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There was an email from Dylan in Cora's inbox. An alert flashed in the system tray of her taskbar, just once.



Kallisti.

First: I paid $5 for the automatic mailing service that let me send this, so I damned well hope it was on time. If it was early, I imagine I've made a fool of myself. If it was late, I'm very sorry.

This is a suicide note, in that as you read this I lie dead. This is not a suicide note in that I will not proceed to enumerate my various miseries, my brokenheartedness and how I simply cannot go on without you -- as I lived a great deal of life without you, both here and there, and while it was certainly less interesting I must say that I've suffered worse things. You have not made me miserable. This was not an act of despair. This has nothing to do with you. Know that and feel no remorse.

My brother was captured yesterday. He was attempting to subdue the White Moon Princess, with my permission, but as far as I can tell she brought him back to her keeper instead. The wizard demanded the Pyrite Crystal in exchange for his return, but he was poisoned by Devourer and reckless, so he assented to all my terms. You've played enough board games with me to know what kind of idiot assents to all my terms.

You know where this is going, so I won't ramble.

You must understand that my father was a commander of armies and a conqueror of nations. He was never afraid to murder. Of course, he called it something different, war, valor, casualties -- I know it better than that, but I am as coldblooded. You also must understand that I would not have done this if I believed this man to be anything less than he was -- which is to say, a thing of Chaos, a creature with an unending hunger that would have devoured this city and this world and our worlds too once he was finished. If I've succeeded then the Marcasite Crystal should be yours again. If I've failed this is all for somewhat melodramatic naught. But I can't imagine how I could have failed.

There were three options available to me: abandon Hector to him and his death or corruption, give away the Pyrite Crystal, or do no such thing. My only regret is that, if I have not miraculously saved my brother's life in some way, I have entirely deprived my lord father of heirs. I suspect he would find this highly typical of me.

In any case, I did my best, it wasn't much. I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch. I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you.

Respectfully,
Dylan Rasmussen
who brought Agamemnon's armies to our gates.



Too early, Cora wished, let it have been sent even a minute too early. The sun had laid down a watercolor wash of grapefruit red over everything, and Cora pushed off her seat and ran to the mirror, but already she knew, deep down. The windows were cracked to let in the cool, spring air, and through them, there came a certain sort of quietness, a reverence. It was the funerary stillness of the Pyrite Crystal's great magic, written of in old accounts, from bygone years when former kings had used it.

Nonetheless, she crushed her hands to the wooden frame of her standing mirror, breath fogging the glass, and called for the prince of the Imperium anyway. She called out his name, let it repeat within the glass till its tinny echo faded away, then called again, again -- till the dusty echoes disappeared and she knew Alexandros would not answer them. Could not answer them.

Whatever she had wanted, it had never been this.

She had lived to see Alexandros die once before. She hadn't ever wanted that again; and yet, there she was, staring wide-eyed into the mirror as though if she didn't blink, she wouldn't cry at all. There in the mirror she still sometimes fancied she saw Chaos looking back at her; dream, dream, and never doubt. There in the mirror was a young girl with a blank face, and she seemed to look back at Cora scornfully.

Sirens began whining in the distance.

Her mind went back, and in her memory Alexandros lay with his head in her lap and her arms crossed over him -- dying, dead. She had wept for him, then, for his amethyst eyes and his soft voice. He was beautiful even in death, as all loved creatures inevitably were, and she had cradled him close until her love and her anger had died with him. Cora might have preferred him to die that way, in her arms -- except that that time, she had killed him. As he had always planned her to. Alexandros planned everything, after all -- including his own end. This wasn't what she wanted.

"Aphrodite," she called next. "Report."

Minutes seemed to pass. "Aphrodite." Still nothing.

There were six people who might have heard her in the mirror as she called off their names: Aphrodite, Ares, Gaia, Alexandros, Hector, Laocoon. Six people out of seven billion who would even have any idea of what the Pyrite Crystal could do. Two of them replied. Only two.

Find your teammates, she told Sailor Gaia. Report back to me when you do. That was almost certainly fruitless, except to make sure their corpses were properly identified, but she set her to it anyway. Fallon had gone on an errand for her, and hadn't returned. Ronnie had been patrolling.

She gave the same instructions to Laocoon, the apparently-last cavalier of the Imperium -- and then she was about to put an end to that conversation when he said, Wait. Turn on your television. She did, clicking around till she found one of the local news stations.

There were no bodybags, as there should have been. People were being loaded onto gurneys, and gurneys onto ambulances. People were . . . unconscious. Asleep.

Laocoon, she said slowly. The prince didn't plan this.

I know, he said, just as grave. They both understood what that meant.



She had a name to go on, grudgingly given at their previous meeting: Rea Marshall. She didn't have a phone number, or an address -- but the rest was supplied by Google, by Facebook, by SuperPages -- no, that was a lie. The rest was supplied by Crystal Academy's own website, a charming little affair where parents could log in and check their childrens' online progress reports -- there was a class roster there, confirming Rea Marshall was a student, and after that it was all simple.

Fallon Novette-Naim had a full-length mirror in her room. It was considered standard issue for any mirrorwalker, and -- as Ares was thorough, as Ares was a dedicated soldier who'd have strangled herself on her own sash before failing the Millennium -- Selene had been there before. The lights were off, and the bed tidily made. Everything was set neatly, as it had been when she'd visited there before. There wasn't a great deal of clutter, which made it feel more like a staged room in a demo house than a place where someone actually lived -- but it was a place where someone lived, after all, and the thing that made it feel most empty of all was that it was missing Fallon.

If she had remembered Fallon had discriminating tastes where food was concerned, Fallon would still be with her. If she hadn't sent her on some fool's errand for ice cream, to make them both feel purposeful and productive, instead of miserable and lost. If she had known what Alex was planning. If she had known, had thought, had remembered. But she hadn't.

There was no time for that now, in any event. Sailor Selene, still in full soldier's regalia, left Fallon's room and picked through the hallway doors with their stencilled nameplates till she found one for Rea Marshall. There, she raised her fist and pounded on the door.

Selene had a sour look on her face, like someone had just offered her peppermint Schnapps and she'd just kicked it back to discover it was, in fact, Rumpleminze. There was no real malice today, however; she looked a little threadbare, like she was too tired to play this game with Rea today, but had no idea how to stop.

"I did nothing," she snapped, curt as usual. "I'm not actually responsible for all the ills of the world, you know. I do occasionally have to stop and eat." Really, it was no wonder she and Rea always seemed to fall into the same patterns. "I didn't come here to trifle with you. Let me in."

Selene ripped her hand away and gave Rea a cold look. "Don't manhandle me," she snapped.

She stalked into the room with wider strides than a person her size commonly took, and settled almost immediately in to pacing the room. "Prince Alexandros is in danger, and all the city with him. I've come to ask the Dream Priest's help; there's no one else."

I'll force you if I must, it was on the tip of her tongue to say. But before she could, she remembered the dead resolve that Helios had always looked at her with, the cold regard. She thought of Alexandros, dead in her arms.

"I'll beg you on my knees if I must," she said -- she who had never knelt to anyone, once upon a time -- and meant it.

"Most of my soldiers are gone as well," Selene answered, bracing her hands on Rea's dresser. She didn't clarify 'gone' because she couldn't, not yet; once Gaia located them, she'd know for certain whether Aphrodite and Ares were still alive or not. She could only hope they'd been loaded onto gurneys with the rest of the sleeping.

She'd never adjusted well to this world, not really. In the Millennium, even as a woman, her rule had been respected. She'd been a giver of order, a keeper of the laws of the land. Armies and governments had moved at her gesture. Here, her authority was only what she could carry. It was only that she commanded the respect of her soldiers, few and loyal. Ares and Aphrodite were two of her best, and always had been -- if indeed they were in Tartaros, they'd carry on from there to the best of their ability, she knew. But they'd be no help to her here, and there was little they could do without Cassandra, either.

"I have word from Prince Alexandros," she began. "The wizard who stole my crystal, and Princess Chronos's, meant to attempt to bargain Alex's away from him as well. The prince meant to end his threat to us by releasing the magic of the Pyrite Crystal rather than handing it over. As your prince's Golden Crystal brings life and energy, the Pyrite Crystal sits the other side of the coin. Long have the people of our worlds feared its magic, and with good reason: it should have killed all the people you now see sleeping, including the wizard.

"I don't know why it didn't work at full strength. Perhaps the wizard had some magic to temper it, perhaps Alexandros saw some opportunity -- I don't know. This is -- a lesser form of the Crystal's power, if indeed they all sleep.

"We have a dreamworld too, you know. Like your Elysion, Tartaros is tied to Earth's prince, and kept by a guardian. Ours is the Priestess Cassandra -- but without Cassandra to temper it, Tartaros is a dangerous place. And that's where the people who've fallen have all been taken."

She stopped now, looking over at Rea to underscore the importance of what she was saying. "Listen to me, Helios. Cassandra is not in this world. There is no one to control Tartaros without her. If we can't find a way to rescue Prince Alexandros, none of the people now sleeping will ever wake up.

"She had a way of breaking his sleep again, should this happen -- there was a way. Whatever it is, you must be able to do it as well.

"Please," she added harshly, through gritted teeth.

I'm innocent of this, I tell you, she wanted to say. It was no use, apparently -- to Helios, it seemed, everything Nehelenia had any hand in turned to something unjust and repugnant. She tightened her jaw.

No king or queen is ever universally loved, whatever stories say, Zirconia had told her once. Take the time to make wise decisions, but don't waste time trying to make perfect ones. Kings before you have squandered their reigns in vacillating and fear of doing anything any way but flawlessly. People will call you weak.

To hell with weakness; she'd have burned down all of Destiny City herself if she could've been sure of getting back the Marcasite Crystal by doing so. A single city for the sake of her whole empire, and whatever other lives could be saved by snuffing out Chaos here. Alexandros had always understood that. As did Ares. As did Hector and Aphrodite, she was fairly certain. She hoped they rested easily.

"Thank you," she said coldly, feeling rather underwhelmingly grateful. "For your help. But there is one other thing. I'd like you to call a meeting -- the city's in chaos, and needs order."

She'd ask Princess Chronos, also, and if Helios refused, Kunzite, Aries -- but there was no point in mentioning any of them until she knew whether they were awake at all, particularly not if doing so would make Helios more intractable.

"What's left of my court," Selene clarified. "As far as I know, several of my soldiers have fallen to the Pyrite Crystal as well. It's only Sailor Gaia and I." She enumerated the short list on her hand, ticking off fingers. It didn't succeed in making the list any longer. "Of the Prince's court, one cavalier remains, and he wants his prince back as much as anyone -- which is a good enough reason to attend the meeting. He'll be there."

She took to pacing the room again, gathering her thoughts as she spoke. Nehelenia planned quickly on her feet, and the pacing was an idle habit that helped her clear her mind to do so. Keeping eye contact often proved too distracting. "Contact everyone you know, and tell them to contact everyone they know, and so on. We have our alliance with the Zodiac Court; if they stand with us, that'll help. You'll contact the captain of your cavaliers, and I'll find us a place... Tomorrow, tell them we're meeting tomorrow. That's enough time to get in touch with everyone." Everyone they could get in touch with, at any rate. Anyone they couldn't get hold of, they'd have to assume had been swept under the thrall of the Pyrite Crystal. Selene wondered how heavy their losses would turn out to be.

"These people don't know or trust me, and they don't know Alexandros. They know you. I need you -- but do you understand? They won't be happy. You have to be prepared for that." She left off pacing, and held out her hand for Rea to shake.

Selene thought about it. Tartaros was a dreamworld, like Elysion. Clearly Rea wasn't asking her what a dreamworld might be like in general -- but what Helios had never experienced, not truly, was what a nightmare world was like without a guardian to tend it. He was the guardian.

Then again, Nehelenia had never seen Tartaros grown wild either -- there had always been Cassandra, in her time. Nightmares were fenced in, and they didn't last so very long, not really. Even her own dark reign over Elysion, its blight of black roses and withered ivy, had been just a palled reflection of her own memories. Roses had carpeted everything, his black roses, mourning for the dead Prince of a dead dreamworld. It hadn't been the worst of all possible nightmares, except perhaps for Helios -- it had just been a funeral bower.

"Have you been having nightmares recently, before this?" She waited for Rea's nod. "I guess -- imagine you couldn't wake up."

There was still a bit of air to be cleared. Selene tried to catch the taller girl's gaze. "Your impression of Prince Alexandros doesn't do him credit, you know. He's no enemy of yours, and never has been. He saved our world from me before Sailor Moon ever saved yours -- if you got the chance to know him, you'd see what sort of person he is."

Selene turned, finding a passable mirror over a dresser. "I can see myself out," she said, a little awkwardly.

"I will," Selene answered her new ally. Sailor Selene boosted herself up on her hands till she could balance one knee on the dresser, trying to block Rea's words out of her mind: I doubt I shall ever have that pleasure. She wouldn't accept that possibility.

She picked up her other knee alongside it, making no apology for climbing all over Rea's furniture, and called to mind a mirror in a bathroom at the Barnes & Noble on the corner by Destiny City Memorial. With this image in her mind -- shutting out the image of Alexandros, wakelessly unconscious -- she crouched forward and through the mirror, leaving Rea's bedroom far behind.

Selene was shaken, but on the whole, it had gone better than she'd feared it might. She powered down into her tanktop and corduroy overalls, and ran the sink to splash some water on her face. Gaia and Laocoon would be waiting.