With a Golden Sword (DFZ Changeling Book 2), page 18
Hey, that wasn’t so bad! the DFZ said cheerfully as her waterproof boots hit the ground next to Lola. Now, where is…
Her strange voice faded off like distant traffic. When Lola turned to see why, her bare feet froze on the rough stone.
There, rising over them like a mountain in the dark, was Fenrir, or what was left of him. The giant wolf was clearly dead, and had been for some time. His rotting corpse was already collapsing like roadkill in the sun, the black fur peeling off his flesh in huge, house-sized chunks. The only good thing Lola could say was that at least he didn’t stink. But while she wasn’t sad to see the demise of Victor’s doomsday monster, the DFZ looked devastated.
Oh, man, she groaned. I hate it when she’s right.
“She who?” Lola asked, more confused than ever.
Archmage Novali, the DFZ replied, frowning when this didn’t seem to ring any bells. Head of the Merlin Council? Most powerful Thaumaturge in the world? Has a glowing cat?
“Sorry,” Lola said, shaking her head. “I don’t know much about human magic.” At least, not the sort that didn’t involve blood. “But how did the archmage know about Fenrir?”
Because she’s the best, the city replied proudly. She figured out what Victor was up to the moment Fenrir reared his ugly head. She saw right off the bat that he was a manufactured spirit. Unfortunately, knowing what he was didn’t make him any easier to fight. We thought we were really screwed there until you took over and walked him away.
Lola’s jaw fell open. “You know about that?”
Well, we didn’t know it was you specifically, the DFZ said. But the archmage postulated that Victor, being a blood mage, would have used a human death as the foundation for his spell. There’s no other way he could have controlled such a huge spirit, but blood mages are great at controlling people. That’s why she asked me to go out and find you. We were hoping that you could do it again.
There was no way Lola had heard that right. “You want me to bring Fenrir back?”
I’m not exactly thrilled about it, the city said with a grimace. But we’re kind of up against the wall here. A city’s heart is her people, and Victor’s flooded mine with his rabid followers. Their devotion means I can’t crush him with any of the objects I would so dearly love to drop on his stupid head. The only reason I’m still free enough to stand around talking to you is because the rest of the world still sees me as the Detroit Free Zone, and the DFZ bows to no one!
She finished by shaking her defiant fist at the swirling dark above their heads, and then the god’s shoulders slumped. It won’t last, though. The longer Victor stays in power, the more people stop seeing me as an independent city and start seeing me as his. Once that happens, I’m finished, which is why I’m willing to take another wolf to the face to stop it. I don’t know what let you take control last time, but if you can get Fenrir back on his feet, the archmage thinks it’ll be enough to kick Victor and his red-coated cronies out of the city before the Wild Hunt arrives. That last bit is super important. We’ve seen how much power people were willing to give Victor just for standing up to Fenrir, even though he didn’t win. If he actually manages to defeat the Wild Hunt, he could become unstoppable.
That was exactly what Lola had been saying. It was so gratifying to finally hear the same sense from someone else. Unfortunately…
“I can’t do it,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m all for feeding Victor to his own wolf, but I can’t control Fenrir.”
Sure you can! the DFZ said, throwing up her scrawny arms. I know he looks kinda dumpy right now, but that’s only because he was never a real spirit to begin with. There’s nothing wrong with his vessel, though. This place is huge! Maybe not as big as it once was, but there’s still way more magic here than Victor could stop even with his stupid sword, especially since his blood magic bane doesn’t work on spirits. We just have to figure out how to get your puppy back on his feet, but you’re the mage Victor used to kick off this place, right? Once you retake control of your death, Victor will be dog food!
She sounded so excited, it broke Lola’s heart to tell her the truth. “I’d love to help you,” she said, shaking her head. “But I’m afraid I’m not a mage. I’m not even human. I don’t know how you missed it considering I was a giant furry monster when you saved me, but I’m a fairy, a changeling. I don’t have a soul or a death to take over.”
But she knew who did. The proof was right there on her wrist. That was why the silver thread still led back here even after she’d gotten her sister out. This wasn’t just Fenrir’s vessel. It was her sister’s death. She was the foothold Victor had used as the starting line for his monster. Fenrir’s birth had turned into a horrible black pit, but before humanity’s fear had strip-mined it into a yawning chasm, this place had probably been a little room just like Simon’s, which meant…
Lola didn’t even take the time to finish the thought. She was already whirling around, putting her back to the city spirit as she grabbed her thread with both hands. She still wasn’t able to move it, but she could follow where it led, tracing the loops and tangles that lay all over the ground like abandoned fishing line until she found the one thread that didn’t circle back on itself.
She broke into a run as soon as she spotted it, tripping over the uneven ground as she sprinted across the gigantic pit. The DFZ followed right on her heels, both of them charging through the dark until the silver trail they’d been following came to an abrupt end.
Huh, the DFZ said as Lola stumbled to a stop. Who’s that?
Lola’s throat was too tight to answer. There, lying like a dropped sock on the stone floor, was her sister. She looked exactly the same as she had back at Tristan’s, right down to the fuzzy pink cat pajamas Lola had bought her off the internet. Even the silver thread was right there on her wrist, but of course it would be. She had more right to be here than Lola did, because unlike the changeling who had replaced her, she was human.
A human soul inside her death.
Lola had hoped that’d mean she’d find her sister waiting for her as Simon had been. But while she was still frustratingly asleep, her chest was rising and falling just like it did in the real world, giving Lola hope.
“Hey!” she yelled, dropping down to grab the unconscious woman by her shoulders. “It’s me! It’s Lola, your sister! I’m here to rescue you! Open your eyes and look at me!”
She punctuated every word with a shake, but her sister didn’t react any more now than she ever had. Lola tried again, even louder this time, but as always, it didn’t work.
“I don’t understand,” she said, her voice cracking as she reached up to touch her sister’s beautiful black hair. “I’m finally here. I found you just like I promised. Why won’t you wake up?”
That last part came out as a scream. She was about to start shaking her again when a gentle hand landed on her shoulder.
I’m so sorry for your loss.
“Don’t say that!” Lola snapped, glaring over her shoulder at the god she’d completely forgotten was here. “My sister’s not dead!”
She couldn’t be. Even in this place, her chest still moved with the breaths that had always kept Lola’s hope alive. That should have been proof enough for anyone, but the DFZ was looking at her with that awful pity, and a cold lump formed in Lola’s throat.
“Why do you think she’s dead?”
Because that’s an empty corpse, the spirit said sadly, pointing at the girl in Lola’s arms. I’m the god of a major metropolitan area. Thousands of people die inside me every day. I know what human souls look like, and there’s not one in there.
“You’re lying,” Lola snarled, clutching her sister to her chest. “If she’s dead, why does she still feel warm? Why is she breathing?”
I have no idea, the spirit replied, frowning as if that really bothered her. I’m home to three major magical universities and I have the highest per capita mage population in the world. There’s not a lot of magic I haven’t seen, but this is a new one on me. We’re inside the Sea of Magic. Physical bodies have no place here. Fenrir’s corpse made sense because he was a spirit, even if he was a fake, but how is there a dead human lying on your floor?
She sounded completely baffled, but Lola wasn’t listening. She’d already curled over her sister’s body. It couldn’t be true. Her sister couldn’t be dead. There had to be another explanation, something Lola could fix. She couldn’t lose her one and only family. Not when she’d already lost everything else.
I know you’re hurting, the city said gently. But we don’t have time to mourn right now. The Wild Hunt will be arriving any minute. If we’re going to keep Victor from using them to finish what he started three weeks ago, you have to get Fenrir moving. If you could just—
“I can’t,” Lola said bitterly, pressing her face into the fuzzy fabric of her sister’s pajamas. “Fenrir was her dream, not mine. She’s the one Victor used.”
And killed. Lola hadn’t wanted to believe it was possible, but now that the DFZ had confirmed her worst fears, everything made a horrible kind of sense. Her sister wasn’t waking up because of something Alberich had done. This, like everything else, was Victor’s doing. Lola had rescued her body, but not before the blood mage had blown her soul into… into this. This wasn’t Simon’s cozy bedroom or even Victor’s gaudy crimson hall. It was a pit. A huge empty hole with nothing inside it but a rotting corpse.
“He killed her,” Lola whispered, her voice thin as a fraying thread. “I was too late. He killed her!”
But it’s not too late to stop him from killing anyone else, the DFZ said desperately, getting down on her hands and knees and pressing her cheek against the ground so she could look Lola in the face. I’m not entirely sure what a changeling is, but if you grew up in the DFZ, you’re one of mine, and we never say die! Even if the mage that started all of this is dead, Fenrir’s vessel is still here, and where there’s a vessel, there’s a spirit! We can still use that to stop Victor before—
“There is no stopping Victor!” Lola yelled at her, baring her teeth, which were sharpening into knives again. “You’re the city of second chances! It’s easy for you to have hope, but I’ve been fighting Victor my entire life. The only time I even got close to winning was because of her.” She shook the limp girl in her arms. “She’s the one you want. She’s the reason I made it back, the thread that held me together, and you just told me she’s dead!”
Worse than dead. If she’d died like a normal person, the death gods could have found her. They would have rescued her soul and taken it somewhere safe, somewhere better. But Victor had ruined that just like he ruined everything.
No wonder she’d felt like an empty shell. Victor had turned her soul into a void. If the DFZ was right, she was the one who could have beaten him, but they were too late. Just like always, Victor was one step ahead. He’d already used and discarded Lola’s sister just like he did everything else. Now her only family was gone forever, and Lola hadn’t even gotten to tell her how much she loved her.
Don’t look like that, the DFZ pleaded as Lola began to shake. I heard the blood mage talking before I broke in. He was trying to get you back under his control, right? I’ve gotten to know Victor Conrath a lot better than I’ve wanted to over these past few weeks, and I don’t think he would have bothered if you didn’t still have the power to hurt him. I’m sorry I was insensitive about your situation earlier, but we really need you to—
“I can’t hurt him,” Lola whispered, turning her face away. “Just leave me alone.”
The DFZ’s orange eyes flashed, but whatever she’d been about to say was buried by a crushing wave of power. The moment Lola told her to go, the pounding magic she remembered from the last time she’d been inside Fenrir’s vessel crashed down like a mountain. Even the Living City couldn’t hold up under so much pressure. Her image collapsed like a demolished building, leaving Lola alone in the dark with two corpses: one breathing and one not.
~~~
Twenty minutes earlier.
Valente didn’t know it was possible to delay his re-formation until he tried it. The moment he felt himself coming back together, he pushed in the other direction, swatting and kicking the different pieces of his magic apart. He wasn’t sure if it made a difference, but it felt like it took longer than usual before his headless naked body condensed out of the shadows.
He sat up in confusion. The pitch black of the windowless room didn’t hamper the fairy vision that was his only option without his head, but Valente still wasn’t sure where he was. It wasn’t until the mental compass that always pointed at his master snapped into position that he realized he was sitting on the floor of Victor’s bedroom.
That shouldn’t have been a surprise. Victor had kept his head under his bed for years before he’d trusted his Rider enough to let Valente store it in his own apartment. Unlike back then, though, Valente still couldn’t feel his actual head anywhere. He should have formed right next to it, but the only gossamer he felt was Lola’s.
If everything hadn’t been so terrible, that would have been a lovely thing to wake up to. But while he could feel her warm, sunny magic all around him like a blanket, he couldn’t pin down the source. The compass in his head kept spinning in broken circles, swinging wildly between this room and the hall outside.
His knighthood oaths surged in response. Their desperation to please their king grabbed Valente’s body like a fist, forcing him to his feet. They dressed his body in a freezing gossamer version of his usual riding clothes next, snatching the magic tight as a straitjacket around him.
The feeling made him jolt in surprise. Valente couldn’t normally make things out of gossamer, but the oaths were another story. Anything that was technically within his power, they could make him do in service to his master, and Victor had made his wishes very clear. His body had already spun itself around, jerking like a puppet toward the bed where the tiny bit of Lola glimmered like a sunbeam.
Valente had to dig his new boots into the carpet to keep from grabbing her. He already knew there was no stopping the oaths. If he refused the compulsion, they’d take over his body and make him do it anyway, so Valente appeased the beast instead, tearing his attention off the small but blindingly bright gleam of Lola on Victor’s pillow to focus on the larger but dimmer mass of her magic he could feel somewhere down the hall.
It was still difficult to get out of the bedroom. The oaths weren’t actually intelligent, but Valente had learned he couldn’t keep tricking them the same way for long. They were already wising up to his “I haven’t found all of her so I can’t kill any of her” excuse, making his limbs drag like lead as he stumbled into the hall.
Valente came back with the thought that the majority of Lola’s magic was in the thrall room. His master had stressed over and over that whatever was going on in there was of critical importance and absolutely not to be interrupted for any reason. Surely, obeying that order was more important than investigating the tiny piece of Lola that was still in Victor’s bedroom and possibly waking his master up in the process, something Victor had also ordered his knight never to do.
This logic appeased his oaths somewhat, but Valente could still feel them twisting like snakes inside his brain. A very strange feeling since he was truly headless at the moment. He didn’t even have a new helmet ready since he hadn’t expected to wake up in the middle of Victor’s private suite.
Fortunately, the only other people in this part of the tower were thralls, and they didn’t care about anything except what they were told to. Case in point, one of them was walking down the hallway toward him right now. The woman’s glossy eyes slid right over the empty space at the top of the Rider’s collar, ignoring him completely in her rush to deliver Victor’s freshly pressed laundry to his dressing room.
Valente grabbed her arm when she came in range, reaching for his notepad only to remember he’d left it on Simon’s desk right before Lola had crushed him with a piano. He still couldn’t believe she’d done that. Not the crushing part—that was totally acceptable self-defense—but why a piano?
He was dying to ask. Dying to talk to her for any reason. But Valente didn’t get to enjoy things like that anymore, and the thrall was pulling so hard against his grip that he was afraid she was going to dislocate her arm.
He let her go at once. He’d wanted to find out what was going on in the mailroom before he went in, but the thrall couldn’t listen to a man who couldn’t talk, and Valente didn’t have time to find another notepad. He could already hear crashes coming from the workshop, kicking up the compulsion he’d triggered by reminding his oaths how important protecting that room was.
Shaking his neck at the mess, Valente turned and started jogging toward the room where Victor “processed” his mail. The crashes got bigger as he got closer. He didn’t hear any screaming because thralls didn’t do that, but the whole place was in chaos by the time he finally burst through the door.
It looked like a tornado had blown through. All of the sorting tables had been knocked on their sides, leaving the thralls who worked at them waving their hands uselessly through the air like factory machines on an empty assembly line. The inlaid magical circles looked like they’d been pried out of the floor with a crowbar, and the bowl of golden liquid Victor painstakingly collected every day had been splattered in an arc across the ceiling. Pieces of mail were flying everywhere, thrown into the air by the girl who was still kicking her way around the room like the bags of letters were piles of leaves raked up specifically for her enjoyment. She did seem to be enjoying herself, too, her pretty face beaming with Lola’s huge smile.
