City of Souls

Unlike the others in my troop, I hadn’t been raised observing and adoring the natural night sky. Sure, I’d thought it cool and all, but pretty much the only thing I could pick out with any certainty was the Big Dipper, which I did now. “There are some missing,” I said, noting that the Little Dipper was shot through with pinpoints of light, but had no gems.

“Typical of someone with your coloring. Missing what is there and finding fault with what’s not.”

Surprised, I drew back at the venom in Solange’s voice. “No, I was just-”

“It doesn’t matter!” she snapped, eyes suddenly as fiery and fierce as the jewels above. “I’ll fill the entire sky soon enough, and then I’ll be the First.” She tilted her head sharply. “You don’t have a problem with that, do you?”

“What?” I didn’t know what she was talking about, and I was taken aback by her sudden anger. “No.”

Leaning back, she resettled silk over her knees. “Good.”

I tried to relax or at least look like I was relaxed. I didn’t trust her, especially after that little outburst, but I had a hard time pushing back the peace I felt amidst all this beauty. The cloud of pillows was soft at my back, and still spinning, the air a mere whisper against my skin. I wished I could undress just to feel more of it. My eyes began fluttering shut again.

“In the past, the constellations were what brought people the nightly news.” Solange’s voice arose beside me, closer than I thought she’d be, but I didn’t open my eyes. “A person ignored the heavens at their own risk.”

“Couldn’t be any less accurate than modern-day meteorologists,” I murmured before catching myself, but when I looked at Solange, she only nodded. I sighed. She might not know where I was from, but surely she knew when I was from. My dress, my speech, even my hair and deportment, all modern. Her, however? She could have been from just about anywhere, any place. Any time.

“Because meteorologists study maps and currents and calculations. They neglect to look up. They forget that the word cosmos means ‘harmonious order.’” Her dark eyes glittered. “The heavens are as ordered as the western calendar. Vikings sailed by it. Pilots used it to train in night navigation. If you read the skies correctly, you can even anticipate what will happen next. Nothing drawn upon the sky is by mistake.”

I tilted my head back to the ceiling, quietly sharing her awe if not her knowledge. “Are you like Bill or Boyd?”

What else could she be, I thought, but some sort of supernatural being? A phenomenon, I thought, looking at her. One as breathtaking as a shooting star. “No. I am my own.”

Her pursed lips and flat response made me feel like I’d failed a test.

She sat back, nearly disappearing into the shadows. “You’re looking for Jaden.”

That brought me to full alert. “You know him?”

“You could say.” The shrug was in her voice. “Is he still a romantic at heart? Belief in the individual, in choice, etcetera and so on?”

“I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know him at all.”

Solange shifted her attention away from the sky. “Then why are you looking for him?”

“I broke something. That Shadow knows how to fix it.” Except that he hadn’t fixed the changeling, I now knew. Jacks had killed him.

“He is good with his hands,” she said wistfully, and it was clear she wasn’t talking about tools. “But I haven’t seen JJ in years. Your lantern’s been locked.”

I shook my head. “I didn’t have any problems getting in.”

She shrugged. “Then someone unlocked it.”

“So…” Jacks wasn’t in Midheaven? I’d lost power, and he’d been in Vegas all along? “Well, do you know where he might be?”

“Is Warren Clarke still the leader of Light?”

That surprised me into momentary silence. “Yes.”

“Then I suggest you ask him.”

“How would…” I never finished the thought. My mind raced, searching for a time when a manual or even Warren had mentioned Jacks and Shadow agent in the same sentence. Coming up blank, I realized I had just assumed, and Warren had let me. “You mean…”

“Jaden is Light, dear.”

My dizzy-headedness wasn’t due to heat or drink or spinning stars. Everything I’d believed had just realigned into a different, unrecognizable pattern. I could understand Zane not telling me-he was the record keeper and had a cosmic obligation to remain a neutral force between Shadow and Light-but Warren…

All this time he’d let me act on the assumption that Jacks was a Shadow. “This is making me sick to my stomach.”

Solange immediately sat up, pushing the button so our slow spinning came to a stop. The heavens above ceased their movement.

“It’s that god-awful drink,” she muttered, and bent over, returning quickly with a simple gold flask. “Here. Wash it away.”

I sniffed. Water. I took one sip, then found myself guzzling it. The cloying finish of the drink downstairs disappeared, and my head cleared. Sheepish, I pulled the flask away before I emptied it. Solange smiled and waved at me to hold onto it. “It’s okay. I have more.”

By the time I finished the water, the nausea had faded.

“Warren hasn’t told you anything, has he?” she said softly as I closed my eyes. “He just sent you into a whole new world without even mentioning what this place is and does.”

I whimpered. She leaned me back again, like I was a child.

“You’ve spent many years at war with yourself. That’s why you’re gray.” She pressed a finger to my skin, looking at it like she expected to come away with soot on the shiny tips. “Toxins ooze from your pores. You doubt who you are and your place in that world. But here, you can embrace all your contradictions.”

“Like you do?”

She nodded as she leaned back, shutting her eyes, beautiful in repose. “I choose to be. Myself. In the moment. With the person I’m with. It’s simple, really. Anyone can do it.”

And there was something about Solange that was authentic. Maybe that’s why she was so beautiful. Maybe I was looking at the best her, the most her. That sort of comfort with oneself was rare.

I certainly wasn’t there yet.

Which reminded me…“I need my power back.”

“Why?” To her credit, Solange only cracked an eyelid. “No, really. Why?”

“Because it’s a part of me. I entered the world wholly and I want to leave the same way.”

“Nobody can walk through the world unchanged.” She nestled farther into the inky darkness. “Besides, the moment is all that matters. Control that and you control all. That’s true power.”

I found her lack of sentiment unnerving, and her dismissal of the people and events that marked and made a person was ruthless. Yet her eyes were soft when she turned her face back to mine.

“You look tired,” she said, voice honey-rich. “Maybe you’re coming down with something?”

That’s certainly what it felt like. My head pounded and my limbs were heavy. My skin ached and the nausea from before threatened again. Even Solange’s soft hand stroking my forearm was an irritant. Only the enveloping silk was welcome. A thought visited me: But superheroes don’t get sick.

“The water…”

The water…drugged…too late…

My eyelids were heavy, my limbs numb. “Oh, no…”

“Oh, yes.” Her words were sharp, her fingertips silken as she stroked my cheek. My eyes fluttered shut.

“I drank…”

“What you were given. Silly girl.”

And I nose-dived into sleep, the universe pulsing around me.

Fire greeted me on the other side of wakefulness; innocuous flames dancing atop a tiered cake, twenty-six candles burning in celebration. There were symbols on the cake, ones I should recognize, but my knowledge of them lay like words on the tip of my tongue; both there and not until their meaning dissolved. I panned backward, as you do in dreams, to find myself standing in Saturn’s Orchard, the training room and dojo in my troop’s