I cocked an eyebrow at her, and she pointed to the door. “Go,” she mouthed silently, her expression caught between one of fear and irritation.
Well, I thought, that’s a first, leaving Martha’s classroom with more questions than answers.
☼
9 ☼
Pictures
My stubby wings beat against the wind as Elysian picked up his feet and took off. I held onto his back tightly, grabbing at a pair of horns just below his shoulders.
“Your teacher knows about us?” Elysian asked.
“After you came into the school and started talking like that, how could she not know?” I shook my head, even though I knew he couldn’t see me. “But then again, I’m not surprised. Mrs. Smithe is pretty observant . . . for a teacher.”
“Should we be worried?”
“Only if I get a detention,” I retorted, not actually sure what to think about it. Mrs. Smithe had always liked me as a student. But as a superhero, I was technically responsible for the injuries that caused her to be hospitalized last year.
But then again, she hadn’t seem surprised to find me in her empty classroom, talking to a dragon. Suddenly, I was worried. Just how long had she known?
Maybe I was overthinking it, I reasoned with myself.
Myself didn’t buy it.
“Here we are,” Elysian announced softly, slowing down and shrinking as we descended.
Rosemont Academy had been built closer to the middle of the city, opposite from Apollo City College. It had been a private school, and one of the city’s finest. They had a lot of donations come in from the businesses and the rich families from the central region of the city.
As I looked at it, I saw it was a far cry from its original state. The roof had slopped over, as if it had suddenly decided it wanted to be a staircase instead. The walls were made of molten brick, likely melted down together from the heat of the meteorite’s impact. The school’s paint and all its décor was burned, making the overall structure look like a building that had been thrown into a giant mixer and rumbled around for a few moments, before finally blobbing out a half-baked, giant mess.
“I’m not sure I want to go in there,” I said. “Even without the school rivalry factoring into it.”
“You might not have a choice,” Elysian told me. He nodded his head over toward a far corner of the building. “I just saw something. Looked like a shadow.”
“Maybe it is the one I saw at Rachel’s,” I murmured, unhappily convinced Elysian was onto something.
“Well, let’s go and find out,” Elysian said.
We tiptoed through the outskirts of the impressive ruin. I tried not to make too many jokes with myself about some carnival setting up camp, or wagering how likely it was an amusement park might use the school for their haunted house.
We didn’t make it very far before we ran into Aleia.
She smiled as we caught sight of each other. “Oh, good. You guys are here.”
“What’s going on?” I asked. “Where’s Maia?”
“She’s around here,” Aleia assured me. She pulled out her small orb from her pouch. “I saw it.”
“Where’s Orpheus?” Elysian spoke up. “I thought I saw a shadow.”
“He’s back at the church,” Aleia assured me. “He’s helping out some of the other monks with the daily chores.” She flushed over and looked at me as she added, “We can trust him. You saw him yourself. He’s been purified by your Star’s power.”
“Let’s just worry about Maia for now,” I insisted. “Elysian says she’s upset.”
“Quiet!” Elysian muttered. “I thought I heard something.”
We were silent for a long moment. Nothing.
“Let’s split up and walk around,” I said. “We’ll cover more ground that way.”
“Okay.” Aleia put her orb away. “I’m not getting any insight on her anyway, for some reason. It’s a bit strange, but there are some Stars who have been able to hide from my power.”
She didn’t hear my breath as I held back a gasp. So the black-robed figure could be here.
Some months prior to this, I had the opportunity to go and see Alora, the Star of Time. There, she warned me that Orpheus had been talking with someone she couldn’t see. The likelihood of some other random fallen Star or demon being behind it all just screamed too coincidental! to me.
Elysian headed off down the hall one way, while I headed in the other direction. Aleia smiled at me before she headed up the nearest staircase. I briefly wondered if it would support her, and if it did indeed lead to a place other than a sideways-slanted room half-stuck in the ground.
I walked for a bit, wondering at the damage. Everything was covered in dust and dried sludge. Nearly all the windows were shattered, and there was very little light.
And then I saw it.
“Wow.” I marveled at the mural in front of me. While everything else had been mired and mucked up, the painting itself, exposed to the elements by a large hole in the building, was clean and blazed with the afternoon light. Only one small, fist-sized impression marred its surface in the middle of one of the exploding stars.
I recognized the pattern after a moment. It was Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night.
Well, not completely. The color scheme was different, but all the familiar twisting waves, daring dashes, and triumphant strokes were there, swirling around in the motionless splendor of a night sky.
I reached out and touched a star. “That’s really good.”
“I agree, all things considered.” I didn’t know if I was properly surprised or not to see Starry Knight walk out of the darkened shadows of a nearby adjoining hallway.
I still had to force myself not to flinch. It was hard.
She placed her hand, guarded by her half-gloves, gently on the paint close to mine. “Van Gogh’s work was always a favorite of mine. I do like the different color scheme used here. It’s pretty bright and almost cheerful, even in this place.”
Some of the puzzle of who she was fell into place, smacking me down as I realized how obvious it was. “I should’ve guessed,” I muttered. “What with ‘Starry Knight’ being your name and all.”
“Yes, you should have,” she agreed, giving me a small, teasing smile, before turning her attention back to the mural. “I felt a kinship with van Gogh’s story as much as his work when I was younger. His last words were, ‘The sadness will last forever.’”
At her words, sadness itself seemed to come and sit with us, hovering in the atmosphere as if to prove its reality. I backed away from her a bit, unsettled.
I didn’t know much about Starry Knight, I realized. I didn’t know about her life after we were separated on Earth, and I couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for her. I knew what my supernatural powers meant for me, and it was too big and too scary to fully face a lot of the time. But Starry Knight was different from me, and it suddenly made me curious about more than who she was. It made me wonder what kind of obstacles and adventures she’d had, and how they’d pushed against her beliefs or undermined her resolve.
“I’ve always thought that was an oddly appropriate thought, in facing my own imperfection and disobedience,” she murmured, more to herself than to me.
Starry Knight stepped back beside me, gazing at the full mural as she stood by my side, and she continued, “Van Gogh died alone and sad, believing himself to be a failure.”
“You think you’re a failure?” That was a bit surprising.
“It’s pretty obvious, being a fallen Star,” she said. Her gaze suddenly avoided mine. “Of course, not all of us were punished, so maybe I shouldn’t think that.”
I kept my eyes focused forward, but I had the distinct urge to reach out and curl my fingers around hers; her hand was parallel with mine as we stood side-by-side, with two inches of air and breath and dust between us. It might as well have been worlds.
“Do you know who I am?” she suddenly asked me. Her violet eyes slid over to mine in an almo
st shy manner.
I’d asked her several times before who she was. I asked her when I first saw her fight, when we were captured by SWORD, and when we would fight each other and argue. I’d asked others about her, too. It was at that moment, I realized the answer to my question had been buried inside my own heart this whole time.
Her name, still unknown and not revealed, was a voiceless whisper inside my soul.
I cleared my throat. “Starry Knight—”
A loud crash echoed through the hallways. We immediately turned toward the source of the noise.
She took off before I did. As I started to catch up, something caught my eye.
My feet stumbled, and I ended up falling down onto my knees. But I was too shocked to notice the pain striking its way through my nerve system.
There was a familiar-looking set of initials on the painting, down in the corner of the mural.
AVC.
The painting from Rachel’s wedding, I thought. It had the same initials, same lettering, and same style.
“Are you coming?” Starry Knight called back, obviously more than a bit frazzled. “Maia’s in the atrium.”
“Coming.” I picked myself up and hurried off, determined not to worry about anything else until Maia was defeated.
I summoned up my sword, grasping it tightly in my fist as I caught up with Starry Knight.
“Do you think—”
My sentence cut off as a row of lockers were blasted apart directly in front of us. I pushed Starry Knight over to the side, nearly tackling her as I fell over myself.
“Watch out!”
Starry Knight’s warning came just in time. I rolled over just as another discharge of power lit up the hallway.
“I saw you,” Maia’s voice called out, her tone a sickly sweet lullaby of death. “Come out and play, Starry Knight.”
“What does she want you for?” I asked.
“Because I made the deal with Orpheus. She blames me for what happened to him,” Starry Knight snapped back. “She’s upset he’s gone.”
“But why would she even care? I mean, it’s not like she—”
“There you are.” Maia’s blue lightning flashed through the opening to the atrium of the school.
Starry Knight returned a blast of her own power, before reaching down and helping me to my feet. “Go on the other side, over there,” she said. “I’ll draw her out, and you seal her away when you get an opening, alright?”
“Fine, but next time, I get to make the plans,” I insisted.
She arched an eyebrow at me. “Really? That’s what you’re concerned about?”
Another wave of energy flashed through the hallway.
“Go!”
“I’m going,” I yelled back, already on my way.
I should have known Maia would hit at least one of her targets. As another ball of energy detonated, the walls crumbled down around me and, before I could even scream or object, I squeezed my eyes shut and hoped I wouldn’t die.
☼
10 ☼
Power
I apparently got my wish. My eyes flickered open cautiously, as nothing happened—well, close to nothing.
I was surprised to see my hands out in front of me, radiating a shield of light, its power pulsating between me and my crumbling surroundings. “Wow,” I mumbled. “That was close.”
“Kid, are you okay?” Elysian came up behind me. He glanced at my power and nodded approvingly. “Nice shield."
“Thanks,” I said. “I was hoping I wasn’t going to die.”
“Good to remember, I guess,” he said. “Hop on. Aleia and Starry Knight need our help.”
At first I was skeptical, but as we fled through the various dropping walls and dodged the splattering debris, I was surprised to see Maia’s power was only growing.
“She’s a monster,” I observed, shocked at her power.
“Maia was originally a Starry Virtue,” Elysian said. “She was the Star of Diligence. It’s no surprise that she can still control a great deal of power when it comes to attaining a goal she really wants.”
“I liked her more as the Sinister of Slothfulness,” I grumbled. “It suited us better.”
“Still, Aleia and Alora’s curse is holding her back from her full power,” Elysian reminded me. “So it’s just a matter of protecting others from her outrage.”
Starry Knight and Aleia were pushing hard against Maia’s defenses as we approached. I certainly hoped Elysian was right.
“Put me down,” I said. “Go charge at Maia. Hit her with your best shot. I’ll cover, and that’ll give Starry Knight and Aleia the time to pin her down.”
“Okay.” Elysian twisted his body downward, and I slid off, running. I called forth my sword again and balled up a shot of my energy. Elysian roared and released a huge flame of celestial fire.
Maia screamed as Elysian’s flames hit her. She knelt down on the ground.
“Perfect,” I said. “Let’s get her!”
Starry Knight, Aleia, and I all raced forward, determined to capture her and seal her away.
“Watch out,” Starry Knight called, pushing me back, much as I had done to her earlier.
As I turned to argue with her, Maia’s power shot up from her position. I felt the ground rumble underneath us, and even Aleia hesitated.
Maia’s power bubbled up and she suddenly shot out of the school. “Come and get me, you fools,” she challenged, her voice echoing eerily in the nearly empty, nearly destroyed school. “If you can.”
The school’s skeletal remains began to shake. My eyes went wide as I looked over at my friends. “The building is caving in!”
“We need to get out of here,” Aleia agreed. “And fast.”
“Elysian!” I called.
As Elysian arrived, Starry Knight held back. “Go!” she cried.
“What are you doing?” I hollered back, trying to grab her. “You need to come with us!”
Starry Knight didn’t answer me. Instead, she took out an arrow and unleashed her power at the ceiling as it fell, allowing it to burst a bigger hole through the remains.
Elysian roared, adding his own flame to her power. The resulting power cut through the sky in a double-helix formation, blasting up through the clouds. We rode through the tunnel between the two strands of power, before being ejected safely into the outside air.
Turning back, I stilled as I watched it. A sense of awe moved through me. A long moment passed before I wondered if I should have tried to help as well. “Wow.”
Aleia exhaled slowly. “That was close,” she said as she looked down at the school.
I turned just in time to see it completely collapse. Starry Knight appeared at our side as I tried to figure out how much more debt the destruction of a school would add to my growing list of collateral damage.
And then some costs I wasn’t willing to pay, I realized. Starry Knight had almost been hurt, too.
“Where’s Maia?” Starry Knight asked, not even allowing me a moment to scream at her for her recklessness.
I felt my mouth flap open a few times while Aleia and Starry Knight discussed what to do next. What is wrong with these two? Don’t they realize how close we were to dying!?
Aleia very carefully pulled out her time orb. “She’s heading for the marina,” she said.
“There she is. I see her,” Starry Knight exclaimed. She pointed ahead of us, bringing our attention to a slim, blue aura, trailing out toward Lake Erie’s quiet waters. And then she sped forward.
My mental tirade would have to break free later, I thought. After Maia was sealed away, I would let Aleia and Starry Knight have a piece of my mind about their blatant disregard for safety.
“Elysian, catch up,” I ordered. “Don’t let Starry Knight get there before us.”
“You know, she’s not carrying two people,” Elysian reminded me, huffing just enough that I had to fight back sympathy for him, and anger at my own stupid wings.
They were still short and
stubby, even if they had blossomed out into a reddish color from their blackened roots.
I turned to Aleia. “Can’t you fly?” I asked.
“No,” she said with a grin. “There’s no need for me to fly. My original purpose was to monitor the Tree of Memory.”
“What about me? Can you tell me how to fly?”
“It’s a sign of growth,” she said. “You’ll fly when you’re ready.” She eyed me carefully as she added, “There’s no reason you shouldn’t be able to.”
“Just how much of a jump-start does Starry Knight have on me?” Frustration hit me hard again, even though it was becoming my constant companion lately.
“She’s known about the supernatural since long before you did,” Aleia admitted. “She was seven years old when she found out.”
“You know?” Shock and anger were quickly becoming friends I didn’t want to have, especially where this whole supernatural business was concerned. How much do I just not know?
“Of course,” Aleia said. “We are friends, even if we don’t agree on some things.”
I didn’t want to talk about Starry Knight anymore. “Why is Maia so determined?” I asked, deciding it was best to focus on the part of the problem I could actually do something about. “Did she manage to break through your power?”
“No,” Aleia said. She hesitated. “She’s upset about Orpheus.”
“I figured that much,” I replied. “Why?”
“She was in love with him on the other side of time. Maia was the first one to follow him.” Aleia sighed. “He tricked her and lied to her. And she has never exactly recovered from his betrayal.” She looked ahead, where I saw Starry Knight had managed to catch up with Maia at the docks. “But she still loved him.”
Understanding struck. “So that’s why she protected him that time I almost sealed him away,” I said, recalling how Maia had hurriedly pushed Meropae between Orpheus and my sword at a previous battle.
“Yes,” Aleia agreed. “Now that he’s gone, she’s lost in more than one way.”