“So has it all come together?” Commodore V. asks their secretary.
“It wasn’t easy, and a number of the characters are either well aware of the situation or are aware of a certain unease that often precedes full awareness. We cannot keep using the Looking Glass this way, it destabilizes. . .”
Commodore V. waves off his secretary’s concerns, “We can stabilize the new timeline in time, with the Witch on her way out we need to now focus on the Mold.”
“Sir we’ve pushed too far. When we frame-shift timelines we need to move to another frame as close as possible to the last. The series of jumps we made to get everyone in the same boxcar is too much. The new timeline isn’t fully coherent yet, if it ever can be. The Witch with a scroll in hand. . .”
Commodore V. puts a finger to his lips and his secretary falls silent. Supreme confidence in all things, this alone has carried him all this way. His lips curl ever slightly up behind his finger. Her lack of imagination is why his secretary is a secretary without her True Name and not a peer, he thinks.
The Private Owner of One Vanderbilt in Midtown Manhattan gazes into the infinity of the Looking Glass housed at the summit of his building. He savors the taste of death, once and for all the Witch will be gone, never to return. Dead. He has the rouge Private Eye as well, two birds one boxcar.
He can collect the Mold and Ailuros at his leisure. As for the two Named apprentices, a small price to pay to guarantee his eternal empire continue. Two Named blood sacrifices will bring about quite the harvest of fel energy. . .
The secretary shakes a bit, catching Commodore V.'s eye, “Yes, what is it? Speak.”
“What of the Bishop?” The secretary bursts out, quietly glad for her voice back again.
Commodore V. ponders on the priest, “He is an interesting subject, isn’t he? We will take him up for further examination.”
The secretary’s head nods, but in her mind, she shakes her head as she herself peers into the Looking Glass. The secretary focuses her attention on the Witch’s younger apprentice. This isn’t going to work. Can he not feel it. . .
In the boxcar the two groups that had split apart only a short while ago now find themselves face to face on the same train. The Witch smiles at Leonie who’s head is spinning. What is going on? Leonie can feel the eyes of another, one far more distant trained on them as well.
Leonie’s mind races as instincts kick in.
Entering from the left and right-side doors are two and one Magic Men. The two Agents 5 and 17 ready their wands in attack as the Lead Man standing farthest to the left adjusts his suit. No sooner do the Lead Man’s fingers touch his collar that his body is wracked.
He looks down to see three swords of light thrust into his heart. The Lead Man staggers, but he and the two agents are then bound in tough cord, unable to move. The Lead Man’s eyes first fall on Ailuros who smiles, shaking her head no. He then turns to the Witch who signals the same.
As the Lead Man slides off his feet into a seat on the ground, he sees the younger apprentice, named Leonie, with their staff, magical energy wisping off post spell.
“Good shot.” The Witch says to her apprentice, “How’d you do the bindings so quick after?”
Ailuros interjects, “The bindings are mine. I did do that. Finest catgut binding cords in the Library.”
Bishop Clement asks in a slight panic, “Catgut? Where did you get that?”
Ailuros answers, “Where do you think?”
As the Bishop stares Ailuros says, “Don’t worry, I got stock. The beauty of it for one such as myself is it always grows back.”
Leonie shoulders her staff walking up to the Lead Man, still living, pierced in the heart but unable to move. Leonie shoves their hand into the Lead Man’s suit jacket and pulls out the fourth scroll.
The secretary watches the entire scene unfold. She turns to Commodore V. and sees he is wandering about deep in thought, a twisted little smile on his face. The secretary decides to lose her voice again for the time being.
“So what do we do now?” Leonie asks anyone who may have the answer.
Ailuros provides, “Simple, we get out of here and finish our work.”
Leonie gives Ailuros an eye, “I’m sick and tired of being in the dark. We are collecting the scrolls, and they will allow us to slide back to the Earth so we can avoid the Academy’s and the Church’s portals, this much I get. What is the end game?”
Ailuros gives Leonie an eye back, and Leonie, startled looks away for a moment. Ailuros says, “We finish fighting the war.”
“We are at war?” Leonie asks.
“Yes, Leonie, we are at war.” The Witch answers, “I figure the assault on the wall gave that away.”
Leonie sighs, “You’re right, I know. But war? Even if the Academy falls the Private Owners will just pour men and resources in from the Earth, and if that doesn’t work they’ll reanimate the dead to fight.”
The Lead Man still bound speaks, “No one can die anymore.”
Leonie turns to speak to the Lead Man, "Why? What is going on?
Ailuros casts a spell that puts the three Magic Men to sleep, “Much is happening out of sight at least to us here in the Library. That won’t be the case for long.”
Ailuros walks over to Leonie and takes their hands, and the Lead Man’s scroll, in hers, “I must congratulate you on passing the exam.”
Leonie stares at Ailuros, “I think if I keep asking questions all I will do is uncover more questions.”
The Private Eye snorts at Leonie’s words. Ailuros continues, “No need to ask, I will tell you. We needed to see if you have what it takes to come along for the next leg of our journey.”
“War?” Asks Leonie.
“War.” Says the Witch.
Leonie gently pulls their hands from Ailuros and looks down at the scroll, “This train is strange. We are not in normal space, well normal Library space I mean.”
The Witch speaks with a smile, “So you’ve noticed? No, we are stuck in between worlds right now. The Private Owners tried to put a stop to us the only way they had left to them, with the Looking Glass.”
Leonie turns their head up slightly to look at the Witch. The Witch continues, "I’ll keep the explanation short for now, the Private Owners have the means to choose the reality lived by each and every person on Earth and in the Library, people still breathing of course.
The Private Eye breaks in, “The device allowing this is called the Looking Glass. We needed to get the Private Owners to use it, to trap us just like this in order to use the scrolls.”
Leonie turns to the Private Eye, “Look, I read one of the scrolls and in order to slide back to Earth we don’t need the Looking Glass or anything like it. There is something else going on here.”
Ailuros speaks, “Yes, we are going to slide through the Looking Glass, and in order to do so we needed to be contained within it, or its affect, so to speak.”
“We’re going to break it. We’re going to break the Looking Glass.” Finishes the Private Eye.
Leonie contemplates the situation for a moment before walking over to Ernest, “Here, you need this more than I do.”
Ernest is taken aback and looks between the Witch, the Private Eye, and Ailuros, “But how will you escape? How will That-Came-From-Before escape?”
That-Came-From-Before speaks, “There is no need for me to leave with my own scroll. I have enough of myself on each of you to follow along and reconstitute myself once on the Earth.”
The Witch shudders. Leonie speaks to Ernest, “I don’t need a scroll either. I’ve read one already.”
Ernest asks, “And you remember it, translation and all? When did you find the time?”
Leonie blushes, “Oh, I developed a study spell to help me learn and translate more quickly during undergrad. Self hypnosis.”
The Private Eye speaks to themselves aloud, “How the Western School’s Hypnotist recruiters missed you is the biggest mystery I’ve ever come across.”
Ailuros interrupts the conversation by marching to the center of the boxcar, and all eyes turn to her, “Alright, let’s get this show on the road!”
Standing in One Vanderbilt, Commodore V. looks out over the vista of New York City laid at his feet. Without turning to look at his secretary currently monitoring the Looking Glass he says, “I trust you can handle the rest. Let’s wrap up this unpleasant business.”
The secretary holds her breath, using it to quietly say, “Yes sir, of course.”
Commodore V. turns and walks away secure in the belief everything is under control, as it has been for all the long decades of his life so far. The secretary holds what’s left of her breath until Commodore V. steps into the elevator and the doors close.
As the sun begins to set, the orange glow of the evening sky pours into the hall of mirrors. The secretary lets out a sigh as one of the mirror panels of the Looking Glass cracks, “It looks like they’re going to drop the bomb on us. The Witch arrives in New York City.”
As Commodore V. rides the down from the Looking Glass lost in happy thought, the elevator is rocked, stopping mid descent. Happiness gives way to rage as Commodore V. uses the elevator’s emergency call system. Before the line gets connected, Commodore V. casts a spell.
With a flick of the wrist Commodore V. gets the elevator moving again, but it stops at the next floor, doors opening. Without waiting for the other end of the emergency line, Commodore V. steps out of the elevator and quickly makes his way to a window to see if he can find out what happened.
Up in the hall of mirrors, the crack in the Looking Glass propagates, a spider’s web forming first in one mirror, but then in many. With a sudden shock much of the glass in the hall shatters, shards raining around and down. The secretary has her barrier up when a burst of light blinds her.
As the blinding light clears and the secretary regains her sight, standing before her in the shattered remains of the hall of mirrors are six people. The air fills with a gray mist forming off the six and a writhing mass of dark material takes the shape of a man in silhouette.
In another world entirely, the skies over the Academy in the Library cloud with the smoke of fires and swarms of ants. Pleni stands with her flower charge outside Home Collection in silence. A bolt of energy shoots through her awareness, and she says, “There you are, my dear Head Librarian.”
In between the frames of moment to moment, Pleni plus one fold away from the Library and the Academy. Back on Earth in a shattered room high above the City of New York, two more people join the eight present, slipping in through the back door.
Ailuros is the first to speak, “Oh no.”
“Oh yes!” Pleni responds, “How long has it been my dear Goddess!”
“We have this well under control. . .”
Pleni dances over to Ailuros and meets her gaze from chest height looking up at Ailuros, “You can’t go out dressed like that! You must all be in uniform. It’s war, after all.”
Ailuros leans over Pleni, pushing Pleni to lean back. Pleni keeps her smile as Ailuros speaks, “We’re a rag tag band of misfits.”
“You’re warriors.”
“What would you have us wear?”
The Private Eye quips under his breath, “Famous last words. . .”
Pleni takes a leap back from Ailuros and casts a spell using no staff or wand, moving as a orchestra conductor with magical energy pulsing out in waves from herself.
“This better be good.” Ailuros quips, awaiting what comes next.
Magic forces swirl around Pleni in a dance of might and light, the music of Fairy magic ringing in the ears of those sensitive enough to hear. The Witch keeps a dour look, but taps a foot to the Pleni’s beat, learning the notes as they are played.
Springing forth from the unmanifest energies Pleni summons ten diamond brooch pins, all of them the face of a pit bull. The brooches appear already fastened somewhere on each of the ten present.
The Witch says, “Dogs . . . diamond. What is this Fairy?”
Pleni blinks at the Witch before smiling, “Oh, how crass of me! I failed to properly introduce myself to you all! Please, call me Plenipotentiary. If it is easier for you, call me Pleni.”
“Pleni. Alright. Why the cute brooches?”
“Oh, I’ve had such fun with you Humans before in many different ways, speaking to and through so many different people! Now I get to have some more fun amongst you! Accept my gift, you have my power at your command!”
The Witch levels her eyes with Pleni’s, “What’s the catch? What’s the deal?”
Pleni twirls over to the Witch and takes the Witch’s hands in hers, “The power of the Queen of the Fairies. Command us as we command ourselves. You are now one of us, one with us!”
“So Pleni, you’re the Queen?”
“My dear Witch, we each and every one of us are Queens. None play the game as pawns, that’s just silly.”
Leonie interrupts, “We broke through the Looking Glass. We made it to the other side of the board.”
Pleni releases the Witch’s hands and spins to face Pleni, “Yes!”
Leonie asks, “Now what?”
Pleni takes center stage among the broken glass, “We complete the great work of liberating this garden world! We have cleared some of the way already and work to clear some more, but it is up to us here in this room to finish.”
“Cleared some of the way? What’s happened?” Leonie speaks.
Pleni’s eyes lock on with the secretary’s. The secretary demurs, but Pleni’s stare compels words, “The police have all disappeared, replaced by Fairies. It’s chaos in the streets.”
Pleni appends the secretary, “Chaos? No, we are cleaning up the streets, bringing life back to them. That you cannot see that is a shame. No matter, you will learn as I will teach.”
The secretary points to the Flower Council member’s flowering chest, “What is clean about that?”
“Oh, pay no mind to the flowers, they will fall away and the wound close itself when the soul is cleansed and healed in full. We will have a new man! Well, maybe a new man, we’ll see.”
The secretary’s eyes narrow, “And what about the police? Where did they go? What did you do to them?”
Pleni responds, “Don’t you worry about them, we borrowed them! They needed a more thorough education, and we provide it free of charge! You should be thanking us! They will return when schooling is complete.”
Pleni spits on the floor of One Vanderbilt, “And after the usurpers of this Garden of ours are dethroned and brought to justice. Proper justice!”
“And what does that justice look like?” The secretary prods.
“You shall see! You are a member of the party, after all.” Pleni says.
The Witch turns around from Pleni and walks to the windows facing out into New York City, “We need to get out of here, we’re not safe here.”
Pleni strides over to stand next to the Witch, “Yes! Let’s leave in style!”
A number of floors below where the Looking Glass once stood, Commodore V. looks out in the same direction as the Witch and Pleni above him. The call he placed pushing his private call button in the elevator summoned his best cleaning crew, and they now go up to meet the threat in his building.
At that moment, another shock rocks One Vanderbilt, this time the shattering glass blows outward over New York City below. Shooting out of the top of the building are the Witch and company, taking off into the night under the cover of a rising Blood Moon.