Once Upon A Dream

by kleosaphthit0n

A/N: The section breaks disappeared :( but it's corrected now so give it another shot! It should flow much better now. Sorry! Where Loki was right about Teddy and the universe conspired to erase Billy Kaplan's blasphemy from every corner of reality. (A/N: Adam is not an OC.) Always trying to be a better writer so all feedback, good or bad, are welcome and desired.

2. Maria

Maria

Billy stared into the man's eyes—such blue eyes that were so penetrating in their clarity. His wild hair, shimmering in a tangled mess like golden flame, flickered carelessly in the wind. He had the surreal look of ideal masculine beauty about him, which felt almost contrived in that he seemed the idea of a man more than an actual man, the broadness and shape of an arbitrary demigod fit incongruously in a white t-shirt and tattered jeans. He lifted an arm and his fingers reached out for Billy.

Billy gaped at the stranger, rapt in morbid fascination and an unshakeable certainty that he was teetering on the edge of a cliff. And beyond that precipitous drop was a great abyss, within which lay the secret pieces of something vital and lost. There was a tightness in his chest and, stranger still, a deep yearning to touch the other man. He stood transfixed, knowing that if he looked away, he would crumble against the weight of that unremembered loss.

Then, the alien finger touched his cheek and his thoughts shifted, crystallizing into the overriding prudence of self-preservation. With a sudden clarity of purpose, Billy's face contorted into a vicious snarl; he shouted against the entity, "Out!" and the wind blew so hard it was deafening. Billy spoke again and his words rang high and clear above the storm. "Out, invader, out! You are not welcome in my mind!"

The whirlwind raged across the earth and stalks of barley tore away from the ground, filling the sky with their golden flight. The man stood still, fixed to his place like a statue, and watched Billy with unmoved intensity.

Again, Billy shouted, "Out!"

The ground shook once… twice… and then the earth was torn asunder. The ground exploded into boulders and chunks of soil, which hurtled upwards to the black void that had been the sky. The man's hand fell away from Billy's face, tracing a gentle line across his cheek.

"Billy, stop. Please," he pleaded and , against all instinct and reason, Billy's will wavered and the earth grew calm.

He looked around him, at the fertile earth now turned to rocky desolation. Above him, inky clouds were in repose as if frozen in an impressionist sky.

"You're here… You're actually here," the man said. "What the fuck, Billy?"

Billy paused and turned back to the man. " What did you call me?"

"What?" The man scowled. "Billy?"

Billy frowned and replied, carefully and emphatically, "Just who are you?"

The stranger took a step back. A faltering arm jerked again towards Billy and then fell uselessly to his side. Like he wanted to touch, but could not.

Billy seized that hesitation and jabbed a finger into the intruder's chest. He squinted and looked up at the man, glaring mightily into a pair of blue eyes. "Who are you?"

"I—" The man recoiled as if Billy had struck him.

"How are you even here? No telepath or dreamwalker can breach my spells," he said confidently, puffing out his chest as he found footing in the man's confusion.

"I—I'm not a telepath," the man said slowly. "Or a dreamwalker."

"Then how are you here?" Billy withdrew his hand and clenched his fists at his sides. "The only person who can get inside my mind is me. I've made sure of that"

The man did not respond and there was silence for a while. Seconds passed, maybe minutes, and all he did was stare. He seemed to have collected himself and had begun to watch Billy with soft but calculating eyes. There was a heaviness to that gaze, a sense of easy intimacy that felt presumptuous and unbearable. Billy felt his face grow hot and he averted his eyes to the ground.

"I think… I think I know why," the man said. "I understand now."

Hair like barley and eyes like sky, Billy thought absently. And what kind of face is that? Billy reflected on his own appearance—all nose and elbows and knees—and felt inadequate before the demigod. Wait, what?

He frowned at the fugitive thought and chided himself.

"Why are you here?" he asked self-consciously without looking. The fire had gone out of his voice.

"I think I'm supposed to be here."

"How? The spells are holding." He checked as he spoke, and felt the familiar thrumming of protective magic under his skin. "Only I can be here."

The man lifted his hand again, tentatively at first, and then more bravely, and finally he held it against Billy's cheek. He cradled Billy's face in his palm and traced slow circles on his cheekbone with a rough thumb. And to Billy's surprise, he found himself closing his eyes and leaning into the touch.

"Silly Billy," the man said softly. "I am made of you."

---

"—sticks by the… fire… place…" Adam trailed off.

He was on the floor again, lying on his side and his hand still reaching for the far wall, as if no time had passed at all. The vast openness of sky had contracted into the cold isolation of his stone cabin. He looked around carefully and found the window, through which sunlight streamed into the room. A moth-eaten curtain hung limp on a wooden rod above the mildewed glass.

It had been night when he had left Madripoor so unless he had botched the portal and incurred a time cost—no, not possible; the portals were his escape plan and for that reason he had been very careful setting them up. That meant that some few hours had passed. And, as if to affirm his deductions, there was movement against his sides, a rhythmic contraction and expansion of two warm masses pressing gently against his torso.

"Fuck," he said, out loud. The dogs stirred sleepily against him and Dante—the brown one—whined and licked his cheek. "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck."

Was it a dream, then? The thought chilled him. Let it be the probing of an adept telepath or the fatal intrusion of a mental parasite. Let the telepath have his secrets—his name, which even now slips from his mind like sand between his fingers. Let the parasite lay its eggs and reduce his mind to the ruins of insanity. The last time he had slept, he dreamed of Rebecca Kaplan and woke up to Mother's gleaming knife of a smile leaning over him.

Adam pressed his eyes closed and screamed in frustration, his voice making impotent echoes in the enclosure of his safe house. Dante and Oscar leapt away from him and then, seeing him in tears, snuggled fiercely into his chest. He hugged them close and buried his face in their unwashed fur. Whose it was specifically, he couldn't tell, but he let himself cry unabated and they let him crush their bodies against his chest. He couldn't couldn't breathe. He had been careful, so careful, with all his spells and his potions and all the fucking incantations in half a dozen dead languages. And all it took was one surprise attack from… from…—fuck, who even were those people?—and down he went. Who knew what meta-dimensional abomination he had loosed in the universe this time? One powerful enough to uncover a name that even he could no longer reach.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled. "I'm so sorry. Just one minute. I just—one minute, all right? Let me have one fucking minute."

Adam clung to them and they didn't move or complain. He didn't think about how well rested he felt or how for the first time in years, he didn't feel even remotely sleepy. The only thing that hurt was the cut lip and the mild throbbing in his head—but that was a permanent thing now, ever since he had stopped sleeping. His muscles weren't cramped and his bones didn't ache with the tremors that always succeeded the sudden use of magic.

When his minute was up, he drew himself up on shaky arms and gave Dante and Oscar a scratch behind the ear. He made himself kneel on the stone floor. If anything had happened, it would find him soon enough and he would take care of it, as he always had. He was older now. Wiser. He'd manage.

He took a deep breath. "Okay," he said, as he straightened his back and slapped his cheeks twice with cupped hands. He looked at the dogs and tried a smile that he didn't feel just yet.

"Okay," he said again.

He lifted his eyes and stared at the open ceiling, where, carved haphazardly with slashing lines on the wooden beam, two words read: Mount Arayat.

---

Adam sank to his knees as he waved his hands amidst the rain of chicken feathers. Around him, the candles on the five points of the pentagram came to life and thin streams of fire flared high, bathing the room in a sudden burst of light. The flames blazed like wavering ribbons and licked the stone ceiling of the cabin.

"Okay, boys, I've got a good feeling about this," he said to the two dogs in the corner. He glanced at them briefly and found them cowering with their faces against wall.

As the fires dwindled, Adam grabbed the rabbit from its cage and quickly slit its throat over the iron chalice. The blood pooled and filled the cup to the rim and then, just as it was about to overflow, it stilled. Adam held his breath and watched. Seconds passed and then minutes.

"Come on…"

Dead center, a single perfectly spherical drop rose slowly from the liquid and hovered an inch or so above the mirror-like surface. It floated for about a second and then fell, under the natural compulsion of gravity, back into the cup. It made one wave on the surface, rippling radially to the chalice's lips without spilling and then coming back to the center. The drop reemerged from the center and fell back, making another silky wave that radiated to the rim and back.

Shadows formed beneath the surface and swirled lazily. They merged, separated, and merged again, forming solid shapes that were yet too hazy and too distorted to give meaning.

"Here we go. Here we go," Adam said to himself as he lowered his face to the chalice. He watched the surface expectantly and sweat trickled down his temples as the wave grew more violent with each cycle. "Come on. Hold it."

He could just about see the spirit's face, glaring at him from under the surface, when the candle flames faltered, sputtered, and then finally died.

"No, no, no, no, no!" Adam gazed about the pentagram frantically, eyes still unfocused and dilated.

The drop of blood rose one last time, quivering in the air before falling sloppily back into its puddle. The wave that formed was too large, too unstable. It hit the rim of the chalice and spilled over the sides, coating the unburnished silver. The image disintegrated and the spell broke.

Adam shuddered at the backlash of frustrated magic, that jarring sting in his skeleton that came with unspent power snapping back into its source. Like an overstretched rubber band suddenly released. Adam punched the ground, too exhausted to put any force behind it, and looked about him in exasperation. Carcasses of chickens and rabbits were scattered outside the perimeter of his pentagram and the stale air reeked of death and herbs.

He rolled over on his back and stared at the wooden beams beneath the thatch roof, panting. He tried to whistle and then, failing that, called out between ragged breaths. "Dante, Oscar."

The dogs came to him, hesitantly at first, and there was no sound in the house but for the sharp pitter-patter of their nails and Adam's own ragged breathing. Dante and Oscar plopped down to his left side and rested their heads on his chest. Oscar, the white-spotted black one, looked up to him with doleful brown eyes. Adam ran a hand over his head and whispered, "I miss her too, buddy."

---

Those days passed slowly for Adam. He ate only in the mornings—two eggs and half a chicken, always—but the dogs he made sure to feed thrice a day. What small charms he could risk lured rabbits and chickens—though fewer and fewer each day—and the cleverly engineered network of gutters supplied rainwater directly into the house. The cabin itself was an abandoned stone cottage in a small clearing tucked between the base of a cliff and an encroaching forest. It was tiny and humid and had a moldy smell, but it was remote and safe from human eyes. Not that it was remoteness or inaccessibility that repelled human attention. Mount Arayat was shrouded in mists of superstition, which was its armor against human curiosity, but to those who wielded the forces of magic, it was a font of power. The mountain was suffused with the cosmic web of ley lines, making it a nexus of mystical energy that an adept mage could harness. But such aggregation of magic also created a lot of mystic noise, which made the mountain impenetrable to the Sight of most mystics.

Adam had no illusions about the enormity of his task. Ruixian had been taken by what looked like an organized group, which probably meant they had access to other mystics, who would no doubt confound his attempts to find her. And even without the interference of another mystic, it had never been an easy feat to find someone with magic—well with formal magic, anyway. But he hadn't thought it would take a week. He had started off simple with locating spells, thinking that after finding Ruixian he could quickly carve a path and carry her off. When the basic spells didn't work, he tried variations: scrying, projection, even castling. And when he had exhausted those on the sixth day, he finally resorted to summoning. He called on demons, spirits, fairies, even minor deities, but not a single one came to his aid.

Between breakfasts, he spent his time setting up circles and gathering the necessary paraphernalia for his spells. The safe house was well-stocked with the commodities of his craft and so there was little reason to leave the cabin except to relieve himself and to bathe in a nearby brook.

"We won't stay here for long," he told the dogs over breakfast on the ninth day. He could spare very little of the herbs so the chicken was rather bland but he had been half-starved for over a week now so he dug voraciously into his wooden bowl anyway. "I'll get her back. I promise."

The table was littered with bundles of herbs, bowls of crushed flowers, and the bled-out carcass of a hen that he had been feathering, so he had his breakfast on the floor with Dante and Oscar. They had lost some weight despite Adam's diligence in feeding them. He studied his own bony arms, wondering how he looked like now after days of relentless spell-casting with meager food and water. He imagined himself gaunter now, gray and grimy and tattered-looking, with a patchy scruff that infuriated him. A stray image drifted through his thoughts: of a blond man with warm hands waiting under an open sky. Adam sighed at the ill-timed thought, a half-laugh, and shook his head, remembering that there were some who believed that magic was a threshold to insanity.

"Like mother like child, I suppose," he muttered humorlessly.

The dogs observed him with their muzzles buried in their bowls. They were mongrels and not even particularly handsome-looking ones but he and Ruixan loved them dearly. When Oscar was finished, he scampered to Adam's side, rolled over and lay on his back, belly-up.

"We'll get her back, I promise," Adam said again as he scratched the dog's belly. "No matter what."

---

He had known for the past two days now what had to be done—what cost must be paid so his pleas could reach the court of the Lady Maria Sinukuan. And what a dear price it must be too.

He had spent the day making preparations. He had redrawn the sigils and the pentagram with his own blood mixed into the salt, had washed the chalice and had scrubbed it—again with his own blood—until it shone under the light, and had even gathered rare varuna and fatal belladonna—all plucked in silvery moonlight, of course!—because he didn't want to risk offense with preserved stock.

When he was ready, he sat himself cross-legged in the center of the circle and placed the chalice before him. To his left, piled in a copper plate, were stalks and blooms of varuna while an identical plate to his right held the deadly berries of belladonna. As he waited, he watched the shadows on the flat wall sway hypnotically like puppets on a screen. Finally, the sun aligned through the window and a ray of light fell on the chalice.

He snapped his fingers—pure magic this time; no shortcuts, just in case—and a small spark ignited in each of the plates. Their contents caught fire at once and twin streams of smoke drifted thinly in the air until the room was swimming with their heady scents. Adam took a deep breath and felt the awakening of magic in his bones. His chest drifted forward and his head fell back instinctively, as his body yearned to lift off the ground. Another breath and his eyes closed; his lips parted in ecstasy.

The magic built inside him, rising and roiling and boiling, held back in an increasingly unstable equilibrium by sheer power of will. He released a soft sigh and opened his eyes, which burned with the deep electric blue of his magic. He felt a trickle of chaos magic infecting the mix but he stoppered the leak easily enough.

At last, he turned to Dante and Oscar, who rested their heads on his thighs and watched him with patient and faithful eyes. He thought briefly of what he was about to do, hesitated, and then steeled himself. All sacrifice had been found wanting because they were no true sacrifice. But this… this was a precious loss that would cut him deep; the court of spirits must pay heed.

He couldn't have made them sleep or the price would have only been half-paid. He ran his hands over their heads and they flicked their tails against the floor. There was a high keening noise outside, as if the mountain itself was wailing.

Adam reached for the two knives just beyond the chalice and raised them with both hands above his head. Oscar and Dante stiffened against him when they saw the blades' glint above them. He could see it in their eyes: pools of brown darting quickly to the executioner's blades and then to the hands that would betray them—hands that before had fed, caressed, and protected. Pitifully, they whined and struggled but it was too late—the ribbons of belladonna and varuna smoke held them down like thick heavy ropes so they couldn't move an inch. Adam stifled a sob. God, he couldn't even close his eyes. He had to make himself watch.

The magic swirled and exploded from his core. It coursed through his arms, his hands, his fingertips, and finally gathered in the blades. His hands shook at the immense concentration of magic in his palms; it was like holding lightning.

And finally, the time came.

For Ruixian, he steeled himself.

He flipped the knives so the points were pointing down. He didn't hesitate for a moment. With a cry he drove the knives down, aimed unfailingly at Dante and Oscar's throats.

---

When she came, there was no sound. No crack of thunder nor whisper of rustling cloth. Not even a sudden displacement of air. It was as if she didn't occupy space at all. Adam wouldn't have known she was there if he hadn't felt her hands around his wrists. Her skin was rough against his flesh and her grip was strong, strong enough that she easily held back his arms so that the knives did not break skin.

But they felt it. Dante and Oscar knew. It was in their eyes. In the heartbroken way they stared at him still straining to bury the knives in their throats, in the hurry with which they leapt away from him when the smoke dissipated, and in the way they slunk across the room.

"You came," he said softly to the Lady of the Mountain.

"The Lord Supreme had called and so I came," came the reply in a voice younger than he remembered.

Half-dazed, he didn't quite hear her.

"I've been calling for days."

"You didn't pay the price, spoiled child," she said sharply.

"I didn't this time either," he said hollowly.

"You did, my Lord Supreme."

She held his chin gently and led his eyes to the far corner of the cabin, where Dante and Oscar had pressed themselves against the wall, as far away from Adam as possible. They made a soft whimpering sound when his eyes met theirs.

"Behold, little mage: the price."

She was right. There was no jarring in his bones, no burn in his soul, no strain inside his brain—all symptoms of failed magic; the spell was cast and the price was paid.

"How cruel," Adam muttered. He turned to the girl and took her in for the first time. She was young, with thick curling hair falling to her ankles, and dressed in a white flowing dress that spilled over her feet. Her brown lugubrious face was sharper than he remembered and her eyes had lost the softness to them.

"You are not Mariang Sinukuan," he declared simply.

"My lord, my mother is dead," she said mournfully. "I am Maria Heredera."

Adam frowned. "Dead?" he asked dumbly. "How?"

"Killed!" she moaned pitifully. "Oh, my lord, my dear mother is killed!"

"By whom?" he asked incredulously. "Who could kill the great spirit of ancient Arayat?"

Her face contorted hideously, such that her beauty betrayed its odious inhumanity. "You did, you fool!" Maria Heredera screamed viciously, as she brought her face close to his. "You killed my mother, you selfish cowardly child!"

She stood fluidly with one graceful sweep of her robe and glided over to Dante and Oscar.

---

"I don't understand how I could have possibly killed your mother," he told her the next day. "I haven't seen her in two years."

They were out in the forest, in a shallow rocky stream that rose halfway up their knees. On either side of the stream were low banks of mud and fitted stones that might have constituted part of an irrigating system a long time ago. Maria Heredera was walking a few paces upstream, making no waves as she drifted through the waters. Dante and Oscar padded along beside her, occasionally nuzzling against her leg and never sparing a glance for him.

They worked their way up a meander where the riverbed gradually deepened until the water was up to their armpits. Maria Heredera stopped when the water touched her chin. The dogs, who had moved to follow along the banks, barked at her when she stayed immobile for minutes.

She turned to face Adam and said in a tragic voice, "I cannot go further, my Lord Supreme."

"Then let's go back to the cabin," he suggested helpfully, adamantly ignoring the epithet and staunchly determined to remain innocent of its implications. "We can fix a spell to find my friend and then I'll release you and you can go wherever you want to. Doesn't that sound good?"

She seemed to consider that, and then sank languidly into the still waters without disturbing its smooth surface. She came up some seconds later beside Adam and said, "We need the full moon to find her and then the lambanas' help to retrieve her." Without waiting for an answer, she walked to the banks where the dogs were waiting. She climbed up the exposed tree roots easily, her dress already dry.

"Full moon? Are you serious?" he echoed impatiently. He closed his eyes in irritation and then added through gritted teeth, "That was three nights ago."

Maria looked over her shoulder and stared him in the eye. And then, she laughed; it sounded so child-like and innocent that it made his hackles rise. When she spoke, her voice was high and clear and dripping with mirthful malice, "You had known the price two days before that, vile child. And now your friend suffers for your softness!" She laughed again.

"I need her now," Adam said with an edge to his voice.

"I am bound to your petulant will, little mage," she said gleefully. "Yet I cannot perform impossibilities. Even magic has rules." She paused and then added with narrowed eyes, "Well, almost all kinds of magic, anyway."

"She'll die!"

Maria shrugged. "I am not powerful enough to find and retrieve her without the moon. I cannot bend the fact. Otherwise, dismiss me and save her with your own power."

"I can't. You're my last resort."

"Then learn patience, little mage."

Adam clenched his hands into fists and sparks of electricity leapt across the water's surface.

Dante and Oscar leapt in front of Maria, placing themselves between spirit and mage. They bared their teeth at their old master and growled, hackles raised and tails pressed flat to the ground.

Adam watched them and felt acutely the price that he had paid for the wretched spirit.

"My Lord Supreme…" Maria said in awe, reverting to innocent deference.

Adam took a deep breath and sighed. "I didn't mean to; I lost control."

"That was no magic."Maria cupped her hands and conjured some brown substance on her palms. She offered it to Dante and Oscar, who wouldn't tear their eyes away from Adam until she made shushing sounds of comfort. She looked at Adam thoughtfully and said, "How can this be? How can you be impure?"

"Are you spirit or demon? I'm tired of your spitefulness."

Maria Heredera bowed her head low, which made an awkward sight with the dogs licking her hands. "Forgive me, my Lord Supreme, but I am a spirit bound to obey her nature. Your condition is not simply rare but outright impossible."

"What condition?"

Maria lifted her eyes and looked at him as if he were stupid. "Why, your deviation, of course!"

"My devi—you mean my being a mutant? Is there bigotry among spirits?" he asked with a sneer.

"The human language is flawed," she said distastefully, throwing Adam a vile look as if she considered that his personal fault. "There are no words to describe your kind that could not be misconstrued as an insult. Everything is a slur!"

Adam waded to the bank and began to climb up the roots, imitating the same path he had seen Maria take. "Try harder than 'impure'. Or 'deviant' for that matter? Why not just say 'different'?"

"What is wrong with deviance? Or impurity for that matter?" Maria replied, offering her hand to Adam to help him up.

Adam sighed, having little patience for a spirit's philosophying. "Just tell me the point to all this. Why is my deviation impossible?"

They turned together and began their walk around the cliff. The path was worn and well-used, serried on one side by middling trees and on the other, a rocky drop to the river. Adam took her left while Oscar and Dante fell back to her right, away from him. They watched him carefully, as if to protect the spirit if he should hurt her.

"What do you know of magic, child?" she asked as she stepped over a thick exposed root.

"More than you assume. Not to brag but I am pretty good; I can handle most spells, if not all."

"But do you know where magic comes from? Why only some can wield it?"

Adam shrugged. "No. But what does this have to do with my being a mutant? Are you saying mutants should not be able to use magic?"

Maria nodded. "Only the purest lines can use magic."

"Really?"

"I cannot lie."

"There are others like me, you know? Mystics who are also mutants."

"That is impossible."

"You are wrong."

"I cannot lie."

"You might think that what you're saying is true but empirical evidence shows you're demonstrably wrong."

"Illiterate sorcerer, are you lecturing a being made of magic about magic?"

Adam let the insult pass. "But they're there. Mutants with magic. So you're obviously wrong."

"Or perhaps you're wrong about them. Perhaps they aren't mutant at all. And neither are you."

"Wait, what?" Adam stopped in his tracks. "What do you mean? We're not inhumans so what else is there?"

"Something new."

"What do you mean by that?" Adam asked, growing more agitated by the second. "Hey! Wait up! You can't just say things like that and leave!"

But she was no longer talking that day.

---

They went out to the mountain again the next day and then again for every day the rest of the week, even though the heavy monsoon rains had come. They took different routes each time, hiking through the forest, along rivers, and across bogs until the mountain itself forced them home again; always they ended up at the edge of a cliff or before an unscalable wall or subtly and inexplicably rerouted by the mountain's twisting paths such that they simply just ended right back at the cabin.

The spirit herself didn't speak much, preferring to spend her time feeding or playing with Dante and Oscar, who by now have completely abandoned Adam's friendship. She answered his questions when it suited her mood but after that bit of mystery with mystics and mutants, she made no further effort to start conversation. When she did talk, she was unpredictable. Unlike her mother, who could have easily passed off as human, Maria Heredera was very obviously something other. One could forgive her surreal beauty, the impossible sheen of her dress, or even the unsettling grace with which she carried herself. Despite all these she could be overlooked as an extreme outlier of humanity if not for her extreme fickleness of character and mood, her absolute inability to behave in any other way except as how she genuinely felt, and her uncanny manner of knowing the most efficient permutation of words and gestures to be as incisive and subtly hurtful as possible. In these, her otherness revealed itself unmistakably, an otherness which was quite contrary to the otherness of her mother, who had been unnervingly constant and level-headed.

On his side, Adam grew restless over the weeks. It was an exercise that strained his tolerance and kept him in perpetual terror. He had thought it would take a day to rescue Ruixian, only that had grown into a week and now into a further three. In his uselessness, he could only imagine what her abductors had already done to her. And after his own detention in the Cube, he had become adept at picturing the most horrific things that could happen to a mutant. Sometimes, on his treks with Maria on Mount Arayat, an image of Ruixian would pop up in his head: her small body tied down to a gurney, torso cleaved open and her ribs pulled apart to reveal the secret workings of her mutant body.

At night especially, when the world was dark and Maria would not talk to him, his head would fill with unwanted thoughts of her. He would see her captors probing and slicing and carving her, testing the limits of her own electrokinesis: how much pain her powers could convince her nerves to ignore; how long she could starve before her synapses trigger a physiological reconfiguration to survive; or how far they could mutilate her until her powers failed to repair the flesh. The images festered and multiplied at night. There were times when the thought of her dead came to him as a comfort.

Sometimes, when these ruminations grew too obtrusive, he would spend the night in deep meditation. Away from grim speculations and toward happy memories. He thought of the Dama de Noche just outside his apartment, the white-washed brick façade of Le Jardin or the narrow shop-lined street up Melaka Rise. He tried not to think of Ruixian (that only defeated the exercise) or of the dogs, who no longer felt any love for him. He thought instead of old friends—Kate, Noh-varr and America most often, sometimes Cassie and Nate, but never Eli—and the Kaplans too—though only dimly for their memories, most of all, were wrapped in fogs of magic.

Kaplan, Kaplan, that's my name, he'd repeat to himself so he won't forget, though his first name had long been lost to him.

Sometimes, he would remember what it was to be a hero, to feel wind whipping through his hair and pulling on his tattered cape as he soared above the Manhattan skyline.

Or he would fixate on an imagined memory: a kiss shared amidst the stars and beneath him the universe unfolding like the pages of a comic book.

---

"Where do you go?" Maria asked one day.

They were inside a cave, where the air was salty and very wet, a few miles in from its mouth which they had discovered hidden behind a knot of vines. It would have been pitch-black too if it weren't for the bioluminescent algae clinging to the ceiling and creeping down the stalactite. The sickly cyan glow terrified Dante and Oscar, who crowded around Maria's legs and whined the whole way through.

"Hmmm?" Adam asked distractedly as he negotiated his way around a stalagmite. Unlike hers, his voicemade an echo.

"At night. Sometimes, you're not there, Lord Supreme."

"Oh. Um, I just meditate. Sometimes, I retreat into my mind."

"Huh. The other night, you disappeared," she added and then paused to consider the proper phrase. "Kind of."

She had been with him for a little over three weeks now and had begun to absorb his speech and mannerisms. Her command of language had also become more nuanced; now, she came off belligerent only when she felt so, which was still too often for a summoned spirit.

"I'm not sure I understand what you mean by that," Adam said. "But don't worry about it"—do spirits worry? For summoners who bind them against their will? Can they even feel worry at all?—"I just don't want to think about my friend."

They marched forward in silence for a stretch of time, Maria and the dogs in front, almost gliding around boulders and stalactites, and Adam some paces behind them, carefully and clumsily navigating the mossy floor.

"Tell me of her," Maria said as they came across a flat tract. There was the soft but unmistakable sound of running water ahead, not yet made visible by the weak light.

"Ruixian?"

"Who else, thick-skulled boy?"

Adam frowned at the awkward insult but decided ignored it. "What about her?"

"Why do you try to save her? Is she your…" she paused, frowning to find the word in her new lexicon. "…girlfriend?"

Adam snorted, loud enough that the sudden sound spooked the dogs. They barked at his laughter and then at the echoes of their own barks. He waited for them to calm down before replying.

"She's a friend. That's all." He said it with an amused smile that he knew she could see though she faced away from him.

"Oh."

There was another pause and it was after what felt like an hour that Maria spoke again.

"Do you have a lot of friends?" she asked as though she had spent the time reflecting on what he'd said.

"No," he said and then reconsidered. "I mean I used to. But not anymore."

"Why? Did they all die?" she asked with brutal nonchalance.

"I suppose I died," he said, more to himself than to her. "Sorry, that sounds really corny."

"I understand now, my Lord Supreme."

"Understand what?"

"Why you killed my mother."

"I didn't—"

"It doesn't matter, blind child. Tell me more about the girl. How did you meet her?"

Adam sighed but he didn't push. Spirits were such strange things, with each its unique sort of strangeness; he'd go mad if he tried to understand them. "Almost two years ago, back in Singapore."

"I remember those times, Lord Supreme. Many of your kind joined the spirits. Most of them children."

"And she almost did too," he said with a sudden fury that surprised him. He jumped across the narrow stream and landed noisily, sending Dante and Oscar into another fit of barking. "God, she was just a student then. High school or junior college or something. At first they wanted to sterilize mutants and after that, they decided they were too dangerous. It's for national security, you see? So they arrested all registered mutants and transferred them to an offshore 'holding facility' better equipped to detain them. But they were never supposed to reach that prison. There was supposed to be an accident. I was in Seoul then."

"You saved her?"

Adam shook his head.

"A friend did. By the time I got to Singapore, Jacob had already taken care of the ships. I was just there to move the survivors to his safe houses." He paused thoughtfully before adding, "She was still so young then, probably the youngest prisoner since the government had been neutering mutants and X-gene carriers. Jacob saved about a thousand mutants that day, though all of them had already been sterilized. Ruixian didn't want to go with the big scary bald man who sank three frigates and killed all non-mutants onboard. So he entrusted her to me."

"And you've grown fond of her?"

"Not at first. She was shell-shocked for a while; every time her powers manifested, she would freeze and you won't be able to talk to her for hours on end. So I had to tend to this girl that I barely knew—God, I feel so selfish and terrible now, looking back to how I treated her in those days. I was very impatient. I even screamed at her sometimes."

"But you say you are friends now."

"Yeah… A couple of months after we moved to Madripoor, the Red Skull attacked and there were riots in Singapore. Mutants who managed to escape the Registration were being hunted and beaten to death. And Ruixian… she begged—she actually begged me to let her go so she could help. I said no, of course. Told her it was too dangerous. She couldn't even use her powers so how would she help? But she didn't care; she was like this other person, suddenly. Like a switch was suddenly flipped inside her. She screamed and cursed and begged and a few hours later I heard that she was on a boat over. They arrested her as soon as she was on Singaporean soil, of course. Didn't even put up a fight. How could she when she couldn't even use her powers without becoming catatonic? So obviously, I had to rescue her. Again. I remember being so pissed.

"Only when I got there, I got shot. It was really bad too. I was bleeding out and I was pretty sure that that was it for me. I was going to die. And this Ruixian, with no hesitation, she… she placed her hands on me and healed me. Her whole body was shaking and I could see it in her eyes. She was already coiling into herself and retreating to wherever it is she goes whenever her powers manifested.

"She saved a lot of people that day. Just her. I was too weak even after she healed me. But she just kept going. It was madness! I casted a projection spell to keep track of her and I just watched. I watched her saving all these people even though it broke a piece of her every time she used her powers. You're a spirit so you'd understand; even a mage of the lowest order can see these things when walking the astral plane. Ruixian just wasn't there anymore. She was somewhere very deep and dark. But she just kept going. Must have been a week before she finally stopped. No food. No water. No sleep. Nothing. Didn't even piss herself.

"And when it was all over, she was just gone, didn't come back for days. It was different this time. She saved me and all those people and it broke something inside her for good. I couldn't talk to her for weeks; I thought I might have had to commit her to some facility. In fact, I was already talking with Jacob about placing her in this hospital in Chamonix—I have a friend there, you see—and he was already making arrangements.

"But then suddenly, she was just back. Got up from her bed, took a shower, and then complained that the noodles were overcooked. Whoever came back was a different person. It was like she figured something out. She was happier, more put together. She even started using her powers. It was like she had built a cocoon around herself and she finally emerged after weeks of transformation. I never asked what happened to her and she never volunteered anything. I suspect it was her own power repairing the circuitry in her brain. Using her powers to that extent in Singapore must have triggered something. Though, to be honest, I like to think it's more her than anything else. Just resilience of character, indomitability of the human spirit and all that, you know? But still... logically, I think it's her power that put her back together. She still has bad days even now—I don't think those would ever really go away. But most of the time, it was like being around a normal person. Sometimes, it even felt like she's the one taking care of me."

"Just one more week, my Lord Supreme. Just one more week," the Lady of the Mountain said in response. "You two will meet again, soon."

The ambiguity didn't escape him but he knew that she didn't mean to hurt him so he decided not to comment on it.

"She was sixteen, when she saved you?" Maria said after some time.

"Yeah. How did you know?"

"You were sixteen when you lost your name and became Adam Thorne."

"Just a coincidence, I suppose."

"Stupid boy. Such a thing is rare among beings of Fate, my Lord Supreme."

They walked further in until the cave began to constrict, marking the imminent end of their journey. At some point, they scrambled up a short wall, only to run into a dead end. Without a disappointed wrinkle on her placid face, Maria turned around and started walking back.

"These names," Adam said carefully. "They're so strange. How am I a being of Fate?"

"You are a wielder of Fate magic. Or were, rather."

"You mean chaos magic?"

"A human term but yes, the same thing. "

"I have not used chaos magic since—"

"Since Adam Thorne?" Adam could hear the smile in her voice. "No matter how much you try to deny it, shameful child, it still resides inside you. You can't refuse who you are, Lord Supreme."

"I like to think that our circumstances don't define us and that we have a choice in who we want to be," Adam said resolutely. "And what about Lord Supreme? Why do you call your summoners that?"

"I've only been summoned this once," Maria said. "And perhaps Heir Supreme would be more fitting, considering you have not taken the name Sorcerer Supreme yet."

Adam stopped dead in his tracks. "But Doctor Strange—"

"—holds the seat no more. It was under his watch that the pestilence that called itself Mother infected and profaned this realm."

"But I let Mother in!"

"And it was you who destroyed it, Heir Supreme, and in so doing, usurped Strange's right and duty."

"You have been playing me all this time, Maria Heredera," he said. "These long walks we take, what are you really on about?"

The spirit turned to him with a smug smile, looking very pleased with her mischief. In the unearthly glow of algae, she seemed so much like the apparition that she was. "Silly boy," she said again, only fondly this time with no real malice in her voice. Like a mother chiding her son. "No one remembers you here in this mortal plane but spirits do not forget, Adam Thorne. In your weakness and cowardice, you abandoned us. Spirits and magic-men alike, you abandoned us. Your name—your true name, even now lost to us—drips with infamy. You are lucky I came at all."

As she said this, she reached down and scratched behind the dogs' ears, looking him in the eye meaningfully.

"I am not the Sorcerer Supreme. I'm not responsible for mystics or spirits or anyone! I can't be; it's too much weight for just one pair of shoulders," he said, blinking back. "And you can't put that on me!"

His words fell on deaf ears. Maria trained her eyes back on him but her gaze flitted past him. They made their way out side-by-side, now that they knew the terrain. The dogs followed close behind them, barking at the occasional water drip or heavy footstep.

"Humans are selfish, aren't they, Lord Supreme?" Maria said when they finally emerged from the cave.

The mountain had changed, he finally realized. There was no birdsong, no howling of nocturnal beasts, not even chirping of insects. The only sound came from Dante and Oscar chasing each other in a tight circle, happy to be finally out of the cave and back on the world of light and air.

"Yes, they are, Maria," Adam said absently as he looked up at the black clouds blanketing the sky. He squinted in the dark, trying to readjust his eyes to the dark afternoon. Then he turned his eyes to the tree line and looked for the clear path that they had taken. And then, almost like an afterthought, added, "I should say 'we' since I'm also human and also incredibly selfish."

Maria took on a bright yellow glow. She took Adam's hand and led him to the forest.

"Though it could be argued that one has the right to some measure of selfishness," he added with a challenging raise of his eyebrow.

"So long as no harm is done to others?"

"So long as no harm through action is done to others."

Maria turned to him and smirked. "Clever boy." she said. "Wretched, selfish, clever boy."

"Spirits are known to be pedantic," Adam said with a shrug. "Harm through action and harm through inaction are different things. You shouldn't do something that will hurt another person, obviously. But at the same time, no one should be able force you to do anything. Not give all your money away. Or even help others. Much less, give up your life. No one—no matter how powerless or powerful—should be slave to another."

"Said the summoner to his bound spirit," Maria said quietly and then, before he could respond, added, "Even when the cost of inaction is the life of another? Are noble heroes not held to a higher code?"

"I'm no hero."

"By all rights of power and privilege, you are Sorcerer Supreme, selfish boy; all magic pays a price for the things that you do."

"I've done nothing!" he protested.

"Pitiful, hateful, broken child. By doing nothing, you have undone everything," Maria said angrily. When Adam looked at her eyes, they were wet. "How many magicians have you encountered in the past year? How many fairies have you seen on my mother's mountain? Do you remember the lambanas? Don't look away, my Lord Supreme! Look me in the eye, despicable boy, look me in the eye. Where are they now? Where are the lambanas? Have you seen any yet?"

"I have not," he was forced to admit.

Maria turned away from him and stared ahead. "Your magic is fading, my Lord Supreme."

"It is."

"All magic is fading."

"I think I've known for a while now. It shouldn't have taken so much just to commune with a mountain spirit," he said. "And that's why we need the full moon and the lambanas for the spell."

"Then you must also know that you are at the center of it."

Adam laughed bitterly. "Hah! Of course, I am. Of course! It's always my fault somehow; the universe seems to have given me monopoly on blame! But tell me how. How is this new crisis my fault?"

"Without a true Sorcerer Supreme, magic cannot enter this universe."

"And so long as I do not accept the Supremacy, I do not ascend to become Sorcerer Supreme, yes?" Adam said viciously. "So that's why I haven't seen any mystics lately. No fairies. No lambanas." He paused abruptly and then added gently as realization dawned on him, "And that's why your mother died."

"We are beings of pure magic, child. The most powerful spirits were the first to disappear. All the demons and angels. Most of the fairies and lambanas are gone too," Maria said with no hint of sadness. "My mother… she held on for so long, much longer than ancient spirits were entitled to. But in the end, she was too weak. One day, humans came from the north. They had machines. Then there was a fire…"

The rest of that story hung unspoken over them but Adam didn't have to guess the rest of it.

There was a chill that marked a passing rain, which gave the air the smell of mud and wet leaves. They walked on a narrow curving path, between thick forestry and under an even more impenetrable covering of branches and leaves. The whole world had plunged into darkness and there was no sound except for Adam's footsteps and the dogs' breathing. Maria, glowing divinely not unlike some apparition of the Virgin Mary, was the only light in the corridor of darkness.

"You can't ask this of me," he said suddenly. "How could you expect me to be Sorcerer Supreme, when I can't even be me? I can only be Adam Thorne."

But as usual, Maria gave him no answer. They came out to a meadow upon a hill, where an explosion of stars peeked between the dissipating clouds. The wind nipped at Adam's exposed neck and immediately, Maria began to radiate heat to comfort him.

She spoke again, as if there had been no interim in the conversation. And, like all spirits, her mind operated unpredictably, branching out and making tangents in the most arbitrary manners.

"We are the same, Lord Supreme," she said. "You and I."

"Yeah?"

"We are both cynics!"

"Are we?"

"Why, yes! I am a realist, who sees the world for its ugliness."

"Well, I don't. I think there is also a lot of hope in this world. I think it has the capacity for beauty and kindness. Maybe not in everyone—definitely not in me—but it exists."

"Despite all you've seen, you still say that humans are capable of beauty and kindness?"

"Yes."

"Despite what they've done to the witches and the druids and the shamans and the albularyo, what they do now to mutants, and what they will do to the next outcast?"

"Yes, even then."

"Even when the noblest of their kind—the heroes—have failed? Despite your own selfishness?"

"Yes, even then. No matter what, Maria, the answer is always yes. The way I see it, life's most fundamental nature must be change. That is true down to the cellular level of every life form on the goddamned evolutionary tree. And where there is hope of change, there is hope for something better. So, yes! I believe that while this world is ugly, there is still hope. Human beings could be good. And that makes us worth it."

"You let your hoping do your thinking for you. Quite stupid for a sorcerer," Maria said. "You are a true idiot, Lord Supreme."

"I am an idealist."

Maria laughed, soft and high like bells. "The most bitter kind of cynic," she said.

They were almost at the cabin now. Dante and Oscar had run ahead and were barking excitedly with their front legs up against the front door. Maria glided forward to let them in and when she opened the door, the stale smell of herbs and mold wafted out. She turned to Adam and closed the door behind her.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Would you make a deal with me?"

"That we should keep secret from the dogs?"

"They distract me, Lord Supreme."

"Summoners implore spirits, not the other way around."

"And so it has been since the first spirit summoned," she said simply, as if reciting a line she had memorized from a book.

"Then you know you are breaking the rules."

"There's not much magic left in the rules to punish me."

Adam studied the spirit with narrowed eyes. She was so beautiful in the dark, so ethereal, though it was never beauty that he sought in a spirit's face—even in those which suggested a male form. But there was something to her face—female though it may be—that drew him, that made him want to touch her and in turn be touched by her. Adam gazed into that beckoning face now and felt the urge to hold it between his palms. He hadn't thought much of it before but now an understanding was dawning on him. Her fickleness and her brutal honesty. All those walks… he didn't have to indulge her. Everything fell into place and he finally realized the sad truth behind Maria Heredera.

"Oh, Maria…"

For the first time, the spirit looked cowed. Maria crossed her arms over her chest, as if to cover herself in shame. She bent forward, her long hair falling over and obscuring her face. She seemed to be shrinking into herself like she meant to make her self smaller and less visible.

"I'm so sorry, Maria," Adam said. "But I can't bring her back."

"I know that." Maria peered at him through her hair. "But I don't know what else to do."

She stayed in that position for a while before drawing herself up, straightening her back and lifting her chin to recover her dignity. She looked some inches taller than usual.

"A deal, my Lord Supreme."

Adam considered the spirit before him and said with as much courtesy he could muster, "You have nothing to offer me."

"I offer you a secret."

"A secret of spirits?"

Maria shook her head. "A secret of humanity."

"Is it important?"

"I am no trickster spirit, child."

Adam crossed his arms and closed his eyes in consternation. "And in return for this secret?"

"Consider the ascension to Supremacy."

"No," Adam said immediately and with a hardness that surprised them both.

"Just promise me, Lord Supreme, that you'll think it over, seriously and fairly. For the survival of my people and yours."

Adam opened his eyes and bit his lip. "Fine," he said.

"Thank you," she said with a smile. "My Lord Supreme, thank you." Her eyes sparkled with brimming tears.

"So the secret in exchange for my promise?"

Maria's face turned grave. "My Lord Supreme," she began carefully. "Listen close and listen well.

"There is something terribly wrong. An infection spreads secretly among your kind, which, left uncontrolled, will end with your extinction."

"An infection?" Adam frowned. "Among mutants? Hardly new."

"Not so, silly child." Maria shook her head emphatically. "Mutants… mystics… all humans... even the ones you call inhumans. Homo sapiens will perish."

"All of humanity?" Adam raised an eyebrow. "That's a little dramatic, don't you think?"

"I cannot lie."

"And when you said 'extinction' you meant—"

"—of the human race."

Adam's brows furrowed in thought. "How long?"

"Two years."

"T-two years?!" Adam said with wide-eyed surprise. "Is it a virus? Bacteria? Mode of infection?"

Maria shook her head again. "No spirit of Earth has seen such a thing before, my Lord Supreme. We know only that a blight spreads among your kind."

"So you know close nothing," Adam stated with a touch of asperity. "What would I do with information so nebulous?"

"As nebulous as the promise I have extracted from you, greedy wretch."

Adam clicked his tongue and turned away with a roll of his eyes. "Fair enough."

They remained outside the cabin for a long while, sitting side by side on the wet grass under a sky painted with stardust and scurrying clouds. It was an easy silence, as if nothing of grave importance had just passed between them. They watched a half-moon emerge behind the mountain and climb the sky without a single word between them.

Adam spent the hours wrapped in a swirl of thoughts: of Ruixian mostly and the fact that in a week there might not be much of her left to find; of becoming Sorcerer Supreme and the choice between duty and freedom that confronted him again; and of the affliction surreptitiously decimating humanity. He thought of the life he had been dreaming of, a life free of magic and duty. A life free of hurting others with a power that he couldn't control. There was an infection inside him too, he decided idly. Chaos magic—or Fate magic, as the spirit called it. Primordial, powerful, unfettered magic that had brought only destruction and madness through the tragic person of the Witch.

They sat together, man and spirit, until the rosy fingers of dawn unfurled across the sky. And as the soft light spilled on his face, Adam's thoughts, for the first time in days, turned to the Ars Notoria.

---

On the day of the full moon, they summoned the lambanas.

They came from the forest with no ceremony but for the soft rustling of leaves that heralded their arrival. The two sauntered to the cabin where Adam and Maria waited and presented themselves to the Heir Supreme with a deep bow.

"Our Lord Supreme," they said in high chirping voices. "We are the lambanas of Mother Arayat."

"I welcome you, honorable lambanas," Adam said in a rehearsed tone. "I am the mage Adam Thorne and this is my spirit-companion Maria Heredera."

The sprites stood up and Adam saw that they were bare-breasted. They had a thin piece of red cloth wrapped around their waists some inches above their sex, which was bushy and exposed, and had leaves woven in their thick black hair, which framed their soft-looking faces. Their eyes were wide puddles of brown.

"We know of you," the first one said.

"And we know her," the second one added with a sideways glance to Maria.

"I thank you for heeding my call, sisters dear," Maria said.

"Do not thank us, wretch; we had no choice," the first one said without looking at Maria. She studied Adam intently, a frown etched deep in her face. "You are Lady of the Mountain, so we have come."

"But do not presume to think that we would do more than what is needed to respect your birthright," the second one said. "The trees of Arayat will not shed a single rotten leaf for your cause."

"Where we can, we'll do nothing," the two said together.

"Then let me beseech you, hallowed lambanas," Adam said to them. "I beg your powers to retrieve a friend."

Quite suddenly, the two advanced on him, taking turns to push his shoulders until he was pressed against the cabin wall. Inside, the dogs barked at the dull thud.

"How dare you," the first one snarled. "Ask favors of us?"

"Save a life for you?" the second one added. "When so many of us are dead for your idleness?"

The two leaned close to him, so that their faces were only an inch from his and he could feel the warmth of their breath.

Their eyes glowed a deep electric green. "No," they said together.

The lambanas took a step back and bowed. They held the position, clearly waiting for something to happen. Adam let them endure the posture of deference for a while before turning to Maria with a brusque nod.

"Sisters, I release you," Maria said.

A strong wind gathered around them, kicking up dust clouds. As one, the lambanas stood straight and spread their arms. The wind buoyed and carried them swiftly into the forest as if they weighed no more than fallen leaves.

"You're not surprised, are you, my Lord Supreme?" Maria asked as the gust vanished abruptly.

"Not really," Adam said. "I mean what did you expect? We did kill their mother."

Maria answered the accusation with silence.

"What now?" he asked instead.

"I'm not powerful enough to bring your friend here."

"Then, send me to her instead," Adam suggested readily, having expected this turn of events.

"Look at you, little mage," Maria said with an amused smile. "Still a hero, after all."

---

When the night of the full moon finally came, it was almost anticlimactic.

They waited for the moon to reach its zenith, as Maria stood in the center of a glade and Adam waited patiently in front of her, ready to leave any moment. He had put on a fresh pair of trousers and a thick long-sleeved shirt under a scarlet hooded robe. He carried a small backpack of herbs, candles, and American dollars. Just the bare necessities.

He had said his farewells, which, though heartfelt, did not overwhelm Maria with sadness. He had tried to say goodbye to Dante and Oscar too but they would not let him near them, so he settled with saying it out loud from a distance, as they played among themselves and paid him no attention. He wanted to apologize too but couldn't bring himself to it. The price had been paid and must remain so.

The moon reached its peak and Maria looked up into its silver glare. Her eyes turned a deep red.

Here I come, Ray, Adam thought to himself, adjusting the clasp of his robe. I'm coming for you. Alive or dead, you're going home.

Adam rolled his shoulders and stretched his fingers. Electricity danced across his skin and magic poured into his marrow. Once more, he felt the strings wrapped around his left wrist, making sure he had done the knots as Maria had taught him.

"I have found her," Maria declared. "A mage had enshrouded her."

"Powerful?"

"Yes," she said solemnly. "But not as powerful as you, my Lord Supreme."

She turned to him and stared with her red seeing eyes.

"She is alive but only barely. Oh, my Lord Supreme, the things they've done to her body. Her legs... Her poor, poor legs."

Adam released a shaky breath, which turned into a laugh halfway through. And then he fortified himself for the rescue. "Send me, Maria. Now"

"This is goodbye, my Lord Supreme." Maria placed a hand on Adam's shoulder and gripped it tight. "Do not forget your promise."

Adam nodded in acknowledgement. "Goodbye, Maria."

There was the sensation of being turned inside out, followed by a dream-like impression of falling. Darkness rose around him as the world fell away under his feet. He was falling down and down and down into a bottomless pit until the only thing he could see, as he gazed up the black walls of the night, was the sad face of Maria Heredera, spirit of the forest fire.

---

He touched ground inside a metal cabinet, in an unknown room in an unknown building in an unknown country.

The space could barely hold him so he struggled to keep still while he found his bearings. He smelled clean air, a mix of ethanol, bleach, and iodine, but underneath the antiseptic veneer was the undercurrent of something sour and corrosive and something else that had a distinct fishy smell.

He smirked as he Saw a quivering blanket of refractive magic hovering a mile or so above what he assumed was the entire complex. It was intricately designed and deftly woven—the mark of a classically trained mage. Adam sent a sliver of his own magic to its gleaming underside and felt it disperse into harmless shreds. It was a protective barrier, he decided, meant to repel magical attacks and to ward against mystic espionage. He wondered how Maria had managed to send him through; perhaps the magic of spirits obeyed different rules.

There was a crack of light running vertically between the two steel doors of the cabinet. Slowly, Adam shifted to align his eye to the crack and he studied the space outside, taking care to breathe quietly and to avoid knocking the bottles on the shelf behind him.

It was difficult to judge the size of the room from this vantage point. There were tables, machines, and other cabinets—all doused with a deep yellow light that annoyed his eye—and plastic curtains hanging from the ceiling to give the area an illusion of privacy from the rest of the laboratory. Built into the ceiling were square vents spaced about five or so feet apart and directly beneath them, on the floor, were narrow grills.

He could see four men wrapped in what he guessed were hazmat or clean room suits standing over four stainless steel tables with their backs to him. Each had a smaller table beside him, from where he retrieved and replaced various surgical implements and jars. Adam didn't have to guess what the men were doing and yet, as one stepped away from his work, he almost threw up when he saw the bag on the operating table.

It was an inflated plastic box, just large enough to encase a small child—rectangular, transparent, with a pair of gloves sown on the side facing Adam. Even at a distance and in the harsh yellow light, he could recognize the ground up mix of flesh and bone and the vital organs that were left for harvesting. It reminded him of the paste he sometimes made for his spells by crushing chicken parts with a mortar and pestle. A small mass in the box stirred and fell to one side and Adam found himself staring at a blue eye. He was about to look away when he saw something that chilled him to the bone: the child blinked.

Adam's body moved as if he were in a dream. He eased the cabinet open and stepped out into the yellow light. One foot forward, then the other next, footsteps quick, quiet, and confident. His left hand lifted in a daze and from his fingers electricity shot off in four zigzag arcs, lancing across the air until they found their targets; the men were dead before they hit the floor.

Without breaking stride, he stepped over one of the bodies and walked up to the child, not knowing what to do or say. He held his shaking hands over the mutilated form, hopeless for a spell that could knit the meat into something that would restore some semblance of dignity. And he knew, as he looked at the face of humanity's cruelty, that he was powerless to save the child.

Inside the box was red pulp where arms and legs should have been. Even the torso had been so pulverized that it took a while to identify the organs that had been purposely left intact to keep the child alive, like islands in a sea of mush: there was the heart, still beating, the lungs that inflated and deflated grotesquely like a pair of gray balloons inside a glistening ribcage, the kidneys, the liver, thoracic arteries and veins, and even the trachea. A testicle remained, skinned and exposed, but the other one had already been harvested and detached from the vas deferens. No stomach or intestines or anything of the digestive tract. It was almost impossible to know that it was human if not for what was left of the face. The lower jaw had been ripped off and an eye was missing but the other one was swiveling wildly in its socket.

"Witchboy," a voice croaked from an adjacent table, just barely audible. "You came. Fucking at last."

Adam tore his eyes away from the boy and went over to Ruixian's table. She was in a larger box just long enough to hold her length but her body, while obviously injured, was still unbroken. He glanced at the other two boxes and saw the same butchery as in the child's box. Unlike the other three, Ruixian was hooked up to an IV drip. Adam grabbed a scalpel from a tray and slashed at the plastic.

"How long?" he asked as he worked at tearing open a big enough hole to help Ruixian out.

"Ten minutes."

Adam gave her a surprised look as he sawed through the plastic.

"What," she said. Her voice was rough and distant, like she wasn't really there. "I've had a lot of practice lately. The others, are they—?"

"Dead. Except for this one to your right."

"You think I can—"

Adam shook his head. "It's really bad, Ray. The-there's not much left of him."

"I want to see."

He could see her face through the hole now, bruised, skeletal and bald. Her white shift draped loosely over her, making no noticeable bulge at the chest or hips; she couldn't have weighed more than eighty pounds.

"He's just eight, you know," she said. "He had the softest blond hair before they shaved it off."

Adam pried open the slash he'd made and helped Ruixian crawl through. Placing her feet experimentally on the floor, she tried to stand and promptly fell to the floor with a brittle-sounding crack. She slung an arm over Adam's neck and sat back on the table edge with a whimper, taking quick shallow breaths through her teeth.

"Break my legs," she said in between pants.

"What?"

"They messed up my legs," she said as she ripped off the needle from her arm. "They broke and set them wrong. They wanted to see if the alignment would self-correct when I healed. Now, we know. I need you to place one hand just below the knee—yes, there—and the other one here, just above the ankle. That's the tibia, the big bone. Push at the count of three, all right?"

Ruxian flinched and made a muffled moan. As soon as he had broken the bone, Adam felt microcurrents beginning to stimulate cellular repair.

"How long for the leg?" he asked, eyeing the corridor behind the plastic curtain.

"Just a few seconds. Do the other one now."

Adam moved to her other side and placed his hands on her other leg. By the time he was done breaking it, Ruixian was already testing the other leg, carefully flexing and pointing the foot.

As he waited for the last leg to heal, Adam placed his bag beside her and took out a black string from the front pocket. He grabbed her left wrist and began chanting. One round clockwise, two rounds back, knot the end, leave a finger space. Smear the knot with blood. Two rounds clockwise, three rounds back, knot the end, leave two finger spaces. Smear the knot with blood. Three. Four. Five… over and over until he ran out of string, making twelve cycles around her bony wrist in total. She was so skinny; the same length of string only made nine cycles around his wrist.

"What's this?" Ruixian asked as she gingerly placed one foot on the ground.

"A kind of charm. To help escape."

"Can't you teleport us out?"

Adam shook his head. "Not from here. There's a barrier over the whole complex. How long before you're ready?"

"Two minutes," she said while she walked over to the boy's table.

She studied the child for a long while, quietly imagining ways to repair the body. "I can't fix this, Adam," she said finally. She placed a hand into one of the gloves and laid a finger over the beating heart. The remaining blue eye swiveled in its socket and looked at her. Ruixian closed her eyes and shook her head.

"His mutation hasn't even manifested yet," she said softly. "They were too curious so they decided they couldn't wait. They cut him open to figure it out themselves."

A door opened and shut somewhere behind them, followed by the sharp sound of high-heeled footsteps falling on tiled floor.

"Ray, we have to go. Someone's coming."

Ruixian turned to Adam and nodded. A small spark leapt from her finger and the boy's brain began to smoke. The heart stopped beating and the lungs deflated for the last time.

"Bye, Teddy," she murmured and leaned down to kiss the plastic box.

She grabbed Adam's hand and they ran for the door.

---

The complex wasn't as large as Adam had feared but the corridors were clogged with human traffic and there were no windows to differentiate day or night, making it impossible to figure out where he was by way of timezones. Scientists, guards, and suit-wearing administrators pressed around them as they followed the stream to the exit.

"There are too many people," he said. "Why are there so many people?"

Beside him, under his arm and cloak, Ruixian dragged her feet, looking the very image of fatigue. "The building goes deep. Mostly labs, administrative offices, and classrooms up here," she said. "The bottom floors are pens, holding facilities, cages; storage for mutants, basically. Lots of manpower needed."

"Classrooms?"

Ruixian nodded grimly. "This is a teaching facility."

The seething mass of humanity crowded around them, crammed against walls and each other like rush hour on a Madripoor train—a superorganism of individuals performing different tasks to fulfil the singular purpose of keeping the organized whole functional. Bodies slid and slipped over each other and now and then, a person would detach itself from the swirling bulk and slither into a room, like a tendril seeking out a niche, or some researcher or bureaucrat would emerge through a door and merge with the crawling pace.

A door to their right opened and a woman in a lab coat stepped out. Her eyes landed squarely on Ruixian and her mouth formed a small 'o'. Then, a crease formed between her brows and she turned away, overcome suddenly by a concern more pressing than an escaping mutant.

"Are you sure about this?" Ruixian asked, warily eying the woman as she melted into the crowd. She clung feebly to his arm. "We're not really invisible."

Adam gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "They won't see us unless we bring attention to ourselves," he said as he brought his hand in front of her face and shook the charm around his wrist. "But try not to bump against anyone and don't look them in the eye."

"Okay," Ruixian said, breathing heavily.

"We should slow down a bit," he said, giving her a quick scan. "You've lost a lot of weight, Ray."

She looked up to him and nodded weakly.

They were walking behind a tall man in camos, using his wide frame as a wedge to clear the path and as a shield to hide their faces from incoming traffic. Even with the conspicuous scarlet robe and Ruixian's bare feet and thin shift, nobody seemed to even notice them and those who happened to look their way could never quite focus their eyes on the space that they occupied. Adam kept his head down and his eyes lowered. He kept one hand around the hilt of a knife in one of the hidden pockets of his robe and his other arm in a gentle grip around Ruixian's shoulders. He could hardly feel any muscle beneath the skin.

"How much farther?" Ruixian asked. She was leaning heavily against him now.

Adam pressed his thumb and forefinger together and made a circle. Closing the other eye, he peered through the hole and slowly Looked left and right. For the third time, he mapped the labyrinth of corridors and rooms and traced their path, careful not to Look at the barrier overhead.

"We're three rooms from the exit," he said, opening his eyes. "Hang on, we're almost there."

The charm spun rapidly around his wrist, protecting him from observing eyes as they made their way down the corridors. A few times, someone bumped against his shoulder but when they turned to glare at him, their eyes glazed and seemed to slide over him.

"There. I can see the door, Ray. Just a little bit more," he said as a pair of metal doors came to view. They opened and closed intermittently and Adam caught the glimpse of a blue sky beyond. "Ray, do you—fuck."

He almost didn't catch her when she slipped out of his grasp and fell forward. Behind him, a woman tripped and crashed on his back. Somehow, he managed to get up and put some distance between them before passers-by took notice. The woman, flushing a brilliant scarlet, looked like she was about to apologize when a sudden thought came over her. She shook her head as if to clear it and stepped around the two to rejoin the stream of people.

"Sorry," Ruixian muttered.

Adam removed his backpack and passed it to her. "Take this and get on," Adam said, offering his back. "I'll carry you the rest of the way."

"No, I can—"

"Dammit, Ray, we don't have time for this," he said. "Just get the fuck on and let me handle this."

She managed a weak glare but relented anyway. With some muttering, she put on the bag and climbed on Adam's back, hanging her thin arms over his shoulders.

"Cross your arms around my neck and hang on," he said uselessly as he placed his arms under her thighs and stood up. He felt her arms encircle his neck, feather-light and obviously too weak with no real force behind them. Too light, he thought. Too light and too weak. "All right, here we go."

He wove through the small gaps between clusters of people, keeping his head down as he fluidly made his way to the front and eliciting no more than surprised gasps and some clicking of tongues.

Just a few more yards from the front door. He could already feel the cool air from the flapping doors.

"Adam," Ruixian whispered urgently to his ear. "Look there, just above the door."

Adam risked a glance and saw a metal bar with blinking lights. He made a slow stop.

"I think it's a card reader for employees," she said. "And a chip detector for subjects."

"They tagged you?" he hissed, and felt her nod against his right ear. "I can't short it electropathically; lightning bolts would be hard to ignore even with the charm. I can try a spell but it will take time, give me—"

"I can do it."

Adam thought it over. "Are you sure? I can—"

"My powers are subtler than yours."

"I know. But a spell will only take—"

"Adam," she said firmly, though in a labored voice. "I don't want to stay in this place for one more second."

"Ray, I… All right," Adam said. "All right. I'll leave it to you."

"Good. Approach slow but go through fast when I give the signal."

Adam nodded and started walking again, heeding her instructions to advance slowly. He could feel her tense up against him as she reached out with her powers to probe the detector. An invisible but harmless electric field passed through him, interacting subtly with his own mutant powers. Breathing quietly through his mouth, he slowed down further and waited for the signal that she was ready.

"Ray—"

"I almost got it. Just shut up for a while."

"Okay, just—make the waveform a little tighter. Suppress the amplitude."

Ruixian responded with an annoyed groan. Some seconds passed before she finally made a gentle tap against Adam's shoulder. He felt the field strength intensify and knew that she had begun working on the detector. He quickly took the last few steps, passed under the detector, and walked out the door. He stepped out into the sunlight, relieved that no alarm had sounded. He could even feel Ruixian relaxing as she loosened her grip around his neck.

"We did it," she whispered, her shallow breath ghosting on his neck as she panted.

Then, a hand grabbed his left forearm and threw him bodily across the threshold.

"Ray!" he shouted as he felt her body separate from his.

He crashed heavily on his side but even as the ground scraped his skin, he extended a hand in Ruixian's direction and gestured a Form to soften her landing with a cushion of air. Struggling to his feet, he positioned himself between Ruixian and their attacker.

"Stay back!" he said. His robe flared open behind him, hiding her from their attacker's line of sight. There was some screaming around him, as people cleared the space and ran for the gates.

The man made a sign of binding with his left hand and the crowd yelped and groaned as belts unwound themselves from waists and flew toward Adam and Ruixian. Adam Formed the counter-gesture and the belts dropped lifelessly to the ground.

"Oho!" the man said with an amused look. "T'es magicien!"

Adam unclipped his robe and brought out his knife. He held it before him, eyeing the man's belly, and electrified it in his grip. He was up against a mage; he must strike with the intent to kill.

With a sudden cry, he pushed against the ground and propelled himself forwards, bringing down the knife into his target. The air crackled and hissed as the blade cut through space.

"Oho!" the man said again. With an angular motion of his left hand, the mage conjured a glossy sheen between them, halting the knife's descent just a hair's breadth over his belly. "Hah!" Cackling, he jabbed two fingers into the flesh above Adam's hip bone and made a popping sound with his lips.

Adam had no time to repel the attack. There was a tearing sensation in his side as heat ripped through the protective spells he had woven into his skin, penetrating deep enough to puncture a kidney. The explosion extended beyond his body and the shock of rapidly expanding air blew him backwards a few yards, forcing him to his knees.

"Fuck," he muttered. He had miscalculated. Blood was already dripping down his side, soaking through his shirt, but the pain was still a distant abstraction. In front of him, the mage smiled viciously as he wiped bloodied fingers on his pants.

Quickly, despite the pain, Adam scampered to his feet and placed protectively in front of Ruixian, who was huddled unconscious on the ground. She was already wrapped in his robe and that had shielded her from the blast. The lingering spectators were not so lucky; around them were the charred bodies of those who were too close to the explosion.

"Tu me comprends?" the mage asked as he walked towards them.

Adam crouched lower and brought his knife higher before him. With his other hand, he gestured a series of Forms, weaving additional layers of protection in the robe's fabric.

The man pointed at Ruixian with an open palm. "Tu protéges cette chienne? Ta copine ou quoi?" he said with a sneer. "Your whore, yes?"

Adam spied a small structure to his right. No people coming out, probably empty. With scarcely a thought, his robe wrapped itself tighter around Ruixian and flew her towards the building's rooftop.

The man made a move towards her but Adam quickly intercepted his flight. With a grunt, he caught the man's ankle and swung him hard to the ground, away from Ruixian.

Adam pressed a hand over his wound as he watched the mage rolled on the dirt. "Fucker," he muttered, catching his breath as he fell back on his knees. He risked a moment to look down and saw that blood—his blood—was flowing copiously down his leg.

A sudden movement to his left caught his eye and, to his despair, he saw two more mages—a woman and a man—emerged from a nearby building. "Fuck," Adam muttered again as they joined the first mage, who was already climbing to his feet some yards away.

He was exhausted, injured, and outnumbered. On a good day he could have taken two but three strained his chances. With a curse under his breath and a quick Form behind his back, he dug a penny out of his pocket and held it high over his head. The woman was the first to look and before she could figure out the feint, Adam flipped the coin as high as he could. Her eyes followed it, up and up and up, already trapped in his Trick and unable to tear her attention from the spinning penny.

With a shout, he thrust both hands before him, twisted his fingers into a sequence of elaborate Forms, and slammed his palms to the ground. Immediately, there was another explosion and the ground under his attackers broke apart in a cloud of dust and projectile rocks, giving him enough cover and a head start. He sprinted for Ruixian as fast as he could, pumping magic into his thighs to propel himself farther with each step. Heart pounding, muscles burning, he pushed himself to the limits of endurance, even as magic extracted its cost from his body. He could feel his lungs on fire as he drew in ragged panting breaths and already there were black spots popping in and out of his vision. Behind him, an enraged scream split the air as the two men worked together to dispel his spell.

Adam was vaulting over a half-wall when he heard the sizzle of a familiar spell. With his body parallel to the ground, he flew over the structure and twisted in the air to narrowly avoid twin beams of light that had been aimed at his arms. With one palm he deflected the blasts away from building and with another he threw a lightning bolt, striking one man in the chest. The mage crumpled to the ground and didn't get up.

Distracted, Adam landed clumsily on his feet. He slipped backwards and, carried by his own momentum, crashed against the building's wall, knocking the air out of his lungs. He gasped and fell to the ground in a heap.

"Hold!" The other man—the one who had grabbed him by the door—had caught up to him. With another gesture of binding, two cords emerged from his sleeves and slithered across the ground and up Adam's arms, wrapping themselves around his wrists and holding them over his head so that he floated a few inches off the ground. They must have been spelled too, for his hands lost all sense of touch and he could not command his fingers to bend and make Forms.

"No more running," the mage said. Panting, he made his slow approach and, with another Form, his hand took on a deadly red glow.

Adam squeezed his eyes shut and began chanting, only to feel another cord slither around his neck and squeeze, choking off his words. His eyes bulged out as his chest struggled for air.

"You die now, filth-lover," the man said as he gently placed his hand on Adam's chest. He was so close now that Adam could smell the sour heat of his breath.

Adam's mouth opened in a silent scream as his flesh, no longer protected by magic, sizzled and smoked under the man's touch. He could smell his skin burning and he might have retched if not for the cord wrapped around his neck.

The man laughed. "No use screaming, filth-fucker. Your whore die next. But I think I will first—"

The mage paused and frowned. "I will first—" Then, his eyes fluttered closed and he fell to one side with a thud. Behind him the woman—last of the three mages—stood with wide-eyed shock, her own glowing hand now glistened with her comrade's blood. Weeping quietly, she pulled at the cords around Adam's neck, her hands trembling uncontrollably and her nails digging into soft flesh.

Oxygen rushed back into Adam's lungs and he took a moment to cough and wheeze for the air that he desperately needed. "Thank y—"

"That was my brother, Sorcerer Supreme!" the woman cried hysterically, trembling hand gesturing wildly at the man fallen by her feet. "Now, go! Survive or we all die!"

She made a quick twisting gesture with her left hand and the cords around Adam's wrists tightened and dragged him up the wall. His shoulders protested at the sudden acceleration and for a while he panicked when the strain on his lungs prevented him from breathing again. Then, once he had reached on the rooftop, the cords fell away from his wrists and he fell on his back.

And he could breathe again, finally. He hungrily sucked in the air, panting and groaning, and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. When he had finally gathered himself, he turned his head and saw that he had landed a few feet from the red cloak, which was still wrapped protectively around Ruixian. He clamped one hand over his wound and crawled over to her.

"Ray. Are you okay? Ray." It took a few nudges before she stirred under the pile of cloth. "Ray, the bag. I can—"

A door banged open somewhere close by and men poured out to the rooftop, surrounding them on one side. "Don't move! Hold your hands up!" one of them shouted.

Sixteen men, to Adam's quick count, all armed with assault rifles and what looked like grenades. Even as he lay on the ground, he moved to raise his hands in surrender but the men open fired anyway. Quicker than thought, his robe detached itself from Ruixian and flew around them in a scarlet fury, easily arresting the rain of bullets, which fell around them in a perfect crescent.

"Ruixian, are you okay?" he asked over the sound of gunshot, twisting on the ground next to her. His breaths came quick and shallow and the strain of using the robe felt like a hammer striking his head.

"Adam, look," she said weakly, lifting a bony finger towards the sky.

Adam turned his head and followed her line of sight. The aircraft was hovering just above them, casting a shadow that wasn't there before. The insignia, painted in white against black, was clear and unmistakable even through the red haze of pain.

"It's over. We're done," Ruixian said as she closed her eyes and clutched his hand.

Adam's breath caught in his throat and his heart skipped a beat, made paralyzed and bloodless as if he had suddenly plunged in a pool of icy water. "Oh, no," he managed to croak in a half-voice filled with dread. A hatch opened from the ship's belly.

"They've sent an Avenger."