The Oasis's gates were arguably fancier (more high tech?) than Hizelk, or Enchantra's gates (or, heck, even Jupin's).

For one, the guards were lowering down on some sort of mechanical platform to greet them.

"Gate like this," Harper murmured. "Complex."

"Gates like this are... complex?" Maya guessed, but Harper shook her head.

"Harper means to say," Cassie broke in from where she'd tagged along with the group- since they all had to end up in the same place, anyway, so 'the more the merrier', Mevia had expressed, waving her fork lazily in the air at breakfast- "that she wanted a gate like this for Sky City, but it was too complex."

"Yeah. Stampy'd love this," Dan murmured, eyeing the cogs and gears and steam that spewed out into the air that made up the gate. "He's really into redstone."

Cassie, before Lukas, Aiden, and Mevia had all pounced on her in almost perfect unison and knocked her into the snow, had regaled Jesse's question of "Oh, Dan's your plus one?" with an incredibly detailed story of how some former lord had attended a party and been ambushed by a dozen servants of the lord who was hosting the party and killed.

Dan (whose hair was now so black it melted in with his clothes) had quietly wrapped up the story with "so now everyone has a plus-one for extra protection."

Jesse was sure they would be happier to have not heard about that particular incident, but it was good to know, they supposed.

One of the Yurin guards glared at the October Children. "We were informed that the lord of Narvid wasn't invited," he said, sharply, "why are his-"

"They're our plus-ones," Isa said calmly, "as well as the human. We wanted to have extra protection, so we've borrowed Romeo's contracts for the night."

Harper put a protective arm around Jesse.

"And your retainers?"

If Milo (who had quizzed Jesse on how buildings were constructed in the human world out of interest the whole stretch of path from Duomoon to the Oasis, to the point where Cassie was complaining quietly to Aiden about how much he talked) was offended at all by being called a retainer, he didn't show it- he simply bowed and extended his invitation. "Lord Xara sent me an invitation as well," he said politely.

The guard muttered something but held out his hand. "ID cards," he said snappily.

After what was perhaps the most infuriating extent of time where the guards would take the October Children's ID cards, inspect them for what felt like half an hour, and then hand them back with a suspicious stare, they were allowed to walk onto the platform and start going up.

"This is like a really slow elevator," Jesse said absently, peeking out at the snowy landscape.

It sparkled a lot. It was beautiful, even though the sky above burned red and the snow looked like specks of white speckled against blood.

One of the guards looked at Jesse. "This is the first city in Cosmos with proper elevators. What do you mean it's slow?" she asked, a bit haughtily.

Jesse was starting to wonder if everyone in Yurin was snobby.

Mevia's face gave that answer.

"In the human world there are a lot of elevators... they're fairly quick now, but they use mechanics and not-"

A huge blast of steam shot into the air, melting a flurry of snowflakes into just several drops of water that plummeted to the earth far below.

"... steam," Jesse finished.

The guard looked down their nose at Jesse. "I'm sure it's not nearly as charming as ours. Humans are notoriously behind the times."

"Well, yours certainly looks nicer," Jesse said, not wanting to start an argument or misinform an entire dimension (realm?) of demons on the wonders of the Internet. "A lot more steampunk."

Every single demon there proceeded to turn and stare at them. The only people who seemed unfazed were the October Children, Petra, and- interestingly enough- Jack.

Jesse proceeded to have to explain what 'steampunk' meant as the elevator began to rise.

The moment the Oasis came into view, Jesse ceased their stuttering explanation and just pointed at the city. Because the Oasis was very distinctly steampunk.

The buildings looked perhaps somewhat Victorian in nature, if Victorian buildings had pipes and steam whistles that blew out clouds of steam and cogs and gears that interlocked, powering railways that zipped through the city, what looked like elevators, and cobblestone roads that were shadowed over by huge blimps.

Harper murmured something about "elaborate" but wouldn't... well, elaborate on what she meant.

Lukas caught Jesse's elbow when they almost tripped walking up onto the monorail and helped them into the train car.

It looked like an old fashioned steam engine train, but with some parts stripped out and some others slotted in in order to increase the efficiency of the steam.

"Careful- there are some sharp bits around," he said carefully.

"What, humans can't take a scrape?" one of the guards asked- so loudly that every passenger's eyes flicked straight to the group.

Mevia locked the guard with a steely gaze. "They can. It's not like we were trying to keep our presence low and not draw attention to the human who could very easily be eaten that we're monitoring," she said, so coolly that her voice actually came off icy.

The guard started back, Mevia casually drumming her fingers on the handle of her axe.

The rest of the ride to the palace (or, well, the equivalent of a palace) was done with the Hizelk lords giving the guards scathing looks and the October Children crowding around Jesse to the point they were smothered.


The palace felt a lot more industrial, but in a fairly whimsical way.

Because that made sense.

The walls were almost overcrowded with cogs and gears and pipes, steam occasionally puffing out of one and making a musical little whistling sound. Jesse stuck close to Petra, who let them cling to her arm absently.

The guards opened the doors to Xara's office, allowing the group inside- Jack and Nurm hesitated, but followed when the guards shot them looks that made it clear that staying outside with the two guards would likely not be the most pleasant time.

The office was overcrowded- not with people, but with books. If Jesse had thought Romeo had a lot of book, Xara's office was absolutely overflowing with them. Leather books piled in orders, flipped open, haphazardly stacked, dog-eared, letting little inventions sit on top of books and huge cogs that were half-finished, all piled around a workbench that was poorly disguised as a desk.

A woman was standing with her entire body bent over the desk, tiny sparks flicking off whatever she

Xara looked up.

Her hair was a dark purple- not vibrant, but full and thick and wavy. Her eyes flashed red in her peaky, thin face, and Jesse could see her sharp knuckles and the bags under her eyes plain as day. She was either stressed, sleep-deprived, or both.

"Mevia. Isa. Harper," she said simply, giving them the briefest of smiles, before her eyes trailed to the October Children.

The faint smile immediately fell, her eyes burning like embers in a fire at the sight of them. Her face darkened at the sight of the group.

"We brought them as plus-ones for the event," Isa said, predicting what Xara was probably about to say and smoothly cutting in.

Actually, it might've been both.

It was probably both.

"You couldn't have brought anyone else?"

Aiden bowed politely, and deeply- he and Lukas tended to take turns speaking for the group, while Gill and Maya were usually quiet.

Jesse had once asked Gill if he was particularly bothered by it; he'd shaken his head and said that with how much Gill and Maya argued it'd come across as them sniping at each other in a serious situation, which was potentially offensive. With them in the background it'd just become some kind of background white noise.

"We're sorry for inconveniencing you in your own home. Our lord set Jesse out on a task to investigate the missing keys, and felt it was necessary for us to accompany them and keep them safe."

Xara's eyes flicked through everyone, trying to identify Jesse- then her eyes landed on them.

"Oh, the human..." She shifted, dusting some redstone off of her white tank top (which surprised Jesse- most of the other lords had fairly formal forms of dress. They supposed a dress would just get incredibly dirty if she was working with red dust).

Jesse nodded, waving at her slightly and shyly. "Um... hi..."

"Hi." Xara looked at the other lords. "So the October Children are here as an extra measure?"

"We believe it's necessary," Isa said simply.

Xara grunted at that. "Might be helpful, I guess. Long as he's not coming." She rubbed her hand down her face, smearing a smudge of redstone all along the side of her face.

"Have you stopped working recently?" Isa tsked and brushed some redstone off the desk.

"No, because Cassie's stopped coming to Yurin meetings so I don't really have a reason to clean up," Xara grumbled.

Cassie shot her a dirty look at that, but was too busy scratching Winslow's face and making the cat purr like a car engine.

"What's the plan for the keys during the party?" Jack asked, giving her a low bow for courtesy.

Xara considered this, drumming her fingers on her arm. "It'll be safer if all the lords at the party who still have their keys can keep them somewhere not on their person... the last thing we need is for a lord to get attacked."

Nurm signed something; Jack nodded at him gratefully and translated, "That's understandable, but will there be a guard posted?"

"Ivor's planning on adding enchantments around a vault I've made. We'll carry around fake keys, to avoid suspicion-"

Xara reached out and casually lifted a staff. Jesse hadn't noticed it before, but the moment Xara's hand touched the metal shaft, the faint, spidery symbols carved into the staff burst into iridescent gleams.

"You've been keeping the real key with you?" Mevia was regarding it with interest.

Xara nodded. "I felt it was safer for the time being. The fake-"

She picked up an identical staff, which did glow under her touch, but when Jesse looked closer they noticed that the symbols were a little more clumsy, a little less careful, and the tip of the staff wasn't brighter than the glowing symbols.

"- is actually fairly good. Got it off the black market back at home. Apparently they sell fakes of it for an exorbitant price."

"That seems like a bit of a rip-off," Jesse said, without thinking.

(Reuben perked up at their burst of confidence.)

"It is, so I... acquired it," Xara said, keeping ahold of the real one and setting the fake one firmly off to the side.

Harper gave her a flat look. "Stole it," she said simply.

"I didn't say that. I merely acquired it, Harper." Xara paused, before giving a slightly mischievous grin. "Though whether that acquiring process was legal or not is a completely different matter."

Hadrian rubbed his brow and muttered something about how he now thought she murdered the seller now with how vague that statement was.

Xara smirked but wiggled the key. "We don't want to keep a guard- we want to catch the culprit in the act, if possible. The enchantments should set off an alarm- whereas stationed guards will be able to apprehend them."

Petra sucked in a breath. "Oh. The safe isn't a safekeeping device..."

If Xara's grin had been mischievous earlier, it was now downright wicked.

"It's a trap."


A/N: yaaay smart plan?

i have midterms next week. yaaaaay xD

4.

Responses to reviews!

Toni42: Hehe x3

Happygoluckymegami: xD It was a terrible joke, I'm sorry. / Yeah, Cassie's not gonna have the most fun time.

DubstepDragon14: Aww, that sucks dude :/ hope it'll get fixed! But also yes Yurin's. Um. Not the most friendly place haha.

jessicanightmarewolf: Thank you!

TheAmberShadow: More likely she would've dragged Mevia awake to paint her instead. Potentially Hadrian since he's got insomnia. / Hehe :D / Yep, his, uh, beautiful nose. / She's been delegated to a cameo haha / ;P / Dan's outfit's interesting, but I can't share it yet haha.

x.X. A.L. X.x