Birth of Chaos

by Elise Kova

  Jo was falling.

  Air rushed around her as the unseen floor gave out underneath her feet like a trap door. A shout of surprise ripped open the terse line of her lips. Cackling was the only response to the sound. The darkness seemed to vibrate with sheer amusement.

  Light glowed up from her feet, drawing her attention just in time to see the black fog-like magic beginning to disappear. She slowed, plunging through the bottom like an airplane on its final descent. Her toes touched the ground first, and then the balls of her feet.

  A forest glade surrounded her. Sunlight streamed through the boughs from the trees, striking beams of light onto the mossy floor below. Motes of—well, Jo didn’t quite know what they were. Little balls of light, like fireflies but much larger, danced through the air, swirling around each other before flitting away.

  She spun in place, searching—it was not a spot Jo recognized. But it was a time that seemed somehow familiar. It was like trying to remember a place someone described for you while you were both drunk. The darkness from before was kept at bay behind the bars of the trees, tendrils of living smoke tried to swirl out, but could not penetrate the space—save for one.

  What seemed like a blur of darkness sped over her shoulder with a woosh of air that pulled her hair in its backdraft. Jo jerked, but it was of no threat. The beam solidified into some kind of lance, an arrow, and plunged into a strange carving made in the bark of a pale tree.

  Jo turned to face the source.

  Pan stood—no, not Pan, but like Pan. It was Pan’s eyes and hair, but something was different. In her cheeks and lips Jo saw. . . herself.

  The woman—Oblivion, Jo realized—was swathed in tight leather of all colors. It was wrapped around her bodice, and flapped in a rainbow of shades around her legs as she moved, shifting from darkness to light. Her hair seemed to float, hovering against gravity in the air, changing shades of color with the rustle of an unfelt breeze through the trees. In her hand she held a wide arc of darkness that evaporated between her fingers.

  “Hunt. Foolish woman. Thought this would bring us down. But it was not, was it?”

  “What?”

  Jo pivoted to look back at the—

  The carved tree and the spear of black vanished. In its place was a long hallway. Iron lanterns hovered in a ceiling that Jo would’ve guessed to be over twenty feet tall. At the far end was a door, the crack of light it struck on the ground dangerously inviting.

  It wasn’t like she had a choice.

  Jo steeled herself and pressed forward into the madness. The door stayed just out of reach, never seeming to get closer. Jo picked up the pace, faster and faster until she was practically sprinting.

  All at once, she burst through the door, tripping down a step and tumbling into a room filled with every curiosity imaginable. Tapestries lined the walls with a jeweler’s vault’s worth of gems and jewelry dangling from them. Herbs hung between strips of meat on the ceiling that was covered in all kinds of painting. Mechanics whirred on one wall, cranking sparks on occasion from the strain of the mysterious tasks they were performing.

  There were shelves, and shelves, and shelves packed to the brim and overflowing with books, bottles, baubles, statues, and more. Nothing made sense. It was as if the creator had thrown every possible item into the room with utter disregard for any sense of logic. Every time she turned she saw something new, and whenever she looked back somewhere, what she’d first thought she’d seen was gone.

  It was sheer chaos.

  And in the middle of it all, was Pan.

  This was the child-like form Jo knew, dressed again in one of her ruffled garments. The woman Jo had seen in the glade was gone and that fact brought no small amount of ease. A smile swooped across Pan’s face.

  “What do you think of my collection?”

  Jo kept her mouth shut. She had nothing to say.

  “Oh. . . come now, don’t be like that,” Pan whined softly. “You have to think something. Especially after I showed you so much.”

  “What did you show me?” Jo finally asked, her voice almost cracking at the end. She did know, but she wanted to hear Pan say it.

  “Truth.”

  “Enough of the games,” she snapped. “I know the truth.”

  Pan waved a hand through the air and fell backward. The darkness from before crept out of the shadows at her behest. It rose up quickly, solidifying into the shape of a chair before shearing off like a snake shedding its skin—a throne cast in gold in its place.

  “Do you know the truth?” Pan hummed. “Or do you know Snow’s truth?”

  “Don’t waste your breath, you’re not going to turn me from him, or make me suspicious.” Jo knew that he would not keep from her something that would harm her. Not intentionally, at least. And especially not after everything he had shared. If there was more to be said, it was merely because there had not yet been time to say it.

  “You reek of him.” Pan scrunched her nose. “I can see his magic clinging to you. It’s so bright, so. . . orderly. Isn’t it suffocating to be wrapped up so tightly?”

  “If there’s one thing I want to be wrapped up in, it’s Snow,” Jo retorted. She looked around the room. “Not. . . this.”

  The scrunch of Pan’s nose deepened. It hitched her upper lip, drawing it upward and setting it to twitch slightly. The woman-girl narrowed her eyes. “It is not your decision to make, not when you are the embodiment of theft.”

  “What theft?”

  “The gods feared me—feared us. Before them, there was nothing, only us. Then Light—Zeus, they called him—came like a bolt of lighting into our delicious void. He sparked life, and brought Order to help rule it, and then the rest of them came. They took everything from me, even you.”

  Pan stood and Jo took a step back. She suddenly seemed like a dog on a chain, snapping and biting, waiting for the thick rust to finally eat away at the metal and set her free with a snap.

  “They feared us. All of them. And it was glorious. Do you not remember? You must, the feeling of that power, the feeling of their fear.” Pan set to pacing as she spoke. “They did the one thing they could do.” She stopped all at once. Her head lolled, as if all the muscles in her neck had gone limp at once. Her eyes gazed across every inch of the room before landing on Jo. “Then Snow, Creation, did the one thing they wouldn’t do. Clever, I’ll give him that. . . But there’s not much longer now until we’re together again.”

  Jo wanted to ask more. She wanted to pick apart every little bit of information. But Pan was giving her a waterfall and Jo only had a teacup to try to collect it in. She didn’t have enough time to piece it together and, what’s more, didn’t have the mental fortitude.

  Fear ripped through her as she was frozen again, just like in the pool, laid bare under that cat-like stare. Unlike Snow’s penetrating gaze, this was almost brutal. It was as if Pan was forcefully ransacking the contents of her mind. Tearing apart the drawers of memories, throwing them like clothes scattered across the floor and then—

  A smile.

  “Do you remember our deal?”

  “W-what?”

  “Our deal.” Pan held out a hand and the room behind her changed into an exact replica of Jo’s hacking set-up in the recreation room. “You promised to show me your magic.”

  Jo had all but forgotten. It felt so, so long ago now. “No,” she whispered.

  “Now now,” Pan cooed. “Don’t go back on a deal. You wouldn’t do that, hmm?”

  “I want to leave.” Jo didn’t know what she’d been looking for, but she’d found more than she ever wanted. “Let me out.”

  “You can leave at any time.”

  “What?”

  “All you need is your magic.” Pan cackled at the confusion that was no doubt still painted across her face. “Make the Door.”

  “I-I can’t.”

  Pan took a slow step forward. “Make it, and see the truth.”

  Jo shook her head again, eyes pressing closed. That was where s
he knew the darkness from. She’d been seeing it all along. It had been behind her eyelids, steadily growing, from the first moment she’d walked into the Society.

  It was in her. It was her.

  “Do it, it’s what you’re made for.”

  “No.”

  “Be mine,” Pan whispered, now just a step away. Jo could feel the ripples of magic off the woman’s body. Her clothes swayed, seeming to fray, transforming before Jo’s eyes into the bindings of multicolored leathers she’d seen before. “Come back to me.”

  Jo shook her head violently, neck straining. “I . . . I will not. The only thing I was made to destroy, is you.”

  “Impossible, with the Society around us. But you can fix that too, can’t you?” Pan egged on eagerly. “Now, go and show me, Jo. Show me your magic, Destruction.”

  “Never!” Jo screamed, a voice she’d once had pouring out of her mouth.

  Pan was forced back, stumbling, falling to the floor in gleeful laughter. There before Jo, obscuring the woman on the floor, was the Door. She didn’t know how it was possible, or why. But there it was, hovering mid-air.

  She was too afraid to question and knew better than to look a gift horse in the mouth. Jo didn’t even bother with the pin-code. She pushed on the handle, wrenching open the Door. A cackle of sheer madness covered up any sound that the metal may have made as it opened.

  “The box is the key to ending this. Do it, Josephina. Or I will see everything you love come undone with glorious chaos, one way or another.”

  The words echoed between Jo’s ears as she breathlessly sprinted into the hallway, slamming into the wall on the other side. She spun, but the black door was as it had always been: closed tight. Yet that same feeling of being watched lingered alongside the echo of Pan’s laughter.

  Jo turned in a rush of fear and adrenaline, and bolted through Snow’s door.

  Chapter 25

  Finally

  He’d said she could come and go as she needed, but Jo didn’t think he’d intended for it to be like this.

  Wrenching Snow’s door open, Jo felt tethers trying to keep it shut snapping under her brute force. She paused, looking at the open frame. What had that been? Some kind of protective ward to keep Pan and her watchful gaze out, perhaps?

  And she had broken them.

  Which meant now, whenever she wanted to, Pan could waltz right in and take what she had been looking for the whole time. Jo walked over to the box, her earlier conversation with Snow replaying loudly in her ears. She had told him she wouldn’t touch it. She had also vowed to end the Society.

  Jo looked back to the door, half expecting to see Pan ready to pounce.

  But her promise was before she’d broken his wards. Did he already know? Could he sense her destruction? Was he on his way? She turned back to the box.

  Even if he was coming for her, to investigate the meaning behind the destruction of his protections, she would have to keep away Pan until he arrived—if Pan even came to begin with. Perhaps she should wait it out? Or perhaps she was just waiting to lose everything.

  Another thought entered Jo’s mind—once more, the idea of destroying the Society, of ending everything. With this power, she could. Pan had told her she could.

  One way or another, Pan had said.

  One way or another, it would all end.

  Jo didn’t think, just followed the pull in her gut. This was her power, and with it, she might have a chance. She’d take it and go far away, open it safely, hide while she was vulnerable, learn her magic—formulate a plan at the very least.

  It may not be the best idea, Jo admitted. But doing nothing wasn’t working either. With one final breath to steel herself, Jo grabbed the box and left before Snow could come back and find his wards broken, and her doing the one thing she promised him she wouldn’t do.

  The box was positively searing against her fingers, rattling with her every step. Jo couldn’t tell if it was her hands shaking with the grip she had on it, or her magic within trying to force itself out. A dry spot formed on her still-dripping clothes where she held it against herself.

  Jo knew she wasn’t ready to open it. More like, she wouldn’t even dare to open it. The box radiated with an energy she’d never quite felt before and as terrifying as it was, it was also thrilling, intoxicating.

  “ . . . I just don’t get it.” Wayne’s voice echoed down the hall to her. There was a long silence before he continued. “It’s never done anything like that before. Never less than perfect. I’m lucky I made it back at all.”

  Jo dropped to a crouch, leaned against the wall, and hoped she was far enough from the stairwell to remain unseen. Why were there so few places to hide in the Society?

  “It is strange. . .” Takako replied grimly. “But at least the killings seem to have made progress on the Severity of Exchange.”

  “Do you think Samson will be able to do his part?” Wayne’s voice was already shrinking. Jo listened carefully, more for their footsteps than their words. She had every faith that the team could figure out the wish. Even if they couldn’t. . . she was beyond being able to help them now. The best thing Jo could do was take herself, and her magic, as far from the Society and Pan as possible.

  “He will, if nothing else is amiss. You don’t think it could be. . .” Takako’s voice faded down the hall. To the best of Jo’s abilities, she’d guess they were heading toward the common area.

  Two people down, four unaccounted for.

  If Takako was talking about Samson doing his part, then she’d venture a guess that the woman had returned with bones. Knowing Samson, he’d likely wandered off to his room, and Eslar had followed. Pan—just the thought caused the muscles in her chest to seize, stealing her breath for a moment—Pan was likely still in her room, as she always was.

  Yes, Pan is still in her room, Jo quietly assured herself as she eased out of her crouch. Pausing, she looked down the hall toward the black door. It remained as still as it ever was, but not nearly as ominous. But Pan had eyes around the Society, she would know soon what was happening—if she didn’t already.

  She had to move quickly.

  Jo gripped the box tighter, as if trying to pull it closer to her, to embed it into her skin and keep Pan from ever laying a grubby little candy-colored finger on it. It didn’t matter where Pan was, where any of them were; it wasn’t going to stop her from leaving. Jo echoed the sentiment in different ways over and over as she descended the stairs, waiting for it to take root and become believable.

  There was no one in the halls leading toward the common or briefing rooms. With a word of whispered thanks to no one in particular, Jo made a sharp left. Her feet landed on the plush carpet, and she took to a run. Her heart was in her throat, beating much faster than it should for how few steps she’d taken.

  It was like she could taste freedom, sweet and clear, swirling on her tongue, dancing across the roof of her mouth. Every breath left her aching, needy. She had to escape—she could, she would. Just long enough to sort through some things, figure something out, learn her magic. At the very least, long enough to allow the threads unraveling around her to tighten once more.

  Jo burst through the doors to the briefing room, not letting them slow her momentum in the slightest.

  Samson nearly jumped out of his seat. Eslar’s back straightened into a painful looking line, surprise nearly bulging the eyes from his head. Snow was on his feet.

  It was Snow that finally slowed her to a stop.

  He didn’t move for her, didn’t even try to speak. He stared at her in utter confusion until she could see the moment it dawned on him. His eyes dropped to her hands. She could handle the anger that flashed across his face, knitting lines between his eyebrows. But the look of utter heartbreak that had him sinking backwards into a slump was something she was unprepared for.

  “Josephina, is there something—” Eslar began.

  “Don’t mind me, just passing through.” Jo continued for the Door.

  “Don
’t you want to know the state of the wish?” the elf continued. “And heading where in that particular state?”

  She’d rather eat her shoe than know about the wish. “I’m fine,” Jo said, knowing she looked the opposite, uncomfortably soaked to the bone in her undies and tank.

  “You may not be when you try the Door,” he said ominously, halting all her movement. Jo’s gaze swung over to the elf, then backtracked to Snow.

  “What’re you talking about?” And what have you been talking about?

  “Wayne ran into a snag on the wish.” As Eslar spoke, Jo’s attention drifted to the items on the table. She stared at them with dark, morbid fascination.

  A severed hand and a leg from the knee down were laid out neatly right before Samson—as if they weren’t still oozing blood onto the table. She remembered what Takako had said, what they’d all decided must be done during their last meeting. But to see the severed flesh and torn tendons. . . Jo knew she should feel sick. But the prevailing thought in her brain was nothing more than, how do they not smell?

  “The Door seems to be acting strangely.”

  It felt as if invisible gremlins were tugging on her from every direction. The wish, the Door, the box, Samson and his severed limbs—there were a million things she needed to focus on and all at once it seemed too much. Her fingers tightened around the vessel.

  It seemed like too much, but really, her next steps were very simple. The Society had existed from the beginning as a spring-loaded trap that was ready to fire the second Pan found her. It was Jo’s presence that was resulting in the degrading quality of wishes, either because her Destruction was unraveling the very magic that held them together, or Pan herself was picking more and more extreme wishes to push the Society into a corner. It didn’t matter which. Jo was certainly behind the Door’s malfunctions, of that she had no doubt.

  Which meant she could ignore all the symptoms and focus on the problem: herself.