CHAPTER 17
DANIELLE
B reaking the laws of existence was definitely not covered in any of our magical training. Then again, neither was trying to track down your sister who'd been trapped between realities while simultaneously stopping a group of temporal terrorists from rewriting history. My head throbbed as I stared at the maps spread across our kitchen table. They came courtesy of Kaitlyn and Kaveh. Each one showed a different layer of New Orleans' magical grid, and none of them were giving me the answers I needed.
The emptiness where Dea's presence should be felt like a physical wound. Our sister-bond, usually hummed with energy and connection. Now it had a jagged hole that made my magic stutter every time I reached for it. I wasn't the only one affected. Lia wasn’t touching her energy drinks and her usual snark was dulled by exhaustion and worry. Kota hadn't stopped pacing since we got back, and Dre's energy was fluctuating wildly as she tried to compensate for the broken connection. Even Phi's focus was fractured. She was the organized one who kept us on track. She was out of sorts and her hands trembled anytime she scried for Dea again.
"The tracking spell failed again," Phi announced as she burst into tears. Her usually pristine appearance was disheveled, and dark circles ringed her eyes. Lia wrapped an arm around her shoulders and tugged her close. "The Lost Legends are somehow blocking our ability to pinpoint Dea's exact location between realities. It's like trying to tune into a radio station that keeps shifting frequencies," Phi continued when the tears dried up.
"How many tries is that now?" Lia asked as she released Phi and strolled to the window. She reached for the full can that she’d left there and set it back down without drinking any.
"Seven," Phi replied grimly. "And each attempt is getting more unstable. The last one nearly knocked me out."
"And me with you," Kota muttered as she paused her pacing long enough to examine a nasty burn on her arm. "Who knew tracking spells could backfire so spectacularly?"
Dre moved to heal her, but I caught the way she swayed slightly with the effort. We were all running on fumes. Our magic was depleted from repeated attempts to locate our sister and the drain from the Legends. We couldn’t stop. The ache of Dea's absence throbbed through our sister-bond like a missing limb.
Every time we thought we had a fix on her location, the signal would slip away. Being left with nothing but static and the sickening knowledge that our sister was trapped somewhere between moments was a special kind of torture. "How long can she survive there?" I asked Maeve, who was examining our latest failed attempt at dimensional triangulation with entirely too much academic interest.
"Hard to say," the dimensional witch replied. She adjusted something on Phi's tracking equipment that made it emit an alarming series of beeps. "Time doesn't flow normally between realities. What feels like minutes to her could be hours here. Or vice versa." She paused and her expression grew serious. "But the human mind isn't meant to process that many versions of reality at once. Even with your enhanced abilities, she can't last indefinitely."
"What exactly happens to someone trapped between realities?" Dre asked, though her tone suggested she didn't really want to know.
Maeve's response was unnervingly clinical and made me shudder. "Imagine experiencing every possible version of yourself simultaneously. Every choice you ever made or could make. And they played out all at once. Most minds shatter within hours. The fact that she's still maintaining enough coherence for us to detect her at all is remarkable."
"That's our girl," Lia said with forced cheer. "She’s too stubborn to let a little thing like dimensional displacement break her. It’s a family trait. Or maybe she’s shifted into her dragon. That would help, right?"
One of Maeve’s eyebrows rose to her hairline in surprise. “Having a thicker skull and scales would block most of the magical energy and keep her grounded. Let’s pray she did exactly that.”
"Just in case she didn’t, we need to work faster," I said, fighting down the panic that threatened to overwhelm me. "There has to be a way to trace the Legends’ energy signature."
"Actually..." Lia said as she picked up what looked like an ancient ledger. Its pages crackled with age. "I might have found something. Remember how the guardians showed us the crystal's original purpose? How it was meant to bridge understanding?"
"Yeah," I replied, already moving to look over her shoulder at the text. The leather binding was warm under my fingers and humming with old magic. "Before the Lost Legends corrupted it into a weapon."
I watched Lia reach for the Oathkeeper with the kind of caution usually reserved for defusing bombs or handling hungover shifters. I couldn’t blame her. The last time we'd consulted Athena's ‘gift’, we'd ended up with a possessed jazz band and property damage that took three days to clean up. The book had a twisted sense of humor for something divine. And it rarely gave us anything useful.
But apparently, today was special because that ancient pain in our collective ass practically purred as it landed in her lap. I nearly choked on my coffee as it tripled in size. Its weathered pages even fanned out like it was showing off. My eyes scanned the cover. Now that was something. Gold lettering spelled out "Oathkeeper" (ancient artifacts were allergic to subtlety only when it came to their identity), and was surrounded by a wreath of olive leaves that would've made any jeweler weep. Each emerald set into the golden branches caught the light like it held its own tiny sun.
"Well shit," I muttered as I set aside my Pepsi. The tallboy was warm now anyway, and I couldn’t drink it unless it was ice cold. "Either we're in more trouble than we thought, or that book's finally developed a personality disorder."
"Both?" Kota suggested from behind what I'm pretty sure was her third emotional support pillow of the day. I had to admit, that even in crisis mode, my sister's taste was impeccable. The vintage silk damask in deep emerald would look perfect in the Ladies' Parlor, especially with that gold trim catching the light. Trust Kota to stress-conjure her way into accidentally coordinating with our decor. Her coping mechanisms were getting out of hand, but at least they were aesthetically pleasing.
The pages started turning themselves. It’d done that a few times when we tried using it. Unfortunately, it wasn’t consistent in anything, so I couldn’t say if this was a good sign or not. I held my breath and read as words appeared on the page. Instead of the usual cryptic bullshit that made prophecies look straightforward, actual useable text appeared.
"This can't be right," Lia said as her finger traced those spidery letters. "Well, according to this, the crystal leaves traces of its original harmonics even when corrupted. Like an echo for its rightful guardians." The words lit up under her touch like a supernatural highlighter. "If we could tune into that frequency instead of trying to track Dea, the Legends, or the corruption..."
"We might be able to locate both Dea and the crystal," Phi finished as she got that look in her eyes that usually meant either genius or property damage was imminent. Sometimes both. Usually both.
"It's possible," Maeve agreed. I resisted the urge to bang my head against the nearest stable surface. "The crystal's corruption is leaving tears across the dimensional barriers because that’s all there is now. But its original harmonics might have left a pathway we could follow."
“Does anyone else think it's suspicious that our resident book of riddles and regrets is suddenly being helpful?" I asked with a frown.
"Oh, thank God," Kota breathed. "I thought I was the only one freaking out about that."
"Maybe Athena's feeling generous?" Dre suggested, but even she didn't sound convinced.
"Right," I drawled, "because goddesses are known for their random acts of kindness. Especially ones who gave us a book that once answered 'how do we stop this demon' with 'when the chicken crosses at midnight’." Unfortunately, suspicious or not, we were out of options. Dea was missing, reality was developing more holes than my favorite combat boots. Our best lead was a book with a history of cryptic nonsense suddenly deciding to play nice.
"We have to try. We'll need something to amplify the signal," Kota pointed out as she set the green pillow aside and conjured a fluffy stuffed dragon that looked suspiciously like Dea when shifted. "Our powers are still wobbling from their last attack, and I don’t think we have enough juice."
"Maybe there’s an artifact in the hidden room that can help," I suggested. "They were designed to work with the crystal's natural frequency. If we could use them to boost the tracking spell..."
"While simultaneously not tearing reality apart completely?" Dre added dryly. "Because I'm pretty sure that would be bad for tourism."
"That's where I might be able to help," a new voice said. We turned to find Hannah's spirit form shimmering into view. Her presence brought a sense of calm to the chaos. "The guardian circles can help boost your energy and keep your efforts from causing more rifts."
"Can the circles handle that kind of power?” I asked as relief flooded me. Having backup, we could trust was invaluable. “We're talking about reaching across dimensional barriers."
The spirit's form solidified slightly as she moved closer to examine our maps. "The circles were designed to contain and channel power, child. They've held far worse than this."
"But this isn't just about containing power," Phi interjected, her scientific mind clearly racing. "We need to establish a stable connection across multiple dimensional boundaries while simultaneously preventing the Lost Legends from detecting our efforts."
"And maintaining enough control to actually track Dea's location once we do make contact," Kota added.
Hannah's smile held centuries of knowing. "You're thinking too linearly. The circles don't just contain power. They transform it. Like we changed our pain into protection."
A plan was starting to form. It was crazy, probably suicidal, and definitely going to involve property damage. In other words, exactly our kind of plan. "We'll need to split up," I said, looking at my remaining sisters. "Phi and Kota, work with Maeve to modify the tracking spell. Lia and Dre, gather the artifacts we'll need. I'll coordinate with the council and make sure someone is staying on top of shit in the Quarter."
The next few hours were a blur of preparation and increasingly creative swearing. Phi and Maeve disappeared into a whirlwind of calculations and dimensional theory that made my head hurt just overhearing. Kota worked on creating a potion to boost the modified tracking spells while Lia and Dre gathered artifacts from the hidden room.
I was in the middle of coordinating with Cyran when Phi said, "We’ve got something. There’s a strong harmonic resonance detected. You're not going to like where."
We gathered around her and gaped at where she was pointing. St. Louis Cemetery No. 1. My hand went to the bridge of my nose. It made sense that the Lost Legends would choose the oldest and most magically active cemetery in New Orleans for their reality-breaking ritual. The place was already a nexus of supernatural energy under normal circumstances. With the crystal's corruption added to the mix... I didn’t even want to think what more could go wrong.
"I think they've linked the crystal to Marie Laveau's tomb," Phi explained as her detection equipment emitted an ominous whine. "They're using the natural power grid of the cemetery to amplify its effects. My equipment is picking up massive energy spikes, but they're unstable. The dimensional barriers around the cemetery are already paper-thin from centuries of magical activity and are the one place that would add to the blocks they erected."
"Of course, they picked the most magically volatile location in the city," Lia groaned. "Making our job harder is apparently their specialty."
"It makes a twisted kind of sense," Maeve mused. "The cemetery is a natural crossroads between worlds. The barriers between life and death and past and present are already permeable there. Add in centuries of ritual magic and the concentrated power of thousands of souls..." She trailed off and lifted her shoulders.
"Which means?" I prompted, though I had a feeling I knew where this was going.
"Which means we might be able to use that instability to our advantage," Maeve explained. "The cemetery's natural power grid could help us establish a more stable connection to where they're holding your sister. But..."
"But it's almost certainly trapped," I finished. "And any mistake could tear those barriers completely."
"Potentially releasing every spirit ever trapped there while simultaneously collapsing multiple realities into one very messy knot of temporal chaos," Phi confirmed.
"The Lost Legends know we're coming," Hannah warned, her form flickering slightly with concern. "They'll be expecting you to try something like this."
"Good," I said with more confidence than I felt. "Let them expect us. While they're watching for a frontal assault, we'll hit them from an angle they won't see coming."
"You have a plan?" Lia asked with a raised eyebrow. She actually took a sip of her drink this time.
"Half of one," I admitted. "We need to get close enough to the tomb to use the artifacts. However, we can't risk a direct confrontation until we're sure we can maintain a stable connection to Dea's location."
"The tunnels," Kota suggested suddenly as her eyes lit up. "The tunnels we investigated earlier. Some of them connect to the cemetery's crypt network. Cyran promised he cleared them, and there are no more traps."
"That could work," Maeve said thoughtfully. "The underground pathways might help mask your magical signatures until you're in position. But you'll need a distraction on the surface to keep their attention focused upward."
I turned to Hannah. "Would the other guardians be willing to help create that distraction? Not to fight," I added quickly. "Just do something to make it look like we're attempting a frontal assault?"
The spirit's smile was sharp with approval. "I believe that could be arranged. It would be fitting to use their expectations against them."
The plan came together quickly after that. It wasn't perfect, but it was the best shot we had at finding Dea's exact location. We'd have one chance to get this right. One opportunity to establish a stable connection through the dimensional barriers without alerting the Lost Legends to our true purpose.
"The tunnels will take us close enough to tap into the cemetery's power grid," Phi explained as she made final adjustments to her equipment. "If we can stabilize a connection to the crystal's original harmonics, we should be able to triangulate Dea's position in the spaces between realities."
"And then what?" Dre asked softly, her voice carrying all the worry we felt.
"And then we get Dea back," I replied, meeting each of my sisters' eyes in turn. "We hit them with every scrap of power we can gather. We break through whatever barriers they've created and bring our sister home."
"Before or after we kick their temporally displaced asses?" Lia asked with a grin that held more teeth than humor.
"Definitely after," Kota said firmly. We were all on board with that.
"Remember," Maeve warned as we gathered our supplies, "you're not trying to break through the barriers this time. Just establish a stable connection so we can pinpoint your sister's location. Anything more risks tearing reality apart completely."
"No pressure or anything," I muttered, checking my gear one last time.
"We've got this," Lia said, bumping my shoulder. "One step at a time."
She was right. We had a plan, we had backup, and most importantly, we had a sister to save. The Lost Legends thought they could use our connection to the crystal against us. They were about to learn exactly what that connection could do when backed by the Smith determination and the Yearsley intuition.
"Ready?" I asked, though I already knew the answer.
Four voices responded in perfect unison: "Ready."
Time to go find our sister and show these reality-bending cultists exactly why you don't mess with the Six Twisted Sisters. There were five of us at the moment, but not for long. First step. Locate Dea's precise position in the dimensional chaos. Next step. Get Dea back. Raise hell. Then we could get to my favorite part. Decorating for a party.