Yuki narrowed her eye at the scene below. Astride the mighty Jabberwock, she watched as the sun stone sent out another wave of heat, nearby trees bursting into flame. The mountain was covered in smoke and steam, and she had lost sight of the naga.
Their fight had been intense and evenly matched, but Yuki had summoned the beast to her with a mere thought. Constructed of magic and clay, the creature wasn't technically alive, but it did have tremendous power of its own. At the arrival of the Jabberwock, the naga had thrown what Yuki had thought was a poorly aimed fireball. Dodging to the side, Yuki soon realized that the target had been a sun stone apparently dropped by the man she had sent down the mountain.
Intent on winning the fight, it was far more important that the sun stone be extinguished. If the fire spread, it could burn down the trees that led back to the house on Earth, trapping her here officially forever. Commanding large cyclones of snow, she continued to pile on her ice magic, frustrated at how much energy she was wasting on something so stupid. She knew all about the sun stone and its abilities and wondered why the fool had removed it from the Vault in the first place.
Beneath her, the glow of the stone was making the mountain look like a volcano about to erupt. Frustrated, she stuck a hand in her pocket and pulled out a deck of tarot cards. She cut immediately past the Major Arcana and began sifting through the cards of the Minor Arcana. She hated to be wasting so much magic on a stupid problem, but it had to be done.
An updraft caused the Jabberwock to buck violently, and she grabbed on to her harness. All three of her tails flared out behind her, sending a radiant wave of magical energy beneath the beast to stabilize it. If she was going to act, it needed to be now.
She pulled the Ten of Cups free. Scowling, she tucked away the rest of the cards in the special pouch she had pulled them from. She had a lot of free time in the tower, and she had spent a substantial amount of that time drawing tarot cards. This deck, however, was the most special of all. She had infused every card with powerful magic, each one taking nearly a month to craft.
The ice and the snow had been enough to absorb the immediate heat of the stone, but she needed to smother the nearby flames that kept feeding it. The easiest way to do that would require a rainstorm of epic proportions.
The card glowed an icy blue in her hands as she undid the magical lock that she had put on it. Commanding the Jabberwock to climb higher, she threw the card down, watching it pulsate with light as it sank into the smoke. The Ten of Cups she had drawn depicted the valley below beneath a large rainbow surrounded by cups full of water. The easiest way to summon a rainbow was to wait until after a storm.
This card had been a pain in the ass to make primarily because she had captured a rainstorm inside. Years back, on the back of the Jabberwock, she had spent hours trapping the stormcloud inside while high up in the sky, nearly falling twice. The storm in question had been particularly difficult because she had captured it during the height of monsoon season.
Down below, she heard a blast of thunder as the storm was released all at once. Through the smoke, she could hear the torrential downpour of inches of rain falling onto the mountaintop all at once and could see the immediate rush of water farther down the mountain. This spell would inevitably trigger mudslides and wreak havoc on the ecosystem down below, but that was a problem for someone else to deal with.
She waited, her eye on the glow of the sun stone. It gradually faded, the nearby fires extinguished. After several minutes had passed, the Ten of Cups was extinguished, and she could no longer feel the magic of the stone. With a heavy sigh of relief, she commanded the Jabberwock to circle, pulling the Ace of Swords out next. This card shimmered like heated air, and transformed into a longsword in her hand. The Jabberwock flew lower towards the clouds beneath and she swung downward, commanding the magic to release once more.
A powerful blast of wind cut through the clouds, causing them to billow apart and flee. Soon, she could see the mountain top and grimaced at the devastation. They landed, and she frantically rushed through muddy soil to the copse of trees that were all singed around the edges. Pushing through, she was grateful to see that the ones in the middle had been spared any damage from the fires or the flood.
The doorway was secure. She sent a command to the Jabberwock to keep an eye on the mountain and used her magic to create a throne of ice. She pulled some smoked meat out of her pocket and took a bite, her stomach rumbling with hunger.
How many years had it been? Her face scrunched up as she tried to count. Being confined to this pocket world had driven her mad with rage for so long that she had been unable to keep track of time. Almost a couple years back, she had felt Emily's passing and had become terrified at the idea that she might have to spend her remaining centuries in this place forever.
That was, until the new Caretaker had moved in. She had been able to feel his presence occasionally, trying to capture his attention through the portal. However, magic at such a distance was weak at best, and she was aware that Emily had sealed it from the outside. The thought had occurred to her more than once that the magical compulsion she had cast may end up in the destruction of the entrance but hadn't cared. If he had destroyed the portal, then she felt like she could at least move on.
She stood up and approached the trees, her hand outstretched. She could feel the air currents that would lead her back home, escape only a few feet away. There was nothing stopping her from stepping through and claiming the house for herself. After all, she had the right.
"Not yet." She couldn't risk stepping through with enemies on her heels. And she definitely wouldn't go without her loyal fairy companion. Emily may have left Yuki behind, but the kitsune refused to ever do the same to her friends.
Once she heard back from Daisy, she would make her next move. Until then, it would probably be a good idea if she found that troublesome sun stone.
-
Beth waited just outside the greenhouse, smoothing out the sundress she wore. She couldn't hang clothes up in her closet because they disappeared when the cavern was opened, which meant folding them up in a dresser. She needed a better way to store her clothes if she wanted to avoid wrinkles.
She used her phone to check her makeup. She had quit wearing it since covering up the mirrors in the house, but she had used selfie mode to confirm that she had dark circles under her eyes. Happy to discover that Oliver didn't appear in her phone, she had done some quick touch-ups before setting out for a little dalliance with Asterion.
The minotaur arrived, his axe casually slung over his shoulder. He bowed his head in greeting.
"Friend Beth." His voice was the rumble of an old sports car, his dark fur shining in the sun.
"I was wondering if we could go for a walk?" She pushed open the door of the greenhouse, revealing the large space within.
"If you wish. I cannot be gone for long, not with Ratu absent."
"We won't go far. The faeries know they can find us here if they need us." She let him walk in first, admiring the thick muscle in his thighs. If Asterion had an ounce of fat on him somewhere, she had yet to find it. Closing the door behind them, she fought the urge to ask him to leave his weapon behind. If there was something in the world more important to him than his axe, she had yet to find that either.
They walked along the edge of the cliff overlooking the jungle. The world was eerily quiet, other than the rustling of the trees down below. Behind them was a large wall of glass, an eerie anomaly due to the greenhouse containing an entire world inside of it.
In her childhood, Beth had often dreamt of traveling to Fantastica, Narnia, or even being carried away by a twister to Oz. The simple act of passing through the greenhouse door sent a thrill directly to that inner child; an entire world was now laid out in front of her ready to be explored. Mike had explained that he thought nothing else lived there inside the greenhouse, but he also had no idea how far it went. She wondered if it eventually had an end, or if she could simply walk for all eternity and never see another living soul.
"We missed our path." Asterion's voice snapped her out of her trance and she turned around.
They had found an easy path that led down to the bottom of the cliffs that wasn't too hard to descend. She also liked it because it gave her a great view of a series of waterfalls that eventually emptied into a pair of rivers that trickled through the forest. She had no idea where the water came from—it blasted out of a hole in the cliff up above from underneath the greenhouse barrier.
The falling water filled several different basins, but she and Asterion had explored and discovered an offshoot near the bottom. Most of the water flowed into one area, but on the other side of the rocks was a second waterfall that filled a small pond before turning into a river that meandered into the nearby trees. Behind the rocks, the roar of the water was greatly muted, and the waterfall here fell in a smooth sheet that made it look like a pane of glass.
