Somebody Stop Them. Chapter 45: Mystagogues

The magisteel stairs unfolded themselves down in front of me with a groan like a rusty giant stretching awake, each step black like deepest darkest space.

I looked at them and then tilted my head up and around, feeling off, my mind utterly derailed, skipping sideways.

I was certain that I had just spoken to an Archangel, but this memory was illusive and already fleeing from my head like a half-forgotten daydream.

I decided not to cling to it, focusing on the present. My eyes determined that I was in a vast, fanciful Omnithornian train station. Gold letters embossed on crystalline red centipede-cart defined the train as “Skyfall Express”.

The train was huge, bigger than Possy.

Possy. Who was Possy? I had no idea. Whatever. It would come to me eventually. Probably.

My memory wobbled as I tried to understand how I ended up in this particular location and particular time.

Since when was there a train to Skyfall? Wasn't Skyfall in Leviathan’s Cradle? Another disconcerting memory that didn't match my current reality.

The Skyfall train looked quite imposing. Crystalline red, segmented, featuring gargantuan, crystalline feet. It dwarfed my person.

The train was definitely the highest tier of Omnid magitek, a monstrous arcane construct built to a scale that made my small self feel rather inadequate.

The tall Omnids boarding it felt right at home. I, however, felt like a particularly unwelcome speck of human dust.

“Move it, nullie-brain!” A sharp voice sliced through my transient thoughts.

“What?” I asked.

A boot connected with the small of my back, not gently. “Unless you’re planning on missing the only transport to Skyfall and spending the rest of your pathetic existence scrubbing Scab Row toilets, move!”

For a second my brain froze again.

“Stop hanging up, you effing knob!” A clawed hand smacked my head as I spun around.

“Emerald?” I asked, recognizing the red dragon girl.

“Ember!” She barked. “Did you lose whatever brain cells you had in there?”

A magisteel centipede trunk stood behind Ember, metal feet tapping as it waited for us to board.

A memory that didn't belong suddenly became apparent.

This was my older sister, Ember Stratos, my personal warden. She was a year ahead of me, bonded to the Pyroclast house of Skyfall–the ambitious, aggressive leaders, naturally. Ember made it her personal mission to remind me, hourly, of my utter lack of worth and incompetence.

According to the inexplicable memories, I was a stain on the Stratos family’s marginally respectable lineage, a nullie, a waste of perfectly good oxygen in Omnithornia.

“Get moving, imbecile!” Ember barked. “At this rate, you'll be lucky to end up as a gardener at Skyfall, probably weeding the enchanted petunias with your bare hands until you wither away!”

“I’m going, I’m going,” I muttered, scrambling up the magisteel stairs, a worn rucksack with my worldly possessions bumping against my spine. The crystalline segments of the train pulsed with a faint, internal light, like it was alive, breathing. It was beautiful, in a disconcerting way.

Ember, clad in her crimson and gold robe, practically shoved me into a doorway that opened with a hiss of displaced air.

“This is you,” she declared as I looked at the red leather, magisteel plate and green flowery moss wall of the hexamesh-reinforced compartment. “Don’t wander off. Don’t embarrass me. And for the love of everything holy, don’t even think about talking to any real Mystagogues.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I answered, my brain boiling from within.

She snorted, her ruby-red hair catching the light. “Good. I’ma go see my besties. Pyroclast business, nulls. Way above your pay grade.” She smirked, that cruel, knowing smirk that promised future torment. “Try not to spontaneously combust from your sheer magical inadequacy before we get to Skyfall.”

And with that, she was gone, her footsteps echoing down the corridor, presumably towards the social epicenter of this oversized train-centipede.

The compartment door hissed shut behind her, sealing me in with the deep dragonheart beat-hum of the train.

I remained seated contemplating the wrongness of reality I had found myself in.

For a while, I was alone with my thoughts. I glanced out the window. An athletic density determination clocktower displayed the number 652.32 mpm.

I closed my eyes, reorganizing my wobbling head.

When did Emerald become Ember? When did she become my sister? Was she always my sister and I had simply lost track of her last time around or something? Had Archangel Zadskiel somehow screw with reality when she departed? Screwed with me? It seemed like the most rational answer. 

Freeing All-Knowing Archangels seemed to have terrible, unexpected consequences.

Was I alone in conversing with the Archangel? I was certain that there was someone there with me, but as to whom, I could not recall. The gray wave the eldritch entity had pounded me with had done something to me, wobbled my sense of self almost entirely out of alignment.

I promised myself not to free any more bound gods. Dealing with somewhat mangled reality and a very mangled sense of self was annoying. Then again, the impact of the Wormwood Star had mangled reality to begin with. Was the Earth twice as mangled now? Ten times as mangled?

How many times had I mangled up everything, forgotten, lost the people I cared about? It was difficult to tell, my mind still felt soupy like it was put together slightly wrong, missing far too many important bits.

I decided to roll with it, waiting to remember more, waiting to react to events as they unfolded.

The crystalline centipede train shuddered, then began to move, a low rumble vibrating through the floor.

Skyfall Academy, here I come. Let the fun begin… again?

I was fairly certain that I had been to Skyfall before, but there were no trains involved. I liked trains, even if they were giant crystalline centipedes.

. . .

I slumped onto one of the red leather seats, my worn rucksack thudding onto the floor beside me. The red leather was surprisingly soft. Everything here was built with a kind of unsettling permanence, a sense of power that hummed beneath the surface. I felt misplaced, like a glitch in the system, a smear on the pristine surface of Omnithornian perfection.

My head throbbed, far too many memories of another place and time swirling in it. Fragments of Otherness, coalesced in and out, washing against the shore of my being like gray waves.

I suddenly recalled that the Stratos family Psychopomp classified me as ‘dimensionally skewered’. Basically, incurably insane. An incurably insane, barely magical nullborn born from the brief union of my dragon father and my human mother from North Acadia who died last spring.

If I failed to achieve anything of value in Skyfall, the Stratos would probably disown me and bury me in a ditch somewhere.

I closed my eyes focusing on realigning my mangled, four-fold soul. Understanding-Champion-Architect-Leader. Was this the right order? I was relatively sure that it was. Maybe not. Whatever. I was working on it.

The compartment door hissed open again, so abruptly it almost made me jump.

Was Ember back to annoy me? I looked up. This wasn't Ember.

Standing in the doorway was… a silver girl with dark makeup and draconic features.

Definitely female, despite the shapeless grey robes of an unassigned Skyfall student. Silver feathers, impossibly radiant, fanned out from her head, catching the strange light of the train and shimmering like moonlight on water.

She had wings too. Silver wings shimmering with a rainbow of dancing colors at the edges.

Ocean-blue eyes, startlingly bright against the grey robes, fixed on me. And then she froze. I froze too, the gears of my mind grinding to a halt.

The girl in the doorway stopped breathing, all movement ceasing, like a bird suddenly spotting a predator.

She stared. Stared right at me, with an intensity that made the air in the small compartment feel thick and charged.

My breath hitched, distracting me from mentally pawing at the gargantuan shear-holes in my soul.

Did I know her? Did she know me?

Then, with a suddenness that made me flinch, she moved. Not away, but towards me. Long strides ate up the space between us, and before I could even register a thought, strong hands– surprisingly warm, despite the predatory look in those blue eyes–grabbed at me.

“Erm,” I managed to croak out, but it was too late.

She pulled me closer, her face inches from mine. And then, she did the most bizarre thing. She breathed in. Deeply. Like she was trying to inhale my very essence. I could feel her breath ghost across my face, a warm, faintly… avian-draconic scent.

Like ozone, lavender and something wild, untamed. Something incredibly familiar clawing at the edges of my soul.

Intense blue eyes narrowed, raking over me, assessing. She was looking me up and down, and I suddenly felt acutely aware of my shoddy, worn clothes, my lack of… everything, really. Her gaze lingered for a moment too long on my face, then dropped lower, taking in my… well, my male-ness.

A flicker of something crossed her expression. Disappointment? Disgust? It was gone too quickly to decipher, but it felt… negative.

“Hrm…” she said. “I know you from somewhere.” She reached out, a hand gripping my chin, tilting my face up to hers. “You’re mine,” she suddenly declared, the words dropping into the silence of the compartment with a chilling certainty. “Yeah. You’re definitely mine.”

“What?” I asked, trying to connect the dots.

“Mine,” She slumped onto the seat, wrapping a clawed, scaled hand around me, silver feathers bristling. “I own you.”

“Say what?” I blinked at her.

“You’re going to be my kobold,” she said. “I’m claiming you.”

“I’m sorry and you are?” I asked.

“Cinder,” was her brisk reply.

“Cinder?” I repeated.

“Yes.” She huffed, a puff of air that ruffled the silver feathers around her face. “Cinder Nova. And you’re my kobold.” She tightened her grip on my arm. “Don’t you know what a kobold is?”

“Should I?" I asked, squinting at her. I knew what a Kobold was, but it was better to keep her talking to Understand my current predicament better.

“Of course you should,” she said, rolling her ocean-blue eyes. “Honestly, nullies are so ignorant.” She released my arm, finally, and leaned back against the plush red leather, stretching out her legs and displaying her dark leather boots. Even in the bulky robes, I could tell she was… substantial, a head taller than me.

“Uh-huh,” I nodded.

“A kobold is… well, it’s a servant,” she explained, as if talking to a particularly slow child. “A useful thing. Like a pet, but… more practical. You’re going to be mine. At Skyfall.”

My brain stalled. “Wait. Hold on. I’m… what? Your servant? No. Absolutely not.” The sheer audacity of it was almost comical. Almost. Considering the claws and wings, and the way she’d just declared ownership like it was a casual observation about the weather, maybe not so comical. Bloody dragons. 

“Yes. My kobold,” she repeated, as if I hadn't just spoken. “You’ll live in my dorm room. Do my… work for me. Fetch things. Carry things. Maybe polish my scales, if you’re good.” She considered this last point, tapping a claw against her chin. “Yes. Scale polishing. Definitely.”

“Absolutely not,” I said again, more firmly this time. “I am not going to be your ‘kobold’. I’m a student. Just like you. Well, attending the same school as you, anyway. And definitely not as your servant.”

Cinder just stared at me, her head tilted slightly, like a bird of prey assessing a particularly uncooperative worm. “You’re a nullie.”

“Yes. And?”

“And you’re in my compartment.”

“Did you happen to bite this compartment to claim it?" I asked, recalling how dragons claimed things for their hoard. “I don’t see your name on it.”

"You some kind of a wise guy?" she squinted at me.

"You can't claim this is your compartment," I grinned. "I was here first. And you certainly can't claim me as yours. There was no ritual, no anything!"

“Semantics. And I said you’re mine.” She punctuated each word with a sharp tap of her claw on the seat beside her. “That means you’re mine. It’s very simple, nullie-brain.”

“Simple for you, maybe,” I muttered. “But I don’t belong to anyone. I’m not property.” I even stuck out my hand, a pathetic gesture in retrospect. “Alexander Stratos-Kilborne.”

She ignored my hand, her eyes narrowing again, the bright blue intensifying, becoming almost electric. “Alexander,” she repeated, tasting the name. “Hrm. Still doesn’t change anything. You’re mine."

"And if I object?"

"Pff. You think your ‘no’ means anything to me?”

“It should,” I insisted, even though my heart was hammering against my ribs.

“Should it?” She laughed, a short, sharp sound that was anything but amused. “Oh, nullie. You have so much to learn.” Her eyes flicked downwards, to my neck, lingering there for a beat too long. Then, with terrifying speed, she lunged.

I yelped, instinctively trying to pull back, but she was too fast. Her hand clamped on the back of my neck holding me in place. And then, I felt it. A sharp, searing pain, sharp something piercing my skin. Teeth. She was biting me. Hard.

A deliberate, forceful bite, right in the sensitive skin of my neck. I gasped, a strangled sound caught in my throat. The pain was sharp, immediate, and strangely… even more skewering. Like fire it radiated outwards, a hot throb that made my vision swim, vibrated the armillary of my souls.

It felt like this happened before. In another place and time. Deja vu. I shook my head. Damn you dimensional skewery affliction!

She held the bite for a long moment, then released me, pulling back with a satisfied little grunt. I stumbled back, hand flying to my neck, fingers brushing against something wet and sticky. 

Blood. 

Cinder sat back again, smoothing down her grey robes, silver feathers settling around her. She looked… pleased. Almost smug as she licked her lips.

“There,” she said, her voice suddenly softer, almost… conversational. “Now you’re mine. Marked.” She glanced at my neck, her blue eyes gleaming. “My kobold. Don’t forget it.”

"First of all, Ow," I rubbed my stinging neck. "Second of all, what the fuck?"

"I'm a Quetzalcoatl," she explained with a smug look. 

“I see that,” I said.

"My soul's in you now. Legally this makes you my property."

"And if the school objects?"

"Fuck 'em, I do what I want," she fired back. “I’m a Nova.”

"I see.” I pressed, still rubbing my neck. “What if they don’t recognize your… Quetzalcoatl soul-ownership declaration?”

She scoffed. “They will. Omnithean law is very clear on soul-bonds. Also, nobody cares about nullie opinions. You’re mine now. End of story.”

I tried to think my way out of the crazy Quetzi logic.

“But what if Slayer Nazareth’s Blade picks a different dorm for me?” I asked. “Doesn’t it put people with different personalities and talents in different houses? Like, what if I get sorted into… I don’t know… House Gorefield and you get Pyroclast or something? Then what happens to your ‘kobold’?”

Cinder actually paused, considering this for a moment. A flicker of something–maybe uncertainty?– momentarily crossed her face, but it was quickly replaced by her usual arrogance. “We won’t get separated,” she declared, with absolute assurance. “The Slayer’s Sword will know we belong together. Kobold and… owner dragon.” She purred. “We’ll be in the same house. I’ll be there to keep an eye on you.” She smirked, the predatory gleam back in her blue eyes. “Don’t worry, kobold. We’re stuck together now. Like glue. Forever. Ke ke ke.”

“Stuck together,” I echoed, a dry smile tugging at my lips. “Sounds… positively obsessive. Are you sure you’re not going to start leaving me stalkery love notes written in blood and hiding under my bed?”

"Shush you," Cinder said, but there was a definite twitch at the corner of her mouth, like she was trying not to smile. Maybe the ‘kobold’ plan was funnier than she let on. Or maybe she was just imagining stalkerish scenarios. Either way, she pulled out her phone, thumbs flying across the magitek screen.

About five minutes later, the crystalline compartment door hissed open again.

Standing in the doorway were two more girls, and if Cinder was intimidating, these two were… something else entirely.

The first one was tall and sleek, all sharp angles and polished feathers. Black and white wings, even more impressive than Cinder’s silver ones, folded neatly behind her. She had the kind of perfect, effortless look that screamed ‘I am an untouchable Princess’. A Thunderbird.

Behind her, was an even taller girl with white hair and unnervingly saw-like rows of teeth. Her skin was a metallic grey-blue and white, and even in the dim light of the compartment, I could see multiple rows of teeth gleaming in her mouth. A Megalodon.

“Guys, guys, look!” Cinder practically preened, gesturing towards me like I was a particularly impressive trophy she’d just won at a monster truck rally. “Guess what I got!”

“What?” The Thunderbird clicked, gray-gold eyes examining the room and stopping on me.

“Vee, Mags, meet my new… acquisition.” Cinder grinned, then turned to me, “Kobold, meet the Dream Team. On the left, we have Vespera ‘Social Media Addict’ Simmi, the Thunderbird who thinks air-headed selfies are a legitimate art form.” Vespera made a face but didn’t interrupt. 

“And on the right, we have Magdaline ‘Jaws Jr.’ Satosh, the Megalodon whose hobbies include staring intensely at things and contemplating the structural integrity of magisteel with her teeth,” the Quetzalcoatl finished her introduction.

Magdaline’s red eyes fixed on me with a deeply unnerving intensity as she sat down across from me.

“A… kobold?” Vespera repeated slowly, as if trying to parse a particularly complex Omnithean meme. “Like… a personal servant? Why do you need a kobold at Skyfall?”

“Not just any servant, Vee,” Cinder said, her voice dripping with self-importance. “My servant. He’s… special.” She winked at me, a decidedly un-reassuring wink. “Right, kobold?”

I managed a smile, preoccupied with my soul-wobbling. “Thrilled to be here.”

Magdaline finally spoke, her voice surprisingly feminine for someone who looked like she could bite a magisteel bar in half.

“Is it… house-trained?” she asked, peering at me with open curiosity. “Does it do tricks?”

“Magdaline!” Vespera scoffed, sitting down and elbowing the shark girl sharply. “Don’t be rude to Ci’s property! Though… seriously, Cinder, a kobold? Isn’t that a bit… low-Omnid for you? I thought you were all about status and, like, being the best?”

Cinder waved a dismissive hand, silver feathers fluttering. “Details, details. He’s… useful and unclaimed.”

Magdaline was still staring at me. “Useful how? Can it fetch?” she asked. “Maybe if you throw a ball of yarn?”

Vespera snorted. “Mags, he’s not a… a Kitlix. He’s a nullie. Probably barely knows how to breathe properly, let alone fetch.”

“Hey!” I protested. “I can breathe just fine, thank you very much. And I bet I could fetch better than… than a Thunderbird who’s too busy taking selfies to notice where the ball went!”

Vespera rolled her silver-gold eyes. “Oh, here we go. The nullie’s got sass.”

“Sass is a survival mechanism when you’re being claimed as ‘property’ by a feathery overlord,” I retorted, gesturing vaguely at Cinder who was now examining her claws with an air of regal boredom.

Magdaline tilted her head, considering my statement. “Does sass improve fetch?” she asked Cinder. “Maybe it makes the kobold fetch with more… enthusiasm?”

Cinder snorted. “Enthusiasm is overrated, Mags. Obedience is what matters. And scale polishing.” She looked back at me. “You do know how to polish scales, right, kobold?”

“I’m a fast learner,” I said sweetly. “Especially when the lesson involves not being bitten again.” I rubbed my neck again for emphasis.

Vespera burst out laughing. “Oh, this is going to be fun. You actually bit him, Cinder? Like, for realsies?”

Cinder puffed out her chest, silver feathers bristling slightly. “Of course, ‘realsies’. Quetzalcoatl soul-bond. It’s legally binding. Oodle it, ya foldknob.”

“I will, actually,” Vespera grinned, pulling out her own magitek phone. “This is going straight to the Skyfall Omnigram gossip feed. ‘Cinder the Terrible Tames Tiny Thrall on Train!’ #KoboldKuties, #SoulBondedAndBoujee.”

Cinder made a face. “Don’t you dare put that on the feed, Vee! I’m trying to establish a fearsome reputation, not become a freaking meme!”

“Too late!” Vespera cackled, already typing furiously with her long, elegant, bird-skull talons. “Image uploading… caption… ‘My new pet kobold, already sassier than your entire bloodline. Deal with it. #KoboldCutenessOverload #CinderGotAKobold’.”

Her phone flashed at me and Cinder, who soured up.

Magdaline, still fixated on the practicalities of kobold ownership, piped up again. “If it’s soul-bonded, does that mean it shares your emotions? Like, if you’re happy, does it wag its… tail?” She peered at my backside with an unsettling level of clinical interest. “Do you even have a tail? I’m not seeing a tail.”

I resisted the urge to check if I had spontaneously grown a tail. “I assure you, I’m not wagging anything,” I said dryly. “Especially not with enthusiasm.”

Cinder glared at Magdaline. “He doesn’t wag anything, Mags. Kobolds don’t simply wag. They… they cower. And fetch. And polish scales.”

“But if it’s soul-bonded…” Magdaline persisted, her shark eyes narrowing in thought. “If you’re scared, will it be scared too? Could you use it as a canary in a coal mine? Like, if there’s danger, during dungeon delving would the weaker kobold freak out first?”

“Magdaline, he’s not a freaking canary,” Vespera said, looking up from her phone and shaking her head in amusement. “He’s… a fashion accessory, obviously. A status symbol. Like a really small, really annoying handbag that talks back.”

“I’m hearing ‘handbag’ and ‘accessory’ a lot here,” I interjected. “Just for the record, I’m fairly certain I’m not luggage. I’m also fairly certain that soul-bonds are not a recognised form of… chattel acquisition.”

Cinder scoffed. “Please. Omnithornian law trumps all. Besides, who’s going to argue with a Quetzalcoatl?” She puffed out her chest again, looking around the compartment like she expected a chorus of dissenting voices to suddenly materialize.

Vespera snorted. “Loads of people, Cinder. You’re not exactly subtle. You once tried to claim the entire cafeteria as your ‘personal hunting ground’ in grade ten because you liked the roast griffin on Tuesdays.”

Magdaline nodded in agreement.

“Bah,” Cinder waved a dismissive claw. “Minor misunderstandings. Details.” She turned back to me, her blue eyes sharp. “Point is, kobold, you’re mine. And you’re going to be useful. Starting with…"

I waited for her to produce a job for me. She fell silent.

"You don't know, do you?" I asked her. “You don’t know why you claimed me?”

"Eh," she shrugged. "It'll come to me eventually."

"Why'd you claim him?" Vee relocated to our side and elbowed Cinder.

"Cus I felt like it, okay?!" Cinder fired back. "Get the fuck off my case!"

“Wow someone’s hungery. You should order some delivery from the cafe car instead of bitching like a knob,” Vee clicked her beak. She relocated herself to my side and started to paw at me with her magisteel talons. She made clicking and humming noises as she rained sparks all over me.

I squinted at her.

“What?” Mags asked, squinting at the suddenly still Thunderbird.

“Nothing,” Vespera said, her cheeks igniting with burning sparks. “Absolutely nothing.”

“Uh-huh,” Magdaline said. She pulled out her phone, rolled her red eyes and put on a pair of red headphones.

“Fess up,” Vespera hissed at me, a sharp, dark beak too close to my ear for comfort.

“Fess what now?” I asked.

“How’d my soul get in you?” She demanded.

“Say what?” I asked.

“You have a bit of my soul in you,” she growled. “I don’t recall putting it there.”

“Don’t know,” I shrugged. “Things have been sort of iffy since this morning. There are holes in my head the size of this train. I do know that I talked to an archangel. I think. Could have been my overactive imagination or my Dimensional Skewering condition.”

Cinder crossed her arms, clearly bothered by the fact that I was insane.

“Concerning,” Vespera frowned. “Very concerning.”

She eyed Cinder. “Fess up. Was your soul bit in him when you found him? That why you are claiming Koboldness?”

Cinder flashed almost entirely orange-red, feathers igniting like a sunset.

“Thought so,” Vespera tapped her beak. “Even more concerning. Right then. We have an inexplicable shared kobold that neither of us can remember claiming.”

She moved from my side towards Mags.

“Yes?” The shark-girl asked.

“Help me out, bae,” Vespera instructed, pointing a sharp, black-feather tipped wing at me. “See if you can smell anything… off about this smol humanoid creature.”

Magdaline, who had been tuning us out with her headphones, paused her music, her red eyes blinking slowly. She looked from Vespera to me, then back to Vespera, a flicker of annoyance in her shark-like gaze. 

“Smell him?” she repeated.

“Ye, smell him,” Vespera insisted, tapping her foot impatiently. “You’re a Scrut in training are you not? Sniff the nullie and tell me if he smells soul-bonded.”

Magdaline sighed dramatically, the sound like air hissing from a punctured lung. She pushed her headphones back around her neck, a reluctant expression on her face. With a slow, deliberate movement, she leaned forward, her unnerving red eyes fixing on me again.

I suddenly felt like a particularly unappetizing lab specimen under scrutiny. Magdaline’s head tilted, and then, just like Cinder had done, she inhaled. Deeply. Her nostrils, barely visible slits on her shark-like snout, flared slightly. The air in the compartment seemed to vibrate with her focus.

It felt… invasive. Like she was trying to smell my thoughts, my secrets, my very essence. I suppressed a shiver.

She stood up and circled me slowly, her head moving like a tracking predator, sniffing the air around me with methodical precision. Vespera and Cinder watched with varying degrees of fascination and impatience. Cinder still looked a bit flushed, her silver feathers ruffled, but she was trying to maintain a nonchalant air, picking at a loose thread on her grey robe.

Magdaline completed her circle, pausing right in front of me again, her red eyes narrowed in concentration. She inhaled one last, long breath, then straightened up, turning back to Vespera and Cinder.

“He smells… human,” she stated flatly. “Slightly metallic. Dusty. And… faint traces of fear pheromones. Standard nullie scent profile.”

“Fear pheromones?” Vespera raised a sleek black eyebrow. “Really? Already? And we just got on the train.”

“He’s a nullie,” Magdaline shrugged, as if that explained everything. “Fear is their natural state.”

“What level is he?” Vespera asked.

“Somewhere around four, I think,” the shark considered. “Bunch of minor skills. Very minor. Probably been on a single delve. Pathetic really.”

“But… no soul-bond smell?” Vespera pressed. “No Quetzalcoatl essence? Nothing… electric, sparkly or magical or whatever soul-bonds are supposed to smell like?”

Magdaline shook her head, her white hair swaying slightly. “Nothing. Smells… bland. Unremarkable. Like… tap water. If tap water could be afraid.”

Vespera frowned, clicking her beak thoughtfully. “Huh. That’s… weird.” She glanced at Cinder, her grey-gold eyes sharp. “Cinder, are you sure you… actually soul-bonded with him? Like, for real for real? Are my Electofractal senses wrong?”

Cinder’s feathers flared again, a hint of sunset-red creeping into the silver. “Of course, I’m sure! I bit him, didn’t I? Quetzalcoatl soul-bite!”

“Yeah, but… maybe you just… nibbled him?” Vespera suggested. “Maybe it wasn’t a proper soul-bite. Maybe you just… gave him a hickey with teeth?”

“I did not give him a ‘hickey with teeth’!” Cinder snapped, her voice rising in pitch. “I soul-bonded him! It’s done! He’s mine!” She jabbed a clawed finger at me, her blue eyes flashing dangerously. “Right, kobold? Tell them! Tell them you’re soul-bonded to me!”

I blinked at her, then at Vespera and Magdaline. “Well,” I said slowly, choosing my words carefully, “I definitely have a neck bite. And I definitely feel… owned. Maybe. Hard to tell. My skills are kinda glitching out on me.”

“Owned!” Cinder preened, puffing out her chest again. “See? Owned! Soul-bonded! End of discussion!”

“Owned in the ‘just been bitten’ sense, or owned in the ‘eternally bound to your soul’ sense?” Vespera clarified.

“Both!” Cinder insisted, crossing her arms defensively. “Definitely both!”

Magdaline inhaled and spoke up again. “Actually,” she said, her red eyes fixed on some unseen point in the distance behind me, “there is… something else.”

Vespera and Cinder both turned to her, all traces of amusement and defensiveness vanishing, replaced by genuine curiosity. Even I leaned forward, intrigued.

“Something else?” Vespera prompted. “What? Something shark-smelly?”

Magdaline nodded slowly. “Yes. Something… faint. Underneath the nullie-fear and the metallic tang and tiniest imprint of skills. Two bonds and something… not natural.”

“Not natural?” Cinder repeated, her blue eyes widening slightly. “What do you mean, ‘not natural’?”

Magdaline shrugged again, a gesture that somehow managed to convey both indifference and deep unease. “Hard to describe. Like… distant, twisted static. Interference. Like something… else… is touching him. Layered deep under his scent. Not Omnid. Not human. Not… here. Behind. Far behind. So far I can barely sense its end. If there’s an end. Endlessness… more like it. Number eight.”

A silence fell over the compartment, broken only by the rhythmic hum of the train, Omnithornian mountainous landscape flashing by.

Vespera’s brow furrowed, her grey-gold eyes thoughtful. Cinder’s feathers seemed to deflate slightly, the sunset-red fading. Magdaline just stared blankly ahead, lost in her shark-scent world.

“Outsider interference?” Vespera murmured, more to herself than to anyone else. “Could that be it?”

“Outsider?” Cinder repeated.

“Outside reality,” Vespera added. She glanced at me, her gaze suddenly sharper, more calculating. “You said things have been… ‘iffy’ since this morning, right, kobold? Holes in your head? Missing memories?”

I nodded slowly, feeling a chill crawl down my spine. The ‘dimensional skewered’ diagnosis echoed in my mind. Was this… worse than just insanity? Was I attracting… unwanted attention? Was something questionable deep inside me, messing with me?

Vespera tapped her beak thoughtfully again. “Maybe… maybe that’s why you claimed him, Ci,” she said, turning back to Cinder, her tone softening. “Maybe your Quetzalcoatl instincts sensed something… off. Something… vulnerable. And you just… reacted.”

Cinder blinked, her expression shifting from defensiveness to something resembling dawning understanding. “Maybe…” she said slowly. “Maybe… yeah. Maybe that’s it. Protective instincts. Quetzalcoatl are very… territorial. And protective of their… territory.”

“Right,” Vespera nodded, smoothly changing the subject. “Protective. Territorial. Totally makes sense. We def ought to keep an eye on this nullie till we figure this shit out. Anyway!” She clapped her magisteel-clad hands together, her usual cheerful, if slightly manic, energy returning. “House sorting! We should probably start thinking about houses, right? Strategic house placement is key to Skyfall success. And world domination. Eventually.”

“Same shit to me,” Cinder yawned.

“It is not the same shit,” Vee snapped her magisteel talons. “Placement determines opportunities. Let's start at the top–House Silverfox. Cunning. Strategic.”

“Silverfox is good,” Cinder shrugged. “But Pyroclast is flashier. More… power-hungry. Access to the hoard of Skyfall. Central Citadel area.”

“I do like hoarding,” Vespera clicked. “But I’d like to hoard my own shinies. Relying on other people’s hoard influences the mind. Not sure if I want to be constantly mentally derailed by the school hoard’s gold call.”

“Pyroclast is for stronghead losers,” Mags said. “Pyroclast knobs usually bang their head against walls until they break, or their head breaks.”

“Das’ just the dragon way, right ma dragon-bae!” Vespera jabbed Cinder playfully. “Pyroclast has its merits! Raw power is important! And they have the best beast-slaying parties, I hear!”

“Parties are for airhead knobs,” Cinder rolled her eyes. “Silverfox is in the central spire Silver Tower. Best views in the whole school.”

“Catacombs is where it’s at,” Magdaline considered.

“Catacombs?” Vespera and Cinder echoed.

“House Gorefield. Practical. Builder tech. They’re in the catacombs. Quiet. Dark. Good for… thinking. Making things.” Mags trailed off, her red eyes drifting elsewhere.

“Gorefield?” Vespera repeated, wrinkling her nose. “You into trash pandas? Seriously, Mags? They smell like… well, trash. And they’re all obsessed with… building things. Who wants to spend their school years living in a sewer, building artifacts?”

“Sewers are practical,” Magdaline insisted, her voice with a hint of… defensiveness? “Safe. And building is… permanent. Useful. Aren’t you an artificer junkie, Vee?”

“I am,” Vespera conceded, tapping her beak thoughtfully. “But pure artificery isn’t exactly… glamorous. Or socially advantageous. Silverfox or Pyroclast, that’s where the power is. And the parties.” She winked at Cinder. “We both have wings. Consider flying from the Silver tower to class every morning!””

“Hrm,” Cinder considered. “That does sound… fun. What about Hexacomb?”

“No way,” Vespera shook her head. “We’re leaders, not followers!”

“Yes, but we could get kobolds in Hexacomb,” Cinder said. “It’s a wholesome house full of hard workers, I heard.”

“Being a Queen Bee is appealing,” Vespera clicked. “But working hard isn’t. Not sure if I could force myself to work my way up from a drone.”

“What about House Wormwood?” Mags contemplated.

“Nah. None of us are Agromancers,” Vespera shook her head. “Wild magic ain’t my thing. I’m a logical creature.”

“Yes but they have the best crystallography lab,” Mags pointed out. “And access to all of the Cantigeists! Access to the gargantuan Wormwood Shard in the main building!”

“Ugh,” Vee frowned. “Choices.”

I absorbed their conversation like a sponge, spinning it in my head. I was fairly certain that Skyfall didn’t have houses before.

“Question? Where is Skyfall?” I asked.

“Wow,” Vespera commented. “Such vast ignorance. How did you even get on this train, nulls?”

“My sister brought me here,” I said. “Also, it’s not ignorance. I’m dimensionally skewered. Just need a bit of adjusting time, that’s all. I’ll be fine once I get the hang of things.”

“Skyfall’s in Saxtland,” Cinder said. “Big layline crossing area. Edge of the Wormwood Star oceanic impact crater up by the North Sea off the coast of the Still Ocean.”

“And how many Wormwood impact craters are there?” I asked.

“Loads,” Vee replied. “Too many to count. All the big ones have stuff round or in ‘em. Higher Aetheric density, yo. Easier to magic shit, easier to create dimensional gates. Etc.”

“And Saxtland is what?” I asked.

“A Magogenic Fault mountain nation. A ring of cities. Ruled by the Saxtant Parliament, secured by the Most Chivalrous Order of Saxtant Knights,” Cinder said.

“Chivalrous in a ‘we’ll lock you in a dungeon for three weeks for jaywalking’ sort of way,” Vespera laughed. “Saxtant Knights are hardcore. Order, discipline, and smiting heretics. Saxtland is a theocracy in all but name. Muuuuch runes. Very control.”

“Theocracy?” I blinked. “So Skyfall is… a magic academy, run by… rune-loving theocrats?”

“Mystagogue academy,” Vespera corrected. “For Mystagogues. Omnids and mixed-bloods. Run by… well, by a council of Mystagogues, technically. But the Order of Saxtant Knights keeps an eye on things. Don’t want another Elisabeth Zartella incident.”

“Elisabeth Zartella,” I repeated. The name flickered in my memory, bringing up nothing at all.

“The Mystagogue who exploded.” Magdaline said.

Vespera nodded grimly. “Anguishstorm, 1944. That’s why everyone starts Skyfall at eighteen now. Supposedly, the more mature the Mystagogue is, the less likely they are to spontaneously combust from uncontrolled magic working with Wormwood Star shards.”

“Spontaneous combustion,” I repeated, a dry smile tugging at my lips. “Sounds… fun.”

“Not if you’re the one combusting,” Cinder grunted. “Or standing anywhere within a mile radius.”

“So, no pressure then,” I said. “Just, you know, try not to explode. Got it.”

Magdaline, who had been silent again, suddenly spoke. “Anguishstorms… leave traces.”

“Traces?” Vespera prompted. “Smelly traces?”

Magdaline shook her head slowly. “Not… smell. Resonance. Echoes. Places touched by Anguishstorms… feel… wrong. Twisted. Like a broken note.”

A chill went down my spine. “And Skyfall is… near an Anguishstorm site?”

“Biggest Anguishstorm of 1940s. Plus near the Wormwood impact crater,” Vespera clarified. “Big one. Lots of residual weirdness. But also, lots of magic. That’s why Skyfall Citadel is there. Harnesses the weirdness. Turn it into… Mystagogue-ness.”

“Mystagogue-ness,” I chewed on the word, feeling increasingly like I’d stepped into a very strange and slightly unsettling dream. “Right.”

I looked outside. The centipede-train was plowing across the ocean now at ludicrous speed, a million crystalline legs flashing across the waves.

“Impressive, ya?” Vespera clicked. “Skyfall Admin burns a ton of beast cores on this trip.”

“Seems like a waste,” I said. “Could we not gate to Skyfall or something?”

“It’s a show of power,” Vespera said. “Omnithornia is flexing. Flex, flex.”

She flexed her talons at my face.

“Aight, I’ma order cafe foodles via the À la carte app,” she said. “Who wants wat? Tell me now or forever hold your peace!”