And Straif. Not too bright, but insanely strong, he’d do his mistress’s bidding no matter what she asked of him.”
“And these are all Alfar?” I whispered, waiting for the illusions to move, or blast us into oblivion, or something. But nothing happened.
“Ancient Alfar. From just after the Schism.”
“You mean just after the different factions were created?”
“Yes.”
“And what I saw in your tattoo… Before that they were like you?”
“Yes. Before that, there were only us. Hence the title ‘Original.’ ”
“But how did they change? What was the Schism, exactly?” I asked, feeling like I’d learned more substantive information about my new world in this past day than I had in the past six months.
She looked down at me, her face curiously blank. “You’ll touch that tattoo soon enough, babydoll,” she said, as her fingers found what looked like a large bull’s horn right below her left ear. “But for now, let’s figure out what the hell is going on.”
“Speaking of which,” I said, confident I could ask what I needed to ask since we’d been standing there gabbing and so far absolutely nothing had happened. “We need to talk.”
“Again?” Blondie asked.
“Again,” I said, diving right into the truth. “The way you traced over that glyph… you knew what it was supposed to be, didn’t you?”
Blondie paused. “Um… I haven’t been entirely honest with you,” she began.
I interrupted her with a frustrated sigh. “That’s the second time you’ve said that,” I said, testily. “I was really starting to feel like I knew you, and now this. How can I trust you if you hide things from me? And why do I sound like I’m the love interest in a bad made-for-TV movie?”
“I know,” Blondie said. “And I’m sorry. I’m not used to working with other people.”
“It isn’t hard,” I interrupted her, huffily. “You tell us what you know about the problem, and then we all conquer it together. Rather than doling out information like dog treats. Now, what is it you didn’t tell me this time?”
“There’s not a lot. It’s just that I know the glyph.” With that she stopped, as if my curiosity would be satisfied with such a total nonanswer.
“So how do you know the glyph?” I prompted.
“It’s common?” she asked. I just stared. “It’s complicated,” Blondie said, eventually. “But I swear to you, it’s not that I’m hiding something that puts you in danger. I have a source.”
“So, who is it?” I asked.
“It’s someone I can’t talk about. Someone very old. Someone I’m not supposed to have contact with.”
I frowned. “Why? Is it like a double agent?”
After a pause, Blondie nodded. “In a way, yes. You could definitely say that… a double agent.”
I wasn’t entirely satisfied, but at the same time I kept remembering touching her tattoos. I trusted her, damn it. I felt I’d seen what she was made of. And I also really liked her.
I want to trust her, I realized. For better or worse, I want her to be a friend.
So instead of arguing, or pursuing more answers, I merely nodded.
Blondie smiled at me, clearly relieved. But I shook my finger at her.
“You had better be telling me everything. I’m sick of being one step behind you. If there’s something I need to know, I wanna know now.”
“I know,” she said. “And I’m sorry.”
I nodded my head, accepting her apology. Then, as one, we turned back toward the silent, ghostlike figures. Blondie took my hand, again, and together we stepped forward. As if we’d flipped a switch, the four figures before us started to move.
There was no sound, but there didn’t need to be. The mist behind the huge statues took shape to create a translucent, sinister landscape. Behind the figures, swirls of mist came together to become a giant beast, which looked like the love child of an angler fish and a giant squid. Tentacles and teeth and weird dangling eyes were everywhere as the monster churned in front of us, a writhing mass of fog-hued flesh.
Calmly, majestically, the translucent figures of the long-dead Alfar confronted the beast, and we watched as they bested it after what had to be a vastly abridged version of a fight. While the creature, lashing and gyrating, fought what looked like itself, the Alfar calmly dispatched spell after spell. Eventually, one of the ghosts laid down, obviously slain in the battle, but it was done in the same way one lays down to begin doing crunches at the gym. Shortly thereafter, the creature also stopped moving, as if its