Lexi

There’s a moment right as I’m waking up where everything is peaceful and my body is completely relaxed. This wasn’t one of those moments. My eyes shot open and I immediately sprang up from lying down. Focusing in on my surroundings, it only took a second for me to realize I was in my room. The familiarity didn’t stop me from getting startled as my door opened and fox stepped in.

He had his phone in his hand but stopped when he saw me. “Oh, cool. The spell finally wore off. Cameron and Christian left like two hours ago, sleeping beauty.”

I sat back down on my bed as I tried to recall the last thing I remembered. It was all a haze. Using my fingers, I combed my hair back while taking a deep breath. “What happened? The last thing I remember clearly is you telling me about that spell.”

Fox seemed to contemplate something for a moment before putting his phone away and sitting down on my vanity bench. “Uh, yeah. About that spell--.”

A knock came at the door before mom stepped in. “Hey there, kids.” She stood at the door for a minute while looking me over, and then turned to Fox. “Uh, Fox, would you mind if I talked to Lexi for a moment? There’s plenty of tiramisu left if you--.”

Fox jumped up from the bench. “You had me at plenty.” He was all smiles as he exited my bedroom.

Mom smiled as she shut the door behind him and walked over to sit next to me on the bed. “So, how are you feeling, sweet pea?”

Unsure exactly how to respond, my eyes moved from side to side. “I’m, you know, doing good. Dinner was just so delicious.”

Mom nodded in agreement. “I bet it was considering you went around asking everyone for their leftovers and then used your hands to scoop the food onto your plate.”

I could feel the color drain from my face. “Wha--um—well, you know I hate to waste food.”

There was a slight pause that felt like forever as mom gave me a knowing look. Thankfully, it concluded with her laughing. “Sweet pea, it’s okay. I was a teenager too. Trust me. In college, I could out-smoke an entire fraternity to the point that they called me the bong bit—uh, you know what? We’ll save that story for another time.” She noticed the look of horror on my face but continued. “So, I get it. Just do me a favor and be mindful of it. You know, like not during the weekdays. That being said, I appreciate you doing it at home where your father and I can keep an eye on you.”

I was so stunned. I didn’t even know how to respond to anything I was hearing. Somehow, I managed to, at least, nod my head.

Mom pulled me in for a gentle hug before releasing me. “I can’t tell you how good it was to see you so relaxed. I’m guessing Fox didn’t mean to get you as high as he did. He looked so freaked out when I came up to check on you two. So, I just played along like I had no idea what was going on.” Mom leaned in before tapping me on the nose. “I like him.”

Taking a deep breath, I felt more relaxed than I had in a long time. And this time it didn’t require an altered state of mind. I wrapped my arms around mom’s shoulders and squeezed her before resting my head against her. “I’m glad you’re not like other moms.”

She kissed the top of my head. “And I’m glad you’re not like other dau—,” Mom drawled out before her eyes closed and she fell back on my bed, taking me down with her.

Before I could even process what was happening, Fox came storming into the room. He looked frantic. “Get up. We have to go,” he said before noticing my arm was pinned under my mom. With a snap of his fingers, my mom faded away.

My eyes went wide as I jumped up from my bed. “What did you just do?!”

“She’s fine. I put your parents to sleep and moved them to their bed. Now,” he said taking large steps towards me and grabbing my hand. “We need to go right now.”

Fox was starting to freak me out. “Why? What’s going on?”

He took my other hand and looked me in the eyes. “Sorry about this.”

My eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “What do you--.” Suddenly, I was overcome with the distinct nauseating feeling of motion sickness as the world sped up into a dizzying frenzy of fast-moving colors. Once it stopped, Fox and I were standing in a white, circular room with a glass dome ceiling showing the night sky above us. Before I could notice anything else, Fox pushed a trash can into my hands. All I could do was frown until everything in my stomach pushed its way up. Once it was over, Fox took the trash can, handed me a bottle of water, and nudged me further into the room. As we got closer, I saw Dorian and Mrs. Lancaster standing in front of what looked to be an unconscious person hovering above a giant, glowing slab of quartz.

My eyes widened once I registered the person. Sabine. It didn’t take long before I honed in on her arm and leg, both broken in horrible angles. I immediately dry heaved. “Oh, my god. I’m so sorry,” I said to the room.

Dorian turned around having finally noticed Fox and I’s arrival. He didn’t say anything. He just opened his arms, before Fox rushed forward and wrapped his arms around his cousin.

The two embraced for a little while until Fox let go of Dorian. “What the hell happened?” He moved to Sabine’s side to get a closer look.

Mrs. Lancaster was leaning against the quartz slab with both hands on the smooth flat surface while looking at Sabine’s still face. “Her driver said she went into a diner with an older woman she met today. After about twenty or so minutes, he heard someone screaming. When he ran inside, he found Sabine lying unconscious like this on the floor. The older woman was completely gone. Right now, the best we can guess is that the woman was an entity and attacked her.”

As Mrs. Lancaster finished explaining the event, I noticed a couple of tear drops fall from her face. I couldn’t help but move closer and place a gentle hand on her shoulder.

Fox was utterly confused as he ran his hands through his hair. “Tha--that doesn’t make any sense. One entity? Sabine could take on ten at once. More if she was in a bad mood.”

Before anyone could respond, a panel in the wall behind Fox slid open before a petite woman with tall, red hair in a lab coat stepped into the room. I gawked as she moved closer to the light emanating from the quartz slab. “Dr. Bordeaux?!” I covered my mouth as soon as I realized I had yelled it.

Dr. Bordeaux seemed to be the only one that noticed. “Alexia,” she said in her southern accent with a sad smile. “It’s good to see you again, cher. I just wish it was under better circumstances.” She took a look around the room before she motioned for us to move and give her some room. Everyone took a step back before Dr. Bordeaux rolled up her sleeves to mid-forearm.

The doctor clapped her hands together and began to vigorously rub them together. Her eyes and hands suddenly took on a yellow-orange glow. It was like looking at a sunset. The faster she rubbed her hands together, the brighter the sunset color of her hands grew. Finally, she slammed her hands onto the quartz slab and the whole room lit up in a bright yellow-orange flash. When it died down, hundreds of tiny sunset lights floated around the room. Dr. Bordeaux started moving her hands around in the strangest way. It almost looked like she was doing sign language. The sunset lights seemed to react to the movement of her hands. They worked in synchronicity as they spun and moved all along Sabine’s body. They traced every inch of her until the lights divided. One half coalesced at Sabine’s broken arm and the rest at her broken leg. With one last flash of sunset, Sabine’s body was restored before she slowly lowered from the air to lie flat on the glowing, quartz slab.

Dr. Bordeaux took a deep breath before her gaze rested on Mrs. Lancaster. “She’s going to be fine, Felicity. Now,” the doctor said putting up a finger. “I know you and I know you want to use your little mind-swabbing spell on her. Lord knows you like to use it on just about anyone in any given situation. However, I’m going to have to strongly recommend against it. Whatever happened has left her mentally and emotionally fragile. I’ve administered a calming anesthetic, but it’s still better that we tread lightly.”

Mrs. Lancaster put a hand up to stop the doctor. “It’s fine, Sheila. All that matters is that she’s okay.”

Dr. Bordeaux pursed her lips and nodded at Mrs. Lancaster before stepping over to Sabine’s head. She raised her hand before moving it over Sabine’s face. After a few seconds, Sabine’s eyes slowly opened.

She carefully pushed herself up on the slab while blinking her eyes and analyzing her surroundings. After taking deep breaths, Sabine rubbed her arm and pulled her knees up to her chest. She studied her limbs before turning to let her feet dangle off the edge of the quartz slab. “Please tell me Catherine is alright.” Sabine kept her head low while staring at her feet.

Everyone in the room looked confused, except for Mrs. Lancaster. “Is that the name of the woman you were with?”

Sabine nodded her head with a sniffle. “Yes. She’s a woman I met earlier who’s been struggling. I was helping her get a new job and a better home for her and her kids.”

Mrs. Lancaster’s face froze in disbelief for a moment but quickly shook off the sensation. “So, this woman wasn’t the entity that attacked you?”

With another sniffle, Sabine raised her tear-stained face. “No. She’s just a kind woman who deserved a chance at a better life. Tell me you were able to find her.” She finished by looking directly at her mother.

There was the slightest hint of sadness in Mrs. Lancaster’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Sabine. None of the readings or any of our tracker agents have been able to find a single trace of her.”

Sabine’s face was stone-still, but tears slid one after another down her face. “This is my fault,” she said barely above a whisper. “If I had never meddled in her life, she would have had to keep struggling, but at least she would still be here.”

Fox came around to face Sabine before taking her hands into his. “Sabine, stop. You are not going to take the blame for what happened. Alright? We cannot save everyone. We do everything in our power to stop entities from hurting people, and most of the time we do a pretty damn good job.”

Dorian stepped forward to place a hand on Sabine’s shoulder. “What matters is you're safe.”

Sabine’s eyes slowly widened as she looked at Dorian. “No. As long as that thing is still out there, none of us are safe.”

Mrs. Lancaster abruptly cleared her throat and the boys moved to the side. “Sabine, just tell us what happened and we will use every resource in the D.M.S. to find the entity.”

The tears in Sabine’s eyes began to cascade again. “I don’t know. I don’t understand what happened. We’ve never been up against an entity like this one. Not once over the hundreds upon hundreds of years that we’ve been guarding the 13th Hour. Somehow, it was able to take Catherine and me out of this reality. I don’t know where we were but there was darkness everywhere. And,” her voice broke for a moment. “I had no magic at all. I was completely defenseless.” She stopped for a moment to catch her breath. “Its body was completely black and it was like the entity itself was the darkness all around us. And, god, I can’t stop seeing it. Its smile. It was always smiling with these awful, terrifying teeth.”

My mouth suddenly went dry as my eyes widened. I didn’t need a mirror to know my face had gone completely pale. “Did--did you say smiling?” Everyone in the room looked right at me. “Was its smile, um, too wide to fit on its face? And—and its eyes, were they, like, this sort of pale yellow?”

Sabine pushed herself off of the slab to stand and faced me. “Yes, exactly.”

I didn’t realize I was backing up until I bumped into a wall. “That’s the same thing I’ve been seeing since all of this started.”

Mrs. Lancaster placed her index finger to her temple before her eyes started to glow dark red. A second later, a flash of dark red came from her hand, and then she was holding what looked like a large picture. I was too far back in the room to get a good look at it, but when Mrs. Lancaster gave the photo to Sabine, she instantly screamed and threw the picture back at her mom.

Sabine took a few breaths while leaning back against the slab. “Yes, that’s it. The entity that attacked me and took Catherine. Oh, my god,” she said before slightly covering her mouth. “Her kids. Oh, my god.”

Dr. Bordeaux stepped forward and started rubbing Sabine’s shoulders. “Alright. I think that’s enough for now. Sabine needs to rest.”

Everyone in the room complied as they all made their way through the moving panel out of the circular room. Fox came over to me and gently eased me out as well.

I found myself in a long, corridor with no visible doors or windows. Oddly enough the floor, walls, and ceiling were all glowing with white light. “What is this place?” I asked Fox.

He ushered me down the hall to follow Mrs. Lancaster and Dorian. “This is the medical wing in the DMS. The foremost doctors of supernatural and mystical illnesses in the world come here to do their research and studies. You can’t see it, but there are hundreds of rooms on just this floor.”

After a few minutes, we reached an elevator at the end of the corridor that everyone quickly entered. No one said a word as we silently made our way up. Once the doors opened, I recognized the dark hallway leading to Mrs. Lancaster’s office. Inside, Mrs. Lancaster directed us to the sitting area. Dorian and Fox sat in the leather chairs before Fox gestured for me to have a seat on the chaise I had woken up on earlier.

Mrs. Lancaster walked to her desk before heading over to us with a small black box. Once in front of us, she raised her hand and a glass coffee table appeared in the center while another chair directly across from me materialized. She placed the black box on the table and then took a seat. “That, Alexia, is for you.”

Fox took the initiative to pick the box up and hand it to me. “It’s a Clock Keeper. You should put it on now. It’s almost midnight.”

I took the box from him and opened it to find a simple-looking watch with a black leather band. After placing it on my wrist, I looked around expectantly at everyone. “What do I do now?”

Dorian leaned forward in his chair to address me directly. “You don’t need to do anything. A Clock keeper’s automatic setting is to keep you from entering the 13th Hour against your will. To enter the dimension, you have to hold down the winding dial and say ‘the thirteenth hour.’ Once you do that, the watch’s face will change to blue. To change it back, you just have to press the winding dial. However, even if you don’t change it back yourself, it’ll automatically reset to default after you leave the 13th Hour.”

Fox moved to sit next to me on the chaise. “Getting this on you before midnight was one of the reasons I needed to bring you with me.”

Mrs. Lancaster crossed her arms and legs. “And it’s a good thing you did. Otherwise, I might not have remembered Alexia’s run-in with the entity. Now,” she took a deep breath, “we know this entity is more powerful than any we’ve ever seen. Which is odd because we have a detailed record of every entity within the 13th Hour. We also know it can alter reality to torment its victims. And most unsettling of all, we know that it can somehow negate magic. But,” she paused for a moment to point directly at me. “What we don’t know is why this particular entity is so fixated on Alexia. Furthermore, why it hasn’t truly attacked her. From what I can assess, it seems more interested in watching and keeping close to her.”

Dorian raised a hand, to which Mrs. Lancaster nodded for him to speak. “Didn’t you mention the first time Lexi saw this entity was also how she discovered her magic? Does that mean she’s immune to its effects?”

Mrs. Lancaster sat back for a moment as her eyes looked contemplatively at me. “Not necessarily. It could just mean that it chose not to negate Alexia’s magic. And if it did, there’s a chance it was doing it to study her. That being said, it’s far too dangerous for the three of you to be separated right now. If it is watching Alexia, then the attack on Sabine was premeditated. So, I think it is in everyone's best interest that the three of you stay here within the walls of the D.M.S. for the evening. In the morning, the two of you can escort Alexia back home while I convene with the council to discuss the next logical steps in securing this entity. By the afternoon, we should have protective measures in place to deal with this matter. For now,” Mrs. Lancaster said as she rose from her chair. “Why don’t you boys show Alexia to her sleeping quarters?”

Fox nodded at Mrs. Lancaster before the three of us headed towards the exit. My brain was still trying to play catch up from everything I had learned in the medical room. Whatever calm and peace I had felt at home was long gone by this point.

Same as how we got to Mrs. Lancaster’s office, we went back down the dimly lit hallway and stepped into the elevator. I was expecting it to be another quiet ride, but Fox had another idea.

He moved in front of Dorian and me but kept his eyes on his cousin. “Uh, Dorian, you don’t think we should’ve brought up the cathedral to aunt Fee?”

Looking between the two of them, I raised a hand. “Cathedral?”

Dorian’s gaze didn’t move from the changing floor numbers. “Why would we? Aunt Felicity knows the cathedral’s deal just like the rest of us.”

I tried waving my hand to get their attention. “Seriously. What cathedral? What deal?”

Fox raised his eyebrows at Dorian while giving him a tight smile. “So, we’re just supposed to completely disregard it? On the basis that since it’s never happened, it couldn’t possibly ever happen?”

Unable to take another second of being ignored, I moved to the elevator buttons and pulled the emergency stop. Both boys finally looked at me as the elevator came to an abrupt halt. “I realize you guys are dealing with this shit just as much as anyone else, but please try to remember that I am also in the middle of all of this too. Now,” I said taking a deep breath. “What is the cathedral?”

Fox raised his hands in surrender as he took a small step in my direction. “My bad, princess. We hear you loud and clear. Dorian and I can both get a little one-track-minded sometimes. Won’t happen again.” He dropped his hands as I relaxed my composure. “The entities inside the 13th Hour are the worst of the worst. Pretty much unkillable. All we can do is keep them contained. But, in the center of the 13th Hour is a cathedral. It’s been there since the dimension was first created. Inside are the primordial evils. Supposedly, those particular entities are so terrifying, just the sight of them can stop a person’s heart cold with fear.” Fox shrugged his shoulders for a moment. “But no one knows for sure because it’s always been sealed. Nothing can get in and nothing can get out. All I’m saying is that if we have no record of this entity, then we need to take into account the only part of the 13th Hour that contains undocumented entities.”

I softly nodded my head and stared hard at Fox while processing his words. “So, what you’re saying is that there are things—entities more horrifying than what I’ve already seen.”

Dorian began to slowly clap his hands while sarcastically smiling at Fox. “Nice. Way to instill peace of mind. Really. You’re doing a great job at keeping your bestie from going nuclear.” He gave Fox two thumbs up before reaching past me to push the button to get the elevator moving again.

Thankfully, no one said anything else the rest of the floors down. Once the doors opened, I followed the boys down a bleak metal hallway of closed doors. My mouth stayed shut to not express the sheer anxiety of feeling like I was about to be locked up. The irony was not lost on me. After about a minute, the boys stopped at a door before Fox closed his eyes and placed his hand against it.

When Fox was done, he opened the door and stepped out of the way for me to see inside. To say it was the farthest from what I was expecting is an understatement. More than anything, I didn’t know why I was so surprised. With one foot in front of the other, I walked into a replica of my bedroom. Everything was the same down to the view from my windows. I turned around to see Fox with a smug smile on his face.

He took a couple of steps in and gestured to the room. “There’s no place like home.” He finished by popping his tongue. “Now,” he said as his eyes glowed gold for a minute before he snapped his fingers. The clothes he was wearing blurred away into a onesie with sushi depicted all over it. Fox even turned around to point at his butt flap that had the word ‘yummy’ written across it. “Let’s get this slumber party started, bitch.”

Dorian took one look at Fox and shook his head. “I’d rather take my chances with the entity.”