Chapter 51: Women of Many Names

  The tear that carved its path down Siren's cheek glistened black as obsidian.

  It fell in silence. Where it finally struck the gilded tiles of the Mirror Mansion, the darkness spread, a creeping stain that seemed to pulse with life she granted. There was a whisper of fracturing gold, soft as breaking ice on a frozen lake, before a jagged crack split the ground apart, yawning wider, reaching for the walls like grasping fingers.

  Siren stepped back calmly before the balcony beneath her feet groaned, the ornate overhang shuddering as the crack carved through marble and gilt. It gave way entirely, the stone sighing as it surrendered to gravity, crashing down in a shower of glittering debris that sang like shattered bells.

  Narcissus would have shrieked at the desecration spreading across his perfect mansion—but Siren’s ears picked up his screams of pain instead. Somewhere in the mansion's depths, Meursault's fingers were clawing at Narcissus’s flesh. The wet sounds echoed through the halls like a prayer said backwards. Sloppy pops told her that Meursault was tearing apart teeth and bones.

  Meursault could have turned away, could have sealed himself off from Charybdis's vision—her vision. But he chose to look—even when looking meant watching through eyes that showed him things his mind refused to fathom.

  “How beautiful,” Siren clasped her hands over her heart as if to keep it from bursting through her ribs. Within her grip was a lock of Johann Faust’s hair, which she used to channel her Essence. “The way Higashino rips out his own heart…” Her breath shuddered. “Such love, such pain… Such life, such—”

  Siren waited, tilting her head like a predator listening for movement in the dark, ensuring Meursault could hear.

  “—death.”

  Felix Lee could make the perfect killer if he wanted to.

  An unremarkable man whose differentiating features would be lost the moment he entered the bustling sea of humanity. His brown eyes, borne by millions; his hair, worn by the many youngsters that roamed the modern streets; his tattoo, marking the many who crouched in the shadow of men. One would never suspect him should the crowd vanish into thin air, incinerated by flames until not even ashes remained.

  He was the one the God Hands chose to bless.

  And all of humanity's destruction—every atrocity across every blood-soaked millennium—had converged into the marrow of one man.

  “Fury to the Flame Purist!” Siren wanted to declare, but she swallowed them back down, tasting the bitter ashes of frustration, because Felix Lee was not strong enough yet. She watched as the outermost rings in Felix’s eyes dissolved as he registered the first pains in his chest.

  Felix was far too human for their liking. His flames would, at best, lick uselessly at their heels, and at worst, they would be devoured whole.

  But the spectacle of Paradiso clashing with Inferno was so beautiful, so promising—two Realities tearing at each other like lovers who have forgotten the gentle love that bound them. Having seen what she craved, Siren let Charybdis begin to scatter, that name dissolving like salt in dark water and hair in wind. She was a woman of many names, after all. She could afford to lose one.

  Besides, another presence was watching.

  Siren's low laugh unfurled from her chest. She tilted her head back, fixing her gaze on the sky above. “Higashino is dying.” Her smile sharpened. “What will you do, missus?”

  The sky offered no answer. But Siren knew it was listening.

  ***

  One moment, the world was calm.

  Felix had been in a state where time moved like honey. His thoughts were still his own, and all he wanted was to burn the bitches that had Leonhart in their clutches.

  In doing so, he would have saved everyone else.

  But a pain—so crippling and searing that it could have ripped him into two—shattered his Shift. Felix lurched back into focus like a bone popping into a joint. His senses flooded back all at once: the acrid taste of smoke, the thunder of his own heartbeat, the cold shock of air against his skin.

  And Dante was before him, armless.

  Felix's mind could not process it—the space where arms should have been, the bloodied stumps, the way Dante's body hung in the air, propped up by crumbling ribbons.

  Between them, a single rose, with petals resembling flames frozen in time, floated.

  For one split second, Felix locked eyes with Dante. His pupils were blown wide. The eyes of the dead. The eyes of the dying. Blood painted his chin in a uniform coat, still wet and dripping.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  The rose's petals began to scatter as Dante fell.

  A scream tore from Felix's throat he launched himself forward, arms outstretched, reaching for Dante even as the distance between them yawned wide. The golden sky continued its collapse around them, fragments of Dante’s Shift raining down like shattered glass. Flames erupted from his feet without thought, propelling him forward through the crumbling domain. His fingers stretched until his shoulders screamed.

  He reached for Dante's shirt, but there was nothing left. The fabric had burned away, leaving only bare, bloodied skin.

  Felix's arms wrapped around Dante's torso instead, pulling him close, skin against skin, slick with blood and sweat. The weight of him crashed into Felix, and he held on with everything he had.

  They hit the ground hard.

  Felix absorbed the impact with his knees. He barely kept them both upright as the domain gave its final shudder and collapsed into nothing. His mouth was open—he must have been screaming, his throat burned like he was crying—but he could not hear it.

  Felix’s heartbeat was thunder in his ears. Deafening. Drowning. Desperate. He whipped his head around, searching for help as he set Dante down. His gaze fell on his students. They were racing toward them, their mouths moving, faces twisted in terror.

  Felix's gaze snapped between them and Dante. Back and forth. Students. Dante. Students. Dante.

  So much blood. Is he breathing? Is he—

  Felix’s hands shook violently. One felt for a pulse on Dante’s neck. The other reached helplessly toward his students. Jude was the fastest. Her knees crashed against the ground, momentum carrying her forward until she was next to them. Her body barely stopped before her arms were already moving. She gesticulated wildly, and the other students were there now too, crowding close, their hands joining Jude's, all of them trying to hold Dante together, trying to keep him from slipping away.

  Felix just knelt there, unable to move, unable to think, unable to do anything. The world became blurry as he tore at his hair, nails digging into the side of his face as he clawed himself. Red crept into the edges of his vision, his desperation mounting with every compression Jude did to force blood through Dante's failing body.

  I did this. Felix’s fingers found his eyes. The pressure was unbearable—not just behind them, but in them, like something was trying to claw its way out from the inside. Or maybe he wanted to claw his way in, to tear out whatever was making him see this, making him watch as Dante died before him again.

  Felix’s nails dug into the soft skin beneath his brow.

  Purple light swallowed the world, stabbing through his vision like broken glass.

  For one wild, delirious moment, Felix thought he had ripped his eyes out. But the light began to withdraw, peeling away like silk sliding off skin to reveal the world beneath in slow strips. The purple receded from the edges inward, and where it lifted, polished wooden flooring emerged.

  Felix raised his head slightly, his body still trembling from the adrenaline crash. His gaze travelled upward, taking in the space around them piece by piece. A simple desk occupied the centre of the room, covered with white cloth. Stationery—quills, a letter opener and a pair of scissors—were neatly organised in a ceramic pen holder. Endless shelves enclosed them in a perfect circle, like the walls of a tower. Every inch of space was crammed with scrolls and books so thick they seemed to sag under their own weight.

  Felix’s head tipped back all the way, and he saw it.

  High above, embossed into the domed ceiling with gold was a poppy flower gazing down upon them.

  The insignia of the Mengs.

  Before Felix’s blood could even curdle, the door to the room burst open with enough force to rattle the shelves.

  A figure swept in, loose white robes billowing behind her like wings, the fabric embroidered with intricate black and gold accents that caught the light. Her grey hair was done up in a thick braid that just barely touched the ground. The gold in her left eye glinted in the light, while the purple in her right eye absorbed the scene laid out before her. Her lips were stitched shut—black thread woven through pale, wrinkled flesh in tight, deliberate crosses that pulled at the corners of her mouth, which was turned down into a frown. Red ringed each puncture where the thread ran through, angry and inflamed.

  Jude stopped compressions, letting Ace take over. She was the first to greet the elder, bowing her head deeply. Her voice was devoid of its usual snark.

  “First Lady Meng.”

  First Lady Meng's sleeve flapped as she snatched the scissors from the penholder in one fluid motion. The blades flashed to her mouth. Snip, snip, snip, the threads fell away as her lips parted. The scissors clattered back into the penholder the exact moment she seized the white cloth from the desk, ripping it clean off in a billow of fabric. Her hand was steady enough that nothing toppled.

  “Stop compressions,” she commanded.

  Ace’s hands flew back, knocking himself over in his haste to obey. First Lady Meng tossed the cloth over Dante’s broken body. Before it even touched his face, she reached into her sleeve and produced a small golden bell. She rang it with a flick of her wrist.

  They came in silence, a procession of masked men moving with the synchronised grace of pallbearers. Each mask was identical: lavender pale as bruised skin, adorned with black and gold accents that twisted and curled like vines across porcelain cheeks, blooming into a poppy flower over the right side of each face.

  “Jun En, bring these three to the infirmary to assess their condition.” First Lady Meng pointed to Ace, Leonhart and Kazuya.

  “Yes.” One of the men bowed deeply, his voice echoing hollowly in his mask. “But what about Venerated Elder Lee and his other… companion?”

  “Leave them to me.” First Lady Meng's hand flicked through the air like she was brushing away smoke. “The law states that I require at least two witnesses…”

  First Lady Meng’s gaze drifted and fixed onto Felix. Her eyes narrowed into slits as she completed her sentence.

  "...to attend to the corpse of a Cursed Arts practitioner.”