Act 3, Chapter 113: The noose no more (Patreon)

Day in the story: 1st February (Sunday), past 7:00 a.m.—approximately 9 hours and 21 minutes remain until the record time is lost

Alexandra May

The thing itself was remarkably simple, and just like Penrose had noticed, its value never lay in the worth of the materials. It lay in something beneath the surface. Back then he suspected it was sentimental. Now I knew better. For me, the artistry in how the dragon and the eggs were crafted mattered just as much as the power it offered. Both aligned so closely with the themes and values of my Domain that I'd come to a conclusion: this small, unassuming thing was responsible for most of my meteoric growth in resonance.

And honestly, it made perfect sense. An artifact that could steal other people's magic and Domains, shaped like an intricately artificed wyrm of legend, cradling its five pearlescent eggs. Yet somewhere along the way, something had gone wrong, and now it was bound to a soul, despite my resisting the temptation to do the same myself. The soul of my shadow had mastered its power, and I found myself wondering how to respond to that.

"Should we bind this shitter to us too?" Gertrude asked, holding the necklace out in front of her. It dangled off her fingers. She brushed her shoulders afterward, unsure if that gesture would do either of us any good.

"I think that's exactly what caused the problem. The discord is still connected to this thing," Maya said, working through it out loud.

"I'd bet it's causing exactly that between you and the core. Some kind of spiritual syncopation." Alex offered his own take. "Every time you try to take direct control of anything, it clashes with what Ali wants, and you get shut down, because she holds so much more power now."

"You think she's doing it on purpose?" Nikolas asked. I'd caught him and Sophie up on everything related to the necklace. Whether Sophie was hurt that I still held an item capable of giving her power, and hadn't told her, hadn't given her the choice to use it or not, she didn't show it. If I knew her at all, I'd stake my life on the fact that she understood exactly why no one should touch this particular source of power. I hoped that would be enough.

"I fucking don't," Gertrude said. She sat on the couch in the nest, staring down at the thing in her hands. We were all gathered in a circle around one small table. "Seems like a shitty thing to do, at first glance. But Ali jumped at the first chance she got to pull Sophie in, brought her closer just to do exactly that, and told her flat out that she's on the string, giving us direction on where to look. I'd bet she wants this thing gone just as badly as we do." She exhaled. "And by 'the thing,' I meant the problem itself. The malady. I'm still thinking it over, whether the right move is to bind it to us, or if that's even possible at all."

"What I know about this artifact is that it can only be bound to one person. If the universe considers me and Ali one and the same, whether I can still tag along, riding shotgun, I don't know. But judging by the fact that I wasn't immediately part of the equation, I'd assume that's not possible. It'll stay tied to our soul core's binding alone." I said it through the mouth painted on my neck. Even that was starting to get difficult.

"We could ask Shiroi for help again," Alex said, though he knew well enough that was out of the question. The man would feel betrayed on so many levels he'd never speak to me again, and getting him to agree in the first place wasn't something we could count on either.

"No." Gertrude shook her head. "As much as I enjoy his company, handing him that necklace again is just a bad idea."

"He'd know you cheated him the first time," Sophie said, connecting the facts I'd already told her, or maybe just telling me how she felt about the whole thing. Possibly both.

"Look," Nikolas said. "You're assuming your soul core's spirit already knows this is a problem, right?"

"Yes," Maya's high-pitched voice cut in.

"And she was decent enough to give you a heads up through Soph. So maybe we should assume she's already trying to help with the situation?"

"We're already assuming that, Nick. Where are you going with this?" I asked.

"She's turning one of your buildings into a giant musical instrument, humming with melodies of its own. She points you toward the artifact making you sick. And somehow you land on 'Discord might be involved.' You don't need to be a mage of the Domain of Fusion to connect those dots."

"Funny much, Nick?" I shot back.

"You're suggesting we bring the necklace into that building and see what happens?" Alex asked with elbows on his knees, leaning in to listen closer.

"Exactly."

"Maybe she's building some kind of ritual, like the old magic used to work," Sophie said. "Sigils functioned similarly, didn't they? And healing could potentially help, well... heal you, right?"

"I'm at a point where trusting my shadow's good intentions seems like my only option anyway. One thing that bothers me is that she'd probably exist just fine without me, especially now that you've joined." Gertrude motioned toward Sophie as I spoke. "But the truth is, ever since I started creating bodies for my Personas, she's been handed more and more leverage to cut me out of the equation completely. I even willingly put soul core fragments into most of you, just to strengthen the connection between you and her. And it lines up with this universal memory theory too, that you'd go on existing as concepts long after I'm dead, living on as people who were once me."

"Ali." Sophie stood and crossed over to my portable armchair. She perched on the armrest and pulled me into a hug. "You think your own shadow might want you gone?"

"Yes. But like I said, I've hit a finish line. I have no ideas left for fixing this, so I'd rather be done with it than keep existing in this sorry state." A brief silence settled over the room.

"If you think your life's in danger, you shouldn't do it, Ali." Sophie broke the quiet again, dropping to her knees in front of me, looking straight into my own biological eyes. I made myself focus only on what I saw through them.

"Soph. This necklace Gertrude's holding has turned into a noose around my neck, and it's squeezing tighter than I can stand. I've run. I've fought. I've jumped higher than any human should be able to. I've even flown, Sophie, soared through the skies! Some of it in my own body, some of it in borrowed ones. I could try living only through them, through my Personas, I really could, and I wouldn't mind losing my biological body if I knew I could take full control of any of them. But I can't. Every time I try, I spread this... discord further into them. And sooner or later, they'd end up as chair-bound dolls too. For someone who's flown, existing like this is unbearable."

"I understand." She lowered her eyes to my unmoving knees, tucked under the blanket. "I just love you. I really do. You're like the sister I never had. And the thought of losing you is—"

"Like this, I'm already lost."

"That's the thing. You're not. We can still talk, laugh, think, plan, dream. You feel unwanted, right?" She asked, but I didn't answer. "By Peter, who was your brother and didn’t follow your advice. By your Personas, who, despite being you, somehow function better when you're not fully present."

"That's not—" Maya started to protest, but Sophie lifted a hand toward her, cutting the whimper off with a single gesture.

"By your shadow, who you seem to think walks on water. Isn't that right?"

"Yes. That's exactly how it feels. I'm persona non grata to the whole world," I said.

"Okay. So I really hope all those self-help psychology books I read myself to sleep with weren't full of bullshit."

"Doesn't exactly inspire confidence, Soph."

"Well, it's all you're getting anyway." She kept going, a wide smile spreading across her face. "I want you. I need you. If there's anything else you feel uncertain about, even parts of your own psyche, fine. I'll let you have that. You know yourself better than anyone. But you don't know me the way I know me. And I'm telling you, I would choose a world with you in it over a world without Ali, every single time. I always have. I've never once doubted your judgment, and I've always had your back, even when your criminal past came knocking for me. I was scared, I yelled at you, but I never stopped loving you. Even when you told me you had feelings for this idiot ogre." She tilted her head toward Nikolas, who listened hard but didn't say a word. "I trusted you to handle that completely. So don't disappoint me now by acting like you're alone, like the whole world's against you. Maybe that's ninety-nine percent true. But not a hundred. Because I'm standing by you, and I'm not going anywhere."

"Me too," Nikolas finally said.

"Shut up," Gertrude snapped at him. "This isn't your moment."

"What would you have me do, Sophie? I love you too, but I can't just sit here and do nothing, even if I suspect foul play."

Spiderbunny Anansi twitched on one of the couch's backrests. She perched behind Alex, watching everything unfold, and though she had access to my thoughts, she offered no insight into any of it. Still, I could feel her anxiety about the whole situation.

"If this whole thing is orchestrated to help you, to bring you back in tune with the right melody, then the two of you need to be aligned the right way too, and self-doubt sure isn't it. I say go into that place your soul core built for you. Bring that cursed thing along and see what happens, but only once your head's in the right place. You're worthy of love, my girl. Worthy of being here, worthy of making your mistakes. And if no one else in this whole world wants you around, which I don't believe for a second, know for certain that I always will."

A tear slid down my cheek. Gertrude stood and moved closer to Sophie, wrapping an arm around her shoulder since I couldn't do it myself. With her other hand, she placed the fated necklace into Sophie's palms. "Take this, Sophie," I said, "and put it around my neck. If you're the one who does it, it won't be a noose anymore." She held it in front of her chest for a moment, turning it between her fingers, clearly feeling the power humming inside it. The crystalline flower between her breasts glowed with rainbow-shadowed light, casting her warmth onto that cold, cruel object in her grip.

"Okay," Sophie said. She stood, gently unclasped the chain, laid it against my chest, and fastened it again behind my neck. "I'll walk with you to that building, okay?"

"Let's do it," I answered, and the minions responded, lifting the armchair on their small paper legs.

"Now?"

"Yes. I don't want to waste another second." My Personas stayed behind in the Nest to keep Nickolas company while Sophie and I headed outside.

"Are you in the mindset I was talking about?" Sophie pressed, already walking beside me.

"Yes, Sophie. Honestly, I haven't felt this good in a long time." I partially lied, feeling insecure but out of options. Anansi hopped closer, skittering over the grass now, while I kept my eyes on the dimming stars overhead. Dawn was coming, and I could already see one enormous light source starting to wash out the smaller ones scattered across the sky.

"I didn't know, about any of what's happening," Anansi said. Her gait slowed, all eight limbs moving in a kind of careful, unhurried rhythm. Her ears twitched, trying to catch sounds both on the surface and deep in the canals. "I don't have access to my former self's thoughts, if she even has any. Honestly, I'm not even sure about that."

"She might not?" Sophie asked, turning to look at my spider.

"If I'm what's left of her intelligence, then maybe not."

"When I first met you, Anansi, you were pure calculation. Directing my magic with efficiency, logic, precision, and that alone takes real intelligence. But you grew past that. You picked up emotions, a personality, along the way. So it's fair to guess that if the shadow inside the soul core was left without intelligence, or maybe only half of what it once had, because honestly, we don't know if you're all that she had left, and if all she had to work with was memory, emotion, and personality, well, that's still enough to carry someone through life. I know plenty of people who run entirely on emotion when it comes to making decisions."

"True," Sophie mused, nodding to herself. Each step and crawl of the spiders carrying me brought us closer to the building, one overrun with silk, the builder spiders still hard at work on it. The air was thick with that faint melody the wind coaxed out of the web-strings stretched taut inside this strange space.

"I promised I'd give you magic, if I ever found a way to do it," I started, right as that pleasant hum reached me and wrapped around me. It felt like someone's heartbeat woven together with falling raindrops, striking the strings of some cosmic instrument.

"Ali, this thing is cursed. You never used it on yourself. Don't worry about it."

"Sophie... honest to Reality, why aren't you angry with me? Don't get me wrong, I hoped you wouldn't be, but that's just, I don't even know what to say, you're too understanding. Too good to me!" I shouted. "Why!?"

"Because I really do understand why you never even put it on the table as an option, in this case. In others, like letting Penrose live, I am angry at you. Very much so."

"Then why aren't you shouting at me? Turning your back on me?" We'd stopped at the entrance to this spider-built cavern. No hallway remained here anymore, just silk wrapped entirely around, forming one smooth surfaced tunnel leading inside.

"Because you aren't me, and I can't expect you to make the same choices that feel right to me. That feel rational to me, or that come from the same emotions churning around inside me. You're a product of a different upbringing than mine. You hold different values, you love different things. But love is what binds us, right?"

"I'm selfish by nature. Always have been. The only reason I feel like I've become less so is because of Ali in that crystal. What you find good in me, what you praise me for, what keeps you standing by my side, I think that's her influence. Not mine alone."

"So you're not really in the right headspace after all."

"I'm motivated enough."

"Ali, I have no idea where you end and she begins. I liked you, loved you, long before you had any powers. Back when all you were—by your own words—selfish. You always had this drive in you, this will, and I found it admirable. Where I'd stop and think twice before deciding not to do something, you were already three steps ahead, working out how to face the problem head-on. Listen. I know you're his daughter, and he's a despicable man. Even if blood isn't what binds you two, what you have might be an even stronger tie. You're a woman who once did despicable things for all the wrong reasons. I get that, I really do. But you paid for them, and you paid dearly. I was almost one of those bills. Your freedom was. Maybe your future too. Your penance wasn't gentle. It was paid in scars carved into your body, and trauma etched into your soul, Ali."

"And now? You said I did them once. But I'm still doing them."

"The darkness inside a person doesn't just vanish overnight. It hasn't left you, and not because she's your soul core either. No. She's not the one who gave you the strength to wield it. That's you, Ali. All you."

"I don't understand, Sophie. To me it still feels like all I am is bad, and she's just the good part painted over it."

"First of all, here's how I see it. The difference is simple. You're still someone capable of terrible things, you've just learned how to pick the right reasons for them. And I don't think that comes from her influence. I think it comes from your own experience. What I've learned about her, that other Ali, is that she'd rather not do bad things at all, given the choice. But second, and this matters more, I don't think you and she are two separate people, Lex. She's you. The same way Gertrude is you, or Alex is you. She was just that way before any of your Personas could stand on their own. Go in there thinking of yourself and her as one person. Maybe that's what helps you finally make peace with all of it."