Welcome to Gaia! ::

The sun comes up, and with it Shun feels a sudden and pressing need to go to the otherworld. Something on the other side draws him inexorably through the pouring rain to the gates of Waite State Forest. As he passes under the gate, something snaps--a sensation unlike any other, save perhaps the breaking of a bone--and everything goes bloody red.

Then it goes white.

And then he wakes up in the late springtime sunshine of other ashdown. The asphalt is dry and warm and--not asphalt. It glimmers pale rose-gold in the light.

Next to him is Heliodora.

"I guess you didn't get a chance to get those cupcakes," she says.

"Oh," says Heliodora. "That was me, actually." She seems embarrassed about it, at least.

She puts her elbows on her knees. Attached to her ankles are two perfectly intact feet, though one bears a scar all the way around it: a thick and nasty thing. She gestures to the area around her: it's not her demesne at all. It's still the entrance to the forest.

Heliodora puts her cheek against her knees, too. All folded up, it's unsettlingly easy to remember that she was only 18 when she disappeared. "I wanted to ask you for a favor."

Heliodora shifts awkwardly. "You think things should be done because they're good, right? Like, morally good. Ethically good. Like, just for the goodness of them. Right? It doesn't matter if you're... scared or anything. If something's necessary for the greater good, then it has to be done. Doesn't it?"

"I want you to kill me," says Heliodora. "I heard about--about Professor Mercer. And I don't have any reason to think Detective Mercer would be any different. And Mr. Watts found Michael, I can't ask him, and... I don't know anyone else. Pax wouldn't let me if he knew what I was doing."

"If I knew another way, I would choose it," says Heliodora, face twisting in frustration. "If I thought I could get out of this alive, I would! But we always knew that we were going to die--always--and that the most we could do was--"

She falls silent.

"I had a friend once," she says. "Ming. I mean, his full name was longer. But I don't really remember it anymore. And he thought we were the stupidest people ever for agreeing to do this, and for thinking we could ever get away with this. And he said so, and we pretended to listen, but we still did it. Because we were stupid little kids who saw the world falling apart and we couldn't let it stay that way."

She picks at the fabric of her sleeve. "Ming's the one who figured out the trick. How to make it so we'd disappear and you'd all come looking. Because once we made the cage, we couldn't... we couldn't get outside it to put things back the way they were."

This is all very interesting, but it doesn't answer Shun's question.

"So. Yes. Right now. I mean it. I thought maybe Zac could... maybe... but I already let Ming die to fix our ********. I want to be the last one."

"Nothing," she says. "Just leave me where I lie. Pax will find me, and he'll--" Heliodora takes a deep breath. "No one will ever know it was you. I'll have just... disappeared. Like Adoelle."

She lifts her head. "It won't make things any worse. I just had the most magic, and I specialized in the right kind of magic, so I was... the containment. Adoelle was the one who directed the spell. And Michael reinforced it. Once he died, we knew that this was it. Now or never. Without all three of us, the spell doesn't work."

"This is your last chance," says Heliodora. Her eyes are large and haunting. "With us gone, there's a chance the Enemy will be able to twist all the magic to his own devices if you don't stop him. You don't want that, Mr. Kuroda. Down that way lies stagnation. You know what happens when things stop moving, right?"

She falls silent for a long moment. "I don't know what happens after I die. I don't think I ever really have..." She presses a hand to her throat. "But it'll buy you time. Time you otherwise don't have. Magic's like matter, it can't be destroyed, and I have..." She smiles, awkwardly. "I have a lot of it. So I'll direct it and that'll do what it can."

"It'll all die," said Heliodora. "Nothing new will grow. No children. No life. No change." She rubbed her hands together. Her cheeks had gone pale; the ice spiking out between her ribs glimmered along the edges, but she had never threatened a soul and she wouldn't start now. "If you don't think you can pull it off. The defeat of the enemy. I left my notes on the spell in the library. Adoelle's should be in the court, and..."

She picked at her skirt. One more time. "Yeah," she said. "Please do it fast."