“Go!” Tobia, now transformed, shouted at them. In front of him stood the looming silhouette of an automaton, haloed by the artificial light that reflected on its metal plating; it was struggling to claw at Tobia the way it must have tried to plunge its razor sharp fingernails into the soft tissue of Lux’s throat. “I’ll hold it back!”

A shower of sparks erupted from the next clash. The stairwell was too narrow for either Lux or Marion to shift without badly scraping their wings in the process, so Lux tried to focus on the ley line below their feet instead. Pulling from a temple ley line was regarded as a criminal offense, but that ship had already kind of sailed either way as far as Lux was concerned. They could feel the energy pulsating underneath the stone, rife with power, when a horrifying bang shattered their concentration. Wynn, now transformed as well, had shot another automaton at point-blank. 

“By the Mother!” said Tobia, then he kicked the automaton in front of him square in the chest, sending it hurtling up the stairs. “Why are they attacking us now?”

Wynn made a frustrated sound at the back of their throat. “Drust must have noticed us!” they said, before taking off in a sprint down the remaining stairs. Their cape had unfolded into a mane of long, lilac curls that trailed behind them in a blaze, far grander than the dyed straw on their mask was meant to evoke. 

They all rushed after them, if only to finally get out of the narrow stairwell. Lux breathed out a sigh of relief the moment they stepped back into an oval room wide enough for their avian form. Unfortunately, their relief came to a short-lived end the moment they took a look around: automatons crawled all over the room, glinting in the pale light. 

Their looming silhouettes were walking toward the four of them with jerky, out-of-sync movements. The chrome patina that coated their bodies used to remind Lux of Marion’s dragon form, but now it made the automatons look more like fish gasping for air in a fisher’s bucket. Something about their faltering advance gave Lux the creeps.

“That bastard’s overloading her,” Wynn muttered in a small, vicious voice. Louder, they said, “We have to make a path for the control room! Just ignore the ones that aren’t in the way!”

“Easier said than done,” Lux said, but they hurried to grab their hood now that they could shift. They stretched their black wings up above their head and rushed in the direction of the control room, trying not to choke on the jolt of adrenaline and fear that was coursing through their veins. They slashed at the exposed joints of every automaton that came too close with their talons, thankful they met wires and not flesh. 

A rush of hot air, followed by a loud crash and a roar, told them Marion had just slammed some poor automaton into the wall. Maybe multiple ones at once. Wynn had been right, saying Lux was the only average one in their group. 

“I hate this,” Tobia saw fit to inform Lux as he caught up to them. He’d been swinging his blade at anything close enough to reach, ignoring Wynn’s directions, and yet he didn’t seem out of breath. Wolves, it turned out, had it easy as well. 

At the moment Lux was too busy keeping their vital organs intact to feel especially bitter about it. Instead, they made sure Marion was following close and kept running. The ley line ran parallel to their steps, inviting and wild. To use it, though, they would have to stop dead in their tracks first, leaving themself completely open for the automatons to tear apart. 

“I can do something about this!” they said in between dodging sharp limbs aimed at their neck and stomach. One automaton managed to scrape their cheek and warm blood started trailing down their jaw. The adrenaline burned stronger than the cut. “I just need you to get me some cover!”

As if they hadn’t heard a word of what Lux had said, Wynn charged onwards, sending scraps of metal flying into the air with each blast of their pistol. When they aimed it at the door to the control room, Lux held their breath. Before they could burn a hole in it, though, Marion sent the slab of wood flying in a burst of splinters with her claws. 

She turned her head to Wynn, likely to tell them off the way she always did with Lux when they rushed ahead, but her gaze seemed to catch on something inside of the room instead. She stood there, motionless as a statue; the sound of loud music and singing wafted from above, a sign the festival was finally starting in full swing. 

Lux opened a gash through an automaton’s neck, hauled it at the one behind it, and ran up to where Marion and Wynn were standing, still in front of the now wrecked door. “Marion!” they yelled, their heart lodged in their throat. “Why did you stop? What’s wr—”

Their voice crumpled like scrap paper tossed in a fire the moment they saw the scene inside. A transformed faerie was sitting in front of a device of some kind. Her long, light blue hair clung to her face where it was matted with sweat; a smudged, caked streak of red ran from her nose, through her lips, all the way to the front of her tunic. She had the same brown eyes as her sibling, except hers were glazed over, as if she weren’t really there. 

“Deirdre!” Wynn cried out. They threw themself at her feet, seemingly failing to notice the man who was standing in the middle of the room. “It’s okay, it’s going to be okay, I’ll get you out of here,” they said in a frantic murmur against the back of her hands. Deirdre’s fingers trembled, but that was the only sign that she had heard Wynn’s voice at all. 

The man, who Lux assumed must be Drust, was less slow on the uptake. He’d recovered fast from the shock of the door exploding in his face and the sneer twisting his face when he turned to Wynn made Lux’s skin crawl.

“You were always such a predictable brat,” he said, venomous. “You really didn’t think I’d make your sister keep me up to speed with my precious, sweet ward and their little schemes?” When Wynn failed to acknowledge his words, he turned his livid glare toward the rest of them. “And you lot, out of my temple. Now. Before I call the guards on you.” 

He spoke with the confidence of someone who owned the place, which Lux supposed must be accurate, if the embroidered high priest robes he was wearing did belong to him. He also spoke with the confidence of someone who had yet to notice the racket caused by the automatons outside had come to a rather quiet stop; only the celebratory chants filled the air now. Lux risked a glance behind their shoulder, praying no one had heard the sound of fighting. Sure enough, Tobia was the only living person standing in the hallway, looking queasy in his wolf form as he stared at the now unmoving metal bodies. Before Lux could draw anyone’s attention to the fact, they smelled the tell-tale sting of sulfur in the air. 

It wasn’t as if Marion could breathe fire—no dragon had been given that gift after the Old Times—but she didn’t need something that showy to be deadly. Lux didn’t have the time to do anything but bear witness to her fury as she bent her hind legs and flattened her wings to her body. Her body rippled like silk, her scales shining like candlelight. 

Then she leapt, terrible and precise. Drust never had the chance to say anything else. He went down with the sound of claws digging into his body and Lux gritted their teeth, looking away from the pool of blood that spread from underneath his body. 

That was the moment an ear-splitting scream shook the room. Deirdre fell onto the ground, clutching her head and wailing; one of her feet kicked Wynn in the gut, hard. To the child’s credit, they didn’t budge from their kneeling position at her side. Their eyes were blown wide from the shock as they flitted between their sister and the body on the ground. 

“Make sure she doesn’t hit her head,” Lux said, crouching next to them. Now that no one was trying to kill them anymore, panic had started curdling in the pit of their stomach like spoiled milk, but they still managed to gather the good sense of shifting back. Doing magic when you were transformed produced better results, but it could mess with your brain if you weren’t careful. 

Wynn nodded, albeit visibly shaken. They shoved the chair Deirdre had been sitting on well out of her way, while Lux reached out for the ley line once again. This time, there were no explosions or murderous automatons to stop them. Magic curled easily around their fingers, pliant and inviting, a lump of clay in between their hands. Then, their mind wasn’t theirs anymore.

She’s running out of time. He could find her anytime, he’s got eyes everywhere now, but this is something she simply has to do. So she grits her teeth against the phantom feeling of Urien’s blood in the grooves of her palms, and she picks the tuft of thread coming off of her cape once again. If she’s not careful, she might end up damaging the fabric, her very soul, and that would truly be the end. She made sure to choose a minor memory though, something trivial that got etched on the inside of her cape among all the grandiose Herald stuff; that’s what happens to those who live really long lives, she muses. The tapestry of their memory fills with the strangest of things. 

Pain shoots through her every nerve as she pulls. The feeling of the tapestry threatening to tear apart is almost enough to make her pass out, but she doesn’t have that luxury. She doesn’t stop until the whole thing has come loose, breathing heavily while her brain struggles to fill the hole of the memory she’s just forgotten. 

She’s made it, though. The first step in her desperate fight against him. Holding what is now a bright, warm feather in her hands, she wonders if this single act of violence will become a new ley line.