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Chapter 24: Resolution

  A ringing silence followed Lauren’s departure. Oscar, Jon, and Haley had all frozen in place, mouths hanging open. They exchanged looks of horror among themselves, then all eyes found Tim, who had looked up from the floor at last. He could barely bring himself to speak, but he could tell from their expressions that they would soon regain the power of speech and demand answers, and he forced the words out.

  “She was working on trying to gain some control over her powers while we were waiting out the storm. She wasn’t having much luck for the most part, but after a while she managed it. Lauren ended up bringing both of us into different memories. Every detail was perfectly preserved, as if we’d actually gone back in time and were reliving those moments. And… while I was out trying to find a way out of the city, Lauren saw…” Tim took a deep, shuddering breath. “She saw Sytris getting tortured by the Harbingers. They were trying to force him to tell them where we were and he refused. And Erymithia…”

  That was as far as he could go. Haley staggered back a few steps, then she fell haphazardly into the armchair beside the fire.

  “Oh my god… it’s our fault. He — he died protecting us, it’s our fault —”

  Tim watched in horror as she dissolved into tears, sobbing into her hands. Oscar rose, but Tim received yet another surprise to see that it was Jon who got there first, putting his arms around her as she wept into his collar.

  “First our parents, now Sytris… it’s our fault…”

  Oscar folded his hands under his chin and closed his eyes, taking deep breaths. Tim and Lauren had discussed the matter before they had set off in pursuit of the others, and he had had exactly the same reaction they had: disbelief first, then anger, then the crushing acceptance. He knew what would happen once they finally delivered the news, so they had tried to find an appropriate time to do so. But when was it ever appropriate to announce that someone you knew was gone? That you would never hear their voice again, that the memories you had of them were their only tether left in this world?

  “What are we going to do?” Haley sobbed.

  It was no surprise that Haley was taking it this hard, given that she was already grieving her own father, who last they had checked was still comatose. And that was before the wretched storm. He wished he knew the answer to Haley’s question, but his mind was a blank slate.

  As much as he wanted to deny it, they were effectively pinned down in every direction. Their parents had either been discovered, or else were still trapped in Sytris’s old workspace, at the mercy of the Harbingers. Their caretaker, the one who had been designated to protect them, to help them understand and utilize their abilities, had been killed; a centaur camp in which they had taken refuge had either burned to the ground or been overrun by hordes of the undead by this point; and now here they were, in a random cabin in the woods, arguing amongst themselves. They were at war, and they were losing.

  Tim took an unsteady seat in the spot Jon had just vacated, looking through the fogged windows of the cabin, at the branches swaying just beyond the oak walls. Lauren was out there somewhere, but he wasn’t going to find her just yet.

  After the week he had spent confined with her, he had learned that she took quite a while to cool off and until she had it was pointless trying to reason with her.

  After a few minutes of strained silence, Haley untangled herself from Jon and stood up, her eyes red and puffy. “I’m okay,” she said softly. “I just — it’s been a long day. I’ll feel better after a nap.” She walked very slowly up the stairs and disappeared into the corridor beyond.

  There was silence for a few moments after she had left, then Oscar heaved a heavy sigh. “What are we going to do?”

  “What can we do?” said Jon. “Didn’t you get the memo? We’re at war, with people we don’t even know. They just want us dead, and they’re obviously well equipped to do it.”

  “We can’t just give up,” Tim said desperately. “We already learned the hard way that running doesn’t help either.”

  “I don’t want to give up, but it’s not like we have any real options. We went up against them once already and they outclassed us in every way. Face it, we survived through dumb luck. I don’t think round two is going to be much better than the first.”

  “If we could just figure out what they want…” Oscar spoke in a wondering tone, his hands clasped in front of his face, eyes trained on the flickering fire. “Then we would have some leverage at the very least. Maybe we could make some kind of bargain.”

  “To be honest, they don’t look much like the bargaining type,” said Tim. “But I still think it’s worth trying to figure out what they came for. Valarok called it some kind of nexus, obviously they think we have it, which is why they came knocking. But Lauren and I spent days trying to figure out what he meant, and we came up with nothing. Any ideas?”

  Jon and Oscar looked at each other, then shook their heads in unison. Tim huffed a sigh of his own. He had expected as much.

  “We can always take a look around,” he suggested. “There might be something around this place that can help us. If Sytris set this cabin up to be a safehouse, then there has to be more to it than this. He left us pictures of our family, maybe he left us more information about… well I don’t know what exactly, but it could be of some value.”

  Tim hoped otherwise, but the logical part of his brain disagreed. If Sytris had intended for the mansion to be their main hideout, wouldn’t he have left everything they would have needed there instead?

  Still, they didn’t protest as they rose in unison and began to rove around the cabin, looking through the various drawers and cupboards in the faint hope of finding something that could shed some light on their present darkness. They rifled through every compartment they could find in the kitchen, overturned some of the furniture, and scoured through the rooms above that were unlocked, but after nearly an hour of searching, they were forced to admit defeat. Sytris had left the world, and he had bequeathed to them nothing they could use against the gods who had pursued them all the way to another planet.

  There were six rooms in total, including the one Haley had shut herself up in. Each door was painted in a different colour which, Tim realized, matched the colours their divine weapons glowed with when activated.

  The door which Haley had taken refuge behind was painted sparkling silver. Down the hall from it were doors painted dark green for Lauren, scarlet for Tim sapphire, for Jon, and violet, for Oscar. But there was another door, which was most curious of all. It was painted dark brown, and looked completely ordinary.

  Oscar pushed the door open, which slid backwards with a loud creak. Of all the rooms Tim had seen in the few weeks they had spent since the truth had been revealed to them, this one was probably the most normal.

  Cardboard boxes full of old books and glassware littered the floor, clothes were half strung over dusty furniture, and dotting the few exposed spaces of the floor were small metallic instruments, all of which shone as brightly as if they had only recently bee[n crafted. One fascinating thing Sytris had taught them was that Brightsteel never deteriorated over time, so these instruments could be centuries old and their age would never show. Tim reached down and lifted a small circular object in his palm, on which hovered a tiny, metallic bird. He wound the dial and watched in amazement as the bird began to move round and round in circles, emitting a low, musical chime. Despite all that they had been through these past few days, he smiled, and a pang of sadness hit him hard in the chest.

  All that time they had spent cooped up in the mansion and not once had he ever asked Sytris exactly what he was the god of. He was clearly some kind of inventor, but they had probably never seen the true extent of his talent. And they never would.

  Behind him, Jon kicked a box out of the way, breaking him out of his reverie. “Lauren’s right, you know,” he said, suddenly angry. “We’re screwed.”

  “I don’t believe that,” Tim said defiantly.

  “You don’t want to believe it, but it doesn’t make it any less true. How are we supposed to stop these guys? Our first fight with them was a disaster, and that was after our so-called training lessons. And there’s nothing here except mounds of old junk!”

  “They caught us by surprise. At the end of the day we made it out of there, didn’t we? We may not have won but we held our own, right?” Tim looked at Oscar hopefully, waiting for support that did not come. Their older brother was determinedly looking in the other direction.

  “If the big guy didn’t show up when he did we would have ended up as puppy chow for that hag’s mutts. Who are we kidding, man? We’re in over our heads. I know it, Lauren knows it, Haley knows it, and he knows it too.” He stabbed a finger at the back of Oscar’s head.

  Tim set the chirping instrument down and the twittering died immediately. He sank down on the edge of Sytris’s bed, deflating. He wanted to argue, but what was the point? Everything Jon was saying was true, as much as he didn’t want to hear it. The Harbingers were simply too powerful, and divine or not, they were just kids.

  “Not necessarily,” said Oscar’s voice. Tim lifted his head very slowly, not daring to hope. “Regardless of what happened, we never fought at our best. Maybe if we fought together like we were supposed to, then it could have ended differently.”

  “You really think so?” Jon asked scathingly, his thick eyebrows contracting. “That’s the angle you’re going with? The power of love and family?”

  “Yeah, actually,” Oscar said fiercely. “It wasn’t just the fact that they’re more experienced why they won, it’s because they were working together. We weren’t. We split up, we let them gain the advantage over us. We went against the very first lesson Sytris taught us: if we fight, we do it together. If we win, we win together. And if we lose… well we might as well do that together too.”

  A tiny smile curved Tim’s lips. He looked at Jon, absentmindly adjusting the tip of his glasses. Jon was shaking his head, looking from one to the other as though he thought they belonged in an asylum. “You two are unbelievable. You’d be setting yourselves up to get killed.”

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  “What’s the alternative?” Oscar asked. “They’re going to find us anyway, you said that yourself. You can take your flying horse and run but you’ll only get so far… You’re right, you know. This may be a sinking boat, but it sure beats drowning alone, don’t you think?”

  Jon glared at him so fiercely that for a moment Tim thought he might storm off just as Lauren had. But Jon merely shook his head and exhaled, all the steam he had built up slowly evaporating.

  “Fine. All I’m asking is that if we’re going to do this, then we at least do it smart.”

  Oscar nodded, then he held out his hand with a smile. Reluctantly, Jon shook it.

  “What about the girls though?”

  “Haley just needs some time,” said Tim, rising from the bed. “She’ll pull through in the end. As for Lauren… leave that to me.”

  “And what are you going to do?”

  “What any little brother would: annoy her into helping us. I’ll be back in a few.” And with that he was gone, whooshing through the door and leaving behind a harsh gust of wind that sent an old newspaper reeling into Jon’s face.

  It wasn’t hard to find Lauren after that. It was obvious that, despite needing time alone, Lauren was still extremely cautious of the forest. After what they had been through recently Tim couldn’t blame her; he himself couldn’t suppress a nagging feeling that the very trees around them would suddenly spring to life and attack them. But everything remained as still and silent as ever as he waded through the dark woods, and eventually he found her in a small clearing, skipping stones across a murky lake. His abrupt halt caused another great rush of wind that sent her hair whipping wildly about her head, but by now she was so used to it that she had no reaction whatsoever.

  “I would prefer to be alone, if you don’t mind.”

  “I do mind, actually,” Tim said. He plopped himself onto the grass beside her, staring out at the gloomy lake. “I don’t think any of us should really be alone right now.”

  Lauren exhaled through her nose. “You’re not going to convince me that this is a fight worth fighting.”

  “I wasn’t going to try. But whether we want to fight or not, the fact remains: the Harbingers aren’t going to just let us ride off into the sunset and go back to our regular lives. They’re hunting us. We don’t know why, but they made it very clear that they want us gone. We’ll never be safe until we find a way to deal with them.”

  Lauren’s hand froze in midair just as she was about to launch another stone. She wheeled to face him, nostrils flaring. “How? What exactly is your big plan? If they killed Sytris, then what do you think they’re going to do to us?”

  “Sytris was alone when he fought them. And right to the very end he never backed down. He gave his life so that we could be safe. It’d be an insult to his memory to waste the chance he gave us on running away with our tails between our legs, looking over our shoulders for the rest of our lives.”

  “Tim —” Lauren sounded positively exasperated.

  “What’s the alternative?” he spoke over her. “Run? Where? A nice town up north maybe. And then what? That town gets destroyed by another freak storm, or maybe overrun by a horde of zombies too. Wherever we go they’ll find us, sooner or later. How many more innocent people have to die in the crossfire?”

  Lauren didn’t answer for a moment. Then she released her grip on the stone and sent it sailing across the water. “I really hate you sometimes,” she said quietly. She turned to face him yet again, expression unreadable. “We’d be walking headfirst to our deaths.”

  “Not if we plan properly. Now we know what we’re dealing with, we have the chance to make actual preparations.”

  “What good is preparation going to be against those freaks? Have you not been keeping up? The oldest of the trio created a hurricane that lasted a whole week, which devastated an entire city. Then they revived the very people they killed to use them as weapons. That’s the kind of nightmare fuel people use to make movies, except it’s not fiction this time. We’re out of our depths.”

  “I know you’re scared, but what other choice do we have? Let them find us again? Leave our parents as sitting ducks, completely at their mercy? At what point do we take the initiative?”

  “You think I like the idea of my mom and dad being trapped with those monsters?” she said fiercely. “But who knows? If the Harbingers haven’t found them yet, then they’re probably safer where they are than anywhere else. Only we know how to get through Sytris’s magic mirror. What if we try to rescue them and make things even worse?”

  “Or what if we try and end up making things better? There’s no way of knowing until we actually try. We can either sit back and let the Harbingers wreak more havoc on our lives, or we can take the offensive and give ourselves a fighting chance. Neither of them sounds like good options, but I know which one sounds better. Don’t you?”

  Lauren rolled her eyes so hard that Tim could almost hear them rattle in their sockets. Shaking her head, she sighed and said, “If I die because of you, you are not welcome in my afterlife.”

  “You know you don’t mean that,” Tim said, smiling. He gently bumped his shoulder against hers and she bumped back. “At least now we can have an actual conversation without having to worry about drowning.”

  “The day is still young,” Lauren said in a resigned voice.

  “Ready to head back?”

  Lauren didn’t respond immediately. “Just a few more minutes. Just a few more minutes of peace and normalcy before we have to go back to our lives being completely and utterly screwed up.”

  So they waited a few more minutes, listening to the odd sounds emanating from the forest, watching birds caress the skimpy figures of the clouds with their wings, and a doe lead her fawns across the forest as they kicked and jumped playfully, not a care in the world. He would have given anything to be able to freeze time in that moment, to enjoy the serenity of it for just a little longer, but far too soon Lauren sat up and dusted off her jeans, and they made their way back to the cabin.

  When they arrived, they found Jon and Oscar once again sitting on opposite sides of the sofa. Haley hadn’t returned, but the duo looked up as they entered. Lauren made eye contact with them for a split second and then averted her gaze, looking down at the floor as she mumbled, “I’m sorry for what I said earlier. I was wrong, and to be honest, I was scared. The prospects are dark in whatever direction we look, but that was no reason to take it out on you guys.”

  “It’s all good,” said Oscar, smiling faintly. “It was easier to believe that you were making it up than to accept that… It doesn’t matter; call it even?”

  Lauren nodded and took a seat on the sofa between them.

  “So what do we now?” Jon asked. “We still have no clue how to deal with these guys.”

  “Maybe we could…” Tim began and then he faltered.

  “Maybe we could what?”

  “Forget it, it’s stupid.”

  “Come on, at least let us hear it,” Oscar chimed in. “We’ve got nothing. I’ll take anything at this point.”

  “Well… maybe we could try talking to them again.”

  “Anything except that,” Jon corrected, staring at him as though worried for his sanity. “Are you out of your mind?”

  “I’m just saying. They think we have something they want, if we can convince them that we don’t have it maybe they’ll leave us alone. You said it yourself, you had a conversation with Valarok at the hospital and he didn’t try to attack you or anything. What if we can reason with them?”

  “I’m sure we all admire your hopeless optimism, Tim,” Lauren said, in a tone of forced patience, “but this is out of the question. They destroyed our home, killed Sytris, flooded a whole city and then set a plague of zombies on us like rabid dogs. There’s absolutely no place left for dialogue in this situation.”

  “But —”

  “Nope, no buts,” said Jon. “And you are banned from contributing to this discussion until further notice. You sit there in shame and think about what you just said.”

  Tim sat back in his chair, folding his arms and rolling his eyes beneath his glasses.

  “Any other bright ideas?”

  “Yes, actually.”

  Everyone looked around. Haley had appeared at the doorway, sounding as though she had a bad head cold. “Our parents.”

  A palpable tautness spread through the room. Everyone sat up, tense.

  “We don’t know what happened to them. Whether they’re still trapped in that room, of if they were…” She seemed unable to complete the horrible thought. “We have to find out if they’re okay and get them out.”

  “And let’s say we do, what then?” Jon asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I didn’t agree in the beginning, but Sytris was right. They’re not safe around us.”

  “So what are you suggesting?” Haley asked incredulously.

  “I’m suggesting that until this all blows over, they lie low for a while. Have you seen the kind of crazy we’ve been dealing with recently? What if the Harbingers decide that next time instead of rain, it’d be funnier to burn a whole city down? What if we get act 2 of the zombie apocalypse and they decide to cast our parents in leading roles? Would you be able to incinerate their corpses with sicklesap? Because I wouldn’t!”

  No one moved. No one spoke. For an uncomfortably long period, the only sound in the room was the crackling of the fire.

  “Lets’ just cross that bridge when we come to it, okay?” Haley said in a rather small voice. Jon shook his head but otherwise made no protest.

  “The main objective right now is finding out if they’re okay,” Tim said tentatively, wondering if his ban had been lifted yet. “So… how do we do that?”

  “At this rate, it looks like the only way to tell would be to actually go back to the mansion,” Oscar said.

  “Absolutely not!” Lauren said fiercely. “That place was supposed to be Sytris’s incredible sanctuary and the Harbingers broke through in minutes. They could still be waiting for us there right now. Going back could mean having to go through it all over again.”

  “So we’re supposed to telekinetically remove our parents from Sytris’s room, are we?” Jon asked. “How else are we supposed to get them out if we don’t actually go back?”

  “It’s simple,” Tim spoke up. “I can go in first and —”

  “No!” The other four spoke in unison, so loudly and so suddenly that Tim started.

  “That brings us to another of the dozen elephants in the room that needs to be addressed,” said Jon. “You need to cool it, Zippy. Your speed is useful, but you’re overselling yourself. Rushing off without consulting anyone first, running into danger because you think you can outrun it.”

  “I agree,” Haley said. “We’re supposed to be working together. Running off by yourself isn’t helping anyone.”

  “Besides, they know what you can do. They might be expecting you to come zooming in any moment,” Oscar added.

  “Well… since everyone feels so strongly about it…” Tim felt wrong-footed, blindsided. “What do you suggest then?”

  “We can’t go in guns blazing,” Lauren said. “If this is going to work, we have to be cautious.”

  “Stealth attack, I like it.” Oscar nodded his approval. “And on top of that, we have a secret weapon.” He turned conspiratorially in his seat, looking right at Haley, who looked around as though expecting to see someone behind her. Looking deeply confused she pointed at herself. “Exactly. The Harbingers have no idea what you can do. We could use that.”

  “No pressure or anything,” she said sarcastically.

  “I guess that only leaves one question… when?” Lauren asked.

  A strained silence swelled through the room. Tim looked from one to the other, observing their reactions. He opened his mouth to speak, closed it, and then opened it again with a deep breath. “I think we should do it tomorrow. The longer we wait, the greater the chance our parents get discovered. It’s already been a week, I can’t wait another day.”

  “Does the court have any objections?” Oscar asked.

  Tim braced himself, but to his surprise none came. All of his siblings looked as if they were steeling themselves for the prospect of what was to come.

  “Well then it’s settled. Gather round children, I’m going to teach you the art of war,” Oscar said with a rather devious smile. “And pay close attention. Tomorrow, we storm the castle.”

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