Istaìnn let out a deep sigh.

“Nothing makes sense!”

“Sure it does,” Faredhiel contradicted him. “That the reactor works somehow. Maybe they put it back or constructed another, I don’t know, but it’s the only thing that makes sense. Why would the Liar lie? We had divergent opinions, but the core of our beliefs was the same, and his powers are related to the Reactor, after all.”

“Maybe to lure me here, to open the door for them,” said the spy. “But I don’t think he lied. Retrospectively thinking about the feeling I had back when they got their names, and when we met again in the Embassy, there was definitely something else besides magic present. Well, at least we know one thing: one of you is wrong. If it’s you, cuz, and the Reactor is gone, we’re screwed because that means we’ll have to fight Others, and we rushed to attack with a sliver of our forces. If it’s the Mind who’s in the wrong, well,... Do you mind if I probe around with my powers, cuz? Just a little bit?”

“I absolutely mind. What if I’m right about its incompatibility with magic, and it explodes? Isn’t it any other way to disable it without opening it? Like, I don’t know, hit him with a hammer?”

“Oh, such wisdom!” smirked the Mind. “Hitting a Reactor who can make a plasma hotter than the center of the sun with a hammer! Clever indeed! Look, this is a waste of time: you, the Quevedo! Access the controls, try to start the Reactor, as your plan was. You’ll see that there is no Reactor to start. That does not involve magic, so the primitive can relax.”

“How I do that?” asked Istaìnn.

“Place your hands on the desk.”

“On the glass?”

“Oh, Providence! Yes, genius, on the glass! The interface will ask you for your orders; ask it to start the Reactor.”

“But aren’t you the one in control?” asked Feyra, puzzled.

“There’s nothing left to control; I was separated from the commands after the arrival when they dismantled the Reactor. But the interface is still working on manual. Please, just do it! I’m kinda fed up with this, sincerely, I’m looking forward to being taken over by the Others; at least they seem to understand how the technology works!”

“You are mean!” sulked Heyra, and so did Feyra, because that was a direct insult to their intelligence.

Istaìnn approached the desk and touch it with his hands.

“What are your orders?’ an immaterial voice asked.

“Start the Reactor!”

“Scanning available hardware, please wait,” the voice replied. He sighed and kept his hands on the desk. Suddenly, a pale bluish light appeared on it, and several things happened in rapid succession.

First, the glass on the desk melted. He fell forward, then the glass solidified again; both his hands were burnt and captive in the desk. He screamed and fell on his knees; the torment was unbearable. The girls rushed to him, but the throbs of pain were too much, and he fainted.

While he laid there, in the girls' arms, a second thing happened. A pale and limping man entered the room, the last Other, the Force Fielder, his blue robe dirty and wrinkled. Some muted neighs resounded from outside, the girls and Faredhiel saw Pumpkin struggling, captive in a force-field that enveloped him like a net.

Surprisingly, the enemy looked at the princesses with big frightened eyes. They never had seen such a fearful expression.

“Have… no… control…, help me…” whispered the Other.

He started to shake. His eyes rolled over, showing the white, and his skin started shining. His mouth opened rigidly, like one of a marionette, and spoke in an ominous tone.

“Send my greetings to the Moth! See you soon!”

A flash of blinding blue light irrupted from the man, then the force-fielder collapsed face down on the floor, dead.

“Help, Faredhiel!” was the first thing Heyra asked when her sight recovered a bit. “Heal him…”

But he was not paying attention. He was staring at the mind, who stared at nothing, whispering:

“EMP… EMP… I’m done… Why?”

“How so?” asked the elf. “It was just a bright light!”

“You don’t understand… That was an electromagnetic pulse, designed to destroy beings like me… And not only me, everything is gone, the controls, the computers, everything… I will live for a few more minutes, as residual energy… then… Why? Why did they destroy me? I’m invaluable!”

“Please, heal him!” the princess implored again.

“If they don’t need her, that means that the Reactor is still operational,” the elf concluded. “And if so, it can explode. I will not risk it!”

To add to the chaos, the stead, freed from his captivity by the Other’s death, entered the room, neighing and shaking its head, hitting the floor with his hooves, shocked and awed by his experience of being a prisoner. Heyra let her sister held the spy and went to calm the stead; it was too large an animal to have around in such a state.

“Hey, boy, relax, relax!” caressed Heyra his neck.

“So, after all, the Reactor works...” the elf said to himself, considering options. “I should have brought a hammer, after all!”

“Let the Reactor be, heal him!” commanded Feyra, but he just nodded a negation.

“I will not risk it, I’ve told you!

Lacking his help, she resorted to kissing the spy on the forehead.

“Please, wake up, please! We need you!”

And he did. He gasped and opened his eyes.

“Heal, please! Fast!” asked Feyra.

The elf rushed and grabbed the spy’s crossbow, taking it out of the holster and arming it.

“Don’t even think to do magic! I’ll shoot you, I swear. The Mind is dying; that explosion was meant for her. If they don’t want her, the Reactor must work. And if it works, it can explode.”

“Ah, cou…sin, you are rea…lly a big pain… in the… ass…,” the spy stuttered, his teeth clenching and shaking under the pain.

As he spoke, a large sphere appeared in the middle of the room, a transit tunnel. For the moment, it was still wobbly and milky, but they could guess the shapes on the other side: thousands of Others, with a PE in the front.

“The tunnel will stabilize in about three minutes,” said the Mind, with sorrow. “As soon as the planet and the moons align.”

“Use the es…cape bead, it’s in my … pants... left po…cket,” whispered the spy.

“Sorry, cuz. That’s magic. No go!” said Faredhiel. “Keep your hands where I can see them, miss! And you, the other, don’t think of letting that monster loose on me; I can shoot faster than he runs…”

“Cur…se you!” hissed the spy.

“Two minutes,” said the Mind. “Run on foot.”

“We will not leave him!” said Heyra. “Let him do his magic; maybe he can connect remotely to the Reactor, like those other times before.”

“No. Leave or stay, your choice.”

But in the second his eyes were turned to her, Istainn gathered the meager forces he could conjure under such pain and invoked three force-shields for him and the girls.

“Attack, Pumpkin!” Heyra ordered.

The stead attacked, only not the elf, but the images in the milky bubble. It was for naught; the hooves were passing through it. The tunnel was not yet done.

Faredhiel looked at the force shields with his eyes wide opened, then threw the crossbow on the floor.

“I was wrong. That spell is intense; the Reactor should have exploded… I’m sorry, cuz… Run. Use the bead. I will stay and delay them.”

“We will not leave him here,” said Feyra, before turning to the spy. “I trust you, my dear. We trust you. Do your magic, connect to the Reactor… We are here; we’re together. “

Istainn lowered the shield and tried to gather his thoughts, but the pain was not helping. Heyra came near them and took her part of the burden, supporting his weight.

“Water…” he asked.

“One minute…” announced the Mind, while the girls helped him stay on his feet, and Faredhiel gave him a few sips from his canteen.

The spy moaned but refused to invoke healing, fearing to lose precious seconds. He expanded his mind over the room, searching. His inner self wanted to shout: Run, use the bead! but he knew they wouldn’t listen. He tensed his will like a muscle, analyzing, feeling, sensing, probing for the Reactor, trying to connect to it by magic. Somewhere in the background, the Mind was counting: Ten… nine… eight…

What will you do, Istainn? he thought, and he remembered that was the thought he had when he realized he loved them both. He decided, once again, to fight for them., and clarity inundated his mind. Time began to flow slower.

Seeeeeee…veeen, he heard the mind. Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiixxxxxxx……….

He looked at Faredhiel and spoke to him with his eyes and his head movements. He looked at something, then at something else.

Ffffffff iiiiiiiiii vvvvvvv eeee……. Foooooooouuuuurrrrr….. ttthhhhhrreee

The elf understood. He rushed to the pedestal, took the faceted object, and ran to the tunnel. For one second, he turned to Istaìnn and said:

“Take care, cuz….”

Twooooooo…… oooooone.

In the instant the tunnel became consistent, the elf crossed over.

The lights went off, and the spy fainted again.

Chapter 42 - In the Dark

He woke up in the dark. The first sound he heard was the horse’s breath, a quiet one. The stead was staying put for fear to not hurt them. Istaìnn moaned and tried to move, but his hands were stretched above him, still captive.

“Shh...don’t move… wait until you get enough force to heal…” whispered a voice.

His head was in the leap of one of the girls; he had no idea whose. She was caressing his cheek, and he felt some drops falling on his face, her tears. Then he felt her body inclining forward, her breast weight leaning on his forehead, her hair touching his cheeks. Her mouth found his chin, then went up, searching for his lips. They kissed. It was intense but short, the pain was still there, and he needed to breathe.

“Wait,” he whispered, then asked again: “don’t go …”

They kissed again, for longer.

When he took the next breath, he could concentrate enough to do magic. He willed himself free, and the glass broke, letting his hands fall. He invoked healing, and the burning disappeared, leaving behind only a terrible numbness.

“Aaaaah, I could use a little massage on the hands!” he sighed.

The other girl took his hands and started massaging them.

“Tell me when you want to change again,” she told her sister.

“How much time was I passed out?” he asked.

“I don’t know…” replied the one who held him. “Probably half an hour? We shifted when we got numb, every ten minutes or so.”