I - Overture

In his arms Alto held a broken angel, and everything about this was wrong.

Another voice spoke through him. He could hear its conversation with the ears they shared. He could feel Elcrest's sorrow in every catch of every syllable in their chest. Why did it have to be this way? There had to be something. Alto could feel it vibrating just off-kilter at the edges of his mind, a discordant jangle seeking his attention. There was something they were forgetting. Something they had missed.

"I feel at peace," the shattered doll said in a shattered voice. "How long has it been since I felt this way?"

And then there was a spark. But Elcrest hadn't felt it. He was concerned only with the creature, the person, the dear old friend he held cradled in his arms, and Alto's throat went taut. If he was wrong, if Elcrest refused to let him do this, if—

"Elcrest, please... While I'm still at peace..."

"No," Alto said.

He could feel the intake of breath from everyone around him. He felt Elcrest's anger spike inside his chest. A shudder rocked through Xeno's body, and now he was beginning to laugh, a soft, sad, bitter laugh, but there was no time to explain, not to any of them.

The Song Stone glowed. Alto pressed the palm of his hand flat against the dip at Xeno's collarbone and a pale answering glow guttered to life beneath his palm. Elcrest went silent, and Alto could feel his shock humming through both of them, reflecting his own. The why, the how, that would be important later. For right now, all he could do was close his eyes and reach deep within.

They fell.

Alto caught glimpses on the way down. Bursts of purple-black flame. Blurs of gold and silver light chasing each other across a shifting sky. They seemed to fall forever, and then their feet touched ground inlaid with familiar checker-boarded flagstones. His eyes skimmed the area, noting every orange-lined tile, and then looked up and up past the tiered heights into what passed for the sky here. Hung across the backdrop was a mural like those he had seen many times before, one that looked like it might have been made of paper or paint. It showed a planet against a field of distant, tiny stars. A sun and a moon chased each other rapidly around it, leaving trails of gold and silver fire in their wake.

"This shouldn't be possible!" Dr. Veronica whirled in almost a full circle. Her head snapped left and right, catching every single detail. "We're inside a spirit world, but—"

"Popo thought only witches could have spirit worlds." Popo looked dubiously around her, one hand already closed tight in Lisette's sleeve. "But this isn't any of ours..."

"You're right," Alto said. He looked even higher, and his breath caught, because there was the gemstone that hung suspended above them. It glowed a brilliant orange-yellow and radiated points like a compass rose. And beneath it on one of the lower tiers stood the malformed Xeno, who stared down at his own hands in shock.

"How...?"

"Klaus!" Alto called, already dashing for one of the moving panels. "I'm coming up there!"

Xeno recoiled as though he had been burned. "No! You stay away from me! I don't know what you've done to me, but—"

"What he did to you?!" Rusty scoffed. "Is this guy for real?! Damn it, Klaus, just get down from there, or we're coming up!"

Xeno shook his head wildly. He threw his arms out to the sides. Lights flared up across several of the checkered flagstones as Alto sprinted over them. From each light rose an angel, but not the angels they had grown used to fighting—these looked as though they had been made of coalesced darkness, with laser-red spots in the center of their eyes. One of them turned and lashed out at Alto as he passed. He dove, tucked into a roll, and came out safely on the other side. When he looked back, he found the others surrounded, and hesitated, gripping the hilt of his sword.

Sakuya bared her teeth in a fierce smile and drew her blade. "Don't waste time worrying about us, idiot!" she said, dropping into stance. "I think we can handle a few angels."

"Reach my master, Alto," Giselle said, readying her claws. "You are the only one who can."

"We will hold the line here," Archibald said. "Go!"

Alto breathed in. He stepped onto the first of the rising panels, and then looked over his shoulder again at the closing battle. "Hilda! With me!"

Hilda glanced up. Her golden eyes were unreadable. Moments later she had warped past the closing line of angels and joined Alto on another of the panels. She turned her eyes upward to the tier above them, where Xeno had already begun to yell in wordless frustration and retreat further away from them.

"What are you going to do, Alto?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Alto shot her a very small smile. "I'm going to do what only I can do."

They reached the second tier. Xeno's eyes flashed between the two of them. He took several steps back, already lifting his hands. "I said stay away!"

The flagstones rippled with the same reddish light, but Alto and Hilda both were already on the move. The two of them dodged around and through blockades of shadowy angels. Any time Alto found himself surrounded, Hilda's magic was already in motion, switching him out so he could continue forward while she took only another moment to catch up. Below them, faintly, Alto could hear the sounds of his friends battling, but he had to pay attention here. He had to trust them. And he had to keep pushing forward.

They reached the opposite end of the second tier just as Xeno disappeared over the lip of the third. Hilda looked at the sole remaining panel, then upward to the lip, gauging the distance. She winked out of existence, leaving Alto to step on the platform himself.

"Xeno!" he heard her call from above him. "Why are you running away from us?"

"You shouldn't be here!" Xeno's voice was a raw snarl. "This place shouldn't exist! It can't! I'm not—"

"You are." Alto topped the edge of the third tier in time to see Hilda lift a hand, pointing upward at the great crystal that hung just over their heads. "Look up, Xeno! What do you think that is? What do you think it means?"

Xeno shook his head, backing away. "No. No! It's a trick! It's a lie!"

"It's a qualia," Alto said softly. "Your qualia."

Xeno's head snapped towards him. Alto was advancing now, with slow, cautious steps, hemming Xeno in against the corner of this final tier. Behind him there was nothing but the wild abyss of his own soul. Xeno's heel hit the edge, and he froze, his chest heaving. "Leave me alone," he said. "Stop tormenting me. Just let me die while I still remember why I have to!"

"No," Alto said, and took another step closer. "Don't you see? You don't have to! You've suffered so much, Klaus, and I'm going to free you from that suffering. But I'm not going to kill you."

The back of Xeno's heel tipped over the edge again. He shivered, a ripple that traveled from the tips of his wings straight through every panel of armor on his body. And then he looked up. Alto could see the orange glow of the qualia reflecting from of his eyes. The same color glinted off his armor and hair, leaving highlights that wavered like an unsteady flame.

Alto took another step. He held out his hand, and Xeno met his eyes with wide ones of his own. "There's been enough death," Alto said. "There's been enough despair. It's time to end it and come home."

"Home," Xeno echoed in a barely-audible voice. One final, full-body shudder ran through him. Then his wings lowered, and he lifted a hand towards Alto, reaching out to him with trembling fingers. "I want to go home, Elcrest."

Alto smiled sadly. "We'll go home together," he said, taking Xeno's hand. "All of us."

And the world shattered around them.

Xeno let out a choked, wheezing gasp, his fingers digging at the chalky dust beneath him. "Elcrest—"

"Master!" Giselle dropped to her knees beside him and seized his hand. "Lie still. You are badly injured."

Lisette stepped forward. Hesitated, gripping her staff tightly in both hands. Then she knelt and spread her palm across Xeno's chest. "This won't bring him all the way back," she said as he hand began to glow, "but I can do enough that he won't be in pain." She looked up at Alto with a solemn expression. "Alto...are you sure he's going to be alright like this? If we just leave him here..."

Alto gave Xeno a long look. He lay quietly now with his eyes closed. His breathing still came in long, labored vents, but now at least the strange, choking rattle in his throat was gone. Giselle shifted him so that his head and torso rested in her lap, and his breathing eased a little further.

"Giselle," Alto said.

"I wish to stay with my master," she said without lifting her head.

Alto gave her a tired smile. "I was about to ask you to do exactly that." She blinked up at him, looking startled in a way only she could, with a slight tilt to her head and a sideways flick of the tip of her wing. "The Mother is waiting for us. We still have to fight. But I don't want him to be alone. Will you watch over him for me?"

Giselle was silent for a very long time. Then she nodded. "I will protect him until your return, Alto. And you will return."

Alto nodded firmly. Then he turned to the others, who had gathered in a loose semicircle behind him, their faces all in various stages of apprehension and concern. Within his chest he could feel Elcrest still watching, still considering, but there was something inside of him that sang of relief. Of renewed hope. Of triumph long since snatched away from him, an outcome he had thought lost forever, only for it to be rekindled right in front of his eyes. There were ramifications of an action like this that stretched further than any of them had time to consider right now. But if it could be done for Xeno, after all this time, then maybe...

Maybe.