket she would. The staff—or the Ossuary itself, or however that works—know me, and they probably know my other identity, too.

Well, I guess that shouldn’t surprise me. “Thanks.” I pound back the shot and savor the pain of shitty alcohol burning its way down my throat. God, that sucks. Just what the doctor ordered. The unpleasant sensation of cheap vodka pushes away the chaos of the club even before the ethanol kicks in to dull my awareness.

I look past the skeleton for a menu and am amused to discover a certificate proudly proclaiming the bar FDA-approved, another certificate for the Canadian equivalent, and a dozen passing grades from health inspectors across the PNW. I don’t think there’s an organization in either country that could actually stop the Morrigan from operating, so there’s something almost adorable about the commitment to meeting their standards regardless.

“Wings,” I request of the fleshless bartender. “Cajun, with blue cheese dipping sauce. And a gin and tonic, please and thank you.”

While the skeleton gets working on my next drink and passes the food order to the kitchen—I catch a glimpse of a skeleton in a chef hat, amazing—I fish my phone out of my pocket and open the group chat. I can’t take pictures inside the Ossuary, but I can text just fine.

Alexandria: i fffuccckkin hate clubssssss!!!!!!!!!!

Alexandria: oh my god itsloud in here

Alexandria: i tried to dance but i cant dance and also there are so many people and they are so loud and the music is loud as FUCK

Alexandria: im doing the thing mike does and getting BOOZE to cut the sensory edge

Alexandria: so uh. report back in a minute if successful

Alexandria: or like five minutes i did get wings

Alexandria: served by a skeleton!!!! this place would rock if it was empty

I put my phone down and take another look around the bar, sipping the drink that came while I was texting. There’s a guy next to me in suspenders and taped glasses chowing down on sushi like it’s his last supper. I don’t have anything better to do while I’m waiting for my food and a reply from my friends, so I say, “Dig the costume. Is the sushi really that good?”

He swallows a roll, washes it down with what I’m pretty sure is soju, and answers, “Eh, it’s decent, but more importantly it’s the only place I can eat it. I’m allergic to salmon and tuna.”

“You poor bastard,” I commiserate.

“Shit sucks! But hey, gotta give thanks to magic, right?”

One of the quirks of the Ossuary is that it has two sets of rules: one set that fits what you’d expect to see governing conduct in any club, and one set termed the “sacred laws of the Morrigan.” The first set will incur immediate punishment for violating them, but the second set physically cannot be broken. That includes a law of hospitality which says food and drink served in the Ossuary cannot harm its patrons, which prevents food poisoning but also goes so far as to nullify allergies while eating—and digesting, so no surprise reaction after leaving—the Ossuary’s food. You also can’t reach dangerous levels of alcohol in your blood no matter how much you drink; it’ll always cap out just below your body’s safe limit. Magic is so cool.

“Cheers, I’ll drink to that.” I raise my glass and knock back another gulp as my wings arrive. I dig in, and after a minute of ravenous consumption I notice my phone beep and check the group chat again.

Mordacity: u should have taken an edible like i told you to

Mordacity: witch form can purge non-magical toxins there’s a paper on it

a single femur: I can’t imagine anything going wrong with taking a drug that alters your senses before stepping into a sensory overload environment

a single femur: Your wisdom is truly unparallelled, I doff my cap to thee

Mordacity: bah, i say. bah! it would have been fine, would have loosened her up

Alexandria: im not getting high before meeting witches even if i can purge it

Alexandria: the alcohol is working fine i had a hsot

Mordacity: so true bestie

Alexandria: tjat was a normal typo my hands are covered in wing sauce it spicy

Mike Trout: yooo the Mike Trout Method! We are gaming

Mike Trout: Remember to drink lots of water, especially if you’re already on your third hsot. And I know it probably doesn’t matter because witch protections but you still shouldn’t accept any drink you didn’t see the bartender put in front of you.

a single femur: What exactly was the point of doing this in the first place

Alexandria: “perspective”

Alexandria: which i dont believe in actually but whatever it wasnt too bad and now i have delicious wings seriously these things are great

“Hey, girl!” Hannah greets me, tearing my attention away from my phone as she pats my shoulder and grins. She’s even more glittery than usual, and swirling something pink in a wineglass with three different berries on the rim.

I gulp down another chunk of chicken. “Hannah, hey. We good to go?”

She pouts. “Aw, c’mon, weren’t you gonna dance?”

“Tried,” I grimace. “I think I’d rather not.”

She sees the look on my face and softens. “I’m sorry it wasn’t good for you. Thanks for trying, anyway. When you’re done with your food, follow me and we can get started.”

I scarf down the last of my wings and guzzle the gin and tonic, ready to set this form aside and upgrade to a better one. And then, round two.

---

[commentary]

And we’re back! I’m really excited for this arc; the patrons have been loving it. Have any of you ever been to a bar? Would you order a hsot like Rachel?

A special thank you to my Grandmaster-tier patrons, whose support has kept food on my table: CaosSorge, Crows Danger, Demi, Lirian, M, Mhai Wind, October, and PR4v1 Samaratunga.

If you like this story and want to see more of it, please go to the RR page and leave a rating or review! Web serials live and die on audience support, and this one is no exception. The better the story does on RR, the more people click through and read, the more motivation I have (both on a mental health level and on an “able to pay rent” level) to keep writing and to write faster.

The next scheduled break week starts on the 24th of August.

[/commentary]