Chapter 89 - Eighty-Nine: The Last Night VI

Chapter 89: Chapter Eighty-Nine: The Last Night VI

Darkness.

That was all I could see. No floor. No walls. No up or down. Just black in every direction, stretching out forever.

I had been in... The mansion. I was sure of that.

The silk sheets. The woman on top of me. That had been real. That had been three seconds ago.

Now there was nothing.

"Wassup, buddy."

I turned around.

A shadow stood behind me. Human-shaped. Leaning on nothing. It had its hands in its pockets like it was waiting for a bus.

"...Who are you?"

The shadow tilted its head.

"Seriously? Again?" It sighed. "Man. This is getting old."

"Answer me."

"Should I explain the whole thing again? The soul fragment, the reincarnation, the whole spiel?" It rubbed the back of its neck. "Nah. Fuck it. I’ll just give you your memories back. Way faster."

It raised one hand and snapped its fingers.

◇◇◇

The door opened.

I had never known there was a door. I had felt it, sometimes. A weight in the back of my skull. A pressure with no source. Something locked in a room I could never find.

Now it swung open, and everything behind it came out at once.

The void. The two chairs. The pale teenager with my face. The Blood Path. Ten million souls. The Fairy Queen. Pixia’s mother. The ninety-nine to one. The goddess. The system that wasn’t a gift but a sentence from a goddess of sort.

*"Good night~"*

I dropped to one knee. I couldn’t breathe. My head felt like it had been split open with a hammer and filled with someone else’s life.

Then it stopped.

I stayed there for a long moment, shaking.

"You," I said. "It’s you."

"Hi. It’s me." The shadow grinned and gave a little wave. "Miss me?"

◇◇◇

After a while, I got back to my feet. Slowly.

"What’s going on? What is this?"

"Okay, so." The shadow clapped its hands together. "Fun news. You’re in a dream."

"...A dream."

"A dream inside a dream, actually. Which is honestly kind of impressive. I wasn’t sure that was even possible." He shrugged. "Learn something new every millennium."

"What are you talking about?"

"You’ve been asleep for weeks, buddy."

I stared at him.

"Think about it. Really think." The shadow started counting on his fingers. "What have you done for the past few weeks? Anything? Anything at all besides fuck?"

I opened my mouth.

Nothing came out.

I tried to remember a single day at the mansion that wasn’t didn’t have anything to do with fucking. A guild quest. An academy lesson. A walk outside. Anything.

I couldn’t.

"Where’s Fenra?"

"Good question."

"Where’s Pixia? She’s never gone this long without—" I stopped.

My stomach turned to ice.

"The system," I said. "I haven’t opened the system. Not once. In weeks."

"Ding ding ding." The shadow spread his arms. "And there it is. The great calculating brain finally does some fucking math."

"That’s not possible. I check my SP every day. Every single day. It’s the first thing I do—"

"Yeah. And you didn’t. And it never once occurred to you that you didn’t." The shadow’s grin got wider. "That’s how you know it’s not your brain driving anymore."

"...?!!!"

"At some point in that mansion," the shadow said, "you got pulled in. You, and everyone else in the building."

"Pulled into what?"

"A ritual. A big one. Higher-dimensional shit, way above the pay grade of anything walking around your world." He waved a hand vaguely. "Here’s how it works. It grabs a bunch of souls. It sticks them in a dream. And then it makes them fuck. Over and over and over. Forever, if it can get away with it. And it eats the lust that comes off them."

"...Eats it."

"Like a farm. You’re the cow." The shadow smiled. "Sorry, that one’s probably a little close to home for you, I know you had a crush on that cowkin."

"I don’t have a crush on Bellamy."

"Sure you don’t~"

"The ritual... Who’s doing it?"

"No clue. Something that feeds on lust. A god, maybe. Something on a god level anyway. Whatever it is, it’s hungry and it’s patient."

"The ghost woman... Vesper’s mother?"

"Nah. She’s not the one running it." The shadow shook his head. "I watched her. That bitch is dumb as a bag of rocks. She couldn’t set up a ritual like this if you gave her a manual and a thousand years." He shrugged. "Somebody handed her the power. She’s just the socket they plugged into."

"Then who—"

"Buddy. If I knew, I’d have skinned them already."

"..."

"Why didn’t Fenra come?" I asked. "Why didn’t Pixia? They would have noticed. They would have come after me."

"Ah." The humor drained out of the shadow’s smile. "Yeah. So. About that."

"What."

"Dream realms are their own dimension. Which means time doesn’t match up." He made a rolling motion with one hand. "In here, weeks. Out there? Could be anything."

"Anything meaning what."

"Meaning a hundred years." The shadow shrugged. "Meaning a thousand. Meaning your wolf girl waited at that gate until she died of old age and nobody ever told her what happened to you."

The cold went all the way through me.

My hands went numb. I thought about Fenra sitting at the gatepost. In the rain. For three hours. Because that was something she would do.

For a thousand years if she could.

"Or," the shadow said cheerfully, "it’s been like four minutes. Honestly? No idea. Could go either way."

"That’s not funny."

"Wasn’t trying to be." He shrugged again. "I genuinely don’t know. Time’s weird in here. Anyway. Doesn’t matter. We’re getting the fuck out."

"How?"

"Ah. Yeah. That’s the annoying part." The shadow scratched his cheek. "Normally I’d just tear a hole and walk us out. Except we’re one full layer of reality down, and I’m running on fumes. I don’t have the juice to teleport us."

"Then how do we leave?"

The shadow smiled.

"I’ve got something better. Something dozens of times stronger." He held up a finger. "Only works a few times, though. Ever. So I’ve been saving it."

"What is it?"

"Time travel."

I stared at him.

"We go back," the shadow said. "Simple as that. Honestly, timeline hopping would be cheaper, sidestep instead of rewind, way less energy. But my reserves are shit right now, so I’ve got to use the *Artifact* instead." He made a face. "Which is like killing an ant with a bazooka. Wasteful as hell. But here we are."

There were about forty questions I wanted to ask. What artifact. How many uses. What happens when they run out. What "timeline hopping" meant.

I asked the one that mattered.

"How far back?"

"Mm." The shadow tilted his head. "That’s the tricky part. Your girlfriend’s mommy has been dosing you with charm magic for a *while* now. I can’t pin the exact moment the dream started. Space-time in here is a fucking mess."

"So pick a point before it."

"I’d love to go way back. Nice and safe. But every second I rewind costs me, and I’m not burning a limited-use cosmic artifact for your peace of mind." He pointed at me. "So here’s the deal. I’m dropping us at the last moment I’m *certain* we were still awake. The second we land, you walk. Out the door, off the property, don’t stop, don’t pack, don’t say goodbye. Get the fuck out of that mansion."

I didn’t answer right away.

I was thinking about the mansion. The maids. The guards. The people who lived there.

Vesper.

"If I leave," I said slowly, "what happens to them? Do they still get pulled in?"

The shadow looked at me.

Then he started laughing.

"Oh, that’s cute. That’s genuinely cute." He wiped a fake tear from his eye. "I don’t know! Maybe! Probably!" He shrugged. "Actually, maybe not. You’re one of the only males who visits that place. No males, no fucking, no lust, no meal. Ritual might just starve without you."

"So they’d be fine."

"Or the thing gets hungry and finds another way, and everyone in that house spends the next thousand years being farmed like livestock." The shadow leaned in, still grinning. "But be honest with me, buddy. Right now. Just between us."

He tilted his head.

"Do you actually give a fuck?"

I thought about it.

I thought about Vesper’s face. Lyra. The maids who brought me breakfast. The beastkins sleeping under that roof tonight.

"No," I said.

The void went quiet.

The shadow’s grin widened. What looked almost like satisfaction showed on his face. The face of a man who bet on a horse a long time ago and just watched it cross the line.

"Huh," he said softly. "Last time we did this, you got all noble on me. Screaming about the fairy. *’Turn her back. She’s a person, not a slave.’* Very brave. Very moving."

He smiled.

"Guess this dream fucked that right out of you."

"Just do it."

"Yeah." The shadow raised his hand. The darkness around us started to bend, folding inward like paper. "Yeah, let’s do this then."

"Wait. What happens to me? Do I remember this?"

"Nope~"

"Then how do I know to leave?"

The shadow snapped his fingers.

"You won’t," he said. "I’ll be driving."