Seventeen
We stood around Leader Yennek’s house as Abil and Adeline paced restlessly, almost as a single unit, from window to another.
“Staviti’s army isn’t our only problem,” Abil finally announced.
“Of course the asshole had more than one contingency plan,” Siret groaned, falling into an armchair, his head propped back so that he could stare angrily at the ceiling.
“What is it?” Coen asked, his hand slipping around my waist.
I leaned into him, watching Abil apprehensively.
“It wasn’t even his main contingency plan.” Adeline was the one who spoke, her words coming out on a sigh. “As you all know—well, except for you, Willa.” She gave me a brief, apologetic look before continuing. “I’ve been working with Staviti on a project. It has required me to go away for long periods of time, and I think I can finally tell you all the details of what the project is, and what it was that could have possibly motivated me to agree.”
She took a deep breath, and Abil’s hands landed on her shoulders, the touch soothing. He already knew, judging by the look of resigned dread on his face.
“He wanted you to create something?” I guessed, after the silence had stretched on and it seemed like she wasn’t going to speak again.
“Yes,” she replied, and when her eyes settled on me, it was almost as though some semblance of calm returned to her. “How did you know?”
“Staviti’s main hobby is forcing other people to do things for him. He forces the guardians to create servers for him, and he forces the servers to run Topia for him. He’s forcing the dead dwellers to fight his war now too.”
She smiled a little, but there was no humour to the movement. It was a dark smile. I shrank a little into Coen.
“He wanted me to create a mortal glass,” she said, and it seemed that she was only talking to me now. I had won her focus, and she didn’t have enough strength to admit whatever she was about to admit to her sons. “I am the Goddess of Beauty—but Beauty is more than just what you see. It’s a reflection. Always a reflection.”
“And that’s what a mortal glass is?” I prompted. “A reflection?” I knew differently, of course, but she was starting to confuse me.
“One aspect of the mortal glass is a reflection, but the other parts are so much more, as you well know. The problem is that Staviti himself did not create the original glass, and in all of his attempts, he has not been able to replicate the original one. That’s why he needed me. He said that he didn’t have enough power, and my power of reflections would be the most useful to him. And … and I owed him.”
She cast her eyes down to the ground, but Abil squeezed her shoulders.
“I was the one who tricked him,” he said. “He should have asked me—but I can only give him a false replica—I can’t produce a true reflection of the world. Adeline could.”
“This is about … us,” Rome surmised, his voice rough. “He’s been blackmailing you because you tricked him into allowing us to be born?”
“He threatened to reverse his decision if I didn’t help him,” Adeline admitted. “And considering the way the five of you liked to torment him, you often made my job of keeping you safe that much harder.”
Siret looked guilty then, and I knew he was thinking that it was his Trickery that originally got them sent to Blesswood.
“Your mother was the one who suggested that punishment.” Abil somehow read his son’s mind. “Blesswood got you away from Staviti for some time, and also made him feel superior because you were weakened in this land.”
Adeline nodded. “Yes, and I distracted him from further punishment by focussing on the mortal glass.” She grimaced.
“But what’s so bad about another mortal glass?” I asked, confused.
She met my gaze. “The one in existence now links Topia to the imprisonment realm; an in-between realm where god souls that are forcibly taken by Crowe’s weapons go to wait. But there is another realm, one where those who experience true death, either as god, sol, or dweller, go. The realm of death. This is where Staviti wants to connect the second mortal glass. He wants to absorb the energy of those pure souls in the death realm.”
Staviti was the very definition of a power-hungry bastard.
“Then shouldn’t Death have been helping him instead of you?” Yael asked angrily.
“Crowe has been helping,” Adeline admitted. “I’ve been searching for a way to manipulate the glass, to save us all before it was too late … That’s why I didn’t come when you first called. As soon as I heard the news that Willa was the next creator, I started working with the glass again behind Staviti’s back. I think I’ve figured out how to influence it with enough of my magic that it can be changed to not allow the ugly to pass through it. Which would stop Staviti being able to cross to the death realm and take control of the souls there.”
“The ugly?” I questioned, surprised.
“The ugly of soul,” she amended, and her smile became less dark for a moment, tinged with gentle amusement. “Only the pure will be able to pass through it when I’m done.”
It was a good plan to stop Staviti from being able to travel through the second mortal glass. He was definitely not pure of anything.
