The second floor of the castle was where Morganna slept. This was the one Gwen had been looking forward to the most. Morganna waited for her in her room, a den of snakes and viper carcasses’ all feasted upon by an unkindness of ravens. They followed Morganna everywhere, just as the murder of crows followed Gwen close behind. 

The crows flew in first to attack the ravens; the crows were smaller, but smarter and more vicious. The smaller birds feasted on their larger brethren throughout the room, all the while Morganna sat on her bed. 

“I always knew this would happen,” Morganna said. 

“You’ll burn in hell,” Gwen said. “The devil will take you, drown you in the Lake of Fire. You will feel nothing but agony for all eternity. And you’ll deserve all of it.”

 Morganna smiled. “I can’t wait to see you there.”

Gwen once more put down her gun, and she let her Star hover overhead as she brought her fists down upon Morganna until her skull had caved in and there was nothing but the soggy red remains of her brain matter.

***

Danny drove his truck, while Gwen rode with Quentin in his RV. Joshua drove his own. And Lacy inexplicably found herself in Isabella’s winnebago. The Puerto Rican girl drove, while Lacy rode shotgun sitting on her hands. Lacy tried not to look at Isabella, but when her eyes darted over she saw the other girl was looking at her. Outside, a thousand identical trees passed by, while birdsong carried on the wind across the green-gray of the nature-lined highway. 

“So,” Isabella said. 

“Hm?”

“Where are you from?”

“Michigan,” Lacy said.

“Like, Detroit?”

“No, I’m from out in the sticks. North-central part of the state. Town called Dresden.”

“Small place?”

“Like 10,000 people.”

“Goddamn,” Isabella said. “What do you do for fun around there?”

Shit, what am I supposed to say? Lacy thought. Is this small-talk? How do I small-talk? “Shoot glass bottles, mostly.” Nailed it. 

“That it?”

“No, occasionally we shoot squirrels, too. And sometimes each other.”

Isabella chuckled.

“So where are you from?”

“Boston.”

“Oh, cool.”

A momentary pause.

“Well?” Isabella said. 

“Well what?”

“Aren’t you gonna ask to hear it? Everyone always does?”

“Hear what?”

“My accent. Aren’t you gonna ask me to say ‘park the car in the Harvard Yard?’”

“Why would I do that?”

“... You’ve never heard that before?”

“I, uh, have perhaps had a tendency to bury my head in the sand up until pretty recently.”

“Pft, fair enough. I used to do a lot of that myself. Before I hatched, I mostly just sat in my room all day listening to music.”

Lacy perked up. “What’d you listen to?”

“Well,” Isabella said, “Actually, pull open the glove compartment for me?”

Lacy obliged, and opened and reached in to find rectangular cartridges spilling out. “Oh shit, you have mixtapes! I’ve always wanted to make one of these- I love this shit.”

“You do?” Isabella said, her voice lilting upwards. 

 “Yeah! I mostly tinker with radios, but I have- er, had, I guess- a tape recorder and was gonna make a mixtape off some stuff I picked up at a pawn shop. But, uh, then my house got destroyed.”

“Oof. Been there.”

“You have?”

“Yeah. But, uh, stick this in, see if you like what I’ve got to offer,” Isabella said. And then she winked at her. 

Lacy felt her own heart skip a beat. She just hoped her face didn’t look too stupid. She slid the tape into the player, and heard the opening notes to the Pixies’ ‘Where is my mind?’ She smiled, and she rewound it back to the beginning. “Stop,” she said, in time with the lyrics, and then she sang the rest of the song along with it. When the song ended, and it began to fade into the next one, Lacy’s face reddened as she realized she’d sung every word and hummed every note. She ejected the tape, and she looked away. 

“Uhh… Whatcha doin’ there, Lacy?” Isabella said. 

Lacy gulped. God, she’s beautiful, Lacy thought. “I, um,” Lacy said. “I’m sorry- that was really embarrassing.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Isabella said, putting the tape back in and hitting play. “This is embarrassing.” And then Isabella sang along with Nirvana’s ‘Dumb’ word for word, mangling every note. “I’m probably tone deaf,” Isabella said, chuckling. 

Lacy laughed too.

“You’ve got a really good voice,” Isabella said. 

“Uh… Thank you,” Lacy said, hoping she wasn’t blushing still. 

“You wanna hear the rest of the tape?”

“Yeah!”

Lacy slid it back in, and listened to her mix of rock music beginning around ‘89 and ending around ‘05. When they came to a Mudhoney song, Lacy found herself singing again, and Isabella sang with her, laughing the whole way. 

After another hour’s drive they stopped for gas at a station on a wide stretch of highway. The midwestern flat sprawled forever, and the sheer size and scope of the land dawned on Lacy in a way it never had before. Isabella fed gasoline into the tank of her RV, while Quentin, Joshua, and Danny did the same with their vehicles. Lacy looked up at the empty blue sky, squinting at the sight of the noonday sun hanging proudly above. “I’ve never actually left Michigan before this,” Lacy said, to nobody in particular.

“Shit, really?” Isabella said, taking a penny from her pocket and chucking it at Quentin, who caught it in his palm. 

“Yeah. Dunno why that didn’t occur to me until now. Are we still in Wisconsin?”

“For the rest of the day, yeah,” Joshua said. “Should cross over into South Dakota tonight.”

“It’s just… Weird. I know how this sounds, but I guess I forgot how big the world is.”

“And how small it is,” Isabella said, almost to herself. 

“This is only the fourth time for me,” Danny said. “And my first time out of the Great Lakes region.”

“You two are so young and sheltered,” Gwen said, smirking as she leaned against the side of Quentin’s winnebago and lit a cigarette.

They piled back into their vehicles. Lacy sat next to Isabella in the front seat, while the other girl drove down the highway through the flatlands. Farmers worked the fields as they drove by, tending to stalks of corn. “Wonder if I could do that,” Lacy said. 

“Do what?”

“Have my own farm.”

“That something you’re interested in?” Isabella said with a chuckle.

“Maybe. I mean, I do have a green thumb. Why do you ask?”

“Just find it a bit weird.”

“How’s that?” Lacy said in a low tone. 

“I’m a city girl,” Isabella said. “The idea’s a bit foreign to me.”

“Boston.”

“Yeah.”

“What do you guys do for fun there?” Lacy asked.

“Heroin, mostly. And tipping over cars when the Red Sox lose. Or when they win. Or… Anything involving the Red Sox, mostly.”

Lacy looked at her.

“That was a joke,” Isabella said.

“What’re the Red Sox?”

Isabella pulled over to the side of the road and parked the car. Her hands gripped tight on the wheel, and she stared directly ahead. 

“What?” Lacy said, eyes wide with concern. 

Isabella reached over Lacy’s lap to open the glove compartment. Lacy blushed. Isabella retrieved a tape from the compartment and jammed it into the player. “2004 American League Playoffs, Game Four highlights. Listen, and listen good.”

And so, as they drove south, Lacy listened. She figured out the rules to the game as she went, and she found herself getting caught up in it, cheering alongside Isabella as the game progressed. 

“That answer your question?” Isabella asked. Night had descended upon the fields as the land grew emptier and harsher. 

“Yeah,” Lacy smiled. She and Isabella both reached for the tape player, and their hands met atop the stereo. 

For a moment, it all froze. Her hands were warm and soft, and Lacy wanted to hold onto them. Then, however, came the static. The radio burst to life, and the dials turned themselves as a hundred thousand voices came in a brutal cacophony. Finally, it settled: “-From Fresno, the remains of three missing persons have been found. A local street gang is suspected to be responsible for these brutal killings-”

Isabella froze. 

The dials turned again. 

The new voice was familiar. The lawman: Hannibal DeRosier. “-Suspect has vanished from the state of Michigan, we are now undergoing a federal investigation in pursuit of-”

Again. 

“Be not afraid.” Drew.

Isabella pulled over again, parked the car, and froze solid. Her eyes were glazed over, her pupils dilated. 

“Isabella?” Lacy asked. She reached to put a hand on the girl’s shoulder, but stopped herself. That would probably make the situation worse. So what would… 

Lacy climbed out of the winnebago and stepped onto the dirt and fauna lining the road. She reached into the ground with her magic, felt the Stardust all around, and ignited a small bloom. A rose sprouted from the ground, sweet-smelling and clean. She plucked it, and went back into the car and held it beneath Isabella’s nose. 

Isabella blinked, then noticed Lacy, then noticed the rose Lacy was holding near her face. Isabella blushed red as the flower, and Lacy felt her own cheeks running hot. 

“Th-thanks,” Isabella said, taking hold of the flower, putting her hand briefly onto Lacy’s once again. 

“No problem,” Lacy said, not letting go. 

The car door burst open. Lacy jumped and cursed, and let go of Isabella’s hand. Gwen and Danny both burst in. Lacy’s head jerked around to look at them. 

“Is everything alright?” Danny asked. 

“Uh…”

“It happened again, didn’t it?” Gwen asked, looking at Isabella.

“Yeah,” Isabella said, exhaling heavily. She cracked her neck, then her knuckles.

“What happened?” Lacy said. 

“One of my episodes,” Isabella said. She turned back to Gwen. “Why don’t we make camp for the night? We covered a lot of ground for today.”

“Good idea,” Gwen said. 

Soon after that, they found a dirt road off of the highway that led to an empty field. They piled the RV’s and the truck onto the field and dug themselves a campfire. When they all sat beneath the stars, Isabella took a seat between Joshua and Quentin and stared straight into the flames. “So, when I was fourteen, something happened to me,” she said. She told them, of the fox, and of the Pale. She took World-Carver from its scabbard and held it by the handle, her hand trembling despite the tight grip. 

When it was over, she looked up at the stars. 

When it was over, Lacy looked up with her. How could she have that sword? That didn’t make any sense. That was the sword that the Chosen One had in Lacy’s dreams, the sword that killed her. And if it came from the Pale, then… That made the odds more likely. 

No, no it wasn’t possible. This couldn’t be the person who would kill her. It didn’t make any sense. 

“Thank you for listening, both of you,” Isabella said. “I get… Flashbacks, sometimes, where I’m kinda pulled back into where I was. It’s difficult, but I manage most of the time.”

“Not a problem, friend,” Danny said casually. 

Lacy just stared. God she’s beautiful. Danny elbowed her in the ribs. “Right, yes, yes,” Lacy said. “Not a problem at all. Not one bit.”

Danny made that face he made where he was trying to stifle a laugh with mixed results. Isabella didn’t stifle hers, though, and it was more of a… Giggle then a regular laugh.

Lacy blushed.

Dinner was a modest affair of sandwiches they’d bought from a gas station earlier that day. They ate under the clear night sky, in the late spring wind. Eventually, Danny left them, saying he was going to go read. Joshua went to work on his knitting, and Gwen and Quentin excused themselves without saying where or to what they were going. 

This left Isabella and Lacy alone around the dwindling fire.

Now or never. Lacy tapped her chest, and her Star emerged. May as well be direct. “You don’t happen to have one of these, do you?”

“What? No, of course not. I can’t even do magic. If I could, I wouldn’t be able to use World-Carver.”

“What do you mean-”

Isabella swung the sword, and reality ripped open. A golden and silver vortex sprang to life silently, a hole in the world. An identical hole emerged ten feet up above them. Isabella chucked a pebble through the lower portal, and the rock went through and then fell out the higher one. Lacy gaped. “Neat, huh?” Isabella asked. 

“Yeah, I’ll say! But how come-”

“Mages can’t use magic artifacts,” Isabella said. 

“They can’t?”

“Yeah. Nobody knows why, they just can’t. Quentin and Josh have both tried to use this thing, and nothing. Nada. No portals. For me, though, it works just fine for me.”

“Huh,” Lacy said. If this girl was telling the truth… IF… then… Then she couldn’t be the Chosen One. The Chosen One was a mage, a Starbound, and she was reasonably sure a druid like herself based on the wind and lightning and earthquakes they used on her in the dreams. This girl probably wasn’t the Chosen One… She’d just… Found their weapon, somehow. And brought it back with her from that place.

If this girl was telling the truth. 

But Lacy wanted to believe it, and so she decided she would try to.

“So,” Isabella said, “Not to change the subject, even though that’s exactly what I’m doing: what did you think of the game?” 

“I liked it,” Lacy said. “I’m not sure how much I understand the rules, but-”

“Okay, but how’ve you never heard of baseball?”

“I’ve heard of it, I just don’t know the rules.”

“It’s America’s pastime,” Isabella said, brushing an errant strand of hair from her eyes.

“I’m from Michigan. I prefer hockey.”

“Oh my God, you are so very white,” Isabella giggled.

“Pfft. Can’t really argue with that.”

They went about talking for a while after that, even as the fire faded into embers and ashes. Lacy and Isabella laid flat on the ground, next to the dying fire on opposite sides, parallel, looking up at the night sky, just talking and enjoying each other’s company. 

***

“Hey, let’s go shopping,” Isabella said. 

“Hm? Oh, uh, why?” Lacy asked.

Isabella tried not to sigh, but rather kept pressing forward. They were in another trailer park a few miles outside of a small Nebraska town called Vogel, a flat, nondescript place where Harry had been waiting for them, wrenching on an engine the size of a sedan, pouring over his blueprints. One day she’d get him to explain how he was everywhere all the time. One day. Today was not that day, however- today was a sunny, warm spring day in a very, very flat place. She could see for miles in each direction, and everything seemed to lead her back to this girl. “Well, mostly because you’ve been wearing the same two outfits for over a week now. If for no purposes besides the practical, you should probably-”

“Oh God,” Lacy said, looking down at her black blouse and blue jeans that she’d worn the past five days in a row. It probably didn’t help that they’d all been bathing in rivers, but still. 

They stood on the hard packed dirt surface between the various winnebagos, around the dead campfire. Danny sat there drinking straight vodka out of a hip flask even though it was one in the afternoon- God, that guy was a mess. He was Lacy’s oldest friend, and he’d been dragged into this whole thing pretty unexpectedly, but still, he did not know how to cope without hitting the bottle. Lacy, for her part, was standing behind him pacing back and forth- she’d been doing it for hours. 

This girl couldn’t be the one, could she? There was no way. 

“So, shopping? We passed a mall on the way here,” Isabella said. 

“Yes, let’s!” Lacy said. She turned around to face Gwen, who was leaning against the side of her and Quentin’s trailer smoking a cigarette. “Hey, Gwen, do you wanna come shopping with us? Girls day?”

Isabella’s heart hollowed and her shoulders slumped.

Gwen took a long drag on her cigarette, her eyes darting back and forth between Lacy and Isabella. Finally, she breathed out a puff of smoke, and said, “No, I think I’ll hang back.”

Oh thank God, Isabella thought.

“Are you sure? It’ll be fun,” Lacy said. 

Dammit.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Gwen said.

YES!

“Aw. Why not?” Lacy asked.

FUCK’S SAKE!
Gwen took another long drag. “Because I was gonna take advantage of the kids being out of the house and have loud, kinky sex with Quentin, stuff involving chains and floggers, and with your whole super-hearing thing I don’t think you’ll wanna be within a hundred yards of that.”

Lacy went tomato-red. Danny down his entire flask in one gulp, then took a fresh flask from the breast pocket of his red flannel shirt. Isabella mouthed a ‘thank you’ at Gwen, who winked at her. After that, Danny tossed Isabella the keys to his truck and gave her a nod and a thumbs up- maybe he wasn’t all bad. She herded Lacy into the truck, and they drove towards Vogel. Isabella turned on the radio, and they were immediately met with news reports about a rash of murders in Chicago- which, given that it was Chicago, meant it must’ve been even worse than usual to be newsworthy. She turned it until she found a heavy metal station, and Lacy began instinctively headbanging to the tunes of Five Finger Death Punch. God, this girl has no idea how adorable she is, does she?

“Your face is red- are you alright? Do you have a fever?” Lacy asked after a moment. 

“Er- no, no. I’m just… A bit sunburnt,” Isabella said hurriedly. 

“Oh, gotcha.”

A faint ringing in Isabella’s ears warned her about this, about the possibility of getting attached. If this girl was the one she was supposed to kill, that she’d promised the Elf-King she would kill… She didn’t know if she’d be able to go through with it. Lacy was too nice, too sweet, too… Pure, quite frankly. And maybe that wasn’t always a good thing, but for Isabella it was a refreshing change of pace. And Lacy had cute dimples and a nice butt, both of which were things Isabella appreciated… Your judgment is cloudy here, chica, she thought. Maybe it’s not her, though. Maybe this is a coincidence.

“It’s a shame Gwen couldn’t come along,” Lacy said. 

“Hey, so, uh,” Isabella started. Don’t say don’t say it don’t say it- “I was wondering: how do you feel about Gwen?” FUCK, I SAID IT- WHY??!

“She’s cool. I trust her,” Lacy said, resting her head on the window.

“No, I mean, how do you FEEL about her?”

“She’s a good teacher and a good friend. Danny seems uncomfortable around her- I’m not sure why. But other than that-”

“That’s not what I- I mean do you like her? Are you attracted to her?” WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH ME WHY DID I FUCKING SAY THAT-

“I mean she’s a good looking lady, I’ve got eyes, but no, I don’t like her like that. She’s not really my type,” Lacy said with an innocent grin. “Why? Do you like her? Are you hoping to invoke a certain Mormon tradition with her and Quentin?” The grin turned less than innocent at that moment; one might even call it ‘shit-eating.’

“Um- no, no definitely not,” Isabella said. “Quentin’s not really my taste in guys, and I don’t wanna complicate anything for them. And Gwen IS gorgeous, don’t get me wrong, but I guess I’m just not into people who are taller than me.”

Lacy looked like something was beginning to dawn on her. “Oooohhhhh.”

“W-what? What’s that mean?”

“So do you want me to set you up with Danny, then? Is that what this is about?”

“What? No. He’s not my type either.”

“You said you like people who are shorter than you and he’s an inch shorter than-”

“I meant more like you,” Isabella said, then instantly put a hand over her mouth. She parked the car and sat there a moment while Lacy stared at her. “I didn’t- I didn’t mean that- I-”

“Cool,” Lacy said, hearts practically visible in her eyes. 

Isabella began playing with her hair, then caught herself and stared at her treacherous hand.

“You’re really cool,” Lacy said. “You’re easy to talk to and to be quiet around as well- that’s not a lot of people for me. I’ve never really met someone like you before, and I’m really glad I’m getting the chance to. I wasn’t really sure when you asked me to do this with you, so I invited Gwen as a buffer just in case. She’s gotten good at catching me before I talk without thinking- she and Danny are kind of similar like that. But I’m glad we could clear things up.”

Isabella started driving again, the streets growing more crowded as she entered Vogel. Okay, okay, this was a good sign, she trusted her.

“And… If I may be so bold… You’re absolutely beautiful,” Lacy said. 

There it was. In spite of how she was the rest of the time, when Lacy had decided on something, how she felt about it, she gained this confidence that was… Appealing, if slightly jarring. Isabella was sure she was still red, but she kept driving. “Thank you. You are too.”

And then Lacy started giggling and playing with her own hair. 

I’m not gonna be able to kill this girl, Isabella thought. That might pose a problem.

But as they arrived at the mall, it became a problem Isabella was content to ignore. 

The Vogel Mall was an underwhelming affair, only one story with only twelve stores, but the wide-eyed look on Lacy’s face indicated that this would do nicely. She really was from out in the sticks if this constituted a proper mall for her, but in Isabella’s opinion every girl had to start somewhere. So they started with pants, ones with a more feminine cut, but about a size too big so as not to hug Lacy’s crotch too much. They moved onto shirts, tops, and blouses. 

When they got to underwear, Lacy asked, “I don’t know how much I really need bras.”

“Right now, you mean,” Isabella said. “Are you planning on starting hormones at some point?”

“Uh, I didn’t really think that far ahead, but now that you mention it, yeah I’d like to.”

“Then you’re gonna need some bras as the girls grow in,” Isabella said. She took a bra off the rack and held it over Lacy’s chest, and the girl’s crooked smile said she didn’t mind the physical contact. 

After that was the fun stuff- dresses and skirts. Getting to wear those had been one of Isabella’s favorite parts of transitioning, and from her reaction to the sun dresses and knit dresses and maxi dresses, Lacy’s was of a similar stripe. She spent two hours trying them on and taking them off, putting on a fashion show for Isabella. 

“Come here,” Isabella said, handing her a pair of shoes with three inch heels. “I’ll show you how to walk in these.” She put her hands on Lacy’s hips and guided through the motions, heel-toe, heel-toe, heel-toe. Lacy’s giddiness reached new heights- she looked like she was practically drowning in gender euphoria. 

“I want to buy all of the dresses! All of them, I say!” Lacy said, happy and greedy and smiling, hand on Isabella’s as they sat at a bench together sipping cherry smoothies. 

“Well you can buy ONE of them,” Isabella said. “They’re not super practical for our lifestyle, but it is good to have a few nice things. You’ll never know when you’ll need them, or just when you’ll want them.”

“Fair enough,” Lacy acquiesced. “God, I can’t believe I used to think all this was stupid.”

Isabella cocked an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

“I, um, used to have this problem where I resented other girls because I knew I was one but I couldn’t… Do anything about that. And they got to be girls, and it looked fun, all the things girls do for themselves and each other, but I told myself it was stupid so I didn’t have to feel like I was missing out.”

“Did it work?”

“No, it just made me incredibly depressed,” Lacy said with a wide smile.

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Isabella said, raking a hand through her hair.

“I take it you never went through that phase?” Lacy asked. 

“No, not really. I came out when I was ten, and my parents, rest in peace, were pretty cool about everything. Honestly, I think my mom was excited to finally have a daughter,” Isabella said. Wait, she mentioned that her parents sucked; maybe I shouldn’t mention my-

“What were they like?” Lacy said. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

A sinking feeling went through Isabella’s stomach, hollowing a pit and threatening to drag down all rational thought. “I, um, I don’t really wanna talk about them.”

Lacy nodded. “Okay.”

“Thank you… For being understanding,” Isabella said.

“And thank you,” Lacy said. “For taking me here. I needed this. Life lately has been, uh, stressful. To say the least.”

“Yeah, I got that,” Isabella said. “Glad I could help.”

After that they drove back to the campground, and kept talking about clothes, and about music, and about where they’d grown up, and about anything else that came to their minds. Anything except what Isabella was most worried about, which she tried to limited avail to put out of her mind. I’m not gonna be able to kill this girl.