“Well, we’d better survive the storm,” Aida said. “I want my brothers back, dammit!”
“We all want them back, hon,” Brock replied gently.
Elonora’s voice came through our earpieces. “Harper? You guys there?”
I clicked my earpiece on. “I’m here, Lenny. What’s up? How are you guys doing in that dome?” I asked.
“Um… mostly okay,” she replied, her voice strained and shaky. “Arwen, Brock? You around?”
“Wait, define mostly okay,” Caspian cut in, his brows drawn into a sharp frown. Had it not been for him, I would’ve lost my senses days ago. Even in these circumstances, I found myself gazing at him, thankful to the universe for bringing him into my life.
Well, technically, I’d sort of barged into his, but that was just a minor detail.
“We have a bit of a problem with Kale,” Elonora replied.
As if their chairs were on fire, both Arwen and Brock shot to their feet, staring at the second telescope screen, which had settled over the diamond dome and Ta’Zan’s colosseum. We couldn’t see much inside, since the diamond plates were angled to distort everything, but it gave us the feeling that we at least had eyes on them.
“What’s wrong with my Kale?” Arwen asked.
I could almost feel her frayed nerves and stomach-churning concern for her daughter. I probably would’ve been worse if that was my daughter out there.
“She’s gone into Word-mode again,” Elonora explained. “Corrine, Ibrahim, Lumi, and Hunter are with her. She’s stable, but we don’t know for how long, or when she’ll come back to us. We’re in a bit of a pinch now, because of the—”
“Bilocation spell,” Brock cut her off, fear locking his jaw. “You need four witches for the spell to work. It’s bad enough you only have one and a half swamp witches to begin with.”
“Uh-oh,” Amelia murmured, understanding the size of the trouble pending.
“But my baby. Is she okay? Do you know what happened before she blacked out?” Arwen asked.
“She’d taken her position in the dome. We were waiting for Araquiel to give us the green light so we could get the spell started,” Elonora replied. “We don’t know how these episodes start, anyway.”
“Does she seem… dangerous?” Brock murmured, clearly pained by a genuine fear that Kailani might lose control and release another deadly pulse. I couldn’t blame him. Our closest friends, our grandparents, and our great-grandparents were in there, our allies… hundreds of innocent people.
“Brock!” Arwen snapped, not ready to deal with that side of Kailani’s swamp witch powers.
“I’m sorry, my love, but we have to ask that,” Brock replied, trying to comfort her. “Your parents are in there. There are a lot of people in there. We need to be realistic.”
Watching them made my heart twist itself up in a painful knot. I would’ve given anything for the power to put an end to everything now, before more people got hurt. I would’ve stopped at nothing to get everyone out of there, to reunite my people with their loved ones… to turn Ta’Zan into a pile of ash before he tore more families apart.
“She seems calm,” Elonora finally replied. “Her eyes are glowing white, but Hunter is holding her close, and Lumi is watching over them. The others were told to drop as soon as we hear the hum we heard during her last episode. It’s the only thing we can do, in here.”
Phoenix shook his head slowly, a muscle angrily twitching in his jaw. “If they can’t set the bilocation spell, Araquiel can’t risk detonating the charges once they’re set. If we don’t blow that place up, the fae can’t enter Strava’s orbit without a swarm of Perfects tearing the shuttle apart. Without the fae, the Hermessi won’t awaken, and Amal and Amane’s mass memory wiper won’t be enough to tip the scales in our favor. Ta’Zan is still rebuilding his ships. He’ll block the comms again. Telluris. Everything. We’ll be back to square one, but with an enemy who’s learned a few of our tricks.”
Arwen’s knees gave out. She sat back in her chair, with Brock kneeling next to her, trying to help her stay focused.
“Kale’s a fighter, my love,” he said reassuringly. “She’ll get through this.”
“But will she get through it in time?” Amelia breathed.
“I’m sorry, Arwen,” I said. “We’re all trying to look at the bigger picture here. This isn’t just about Kale anymore.”
“I know, I know,” she replied, wiping a solitary tear. “It’s kind of hard not to look at it like that, though.”
“What about the fae?” Elonora asked.
“They’re still in orbit, waiting,” I replied. “The sooner we move this along, the better. They’re using the fuel reserve to keep the shuttle from moving away from its original entry point. If that runs out, they may have to either go in at another location or wait a day to go in above the winter-summer cluster, like we planned.”
Suddenly, the background of our comms channel was filled with the sound of battle. Weapons fired. Grunts and wailing. Short screams and swords clashing. Herakles came through, breathing heavily.
“Lenny? GASP? Anyone?!” he called out.
“Herakles?” Elonora croaked. “You actually found the general channel. Well done! I thought you’d have more trouble with the earpiece’s frequencies—”
“What’s the holdup in there?” Herakles interrupted her. He was definitely impatient and most likely fighting someone as he spoke.
“Nathaniel and Araquiel are still planting the charges,” I said, joining the conversation. “They’ll let us know when they’re done. If they’re not saying anything, it’s probably because they’re ducking hostiles in there.”
“Dammit,” Herakles cursed. “I’m losing more people than I would’ve wanted out here, and the Draenir aren’t doing too well. They’re sending more Perfects over on our side, and I don’t think we can last much longer. I mean, we’re doing our best to draw their attention here, but we can’t keep this up forever!”
Elonora groaned with frustration. “I’m sorry you’re having to deal with that, Herakles, but we’ve got some issues of our own. Even if Araquiel and Nathaniel’s group gets the job done, we can’t get the bilocation spell started. Kale went into Word-mode.”
Herakles’s reply was a string of curse words so lewd, my ears caught fire, and I was seconds away from removing my comms piece altogether and crushing it under my boot like a bug.
“Sorry,” Herakles then added, clearing his throat. “Okay. Okay… We’ve got this. We’ll try to hold them off for as long as we can,” he said. A thud in the background made my spine tingle. “Oh, that was close,” Herakles then muttered. “We’ll stand by for an update.”
“You can do this!” I said to him. “I know you can. Just don’t let the Perfects see you. Go deeper into the woods if you have to.”
“Harper’s right,” Elonora replied. “They’ll come after you, either way. But the jungle is your turf, not theirs. Make the most of it. It’ll buy you some time!”
