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The bombshell of Marcy’s letters goes off in the hands of the princess and her captain, and leaves them stunned.
They lower the journal together, and it’s Anne who says haltingly, dazed, “Let’s…take some time to process. I’ll meet you back in her room when the sun sets.”
She stands, then walks away like she’s in a dream, leaving Sasha sitting alone on the bench in what was Marcy’s garden. What still is, still is her garden, she’s alive—she’s alive. Sasha closes the journal and holds it to her chest.
In the wake of every word written in Marcy’s own hand, thoughts whirl through Sasha’s head like wasps, buzzing and stinging her, and among the lot of them, there is one that is the loudest wasp-thought of them all.
This is just what friends do, running a race in her head, already several laps around—her own words coming back to bite her with rancorous verve. That one stupid excuse from when she was young, launched like a boomerang that she thought was a skipping rock.
Every single time. Every single time Marcy was in her arms, sitting in her lap, pressing her gentle lips against Sasha’s, it was with a love that was not just what friends do.
Her confession on those pages was everything Sasha ever wanted, grief-riddled. Her arms are leaden as her spine bows beneath the knowledge that Marcy loves her. Loves her. Her and Anne, both of them, she wants them, she wants them.
Isn't it everything she ever wanted, even grief-riddled?
Sasha stands abruptly, placing the journal on the bench, beginning to pace back and forth. She can't shake the stupid, stupid, stupid chanting in her head, stupid! How could she have done this? How could Sasha have done this to them both?
She stops, staring at the journal on the bench, feeling the haggard expression on her face. How had Marcy phrased it?
Before she knows it, the journal is in her hands again, and she’s running her fingertips over the words, the indents where Marcy pressed her writing implement against the page.
I long for a different timeline when I could have been kissing you and telling you how much I love you in the same shared breath.
“Fuck,” she exhales, then bites down on the inside of her bottom lip, head spinning. “Fuck,” she says again, audible, helpless and speechless besides expletives, which are all she can manage because fuck.
They had been young. She had been scared. But recent years had found her improving in both categories—she wasn’t that young or scared anymore, and the only conclusion she can come to is that she’d taken Marcy for granted, the promise of her presence, the inevitability of her and every single kiss they ever shared between them like a piece of stolen bread in an alleyway, hunger shared and sated and secreted away, neither of them telling on the other until now.
She should have said something. Dust and starlight, she should have said anything. Instead, she let Marcy think it was all just… platonic affection.
Platonic affection, when Sasha would carve a path through a kingdom for her. When she would commit treason to get her back. She would sooner brave the Queen’s blade than let Marcy ever slip from her grasp again, and they’re going to get her back.
Anne’s voice sounds in her ear.
“Got a minute?” Maddie asks, her gruff voice startling Anne out of the wild spin of her mind as she makes her way down the hallway.
“Maddie!” Anne says instinctively, clutching her chest. “Yes, I—Yes, of course. Of course. What did you need?”
Maddie tugs at the beads in her hair. “I got a letter from Lady Olivia today. Was hoping I could share it with you and the Captain.”
Hope surges through Anne’s veins. “I’ll get a hold of her,” she says, already touching her fingertips to the smooth stone of her right earring. “Captain, change of plans. Meet me and Maddie in the war room.”
The war room, of course, is not the actual war room. That’d be too blatant. Her parents have been keeping an eye on her, as frustrating as it has been, and if she were to use their war room, well. They’d get caught almost immediately. No, the war room is a small room accessible only from Marcy’s beloved wall tunnels, a room Anne had discovered on a meticulously drawn map while paging through one of Marcy’s many journals.
If her mother knew what she was doing, she—well, Anne isn’t sure what she would do, really. Maybe lock her away until the whole thing “blows over,” as if it would simply go away on its own.
As if. No, Andrias is too ambitious for that, and now he has her Marcy, her Marcy: brilliant, practiced, powerful. He could do so much damage. He already has.
Sasha meets them after a number of minutes, her uniform jacket slung over the crook of her elbow, the capelet still draped over her shoulders. Her face still has remnants of shock on it, but her voice is crisp and all business when she says, “Your Highness.”
Good—they need to be focused. They can worry about everything else later, because right now, there is so much to do, and before Anne is Anne Boonchuy, she is Princess Anne, Beacon of the Realm, Blossoming Lotus Among the Stars, the Heir Apparent, and her advisor is a prisoner of war.
She ties her hair back into a bun and says, “Please show us the letter, Maddie.”
M—
It is as I feared and yet not wholly as I expected. The creature, if indeed it can be referred to as such, seems to seek only power and destruction, and yet is not fully without its quirks. It does not quite understand the limitations of a physical form, and (perhaps because of this) asks me questions and tends to…visit. I am cautiously optimistic that this may be a good sign—an indication that our friend remains, though dormant.
We have a limited amount of time. A is quite agitated and seeks to demonstrate the power of his new weapon, which is precisely why I write with news that may, perhaps, be the key to both releasing our friend and putting an end to A’s raving delusions.
You, dear pupil, will need to obtain a focus: an object into which the creature may be drawn and thus removed from its current container. Consult Belladonna et al, particularly pages 33 and 92. You are quite capable, know that this has never been in doubt, yet I offer this knowledge to ease your mind. If you employ a method to lower the creature’s defenses, the ritual will be much easier to cast. I will be awaiting our chosen signal when you are ready.
With the haste of the sparrow, I remain:
Your teacher,
O.
“And that’s all she wrote,” rasps Maddie.
Anne runs through the letter over and over. Dormant. Lady Olivia thinks that Marcy’s still in there, that they can save her. She looks up, eyes blazing, right at Maddie. “Do you think you can do it?”
“I’ll need a little bit of help,” Maddie admits, looking thoughtful. “Lady Olivia basically said we need a distraction. If either of you two can provide that, I can get the necessary materials to perform the ritual.”
“Anything,” Sasha says, the fervor in her voice startling. Her ferocity is out in full measure, and Anne takes her hand to ground them both. Neither of them thought they would ever see Marcy again, and now? Now they have hope. And what a dangerous, volatile thing that is.
Assembling the materials takes a few days. Maddie takes Sasha with her to speed the process while Anne remains behind, looking for something of Marcy’s to function as what Lady Olivia called the focus. Maddie said that it might work better if it was something of Marcy’s, something that the spirit—the raw magic?—would be drawn to.
Anne wraps her arms around herself, glancing around the still-cluttered room, hesitant to dig back into it. It’s not like when she was reading the journals. Marcy’s coming back—if they get this right, and they will, this will be her room again. She’ll fill it with life again.
She drifts towards Marcy’s desk, skimming gentle fingertips against the desktop, the knobs of the various drawers. There’s been something on her mind since Maddie mentioned what all could count as a sentimental focal object—and she wonders if Marcy kept it, after all these years.
If she kept it, where would it be?
In a smooth motion, she tugs open one of the drawers, and blinks at the metals and precious gemstones sitting within. They sparkle in the midday light peeking through Marcy’s windows, and Anne stares at them blankly, putting puzzle pieces together. She glances down at her bracelets and their attached rings, and her heart swells.
There was love in every single thing she ever did. In every single thing she ever gifted to Anne or Sasha, there was so much love, and it is frustrating to know that, had she not been so shortsighted, she could have shown her own love far more easily.
Her fingers comb through loose chunks of metals, until she accidentally fumbles a piece of iron, and there’s a hollow thunk. She blinks twice.
Hesitantly, she raps on the bottom of the drawer with a knuckle. Thunk thunk. Hollow.
She inspects the drawer, looking at the sides and the interior, feeling around with her fingers until she finds a divot on one side, then the other. Anne hooks her fingernails into the divots, lifting the false bottom out of the drawer, and underneath it, laid out in such obvious care that she almost drops the false bottom in her sudden emotion, is every single small gift that Anne and Sasha have ever given her.
One year, for Marcy’s birthday, Sasha had suggested giving her an ornate locket. She had wanted to put something in there, but Anne had gently pushed back, saying that if it was a gift, they should give Marcy the choice to put what was important to her in there.
She knows exactly what she’ll find in there when she opens it. She inhales sharply anyway, seeing the very small painted portraits laid in each side: Anne on the left, Sasha on the right.
Anne snaps the locket shut, grasping it tightly in her hand. If this doesn’t work, she doesn’t know what would. “Hold on, Marcy,” she whispers fiercely. “Just hold on. I’ve got you.”
It’s settled: they’ll set out in the dead of night, when everyone thinks them asleep or on patrol, and ride straight through til morning.
There is no moon in the sky, only twinkling stars that cast forgiving light to the ground beneath their feet, and Anne holds a hand out to stop Sasha from marching forward and storming towards the carriage.
“Maddie,” Anne calls in a low voice. “Go on ahead. We’ll catch up—I need a few moments with Sasha.”
The mage inclines her head, adjusts the packs attached to the trunk, making sure that nothing inside will fall during the journey, and then steps into the carriage, closing the door.
Sasha turns her head to look at Anne, tilting it slightly with a raised brow.
Carefully, Anne says, “She was there, the entire time.”
“We couldn’t have known,” Sasha replies.
Anne’s head slowly moves to meet her gaze. Her eyes are blazing when she retorts, “But we still should have tried. We should have done something, and instead we just left her there, Sasha. You read those letters—she was being so strong, for us.”
Her Sword tears her gaze away, visibly gritting her teeth and beginning to pace again, channeling her overwhelming emotions into her movements. After a moment, she says, “She was being strong for us because she’s in love with us, Anne. Did you somehow miss that part? Isn’t that important?”
“That’s precisely why we shouldn’t have left her!” Anne explodes, and her hands ball into fists. “She spent all those days trying to stretch out her experiment and her captivity as long as possible, Sasha, she was buying us time and we did nothing with it!
“I sat there and I mourned her because everyone told me there was nothing to be done.” Sasha looks like she wants to say something, but Anne isn’t done. Wretchedly, helplessly, she bites out, “I wanted to get her back. I wanted to get her back the whole time, and everyone told me to prepare for a funeral instead of a war effort when what she needed was a war effort.”
Sasha deflates, then turns her head to the side and up, looking off in the direction of the castle, up towards Marcy’s room. “Anne,” she says, exhausted. “She didn’t need a war effort. She needed us. She wanted us, and she still could, if we get her back. I just don’t understand it. All these years, and all I did was torture her, and she still…”
She always did beat herself up about things. Anne huffs a sigh through her nostrils, goes over to her, and puts her hands on Sasha’s upper arms, holding her without holding her, because they need to pull it together. Marcy needs them. “Do you love her back?” Anne asks, point-blank.
“How could you ask me that?” She sounds like someone’s removing shrapnel from her abdomen, bit by torn and jagged bit.
Anne pauses. Taking a breath, she says, “If you do, then you know she would want you to stop beating yourself up about it, and…you’d be in good company.”
Several emotions pass across Sasha’s face in quick succession, and then she lands on resignation, despite herself. “Oh,” she says faintly. “Okay.”
That’s it? That’s all she has to say? Anne isn’t sure what she was expecting, but it wasn’t that. She blinks incomprehensibly at Sasha for what feels like an indeterminable amount of years before she says, “Okay. Alright!” She claps Sasha on the deltoid twice before retreating with a smile. “I’d say the time for talk is over, wouldn’t you?”
Sasha takes a deep breath, then exhales it in a long stream. She smiles back grimly as she says, “Let’s go get our lovable little nerd.”
The carriage is…small, Sasha thinks to herself as she presses herself against her princess, squished together. When Maddie said this is what we had to take to Newtopia, I expected…something better.
As if reading her mind, Maddie—who sits on the other side of Anne, clutching her bag like it’ll fly out of her arms should she let go—sighs loudly. “This is what Lady Olivia sent me in,” she explains, her voice low, raspy. “As far as the king knows, I had to rush home for a family emergency, and now I am returning. It’ll be the only way we can get to the city undetected, let alone the palace.”
Anne’s hand finds Sasha’s own and squeezes it tight; Sasha, helpless to do anything else, just squeezes back.
“This is just fine, Maddie,” Anne says, despite the strain in her voice that is only detectable from years of knowing her. “Say, when we get back, you should be rewarded for this.”
“I don’t need any fancy prize,” Maddie refuses, “taking down King Andrias and saving Marcy is really all the rewards I need. Besides, I’m sure Lady Olivia will need an apprentice if she takes the throne.”
Right. Because this mission is more than just saving their Marcy—it’s a political coup, essentially, and the part of Sasha that was forced through hours and hours of lessons is cringing at how quickly she had jumped on the chance to unseat a monarch.
“Let’s go over the plan one more time,” she says—a distraction from her thoughts. “Maddie, you’re going to get us to the palace in the carriage and use an entrance only Lady Olivia knows about, yeah?”
“Mhm,” Maddie nods.
“There will be guards there, but the guards answer to General Yunan, who is…on our side? Somehow?”
“She’s married to Lady Olivia, and believe me, I’m sure she’s just as upset about everything that’s happened as I am.”
“Right.” Sasha sighs, and she sinks back against the carriage seat. Her world feels uncomfortably small, but there’s a spark of hope in her chest, one that is finally reignited, and the ghost hasn’t bothered her here, so she’s fine, she can handle this, she is fine.
Anne squeezes her hand again, and it’s soft, tentative. When Sasha twists her head to look at her—though she can hardly see a thing in this carriage, considering it’s the middle of the night and all they have is one measly light spell that Maddie had conjured—her eyes are fiery, blazing with determination.
It’s a reminder of what they’re doing this for, Sasha tells herself, and she inhales.
“Okay,” she continues, “so General Yunan’s soldiers let us in. Anne goes with Maddie to find Lady Olivia, I go with the soldiers to find King Andrias and tear his guts out.”
“Sasha,” Anne scolds.
“Fine, fine. I can’t kill him, he’s gotta face his actions, it’d reflect worse on us if we took out the monarchy directly, yadda yadda.” Sasha rolls her eyes. “Then, the most dangerous part—”
“—you have to find Mar—the Weapon,” Maddie interjects. “For this to work, we have to draw the energy out of her and into the locket. This is going to be tricky, because that magic is… unstable, dangerously so, and I don’t think it has any of Marcy’s memories. It’s not going to be her, and it will try to kill you for getting in its way.”
The mood drops. None of them really like thinking about what their Marcy has become. It’s been easier to focus on the fact that she’s alive than it has been to think of how Maddie has described her; like a puppet, forced to host her own project, in service to the king that had kidnapped her and tried to kill Anne twice over.
Fun stuff. Sasha really, really wants to tear his guts out, but she’ll hold herself back for Anne’s sake.
“It won’t be easy, but it’s our best shot,” Anne says, her voice unwavering—she’s a lot stronger than Sasha had ever given her credit for. “And then we can take her home.”
“We should have a big feast when she comes home,” Sasha muses. “I know she hates that sort of thing, but it doesn’t have to be a public feast. Just us three and your parents, and all her favorites.”
“That’s a good idea.” Anne sniffs, and her head drops onto Sasha’s shoulder, their hands still intertwined. “And we can give her gifts; for all the time she gave us stuff, you know? It’ll be like… like a show of love, from us.”
“I’ll let her test out anything she wants on me without making a fuss,” Sasha laughs, but it comes out hoarse, hollow. “Isn’t that such a silly promise?”
“It isn’t,” Anne promises, “because it’s something she’ll appreciate. That’s all. I just wanna…I never want her to lose hope in us ever again, you know?”
Sasha wants to reassure her, tell her that it wasn’t their fault, but her own guilt—the way she had carried herself, fully believing Marcy was gone, not wanting to entertain the thought of her survival—gnaws her alive, so she presses her lips together instead.
Before Anne can sense her discomfort and call her out on it, the carriage rolls to a stop, the lack of movement just as jarring as the initial journey had been.
“Brace yourselves,” Maddie says in a low voice, “we’re here.”
The first part of the plan goes smoothly.
Maddie ushers them out of the carriage, around the palace, and to an entrance barely detectable by the light of her magic. The entire time, Sasha clutches onto Anne’s hand like a lifeline; she knows they’ll be splitting up soon enough, and the thought still has her stomach churning, but she pushes on nonetheless.
Inside the palace wait two guards, both wearing some sort of sigil that Maddie herself also brandished; apparently, it’s a sign of loyalty to the General instead of the throne, one that has saved their asses tonight.
“Okay, it’s time to split,” Maddie says once they’re inside, glancing at the place where Sasha’s fingers are intertwined with Anne’s nervously. “You guys can communicate with the earrings, but try and keep it quiet if you can?”
Sasha nods, but her hand grows stiff without her own consent, freezing.
“Hey,” Anne whispers, and Sasha turns to look at her. The fear and worry must be present in her face without her consent as well, because Anne’s eyes grow soft, and she gently cusps Sasha’s hand with her free one. “It’s gonna be okay, okay? We can do this.”
“Hell yeah we can,” Sasha whispers back, and with one more gentle squeeze, she releases Anne’s hand, taking a deep breath.
“Kick ass—but don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!” Anne gives a fond smile, and Sasha snorts, shaking her head fondly.
And then Maddie and Anne are off in one direction, and Sasha is left standing with two soldiers she doesn’t trust and one hell of a mission on her shoulders. Alright then, she tells herself, let’s do this.
The palace is quiet.
Sasha has Marcy’s hand-drawn map clutched in her hand as she navigates the halls, the two guards following her move. Why they aren’t assisting her through silently sneaking through the corridors, she has no idea, but luckily her Marcy’s map reads accurate, and it’s easy, so easy, for Sasha to decide where to go.
But there are no other guards like she’d expect for this time of night. No staff members keeping a watchful eye out for intruders, no…nothing. Was the king so confident in his secret weapon that he didn’t bother staffing a night guard?
She’d voice her questions to the guards, but she doesn’t trust them as far as she can throw them and she has a strong feeling that it’s mutual.
Sasha knows she’s finally arrived at the throne room when she sees a bright glow of orange beyond the doors. “Are we sure he’s here?” she whispers to her escorts, her free hand tightening around the sheathe of her sword. “It’s pretty late to be in the throne room, don’t you think?”
Orange pulses under the doors, and both guards look at each other warily. “He is here, but so is the weapon,” one answers, which is all that Sasha needs as incentive.
Without hesitation, she slams the doors open, fully unsheathing her sword, just in time for another pulse of orange to sweep the room—it tingles, but otherwise has no effect.
“You are a reckless fool if you believe you can keep us imprisoned here at your bidding for much longer,” a voice—one that could be familiar if it weren’t so fucking wrong—growls, echoing around the room.
King Andrias is just as monstrous as Sasha had pictured him to be, lounging in his throne. He hardly looks bothered by what is clearly a threat as his gaze shifts to the intruders—in fact, his eyes go wide and then sparkle with delight.
“If it is a challenge you crave, my lord, it is a challenge you can have. Look who has arrived.”
The glow of orange standing in front of the throne spins around, and Sasha’s breath catches in her throat.
It’s Marcy.
Orange smoke engulfs her arms, sparking and blazing like she’s on fire; it’s the same glow that radiates from her eyes. Her hair is a loose mess, and her clothes are singed and unrecognizable, but that’s her Marcy, she really is alive, no matter what Andrias has done to her.
And she smiles, a cruel, wicked smile that lacks any of the mirth she’d usually give with it. “Why, hello there,” she greets, her voice distorted and echoey and just totally awful. “So Andrias has given us a pest to eliminate. This will be fun.”
And then she lunges forwards, quicker than Sasha can anticipate.
The orange smoke hurts. It singes at Sasha’s skin, has the scar on her face feeling raw like it was just recently opened again, and the heat of it has her eyes stinging and smarting even as she instinctively jumps back, brandishing her sword to block the movement. It’s intense, but it reminds her more of one of Marcy’s infamous smoke bombs or acid potions than anything else—and Sasha’s spent a lifetime learning to counter her friend’s dirty tricks.
She needs to get the Weapon out of the throne room, away from Andrias, and she needs to distract it long enough for Maddie to extract…whatever the hell it is she needs, and then this can all be over and they can just go home.
Sasha would kill for another day to spend with Marcy in her room, holding her, cherishing her in a way she hadn’t before. Kissing her and meaning it, promising her a world waiting for her right there in her arms, ensuring her a life beyond her magic and her smarts. It’s what she’s longed for the entire time Marcy had been gone, and she’s not about to give up on that dream when she is so close, standing here in the same room, watching the proof of her own negligence.
So she bats off the intensity of the orange magic, takes a step back and offers her best grin. “I’m not afraid of you,” she taunts. “Think you can beat me? I’d like to see you try.”
The Weapon also grins, and the orange in their eyes flares as they take the bait, stepping right out of the throne room with arms ablaze. “Fool,” they sneer, “it’ll be fun to take you down. Let’s rumble, shall we?”
It lunges again, and this time, Sasha is ready.
She can count on one hand the amount of times she’s won a fight against Marcy. Marcy is…tricky, she doesn’t fight fair, she uses every dirty trick she has in the book, she cheats and ensnares and her arsenal of spells grows more every day and it just in general makes going up against her a pain in the ass even on a good day. Sasha loves their spars because she loves testing her own limits, but with how often she gets her ass kicked, it becomes quite an annoyance quite fast.
This…could be like fighting Marcy, except it’s completely different at the same time. The Weapon wears Marcy’s smile on its face like a battle prize, even as their arms stay engulfed in magic so intense Sasha can’t see the skin underneath, and as they stalk forwards, giving way to the chase that Sasha is baiting.
The Weapon has none of Marcy’s precision, and it doesn’t seem to have any indication of Sasha’s weak points—in fact, it doesn’t seem to realize that itself is one of Sasha’s weak points, lunging forwards and spinning the magic radiating off of it while Sasha just dodges and dodges.
“You should step aside while you still have the chance,” the Weapon sneers, and the magic curling off of them catches on a nearby tapestry—the entire thing goes up in flames immediately. “I have been denied my freedom for too long now, and nobody will stand in the way of it now.”
“Shame on you, then,” Sasha replies, and she keeps her sword drawn as she steadily backtracks through the palace.. She doesn’t think she could hurt Marcy, but she doesn’t have to hurt her, she just has to win. “For stealing something that’s not yours to take.”
“All are mine to take.” Finally, they arrive right back where Sasha had started—near the entrance they had snuck into—and Sasha heaves a sigh in relief. “Give up, little one, before I tear you apart bit by bit.”
“Who are you calling little?” Sasha snorts, and she stands at her full height, head tilted upwards as she finally stops moving, stops backtracking, stops retreating. “I won’t stop until you’ve given back my Marcy. I know she’s in there somewhere, and until you let her go, I won’t give up!”
“So much determination, yet you underestimate our hunger,” the Weapon grins that terrifyingly cruel smile again, and it curls both hands into fists, summoning more of that raw magic. “Foolish mortal. Our patience is as endless and boundless as time, and your attachment to this vessel makes you weak. Such a pity; we will not feel a thing when you are destroyed by these hands.”
Anne, Sasha thinks, bringing her free hand to touch at her earring, I really hope you’re close enough on this spell, because we’re here and this thing really wants me dead. I’m gonna stall for time as long as possible, but whatever you’re doing, you need to do it fast.
Be careful, please, Anne’s response comes quick, her voice tense and strained. I can’t lose you either, understand?
Understood, my liege. I’ll do my best.
Sasha—!
Sasha stops paying attention to the voice in her head as she blocks a brutal swing. Magic curls around her sword, and she watches in horror as the blade starts to drip, melting under the force of the smoke, and the Weapon grins cruelly as the metal gives way, shattering to pieces.
Well, shit, Sasha thinks.
The pieces of her sword glow, radiating orange as they hover in the air around the Weapon, who is still smiling that awful, cruel smile, twirling their fingers idly as the flaming pieces of shrapnel encircle them. “Admit it,” it gloats—Sasha would recognize the twinges of pride in their voice from anywhere. “You are pathetically out of your depth. You were offered to me like a lamb to be slaughtered, and while the thrill of the hunt has been entertaining indeed, let us both stop pretending that this is going to end any other way.”
With that, it flicks their fingers, and the shrapnel goes flying.
Sasha avoids the first two pieces, somehow. Her reflexes kick in, and she spins around and knocks one piece out of the air with her hand; it burns through her gloves, but there’s sharp, piercing pain that hits her a second later straight through her stomach.
Oh, she thinks, so this is what shrapnel feels like in your stomach. Okay.
And then she sinks to her knees, gasping in pain.
The Weapon’s smile is smug, without any trace of mirth that would usually accompany that particular expression. “You see? All who go against me fall in the end. What a pity.”
Sasha grits her teeth, and she pushes against the burning in her abdomen, forcing her way back onto her feet. “I haven’t given up yet,” she snarls, and she draws one of the many hidden daggers out of her sleeves, lunging forwards. She refuses to hurt Marcy, but Marcy’s gonna have to accept some cuts and scrapes when she wakes up because Sasha has to keep stalling for time, she has to keep Anne safe, she can’t fall here, not yet, not—!
Before her dagger makes contact, the Weapon places one burning hand against Sasha’s chest to stop her. The magic sears into her skin, Sasha heaves for air, and then her entire vision whites out with the pain and everything goes dark.
Sasha’s not responding to her anymore.
Anne groans in frustration—audibly enough that both Maddie and Lady Olivia look at her in concern, but she just waves off their looks. “It’s…fine, I hope. Sasha says hurry, she doesn’t know how much longer she can keep…the Weapon distracted.”
“It’s about ready,” Olivia says, and she produces the fruit of all of their efforts; Marcy’s locket, pulsing with light. “The next part, of course, is the hardest part—but it’s time for us to go out there and face it ourselves.”
“Right.” Anne inhales, and her hands are trembling in her lap. “I can’t sit here anymore, I need to…I need to see it myself.”
“Come then, let’s go,” Olivia beckons her forwards, and Anne leaps to her feet, her heart buried somewhere in the depths of her stomach as they venture outside the lab that Olivia had commandeered and back into the main corridors of the palace.
She’s antsy, nervous—she has been this entire outing. It’s more than just the fact that she’d disobeyed orders to get here, and more than how awful it is to be in another kingdom for the first time committing espionage; she’s worried. She doesn’t know what she would do if she lost either of the ones she loves, because the heartache she’s already suffered has been too much to bear. Any more and she’ll surely crack into pieces.
Which is why everything goes numb and fuzzy around the edges when they arrive in the hall near the entrance, the one that is alit in orange smoke, where the figure of someone Anne holds dear stands triumphantly over the crumpled figure of the other one Anne holds dear. Her breath catches in her throat, and even though they’re supposed to be doing this sneakily, she can’t help the cry that escapes her. “Sasha!”
The Weapon spins around, and it is smiling; an expression that had once dazzled Anne, had warmed her from the inside out but now chills her to the bone with how wrong it is at the edges, how twisted it has become. “More playthings?” It sneers, and the orange magic that curls off of them intensifies, coiling around their hands. “Excellent.”
“What have you done to them?” Anne runs forwards, collapses onto her knees next to Sasha’s crumpled figure. She’s breathing, but her clothes are badly singed and rife with punctures, and her pulse is thready when Anne desperately feels for her neck.
“You are the fools who challenge me,” the Weapon says, but when Anne glances up at it, she finds it staring at Olivia with wide, startled eyes; an expression fitting for Marcy but unfitting for the evil that wears her face.
“I’m starting the spell now,” Maddie warns, and she sits down on the floor with the locket, her hands moving furiously as her own magic begins to channel.
“You have betrayed me,” the Weapon says, and it is directed at Olivia. “You are helping them bring me down? For that, I will end you.”
“You took my daughter!” Olivia snaps back, and she is furious, enraged. “Everything I have done has been in the name of returning her to me!”
Anne clutches at Sasha’s hand, and she stares up at the creature engulfed in magic, the proof of what King Andrias has taken from her, and she inhales shakily.
“Marcy,” she starts, forcing herself to stare into burning orange eyes, ones that are just so painfully unfamiliar. “I know you’re in there, you have to be.”
“You cannot communicate with my host, she’s not in control!” The Weapon snaps. Anne ignores it; their voice is too warped, she can’t stand the sound of it when it sounds so wrong.
“Marcy, please. I know we did you wrong, okay? I know we left you here by yourself, suffering in silence and trying so, so hard to protect us when you were the one who needed protecting.” Anne breathes another shaky inhale, and she clings to Sasha’s side. “You did it because you loved us, even if you could never say it out loud, and that’s okay. It’s okay! I couldn’t say it out loud either! But please, come back.”
The Weapon takes a menacing step forwards, fists glowing with bright orange, but Anne doesn’t flinch; she just raises her head a little higher, summons as much courage as she can muster.
“You can’t hurt me,” she says, and it comes out soft, curved around the edges. “You’ve never been able to hurt me, not even in sparring. I know that part of you is still in there. I love you so much, my Marcy, and I need you here by my side, I always have. Come back to me Marcy. I believe in you, so come back. Please.”
She doesn’t know if her words are doing anything, but the Weapon pauses nonetheless, hesitating as it hovers over her and Sasha, arms flaming. It seems…confused, almost; like it can’t quite believe the words coming out of her mouth or the situation that is happening. It’s just enough for—
“—it’s done! Catch!” Maddie tosses the locket, and Anne catches it; it pulses in her hands, warm and full of life.
She knows what comes next. Somehow or another, she’s got to get that magic to suck into the locket, to contain the raw power so that her Marcy can come back to the surface. Before, the idea was that they’d capture the magic on the outskirts, but now she has a…different idea.
Anne stands on shaky legs, facing the Weapon with the locket clenched in her fist. “I’m not going home empty-handed,” she promises, and she lunges.
And perhaps it is the suddenness of the movement that allows her to succeed. The Weapon certainly doesn’t know what to make of it, though it brings both charged hands up, sizzling through Anne’s clothes and searing at her skin; she ignores it, she ignores all of it, so she can throw her arms around her Marcy’s neck, wrapping her in what is perhaps the world’s most dangerous hug.
“Your Highness!” Olivia calls worriedly.
Anne grits her teeth through the pain, and with shaky hands, she clasps the locket around Marcy’s neck, securing it fastly with a deep exhale.
One, two, three seconds pass before anything happens, and then—
The Weapon wails a sharp cry as the orange is sucked into the locket, falling to their knees—Anne leaps back before she can be caught in the fallout, shaking. Her outfit is badly singed now, and she’s trembling against her will, but any burn she might feel is overwhelmed by the deep-seated relief that comes with watching the orange magic get pulled into the locket, draining her Marcy little by little.
When the process is finished, Marcy collapses.
Anne tries to catch her before she hits the ground, but her arms are too weak and shaky, and she ends up just sitting on the floor once again, cradling Marcy’s head in her lap. Her hair is a right mess, and her arms had deep, darkened marks where the magic had permeated from her—but she’s alive, and breathing, and Anne thinks she might not let go of her ever again.
As she sits there catching her breath, though, all the worries and fear come rushing back to her, and she glances up at Olivia with wide eyes. “So…what happens now?”
“Now, we have a real coup on our hands,” Olivia says, and she chuckles dryly. “But don’t worry about that; it’s for Yunan and I to handle. What you need is to get your girls back to your queendom so they can heal up; I can’t imagine that magic has done either of them any favors.”
Anne nods, and she stands on shaky legs, carefully scooping Marcy into her arms; she’s always been light as a feather, and now is no different after five months of captivity. “I think I need help,” she admits, “I can’t get Sasha by myself.”
Olivia snaps her fingers, and one of the guards that had escorted them inside arrives. With his help gathering Sasha, they carefully make their way back outside to the carriage that awaits them, the horses still primed and ready.
It’s awful, being inside this carriage when both of her dearest ones are unconscious. Anne has Sasha laying carefully so her obvious injuries aren’t exacerbated, and she has Marcy in her lap, her own fingers deftly working to untangle the mess of her hair. It’s awful, but it’s something she can manage, because they’re both alive and that’s what counts. Finally, Anne has both of them at her side again.
They can deal with the mess they’ve made in the morning; for now, Anne just holds them tight and prays she never has to let go again.