The room was aglow with the crackle of electricity. There were no traditional lights in the room—only the blindingsilver glow at its center. It illuminated shelves and books and the very weapons I’d expected to see the moment we’d pulled into the villain’s lair. A dark, rapidly spinning circle had been secured to the ceiling. Its twin mirrored it on the floor, twisting so quickly that the lightning bolt suspended between them became a fixed, solid forcefield. Two figures sat slumped in the center of the shimmering cage, both dead to the world.
“Kirby.” Panic pulled their name from me before I could stop it. Their jeans and flannel looked so out of place amidst the futuristic whir of machinery and power.
I understood the dark house all at once. The energy it would take to power an electric cage would be astronomical. He’d created a cage that would hold gods and humans alike. Though if Ella had been conscious, surely she could have walked out. Estrid could bypass it, couldn’t she?
Unless the electricitywashis ward.
I didn’t know enough about electrical fields to do the math. Then again, I wasn’t sure they offered a physics class that would have covered the science of gods and sigils. He was the second god paranoid enough to combine magical entrapment with physical, as far as I knew. Astarte had created an entire god-catching city in order to amplify her kingdom. Apep, on the other hand, had fashioned a villainous nightmare. After a millennium of worshippers praying for his entrapment, it appeared he was taking no chances.
Apep took another drink and smacked his lips with satisfaction as he polished off his beer. He set it on a bookshelf and began taking purposeful steps around the room, running his finger along the shelf as he did so.
He paused before the mounted display of a long, sheathed katana. “You swear to me that you plan to overthrow those in power?”
“I do,” I agreed, perhaps too eagerly. I nearly choked on the words, taking a desperate half step toward him as I did so. There was a fuzziness to the room that lifted my hair atits roots, creating static everywhere, from my skin’s surface to the sludgy thoughts that struggled to make sense of how everything could have gone so wrong so quickly.
“Excellent,” he said. He wrapped his hand around the sheath of the curved sword and rotated it toward me. “Then I’ll fight with you.”
Estrid went perfectly still at my side. I didn’t move, save for the flicker of my eyes as I looked between him and the unconscious hostages at the room’s center. I struggled to breathe, each inhalation a shallow sip as I did my best to hold on to reality. My chest ached, my stomach twisted, and my forehead prickled with sweat.
“You have the door?” he said over our shoulders to the NPC.
The man gave a low grunt in confirmation.
It was the sort of absolute panic I’d only seen in books and movies. I’d written my characters into corners like this. I’d forced fictional beings to face this futility.
But I was no fighter. I had no weapons. And nothing compared to the utter hopelessness of watching his guard ensure that we had no escape for whatever came next.
Apep dipped his fingers into his pocket and procured a thin remote. He pointed it at the electric cage and pressed a button. The circles began to slow. The solid wall of silver wavered, winking as it dulled. I didn’t so much as exhale while the device came to a stop, revealing two arms that, when activated, would reignite to contain its prisoners once more. The room dimmed significantly as its two sources of light were now immobilized.
I remained fixated on the device, scanning it for a tell, for something important. I couldn’t be sure, but the outermost edge of the arm closest to me appeared to have sigillary script etched into it. It cut off at the arm’s edge, like a termite’s path in wood ending without rhyme or reason.
Estrid took a jolting step toward her partner, but she was held firm.
“Tut-tut,” Apep chastised. “See, the thing is: I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true,” I said on a breath. My eyes went from him to Ella and Kirby. They didn’t appear harmed. Their hairs were in place. There was blood in their cheeks and their chests rose and fell rhythmically; they were fine, at least from a distance. They didn’t even appear to be bound. They were simply unconscious. I redirected my attention to him, pleading, “We have to work together. Everything we do. Everything we’vebeendoing—”
“Do you know why I failed my first time?” he asked, balancing the blade in his hand. He looked from the weapon to me. “Family. Trust. Misplaced priorities.” He unsheathed the blade. “You can keep one.”
I blinked at him.
He flipped the blade, catching it by the sharpened metal. He extended the hilt toward me. “You see, Merit, I have a theory. You’re too worried about the soldiers to win the war. Why else would you have come for them?”
“To recruit—”
“Don’t lie.” He cut me off. He extended the sword once more. “If you’re committed to taking down Heaven, then you’ll make tough calls. You’ll do what needs to be done to topple the realms. And these two…well…they’re not exactly valuable in war.”
I kept my mouth shut, though my breathing was coming through my nose in shallow, miserable gasps.
“I guess that’s not entirely true,” he said. “They serve a very useful purpose.”
I didn’t want him to finish his thought. I wanted to wish him away, for it all to be a bad dream, for Kirby and Ella to stand up and walk out of the house unharmed. My nausea intensified. I had no hope. No options. No choices. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ella’s head bob as she began to stir. Her chest lifted as she pulled air with more intentionality.
“Show me you’re here to win the war, and I’ll fight with you.”
Estrid began to say something, but I’d already beat her with my soft “Or?”
“Or the two of you are another in a long line of obstacles,” he said.
