Delilah sat on the couch with Alice laying beside her, her head in Delilah’s lap. She still hadn’t awoken since… whatever it was that the Fury had done to her. Delilah kept her left hand, with the special Paladin bracelet, by Alice’s right, so that their bracelets were always touching. It was the best she could think to do for her. Alice’s breathing came steady and calm, as if she was only sleeping. But no disturbance or effort could wake her.
Marcus sat on the floor, his staff draped across his legs. He was staring at the ring-shaped bells with a puzzled expression. On a second couch sat Terevalde and Emmeryn, the Book of the Key open in their laps, but their eyes looking at nothing, their expressions distant, lost. In the farthest corner of the room sat Maribelle, with Isabelle on her lap. Isabelle looked absolutely distraught, and Maribelle held her close, stroking her hair and whispering comfortingly to her.
The house was owned by the Lost Bell’s Bellkeepers. Two of the identical triplets were unconscious, resting upstairs. Seated before Delilah and the rest of them was the third of the Bellkeepers, the only one who had ever spoken. She wore an anguished expression, her head bowed, her hands trembling.
For a long time, they had all sat here, saying nothing.
Out the window, up the hill, Delilah could see the Lost Bell. Split in half. “Irreparable,” the Bellkeeper had said, before leading them to her home.
How had it all gone so wrong?
“You…” the Bellkeeper started, her voice hoarse. She cleared her throat, slowly shook her head, and then looked up, staring at Delilah with bloodshot eyes. “You need to know. What happens next. With… the Bell split. The second ring incomplete. The first… now drowned out.”
“Drowned out?” Delilah asked.
“By the splitting of the Bell,” the Bellkeeper said.
Delilah shuddered, That awful sound still echoed in her mind. “What does that mean?” she asked.
“The Key of the World is not fully prepared,” the Bellkeeper said. “The Keys are sealed, and the seals were not broken. And the lightbaring peal has not reached the wider world. You have a difficult task before you.”
“Then it isn’t hopeless,” Delilah said, sitting up a little straighter. “What do we have to do?”
“It is… heartening,” the Bellkeeper said, “to see you still have hope after such a… a…” She shuddered, shook her head, and sat back. “The Keys remain sealed. The Lost Bell is broken beyond repair. And hope has not reached the hearts of so many who need it. You, Keybearer, must bear the burden that the Bell would have borne for you. I…” She clutched her head and doubled over, resting her elbows on her knees. “Excuse me for a moment, please.” She rocked back and forth, her breaths coming strained and shaky.
“I’m sorry,” Delilah said, bowing her head. “I have no idea how painful this is for you.”
“To be a Bellkeeper is no simple thing,” Emmeryn said. Her voice sounded far away, and she still didn’t look at anyone or anything in particular. “And for all the damage that has been done over the ages, no Bell has ever been sundered.”
“So the seals are still twined,” Delilah said. “What does that mean for us? I mean… for me? What do I… do?”
Alice’s eyes suddenly snapped open, one white and one black, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling. She sat up with a start, looking all around. With a sudden lurch she leaned forward, clutching her stomach, and then leapt to her feet, darting out the front door. Delilah ran after her, calling her name, but when she got outside she paused.
Alice knelt on the edge of the porch, vomiting onto the flowers. But what she spat up wasn’t bile, or blood.
Darkness. Inky black liquid drenched the flowers and soil. Three times Alice threw up, and then, after a coughing fit, she dropped back to a seat, wiping her mouth. The pool of Darkness swirled, bubbled, and then suddenly evaporated, turning into mist that wafted up on the air, dispersing into tiny motes of blackness that soon vanished entirely.
The flowers and soil where the Darkness had roiled were dead.
“Alice, what was —” Delilah started, kneeling beside her.
“Scared?” Alice asked, looking over at her. Her eyes flickered, alternating black to white over and over and over again in rapid succession. They soon settled back to one white, one black. She blinked, then rolled her eyes, and the black turned to white.
“Scared for you,” Delilah said, taking Alice’s hand, the same hand she’d wiped her mouth with. “Never scared of you.”
Alice grinned. “Thanks.” She turned away, coughed twice, then shook her head, quickly, like an involuntary shiver. “I just… that was… too much. Remember when we were at the Well in Grimoire, and I tossed out the idea of just drinking all of that Darkness? Yeah. Bad idea. I’m, uh… kinda sure I almost died just now.”
“Because you tried to take the Fury’s Darkness?” Delilah asked.
Alice nodded. She shivered again, and then leaned into Delilah, hugging herself. Delilah, startled for a moment, hugged her, too. “S-sorry,” Alice said, shivering. “I just… uh… g-got cold, I g-guess.”
“It’s okay,” Delilah said. “Let’s get you inside. Get you a blanket.”
“Not yet,” Alice said. She shivered a bit longer in Delilah’s embrace, then pulled away and hopped to her feet. Holding out her hand in front of her, she called out in a loud voice, “Rabanastre!”
Her rabbit Summon appeared, but he was panting, his shoulders slumped. “Tired, huh?” Alice asked, smiling sympathetically. “That’s okay. You can rest. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.” She clenched her fingers into a fist, and Rabanastre raised his own fist, bumping knuckles with her. A moment later, he vanished through a portal.
Alice let out a heavy sigh. “Okay. Guess I’m… ready. To go back in. But, uh…” She raised an eyebrow, looking at Delilah with something akin to embarrassment. “Do you think I could raise you on the one blanket offer? I think I’ll need, like, a dozen.”
Delilah laughed, standing with her. “We’ll see what we can find.”
Back inside, they were able to find three blankets for Alice, so she made up for the other nine she’d hoped for by bundling tight and sitting cozied up next to Delilah on her left. “You’re really warm, you know,” she said, laying her head on Delilah’s shoulder. For the first time since she’d met her, Delilah was reminded that Alice was even younger than she was. She’d never disclosed her actual age, but she wasn’t yet a teenager. It was easy to forget, with how mature she acted, and the fact that she was the same height as Delilah — perhaps a bit taller, but Delilah wouldn’t be the first to admit that.
And it put Delilah firmly in the big sister role. It wasn’t a role she’d ever expected to fill, but somehow…
It felt good.
It felt even better when Isabelle came over and, without saying a word, hopped onto the couch on the opposite side of Alice and cuddled up against her. Alice didn’t say anything. But a soft, contented sigh told Delilah all she needed to know.
“I apologize for my hesitation,” the Bellkeeper said, raising her head. She eyed Alice for a moment. “It is good to see you recovered. Now, I must do all I can to aid you in what comes next. I… and my sisters… cannot leave this place. Even with the Bell sundered, our duty and home remain here. But you have Emmeryn and Terevalde with you, and the Book. They will help.”
“But we don’t know what to do in this instance,” Emmeryn said. “The Bell… with it broken, what do we do now? Neither of its vital rings made it beyond this place. The Keys are still sealed, which is something we never had to face when… when Gio…” She faltered, closing her eyes and bowing her head.
“You must light the world through song,” the Bellkeeper said.
“Through song?” Delilah asked, sitting up straighter, excited at the prospect.
The Bellkeeper nodded. “Nothing can truly replace the Bell. Which means you… may not be able to do this. It will take a true songstress, and a potent location to amplify that song. I can provide you more detailed instructions in writing.”
“Revue!” Delilah said, her heart soaring. “She can help us! If anyone’s a true songstress, it’ll be her. And Revue Palace must have a place or a way to amplify the song we need. If we bring the instructions to her, I’m sure she can help us.”
“It is good that you are Revue Palace’s Paladins,” the Bellkeeper said. “The Key chose an excellent Keybearer.”
“Even though I failed to protect the Bell,” Delilah said, her enthusiasm swiftly dimming.
“That failure is shared by all of us,” Marcus said. “And now we have hope, in the midst of destruction. We mustn’t lose sight of that.”
“So Revue Palace can light the way,” Terevalde said, fiddling with his unused monocle. “I see. But it cannot be easy. I could understand being able to replace the lightbaring peal, for all the difficulty that would still carry. But to also break the seals… and yet you say it can be done through song?”
“The peal of a Bell is already a song,” the Bellkeeper said. “All you have been doing, traveling to each Bell and seeing them rung, has been filling the world with song to prepare the Key of the World for its eventual turning. But to replace a Bell’s ringing is not a simple task. That is why I have instructions for you, instructions that perhaps Revue alone will be able to make sense of.”
“So you give us the instructions, and we go back to Revue Palace,” Maribelle said from her distant corner. “If that is all, then there is still more we need to worry about. The Lingering Will shall certainly find us again soon, and we are no closer to knowing how to deal with it. And then there are the… Furies.” Her voice faltered at the last word.
“Why’d they bust up the Bell in the first place?” Alice asked. Her serious, inquisitive tone from within her blanket cocoon was amusing, but Delilah suppressed her laughter. “You think Sal’s actually scared of us turning the Key?”
“He should be,” Terevalde said. “No matter his power, the Key of the World is unmatched. And when turned for the sake of the Light, there is no Darkness that can stand against it.”
“No night can withstand Daybreak,” the Bellkeeper said in a hushed, reverent tone.
Daybreak. That was what the Book meant about the Lost Bell, about ringing it twice to let the world know that “the time is nigh.” Daybreak, the dawning of light. Just the word made Delilah’s own heart burst with light.
And it was a fitting term for what was coming. The Endless Night. What other way to rend through the darkest night than through the dawning of the Light?
“I still don’t get why the world needs to know,” Alice said. “Why not just break the seals and turn the Key? As long as we do that, we win. Like every other story about saving the world, it’s up to the rag-tag heroes to do their quest on their own. What does the rest of the world have to do with it?”
“Faith is a powerful thing,” Marcus said.
The Bellkeeper nodded. “The world needs to know, in the face of the darkest of nights, that light is coming. Darkness is strongest when people allow it to be. And the more the Darkness grows, the more people’s faith in the Light wavers. It is the duty of Bellkeepers and Keybearer to restore that faith, to give them hope that the Darkness cannot prevail. And your mission is also dependent on the hearts of all peoples.”
“We gotta give ‘em a reason to believe, huh?” Alice asked. She wriggled her shoulders and arms out of the blankets, and no longer shivered. “And music’s the way to do that. Music’s really powerful, isn’t it?”
“It is,” Maribelle said. “Art is a magic that speaks directly to the heart, that touches and influences us in ways nothing else can. There is music in every moment, artistry in all of creation. This is no mistake. If we are to awaken hearts to the hope we bear, then music is our best chance. Now I understand just how important the Bells are.”
“Is that why music was able to reach our sisters when nothing else could?” Isabelle asked. “I… I know I hesitated. Because it hurt them. But…” She looked to Maribelle for encouragement.
“That pain was the pain of having the Darkness, which has become so tied to their own hearts, pulled at,” Maribelle said. She bowed her head, twining her fingers together. “The only way to save them — if they can still be saved — is to rip the Darkness free from them. It will not be easy. And… it will not be without pain for them. Hearts so tied to Darkness will not relinquish it without a fight. I wish there was a better way. But this is the best we can do with what power we have. What Dullan did to them is wholly unnatural, something that could never happen even to those most loyal to the Darkness through natural means.”
“Even the Lord of Night does not have such a Darkened heart,” Marcus said. “The pain is the war within them, for even this terrible evil that Dullan has wrought upon them is not complete. Your music was reaching the Light that still held a place deep inside their hearts, Isabelle. The Darkness was what was pained, as you began to force it out.”
“I understand,” Isabelle said, conjuring her flute, the True Flute, and gazing at it with a conflicted look in her big blue eyes. “I won’t screw it up next time. I won’t hesitate. I want to save them. I just… have to understand. They were put through so much pain to become those… Furies. They just have to endure one more bit of pain, and then… then they’ll be free.”
“So we’ll definitely have to face them again, huh?” Alice asked, staring at the floor. “I’m not sure Rabanastre and me can be much help. We got our butts kicked back there. Like we didn’t even matter.”
“What exactly happened?” Marcus asked. “We were quite worried about you for a moment there.”
“Only a moment?” Alice asked, raising an eyebrow. Then she sighed. “I don’t know. I just… I tried to swallow up her Darkness. I’m the Dark Eater, right? Thought it might actually be good for something…”
A clatter drew all their eyes to the Bellkeeper. She was standing, her chair toppled behind her, staring at Alice with wide, frightened eyes. “What… what did you call yourself?” she asked, trembling.
“Dark Eater,” Alice said, pursing her lips, like the words had an unpleasant taste. She flinched slightly when Emmeryn gasped. “What about it?”
“You… you mustn’t be here,” the Bellkeeper said, backing away, shaking her head. “Didn’t you come here on the Travelers? Didn’t they warn you?” She spoke with sudden urgency, gazing pleadingly at Delilah.
“Solla was frightened of the term, yeah,” Delilah said. “But she doesn’t reject Alice. And neither do I.”
“But you must,” the Bellkeeper said. “She will ruin everything.”
Delilah stood up so fast that Alice, still resting her head on her shoulder, fell sideways with a yelp to lay on the couch. “I will not send her away,” Delilah said, staring back defiantly at the Bellkeeper. “Whatever Jormungand made her, she’s no threat to us. She’s no threat to me. You have no idea what she’s done for us, what a hero she is.”
“But she is the most dangerous element of all to your quest,” the Bellkeeper said.
“When the Key of the World was forged,” Emmeryn said in a soft, frightened voice, “it was told that there was only one power that could swallow up its light. The Dark Eater.”
“I eat Darkness, not light,” Alice said, sitting back up, but there wasn’t much conviction in her voice.
Delilah made up for her lack of conviction tenfold. “She’s no danger to the Key! And she’s no danger to anyone in this room. If you’re afraid of her, then you can leave this to us. Alice and I will stop the Endless Night. Alone if we have to.” She turned, reaching out with her left hand to take Alice’s right. Their bracelets touched for a moment, and light bloomed between them. When Delilah pulled Alice to her feet, her heart was aglow with a warmth she hadn’t felt since the Revue of the Night. Little flickers of white fire leapt back and forth between their bracelets, a small, flickering reminder of the fire they’d shared in pushing back the Sons of Night and restoring Revue and her Palace.
“I’m… not going anywhere,” Alice said, gripping Delilah’s hand tight. A smile blossomed on her lips, and Delilah’s heart was full to bursting.
“But that’s…” the Bellkeeper said, staring in awe at the fire joining the girls together by their bracelets.
“Yes,” Marcus said, standing. “An old link, one we haven’t seen in ages. Trust Delilah, Lady Bellkeeper. And trust Alice. They have proven themselves time and again. They won’t fail now. And they can count on me to watch over them, no matter what.” He smiled proudly at the girls.
“I won’t leave Alice, either,” Isabelle said, hopping from the couch to come over and wrap up Alice in the tightest hug the little girl could manage. “She’s my friend.”
Alice gasped softly, staring at Isabelle in shock, and it took her several moments to finally wrap her free arm around her. “Thanks, Belle-Belle,” she said.
“How could I ever abandon you?” Maribelle asked, joining them. “I vouched for you as a Paladin, and I’ve seen over and over again who you really are. You aren’t what he made you.” She smiled. “You write your own story.”
Alice chuckled. “You got that right.” She gave Delilah’s hand another squeeze. “Not alone, though,” she murmured in a quieter voice. “I’ve had… a lot of help.”
“Emm, we can trust them,” Terevalde said. But Emmeryn was looking at him with anything but trust.
“You knew?” she asked. “You knew that she was the Dark Eater all this time, and yet you’ve continued traveling with her, brought her here of all places, and —”
“The sundering of the Bell was not her doing,” Terevalde said. “As we both saw, she risked her life to protect it. It is as Delilah says. She has proven herself a hero time and time again. Please, Emm. Don’t turn your back on her. She did not choose to be the Dark Eater. And she has rejected Darkness at every step of her journey. Don’t you think that says all that we need to know about her character?”
“I…” Emmeryn started, bowing her head. She clutched the Book of the Key tightly, shaking slightly, as if she stood upon a narrow precipice, caught between two difficult choices. Slowly, she stood. “I will trust you, Terevalde. But I will also keep a close eye on her.” She looked to Delilah. “If that’s all right, of course.”
“You can,” Delilah said. “And if you get scared, or you think she’s a danger, you talk about it. Don’t keep anything to yourself, and definitely don’t try to act on anything by yourself, or go behind our backs.”
Emmeryn nodded. “I will accept your terms. I… I promised myself that I would help Fae’s sister, and that I would help the proper Keybearer. And so I shall, in whatever way I can.”
“So this is your decision,” the Bellkeeper said, righting her chair and wearily taking a seat. “I…” She placed her head in her hands. “I see. So this is how you choose to proceed. I will not rescind my warning. But I also will not hold back what aid I can offer. If you will give me a moment, I can find and give to you the instructions that Revue will need.”
“Thank you,” Delilah said, some of the tension leaving her. She’d been frightened, for a moment, that she really would have to continue as just her and Alice. She wouldn’t take anything back, she wouldn’t abandon her no matter what. But she was glad that the two of them wouldn’t be continuing alone.
“Back to Revue Palace, then,” Alice said. She grinned, but Delilah could feel a slight tremble through the hand she still held.
The Bellkeeper brought Delilah the instructions, wished them well, and then went to lie down with her sisters. The entire conversation had clearly taken a great toll on her, and Delilah tried to let her know how grateful she was for all of her assistance. Words felt too small, but the Bellkeeper seemed to understand.
They left, then, starting towards the hill that would lead them up to the Wayfarer’s Roost. “We’ll have to return through the Corridors of Memory,” Terevalde explained. “But we won’t have to be tested on the return trip. Only those seeking to enter this place are tested. Departing is much simpler.”
It should have been. And it would have been. But, shortly before they reached the hill, a voice drifted to them on the air. Soft, faint, at first. Just a whisper. But that whisper was joined by others, echoes of the same, and that chorus grew louder, and closer.
“The… Bell… is… broken…!”
“The Lingering Will!” Delilah cried, racing for the hill. But Marcus grabbed her, pulled her back, and just in time. Up from the stones of the hill rose the grasping, mist-like hands of the Lingering Will.
“The… Bell… broken…”
The Lingering Will’s voice was enraged, seething with fury. This wasn’t just a being grasping greedily for the Key anymore. And Delilah understood why.
With the Lost Bell broken, the Key’s power is harder for him to make full use of.
This was the Lingering Will — full, pure fixation on a singular obsession. Gioracchi’s lust for power lingered long after his death, and anything that could prove an obstacle to fulfilling that will was an outrage.
“Gio…” Emmeryn said with a gasp, staring wide-eyed at the ghostly hands.
“There’s no way up,” Alice said, stepping back as the Lingering Will steamed up from the stones, all grasping hands and ghostly faces in a wide net of fog and mist. Their path to the Wayfarer’s Roost, and the Corridors of Memory — and Solla and Lunos, their rides out of here, waiting for them on the other side — was blocked off.
“Can’t we call Solla to us here?” Isabelle asked.
“If she and Lunos could come directly to the city, they would have brought us here instead of leaving us to face the Corridors of Memory,” Marcus said. “We have to find another way through this.”
“He cannot be fought,” Maribelle said. “We’ve already seen that.” Delilah shuddered, remembering Hayden, Botan, and Camellia, and what had happened when they and their entire team of Paladins had tried to fight the Lingering Will. The trio had barely survived, and they’d been left with wounds that Healing Magic couldn’t set right. Neither magic, nor weapons, nor any force they could muster could harm, or even touch, the Lingering Will.
Only one thing had ever worked.
“Is there a door in this city?” Delilah asked, looking to Terevalde and Emmeryn. “A door of Light, like the ones connecting Daylight Bastions together?”
“I…” Emmeryn started, but she was staring at the growing, furious Lingering Will with wide, terrified eyes.
“Emm, please,” Terevalde said. “What you see… it is not Gio. It is just a remnant. He won’t listen to a word we say. He won’t even recognize —”
“Terevalde… Emm…”
One of the faces within the swirling mist of the Lingering Will cast its haunting eyes on the pair.
“You…”
But that was as far as the voice got, before that face, and all the rest of them, opened their mouths wide in anguished screams, screams like nothing Delilah had ever heard before. Whispers, not full voices, but so chilling, so cold, so piercing that her ears were left ringing even though the screams weren’t loud at all.
“He does,” Emmeryn said, looking to Terevalde, fear and sorrow in her eyes. “He recognizes us. He’s still in there!”
“He’s a remnant,” Terevalde said. But his voice was lacking the necessary conviction. “And in a moment, he’ll try to destroy us, destroy the entire city, to get the Key. Emm, please — is there a Door of Light in this city?”
Emmeryn stared at Terevalde, and then looked back at the growing Lingering Will. “There… is,” she finally said, her voice breaking. “Follow me.”
She took off running, stumbling twice before finding her footing. The rest followed. Maribelle scooped up Isabelle, and Delilah intentionally took up the rear, knowing that she was the best bait there was to keep the Lingering Will from causing any collateral damage.
She needed to keep its focus on her.
And Alice ran right alongside her, not letting her be the bait all by herself. She didn’t say a word, just gave her a look that said it all.
I’ve got your back.
Through the city they ran, as fast as they could. The city of the Lost Bell was made up of many wide open circular plazas, and they made it to the first of these before the Lingering Will let loose another vicious scream… and began its pursuit.
Delilah had only ever seen it slowly approaching, hauntingly grasping and reaching for its targets. But now the great, dark mist full of faces and ghostly hands came like a wicked storm, thundering with rage in its pursuit.
People hurried into their homes, or shops, or whatever building was closest to hand, shutting and locking doors, shading windows, vanishing into hiding. A few panicked cries went up, but for the most part, people were quiet about their flight. They didn’t want to attract attention from the force of nature that pursued the city’s latest visitors.
“We’re not fast enough!” Isabelle cried, looking over Maribelle’s shoulder.
Marcus, at the front with Terevalde and Emmeryn, turned and planted his staff firmly against the stones of the street. Seven bells rang out, and a shockwave of light burst forth from the top of the staff, a wave that gave Delilah’s heart a burst of hope —
And made the Lingering Will falter, for a moment.
Marcus furrowed his brow, his eyes narrowed in focus. “So that’s the best we can do, hmm?” he murmured. “Come! It will recover swiftly, and I don’t think that will be as effective a second time!”
“Is that all the juice you’ve got, gramps?” Alice asked.
“It is,” Marcus said grimly. Alice didn’t have any witty retorts to that.
They fled to the next plaza, and then the Lingering Will was roaring after them once more. Its whispering chorus called for the Key, and for vengeance against the Keybearer for the Bell’s sundering.
Delilah tried her best not to be swayed by the voices. But guilt was a powerful thing, and she felt it deeply. The Lingering Will was her responsibility. The ringing of the Bells, something she’d set about doing against Lady Kodoka’s wishes, had alerted the Lingering Will to the return of the Key, and brought it raging out of the Void into this world to claim its power. Because of that, people had died, and now a city that had already seen so much suffering and pain was threatened anew.
I had to ring the Bells. And I didn’t know about the Lingering Will — Lady Kodoka knew, but she kept that knowledge to herself when she could have warned me. I didn’t know about it until it had already done terrible damage.
But… it’s still my fault. And for all the guilt Terevalde and Emmeryn must feel for what this remnant of their friend has turned into, they didn’t do this. They didn’t bring him back into the world.
I did.
But for all the guilt, Delilah wasn’t giving herself up. She still ran, as fast as she could. She was determined to reach the Door of Light, to break apart the Lingering Will one more time and buy her and her friends the time they needed to finish their quest. Once the Key was turned, would the Lingering Will be destroyed? She hoped so. There didn’t seem to be anything else they could do.
I can never let it have the Key. And I can never let it harm anyone else ever again.
So I can’t let it catch me. I have to make it in time!
“How much farther?” Alice asked.
“There!” Emmeryn said, pointing. At the next plaza, three doors stood in a triangle, each embossed with a shimmering golden flower on their face. Delilah winced inwardly at what destruction was about to be visited on one of them. But it was a small price to pay to save the city.
“Where do they lead?” Isabelle asked.
“It doesn’t matter!” Alice said. “We’re just gonna get blasted to some other place anyway!”
“Take the one on the left,” Emmeryn said, gasping for breath. It was clear she wasn’t used to such desperate sprints. “It’s the least important.”
“Go!” Delilah shouted, feeling the breath of the Lingering Will on her neck, racing as fast as she could to escape. The whispers cried out for vengeance and power, accompanied by a thundering crackle of sound and fury. And it was all so close. Too close! Delilah ran, Alice took her hand and they ran together, her speed pulling Delilah along faster, but it still didn’t look like they could possibly make it in time.
Marcus, Terevalde, and Emmeryn made it. Marcus opened the door to reveal a shimmering wall of light, and saw the pair safely through while waiting for the rest. Maribelle made it and leapt through, carrying Isabelle, who reached back for Alice and Delilah, screaming something that got lost in the sound and fury all around them.
Alice and Delilah were still too far away!
“Go!” Delilah cried, waving Marcus on.
“Yeah!” Alice said, even her voice betraying hints of fear. “We’ll catch up!”
Marcus watched them a moment longer. He tapped his staff, sending out another burst of light and beautiful harmony from the seven ring-shaped bells.
Then he stepped through the light, and was gone.
“Get ready to jump!” Alice said. Delilah nodded, too short of breath to speak. Brief flickers of white fire shot between her and Alice’s bracelets, but they were faint, fleeting. A hope, a memory, of the connection they’d formed before. But nothing as powerful as what had saved them during the Revue of the Night.
And then, miraculously, they reached the Door. Delilah and Alice leapt desperately through, hurling themselves into the light. Behind them came the Lingering Will, a roaring, vengeful storm of darkness and shadow.
In the light, it felt like they were free.
For a moment.
But the Lingering Will came in after them, reaching, grasping. All suddenly went wild, and Delilah was whirling, barely holding onto Alice as they were flung far and wide in a tight, dizzying spiral. A pressure built up, a rushing in Delilah’s ears, an ache in her chest, and consciousness threatened to vanish.
Just before she blacked out, though, Delilah saw the Lingering Will’s hands reaching for her. One tiny finger brushed against her cheek for the smallest, most fleeting of moments. But in that faint, brief touch, Delilah’s entire body was shot through with cold. Frozen, like she’d never be warm again, she tumbled into blackness, and consciousness abandoned her.