Chapter 139

I stumbled out of the dull red light and hit the cold, damp grass hard.

It took me a moment to catch my breath. My arms and legs stung where the thorns had torn at me, but it wasn’t too bad. I gathered a bit of mana and let it flow, knitting the worst of it closed. The pain faded, leaving only dried blood smeared across my skin and clothes.

The Gallows had been… strange. Like a sad dream.

My family had been there, but it wasn’t really them. They’d told me they didn’t need me. That I should go take care of others. It should have hurt more than it did - but it didn’t feel right. They hadn’t looked back when they walked away.

My family would never do that. They always look back. They always reach for you.

So I knew it wasn’t real.

I pushed myself to my feet and blinked as the world came into focus. Everything was loud. Bright. Too bright for night.

The sky was gone - hidden behind thick clouds that glowed a strange silver. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

I stood in a small forest, though it didn’t feel like one. There were too many paths - six, maybe more - all cutting through the same space. The grass was short and even, like it had been painted into place. There were almost no bushes, but the ones I saw were sad little things that stood alone or shaped into tight, perfect lines with edges too sharp to be natural.

It all felt arranged. Controlled. Unnatural.

A low roar filled the air, like a waterfall somewhere nearby. Mixed into it were high, whining sounds and strange bellows that didn’t sound like any animal I knew. I hesitated, wondering if something out there was dangerous.

Beyond the trees, massive stone and glass towers rose into the sky. They glowed from within - warm gold light pouring out steady

Thren had said there was no magic here. But nothing like that could stand without it.

For a moment, I wondered if I’d come to the wrong place. But the towers looked just like the painting in my room. So it had to be right.

I turned, scanning the clearing. “Tansy?”

Nothing.

I walked the paths, checking each one, but she wasn’t there.

After a while, I found a small pool set into the ground, a statue of a woman rising from its center. A low stone wall curved around it, and one side was lined with pale blue tiles patterned with flowers. It was pretty.

I knelt and washed the dried blood from my skin. My dress was torn in several places. I frowned at it. I should have brought a sewing kit. Next time, I would.

When I stood, I could still see the great tree I’d come through, its presence anchoring the edge of the little forest. I could see almost everything from here.

Still no Tansy.

Birds were beginning to stir, their calls soft against the constant hum of the world. The sky might have been brightening, but with those clouds it was hard to tell.

I ate a little from my pack, then picked a direction and started walking.

As I reached the edge of the trees, the roaring sound swelled and I quickly found out why.

It wasn’t a waterfall, but cars!

Thren had told me about them. Wagons without horses that ran on oil.

They were everywhere. Some were large and boxy. Others curved and smooth, like shells or snails. They gleamed under the strange lights, each one different. Some moved slowly, like a walking pace. Others rushed past faster than any horse I’d ever seen.

And they made those sounds! One screamed at me as I stepped too close, and the man inside waved his arm angrily. I wasn’t sure why. He didn’t stop to explain.

Lights filled everything - white, red, yellow, green - some steady, some blinking. It reminded me of the demesne when the auroras and moths filled the sky. Beautiful. Chaotic. Alive.

There were roads everywhere. More than I could count. The city stretched out in every direction, taller and wider than anything I’d ever imagined. There had to be a million people here.

A million people, all living together. That alone felt like magic.

At the corner of the road, a man stood looking down at something in his hands - a thin, rectangular sheet of black metal that glowed on the top.

I approached carefully. “Excuse me, sir.”

“I don’t have any money,” he said without looking up.

“Oh,” I said, surprised. “That’s so sad. I don’t have much, but would you like some? You could get food.”

He stopped, finally looking at me. His expression shifted - confusion first, then irritation. Then he turned and crossed the street without another word.

I frowned, watching him go.

I tried to cross where he had, but the cars screamed at me again, so I stepped back and waited.

Across the street, a girl stood looking at her own glowing rectangle, but hers was pink.

The lights above the road changed colors. The cars slowed. She started toward me.

“Good morning,” I said as we passed.

She hummed absently, never looking up from the glowing thing in her hands.

* * *

“Mak, have you seen Lilae today?” Mirri’s voice drifted to me from the common room.

I’d spent the entire night in my study, pouring over the ledgers. Page after page of shorthand and symbols, and I was no closer to understanding any of it.

I’d sent copies of the maps to Master Iriandor along with a stripped-down account of what I’d found at the Covenant’s compound. Asked him to check every marked village - even the ones in Caldris and Esmori. I didn’t have contacts there. He might. I told him to send word the moment he found anything.

“No,” Mak answered.

“Brinja? Tib?”

“No, vaer,” they replied in near unison.

“I’ll check her room. She probably lost track of time readin’ again.”

There was a brief murmur of voices. Then Mirri called for Ashlara.

A moment later, Mirri appeared in my doorway. “Have you seen Lilae?” she asked, worry tightening her voice.

“No,” I said, already standing. “Let me find her.”

I reached inward, opening myself to the Faith-scape, searching for her beacon - that warm gold flecked with blue.

It wasn’t there.

My brow furrowed. I searched again. My family’s beacons were always easy to find. They burned like small suns against a sky full of fireflies. I counted. Recounted. Looked again.

Everyone was there. Everyone except Lilae. Everyone including-

“Thren.” Vel’s voice cut through my thoughts. “Tansy is back.”

“Yeah, but Lilae is missing,” I said, the words coming out sharper than I meant.

Vel tilted her head, like she was listening to something just beyond hearing. Then she vanished.

“Organize a search,” I said to Mirri. “Ashie, check the forest.”

My chest tightened. I was already moving - out the door and across the bailey. A dozen long strides brought me to the broken wall around the Weeping Gallows.

I stepped through the gap without hesitation.

The branches stirred, reaching - slow and deliberate - but I circled the tree quickly, keeping my distance, then stepped back out.

“She’s not in there,” I said.

The tension in the others eased - just a little.

“You lost Lilae,” the tree whispered.

My jaw clenched as anger flared, hot and immediate.

“I know where she is…”

“Yeah?” I snapped, turning on it. “Where?”

The others looked at me, trying to read my reaction. The Gallows never spoke the same way to different people. What it whispered to me wasn’t what a person next to me heard.

“Come closer,” it murmured. “And I’ll tell you.”

I let out a short, humorless breath. “I didn’t think so.”

I stomped, letting mana flood into the stone. The broken wall began to mend, sealing itself shut.

“She’s in your world now.”

I froze. Cold spread through me, sudden and absolute.

She’d been curious about Earth. Obsessed, even. She’d read every book in the library that came from there. Every book I’d ever read was in there as a result of the power of the demesne. A few hundred at least. Everything from fiction to textbooks, programming manuals to design guides. She’d absorbed it all, even if she didn’t have the foundation of knowledge to understand it.

“You’re lying,” I said.

Mirri’s hand closed around my arm. “Seth,” she whispered. “It says she’s…”

“In your world,” Ashlara finished.

I turned to Serah and Elise. Both of them stood still, faces pale, eyes wide with horror.

“You too?” I asked, my voice cracking.

They nodded.

“It’s a trick,” I said, though my words lacked conviction.

“Thren, I don’t understand.” Vel stepped in front of me, trying to pull my focus away from the tree.

I met her eyes. “Get the others,” I said.

Then I sealed the wall completely and led everyone back inside.

* * *

I eventually figured out that some of the tall lights came in sets - green, yellow, and red.

Red meant everyone stop.

Green usually meant go. Most people moved when that color appeared, though sometimes they didn’t, and that made the others angry. Cars would scream and people would shout from inside their cars.

I had no idea what yellow meant.

There were other lights too. Some were white or pale yellow and shaped like a little person walking. Those seemed to mean it was safe to cross the street - but only if the tall lights were green. Others showed a waving hand in red or amber. Those meant don’t go, even if everything else said you could.

And some people ignored all of it. They just stepped into the road when there was a gap, weaving through the cars like it was a game they knew how to play.

I met a man sleeping along one of the stone walking paths. He was wrapped in a thick, worn blanket, curled in on himself. His feet were bare, cracked, and covered in sores.

He stirred when I approached and offered to heal him. He was distrustful, but after speaking with him he seemed like a nice man who had no home or food. He eventually agreed.

I knelt beside him and tried to heal his feet - the skin smoothed beneath my hands, the wounds closing like they had never been there. Then I gave him the rest of my food and continued on my way.

There were more like him.

A few scattered along the paths. Many more gathered near stairways that led down into the earth - wide openings lined with metal rails and stone steps. Underground caves. There were so many of them - I wondered if they connected and what people used them for.

As time passed, the city grew louder.

More cars filled the roads. More people filled the paths. The noise layered on itself - engines, voices, screams, footsteps - until it became a constant pressure, like standing beside a roaring river.

Some people wore earmuffs that sang to them. Others held those glowing black rectangles in front of their faces, speaking into them with frustration or urgency, like they were arguing with someone only they could see.

I gave what money I had to people in small pieces, trying to help where I could. A coin here. A coin there. Enough for food, I hoped.

I had a few silver coins, and those went quickly. I hesitated with the gold. They were worth too much. I didn’t know how much things cost here, but I knew gold would be excessive.

I needed a money changer.

Eventually, I found a shop that bought small slips of paper.

Inside, it was bright - almost painfully so after the gray light outside. Shelves lined the walls, filled with hundreds of tiny wrapped presents in every color imaginable. Most were small, just a few inches long, but there were so many shapes. Long and thin. Flat and wide. Some looked like little pillows.

Toward the back, glass cases glowed under focused lights. Inside were objects that immediately drew my eye - bottles in strange shapes and perfectly round metal bars as large as my fist.

I didn’t recognize most of the metals, but I knew they were valuable. You don’t put something under glass like that unless it mattered.

A man stepped up beside me, opened one of the cases, and took out a green metal bar. He carried it to the shopkeep.

Instead of coins, he handed over a flat card. There was a sharp beep. The shopkeep thanked him, and the man left with the metal.

No money changed hands.

Maybe they only traded paper here.

I stepped up to the counter. “Excuse me, sir.”

“Yes?” he asked, his voice carrying a strange accent.

“Is there a money changer nearby?”

He gestured vaguely toward the door. “Try the bank across the street.”

“Thank you,” I said, smiling. Then I turned and stepped back out into the noise and light of the city.

* * *

We gathered in the dining room. All of us. Mirri, Ashlara, Serah, Elise, Grams, Torvek, Issa, Brinja, Elarion, Mak, Tib, Vel, Thae, Clo, Moss, Tansy, and Nim. Every seat filled. Every eye on me.

I told them everything. The Covenant. The Gallowborn. The pyramid. The portal. The guns. All of it.

“The Weeping Gallows out there says Lilae is in my world,” I finished. My voice felt thin in my own ears. “I don’t trust it. Not even a little. But I need to verify.”

I dragged a hand over my face. “There’s no mana there. No magic. I’m hoping my Faith still works, but I don’t know. For all I know, the damn tree might eat me.”

I looked around the table. “But I need to be sure. We need to find Lilae.” Silence pressed in. “I’m going back to Noraethil,” I said. “That’s the only place I know with one of those… house Gallows. I don’t know how to open it, but I’ll figure it out.”

“I’m going with you,” Mirri said immediately.

“No,” I said. “It’s too dangerous.”

“Fuck that,” she snapped. “If there’s even a chance she’s out there, I’m goin’ to help find her.”

“You’ll need help,” Ashlara added. “I’ll go. I might be able to track her.”

“No,” I said again, sharper this time. “I’m not risking any of you. If I die, that’s-”

“Not fuckin’ acceptable!” Mirri shouted, slamming her hand on the table. “You’re not goin’ on some suicide run. We all go or no one’s goin’!”

“Mirri.” I dropped to a knee in front of her.

“Don’t you fuckin’ ‘Mirri’ me.” Tears spilled down her cheeks, unchecked. “I can’t trust you with this.”

That cut deep. My chest tightened.

“You’re angry,” she went on, voice breaking. “You’re makin’ bad calls. And I’m not lettin’ you hurt Lilae.”

The room tilted as a wave of dizziness washed over me. Every failure, every mistake, every bad call I’d made slammed into me all at once. The weight of it pressed down until it was hard to breathe.

She didn’t trust me. None of them did. And they were right not to.

I swallowed hard, but it didn’t help. I was failing. As a father. As a partner. As a protector. As anything that mattered. I didn’t even know how to fix it. And if I couldn’t trust myself… how could they?

“Everyone can’t go,” Thae said, breaking the silence. “Someone needs to stay here. In case she comes back.”

“It doesn’t make sense to risk all of us,” Vel added. “Especially if she’s not actually there.”

“We don’t even know how to open the portal,” Elise said.

“I do.” Tansy’s voice was a whisper, but it cut through the room.

Everyone turned.

“What?” Mirri asked, wiping at her eyes.

Tansy shifted under the attention, shoulders tight. I’d never seen her look… unsure. “I said,” she repeated, just as quietly, “I know how to open it.”

“How?” Elise asked.

“I saw some twig men do it,” Tansy said. “And I followed them.”

Vel’s voice came next, controlled but sharp. “Is that where you were this past week?”

Tansy nodded.

Mirri squared her shoulders as something hard settled into place behind her eyes. “Then let’s go get our fuckin’ daughter back.” She turned and strode out of the room without waiting for an answer.