The Partisan Chronicles [Dystopia | Supernatural | Mystery]

Andrei

The theatre was silent save for the sound of Everleigh Gloom's shoes as she exited stage left. Why was no one applauding? I, for one, had thought the performance was remarkable, though it would have been just as good without the emotional manipulation. And I did think she may have played at least another number. We'd endured quite a bit of travel for two songs.

The theatre was silent, and then—

"Did she just do that?" Riz asked.

I felt something lightweight fall on my face—an insect? I brushed it away.

"She did do that," Finlay answered.

And the theatre exploded in loud, excitable voices.

"Did anyone know she was going to do that?" Adeline asked.

I turned my head toward her voice. Do what?

"I knew," Alexander said.

Knew what?

"Alexander told me," Rhydian said.

Told you what?

"Isn't she incredible!" Sebastian gushed.

"Asa, what's happening?" Jakob tugged on my sleeve.

"I don't know," I answered.

Sinclair squeezed my hand. While the chatter around us intensified, she leaned in and whispered, loudly enough for Jakob to hear as well.

"The Creepy Lass blew up a bunch of Anima sitting in the balconies."

I oriented my head to where I anticipated these balconies were, and then I wondered about the speck I'd felt hit my face. As if on cue, Sinclair brushed away any remnants.

"…a bunch?"

"Thirty, forty? Maybe more."

"Thirty or forty? That's…"

"That's a big problem solved, is what that is," Sinclair said.

While we had no way of knowing for certain how many Anima roamed Amalia, I suspected the gallery audience was a significant portion. At the very least, I believed it was an audience comprised of the Anima who wanted us dead, likely some of those responsible for the fires in Oskari.

Clip, clop. Clip, clop.

The scent of wet dirt and roses grew stronger as the footsteps approached.

"Hi," Everleigh said.

"Impeccable as ever, my darling." A breeze as Sebastian stood from his chair and rushed to her side. The sound of a kiss. Cheek? Hand? And then another kiss. Cheek, maybe. "I've missed you so."

A small grunt of protest. "You, too. I guess."

"So," Sebastian continued, his tone airy and proud. "What did you all think?"

"That we all should have learned to play the violin months ago," Adeline said.

Everleigh giggle-snorted. "But you're not me, so."

Someone leaned in from behind me. Taller. The briny scent of seawater. Riz leaned down and whispered. "Drei, I think I'm in love."

I swatted back at him.

"What in Delphia's dominance compelled you to do that?" Maryse asked. "One of the only reasons I came to Amalia was to study the Anima in their natural habitat, and now—"

"And now what," Everleigh interrupted. "Amalia is infinitely safer but you have no research project. Too bad I don't have a—" a pause, and then Everleigh drew a sad-sounding scale on her violin. "Oh wait," she said. "I do."

A rustling in the crowd and some quiet murmurs.

"Some of those Anima were my friends," Everleigh continued. "I mean, they were vile people. Truly. But they were okay sometimes. I'm sorry I had to trick them."

"Sweet Everleigh, ever the empath," Sebastian chimed.

"You lured them here, told them they could have us," Sinclair said.

"Aye."

"Alexander, you knew about this?" I wondered.

It was a moment before he answered, in the meantime I overheard a quiet conversation between Bells and Markus.

"—be all right, mate. We're all better off. They weren't, you know—"

"Yes, I knew," Alexander replied. "Everleigh told me while I was helping her with the preparations. I informed Rhydian on one of our caravan breaks."

"And nobody thought to tell the rest of us?" Sinclair asked.

"Everleigh wanted to surprise you," Alexander explained. "She needed my help to verify the guest list, to make certain she wasn't making any mistakes with her selections."

"Why would you wait until now, Everleigh?" I asked. "You've been in Amalia for ten years."

"I wasn't feeling rightly inspired, Andrei. Besides, do you know how difficult it is to get that many Anima in one place. Just look all the trouble it was to get you lot together."

The truth is, Everleigh Gloom had always wanted to be a Partisan. She had the eyes, after all. Her short time at Palisade was the happiest she could remember being. And so, over the course of her ten years spent in Amalia, she tried getting involved with each new group of Partisans, other sets like ourselves sent to combat the Anima. But somehow, and it may have had something to do with her unpolished approach to friend-making or the way in which she smelled like a burial ceremony, none had been interested in playing nice with the monotone mercy killer. Until us.

When we asked Sebastian if he'd known what Everleigh had planned, he replied, "How could I have known? But am I surprised? Absolutely not. I taught her the Canticle for a reason."

"So, what is it, then? Some Anima slaying song?" Bells asked.

"I guess. I first had the idea when I saw Zacharias's cane, but I wasn't sure how I'd pull it off. And then I found the theatre, so."

I traced the relief pattern of Symphonic symbols along the cane I carried that night. The notes to the Cursed Canticle.

"You did good, Creepy Lass," Sinclair said.

"I know."

A clap, and then, "Enough of this," Sebastian said. "We have the night ahead to celebrate a win—for ourselves, for the people of Amalia. And how better to do that than here, together in this historic location, with the founder of this very theatre present to entertain you?"

A wave of murmurs.

Sinclair narrated the violin exchanging hands when she said, "Sebastian's going to play."

The composer made his way to the stage, calling after his little moon-cake and Jakob to join him. Sebastian Vonsinfonie encouraged us all to mingle, and within the first few short notes he played, Everleigh and Jakob had already identified the song. Their voices joined one in after the other, wordlessly harmonizing the melody. Everleigh, higher pitched and ethereal. Jakob, from the lowest point of his adolescent register.

I wished I could see it—to travel to a moment back in time the way the others did as they watched the legends perform. I thought about asking Adeline, but—no. The sound would be enough. More than enough, in fact. There was no manipulation this time, only music.

And Feargus Finlay's voice behind me when he asked Adeline to dance.

It wasn't long before the others paired off to do the same: Rhydian with Evelyn, Michael and Maryse, Riz, Markus, and Bells. Per the gossip Sinclair would share with me later, Alexander remained seated, watching Rhydian and Evelyn.

Some of the Partisans present had never heard music before that night, even fewer had a reason or the inclination to dance. Those who'd worked in Delphia may have heard a song here or there, but indulging was never a priority. We'd been conditioned to not make it a priority.

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"Do you want to dance, Strauss?" Sinclair asked.

"No, but if you do—do you?"

"No," she answered. "Not in the slightest."

I draped my arm around her shoulders and kissed the side of her head, and over the course of three songs, Sinclair watched her friends rejoice while we listened to our strange new allies perform. Her laughter, unrestrained and earnest, was the ultimate underscore to the music.

As I look back, there were few moments in life more fulfilling than that one.

I absorbed it all.

Somewhere in the middle of the sixth song, Sinclair asked, "Do you want to dance?"

"Have you changed your mind?"

"Aye, and I happen to know where there's an office. I've heard offices are excellent places for dancing."

"Ah—you want to dance in the office."

Who was I to deny?

Together we stood, and I doubted if anyone, in the cacophony of celebration, noticed us slip out the double doors.

Sinclair and I did, in fact, dance before we danced, and as we were collecting our wits and our clothing in the aftermath, we spoke quietly about the implications of what Everleigh had done, what it would mean for us going forward, and what we had to contend with ahead. The music still played in the auditorium, and though it was distant, it was clear.

"We take care of whatever's going on in Leberecht, and we get the hells out of here. We have Riz now. And an embark."

"Where are you thinking?" I asked. "The lair?"

"For a while, maybe," Sinclair replied. "But Faust told us the answers to destroying the Six would be found all over Auditoria. Reckon we could draw out of a hat, see what happens when we get wherever."

"Why not," I said. "It isn't as though we could be any more ill-prepared for that than we were for this."

"That's what I'm saying."

I leaned the Vonsinfonie cane against the desk, pacing lightly. "It's all still so—it wasn't long ago we'd gone our separate ways, decided not to fight fate, and now? Going after the Six? Those we believed to be gods, and, frankly, they may as well be. Are we actually doing this?"

"Aye, we've got this, love. Besides, what else are we gonna do?"

"Go somewhere safe. The lair, the base. Do… stuff."

"Stuff?"

"Yes, normal… stuff."

"That sounds crap."

"Yes, I suppose it does."

"Besides," she said. "Have you met our mates? The Six don't stand a bloody chance. And everyone out there tonight, they were all so—Sebastian wasn't speaking out his arse. About what we're fighting for. It's not just about us anymore."

"True, Sinclair," I said. "It isn't only about us. Or our friends. When our baby is born, if things haven't changed, they will grow up as we did. Continue the cycle."

"Fuck the cycle."

Fuck the cycle, indeed. We talked for a time, kissed for a time, and we stopped breathing at the same time when, in the distance, the front door opened.

Footsteps, followed by a tell-tale punctuation.

Tap, tap, tap.

The footsteps continued through the atrium toward the auditorium, no doubt.

But then they paused.

Tap, tap, tap.

The footsteps turned in our direction.

And then they stopped at the doorway.

"Tell me that's not my brother in there breaking his own law?" Zacharias Vonsinfonie said.

Sinclair sighed. "Sebastian didn't create Sebastian's Law," she said. "You did, apparently. Also, hello. Why don't you just come right in and join us?"

Rhian Sinclair with an historical fact. Wonders never ceased to amaze.

"Thank you for the invitation, but I'd like to go forth and fetch my son."

I shook my head. "Our friends are having a celebration, so if you could delay any family escalations until afterward, that would be ideal."

"A celebration? Whyever for?"

"My birthday," I said. "Belated. It's been difficult getting everyone together."

"It has been such fun watching you run—to and fro. So, the celebration has nothing to do with the sudden decimation of my children, and my children's children, and so on? Your friends aren't dancing on their ashes as we speak?"

"Your children murdered two hundred people," I said. "In one night."

"They have been out of hand, I admit. But it's only because I haven't been awake for the past four hundred years to guide them."

"Look, it took Ivana Novak three hundred years to put a pin in her murderous urges," Sinclair argued. "Mortals don't have time to sit around and wait while their friends and family die so you can provide your fucked up children with centuries worth of therapy."

"Ivana Novak was your friend, Rhian Sinclair. Would you have seen her destroyed, knowing what you know? That she would one day put a pin in her urges and assimilate?"

"The preferred answer, mister Vonsinfonie, is that she would never have been turned at all," I said. "Let die as we are meant to."

"Do you truly believe that?" A pause. Tap, tap, tap. He stood in front of us then, facing Sinclair. He smelled of fresh rain and fire. "If, say, your beloved were suffering a fatal blood loss during childbirth. Faced with the critical choice: animate or let die as we are meant to. What do you choose, Andrei Strauss? Would you choose as my brother chose?"

"I'm unsure what you mean," I said.

"How else shall I phrase it? Would you, Andrei Strauss, choose as my brother chose when he reanimated my wife?"

"Why would your brother turn Avis Adler?" I asked.

Zacharias circled us. "Why don't we ask Sebastian now?"

"How about let's not," Sinclair said.

Zacharias hummed. "What if I told you that I agree with you. That the Trio must be stopped?"

"Wait—so, they're okay to slay? Which one is it?"

"I didn't say they must be destroyed," Zacharias corrected. "I said they must be stopped."

"Do you how to stop them?" I asked.

"Not exactly, but I know more about the operation than Sebastian does." Zacharias paced lightly around the room. Tap, tap, tap. "There's so much you have wrong, and yet—you are more right than ever." A pause in the speech and the steps. "Come with me," he said. "I've been dying all over again to show you both something."

"Come with you where?"

"To the place I call home. Where I brought you, Andrei, the night I saved your life."

"There—that's what I would do, mister Vonsinfonie, if faced with the choice you suggest your brother had been, I would save her life. Why didn't Sebastian simply heal her?"

Zacharias knocked his cane against the floor twice. "The mysteries! Where will they end?"

Sinclair reached over and squeezed my hand. I squeezed hers.

"All right," she said. "Show us what you wanna show us."

"If when we get there," I added, "you answer all of our questions."

Zacharias circled us once more.

And then, nothing but the feeling of a thousand-league run.

Nothing but the song.

A burst of sedation.