Part 12-3
"Do not prize the greater good. Treasure the little goods, the tiny embers in even the blackest heart. And nurture those embers. Even the smallest flame can light a beacon. Evil might say that this is trite and inane, but such words are merely bluster from those scared of the soft glow of hope."
– Dei
The Grand Archives of the university stretched upwards against the black sky. The structure, rebuilt just a few years ago in the latest baroque style with increased fortifications, appeared untouched. Louise took in the unsmashed golems, the not-set-on-fire sentinels and the still-animate suits of armour just waiting to spring into action, and winced.
It appeared that Eleanore knew rather more evil magic than she did. She'd somehow got in without setting off any of the guardians. What terrible power! Obviously ten years of academia had taught her something.
"Cattleya?" Louise asked. "Do you have any ideas on how to get in?"
Cattleya frowned. "Well, I could turn into a giant bat and carry everyone up onto the roof. There might be a door up there."
"Hmm." Louise considered her alternatives. It certainly seemed better than going in through the killing field of the front. And she didn't want to hope that they'd been silly and left the back unguarded. There'd probably be all sorts of traps back there. No, she'd definitely prefer to come in through an unexpected entrance. "Good idea."
"Right-o!" Cattleya said, already unbuttoning her dress. "One monstrous bat shape, coming right up!"
Louise grinned. "Oh, I don't need you to carry me." She flicked her wand. "Levitate!" Gently, her feet lifted off the ground. "It's rather wonderful, don't you think?"
Cattleya froze up, fanged mouth wide open. "I… excuse me?"
"Oh, did I forget to mention? Without the cursed evil power afflicting me, I'm a terribly strong wind mage."
"Then why you no fly when you is normal?" Scyl asked reasonably.
"It… it doesn't work. When I tried the levitation spell, it nearly blew up in my hand. By which I mean, it nearly blew up my hand." Louise drifted upwards. "I'll see you up there!"
Cattleya blinked. "Wait, no, wait for a moment!" She scowled, her features taking on a monstrous cast and turning grey-black as she shed her clothes. "She needed to carry my dress! Fettid! No stealing it!"
Drifting upwards, Louise landed elegantly on the lead-coated rooftop, and resisted the urge to dance for joy. It was so good to be good! And-
Stone crunched behind her. Louise turned, and then swallowed. The gargoyle on the clock tower was peeling itself away from the brickwork. With a noise like a landslide, it clattered down onto the lead roof, bending the metal under its weight. It had to be three times her height, and many times broader. Ornamental copper armour shed flakes of verdigris as the gargoyle flexed its muscles, hefting a poleaxe big enough to decapitate a dragon.
Throwing its head back, it moved as if to roar but made no noise.
"Lightning Bolt!"
Thunder boomed, and the gargoyle's left leg shattered. Arms pinwheeling, the stone statue lost its balance and fell over sideways. The roof gave way under its bulk and it collapsed through the building, shattering with the noise of a thousand dropped teapots.
Smugly, Louise watched it fall. The end of her borrowed wand smoked in the cold air. With a slow exhalation, she blew the smoke away. And then she started coughing.
Founder, that had been nearly perfect! That'd been when she'd dreamed of doing her whole life! Not the coughing, but everything else! Mother probably wouldn't accidentally inhaled some of the smoke, but that just meant she had room to improve.
"Did you see that?" she demanded of the giant-bat-shaped Cattleya and the minions as they settled down on the roof
"See what?" asked the bat, speaking too loudly. "What was that far too loud noise? I'm a bat! I have very sensitive ears!"
"I was so incredible! A giant gargoyle attacked me and I blew off its leg and then it fell over and that's why there's a hole in the roof!"
Louise couldn't help but feel that the bat was eyeing her suspiciously. "Well, I'm sure you did really well," Cattleya said.
"You don't believe me."
"No, no, of course I do. I'm sure you killed a gargoyle, even though you were really scared. I just think it was probably helped by how weak the roof was. Giant stone statues shouldn't be standing on lead roofs."
"I wasn't scared! And it was ten metres high!"
Cattleya fluttered down, her shape twisting to become more of a hideous hybrid of man and bat. "I'm sure it felt that way," she said, sounding very reasonable for a monster with a mouth full of finger-length fangs.
"I think the little oversister are not very bad at judging the size of things what are much taller than her. And that are a lot of things," said a minion who was trying to be a voice in the crowd, but who Louise knew to be Scyl. It was hard for five minions to be a crowd.
Louise pouted, and sighed. "Well, thanks to the giant gargoyle I killed in one spell," she said, "there's a giant hole in the roof. Caused by the giant gargoyle. So that gives us a way in. Now, Eleanore and the other minions will be down there. However, fortunately I have a plan. I'll just need one of the minions to go down in disguise, to infiltrate their ranks and subvert them from within and…"
"Count on me, comrade!" Char said, puffing up his chest. From within a stinking inner pocket, he pulled out a pair of spectacles, half a turnip, and a moustache. Louise wondered who that had originally belonged to. "I is a master of dis-guys, you know! I has a whole new personality I use when I is being a redvolutionary." He put on the glasses, the moustache, and stuck the turnip on his nose. "I no are Char Marks! I are now Grouchy!"
Louise stared. "What kind of an idiot would fall for—"
"Hey, where did Char go?" Fettid asked. "Oh, hey, that are Grouchy. Where he come from? I no think any other minions stay loyal."
"… minions. Yes. Right." Louise massaged her temples. "For once, I am glad that the overlady is surrounded by idiots. Very well. So, while Char…"
"Where Char?"
"Shut up. While… Grouchy works his way into their ranks, me and Cattleya will approach around the back and…" Louise paused. There was a certain lack of vampire in the surrounding area. "Catt?"
"Oh yeah, she turn into a mist and floaty float away," Scyl said helpfully. "Down through the hole what are in the roof."
"Catt! Get back here right now!" But Cattleya didn't return. And Louise had a fairly certain idea of where her big sister was headed.
"Oh, sugar," she groaned.
One of the horrifically mutated servants of Baelogji had escaped the minions and had retreated upstairs to lick her wounds and regain her strength. She felt very faint – and had done so ever since her neck had grown to such an extent that she was twice her previous height. She wasn't sure why she needed such a long neck, but surely there was a purpose to the actions of her goddess.
Something moved, far below her eye level. Could it be one of those damnable minions? But no, it was something else entirely. A creeping mist roiled and boiled its way along the higher levels of the Grand Archives. Where it went, silver tarnished and shadows thickened.
She flinched and tried to run. All this managed was slam her head into a chandelier, and she collapsed to her hands and knees. This somehow felt much more right, and her hands and feet suddenly seemed to realise that this gave her a more stable platform and started fusing together.
"I'm awfully sorry," the mist asked her, "but given you're a freakish twisted cultist, do you know what you have for blood? Oh wait, never mind, you have open wounds and it looks delicious and red, and not at all like that awfully nasty copper-ish blue-green blood that the last one of you had. Jolly sorry for bothering you!"
And then the mist was upon her, welling up to surround her entirely, and there only time to scream once, in a voice that was nearly a bray. Then there was silence.
The desiccated corpse of something which looked like a sick fusion of human and a ridiculously long-necked deer hit the ground. Their shrivelled grey skin was covered in countless tiny puncture marks. And the mist moved on, now accompanied by a faint shushing noise. In its wake, it dragged the black robe the twisted cultist had been wearing.
"Oi. Snot? Do you hear something?" asked Leg, ears perking up.
Snot and Leg were two of the minions who Coddy had ordered to form an 'outer perry-metre at the tacty-cool ten-four double'. Since they didn't know how to do that, they were just guarding the place instead. "Hear what? The scream?"
"Nah, that are just a cultist being killed. It are sort of a rustle rustle rustle noise."
"They must be a rustler? They is here to steal the overlady's stuff!"
"Could be, could be." Leg put his hands behind his head. "I reckon that it are prob'ably another one of them cultists. Ain't that right, mysterious and creepifying mist?"
The mist that had snuck up on them giggled. "That's awfully funny! I am misterious. Because I'm a mist! But more seriously, do you know where Eleanore has gone?"
"Well, she went down below through that place what we are all guarding," began Snot. "Down in the basement and all…"
"Oi," interrupted Leg, "you is the oversister what has always been the oversister. I dunno if we is meant to be letting you—"
And then Cattleya coalesced into a naked vampire, tore their heads off, and very carefully drunk none of their blood at all. Red light gleamed in her eyes as she unhinged her jaw, revealing a mouth full of needle-like teeth. Her fingernails were more akin to daggers than anything that might be carefully painted at an all-girls non-de-la-Vallière sleepover.
"This is the last time I go do something in a fancy dress that Jessica hasn't bespelled to shapechange with me," she muttered, donning the stolen robe. "Awfully sorry for that, you little cuties. Don't worry, Louise will be able to have the adorable blues bring you back. But I may need to massacre a teeny tiny few of you if you get between me and my big sister. Now, where are the rest?"
Minonly screams echoed from down below. Louise paused in her attempt to carefully, subtly, and cunningly ease her way down an old squeaky staircase without making any noise.
"Oh, dang it, Catt," she growled. "Why don't you give away that they're not alone in here? I went to all this effort to get in here quietly…"
"Didn't you make a golem fall in through the roof?" Scyl asked. "That no are quiet."
"… get in here quietly," Louise said, ignoring him, "and then you had to just rush in. Do you think Char will have had time?"
"Who?" asked Fettid, idly stabbing a book to keep in practice.
"Shut up. Char and Grouchy are the same person. Have you ever seen them in the same place at the same time?" Fettid's mouth fell open as her brain short-circuited from shock. "Maggat?"
"Dunno," he said, hefting his club. "But if the oversister are killing all the minions, it are making the odds more even."
"Yes," Maxy agreed. "Also, she are making the evens more odd. It depends whether there is an odd or an even number of minions when she kills one."
Louise blinked. Was that a maths joke from a… oh, wait, Maxy. She probably should watch him. He might be smart enough to realise that she had no intentions of ever becoming the overlady again. "What to do?" she whispered to herself. No, she couldn't rely on either the minions or Cattleya. But Cattleya was audibly killing a lot of minions – and if she delayed too long, most of those minions would be back on their feet.
Oh well. Strike while they're distracted by your mother, as her father had always said.
"Let's go!" she ordered, giving up any care for stealth. It was easy to see Cattleya's passage, because of all the eviscerated minions painting the floor. And walls. And ceilings.
The minions who had been fortunate enough to be somewhere else were flocking back to the commotion. They were panicking, and that in itself was unusual. Minions usually were too dense to show fear. Moreover, none of them had the magical brand on their left hands, and Louise's eyes lit up at that. Her sister hadn't got the magical loyalty of the minions! Oh, that was wonderful! There was still hope!
"Stop it! You no is allowed here!" one of them shouted at her. Others turned, and some of them were raising weapons.
"Do you know who I am?" Louise asked, glaring at the minion horde.
"You is the overla—" began one of the minions, before he got smashed in the head by a poleaxe. Louise wasn't sure why there was a telescope tied to the weapon, but it was probably because minions were stupid.
"You is the little oversister," the head-smasher said, and cast a gimlet eye over the crowd. "She no are the overlady no more."
"That isn't what I asked you?" Louise said, her voice level and calm. "'Overlady' is just a title. So I'll ask again. Do you know who I am?"
The minion blew a raspberry at her. "Do you know who I are? I are Coddy, I are the chief minion what no are Gnarl, and I are telling you to jog on. You ain't the overlady no more, so you can't tell us what to do!"
Louise crossed her arms and glared down at the sea of minions, tapping her foot. "I am Louise de la Vallière," she said in a clear voice. "I am no longer your overlady, no." She smiled. "I now walk my mother's path."
The minions stared at her blankly. Or, rather, she realised with dawning horror, more specifically they were looking at her feet.
"I no see a pa—"
"I am the daughter of Karin of the Heavy Wind," Louise said, not quite fast enough to avoid minion stupidity. "You know about her. You know how many creatures much more powerful than you she's killed. And," she whispered a word, and sparks began to drink from the end of her wand, "I am a wind mage. Just. Like. Her."
"Argh! It are the Karin but smaller!" a voice called out from the crowd. Louise recognised Char's voice. "We is gonna need to run away right now! The Karin has taught her, so we can see her and we is only moments from double-death!"
Panic and confusion broke out in the ranks of the minions.
"Panic!"
"We is confused!"
"Let's go loot stuff what no are here!"
Coddy brained one of the nearby minions who was about to turn tail. "Idiots! This no are the Karin! And we is minions! We no is meant to be scared!"
"Well, if you says you is the head minion what no is Gnarl," Maggat called out, "then I are gonna fight you in a one-on-one fight for that title! Winner gets all the loot of the other!"
Even the noise of the minions panicking fell to a dull roar. A minion, willing to gamble all his loot on such a fight? Unthinkable! Coddy wetted his lips hungrily. "I no are gonna fall for that. You is just gonna have Fettid stab me inna back."
"So?" Maggat grinned. "Any minion what no are cunning enough to do that no are worth to be leader."
There was a general consensus of nods from the other minions. That was just common sense.
"Ha! I no need to fight you, Maggat. I got lots of minions around me! They is all loyal to the real overlady!"
"But she no are even the real overlady!" Char shouted out from the crowd. "Why she no give us the mark? She no make us her servants! So she no are our overlady!"
"Who said that?" Coddy yelled.
"Me! I are Ch… Grouchy! I are just a humble red, but I no want an overlady who no need us!"
"You is a traitor!"
"How can I be a traitor if she no are the overlady?"
This was just wasting time. Louise's eyelid twitched. She didn't want to listen to the minions arguing what amounted to politics. Plus, they had totally ruined her line about being her mother's daughter. No one was taking her seriously, and she was a hero now! Was she just too darn short and delicate looking to be taken seriously as a hero? That was it! She needed a heroic helmet! It worked as the overlady, so it'd work now!
"Ahem!" She tapped her foot, and briefly wished for her metal boots. They just made a much more intimidating tapping noise. "Stop arguing and pay attention to me! I am Louise de la Vallière, daughter of Karin de la Vallière, and I will kill you all if you don't get out of the way! Are you going to move?"
Coddy snorted. "I bet the overlady are gonna reward me proper if I…"
"Chain Lightning!"
The other minions stared at Coddy's smoking boots. The rest of him had gone AWOL, leaving only his shins behind. And he wasn't the only strangely missing minion. The bolt had leapt from target to target, scything down targets like wheat. Some peculiarity of the magic meant that blue minions had taken the brunt of the spell.
"Ouchie," Scyl said from his nice safe position behind Louise. "Lightning ain't a friend for us."
"It are 'cause you is all wet," Fettid said, a malicious grin on her lips.
"Would you look at that?" Louise said, in the same clear voice. "I killed your healers. The only one left is Scyl and he's on my side. Do you fear death, minions? Because if I kill you, you'll be staying dead." She tilted her head. "Or perhaps a better question would be 'Do you fear me?'." Because I can kill you. I know how you come back to life. I've killed your blues. If you stand in my way, I'll have your bodies thrown in the river so no one will ever find them." She paused. "Well, what is it? Do you fear me?"
"… okay-dokey, maybe you is the daughter of the Karin. And a wind magic-y girl," a viscera-covered minion conceded.
"I just wanna say that this was all Coddy's idea!"
"Yeah, yeah, we no involved. We was just pillaging…"
"And looting!"
"Yeah, and looting!"
Louise pointed her wand at the minions, and rejoiced at the way they shifted away. Wasn't that strange? For the first time, she felt the minions truly feared her. She'd ordered them executed before, but they'd faced that with the same cheerful nature they took most threats. But now? Now, she had them scared.
"I wonder who's in charge now?" she asked in a low voice.
The minions before her looked around. "Grouchy!" one of them volunteered. "He now the boss."
"Yeah, if he in charge, we no get killed by the tiny Karin."
"Ah ha!" 'Grouchy' postured. "Now I is in charge! We is gonna see some changes around here! 'Cause I is the elected leader of this minion so-vet, and that means we can get rid of the boor-swah-see! For, you see, I is actually Char! Viva la Redvolution!"
"No, you is not Char! Don't be silly, Grouchy!"
Char removed his fake glasses and moustache. Then he pulled off the turnip from his nose and ate it.
"Oh wait, no, he are just Char," said a very disappointed green.
"Go to the Abyss, Char," groaned a brown, "we no are interested in your stoopid Redvolution. You no is our leader."
"Easy now, boss lady, easy now," Maggat said, hefting his club. "I guess you lot should get outta her way. I no know how much longer I can hold her back. 'Cause, you know, the blood of the Karin are talking to her. So maybe if you is still seeing her, you is gonna die. So runnin' away are probably the only way to not double-die."
The other minions ran away.
Louise nodded. "Maggat," she said. "I expect you to chase them down and beat them into proper order. And make sure no one else tries to follow me down here. I need to deal with my sister alone."
Maggat seemed torn between orders explicitly telling him to beat people up, and whatever loyalty to Louise existed in his filthy heart. "Should be keeping you safe, boss-lady," he grumbled.
"And the way to do that is to stop me being swamped by those minions trying to help Eleanore, if she starts ordering them with the Gauntlet," Louise said. "Now, go."
"I dunno," Maxy said. "Is that something she'd really—"
"Go!"
They went. Louise took a deep breath, running her fingers through her hair. Her sisters were down there. Both of them. One of them was the overlady, and knew far more spells than she ever had. The other was a blood crazed vampire with a grudge. She wasn't sure what she could do, but she knew what she would do.
Louise headed down to do the right thing.
Broken magical wards sparked in the darkness of the lower levels. Eleanore had smashed through ancient doors and new spells alike, and the shattered remnants of golems marked where magical guardians had tried to stop her.
She stood in front of a magical circle that glowed a dull purple. Lines within it formed a pentagram, but a clock-like pair of hands had been added to the chalk markings. If one looked closely, it could be seen that the hands were moving. The crystal holding the trapped souls of Athe, Baelogji and Françoise-Athenais lay in the middle of the circle, where the purple light was brightest. Sharp words in the Dark Tongue spilled from her lips, read from the prematurely aged book she held in her hands. Her eyes burned bright yellow, the light shining out from under her stolen helmet.
Cattleya stared at Eleanore from the shadows, eyes glowing red. Her breath escaped between her fangs in a low hiss. Her skin was pallid and drawn tight over her skull; her lips had receded slightly making her teeth more prominent.
Eleanore shouldn't be doing that. Eleanore was bad. Cattleya wasn't meant to kill good people. Both her parents and Louise had been very clear about that.
But Eleanore wasn't good. Not anymore. And she had wanted to make her big sister hurt for a very, very long time. She wanted to make her suffer. There was no reason not to make her pay for every night of darkness; every hunger pang; every nightmare of waking up with the Bloody Duke latched onto her.
Eleanore fell silent, closing the book with a heavy snap.
"I know you're out there," she said softly. "You make the scar I got from Graf Roteblut ache."
Cattleya reflexively inhaled, even though she had no need to breathe. Some habits were hard to break. Folding her hands behind her back, she stepped forwards into the edge of the circle of light cast by the ritual. "What of it?" she asked.
Eleanore's face was a mask. "Cattleya, go home," she said. "You shouldn't be involved in this."
"You can't make me do anything," Cattleya said. Anger broiled in her gut. She could smell Eleanore's sweet blood, dripping from self-inflicted cuts on her palms.
"You should be back with Mother and Father. You shouldn't be caught up in Louise's foolishness."
"Or what? You'll kill me?" Cattleya laughed – cold and sharp and quite unlike her normal temperament. "Like I need to care about that. I've died once today already." She paused, red eyes narrow. "Death doesn't mean much to me. Thank you oh so very much."
Eleanore flinched. "I don't want to hurt you."
"That's wonderful. That's wonderful." Cattleya leaned forwards. "Because I want to hurt you. I want to hear you scream. And when you've screamed enough, I'm going to show you what it's like. You'll get to see what a life without sunlight is like. You'll get to feel everything I do. And the best thing about this? You'll have to do what I say." Her razor-sharp claws dug into her palms. "There'll be no escaping this. I'll stop you finding any way out. You get to suffer this for ever and ever and ever."
"You don't mean that. Cattleya wouldn't mean that. Try to pretend to be her, at least for a little longer."
"I am Cattleya!" She stared at her big sister's pale neck. Her inhuman vision could see every pulse force its way through her vein. Eleanore's heart was racing. She was scared. Good.
"Are you?"
"No, I am not going to let you do that!" Cattleya snarled. "You don't get to pretend that I'm not me, just to make it easier on you! If you're going to kill me – again – then have the common decency to look me in the eye and do it! Not… not some… some cowardly pretence that—"
Eleanore threw a handful of something in her face. Cattleya spat out the wood shavings, eyes automatically dropping to the ground. "That's not even silver dust or garlic or…"
"Count them." Eleanore's voice barely wobbled, despite how her heart was racing.
And before Cattleya realised what she was doing, she was counting them. Dang it! Dang it all! Stupid useless… she bit down on her tongue, tasting her own stale blood. "Louise did the same one two three four five six trick against me," Cattleya mumbled, barely able to focus on anything apart from the seven eight nine ten eleven twelve wood shavings.
"Just keep counting," Eleanore told her. "It's in your nature."
"Do you know the difference thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen between now and then?"
She let her nails dig into her hands. The pain brought her back to herself, and she sprung. She slammed into her sister, bowling her over. They rolled over and over, but Cattleya was simply vastly stronger than Eleanore and all too easily she was kneeling on her chest. All she could hear was the sound of Eleanore's heartbeat, pumping fresh, rich, alive blood around. Merely human fists beat at her chest. They might as well have been punching stone.
"I didn't want to hurt Louise," Cattleya whispered, leaning in. Her jaw unhinged, mouth as wide as a steel trap. "I 'o 'an' 'o 'urt 'o."
Eleanore frowned. "What? What was that?"
Cattleya rehinged her jaw. "I saw, I do want to—"
"Eternal Tomb!"
The explosion slammed Cattleya into the ceiling, where she bounced off and hit a bookcase. Eleanore pulled herself up to one knee. Her helmet and the exposed parts of her face were covered in soot. She stared at her left hand. "Oh. Right. I have Louise's magic," she muttered, trying to shake the ringing out of her ears. "I suppose that works."
She took a deep breath.
"I can feel you flagging," Cattleya's voice called out from the shadows. "Your heartbeat is pounding like a drum. But you don't smell just of fear sweat. You're exhausted, aren't you?"
"Just go sort the books," Eleanore ordered. "But first count them."
"I told, you that won't… one, two… no, no, it definitely won't work on me."
Eleanore whispered a spell, and her left hand ignited in a blade of smoky red fire. The harsh light broke up the intensifying eerie purple glow of the ritual circle. And not a moment too soon, because Cattleya hissed at the sight and retreated back into the shadows.
"Just… just stay back," Eleanore said. "It'll all be over soon. Soon. You'll understand."
"Yes. It will," Cattelya whispered from behind Eleanore's ear. And then she hit her very hard, sending her flying into the same pile of books.
The paper ignited, the magical tomes burning in many colours, and Cattleya snarled. The fire blade from Eleanore's hand flickered and went out as she rolled away from the burning books. Laboriously she pulled herself to her feet again, and summoned a ball of fire to hand.
"You… you won't get… get me," wheezed the winded Eleanore. "Fire. Fire keeps you back."
In the blink of an eye Cattleya was up in her elder sister's face, and with a hand that cracked like a whip she slapped her sister. Another blink of an eye, and she was safely back.
"Are you so very sure?" Cattleya asked sweetly. "The question was always who got their revenge first. Me, or Louise. But I think I deserve it more." The light from the burning tomes caught her fangs.
Thunder boomed, deafening in such a dense space. In the darkness, the blue-white of lightning was blinding. Eleanore gasped in pain.
Cattleya paused. She turned to face Louise standing in the doorway behind her, revealing the head-sized hole clean through her chest. "That was a little a… little… clumsy…" she mouthed, trying to speak without lungs. Sagging, she collapsed to her knees, and then hit the ground like a sack of potatoes. The skin sloughed off Cattleya's body, revealing the badly decayed skeleton underneath, and with a faint exhalation she was still.
"I'm sorry!" Louise whispered, heart curled up in a ball in her chest. Eleanore was staring at her, eyes wide. "I missed," she lied.
And then there were two de la Vallière sisters left.
"You didn't miss." Eleanore's glowing eyes were wide. "And that was a wind spell."
"Yes. It was." Louise kept her wand pointed at Eleanore's chest, breathing deeply. The bright purple glow from the circle hurt her eyes, especially now that the magical tomes were just embers. She was feeling the strain of using so much magic in a short period. Without the cursed power of the overlady in her, she seemed to have a lot less stamina. Or perhaps that was just because she only knew square-rank wind magic.
"You should have aimed for me."
"Perhaps I should have." And yet she couldn't. Her de la Vallière blood had wanted her to kill her eldest sister and rid the world of a rival once and for all, and she… couldn't. Wouldn't. There was no way she was going to let her sister die. Not when she could save her.
She hadn't wanted to kill Cattleya either, but that was reversible.
"You're not a wind mage. You're a failure."
"No." Louise clenched her jaw. "I'm not."
Eleanore's shoulders slumped. With her free hand, she pulled the dented helmet off, and tossed it aside. It clattered on the stone floor. The soot covered all the bits of her face that had been exposed, but the rest of her was ghost-pale – save for the redness from the slap. "No," she said softly, sweaty blonde hair falling around her shoulders. "I suppose you're not."
"Stop this," Louise said softly, almost kindly. "There's no need."
"There is."
"There really isn't. Don't you remember what father always used to say? 'No matter how tempting it seems, never meddle with the nature of time'?"
"This is different. I know what I'm doing."
Louise tried not to grind her teeth. "Listen to yourself, Eleanore. 'This is different'. 'I know what I'm doing'. You can't trust anyone who talks like that."
"You don't understand," Eleanore said, clenching her left hand into a fist. "I can do it. I can save them all. I can go back and change things and the whole world will be a better place."
"What are you talking about? Give it up, Elly. Father was very clear. Using evil magic to break the timeline never ends well. You'll just make things worse."
"I can't make things worse!" It came out in a scream as Eleanore's seeming calm broke, the emotions welling up from inside. Louise shuddered to see the depths of the self-loathing on display. "We were the best! The brightest! And every one of us has fallen to evil and it's all my fault! It all happened because of me! I can fix this! I can save Mags! I can save Fran! I can save Cattleya!"
Louise's stomach lurched, butterflies whirling in it. She knew those kinds of dark thoughts. Oh, Founder, she knew those dark thoughts. "You won't make things better if you were never born! It'll strip out everything you've ever done!"
"Oh, I'll still be born. I just need to have died twelve years ago," Eleanore said. She was past screaming now, talking quickly and with an awful, desperate intensity. As if she could force Louise to agree that her points made sense, if only she could explain them fast enough. "I'll have died a hero, without getting corrupted by this terrible power. I won't have got my little sister killed and turned into a blood-hungry monster. Mags won't be consorting with demons. I won't have trapped Fran's soul in a crystal with two dark gods. They'll be there for Jean-Jacques – more than I could manage for him. I was so caught up in my misery that I drifted away and left him alone. And the family won't have to put up with me and get to have Cattleya as the heir. It'll be better for everyone. Even me."
"Eleanore, I forbid you from going back in time and killing yourself!" Louise yelled.
"You're not Mother! Stop trying to sound like her!"
Louise kept her wand at the ready. "It's not going to work, you know that," she said. "Because you're here. So if you go back in time and kill yourself, that means that you're not here, so you can't…"
"I know what you're trying to say, but no, that's not how it works," Eleanore said, sounding a little more like her normal self. "I don't have - ha! - time to explain it to you right now, but suffice to say, the Great Spell of Elias Chronophagus shatters time. Cause and effect has no hold on what happens. You can in fact go back in time and murder your grandfather. Goodness knows ours deserves it, but that would hurt Cattleya and I don't want that. She and father are the only ones worth saving." She laughed bitterly. "If only I could go back and kill our great great great times something grandfather and spare all of Halkeginia the affliction of our family. But even the power of a dark god isn't enough to go back far enough to kill Louis the Bloody when he was still alive."
"He's dead." Louise squared his jaw. "Cattleya killed him. She already got her revenge."
"It doesn't matter. That's not Cattleya. Not really." Eleanore's voice was soft. "It's a blood-sucking monster with her memories. It's a monster that thinks it's Cattleya. But it's not really her. Cattleya died. And it was my fault. All my fault."
"It was Louis' fault! He was the vampire!" Louise snapped. "And it is Cattleya! You're wrong about how vampires work! It's her soul trapped in her body! It has to eat life force to stay mobile! It's her, not a monster."
"It's a monster in there. You might not remember her, but I do. That thing wanted to make me into one of its spawn. Just to make me suffer."
"It is her!"
"It is not! Cattleya was sweet and kind and innocent. That… that thing is a vampire. An amoral monster who reminds me of my failure every time I have to see my sister's little face twisted into monstrosity. It's my fault. I was stupid and sixteen. I've lived with this guilt for twelve years, knowing that there'll never be any salvation for Cattleya and that her soul was eaten by the thing that now lives in her body." Eleanore's nose was running. "And no matter what I do, it won't make up for it."
"Look, you were right! Not about the guilt thing! What you said earlier, about how the evil power gets into your head!" Louise blurted out, getting more and more worried. The fire had gone out in her big sister, and now she just sounded numb. "This isn't you! Or it… it is you, but it's not all of you! The power of the overlady, you took it from me by beating me and… and I'm finding myself so much calmer and not getting angry in the same way, so this… this drive you're feeling, this… I don't know how you're feeling it, but it's something and—"
"Hush." Eleanore shook her head. "If I could spare you this, I would. But I can't. Not without killing you when you're born – and if I did that, I couldn't reliably save Cattleya. I'll just have to hope that Mother and Father can help you in this better history. Or put you down if you go over the edge. I wish I could do more, I really could, but this tainted blessing is your curse to bear. For once, it's not my fault. You were born an heir to the Void."
Louise blinked. The words didn't seem to make sense. Was Eleanore losing her mind? "What? No, no, I… I'm not a saint! Louis was breeding us for the power of the overlords, not—"
Eleanore met her eyes, gaze weary. "You think there's a difference?"
"Yes! There's a difference between the Sacred Void and this evil power!" Her fingers clenched around her wand. "And you'd know, too, if you weren't crazy because you took the evil power and you're not used to it!"
"No, Louise," Eleanore said, in a whisper. "The Void isn't sacred. The world was born from the Void. Once it was pure. When Brimir used it, it was truly a holy place. But we polluted it. Men, elves, dragons – all of us. The Void was empty and pure, outside good and evil. Once. No more." She lifted her hand. The ruby on the back of the gauntlet was still blood red, even in the bright purple light from the ritual circle. "The power runs in the royal families and in the papacy. You've read your history books. You know how the monarchs of Halkeginia act. You know how many popes have gone mad. They taint the Void, and the Void taints them."
"No! You're wrong! There are good popes! Good monarchs! It's not a doom! It can be fought!"
"No. It can't. I… I don't think this world can be saved. We've tainted it too much. Our family is rotten and you're the culmination of our sins. If I just remove myself from this world, it might survive a little longer – but I'm really not sure how much of a difference it will make. The Void itself is polluted with wickedness. No wonder nothing ever goes right." Eleanore turned back to face her ritual circle. "Sorry, Louise. I am sorry," she said, looking away, shoulders shaking. "Truly, sorry. I can't save you. It's… it's all I can do to try to save Cattleya and my old friends. I've thought and thought and… and I can't."
"Eleanore!" Louise cried out. "Stop! Stop! The evil… it's just making you get sad like I used to get angry!"
"No. I won't. I can't. It's already too late for you. And for this misshapen, aborted history."
"There's always time!"
"There's not. Because I already set up the ritual. I did it before the vampire showed her face," Eleanore said. "All the time we've been talking, the power's been draining from the crystal into the spell. All I needed to do was delay you. Both of you."
Behind her, the world shattered like glass. Something chimed, the sonorous tolling of a bell. Blackness flared up within the spell circle, casting shadows over the room. Louise snapped off a spell, but her lightning vanished into one of the cracks in the world.
And then there was no more time.
– Dei
…
The Grand Archives of the university stretched upwards against the black sky. The structure, rebuilt just a few years ago in the latest baroque style with increased fortifications, appeared untouched. Louise took in the unsmashed golems, the not-set-on-fire sentinels and the still-animate suits of armour just waiting to spring into action, and winced.
It appeared that Eleanore knew rather more evil magic than she did. She'd somehow got in without setting off any of the guardians. What terrible power! Obviously ten years of academia had taught her something.
"Cattleya?" Louise asked. "Do you have any ideas on how to get in?"
Cattleya frowned. "Well, I could turn into a giant bat and carry everyone up onto the roof. There might be a door up there."
"Hmm." Louise considered her alternatives. It certainly seemed better than going in through the killing field of the front. And she didn't want to hope that they'd been silly and left the back unguarded. There'd probably be all sorts of traps back there. No, she'd definitely prefer to come in through an unexpected entrance. "Good idea."
"Right-o!" Cattleya said, already unbuttoning her dress. "One monstrous bat shape, coming right up!"
Louise grinned. "Oh, I don't need you to carry me." She flicked her wand. "Levitate!" Gently, her feet lifted off the ground. "It's rather wonderful, don't you think?"
Cattleya froze up, fanged mouth wide open. "I… excuse me?"
"Oh, did I forget to mention? Without the cursed evil power afflicting me, I'm a terribly strong wind mage."
"Then why you no fly when you is normal?" Scyl asked reasonably.
"It… it doesn't work. When I tried the levitation spell, it nearly blew up in my hand. By which I mean, it nearly blew up my hand." Louise drifted upwards. "I'll see you up there!"
Cattleya blinked. "Wait, no, wait for a moment!" She scowled, her features taking on a monstrous cast and turning grey-black as she shed her clothes. "She needed to carry my dress! Fettid! No stealing it!"
Drifting upwards, Louise landed elegantly on the lead-coated rooftop, and resisted the urge to dance for joy. It was so good to be good! And-
Stone crunched behind her. Louise turned, and then swallowed. The gargoyle on the clock tower was peeling itself away from the brickwork. With a noise like a landslide, it clattered down onto the lead roof, bending the metal under its weight. It had to be three times her height, and many times broader. Ornamental copper armour shed flakes of verdigris as the gargoyle flexed its muscles, hefting a poleaxe big enough to decapitate a dragon.
Throwing its head back, it moved as if to roar but made no noise.
"Lightning Bolt!"
Thunder boomed, and the gargoyle's left leg shattered. Arms pinwheeling, the stone statue lost its balance and fell over sideways. The roof gave way under its bulk and it collapsed through the building, shattering with the noise of a thousand dropped teapots.
Smugly, Louise watched it fall. The end of her borrowed wand smoked in the cold air. With a slow exhalation, she blew the smoke away. And then she started coughing.
Founder, that had been nearly perfect! That'd been when she'd dreamed of doing her whole life! Not the coughing, but everything else! Mother probably wouldn't accidentally inhaled some of the smoke, but that just meant she had room to improve.
"Did you see that?" she demanded of the giant-bat-shaped Cattleya and the minions as they settled down on the roof
"See what?" asked the bat, speaking too loudly. "What was that far too loud noise? I'm a bat! I have very sensitive ears!"
"I was so incredible! A giant gargoyle attacked me and I blew off its leg and then it fell over and that's why there's a hole in the roof!"
Louise couldn't help but feel that the bat was eyeing her suspiciously. "Well, I'm sure you did really well," Cattleya said.
"You don't believe me."
"No, no, of course I do. I'm sure you killed a gargoyle, even though you were really scared. I just think it was probably helped by how weak the roof was. Giant stone statues shouldn't be standing on lead roofs."
"I wasn't scared! And it was ten metres high!"
Cattleya fluttered down, her shape twisting to become more of a hideous hybrid of man and bat. "I'm sure it felt that way," she said, sounding very reasonable for a monster with a mouth full of finger-length fangs.
"I think the little oversister are not very bad at judging the size of things what are much taller than her. And that are a lot of things," said a minion who was trying to be a voice in the crowd, but who Louise knew to be Scyl. It was hard for five minions to be a crowd.
Louise pouted, and sighed. "Well, thanks to the giant gargoyle I killed in one spell," she said, "there's a giant hole in the roof. Caused by the giant gargoyle. So that gives us a way in. Now, Eleanore and the other minions will be down there. However, fortunately I have a plan. I'll just need one of the minions to go down in disguise, to infiltrate their ranks and subvert them from within and…"
"Count on me, comrade!" Char said, puffing up his chest. From within a stinking inner pocket, he pulled out a pair of spectacles, half a turnip, and a moustache. Louise wondered who that had originally belonged to. "I is a master of dis-guys, you know! I has a whole new personality I use when I is being a redvolutionary." He put on the glasses, the moustache, and stuck the turnip on his nose. "I no are Char Marks! I are now Grouchy!"
Louise stared. "What kind of an idiot would fall for—"
"Hey, where did Char go?" Fettid asked. "Oh, hey, that are Grouchy. Where he come from? I no think any other minions stay loyal."
"… minions. Yes. Right." Louise massaged her temples. "For once, I am glad that the overlady is surrounded by idiots. Very well. So, while Char…"
"Where Char?"
"Shut up. While… Grouchy works his way into their ranks, me and Cattleya will approach around the back and…" Louise paused. There was a certain lack of vampire in the surrounding area. "Catt?"
"Oh yeah, she turn into a mist and floaty float away," Scyl said helpfully. "Down through the hole what are in the roof."
"Catt! Get back here right now!" But Cattleya didn't return. And Louise had a fairly certain idea of where her big sister was headed.
"Oh, sugar," she groaned.
…
One of the horrifically mutated servants of Baelogji had escaped the minions and had retreated upstairs to lick her wounds and regain her strength. She felt very faint – and had done so ever since her neck had grown to such an extent that she was twice her previous height. She wasn't sure why she needed such a long neck, but surely there was a purpose to the actions of her goddess.
Something moved, far below her eye level. Could it be one of those damnable minions? But no, it was something else entirely. A creeping mist roiled and boiled its way along the higher levels of the Grand Archives. Where it went, silver tarnished and shadows thickened.
She flinched and tried to run. All this managed was slam her head into a chandelier, and she collapsed to her hands and knees. This somehow felt much more right, and her hands and feet suddenly seemed to realise that this gave her a more stable platform and started fusing together.
"I'm awfully sorry," the mist asked her, "but given you're a freakish twisted cultist, do you know what you have for blood? Oh wait, never mind, you have open wounds and it looks delicious and red, and not at all like that awfully nasty copper-ish blue-green blood that the last one of you had. Jolly sorry for bothering you!"
And then the mist was upon her, welling up to surround her entirely, and there only time to scream once, in a voice that was nearly a bray. Then there was silence.
The desiccated corpse of something which looked like a sick fusion of human and a ridiculously long-necked deer hit the ground. Their shrivelled grey skin was covered in countless tiny puncture marks. And the mist moved on, now accompanied by a faint shushing noise. In its wake, it dragged the black robe the twisted cultist had been wearing.
"Oi. Snot? Do you hear something?" asked Leg, ears perking up.
Snot and Leg were two of the minions who Coddy had ordered to form an 'outer perry-metre at the tacty-cool ten-four double'. Since they didn't know how to do that, they were just guarding the place instead. "Hear what? The scream?"
"Nah, that are just a cultist being killed. It are sort of a rustle rustle rustle noise."
"They must be a rustler? They is here to steal the overlady's stuff!"
"Could be, could be." Leg put his hands behind his head. "I reckon that it are prob'ably another one of them cultists. Ain't that right, mysterious and creepifying mist?"
The mist that had snuck up on them giggled. "That's awfully funny! I am misterious. Because I'm a mist! But more seriously, do you know where Eleanore has gone?"
"Well, she went down below through that place what we are all guarding," began Snot. "Down in the basement and all…"
"Oi," interrupted Leg, "you is the oversister what has always been the oversister. I dunno if we is meant to be letting you—"
And then Cattleya coalesced into a naked vampire, tore their heads off, and very carefully drunk none of their blood at all. Red light gleamed in her eyes as she unhinged her jaw, revealing a mouth full of needle-like teeth. Her fingernails were more akin to daggers than anything that might be carefully painted at an all-girls non-de-la-Vallière sleepover.
"This is the last time I go do something in a fancy dress that Jessica hasn't bespelled to shapechange with me," she muttered, donning the stolen robe. "Awfully sorry for that, you little cuties. Don't worry, Louise will be able to have the adorable blues bring you back. But I may need to massacre a teeny tiny few of you if you get between me and my big sister. Now, where are the rest?"
…
Minonly screams echoed from down below. Louise paused in her attempt to carefully, subtly, and cunningly ease her way down an old squeaky staircase without making any noise.
"Oh, dang it, Catt," she growled. "Why don't you give away that they're not alone in here? I went to all this effort to get in here quietly…"
"Didn't you make a golem fall in through the roof?" Scyl asked. "That no are quiet."
"… get in here quietly," Louise said, ignoring him, "and then you had to just rush in. Do you think Char will have had time?"
"Who?" asked Fettid, idly stabbing a book to keep in practice.
"Shut up. Char and Grouchy are the same person. Have you ever seen them in the same place at the same time?" Fettid's mouth fell open as her brain short-circuited from shock. "Maggat?"
"Dunno," he said, hefting his club. "But if the oversister are killing all the minions, it are making the odds more even."
"Yes," Maxy agreed. "Also, she are making the evens more odd. It depends whether there is an odd or an even number of minions when she kills one."
Louise blinked. Was that a maths joke from a… oh, wait, Maxy. She probably should watch him. He might be smart enough to realise that she had no intentions of ever becoming the overlady again. "What to do?" she whispered to herself. No, she couldn't rely on either the minions or Cattleya. But Cattleya was audibly killing a lot of minions – and if she delayed too long, most of those minions would be back on their feet.
Oh well. Strike while they're distracted by your mother, as her father had always said.
"Let's go!" she ordered, giving up any care for stealth. It was easy to see Cattleya's passage, because of all the eviscerated minions painting the floor. And walls. And ceilings.
The minions who had been fortunate enough to be somewhere else were flocking back to the commotion. They were panicking, and that in itself was unusual. Minions usually were too dense to show fear. Moreover, none of them had the magical brand on their left hands, and Louise's eyes lit up at that. Her sister hadn't got the magical loyalty of the minions! Oh, that was wonderful! There was still hope!
"Stop it! You no is allowed here!" one of them shouted at her. Others turned, and some of them were raising weapons.
"Do you know who I am?" Louise asked, glaring at the minion horde.
"You is the overla—" began one of the minions, before he got smashed in the head by a poleaxe. Louise wasn't sure why there was a telescope tied to the weapon, but it was probably because minions were stupid.
"You is the little oversister," the head-smasher said, and cast a gimlet eye over the crowd. "She no are the overlady no more."
"That isn't what I asked you?" Louise said, her voice level and calm. "'Overlady' is just a title. So I'll ask again. Do you know who I am?"
The minion blew a raspberry at her. "Do you know who I are? I are Coddy, I are the chief minion what no are Gnarl, and I are telling you to jog on. You ain't the overlady no more, so you can't tell us what to do!"
Louise crossed her arms and glared down at the sea of minions, tapping her foot. "I am Louise de la Vallière," she said in a clear voice. "I am no longer your overlady, no." She smiled. "I now walk my mother's path."
The minions stared at her blankly. Or, rather, she realised with dawning horror, more specifically they were looking at her feet.
"I no see a pa—"
"I am the daughter of Karin of the Heavy Wind," Louise said, not quite fast enough to avoid minion stupidity. "You know about her. You know how many creatures much more powerful than you she's killed. And," she whispered a word, and sparks began to drink from the end of her wand, "I am a wind mage. Just. Like. Her."
"Argh! It are the Karin but smaller!" a voice called out from the crowd. Louise recognised Char's voice. "We is gonna need to run away right now! The Karin has taught her, so we can see her and we is only moments from double-death!"
Panic and confusion broke out in the ranks of the minions.
"Panic!"
"We is confused!"
"Let's go loot stuff what no are here!"
Coddy brained one of the nearby minions who was about to turn tail. "Idiots! This no are the Karin! And we is minions! We no is meant to be scared!"
"Well, if you says you is the head minion what no is Gnarl," Maggat called out, "then I are gonna fight you in a one-on-one fight for that title! Winner gets all the loot of the other!"
Even the noise of the minions panicking fell to a dull roar. A minion, willing to gamble all his loot on such a fight? Unthinkable! Coddy wetted his lips hungrily. "I no are gonna fall for that. You is just gonna have Fettid stab me inna back."
"So?" Maggat grinned. "Any minion what no are cunning enough to do that no are worth to be leader."
There was a general consensus of nods from the other minions. That was just common sense.
"Ha! I no need to fight you, Maggat. I got lots of minions around me! They is all loyal to the real overlady!"
"But she no are even the real overlady!" Char shouted out from the crowd. "Why she no give us the mark? She no make us her servants! So she no are our overlady!"
"Who said that?" Coddy yelled.
"Me! I are Ch… Grouchy! I are just a humble red, but I no want an overlady who no need us!"
"You is a traitor!"
"How can I be a traitor if she no are the overlady?"
This was just wasting time. Louise's eyelid twitched. She didn't want to listen to the minions arguing what amounted to politics. Plus, they had totally ruined her line about being her mother's daughter. No one was taking her seriously, and she was a hero now! Was she just too darn short and delicate looking to be taken seriously as a hero? That was it! She needed a heroic helmet! It worked as the overlady, so it'd work now!
"Ahem!" She tapped her foot, and briefly wished for her metal boots. They just made a much more intimidating tapping noise. "Stop arguing and pay attention to me! I am Louise de la Vallière, daughter of Karin de la Vallière, and I will kill you all if you don't get out of the way! Are you going to move?"
Coddy snorted. "I bet the overlady are gonna reward me proper if I…"
"Chain Lightning!"
The other minions stared at Coddy's smoking boots. The rest of him had gone AWOL, leaving only his shins behind. And he wasn't the only strangely missing minion. The bolt had leapt from target to target, scything down targets like wheat. Some peculiarity of the magic meant that blue minions had taken the brunt of the spell.
"Ouchie," Scyl said from his nice safe position behind Louise. "Lightning ain't a friend for us."
"It are 'cause you is all wet," Fettid said, a malicious grin on her lips.
"Would you look at that?" Louise said, in the same clear voice. "I killed your healers. The only one left is Scyl and he's on my side. Do you fear death, minions? Because if I kill you, you'll be staying dead." She tilted her head. "Or perhaps a better question would be 'Do you fear me?'." Because I can kill you. I know how you come back to life. I've killed your blues. If you stand in my way, I'll have your bodies thrown in the river so no one will ever find them." She paused. "Well, what is it? Do you fear me?"
"… okay-dokey, maybe you is the daughter of the Karin. And a wind magic-y girl," a viscera-covered minion conceded.
"I just wanna say that this was all Coddy's idea!"
"Yeah, yeah, we no involved. We was just pillaging…"
"And looting!"
"Yeah, and looting!"
Louise pointed her wand at the minions, and rejoiced at the way they shifted away. Wasn't that strange? For the first time, she felt the minions truly feared her. She'd ordered them executed before, but they'd faced that with the same cheerful nature they took most threats. But now? Now, she had them scared.
"I wonder who's in charge now?" she asked in a low voice.
The minions before her looked around. "Grouchy!" one of them volunteered. "He now the boss."
"Yeah, if he in charge, we no get killed by the tiny Karin."
"Ah ha!" 'Grouchy' postured. "Now I is in charge! We is gonna see some changes around here! 'Cause I is the elected leader of this minion so-vet, and that means we can get rid of the boor-swah-see! For, you see, I is actually Char! Viva la Redvolution!"
"No, you is not Char! Don't be silly, Grouchy!"
Char removed his fake glasses and moustache. Then he pulled off the turnip from his nose and ate it.
"Oh wait, no, he are just Char," said a very disappointed green.
"Go to the Abyss, Char," groaned a brown, "we no are interested in your stoopid Redvolution. You no is our leader."
"Easy now, boss lady, easy now," Maggat said, hefting his club. "I guess you lot should get outta her way. I no know how much longer I can hold her back. 'Cause, you know, the blood of the Karin are talking to her. So maybe if you is still seeing her, you is gonna die. So runnin' away are probably the only way to not double-die."
The other minions ran away.
Louise nodded. "Maggat," she said. "I expect you to chase them down and beat them into proper order. And make sure no one else tries to follow me down here. I need to deal with my sister alone."
Maggat seemed torn between orders explicitly telling him to beat people up, and whatever loyalty to Louise existed in his filthy heart. "Should be keeping you safe, boss-lady," he grumbled.
"And the way to do that is to stop me being swamped by those minions trying to help Eleanore, if she starts ordering them with the Gauntlet," Louise said. "Now, go."
"I dunno," Maxy said. "Is that something she'd really—"
"Go!"
They went. Louise took a deep breath, running her fingers through her hair. Her sisters were down there. Both of them. One of them was the overlady, and knew far more spells than she ever had. The other was a blood crazed vampire with a grudge. She wasn't sure what she could do, but she knew what she would do.
Louise headed down to do the right thing.
…
Broken magical wards sparked in the darkness of the lower levels. Eleanore had smashed through ancient doors and new spells alike, and the shattered remnants of golems marked where magical guardians had tried to stop her.
She stood in front of a magical circle that glowed a dull purple. Lines within it formed a pentagram, but a clock-like pair of hands had been added to the chalk markings. If one looked closely, it could be seen that the hands were moving. The crystal holding the trapped souls of Athe, Baelogji and Françoise-Athenais lay in the middle of the circle, where the purple light was brightest. Sharp words in the Dark Tongue spilled from her lips, read from the prematurely aged book she held in her hands. Her eyes burned bright yellow, the light shining out from under her stolen helmet.
Cattleya stared at Eleanore from the shadows, eyes glowing red. Her breath escaped between her fangs in a low hiss. Her skin was pallid and drawn tight over her skull; her lips had receded slightly making her teeth more prominent.
Eleanore shouldn't be doing that. Eleanore was bad. Cattleya wasn't meant to kill good people. Both her parents and Louise had been very clear about that.
But Eleanore wasn't good. Not anymore. And she had wanted to make her big sister hurt for a very, very long time. She wanted to make her suffer. There was no reason not to make her pay for every night of darkness; every hunger pang; every nightmare of waking up with the Bloody Duke latched onto her.
Eleanore fell silent, closing the book with a heavy snap.
"I know you're out there," she said softly. "You make the scar I got from Graf Roteblut ache."
Cattleya reflexively inhaled, even though she had no need to breathe. Some habits were hard to break. Folding her hands behind her back, she stepped forwards into the edge of the circle of light cast by the ritual. "What of it?" she asked.
Eleanore's face was a mask. "Cattleya, go home," she said. "You shouldn't be involved in this."
"You can't make me do anything," Cattleya said. Anger broiled in her gut. She could smell Eleanore's sweet blood, dripping from self-inflicted cuts on her palms.
"You should be back with Mother and Father. You shouldn't be caught up in Louise's foolishness."
"Or what? You'll kill me?" Cattleya laughed – cold and sharp and quite unlike her normal temperament. "Like I need to care about that. I've died once today already." She paused, red eyes narrow. "Death doesn't mean much to me. Thank you oh so very much."
Eleanore flinched. "I don't want to hurt you."
"That's wonderful. That's wonderful." Cattleya leaned forwards. "Because I want to hurt you. I want to hear you scream. And when you've screamed enough, I'm going to show you what it's like. You'll get to see what a life without sunlight is like. You'll get to feel everything I do. And the best thing about this? You'll have to do what I say." Her razor-sharp claws dug into her palms. "There'll be no escaping this. I'll stop you finding any way out. You get to suffer this for ever and ever and ever."
"You don't mean that. Cattleya wouldn't mean that. Try to pretend to be her, at least for a little longer."
"I am Cattleya!" She stared at her big sister's pale neck. Her inhuman vision could see every pulse force its way through her vein. Eleanore's heart was racing. She was scared. Good.
"Are you?"
"No, I am not going to let you do that!" Cattleya snarled. "You don't get to pretend that I'm not me, just to make it easier on you! If you're going to kill me – again – then have the common decency to look me in the eye and do it! Not… not some… some cowardly pretence that—"
Eleanore threw a handful of something in her face. Cattleya spat out the wood shavings, eyes automatically dropping to the ground. "That's not even silver dust or garlic or…"
"Count them." Eleanore's voice barely wobbled, despite how her heart was racing.
And before Cattleya realised what she was doing, she was counting them. Dang it! Dang it all! Stupid useless… she bit down on her tongue, tasting her own stale blood. "Louise did the same one two three four five six trick against me," Cattleya mumbled, barely able to focus on anything apart from the seven eight nine ten eleven twelve wood shavings.
"Just keep counting," Eleanore told her. "It's in your nature."
"Do you know the difference thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen between now and then?"
She let her nails dig into her hands. The pain brought her back to herself, and she sprung. She slammed into her sister, bowling her over. They rolled over and over, but Cattleya was simply vastly stronger than Eleanore and all too easily she was kneeling on her chest. All she could hear was the sound of Eleanore's heartbeat, pumping fresh, rich, alive blood around. Merely human fists beat at her chest. They might as well have been punching stone.
"I didn't want to hurt Louise," Cattleya whispered, leaning in. Her jaw unhinged, mouth as wide as a steel trap. "I 'o 'an' 'o 'urt 'o."
Eleanore frowned. "What? What was that?"
Cattleya rehinged her jaw. "I saw, I do want to—"
"Eternal Tomb!"
The explosion slammed Cattleya into the ceiling, where she bounced off and hit a bookcase. Eleanore pulled herself up to one knee. Her helmet and the exposed parts of her face were covered in soot. She stared at her left hand. "Oh. Right. I have Louise's magic," she muttered, trying to shake the ringing out of her ears. "I suppose that works."
She took a deep breath.
"I can feel you flagging," Cattleya's voice called out from the shadows. "Your heartbeat is pounding like a drum. But you don't smell just of fear sweat. You're exhausted, aren't you?"
"Just go sort the books," Eleanore ordered. "But first count them."
"I told, you that won't… one, two… no, no, it definitely won't work on me."
Eleanore whispered a spell, and her left hand ignited in a blade of smoky red fire. The harsh light broke up the intensifying eerie purple glow of the ritual circle. And not a moment too soon, because Cattleya hissed at the sight and retreated back into the shadows.
"Just… just stay back," Eleanore said. "It'll all be over soon. Soon. You'll understand."
"Yes. It will," Cattelya whispered from behind Eleanore's ear. And then she hit her very hard, sending her flying into the same pile of books.
The paper ignited, the magical tomes burning in many colours, and Cattleya snarled. The fire blade from Eleanore's hand flickered and went out as she rolled away from the burning books. Laboriously she pulled herself to her feet again, and summoned a ball of fire to hand.
"You… you won't get… get me," wheezed the winded Eleanore. "Fire. Fire keeps you back."
In the blink of an eye Cattleya was up in her elder sister's face, and with a hand that cracked like a whip she slapped her sister. Another blink of an eye, and she was safely back.
"Are you so very sure?" Cattleya asked sweetly. "The question was always who got their revenge first. Me, or Louise. But I think I deserve it more." The light from the burning tomes caught her fangs.
Thunder boomed, deafening in such a dense space. In the darkness, the blue-white of lightning was blinding. Eleanore gasped in pain.
Cattleya paused. She turned to face Louise standing in the doorway behind her, revealing the head-sized hole clean through her chest. "That was a little a… little… clumsy…" she mouthed, trying to speak without lungs. Sagging, she collapsed to her knees, and then hit the ground like a sack of potatoes. The skin sloughed off Cattleya's body, revealing the badly decayed skeleton underneath, and with a faint exhalation she was still.
"I'm sorry!" Louise whispered, heart curled up in a ball in her chest. Eleanore was staring at her, eyes wide. "I missed," she lied.
…
And then there were two de la Vallière sisters left.
"You didn't miss." Eleanore's glowing eyes were wide. "And that was a wind spell."
"Yes. It was." Louise kept her wand pointed at Eleanore's chest, breathing deeply. The bright purple glow from the circle hurt her eyes, especially now that the magical tomes were just embers. She was feeling the strain of using so much magic in a short period. Without the cursed power of the overlady in her, she seemed to have a lot less stamina. Or perhaps that was just because she only knew square-rank wind magic.
"You should have aimed for me."
"Perhaps I should have." And yet she couldn't. Her de la Vallière blood had wanted her to kill her eldest sister and rid the world of a rival once and for all, and she… couldn't. Wouldn't. There was no way she was going to let her sister die. Not when she could save her.
She hadn't wanted to kill Cattleya either, but that was reversible.
"You're not a wind mage. You're a failure."
"No." Louise clenched her jaw. "I'm not."
Eleanore's shoulders slumped. With her free hand, she pulled the dented helmet off, and tossed it aside. It clattered on the stone floor. The soot covered all the bits of her face that had been exposed, but the rest of her was ghost-pale – save for the redness from the slap. "No," she said softly, sweaty blonde hair falling around her shoulders. "I suppose you're not."
"Stop this," Louise said softly, almost kindly. "There's no need."
"There is."
"There really isn't. Don't you remember what father always used to say? 'No matter how tempting it seems, never meddle with the nature of time'?"
"This is different. I know what I'm doing."
Louise tried not to grind her teeth. "Listen to yourself, Eleanore. 'This is different'. 'I know what I'm doing'. You can't trust anyone who talks like that."
"You don't understand," Eleanore said, clenching her left hand into a fist. "I can do it. I can save them all. I can go back and change things and the whole world will be a better place."
"What are you talking about? Give it up, Elly. Father was very clear. Using evil magic to break the timeline never ends well. You'll just make things worse."
"I can't make things worse!" It came out in a scream as Eleanore's seeming calm broke, the emotions welling up from inside. Louise shuddered to see the depths of the self-loathing on display. "We were the best! The brightest! And every one of us has fallen to evil and it's all my fault! It all happened because of me! I can fix this! I can save Mags! I can save Fran! I can save Cattleya!"
Louise's stomach lurched, butterflies whirling in it. She knew those kinds of dark thoughts. Oh, Founder, she knew those dark thoughts. "You won't make things better if you were never born! It'll strip out everything you've ever done!"
"Oh, I'll still be born. I just need to have died twelve years ago," Eleanore said. She was past screaming now, talking quickly and with an awful, desperate intensity. As if she could force Louise to agree that her points made sense, if only she could explain them fast enough. "I'll have died a hero, without getting corrupted by this terrible power. I won't have got my little sister killed and turned into a blood-hungry monster. Mags won't be consorting with demons. I won't have trapped Fran's soul in a crystal with two dark gods. They'll be there for Jean-Jacques – more than I could manage for him. I was so caught up in my misery that I drifted away and left him alone. And the family won't have to put up with me and get to have Cattleya as the heir. It'll be better for everyone. Even me."
"Eleanore, I forbid you from going back in time and killing yourself!" Louise yelled.
"You're not Mother! Stop trying to sound like her!"
Louise kept her wand at the ready. "It's not going to work, you know that," she said. "Because you're here. So if you go back in time and kill yourself, that means that you're not here, so you can't…"
"I know what you're trying to say, but no, that's not how it works," Eleanore said, sounding a little more like her normal self. "I don't have - ha! - time to explain it to you right now, but suffice to say, the Great Spell of Elias Chronophagus shatters time. Cause and effect has no hold on what happens. You can in fact go back in time and murder your grandfather. Goodness knows ours deserves it, but that would hurt Cattleya and I don't want that. She and father are the only ones worth saving." She laughed bitterly. "If only I could go back and kill our great great great times something grandfather and spare all of Halkeginia the affliction of our family. But even the power of a dark god isn't enough to go back far enough to kill Louis the Bloody when he was still alive."
"He's dead." Louise squared his jaw. "Cattleya killed him. She already got her revenge."
"It doesn't matter. That's not Cattleya. Not really." Eleanore's voice was soft. "It's a blood-sucking monster with her memories. It's a monster that thinks it's Cattleya. But it's not really her. Cattleya died. And it was my fault. All my fault."
"It was Louis' fault! He was the vampire!" Louise snapped. "And it is Cattleya! You're wrong about how vampires work! It's her soul trapped in her body! It has to eat life force to stay mobile! It's her, not a monster."
"It's a monster in there. You might not remember her, but I do. That thing wanted to make me into one of its spawn. Just to make me suffer."
"It is her!"
"It is not! Cattleya was sweet and kind and innocent. That… that thing is a vampire. An amoral monster who reminds me of my failure every time I have to see my sister's little face twisted into monstrosity. It's my fault. I was stupid and sixteen. I've lived with this guilt for twelve years, knowing that there'll never be any salvation for Cattleya and that her soul was eaten by the thing that now lives in her body." Eleanore's nose was running. "And no matter what I do, it won't make up for it."
"Look, you were right! Not about the guilt thing! What you said earlier, about how the evil power gets into your head!" Louise blurted out, getting more and more worried. The fire had gone out in her big sister, and now she just sounded numb. "This isn't you! Or it… it is you, but it's not all of you! The power of the overlady, you took it from me by beating me and… and I'm finding myself so much calmer and not getting angry in the same way, so this… this drive you're feeling, this… I don't know how you're feeling it, but it's something and—"
"Hush." Eleanore shook her head. "If I could spare you this, I would. But I can't. Not without killing you when you're born – and if I did that, I couldn't reliably save Cattleya. I'll just have to hope that Mother and Father can help you in this better history. Or put you down if you go over the edge. I wish I could do more, I really could, but this tainted blessing is your curse to bear. For once, it's not my fault. You were born an heir to the Void."
Louise blinked. The words didn't seem to make sense. Was Eleanore losing her mind? "What? No, no, I… I'm not a saint! Louis was breeding us for the power of the overlords, not—"
Eleanore met her eyes, gaze weary. "You think there's a difference?"
"Yes! There's a difference between the Sacred Void and this evil power!" Her fingers clenched around her wand. "And you'd know, too, if you weren't crazy because you took the evil power and you're not used to it!"
"No, Louise," Eleanore said, in a whisper. "The Void isn't sacred. The world was born from the Void. Once it was pure. When Brimir used it, it was truly a holy place. But we polluted it. Men, elves, dragons – all of us. The Void was empty and pure, outside good and evil. Once. No more." She lifted her hand. The ruby on the back of the gauntlet was still blood red, even in the bright purple light from the ritual circle. "The power runs in the royal families and in the papacy. You've read your history books. You know how the monarchs of Halkeginia act. You know how many popes have gone mad. They taint the Void, and the Void taints them."
"No! You're wrong! There are good popes! Good monarchs! It's not a doom! It can be fought!"
"No. It can't. I… I don't think this world can be saved. We've tainted it too much. Our family is rotten and you're the culmination of our sins. If I just remove myself from this world, it might survive a little longer – but I'm really not sure how much of a difference it will make. The Void itself is polluted with wickedness. No wonder nothing ever goes right." Eleanore turned back to face her ritual circle. "Sorry, Louise. I am sorry," she said, looking away, shoulders shaking. "Truly, sorry. I can't save you. It's… it's all I can do to try to save Cattleya and my old friends. I've thought and thought and… and I can't."
"Eleanore!" Louise cried out. "Stop! Stop! The evil… it's just making you get sad like I used to get angry!"
"No. I won't. I can't. It's already too late for you. And for this misshapen, aborted history."
"There's always time!"
"There's not. Because I already set up the ritual. I did it before the vampire showed her face," Eleanore said. "All the time we've been talking, the power's been draining from the crystal into the spell. All I needed to do was delay you. Both of you."
Behind her, the world shattered like glass. Something chimed, the sonorous tolling of a bell. Blackness flared up within the spell circle, casting shadows over the room. Louise snapped off a spell, but her lightning vanished into one of the cracks in the world.
And then there was no more time.
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