Chapter Twenty-Four • The Buried City • Damien
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“Seems pretty damn solid to me,” I say the next day as I stare at an otherwise nondescript wall in the Odd Bird Apothecary. The one that I know, for certain, has brick on the other side of it. The one Lillith claims is a doorway to the tunnels that will take us to The Buried City.
“You’re going to have to get used to things not being what they seem,” she teases me with a little pinch of my side. I give a startled yelp and her eyes glitter with malevolent joy. “Oh. My. God. Are you ticklish?”
“You seem to really enjoy making me want to punish you,” I counter.
She buttons her lips, but her eyes are still shining with intent as she hooks her arm through mine. “Alright. So, you know those things where you let your eyes relax and a bunch of random shapes become a different image with your eyes unfocused?”
I stare at the wooden wainscotting in front of me and nod. “Yeah,” I say. “I’ve always sucked ass at those.”
She chuckles and sighs. “Yeah, me too,” she says.
“But same principle. Stop looking for what you think you know is there. Stop taking reality for granted. It’s...
it’s like when you’re a kid and you play pretend.
If you could see an opening. What do you think it would look like? Start there and see what changes.”
These last couple days have been the most bizarre exercise in imagination and open-mindedness in my damned life. I look at the wall, thinking about what she said. Thinking about not taking what is in front of me for granted.
At first nothing seems to happen. And then, it’s suddenly there. A... seam. I scowl at what suddenly looks...a pair of very convincingly printed curtains.
“What do you see?” she asks.
I reach out to the wall and spook when it actually gives way.
The two panels of the... curtain? Wall? Wurtain? Whatever it is, it sways. Lillith gives an impressed little coo.
“Ohhh, a curtain! How clever.”
“Is... that not what you see?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “A lot of times, born witches tend to struggle to think as creatively as mortals do. We start to take magic for granted the same way you might think of a wall being a solid object that you can’t pass through,” she says.
“When you grow up doing this stuff—learning how to interact with the matter in the world using magic—you tend to just take the most obvious path. Rearranging molecules to soften a surface and make it gaseous, or liquid. Then we step on through. But for someone who only sees a wall, you have to get a bit more...mmn—narrative, I guess. It’s sort of like how you still think in English, even when speaking a different language, until you become more fluent. ”
I nod a little, blown away by how... simple and yet complex this shit all is. When I look at Lillith again, I feel like I’m seeing her in a new light. She smiles up at me like she has no idea, and I realize she might not have any clue. “You’re fucking incredible.”
The words tumble out of my mouth without me meaning to say them. I mean, she is—and I have no problem telling her that she is—but I fall for her all over again.
She shrugs, not willing to meet my eyes when I’m paying her a direct compliment (yet another habit I’ll need to break). “It’s just what I’ve known my whole life. I feel the same way about you when it comes to your drumming. I don’t think I could ever succeed at playing an instrument.”
“Well, do we go in? Now that you have me marked as your thrall?” I lift up my wrist and show off my magical girlfriend tattoo.
She snorts and shakes her head, weaving her fingers with mine. “Yeah, let’s do it.”
We step through the glamoured passageway and find a nondescript hallway with a set of black double doors. She opens them and leads me through. As soon as we close the doors behind us, they vanish, locking us in.
I panic for a moment as we stand in complete darkness. I tug Lillith closer to me in an effort to protect her. Her hand that isn’t already in mine rests on the curve of my bicep.
“Hold on,” she whispers. “It’s just the wards checking you out.”
“I’m that good looking, huh?” I ask nervously.
“I can always tell you’re nervous—you backslide into dad jokes.”
“Backslide?” I say breathlessly. “Come on, baby—dad jokes are peak humor.”
Suddenly, just when the darkness starts to feel thick and oppressive, a faint, phosphorescent glow brightens our surroundings.
We’re standing in a cavern inlaid with points of crystalline fractals that glow a pale blue light similar to the first colors of dawn.
I feel Lillith’s eyes on me and when I look at her, she’s smiling so warmly up at me that her eyes crinkle at the sides.
“You passed the vibe check,” she teases, starting to lead me down the stone corridor.
I’m silent as we walk, each curve and switchback taking us deeper underground. The air gets cooler as we descend, the faint echo of dripping water makes this place feel almost unreal. Lillith seems to know that I’m taking it all in, because she stays quiet unless I say something to her first.
There are a few brief exchanges about the magic of the stones, the nature of the strange, trans-dimensional magic. She says a few things that don’t really make much sense to me—especially with how distracted I am by my surroundings.
We walk for a long time, but I never feel tired.
My feet never hurt. I figure that must be part of the magic, too.
Finally, the cavern seamlessly gives way to a wooded area.
The smell of loam and the perfume of flowers drifts on a crisp breeze.
When I look up, I’m shocked to see a starry twilight stretch above us.
“Wait—what? I thought... I thought this was The Buried City,” I say. “Why is there sky?”
“A misnomer,” she says. “Remember, the cavern is a portal—it’s not actually in our reality. This is... it’s like a pocket reality. A little slab of existence just for us.”
“How—I mean, is it another version of our planet? Is it big?”
“It’s about twenty square miles. A little bit larger than the area surrounding Lake Arrowhead, if you’ve ever been there,” she says.
My brow furrows, “Have you?”
She smiles a little sheepishly. “Old talking point—that’s how Bastion describes its size.”
I nod and give her a little smile. “Well—maybe we can visit it together some time. I’ve never seen it either.”
She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Yeah. Maybe.”
Discomfort twists my stomach. I wonder, in all honesty, if she has really given up on the whole idea of getting out of Del Lune.
I know she wants to find a solution—to be able to leave her home again.
But I realize I haven’t heard her talk about any larger aspirations.
Not for countries she’d like to visit. Not even for states or cities outside of Del Lune, either.
There has to be a way to free her from this bullshit, right? I just don’t accept the idea that this is her fate forever. I look up at the sky, heaving an awed exhale when I see two moons glowing side by side.
“Whoa,” I say.
“Pretty, right?” she asks. “There’s a third one, too, but she’s kind of hard to see.” She points off toward the horizon, where a large black disc crawls slowly in a lazy arc. “Mother, Maiden and Crone.”
“Shit,” I say. “That’s fucking cool as hell.”
“Yeah. I love it too,” she says, sounding softly content.
“Well, look who the cat dragged in,” a familiar voice—not Lillith’s—says.
I look toward the sound, finding Wren standing at the start of a cobble-stone. Bastion Bumpkinfoot stands next to her, examining his nails and looking bored. “You told them we were coming?” I ask Lillith.
Lillith looks up at me and grins. “Nope,” she says. “Wren’s got some pretty sick precognition powers. Passed down to her through nine generations.”
“And then she dragged me here too,” Bastion grumbles.
“Oh, shut up,” Wren gripes. “You wanted to come, you fucking loser.”
“To see Lilipad—not—” he makes a clicking sound with his tongue. “Daniel.”
“Feeling’s mutual, Branmuffin,” I say, giving him the middle finger.
Lillith snorts before cackling.
“Wait: did you just call him Daniel?”
“That’s what Lillith said his name was,” Bastion says. “Is that... not...”
Bastion’s mouth drops open and he gives Lillith an affronted glare. “Did you give me a fake name?!” he asks, scandalized. “Lilipad. Come now. I know I can be a prick, but did you really think I would cast a baneful working on him? You should know better than that.”
She looks mildly embarrassed. After a moment of confusion, something finally clicks in my head.
She didn’t give Bumblesquash a fake name because she was embarrassed to be seeing a drummer. She did it because my name was something that left me vulnerable to other people. She did it because other witches could use that name to harm me.
“I know your opinion about me being with anyone other than... well... you,” she grumbles. “I didn’t want to risk it.”
“Yes, the preservation of magic and The Buried City is very important to me, but I’m not so desperate for it that I’d intentionally sabotage your happiness. What kind of family friend do you take me for?”
“The kind that treats me like a goddess while you’re fucking me ritually, and then immediately hosts an orgy a week later...” Lillith says under her breath. “The kind who takes my virginity, calls it a casual hookup, and then tells me hookups don’t cuddle.”
“I’m sorry, what?!” I say. “Cuddling after a hookup is the best fucking part!”
“Oh,” Bastion says blandly. “He’s perfect for you. And for the record, I did cuddle for a little bit.”
“Under duress,” She grumbles.
“Oh my gods, I don’t like to laze in bed. So hex me. What’s the big deal, you have your little—” Bastion blinks at me. Then he squints. “Oh. Oh my fucking—Lilipad, you did not.”
“What?” Wren asks.
“His aura. Wren.” His words are clipped.
Wren tilts her head, also squinting before she claps her hands over her mouth and squeals. “LILLITH YOU LITTLE SKANK,” Wren screams. “YOU MARKED HIM?”