Fae stood with the others on a high island of rock floating in the sky, looking down at the Chapel of the Unreturned. The entire Location was much like the world they’d passed through to return from the Celestial Shore — numerous rocky islands suspended in the air were connected to each other by narrow, swaying bridges.
But the similarities ended there. This place was a bleak, desolate storm. Dark clouds swirled all around, funneling downward. Black lighting flickered and flashed within them. The rocky islands formed a funnel as well, with the highest islands being on the perimeter of the circle, each island closer to the center also being lower, until the very center island — the one holding the Chapel itself — was at the very bottom and very center.
The ground was broken up beneath their feet, and from every island was constantly crumbling, debris hurtling down into a spiraling vortex, swirling out from the center to the edge, and then rocketing back upward, reforming with the ground again. The center, lowest island was the most volatile, feeding into the very heart of the vortex below at frightening speeds, and yet the eponymous Chapel, its obsidian walls tall and firm, never broke, standing solid and unyielding in the silent storm.
That was what was eerie about this wild, raging place. Though winds blasted across the girls, they could feel them and their hair was flapping all about their faces, though the ground was constantly crumbling and hurtling downward and then back up…
It was all silent.
“Please tell me —” Jupiter started, and then breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness. At least we’re not silent.”
“Look up,” Mercury said.
Fae did so, and saw high in the sky, spiraling above the raging vortex… Soryu. He must have been miles and miles above them, because she could see his whole body, long and serpentine and majestic, covered in beautiful glistening wings. His spiraling flight pattern was mesmerizing, never crossing over himself at any time despite his vast, immeasurable length.
Sonya was looking all over the place, clutching her notebook tight against the wind in one hand and pen in the other as she swiftly wrote, committing her observations to paper.
“I can understand why so many people brave the Unreturning rather than stay here,” Madeline said, looking down across the many islands. There were a few small, ramshackle homes here and there, but there wasn’t a single sign of vegetation, and only one or two people could be seen outside, and would look for all the world like statues if not for hair and clothing being buffeted by the winds.
Fae looked at the bridge that ran from their high island to the next one down, swaying so precariously in the breeze. She took her first steps, leading the way down the bridge as a silent storm raged all around her. One hand held the rope rail for the meager support it offered her, while the other held her hair the best she could, enough at least to be able to see.
They all reached the second island safely, taking a moment to catch their breath and survey what came next. Jupiter yelped as the ground beneath her feet began to give way, but she leapt to more solid footing before it was sucked down to the void.
And yet she didn’t say anything. None of them did, not anymore. There was an ominous feeling in the air, the silence extending to blanket them, inspiring them to the same silence as the storm.
Across the next bridge they went, and then another. On this fourth island, they passed a man standing out in the open. His mouth was slack, his gaze transfixed on the distance. He said nothing to the girls, didn’t look at them.
He just stood there, vacant.
The girls walked on. Another bridge, then another. As she took a moment to collect herself on the latest island, Fae looked back, her gaze tracking up, up, up to the rock they’d started on. The lower she got, the more vertical the vortex here seemed, the islands above seeming so much higher than they had when she’d stood at the top of it all.
And above them, silent and constant, spiraled Soryu.
They crossed three more bridges, paused at three more islands to recover and prepare for the next precarious crossing, and then reached the Chapel itself. The ground here felt more solid, right in front of the Chapel, no matter how much the ground to the left and right violently wrenched itself away to hurtle downward, or came rocketing up to slam into place with eerie silence.
The Chapel was tall, its dark face imposing, its steeple tall and steady in the storm.
Fae pushed the doors open and led the way inside, and Olivia shut the doors when all had entered.
The wind didn’t touch them here. The storm, so silent, suddenly seemed not to exist at all. Within these walls was a sanctuary, a haven from the violent chaos swirling around outside.
There were ten pews to either side, with a long aisle down the middle, and at the front, an altar beneath an X-shaped star. The star was the only thing in this Chapel that wasn’t obsidian, but instead gleamed pearly white.
Outside, there had been just a handful of people, but in the Chapel there were several dozen. None of them sat very close to each other, always with at least enough room for one more between them. All had heads bowed, but none made a sound. None spoke, and Fae could barely hear their breathing.
For a while, Fae and the others just stood there at the entrance, taking in the tranquil silence.
Then Fae saw him. A man, the only one with his head not bowed. He looked back at Fae, and their eyes met. He had such a strange gaze, full of hope but also drawn and gaunt with despair, as if the hope was something external that he desperately clung to, rather than something that came from within.
For a long time Fae stood, the man sat, both staring at each other in silence.
Slowly, the man raised his arm, pointing with a wrinkled finger at the altar. After a moment, he slowly returned his hand to the back of the pew in front of him, turned forward, and bowed his head like the others.
Fae started forward, and her friends followed. Their footsteps were soft despite the marble floors, echoing with a musical resonance throughout the Chapel. Step by musical step, the girls walked forward, until they came to the front, a few paces back from the altar.
There in the floor was a circular opening, and as the girls came close, a grated lift came up, circular and black, its grating made of spiraling, twisting bars. The door slid open noiselessly.
The lift waited.
Fae took a deep breath, then let it out. There was no one to speak to them, no one to tell them where to go or what to do, no one to explain what was going to happen or where things would lead.
There was just the Chapel, and the lift, and so many silent cues, so many things to think about and make choices on.
Fae chose to walk into the lift, and her friends chose to follow her. Together they gathered, just enough space for the seven of them to stand without being cramped. The door slid shut.
Fae looked in surprise at the people seated in the pews. They had raised their heads slightly, and though their eyes were closed, it was as if every single one of them was looking at Fae and her friends. And each extended a hand, fingers outstretched, towards the lift.
The lift descended. Hurtling downward with stunning speed, through the Chapel’s floor and the rocky island beneath and out the bottom, so that the center of the vortex was swirling, spinning, raging all around them. Black lightning flashed by so close to the lift. Debris hurtled past, some pieces slamming into each other and bursting into smaller bits to continue plummeting down into the center of the vortex.
The lift came to a sudden stop.
The door slid open.
Fae and the others stepped out onto a small rocky island. Before them a staircase, each stair made of a floating, disconnected rock, descended in a wide arc to a platform below.
The girls followed the stairs, debris hurtling all around them, lightning flashing, clouds swirling, winds blasting, a silent storm raging, eerie chaos that sounded of tranquil peace.
At the bottom of the stairs, this platform at the bottom, the center, the heart of the vortex, was darkness. The darkness of a maelstrom, the darkness of the most vicious storm, and it was right beneath their feet.
In the center of the platform was a door. Obsidian, like the Chapel above. Its handle gleamed pearly white.
Fae gripped the handle, turned it, pushed the door open. She stepped inside, and the others followed. Neptune came in last, and behind her, the door shut and vanished.
The vortex was gone. The silent storm was gone.
They stood in an endless sea, so tranquil the water was like a mirror. It was shallow, or perhaps it was something else entirely, for it seemed to Fae she and the others were standing on the surface of the water itself.
On and on the water stretched, in all directions, endless. Above them the sky was the same, mirrored water stretching out in all directions, directly above them reflecting the girls below.
Fae looked back down from the still, watery ceiling, and saw that the girls were not alone. Before them, perhaps ten yards away, stood a man. He wore a long, black coat with pearly buttons, and black clothes and boots underneath. He was tall, broad-shouldered, with a pale complexion but dark eyes peering out from dark bangs. In his right hand was clutched a staff twice as tall as he was, black as the night with a thin coil of pearl wrapping around from top to bottom.
Fae took a deep breath, then spoke. “We’ve come to face the Unreturning.”
The man cocked his head slightly to one side. “But you do not seek to return,” he said. His voice was dark and smooth, silk in an evening breeze. “You seek the Silver Star Sanctuary.”
“It’s sort of a returning for us,” Mercury said, stepping forward. “We… it was once our home.”
“So it was,” the man said. The top of his staff flickered once, pale silver, like a faint star peeking out from behind the clouds. “What is it worth to you?”
“Worth?” Mercury asked. “I don’t…”
“Is there a price?” Neptune asked.
“There may be,” the man said. “The trial will decide.”
“Then what about you?” Sonya asked.
“I am Solus,” the man said. “I bid farewell to those Unreturning. Do you have a key?”
“Here,” Neptune said, pulling out the locket she wore, the one with the picture of the Star sisters as children inside. Solus studied it from afar. The tip of his staff flickered again. His gaze shifted, moving across Sonya and Olivia to rest on Fae.
“Where will you go?” he asked.
“To the Silver Star Sanctuary,” Fae said. “We’re all going together.”
“Take care the choices you make,” Solus said. “Take care the words you speak. Think with care about what you can trust. The Unreturning is treacherous. But it must be this way. Especially for you.”
“Why for us?” Fae asked.
“The why belongs to the Orphan,” Solus said. “Truth will come to you, if you succeed here.”
He turned away, walking across the glassy sea. After a dozen steps he faded, then vanished.
All was silent and still. For a long time, none of the girls spoke or moved.
It was Olivia who broke the silence. “Has it already begun?” she asked.
Sonya pressed her pencil’s eraser against her chin, a thoughtful expression on her face. “Perhaps the first test is finding out which way to go when every way looks the same.”
“So where do we start?” Mercury asked.
Fae looked over at Madeline, who was already looking at her. They shared a look, speaking without words.
“This way,” Fae said, and Madeline nodded. They started ahead across the glassy sea, and the others followed.