Reminder: The gang is basically on the steps of the castle, about to fight the Boss. Deynan has come up with the plan of getting captured on purpose.

~~~~

It was a stupid plan. I knew it, Abigail knew it, Ore from his dormant state in my pocket knew it.

"That's a stupid plan," I said.

Deynan pointed at me. "Correct! But it's also a good one!"

I crossed my arms. "Explain."

"We want to get in the castle, and most importantly, we want to get to the Boss guy as soon as possible to figure out what his deal is. We DON'T want to deal with Damius and all the bad things that hang around with him. So, we get captured. We'll be brought immediately to the Boss! Then, when he's distracted with US and how cool we are, the Abigail and the armies—that's a great band name, by the way— gather around the castle and sneak or fight or whatever their way in. Classic magician redirection technique!"

"Figures you would have gone through a magician phase as a kid," Sophie muttered.

"Okay," I admitted, "that is...not actually a bad plan."

"How are we sure we'll be brought directly to the Boss?" Isaac pressed.

"Bad guys are super dramatic," Deynan said dismissively. "He'll make a whole speech. We just have to distract him until the armies get there."

Everyone was quiet for a moment. We glanced at each other, silently assessing the idea in our minds.

Sierra turned to Amarie. "How do you feel about all this?"

Amarie blinked in surprise. "Oh! Um, it all seems good... well, not good, but best."

Sierra turned back to us. "Alright then," she said, her hands on her hips, "what are we waiting for?"

~~~

It was embarrassingly easy to get captured and make it look like an accident.

We had all decided to not use our best transformations, and our general lack of well-rounded skill sets was a bit concerning. Audrey lasted the longest, a fairy that squirmed and struggled, against her very nature not to fight back with everything she had. But in the end, we were all lined up in shackles, marching towards the castle.

The guards that had been patrolling when we got "caught" were some sort of humanoid lizards. I was secretly relieved. Their beady eyes weren't quite as unsettling as human eyes that didn't have the spark of life behind them like the other manufactured monsters.

The march wasn't too terrible, though the shackles rubbed uncomfortably against my wrist. I was a bit concerned about Isaac—the last time he was in chains was a pretty bad time—but his face was calm and impassive. I couldn't be sure how much of that was a facade.

Then we were there. The castle of Lilitua. I shuddered involuntarily at the sight. With luck, I'd never have to see it again after this.

We marched right through the towering front doors. Down a dark stone hallway. I didn't recognize most of it, but then again, the last time I had entered the castle, it wasn't through traditional means.

The doors to the throne room soared up towards the ceiling, intricate carvings in the wood. It was oddly beautiful, and I briefly wondered if I would ever have the chance to look at it properly.

A guard banged on the door and my heart banged with it.

They slowly swung open.

And we walked into the throne room.

The throne room always seemed unnecessarily large to me. It resembled more of a "hall" than a "room", but I was no expert on castles. At the far side of the circular space, there was a throne. Wooden and stiff. Frankly, it looked uncomfortable.

In that throne was a man.

He didn't look like much at first. Pale skin, slicked back dark hair, grey suit with a vest and a blue pinstripe tie. His chin was square and clean shaven, and on his wrist was a sleek silver watch. He had one foot casually resting on the other knee, a shiny black loafer tapping the floor absentmindedly. He looked like...no one in particular. Just another businessman on his way to the bank.

But his grin.

His grin was too wide, his teeth too white. And while I knew he wasn't a manufactured monster, his eyes were eerily similar to those with nothing behind them. He was looking in our direction, but it felt like he was looking right through us.

The guards shoved us to the ground, and I grimaced in pain as my knees hit the stone. With my head slightly bowed, I took a survey of the room. The door behind us, two small doors on the walls either side of the throne, thin windows around the top, nearly touching the high, vaulted ceiling. Thick black tapestries hung on the walls, no design, like a funeral shroud. And around the entirety of the room, a ring of monsters. Snarling wolves, ghostlike apparitions, derelict zombies, cyclops that nearly brushed their heads against the ceiling, spiders with eyes the size of my head. I thought I even spotted a three headed dog close to the throne. All with the same listing, lifeless forms.

I swallowed painfully, my throat dry. The throne room was relatively empty the last time I was there. I was nervous before, but this?

This was fear.

"So these are the little rascals who have been so mischievous," the man said. He was still smiling, his voice bright and condescending, as if he were simply admonishing the neighborhood kids for knocking over a flower pot. "You've caused me quite a bit of trouble over the past few years, you know." He patted the arms of the throne. "Finally had to come out here myself."

For a moment, no one said anything. I knew we had to speak, to keep him talking and distracting, but I couldn't think of words to say. My thoughts felt like they were buzzing at speeds so fast I couldn't even think them.

Then Audrey shouted, "About time you showed your ugly face!"

I let out a small breath. My friends. My friends were here. We can do this. It's okay.

The Boss laughed. "I'm pleasantly surprised! Most people wouldn't dare to say that to me! You're a little spitfire, aren't you, sweetie?"

My jaw tightened. Anger flickered, then disgust. I almost said something, but the anxiety palpable in the air stopped me. Then shame for not speaking.

"You guys really did make it pretty far," he mused. "You made a mess of so much of my hard work! I spent years destabilizing Giselle, and we almost had everything!" He sighed. "She was a masterpiece. It's a real shame."

I felt Sierra tense beside me at the mention of Giselle. She lifted her head. "It's despicable, what you did to her. She didn't do anything, and you ruined her entire life."

"Sweetie, she didn't have to do anything," he chuckled, "she's the most powerful sorceress of our age! And so very emotional. She was perfect."

"You used her," Sierra bit back.

The Boss waved a hand dismissively. "Oh, she wanted it, too."

"What about the Destroyer?" I blurted out. "You killed his brother."

"That was a matter of convenience," the Boss explained, sounding a little annoyed. "I knew him growing up. We went to college together. He already had anger issues. The difficulty was bringing him into all this," he said, gesturing around the room with his hand, "so he could understand exactly where I wanted his anger to be. Again, it took a pretty long time! Lots of hard work!"

My rampant thoughts paused. "He...he was just a normal person? That you knew?"

The Boss raised an eyebrow. "Why do you sound so surprised, Ravi? You were the one who figured out his power came from his gloves."

Hearing him say my name like we were old friends was chilling, but I pushed that aside. "If you were in college together, then you can't be a sorcerer because you would be in a guild by that point. What are you?"

And for the first time, his relaxed, amused expression hardened. "Alright, kid, I think that's enough."

My eyes widened in slight panic. We needed to keep him talking. That was the whole plan. Had I just ruined—

"Where's Damius?!"

My eyes snapped over to Amarie, barely comprehending what just happened. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her head down, but she had shouted for the man who had abused her for her entire life.

The Boss began to smile again, that sickening, soulless smile. "I didn't see you there, sweetie. Are you the little monster Damius told me about? The one that got away?"

Amarie didn't respond.

The Boss clicked his tongue. "You have been a big concern, I'll give you that. But you're here now! Can't spill any more little secrets to the bad guys! Welcome home, Amanda."

"It's Amarie," she bit back, her voice trembling, "and this is no home."

The Boss propped his elbow on the armrest of the throne. "I'm not really in the mood for self-important speeches, sweetie. I guess I should send someone to go get Damius. Sometimes I wonder if he's secretly a ghost, because he's always disappearing!" His laughter echoed around the silent chamber.

The monsters on the wall were still shifting slightly, like idle animations of video game characters.

"So you can't keep track of your own underlings?" Audrey challenged. "Lame."

The Boss didn't seem ruffled. "Say what you will, I get results. Even when the man sleeps for six days when he was supposed to be setting up these lovely mechanical monsters!" He shrugged. "But it got done, so what do I care?"

I frowned. Slept for six days? That was an oddly specific detail. How would sleeping help him set up the monsters? Maybe the Boss didn't care how Damius worked, but we had spent the past year battling his creatures. I was starting to decode his modus operandi. And it did not include wasting six days.

"Why are you doing this?" Sierra asked. I couldn't tell if she was just stalling for time, but the slight break in her voice implied that this was something that had weighed on her for months.

The Boss raised an eyebrow. "Why? You know, I don't have any obligation to tell you that."

The panic fluttering in my heart grew to a roar.

"But I will," he continued, and I breathed.

"You see, magic is chaotic," he explained. "Emotional. Messy. Before I came, the organization was loose, there were wild islands with no laws, and no one really seemed to care. All this power, ready to consume the world at a moment's notice, but instead it just sat, stewing. If someone doesn't control it," he said, "sooner or later, it's going to explode."

"You don't know that!" Sierra protested.

"Also, there are, like, a billion steps you could have taken to solve this problem before landing on total warfare!" Audrey demanded.

The Boss sighed. "You children are so naive. You think goodness and compromise and the power of love will make everything okay." For a moment, he looked almost sad. "But conflict always rises. And with magic, conflict is dangerous."

"So you want to control the magical world?" Sierra asked softly.

"Oh no," the Boss laughed. "I tried that. I tried that with the Council, I tried with your beloved Simones, I tried with Giselle. But emotion based magic is impossible to control."

His smile remained. "That's why I have to destroy it."

My blood ran cold. I stopped breathing.

Until that moment, I hadn't really internalized what exactly we were fighting for. Not freedom. The sheer possibility of existence. The fate of magic itself.

It was then that Damius strode into the room.

"Little monster," he purred, looking at Amarie, "so good to see you again in the flesh."

I could hear Amarie begin to hyperventilate. Isaac pressed his shoulder against hers.

"Hey, stupid!" Deynan shouted. "This guy wants to destroy magic! That includes you!"

Damius chuckled. "I'm aware, young one. I want the magical world to burn as well. I don't care what happens to me."

"Why?" Audrey asked incredulously.

Damius shrugged. "It's more interesting, I suppose."

Before I could process that deeply disturbing thought, the Boss sighed. "Enough of this! All you kids ask is 'why' this, and 'why' that. None of it matters! You'll all be dead soon, anyway."

"You're an incredible sorcerer, sir," I blurted.

The room went silent. I could feel the shocked stares of my friends.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and looked up at Damius. "It's just, I've been doing a lot of research recently, trying to figure out how you controlled all these monsters at once. And I can't figure it out! I'm amazed."

Damius raised an eyebrow, the hint of a smile on his lips. "How cute."

"You can't even comprehend the depths of what you don't understand," the Boss laughed. "He doesn't just control them." He leaned forward. "He MADE them. He tied them to his very essence."

My brain clicked back to the mirror realm and what Amarie said about the vines being connected to a central piece. That must be Damius' essence.

"But," I continued, trying to sound as clueless as possible, "wouldn't all those monsters overwhelm his essence? If they're all tied to him, I mean."

The Boss smirked. "You stupid child. You can't control something when it isn't connected to your essence. And he's strong enough to stand it all."

Damius' expression grew stormy, glancing between the Boss and me, clearly hoping his superior hadn't said too much.

But it was too late. I had a plan.

"You won't win," Audrey shouted. We still had to stall for time. Where is Abigail?

The Boss laughed again. "Sweetheart, we already have. We've even captured the silly little heroes your world seems to love. And you're just a bunch of kids."

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a little orange butterfly flutter past the guards and land delicately on Sierra's head.

"We are a bunch of kids," Sierra said boldly. "But there's a whole world of people behind us. Now!"

I heard the great wooden doors bang open behind us, and the roar of a battle cry sweep over the room, echoing up into the rafters. I yanked on my handcuffs and they fell away, due to a particular little stone golem who had a talent for picking locks. I stood up straight and surveyed the room for a split second.

It was chaos. Dryads, satyrs, elves, Myths, and Legends were all locked in combat with the monsters scattered about the room. Ore had run off after picking our locks, but I wasn't sure where to. The Boss had disappeared.

My friends were still beside me, their eyes calculating where to go. With a great shout, Deynan shrunk to the size of a dwarf before running off in the direction of a bulky rock monster.

Quickly, I grabbed Sierra's wrist. "I figured something out. Amarie!" She turned to me. "I need the two of you for something."

I glanced at Audrey, Sophie, and Isaac. "Keep them busy. Focus on finding Damius and the Boss. They can't get away." They nodded, and I dragged Sierra and Amarie out of the room, dodging swinging fists and bursts of light.

Once we cleared the great wooden doors, I pulled them to the side. "Damius has his essence attached to the fake monsters, that's how he controls them, and that's how they have life. If we break his connection to them, they should all, for lack of a better term, die."

"How are we supposed to do that?" Amarie asked, eyes wide.

"You'll need to go into the mirror realm and break the vines somehow," I explained.

Sierra gasped. "The sleeping island! We'll be able to connect to the mirror realm quickly there!"

I nodded. "Exactly." I grimaced. "The only problem is transportation...."

"I think we can help you there."

My head snapped up and my face broke into a grin. "Mr. Marquez!"

He chuckled. "Call me Juan now, it's faster. Point is, Gigi can make portals. So we're your fastest bet."

"Gigi?" Then I saw Giselle standing awkwardly behind him. "Oh."

"I know you have no reason to trust me," she said, "but I need these men defeated more than anyone else in the world." Her eyes were hard with determination. "I will do anything to take them down."

I shared a glance with Sierra, who nodded, then Amarie, who hesitated.

She looked up at Giselle. "You don't want to kill them yourself?"

Giselle shook her head. "It doesn't matter. This isn't about revenge. It's about the knowledge that he's evil. I've added too much bad to the world, and I plan to change that."

Amarie smiles sadly. "Then I trust you to get us there."

"I'm coming too," Juan announced. "I've studied that island and its properties. We got this."

"Then let's go," Sierra announced firmly.

"We'll start the teleport out of the castle so we can be somewhere safe," Juan explained. 

Juan, Giselle, Amarie, and Sierra began to leave, before Sierra turned back to me in confusion. "Aren't you coming?"

My heart sank, even though I had already planned this. "No. You guys have the most experience with the mirror realm. I'm more of a tactics guy. I'm better off here."

Sierra's eyes were wide, but she nodded. "I...I guess that makes sense." She stepped closer to me, studying my face.

I half-smiled. "I'll be okay." I wasn't sure why I said that. She hadn't asked.

"I know," she said softly, "just...." She bit her lip. "Just be safe, okay? We'll be back soon."

"You better." It was meant to be a joke, but I came off a little more sincere than I had intended.

"Ravi..." she began.

"Go," I said.

She paused for a moment, her face twisted in conflict.

Then she placed her hands on my shoulders, leaned in, and kissed me on the cheek.

"I'll be back soon," she promised again, before turning around and sprinting away.

My mouth was hanging slightly open, not fully comprehending what had just happened. My cheek burned from where her lips had touched it. Did that just...?

A particularly loud clang from the battle shook me out of my trance. I blinked a few times.

I took a breath, and focused on the most honest thought I was brave enough to think: I'm in love with Sierra Claget.

With a flash of light, my warrior form exploded into being, and swinging the sword in my right hand felt as natural as waving a hand. Then I rolled my shoulders, bounced on the balls on my feet, and ran headfirst into battle.

~~~~~

HEY GUYS! I'm not dead! I hope you enjoyed this 3,000 word chapter. There are only a few left! Which is why I am making the promise, RIGHT here, RIGHT now, that I will finish this story by the end of the summer (prior to August 10). If you comment "bet" on this chapter, and I DON'T finish by August 10...I will personally Venmo you $20. I'm completely serious.

LET ME KNOW YOUR THOUGHTS!

~Margot