die today-his eyes began to well. He took her in his arms.
'We'll see them again, dearest. We will. I promise.'
She sobbed into his shoulder; he fought to keep down his own tears. Shade fell further.
'Oh, for crying out-Your hair is in my eyes, human woman,' Pleeancis hissed.
Jennah ignored him or did not hear him. Zossimus shooed the little demon away.
'Be gone, Pleeancis, we've no time for you now.'
Pleeancis fluttered away, leaving a stream of curses in his wake. 'All right, Boss, now it's really Pleeancis the Mighty to you! I was jesting before, but now…'
Zossimus made no reply, merely held his love as she sobbed.
He knew they had only moments. He wanted to tell Jennah how much he loved her, whisper to her how her presence had made his life in the twilight bearable, but he could not give voice to his feelings, not even now. Instead, he stroked her long hair, held her tight, and said nothing. Pleeancis, as usual, spoiled the moment.
'Boss, I think we're falling.'
The quasit spoke with such surprise in his tone that Jennah's sobs turned to laughter. Zossimus too began to laugh. What else could they do?
'It's not funny,' Pleeancis said. 'Did you hear what I said?'
'We heard, little one,' said Zossimus.
Jennah leaned back from Zossimus and looked him in the eyes. Her tear-streaked but smiling face looked luminous. He found his voice and spoke before she did.
'I love you, dearest. More than anything.'
Jennah opened her mouth to reply, but before she could, a strange silence descended, as though they had filled their ears with wax. The twilight turned darker. The air grew charged.
'What's that?' she asked, her voice dull and seemingly far away.
She disengaged herself from him and looked westward. Curious, he too looked to the western sky.
Above the city, the sky roiled. There, the twilight of Shade gave way to a deeper darkness. Whorls of black and ochre rippled across the sky and expanded toward them. A multitude of miniature cyclones took shape and ran before the ever-expanding curtain of darkness, an honor guard of destructive force. Some of them were large enough to damage buildings. Pieces of roofs flew skyward and swirled in the turbulent air.
Zossimus knew at once what was occurring. He whispered it aloud, awestruck. They're taking the city fully into the Plane of Shadow.'
The cyclones were planar vortices, present anywhere that two planes violently collided.
At the same moment, he realized that Shade was no longer sinking. Moving the city farther into the Plane of Shadow must have strengthened the Twelve Princes' Shadow Magic. The city had stabilized, at least for a time.
Gleeful, he turned to Jennah to sweep her into an embrace.
The look of horror on her face stopped him cold.
'I won't go,' she said, and took a step back from him. 'I can't live like that-like this.'
She gazed skyward, and made a gesture that took in all of Shade.
The curtain of darkness-colorlessness-drew nearer. A peculiar sonic effect preceded it: not silence, but a dulling of sound. Even the destruction wrought by the planar cyclones sounded muted.
'There's nothing else to be done, Jennah. Dearest.'
He moved toward her, one hand outstretched. When she recoiled, he struggled to keep the pain from his face and voice.
'Well die otherwise. The shadow magic won't keep the city afloat. Jennah-'
Something within her seemed to break. Her eyes grew pained, and when she spoke, her voice was thick with the attempt to control her tears.
'I don't care, Zoss. Don't you understand? I can't live like this anymore. I'd rather die. I stayed for you. Only for you. We've lived in the dark too long. I-'
He felt it at the same moment she did. Pleeancis must have too. From high in the air, the quasit let forth a squeal of joy.
'I can teleport, Boss! I can teleport!'
As though to make his point, the little demon began repeatedly to do just that-disappearing from one location only to instantaneously reappear in a different location a stone's throw away. His high-pitched, delighted laughter filled the sky from ten different directions.
The Weave had returned!
Zossimus's soul refilled. The flow of magic that had ebbed moments before, now re-entered his being like a riptide. He smiled fiercely.
Jennah laughed for joy. She spoke an arcane phrase and alit from the earth to frolic in the air. 'We're saved, Zoss! Oh, thank Tyche!' She spiraled about in the air, as gleeful as a child at play.
Pleeancis teleported onto Zossimus's shoulder. 'I'm back, Boss,' he said with a fanged smile, 'and better than ever.'
Zossimus reached over to scratch the little demon's scaled head. 'Indeed, little one. Me too.'
Beneath his feet, Shade lurched. The sky grew nearly pitch. Pleeancis yelped and teleported under Zossimus's robes. Zossimus looked skyward. The black, colorless curtain of the Shadow Plane continued to rush toward them. Despite the return of the Weave, the Twelve Princes were still taking Shade to the Plane of Shadow. Perhaps the unexpected return of the Weave had caused the spell causing the move to go awry. The latter seemed more probable to Zossimus, because in only a heartbeat the seething darkness that represented the border between the planes had picked up speed and the planar cyclones had grown larger. Whole buildings flew skyward under the force of the roaring winds.
'Jennah! Pleeancis! Get into the villa, down to the wine cellar, both of you. Now!'
Pleeancis poked his head out of the robes, looked at the seething sky, and teleported out of sight without a word. Jennah still flew high above Zossimus.
'Look, Jennah! Look!' Zossimus pointed to the onrushing planar border. 'Come down! It's our only chance!'
'I can't, Zoss,' she shouted above the rising wind.
She looked at the onrushing darkness and her face went pale. A gust of wind caught her and sent her spinning toward it. Zossimus's throat grew tight. He mouthed the words to a spell that would grant him flight.
Jennah recovered quickly, however, and steadied herself.
'I love you, Zoss, and I always will, but I can't here anymore.'
Zoss, unwilling to let her go so easily, took flight toward her. 'Wait, Jennah. Please, dearest. Don't leave!'
She backed away from him, as though afraid to let him come too close. Another gust caught her, stronger this time, and sent her careening helplessly through the air.
'Jennah!'
Zoss streaked after her as fast as the spell allowed as she cartwheeled helplessly toward the onrushing darkness. She screamed in terror, a sound audible even above the roar of planar collision.
Before she reached the darkness, a planar cyclone, filled with whirling stone debris from destroyed buildings, caught her up. She vanished into the cylinder of roaring wind. Zossimus screamed her name in vain, circled about the cyclone as near as he dared, trying himself to stay airborne in the whipping winds. The darkness engulfed him, but he did not care. His senses went dull. Sound became less clear, sight less crisp. They had entered the Plane of Shadow. The world was muted, but his pain at losing Jennah was as acute as ever.
With the transition to the Plane of Shadow complete, the planar cyclones dissipated as quickly as they had materialized. Stone and wood crashed to the ground. So too did Jennah. Zossimus flew to her side.
He started to speak her name but couldn't bring himself to utter a sound. Her body, twisted by the terrible force of the cyclone, battered by the swirling debris, lay on the ground like a broken thing. He cradled her in his arms and cried.
Pleeancis teleported beside him. 'Belial's balls, Boss! What happ-' He stopped and cocked his head. 'Hey, where are we? What happened to her?'
He stuck out a foot to nudge Jennah. Zossimus did not have the energy to rebuke him.
