Chapter 16
Prism
Fuzz the fallope looked from Viceroy to me and back again as if waiting for my reaction.
“I take it someone or something wants my mate’s soul,” I answered.
It wasn’t a question, it was a statement, an inevitable fact.
Nisse had appointed Vore as their leader, the other withers obeying his commands.
Vore wore a white slash across his face and body as evidence of a battle against the most formidable forces in the realms. My mate had dueled the gruesome red wither, Wraith, for me and won.
I’d watched him tear apart a crocmare and frighten an entire pack of fearcats.
And that was all only proof of his supernatural strength.
What other valuable forces lurked within him?
I had no doubt there were many more, more I’d yet to discover, more I would have uncovered with time.
Things I would have come to cherish if our time hadn’t been ripped away from us.
So, of course, if there were greedy hands in the Underworld, they were reaching out greedily for my wither’s soul.
Viceroy twirled his mustache. “You can bet that Asunder desires to make use of your mate’s ether, if they’ve not got their claws into him already.”
My throat tightened. “Well, you can tell Asunder that Vore’s soul is spoken for already.”
Viceroy shrugged a shoulder. “Tell Asunder yourself.”
“Point me in the right direction and I will.”
The butterfly man let out a wry giggle. “My, my, our Prism Malefic returns in feisty form. I like it. Look, I’ll take you to the door to Asunder’s quarter, but you have to give me something in return.”
“Everything comes with a price, doesn’t it?
” I replied bitterly, crossing my arms. “Go ahead, what do you want?” I disturbed myself with how much I sounded like my sister then.
Rumor, always demanding, self-serving, and steadfast in her advocacy for what she wanted.
Maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing to emulate, especially here.
I had a passing thought then that the Underworld would likely suit my older sister just fine.
Rumor would likely thrive within these dark and strange doorways.
My older sister would thrive anywhere, really.
Rumor was a survivor, a fighter, and now—a killer.
Ruthless and cruel, she was born with a grit to her I didn’t possess.
The dark eggplant purple of her spears of magic haunted my thoughts.
What was previously such a lovely color, like the edge of where twilight meets nightfall, was now tainted by her murderous darkness.
If I could be a bit more like her, maybe Viceroy wouldn’t be jerking me around.
Maybe I’d have found and freed Vore by now.
But unfortunately, my mate chose the quiet, simple girl.
If I had magic, which I supposed somehow I did, I didn’t have the first idea of how to use it.
It was very likely my gifts were in the hedge witchery of spellcraft like my mother.
Lovely as it was, lemon cakes and abundant gardens wouldn’t bring back my lover’s soul from the Underworld.
Viceroy twirled under an iron archway, exiting the bakery courtyard and singsonged as his orange wings fluttered. “Come along and I’ll tell you. No time to waste! Oh, make haste, make haste.”
I made to walk after him when something hissed behind me. Whirling around, I found the mantis’s big, yellow bug eyes on me. The tiny, leggy bugs always made me squirm. Seeing one taller than I was—well, it was even more disturbing. “Malefic?” the mantis hissed lowly. “Is that so?”
I glanced over my shoulder, where Viceroy seemed distracted by a raccoon vending walking canes. I nodded. “Yes, I am Prism Malefic.”
“In all my years, I never believed I’d meet one.”
“What is your name?”
“I am Soothsayer.”
“It’s nice to meet you.” I reached out my hand awkwardly and shook his… buggy limb, fighting the impolite urge to cringe. “Well, I must be going—”
“You should not give the coven what it seeks. Look around you and remember. It is all in your blood, Malefic. It is all yours to call.”
“I do not understand what that means.” I shook my head. “What coven?”
“If you go through the spinning door, you will see. Remember what I say.”
I offered the green insect a weak smile. “I appreciate the advice. Do you know—”
An arm landed around my shoulders. “Soothsayer, old friend, I see you’ve met my newest and bestest friend, Prism Malefic.”
“I have,” the large mantis replied with an edge of annoyance. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll be getting back to my book.”
“And we will be getting back to the brick road, won’t we?”
“I suppose so,” I replied, shoving his arm off my shoulders. Viceroy skipped through town, stopping to chat every so often with beetles or enormous ducks. Fuzz lagged behind, opting to saunter by my ankles. I enjoyed the silent company of the cute little creature.
“Why are you small and the other critters and bugs are big?” I asked the fallope idly.
Fuzz twitched his whiskers and bounded along, swishing his grand and fluffy tail. The market dispersed as we traveled further down the brick path.
My butterfly guide’s skipping morphed into a casual stroll. “The door you seek is just this way.”
The towering tulips lining the brick path grew farther apart. No bees buzzed overhead and the atmosphere grew cloudy. We felt far from the bustle of the critter market, and it began to look more like you’d expect a creepy lost place to look.
The Underworld.
What would my moms say if they knew their Prism would someday traverse the Underworld for her monster? I hoped they’d be proud. I hoped that now I’d somehow joined the lineage of Malefic witches and that they all looked at me through the veil and thought me brave and worthy of the Malefic name.
It would appear the name carried some weight and notoriety in this realm. Maybe my ancestors did indeed travel through the Underworld at some point. “Did other Malefic witches come through here?” I cut through the silence to ask my guide.
“Oh, yes, indeed,” he answered. “Didn’t they tell you?”
“No,” I answered, feeling a small weight in my gut. “No, I fear there’s much my mothers didn’t tell me.”
“That’s a shame,” Viceroy said. “No wonder you’re so lost.”
“Lost is a good way to put it.”
“You lost someone. Someone important. Your mate.”
“Yes, I did.”
“Most people would grieve and move on with their lives—not break into the Underworld for their soul.”
“Well, I’m not most people, and my mate was taken from me unfairly. If I can retrieve him, I will. If not, I’ll die in my attempts. I’ll die knowing that I gave him everything I had.”
“That is painfully romantic,” Viceroy said sincerely. “To have such a love is rare and special. I am honored to aid your quest.”
“Is aid what you’re doing? Because I cannot make up my mind on why I’m trusting you.”
“If you don’t trust me, then trust Fuzz.” He gestured to the fallope whose ear flopped to the side as he spun his way down the path. “Fuzz is an excellent judge of character.”
A small smile broke my frown. “How long have you had Fuzz?”
“Oh, the little fella found me twelve or so years ago.” Viceroy stopped as the path was suddenly mixed within moss, looking as if stray bricks were scattered in the overgrowth. He gestured to a well atop a small hill, and I followed him up as we approached it.
The well was mossy stone and held a broken bucket attached to a flimsy rope. “Stopping for water?” I asked.
Viceroy leaned against the stone. “What I want is to go with you. I can only go if you allow me to. I’ll continue to aid your quest, yet I cannot leave my quarter lest it is with you.
I’d like to leave, you see, it gets terribly dull spending all of one’s time in the same place.
Even with how beautiful the Inflorescence Quarter is. That is my bargain. What do you say?”
“I’d expected much worse a price,” I replied honestly.
What did I care if my guide continued to help me on my mission?
I needed the expertise. If he were using me to get out of his duties or quarter, that wasn’t really my problem, now, was it?
In the grand scheme of things, my soul could very well be damned already.
What did helping a butterfly man out do to me that hadn’t already been done and worse?
“Sure.” I shook his hand. “You have a deal.”
Viceroy smiled beneath his monocle.
Fuzz jumped onto the side of the well, bumping my arm lightly with his head. I stroked his soft, white fur before my gaze landed on his foot. Lightly, I lifted his paw, running my finger along a stripe of orange fur in a jagged pattern. “What’s this here?”
Viceroy’s eyes fixed to mine, looking for something I couldn’t decipher. “It’s a scar.”
“A scar from what?”
“A trap. Look under his chin, as well. Can you guess what kind of trap?”
I tilted the creature’s snout upward and ran my touch along another ribbon of orange fur.
“I’m not a hunter, so I’m not skilled at knowing traps.
My sister and Matri were hunters. When I was a little girl, I used to follow them secretly on their morning journeys to check the traps.
I stopped, though. I stopped after…” I looked again.
“After… what?” Viceroy urged, seeming to know more than he was saying.
My brow furrowed as I looked at the animal’s big brown eyes. Big brown eyes… a fallope… a fallope in a trap. “A strangle snare? A bad strangle snare.” My breath pulled from my lungs as I rubbed the creature’s silky ear. “Have we… met before?” I asked the fallope.
The fallope nodded knowingly.
Viceroy put an arm around my shoulders. “You ushered him here. He’s here because of you—and he’s been waiting all this time. Haven’t you, Fuzz?”
As tears welled in my eyes, I fought to find words. Words to ask, to question, to sort through this. I recalled lulling this fallope to the unknown as it died. I promised it a land of… strawberries. Like the giant strawberry Viceroy was fluttering around when I met him.
“What does all of this mean?”
Suddenly, something hard shoved against my back. A scream wailed from my throat as I tumbled headfirst into the well. I fell, and fell, spinning forward into the dark, great expanse.
Falling headfirst down another door leading deeper into the Underworld.