Pitch glared at the door for a few moments then huffed. He readjusted his trench coat, then rubbed his right shoulder. Obscurus had so much physical strength that he'd felt like a ragdoll being tossed by a child, and that wall was made of stone. It didn't feel broken or dislocated, so he rolled his shoulder around, then turned to the group. Jack stood up, revealing the pocket dimension rucksack that Pitch had given him before they'd gotten off the ship, and Pitch cautiously glanced at the faces around him before focusing on Jack.
"I see you found them, Frost," Pitch said. "Any word from Nightlight?"
"He's going deeper," Jack replied, reaching up to touch his collarbone where the crystal rested beneath his hoodie. "I've marked my map. Lunar has it."
Pitch couldn't help glancing at his old friend for a moment. He looked fine, healthy even, and unaffected by anything. He looked back at Jack. "I'll look at it later."
There was a loud wail, and Pitch flinched, looking over to the corner. He scanned the shuddering form, and he blinked. He was surprised that the poor thing hadn't been helped by now. Had Lunar become heartless since he'd last seen him? No, he couldn't have. Especially not for this poor child. She was cowering and sobbing so loudly that it was grating on Pitch's ears. Jack looked over at her, shivering.
"What's that thing?"
Pitch shook his head disapprovingly. "Don't call her a thing, Frost."
"Her?" Lunar asked, sounding surprised.
The Nightmare King turned to appraise his old friend. "Yes, Lunar, her. She's clearly in pain, but that's no reason to call her a thing."
Pitch became aware that he was the recipient of five hard stares. He glanced around their faces, seeing shock, incredulity, and pure disbelief. Pitch was in disbelief himself.
"You're the Guardians of Childhood. Don't tell me you've been calling this poor girl a thing the whole time you've been here."
"No," Lunar said slowly. "We've been calling… her a wraith." He paused. "How can you tell she's a girl?"
Pitch hadn't expected that question. He looked back at the sobbing shadow, and he took in her appearance. She was exceedingly thin, but she had been old enough that her body had begun to develop. Her hair was bedraggled and hung in her face, but that didn't hide the beautiful feminine face that peeked out. How could Lunar ask such a ridiculous question?
"It's obvious she's a girl, Lunar," Pitch said coldly.
"Is it?" Jack asked into the awkward silence.
Pitch huffed. "What do you mean, Frost?"
"It… Sorry, she looks like a thin shadow. I can't tell what sex she is."
Bewilderment didn't even begin to explain Pitch's feelings. He shook his head.
"Look at her face, Jack!"
"What face?" Jack asked uneasily.
Pitch uncrossed his arms and stared hard at the boy. He wasn't lying, wasn't joking. He really couldn't tell she was a little girl. But why not? He blinked again then turned to appraise the girl. Her bare feet were pale against the black stone cavern. Her dress was tattered and barely went down to her knees. She had clearly grown a lot while she had been a prisoner because the dress was for a smaller child. Pitch rubbed his chin.
"You can't see her face?" he asked.
"It's just a void, Pitch," Jack replied. "It's a shadow. There's no features."
Pitch stared hard at Jack for a few moments then shrugged. "Whether or not you all can tell what sex she is, why haven't you sent her on?"
"On?" Lunar asked. "What do you mean by on?"
"On! On!" Pitch exclaimed irritably. "On to the other side of the veil! To the other world! Surely you can tell she's suffering! Listen to her, Lunar! Why not send her on to give her peace?"
Once again, the five older Guardians stared at him, but Jack had drawn closer to the girl, trying desperately to see her features. Pitch looked around and his irritation grew closer to real anger. With a cry of frustration, he turned around and strode toward the girl.
"Fine! I'll do it myself! I thought you were better than this, Lunar!"
"But Prism, we can't touch…"
Lunar trailed off as Pitch set his hand on the wraith. His thin hand did not go through the wraith's narrow, shadowy shape as each of theirs had. Instead, it settled onto a dark, hunched part of the form. And then North gave an oath as Toothiana screamed, and Sandy stepped back as Bunnymund shot upright. All of them stared in disbelief at what was happening to the wraith. Because it wasn't a wraith any longer.
Almost in slow motion, like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon, the beautiful outline of a girl began to bloom out of the shadow. As they watched, the black of her form turned silvery white. The thin, bonelike structure that they saw filled out with flesh. Her entire body was suddenly clear as day, and they saw that it was a girl. Pitch's hand was resting on a pale shoulder, encased in a tattered purple cloth. The girl sat up straight and looked around in bewilderment. Then she looked up at Pitch, and her fear disappeared as if by magic. The Guardians all belatedly realized that she had stopped crying as soon as Pitch had touched her.
Pitch knelt down, gently tilting the girl's head up. "It's alright, little one."
"Who are you?" she asked, her musical voice light and curious.
"I'm Pitch Black."
She made a face. "You're not black. You're silver."
Pitch's lips quirked. "Call me Prism, then, little one. And you are?"
"Prism," she said thoughtfully. "Yeah. I like Prism better. I'm Alicia. Have you seen my mommy?"
"I'm afraid not," Pitch said. "How did you come here?"
Alicia's face twisted. "That tall dark man. He came to our planet and stole me from my bed. He… He did things. Things I don't understand. He made me hurt a lot. Then one day, everything went dark. And I've been so dark and cold and afraid for a long time. But you made it better."
Pitch pressed his thin lips together. "I try. Don't worry. Shadow Man can't hurt you anymore."
"Why not?"
A sharp expression flashed over Pitch's face, and Jack saw something that made his heart freeze. He knew that look. It was a look he'd seen on North's face, on Toothiana's, on Bunnymund's and Sandy's. It was the exact look that defined how he felt when a child was in danger. And a wild thought slammed into him with such force that he couldn't speak. All he could do was stand there dumbly and watch as Pitch comforted this dead child.
"Because I won't let him," Pitch replied. "Because you're going to a place that he can't follow."
"I'm going on a journey?" Alicia asked excitedly. "Are you coming with me?"
"I will follow later, Alicia," Pitch said calmly. "When my time comes, I will follow. But not yet. Perhaps soon. Hush now! Do you hear that?"
The older Guardians listened hard, but they heard nothing. But Jack gasped and lit up like the sun.
"Someone's calling for her!" he said, bouncing up and down on his heels.
For he could plainly hear a woman calling the child's name. Pitch tilted his head, and he actually smiled. Alicia jumped to her feet, a beaming smile on her face.
"Mama!" she shouted. "Where are you, Mama?"
"Here! Oh, darling, I'm here! Come to me!"
Jack couldn't tell where the voice was coming from, and he looked around wildly, then his gaze settled on the little girl again. She was staring hard at the blank wall, her eyes wide with wonder.
"Oh! Mama! Mama! I want to! May I? May Prism come, too?"
Pitch shook his head, answering for the woman. "I tell you, I will follow later, dear Alicia. Come, your mother is calling for you."
And he stood up, holding out his hand. She clutched at his hand then hurried toward the wall. She reached up then paused and looked back, her face falling.
"You really can't come, can you?" she asked sadly. "You won't go through. The ones with wings say you won't."
"Not yet." Pitch knelt down and placed his hands on her shoulders. "You go ahead. I promise one day I will join you. When you get there, find Anthea. She knows me. She'll show you around. And I want you to pick all the flowers you can for me."
"Flowers?" Alicia lit up again. "Yeah! I'll pick so many! And then when you come, I'll give you a bunch." Her smile faded, and fear suddenly worked its way into her voice. She looked over her shoulder. "I can't come back, can I?"
"You won't want to," Pitch replied.
And he smiled again, a warm, gentle smile that was so unlike anything that most of them knew. Only Jack was close enough to see Pitch's eyes shimmering and shifting between gold and silver again. But they all saw when the fear drained from her face, and she relaxed. She took a deep breath then turned around.
"I'm ready to go now, Prism."
Pitch nodded and stood up, patting her shoulders. "Then go."
She reached up to her chest and her hand came away with a small, golden coin. Lunar and Sandy gaped, but Pitch didn't notice. He held out his hand, and she dropped the shining gold into his palm. He curled his dark fingers over the coin and smiled again.
"Thank you very much, Alicia. Go on now. Your mother is eager to see you again. You have been away for a very long time."
She stared at the wall for a moment then ran forward, throwing a wave over her shoulder. And then she disappeared. For a brief moment, the outline of a large, shining door could be seen by the Guardians, then it faded into black, leaving Pitch standing there, staring at the blank wall. He exhaled heavily then held up the coin to examine it. Jack bounded over.
"Can I see it?" he asked. "What is it? What did you do? How did you do it? Where'd she go? How do you know you'll go there?"
Pitch glanced at him then handed him the coin and replied to each question in turn, "Yes, you may see it. It's a soul coin. I sent her onward past the veil of death. I just did it. She went to the other world. And I'll go there because everybody goes there."
Jack's eager fingers traced the coin, which seemed to have a glow that rivaled Lunar's. He grinned, holding it up to gaze at the pretty gold. Words were etched on it in a strange language.
"What does it say?" he asked, handing it back to Pitch.
Pitch scanned the coin, pursing his lips. "It's her core aspects. I won't read them aloud because the only language you can understand the true meaning in is the one you don't speak aloud just for any reason."
"You mean that Ancient language you used against the shadow thing on the moon?" Jack asked.
Pitch nodded, gazed at the coin, then slipped it into his pocket. "I'll add it to my collection."
"Collection?" Lunar asked, and Pitch turned to glare at his old friend.
"Yes, collection. What of it?"
"You have a collection of soul coins?" Lunar asked, his face intense. "How? Why?"
"Is that a big deal?" Bunnymund asked cautiously.
"A big deal!" Lunar exclaimed, spinning to face the other Guardians. "Yes! Soul coins are the rarest relic from any age of this universe! They are so rare that I've never seen one. My parents never saw one! Sanderson has been almost everywhere, and he hasn't seen one!" He turned to stare at Pitch. "And you have a collection? How many?"
Pitch crossed his arms. "Over 100,000."
That number was so staggering that Sandy sat down hard, and even Lunar stumbled back to clutch at the wall. He stared at Pitch as if he had never seen him before. He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. Then he stood straight and placed his hands behind his back.
"Explain, Prism. How did you get such a collection?"
Pitch shrugged one shoulder. "Doing exactly what I just did. If you had done it, she would have given it to you. I thought you were better than that, Lunar. Why didn't you help that poor child?"
"I couldn't do it, Prism," Lunar said calmly. "I couldn't touch her. None of us could. She was crying and screaming for weeks, and we couldn't touch her. We went right through her. She was noncorporeal. We saw what Jack saw, not what you saw. We saw a thin, shadowy wraith with no distinguishable features. There was no way for us to help her. We tried, but nothing worked. We didn't know she was a child. All we knew was that she was in pain, and we couldn't help her."
Pitch frowned, shifting uneasily. "You're kidding, right?"
Lunar tilted his head. "Why do you think I'm kidding, Prism?"
The Nightmare King snorted. "You're being ridiculous."
"Am I? Or are you refusing to admit that you possess something that I don't have?"
That was too much for Pitch Black. He made a derisive noise in his throat, shaking his head.
"Me, possess a power that the great Tsar Lunar Lunanoff XII doesn't have?" he scoffed. "That's ridiculous."
"It is?" Jack asked.
Pitch turned his head to appraise Jack once again. "Of course, Frost. Their family was the greatest in all of the Golden Age. Me, a poor little Darkling with a bizarre genetic mutation, possess something that the Tsar doesn't have? No, that's not possible."
Jack stuck his hands in his hoodie pocket then turned to Lunar. "Can you control ice and snow, then?"
Lunar smiled and shook his head. "I cannot. Not as you can."
The boy turned back to Pitch. "So… I possess a power he doesn't have. Why can't you?"
Pitch's face darkened as heat rushed to his cheeks. "That's beside the point."
Jack frowned. "You're just saying that because you don't believe you have anything good and unique inside of you."
The Nightmare King scowled. "Drop it, Frost."
The Spirit of Fun, who was as serious as he could be, shook his head. "No. You don't think you're allowed to be special in any way. You just sent a dead child on, or whatever, and Lunar and the other Guardians couldn't even touch her. You have a collection of soul coins that prove that you've had this ability for most of your life. There is so much evidence that you do possess something that nobody else has. If that's not proof, then I don't know what is."
Pitch stubbornly shook his head. "Ridiculous," he stated again.
"If it is so ridiculous," Lunar said softly. "Then why does Obscurus only want you."
"What are you talking about, Lunar?" Pitch growled. "He wanted you. He stole you, not me."
"Because he knew you would come for me," Lunar replied. "As you can see, none of us are harmed in any way. He has starved us, yes, but we can handle that. He hasn't tried to break my power or hurt me or done anything that would indicate that he wanted to destroy me and my lineage. He has been after you this whole time."
Pitch opened his mouth to protest, but Jack interfered. "Yeah. I bet he went after me to get to you, too. He couldn't take you because of my storm, so he figured out another way to get you. You said yourself that he knew that you would go after Lunar."
The Nightmare King stared between Lunar and Jack, who had inexplicably teamed up to attack him. After all he'd done for both of them, and they were trying to humiliate him! Without another word, he turned on his heel and stormed over to the corner where the little girl had been. He plopped down, leaned back, and closed his eyes. As far as he was concerned, this conversation was over. Lunar and Jack seemed to realize they'd pushed him too far because they dropped it and turned back to the rest of the Guardians.
But Jack only half-listened to the conversation that North and Bunnymund was having. His mind was swirling around the shocking thought that had slammed into him as Pitch had comforted that dead child. Could it be possible that it was true? If so, what was the exact nature of his power, of his title? Was Lunar even aware of what Jack now knew for certain? He didn't know, but he wasn't going to say anything yet. Not with North and the others glancing over with shadows dancing in their eyes as they glared at Pitch. But still, Jack wondered, and wondering, he marveled at Pitch Black, at Prism, once again.
