WOW: After nearly three years of absence, I've come back. Quick update for ya'll: I graduated college (go, me!), and promptly returned to school for a Master's that is currently a WIP. Between two PT jobs and school, plus life, I've been veeerrrrryyy busy.

HOWEVER: I'm also currently ill (day three of a fever, sore throat, cough, etc.), and I've had plenty of time to mull over my still-remaining love for The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel. So here I go.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel. It all belongs to Michael Scott.

SUMMARY: A sequel to The Enchantress. Contains SPOILERS for the entire Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series. "In the days and weeks to come, Sophie and the others would rally the survivors, lead them off the sundered island and take them out into the world…[a]nd in time, Sophie Newman, after many adventures, would find a way to lead the other immortals through a series of sequenced leygates back home to their own time, arriving in San Francisco, where it all began." -The Enchantress, p. 497.

Sophie Newman leaned her head against the shuddering window of the vimana and sucked in a breath that—she convinced herself—only shook because of the vibrations off the glass. In the hour since the golden pyramid, complete with its shining pillar of golden light and the burning, solitary figure atop it, had faded into indiscernibility, she had cried enough tears to last her a million lifetimes. She wanted to think that she was done now, and as a few more silver droplets gathered heavily at the corners of her eyes she took in another wobbly breath…

…and nearly gagged on the multitude of scents that she'd been too grief-stricken to notice before. The heady iron smell of blood; the faint aromas of auras lit to tend to wounds; the smoky scent of fire.

"We need to land." Scatty's lilting accent.

"She's right. I can't tend wounds in this small of a space." Joan, softly French, soothing.

"I'll land as soon as I can find a place where landing won't result in immediate death." Prometheus' deep voice was raw.

"We're not undercover anymore," Saint-Germain said. "We can use our auras and our weapons."

"I'm not worried about being undercover," Prometheus grunted "I never was, which is good, because undercover was the one thing you all failed to be."

"Well—"

Sophie had to get out of her corner. It was suddenly too small, too full of sounds and smells, and suddenly the fact that she had not spoken to a soul since lifting off made her frightened. Did she even know how to speak anymore? She rose on weak legs and stumbled forward.

"Sit." Palamedes' hand on her am. The knight looked at her with compassion in his dark eyes as he guided her to a seat by the window.

"No." Sophie bit out the word. She didn't want the window seat anymore. She didn't want to look back at the blurry fog of destruction still visible, if not clearly. Palamedes looked briefly confused at what to do with her terse refusal, but William Shakespeare gave the Saracen Knight a nudge toward the window and eased Sophie down into the resulting vacancy.

Palamedes' spot was warm, something which Sophie suddenly felt like she hadn't been for a long time. It was still small, but knowing that the much larger immortal had managed to sit there long enough to generate heat somehow made her feel less claustrophobic. She breathed in, and while she was still assaulted by smells—Shakespeare's unwashed scent, the aromas of cloves and lemon, and still a lingering irony smell of blood—she was able to isolate more familiar scents and ground herself in them. Desperate for a last reminder of Josh, she honed in on the faintly sour smell of lemon.

"If we're going to land at all in the next twelve hours, we should do so now, before it gets dark." Palamedes' interjection startled her back into the present, and she looked at him in confusion before realizing that he was involved in the conversation she'd distanced herself from a few moments before. "Once it gets dark, our chances will go from minimal to non-existent; also, any chance of Joan tackling any wounds will be gone if it's dark."

"Unless we have wounds that can't wait, I'm not inclined to land," Prometheus snapped. "In addition to this entire area being a predators' playground on a good day, it won't take long for the destruction from the city to reach this area. If at all possible, I'd like to wait until we reach the Yggdrasil."

"Who's wounded?" Scatty asked, frustration evident in her tone. "And how badly?"

Francis waggled his fingers in the air. "I burned my hands, but that's all. I can wait."

"It's Will I want to look at," Joan cut in, pushing her husband's hands back down to his lap. "He took something to the side on the pyramid, and I haven't gotten the chance to look yet."

"I'm fine," Will insisted, sitting straighter in his seat. "Just a graze, nothing more, milady."

"Archaic language will get you nowhere," Joan said.

"Is it serious, Pally?" Scatty twisted in her seat at the front to look at them.

"Bad enough. I patched it up at the site, but we were a bit busy."

"Tonbogiri wound?"

"Yes."

"I'm right here, and I'm fine," Shakespeare insisted, though Sophie noticed that he now had his hand pressed against his side, and the smell of blood was just a little bit stronger in her nostrils. "There's no reason to land if it's not safe."

"That from the man who said he never wanted to fly again," Palamedes muttered suspiciously, leaning past Sophie to try to pull Will's hand away from his side.

"Is anybody else injured?" Prometheus asked. "Because if it's just one person, I think we can make space to tend a wound here."

"Pally has some nasty cuts on his face," Scatty added, glancing back at the slight struggle occurring between Shakespeare and the knight—"Personal space, Palamedes, please!" "If you'd just let me—"—"We might want to look into those."

"They're fine," Palamedes grunted, trying to stand in order to maneuver past Sophie. "Nothing I can't handle later."

"What about you, darling?" Francis asked Joan.

"I'm fine. Also nothing that I can't handle later." Joan lifted her husband's hands from his lap onto hers and examined his hands. "You're such a baby. You've burned your hands worse cooking."

"You never asked how badly I burned them. Only if I was hurt. I said I could wait."

"You did." Joan smiled at him. "How brave."

"I'm nothing if not brave. Which is more than can be said for our big baby over there," Francis raised his voice, directing it at Will.

"I am not—Palamedes!" Shakespeare's last indignant shriek as Palamedes succeeded in yanking the side of his shirt up was enough to make Sophie wince. "There's a young woman here!"

"I have a brother," Sophie muttered. "I've seen it all." Ten seconds later, she was grateful for the hissy fit Shakespeare was pitching next to her, as it allowed her to hide the sharp intake of breath she took as she suddenly realized that she had misspoken…that she no longer had a brother in the present sense.

"Land," Palamedes insisted, while Joan tried to sidle in to see Will's side, and Shakespeare continued to complain—"Of course it's bleeding, he's been prodding me for the past five minutes! You'd be bleeding too!"—and Prometheus continued to object, while Scatty observed the pandemonium. Her eyes met Sophie's.

"Do you want to land, Sophie?" The Warrior's lovely Scottish accent was even lovelier, Sophie noted, when she didn't sound like she wanted to kill somebody. The soft sadness in Scatty's voice as she isolated Sophie from her surroundings and performed a quick body scan for wounds left Sophie feeling breathless, and suddenly she wanted nothing more than to be on the ground.

"Yes, please," she whispered. "I'd like to land."

"You heard the lady," Francis said loudly enough to be heard over the fussing still happening. "She'd like to land."

"Get us down," Scatty said.

Prometheus cursed, and the pandemonium stopped suddenly.

"Uncle!" Scatty snapped.

"Excuse you!" Shakespeare scolded.

Francis and Palamedes both raised skeptical eyebrows. Joan coughed pointedly.

"I apologize," Prometheus muttered as he began to maneuver the vimana downward. "I'm also still not your uncle."

Please read/review! It's been a long time, so I'm guessing I probably no longer know the authors in this fandom. So please, introduce yourself. ^_^ And if you happen to be an old friend from my past fanfic years, please say hi!