by Louisa Lo
All my friends were here. There was no one else who could come riding to our rescue. Pedro was too young. Grandma was off injured somewhere. I knew she’d come to my aid if she could, and the fact that she wasn’t here meant she couldn’t be here. Whether I made it or not, I could at least try to get some people off the hook so they might regroup later.
I pointed at Sui-Ling. “This girl is not even on our team. She was probably fighting our lot when you grabbed them.”
“And this one?” I poked Gregory in the shoulder. “I freakin’ hate his guts.”
Gregory just rubbed his throat, as if telling the world he understood that I liked him far more than I let on.
Not. Helping.
And in the end it didn’t matter. The Council members conjured gold metal rings between their palms and sent them toward us. In my case, the metal ring expanded and looped over me, caging me in its circumference. For my friends, the rings contracted and settled right over their hearts. For a moment, there were no ill-effects from the rings; then everyone’s faces started contorting with pain.
“The Menlonyn Rings are impregnated with over a thousand kinds of pain to be experienced by the heart. How long do you think your friends will last, Megan?” High Judge Advocatus mocked.
“Don’t listen to him,” Esme gasped.
“Ah, Esme. I’d almost forgotten to deal with you in all the excitement.” High Judge Advocatus shook his head at the star student of Demon U. “I can’t say I’m truly surprised by your actions, dear, but I’m still very disappointed.”
“Screw you,” she spat.
He tsked. “Such language.”
Despite the pain they must all be feeling, my friends shouted out encouragement, all warning me not to give into the Greys’ demand, not to give in to my anger, that they would rather be tortured than to lose the world.
One by one my friends, family, and yes, my would-be lover fell to the floor in agony, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. Serafina held onto her arm as if it was broken, crying out in pain. Gregory shivered and curled up as if he was abandoned in an arctic wasteland; Fir raked his hands all over his body, yelling, “Fire ants! Fire ants! Get them off me!”
The rest of my friends exhibited reactions from pains such as severe migraine, fire, stomach ache, and in the case of Bonaventure the Third, a kick to the groin.
The experience of a thousand pains, indeed.
Panic and despair threatened to overtake me, only to be drown out by my fury. How dare they hurt my friends that way? Who did they think they were? I would make them pay, I swear.
Oh come on, Megan. We’ve been through this before. They’re just trying to get you so angry so that this brain of yours will produce the resonance that would release the Absolute Good and Evil. Don’t fall for it, my inner voice, which sounded like Fleur, my ancestor, warned.
My angry mind didn’t care about the logic of it. My chest, already tight due to my earlier ordeal, threatened to explode, and my ears rang as my blood pressure rose. All the adrenaline pumping through my body seemed to open up a new avenue in my brain.
Or one that had been opened only once before.
I felt almost giddy as the floodgate separating the two sides of my opposing nature—vengeance and trickster—showed a sliver of an opening. I could do this. I could trick the Council members with illusions they had never seen before, making them run around this room thinking their friends were their foes, and vice versa. I could fool them into hurting each other, even killing each other. How’s that for a perfectly executed vengeance?
No! You’ve only just begun to fully tap into your inner trickster, and that’s in a controlled setting, Fleur’s voice rang in my head.
Yeah and who was teaching me how to do that? Grandma. Who’s hurting now? Grandma. I want to make these bastards pay!
With my growing anger, heat radiated from my pearl necklace as my power geared up. A humming started in my head, and in the center of the room, a new passage was forming in response.
It was the sight of that passage that finally knocked some sense into me. I’d been tricked. Again. And I couldn’t even afford the shame that went along with it as it would only lead to more anger and a wider passage to the Absolute Good and Evil’s prison.
Well, if there was one comfort, it was that this time around the formation of the passage wasn’t nearly as far along as last time. Yet with my white-hot emotions, I was still feeding the widening of the passage whether I liked it or not. My eyes strayed to my friends. Trapped as I was, I couldn’t do anything for their suffering, but I could still close the passage. The only thing I could control now was me, and my torrent of emotions.
So I took myself out of the game.
I threw my body into an emergency shut down, like that time when Dan Pillar tried to kill me and I pretended to be a corpse. The Council might think that I had fainted out of stress and panic, but I was really weaving the Playing Dead spell all over myself. It was the first spell learned and last spell forgotten, and as natural to a trickster as making honey was to a bee.
And therefore the hardest to detect, even by the oh-so-sophisticated vengeance demons.
With luck, my Playing Dead would halt the emotional turmoil that was feeding the passage formation, putting a stop to it as effectively as removing all the firewood from a chimney. I wouldn’t know beforehand whether it would work, as my unconsciousness was what would cause the cutting of the power.
It was only a stop-gap measure, as my friends and I were still trapped by the Council. Not to mention, I felt like a Judas for abandoning them, though they would be the first to point out that the fate of the world took precedence over individuals.
Hopefully the Council would stop torturing my friends once they realized I was out.
I set myself an internal timer to wake up in an hour, and sank into nothingness.
Or at least what I expected to be nothingness.
There was always nothingness whenever I used Playing Dead, including the time with Dan Pillar. In that case, one moment I was closing myself against the scorching heat that he was blasting my way, the next I was half buried in a dumpster with rotten banana peels on my face.
Not this time.
I didn’t black out. I was…floating. Floating in a transparent, aqueous world full of moss-green water. I didn’t want to move. I didn’t have to. A gentle wave carried me back and forth, rocking me like ocean current would to a forest of kelps. There were no worries here. No thinking. No gravity. Just swaying.
Then I felt another mind, a consciousness if you will, getting close to me. The waves were drawing us together, as if we were two Cheerios in a bowl of milk in those human commercials. Like recognized like. As the other mind got closer, I could tell that he—yes, it was a he—didn’t seem to be enjoying this kingdom of thoughtlessness as much as I was.
“Megan,” the mind shouted at me, reverberating through the water, stretching my name in an almost incomprehensible echo. But there was a sense of urgency in the echo, nevertheless.
I moaned, not wanting to let go of this numbness that had enveloped me. There was something terrible lurking at the edge of true wakefulness. I could feel it. And I wanted nothing but to stay in this tranquil land of lost thoughts forever.
“Megan!” The mind was right next to me now. “Snap out of it. Your friends need you.”
I sighed and spoke, the sound of my voice muffled even to my own ears. “Go away. I don’t have to wake up for another hour.”
I didn’t even know that I knew that until I said it out loud. With the return of knowledge came a flicker of self-awareness. It had the burnt taste of anxiety to it.
“In another hour you might not have a body to wake up to. If they can’t get you to wake up and co-operate soon, they’ll just kill us all.”
That got my attention. I sat up and found myself floating on the moss-green ocean rather than being in it, a wooden board under my body supporting me.
Eldon sat on a wooden board of his own; w
e floated next to each other, bumping gently against each other in the waves. His royal highness was in a pristine royal uniform of some sort, all shiny brass buttons and braided ropes, and not a splash of water on his person.
“Where are we?” I asked.
Eldon shrugged. “Wherever we go when we Play Dead.”
“You know about the spell?” Of course he knew. Tricksters and changelings were distant cousins; they must’ve shared this ancient magic way back when. Eldon didn’t simply pass out cold on that slab table—he did it intentionally, like me.
And now we were in this world outside of the world together.
“I’d never used Playing Dead before,” Eldon explained. “But it just came to me when I thought I couldn’t bear the torture anymore. I was never told you can be conscious during it, though.”
“Me, either,” I admitted.
“Is the Council’s passage gone?”
“Yeah.”
He breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank Fleur. I’ve been trying to help Finny close it from this end, pushing the passage to take a more corporal form on Dualsing so she could pinpoint it and neutralize it. But being in this world I couldn’t tell if it worked.”
“Hold on. You’re okay with the passage going kaput? That might be your only chance to go back home.” And to win the crown, which was what he’d intended on doing before the Council had us believe otherwise.
Eldon gave me a glare. “Just because the Council used me to convey certain information to Serafina for their own end, doesn’t mean I wasn’t on board with the message. They thought they were using me, but in fact I was using them. I was in full control of that last conversation with Finny, and with Trust’s help I managed to block out certain parts of it without the Council ever knowing the wiser. They thought I was telling Serafina to go to Dualsing as a vague suggestion, an impossibility that would herd her toward coming for me. Instead, I was passing her specific information to make sure she could follow through with it.”
“Like which allies to contact and such,” I realized.
“And what to do about the Council’s passage. I made sure the Council didn’t know what Finny would be up to.” Eldon’s lips curled in satisfaction.
“You must have needed energy to help close the passage. How? We’re in the land of thoughts and dreams,” I asked, feeling like there was something I wasn’t seeing, a missing piece of the puzzle that was staring me right in the face. Then I got it.
The tunnels throughout the Tree were lined with Molten Amber.
“The Molten Amber will help too because they could sense my will in you.” That was what Serafina said Eldon told her.
“…but the Council are control freaks. Why would it choose to trust something they can’t fully control?”
“It’s tradition. What can’t be controlled by them also couldn’t be controlled by others.”
Well, maybe that wasn’t true, after all.
Eldon smiled. “You figured it out, huh?”
“You used the Molten Amber.”
But there was more. It was in the hint of sadness in his smile. The Molten Amber was a conduit, but a conduit was different from an energy source. So where did the energy come from?
“You paid a heavy price for closing that passage, didn’t you?” I guessed.
“A necessary one,” Eldon said softly. “I poured the core essence of what made me a changeling into that push. It was the only thing I had at my disposal that was strong enough. As a result, I not only have the physical strength of a mortal, I am a mortal now. It’s for the best anyway. I could never be used to open a passage to my people ever again.”
It was then that I truly believed Eldon’s claim that he had given up on the changeling crown. He was really going to be the best king he could ever be, by not trying to rule at all.
I admired that. And I was so happy for Serafina. Well, once they stopped torturing her.
Speaking of which…
“I have to go back,” I told Eldon.
“I expected nothing less, Megan.” Eldon nodded. “I don’t think there’s a rule saying you can’t be awake before the hour is up. I’ll be right behind you.”
I blinked and got up from my wooden board, except it had now become the floor. I was at the lab with the Council again. Fortunately, the Menlonyn Ring that was my prison dissipated as I stood up. I had a feeling Eldon had something to do with it. My heart beat steadily, my earlier weakness gone.
The Council members were too busy debating among themselves about what to do with my friends to immediately notice my emergence from Playing Dead. It would seem that while they had no problem torturing the likes of Sui-Ling, Esme, and Serafina, there was some hesitation about how it would look if they were actually killed, especially in regard to the backlash from the Condor League.
The passage I had formed was gone, as I’d gambled it would be.
My friends, semi-alert, lay where they had fallen. Though their torture seemed to have stopped since I Played Dead, they were severely weakened and in no shape to fight. Eldon still made a very good show of being out, though I knew he must be awake as well.
I brushed imaginary lint off my shirt, then coughed.
The Council members turned toward me and their jaws dropped.
“Megan, dear, you came to.” The high judge attempted to hide his shock. I would bet that he had tried many ways to wake me up and had been unsuccessful. The fact that they were discussing the disposal of my friends probably meant they’d given up.
“No, I chose to come to,” I corrected him. “During my time away I had an epiphany. Eureka. Inspired. Whatever you call it.”
“What do you mean? Inspired, as in by my master?” High Judge Advocatus actually looked strangely hopeful. Well, I was supposed to be able to bring the Absolute Good back, so maybe it wasn’t that big of a stretch that I could be touched by it on a more personal level, right?
“No.” I didn’t bother to elaborate, to tell him that what really inspired me was Eldon’s idea of being the best ruler by not ruling at all.
Using the same principle, I realized that in order to be the best vengeance demon I could ever be, I had to not care about being a part of this plane at all.
“Then what are you talking about?” Minister Sumpsi demanded, throwing his hands up in the air.
“You guys really do hold all the cards here, you know. You’re way more powerful. You’ve got my friends. You’re well-connected and could make our lives miserable.” I counted the Council’s advantages on my fingers. They weren’t anything my enemies weren’t aware of. Then I grinned. “But you have one weakness.”
“And what is that?” Minister Lex’s tone was full of dismissiveness.
“You need me alive. You need me alive and well on this plane.” After all, I was a living, talking get-out-of-jail card for their master, with living being the operative word. They could torture my friends and family all day, but they dared not cause me any real physical harm. Even when Enid was pretending to hurt me, she was careful never to deliver any fatal wounds.
The Council members said nothing. I took that as a good sign and plunged on.
“But, you see, I have no problem leaving this plane, if it means my loved ones would be spared from the judgment day that the return of Absolute Good will bring forth.” I wasn’t saying I was dying to be a martyr or anything like that, but in order to embrace my true competitive edge, I had to take a long hard look at the score and know exactly how far I was willing to go if it came to that. And I needed my enemies to see that, too.
Still not a single word from them. I kept on talking, working it out in my head as I spoke.
“What we have here is what the humans call mutual assured destruction. Let us go and leave us be, or I’ll open the portal to your master’s prison and jump right in before anything could escape out. That’s gotta seal the passage up good, don’t you think? From the legends, I know the prison can’t be opened from their end, not by anyone. That means not even me.�
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“You…you would not dare.” High Judge Advocatus’s voice was full of fury—and a hint of un-disguisable fear.
“You’re talking to a girl who’s backed into a corner and got nothing to lose. I’m the only vengeance demon and trickster hybrid born in like, forever. I’m your hope, your best chance to keep your fanaticism going. Do it for the new recruits if nothing else. Think about it, as long as I stay in this world,” I coaxed, my tone changed from confrontational to drenched in honey, “I could slip up. I could get pissed off and open the portal. Different life stages…new crisis…accumulated heartbreaks through the years…all that could add up to a moment of weakness for you to swoop right in, and voilà, Hello, Absolute Good. You never know. As long as I stay on this plane, that is.”
“You’re talking about a cease fire,” Minister Sumpsi said slowly.
“I’m talking about taking a bet on my weakness.”
To secure the safety of me and my friends and to earn a reprieve for the world, I was counting on the Greys’ confidence in their ability to get me in the end. I was banking on their need for hope, and my own determination to resist them day after day. It was a contest of wills I’d have to engage in from now on, my only possible advantage was to be less arrogant than the bad guys.
And that meant acknowledging that I wasn’t infallible and beyond temptation, and that this could really come back and bite me in the end.
It wasn’t perfect and it certainly wasn’t a final resolution for the whole mess, but I was learning that absolutes were bullshit anyways.
“What do you say?” My eyes traveled from one Council member to another. They all looked disgusted and angry. “Hey, if you don’t want to take the deal, you can always try to get another vengeance demon to hook up with a trickster, but that might be harder than bringing forth the end of the world.”
As if to demonstrate what I was saying, a moaning Fir reached up and scratched his butt cheek and accidently brushed against Sui-Ling’s thigh. Well, maybe not so accidently. Sui-Ling gave a swift kick to knock Fir’s hand away.
“There’s one more thing you should know.” Serafina picked herself up from the floor and addressed the Council. “I got into Dualsing before coming here.”