Sarafyna

  I sit in the Radiant Woods with my eyes closed and search. I can feel everything. Every leaf, flower, and cruelty. I can feel the tired blood running through the trees instead of sap. The victims, constantly moving so I can’t get to them and pull them out. There are hundreds of thousands of them. Maybe more. It’s too much to process all at once, but I try. I look for Leo, terrified of letting him live through the same thing I did. He has been through so much already. I want to save him. I want to save all of them. I know I will someday, but for now Leo would be enough. Anything would be enough. But he wasn’t there. There were thousands of distinct energies. Unique souls, screaming in the woods.

  No matter what the Collector did to their bodies, I can feel their souls. The same way I felt Annie’s when we first met. So long as they have mana or divine magic, I can feel them. But Leo? I can’t find him. No matter how I search, I can't find him. His desperate warmth buried so deep down. I can’t find him anywhere. Him or Charlotte. I can’t imagine how they would escape on their own, so they must be inside somewhere but . . . there are just too many. Our friend has been washed away in generations of grief and pain and I can’t help him. I can’t help him. But I can’t stop trying either.

  “You’ll never find her.”

  I grit my teeth, extra eyes and mouths opening on my face and snarling together. I am tired of this. I am not the child who was left to rot in these woods. I am not the subject of the Collector’s games. I am the woman who taught the church fear. I don’t need Annie to do that. Not here. These are my woods too, now. “Shut up. Shut up shut up shut up! Never. Never you say. Never is what you always say. But when has it been true? No part of me is even mildly interested in what you think I’ll never do. And believe me, I have the parts to spare. Parts of you. Parts of your servants. I wear the scars of everything you thought of as your power all over my body. And you know what? I’m glad they are there. I may never have the beauty I had before again, but this is better. The disfiguration is better. Because every time I come here, every time I see you, you have to look at them. You have to look at everything you told me I’d never do,” I scream. As I do I grow taller, and larger, and tear at the world around me.

  “You said I’d never escape. Never see my father. Never have friends or family or love again. You said I’d never beat you in any way at all. But I took half your woods away from you. I hunted your priests and I took the power you gave them. I ate you from the inside out and left you terrified. I have my father back. I have a son who shines like moonlight on water when he sees me. I have a woman I love so desperately it feels like bleeding to be around her, and she loves me the same. So shut up. We both know what it means when you tell me I’ll never do something. It doesn’t mean I can’t do something. It means you are afraid of what will happen when I do. I will find him. I will bring him home. And the next time you say anything about him, that is the word you will use. Or your death, when I come for you, will leave you envious of every person you’ve ever tortured,” I spit. The world has grown darker around me and the radiant foliage has started to wither. My fingers and arms have split into bladed whips and my feet have taken root in the earth, stealing even more divine magic from the woods. It is hurting. I can feel that it is hurting, if only a little.

  “You are as fearsome as a child with a flaming stick, swinging it around with threats you don’t understand and will never accomplish. Come, find me and fight if you believe you have the power. But you don’t. You can’t fight me. You are too attached to that filthy corpse you fuck. So desperately in love that you are, in fact, bleeding. Bleeding all the power you could use to fight me. You’re weak, and I have nothing to fear. Not while you tie yourself down like a broken pony.”

  I take a deep breath, sewing myself back together and retreating back to my normal size. I maintain only the extra mass of all that I have consumed as I respond, barely whispering. “Then why did you run away? When I came back here, you stopped your attacks and you ran. You fled. If I’m a broken pony then why are you acting like a frightened dog?” The woods tremble around me as I speak, but that familiar voice doesn’t respond. I smirk. I knew it. All the attacks on every community stopped. Every single one. The moment I returned. He is afraid of what I can do now that I am back. Something to do with the victims he was using to attack us.

  Turn them back to humans perhaps? Or ailur or volu, I suppose. Either way, I don’t think I can. Not without Annie’s help. It’s something else. Something he is worried about when he sends them out to fight. Something that makes them safe in the woods but not in the open world. I need to see the ones we have captured again. I’m not finding Leo today. But I will find him. For now, I put a loose cloak on and shift to the border of the woods, emerging in the mountains. I bite my lip as I walk through the thin, chilly air. I have too much to think about, and I’m going to be here longer than I thought. I’ll need to check in with Annie soon. In a few days, perhaps. I’m afraid of telling her I can’t come back as soon as we planned. Not because she’ll be angry or anything like that, it just . . . will make the time and distance real. But I can’t help it. Whatever the Collector is afraid of, it is keeping people safe. As long as I am here. I can’t leave for long until we have found a better way to defend the towers. To keep everyone safe.

  The best way to do that is to figure out what that fear is. And that means spending most of every day with the victims Gilbert, Edward, and Dominic are keeping an eye on. But first, I need to make a few stops. I sort of shredded my dress in a rage back there and can only keep this cloak closed for so long before it becomes inconvenient. I also want to spend a little time with my family and check in on Joan. I have been caught in a whirlwind since coming back and while I have spoken to my girlfriend’s mother, we haven’t really gotten to talk much yet. As I walk, I shift, in my head. From the furious and violent monster challenging a god to the meek and mild hatter, excited to see her loved ones.

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  The towers are more crowded when I get back. Every floor of each floor filled far earlier than planned. Every community is here. So all the most powerful mages can defend it at once. As such, the tower I enter is busy with new faces and energies. And some old. I recognize a young man joking and laughing with a smiling woman, clearly decades his senior. Tommy and Diane, I think.

  Abby, the woman with the enchanted glass eye, smiles and waves as I climb past her floor and I smile back. Annie would be so happy to see all these people together. They would all be happy to see her too. At least I can report they are all safe when I speak to her again. When I briefly speak to her again. These people may be safe, but the people of Visenar won’t be when I leave. Something has to be done about that tree. The tree I put there. Leaving Ed to exhaust himself isn’t a solution. It’s too much to think about and I shut it all out for a moment as I enter my room. Annie’s room. It’s quiet. Suzume is staying with Joan. Annie is gone. It’s so empty.

  I walk to the little studio Autumn and Annie built for me and sit down at my desk. Hats surround me, offering the unique comfort only they can. I run my fingers along the brim of the nearest one, removing the hat I wore to the woods in favor of another, fresh alternative. For a moment my mind stops racing and every worry melts away. I close my eyes and lean back in my chair, letting my arms fall limp. I let the quiet take me back to Annie’s arms. Back to the night before I left. I can feel her lips against mine. I can taste her tongue. The electricity of her touch runs through my skin. I live in the calm that followed. When I wrapped my arms around her and felt her gentle breathing. Her hair against my face. As we let ourselves have one simple night where only the other mattered. We whispered and giggled and loved.

  Those hours with Annie carry me now. They are how I move forward. How I keep fighting. The memory of that joy, and the promise of seeing it again. The knowledge that I never will if I don’t fight, here and now. I let out a deep sigh and open my eyes. I stand and straighten the new hat before finding another outfit to change into. It was only a few moments, but it gave me what I needed to do the rest. I’ll see Joan next, then Annie’s brothers and the Collector’s victims, and I’ll spend the evening with my family. Well, most of my family. With only a moment’s hesitation, I leave my home and face the world again.

  Joan doesn’t live far from us, and I arrive at her door far too quickly. I take a deep, aching breath before knocking lightly on the door. It’s silent for several heavy moments, but I can feel Joan inside. She doesn’t have much mana, but she does have enough. So I wait. And I wait. Until she finally, slowly, opens the door.

  “Gah, Suzume you’re going to kill me!” she immediately exclaims as the happy tortoiseshell bolts between her legs and starts rubbing against mine.

  “Hey there, Suzie,” I greet, kneeling down briefly to pick the purring bundle of fur up. She immediately starts licking my fingers as I hold her, and Joan offers a rare, small smile.

  “Hey, Sara,” she greets. Her eyes are red and swollen, and her shoulders slump. Deep wrinkles in her face reveal a decade of aging in the last few months alone. “Come on in.” I carry Suzume back inside and the gleeful cat digs her claws into my blouse, worried I’ll put her down. I just scratch behind her ears and remain standing as Joan takes a seat at her dining room table.

  “How are you holding up?” I ask. She sniffs and looks down at a glass of tea.

  “I am . . . better than the first time I lost my son,” she says. “I am heartbroken. I am angry. I am sick and hungry and always full. But I am here. How is . . . Annie?”

  “Back to Annie now?” I ask. She’d been using Annie’s original name since finding out about Earth. Not in affection but as a way of alienating her daughter. Remind her that, as far as she is concerned, Annie and Lillith are different people. But before we left, she’d used ‘Lillith’ again. It was a small thing, but it was an effort that mattered. Or, it could have. But Annie saw it for what it was.

  “I only used ‘Lillith’ for Annie’s sake,” Joan explains. “She can’t do what she needs to do with all the extra baggage on her. She can’t be worried about . . . me and fight the whole world at the same time. I may not be able to reconcile who she is with the daughter I lost so many years ago, but I understand what she is doing matters.” Her words carry the bite of bitterness before they soften. “And . . . despite it all, I do still love her. And I know she loves me. I don’t understand why. It’s like my daughter died and lived at the same time. She is my family and she spent her life with me. But . . . didn’t she kill my original daughter? However she showed up here, wouldn’t Lillith be with me instead if Annie hadn’t stolen her body? I love her and I hate her and my son is dead, Sara. He’s dead and she did it. What do I do? How do I respond to that? How could anyone?”

  I feel like I’ve been dunked in ice water. I haven’t actually been there for many of Lily and Joan’s arguments. It’s been a family thing. But . . . of course she is struggling with this. Who wouldn’t be? And worse yet, I can help her. I actually have some of the answers she is looking for. But I don’t want to give them to her. I am terrified to give them to her. Because if I do, I will eventually have to give them to Annie. And if Annie finds out she is dead, in a way . . . if she finds out I could help more if I let her die for good . . . if she finds out how much I have put myself through to keep her alive . . . I am terrified.

  But I know. I know I have to, at some point. As soon as I realized what was happening I knew I had to tell Annie what I was doing to her. What I’d done to her when I pulled her from the peace of death to save me from my torment. And I’d have to face whatever her response was. Even if that response was asking me to just . . . let her go. Or even guilt. I am terrified. Joan needs to know the truth. And maybe, if I tell her, it will force me to tell Annie too. Before I bring her back here.

  “Joan,” I say quietly, a slight tremor in my voice, “I can promise you that Lillith and Annie are the same person. The same soul, if you want to call it that. I know for a fact that Annie is Lillith and Lillith is Annie. The only thing she gained was memories of a past life. She didn’t replace the daughter you had. And if Annie hadn’t woken up in that bed, Lillith wouldn’t have either.”

  She looks up at me with resentment and grief bleeding from her eyes. “How can you possibly know that?” She snaps at me. I take a deep breath.

  I put Suzume down, letting her drop to the floor. I don’t know if I can get through this with a purring cat giving me a finger bath. She rolls onto her back, failing completely to read the tone of the room. “Because,” I respond, pausing for a moment to build courage, “I’m the one who brought her back. I’m the one who let her remember. And I’m the one who forced a dead child to keep living in a world that hated her.”