Chương 236: Act 3, Chapter 85: Stealing by proxy

Day in the story: 29th January (Thursday), around 2 a. m—1 hour into the time trial Alexandra May"I believe it's the proper time to get those swords out of the vampire's mansion," Alex said as he brought me fresh water to drink. I'd just managed to convince Damien to go get some sleep in one of the rooms inside the Nest, my hotel-like building. Alex placed the glass on the nightstand beside my bed and helped shift me into more of a sitting position.

"Elle is in the splinter with the rest. And not only are they being observed, but most likely recorded as well, so she has a strong alibi against being considered a suspect." He continued while pouring the water down my throat.

"That is true. Laurent is exempt as well," I replied through the painted mouth while my biological one remained occupied.

"Do it. But bring them into the room in the bridge building and check them there. Use Maya and decide what's worth keeping and what isn't. Send back everything else."

"She's not done with the task she and Nick are handling. She'll hate me for pulling her away from it," Alex replied. I tried not to focus too much on what they were doing myself, not wanting to accidentally freeze them.

"Then do it yourself or wait for her. You should be able to feel whether something carries Authority or not once you touch it."

"She says they're very close to finding the music box, so I'll wait a little longer for her and practice guitar in the meantime."

"Sure. If you can."

"Yeah, I noticed too. We're about to have a guest."

"Go meet her," I replied, spotting Sophie through the eyes painted onto the Portal leading into my Domain—the one I'd left in my room. She was dressed already and carried the beautiful bouquet she'd made before, which likely meant she hadn't slept very well either—readying herself to visit the part of her that was always there, but never seen or heard. It was difficult conversation to be had—I was sure of that, despite never having one of my own. I wish I had all the same. He nodded in response and left my bedroom.

In the meantime I focused on the eyes Liora had projected onto his body, by changing the colors of his scales and looked upon my Domain from his point of view. He hovered high above it all among the clouds, gazing down upon the long and wide canvas stretched beneath the sky.

It floated there now, its upper half already complete, depicting a partially blue sky riddled with cumulus clouds—so convincingly painted that they themselves seemed to drift slowly across the firmament and the canvas, believing themselves to be real. Liora dove beneath the medium and looked up at the unfinished side still being worked on. Art crafters suspended on silken nets skittered across its surface with their newest upgrade.

Each of their seven legs had been painted a different color of the rainbow, with the eight being black. Each one—right above the tips, and every shade believed itself to be fresh paint. The crafty arachnids pressed the proper legs against the canvas as they moved, smearing color wherever my vision demanded. It was a relatively new method of painting for me and I still worked on mastering the process, but it already proved to be vastly superior to anything I could do before.

Those minions were my tools, while the image itself flowed directly from my mind into reality through them. I thought first of blackness and dark greys, and my small army moved like one immense brush across the surface, mixing the proper paints and drowning it in those colors. Then, in a separate corner and diagonally through the entire composition, I guided another swarm distributing reds, browns and lighter greys as the figure of a man fused with metallic bolts began to take shape.

He towered above the scene, standing on a bridge that crumbled as quickly as workers rebuilt it around him. In his muscular arms rested an enormous wrench while greyish shadowlight escaped from his body. I painted him in wide, confident strokes—the paper spiders following my intent as though they were merely extensions of my own hand and arm. Then a shimmer of color reflected from the dome of grey light around him and, within minutes, the painting was complete. Mr.

Red: the guardian of the memory castle upon the pylon of the bridge I climbed.

"Impressive, human," My lóng hissed.

"I know you are watching. It tingles when you do." I heard him through the bodies of the spiders lowering themselves back toward the ground on silken threads. They looked like rain unfolding in slow motion. Those ropes they left behind shimmered in the moonlight, as their bodies disappeared below. Spiders heard the world differently than humans did, but I had grown used to perceiving things their way. They had no ears—unless I painted them some or created them that way like Anansi.

Instead they felt vibrations through the countless microscopic hairs covering their bodies, and all those folded arachnid creations of mine allowed me to perceive sound in exactly the same manner. And it was beautiful to hear the universe by touch. Sound tickled the skin. It pushed. It felt like breath exhaled against your body. It was both more encompassing and somehow more intimate, to always exist in the very middle of the symphony.

And now it was the wind that howled, the delicate skittering of hundreds of legs, as they moved on the ropes, they created themselves. Liora's grunts and the movement of air he left behind. It all sung to me in their beautiful touchy notes. Then, with a single thought—through Anansi as my proxy—I turned the painting they had so hastily abandoned into a dome of perfect silence.

Just as Red had expelled every vibration from the air during our fight, I borrowed his power, drawing from the blueprint he had carved into the universe and recreating it through the metaphysical properties of my art. And suddenly, every vibration stopped. There was no wind that high above the ground. No draconic cries. No muffled skittering of arachnid limbs—nothing of that sort.

Beneath the painted clouds, and lower still beneath the watchful eye of the mute guardian, there was no place for music, nor for anything else that dreamed of becoming that. Even bedridden and unable to move, I was a thief once again tonight. Alex Weatherlight"I figured you'd be awake. You never sleep." Sophie's voice carried a thread of doubt, and her posture—one leg drawn back, chin lowered, hands hiding the bouquet behind her—felt almost apologetic.

"We do sleep from time to time. An unfortunate requirement of the body. Though it seems you are the restless one tonight," I replied, watching Liora dart into the sky to serve as Alexa's eyes.

"Every time I closed my eyes, I kept thinking about the conversation I postponed and I wasn't even sure why." She shifted her left hand to her side, the one holding the flowers now, while her right reached for the fragment of soul core hanging at her chest. She wrapped her fingers around it and held it tightly in her palm.

"Seeing yourself and especially speaking with yourself, can be reality-shattering. We are not meant to experience that."

"We have mirrors."

"I wonder if you'll still say that afterward." I extended a hand toward her.

"Shall we go?"

"You thing I shouldn't?" she replied with hesitation in her voice. Her hand still firmly kept around the crystal.

"Oh no, not at all. I am actually quite jealous of the opportunity you have. A Shadow's perspective on life can be eye-opening," I replied, when a sudden explosion shook us. Trees on the western side of the Domain were abruptly brought low, their trunks blown apart in an instant. Sophie dropped the bouquet and clutched at her ears with both hands while crouching instinctively closer to the ground.

I caught the flowers before they hit the ground and quickly moved beside her, resting a comforting hand against her shoulder.

"Don't worry, Soph. It's not an attack."

"It's not!?" she shouted. The breeze carried the scent of petrichor and ozone from the site of the explosion as clouds gathered overhead. The Domain itself reacted to the spreading fires, summoning a heavy downpour to smother them.

"No. Not long ago I brought in a Lamp—an item from one of EoT's warehouses. We were conducting experiments on it to determine what it actually does. Apparently, when you pump Authority into it, it explodes."

"How did you even do that?"

"It's not that complicated. A few gems holding shadowlight with my Authority connected to the Lamp through optical fibers. Quartz can act as an on-and-off switch due to being colorless and transparent. We learned that while working with a particularly gifted artificer. The details aren't important. At least now we know those things are weapons, and EoT had a lot of them." This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"Fantastic. It's so comforting to know that whether you're human, Shadow or mage, people still dedicate themselves to inventing weapons of mass destruction." She let out a long sigh.

"I'm glad to know you conduct your testing safely."

"I need to. I can't allow myself to fall behind," I said while handing the bouquet back to her.

"I always thought you had an eye for plants. The way you arranged our apartment and the office—even those small flower compositions—it's amazing. You can feel that everything is intentional in how it guides the eye from the outer grassy pieces toward the central flower. Why is the cherry blossom the focus, and why is the sunflower supporting it?" I asked, trying to pay attention to the details. She lit up hearing the question and took the arrangement back into her hands.

"In Japanese folklore cherry blossoms represent ephemeral beauty and mortality. In Chinese symbolism they can stand for love and femininity. I thought, considering what you told me about her aging condition, it would be a good way to show my other self that beauty isn't about how we currently look, but what lies underneath." She pointed at the sunflower in the arrangement.

"That's why I added this one. In Europe it symbolizes loyalty and admiration, and in China good fortune and, most importantly, longevity." She explained it all cheerfully, pointing at each flower and the way they complemented one another. There was a passion in her that only truly surfaced when she talked about plants, business and Nickolas.

"I'm sure she'll love it." I extended my hand once more.

"Let's not keep either of you waiting."

"You really think she's anticipating me coming over?"

"Ask her," I replied and shook my hand lightly. She braced herself, took a deep breath and grabbed it firmly. A second later we both stood in the other version of our apartment, where Shadow Sophie was watering the wall of plants. I observed them with keen eyes, making sure they wouldn't suddenly create some invisible black hole that would drag them together and mash into one super Soph, like what happened with Equinox.

Fortunately for us, they simply stood apart, studying one another, and no external or internal force tried to pull them together. It was Shadow Sophie who spoke first. She rose from her kneeling position, set the watering can aside and smiled at Sophie. She carried a few too many wrinkles now, but overall looked much better than during our last conversation.

"So that's the other me," she whispered, taking measure of herself before turning toward me.

"And you are very similar to Ali. Sex change?"

"I am an artwork depicting her as something more masculine," I replied.

"I'm merely here to deliver my good friend so she can have a deep conversation with herself about the nature of existence." I smiled.

"Or just talk shit, if that's what you both prefer." I channeled a little more of my inner Alexa and both of them laughed.

"When you're done, let me know through the card you're carrying, Soph, and I'll come pick you up."

"Of course," she replied. Maya had already finished her search, so I summoned the spellbook to myself through the anchor tattooed onto my back, grabbing it firmly by the spine while its belt and chain hung loosely below. Then I jumped into the apartment within the bridge-building. Focusing on the painting of my smaller safe hidden in the book, I pulled her toward myself.

"Can't wait!" Maya shouted as she appeared in the air. She started flying in frantic circles around the room.

"Can't wait!" she repeated.

"Do it! Do it quickly!" I took out a few loose pages tucked into one of the containers attached to the spellbook's belt and unrolled them onto the ground. Thirty-three painted blades. Each on a separate piece of paper. Each a proxy through which I could reach into the fabric of the world itself and pull those weapons away from the walls they hung upon.

"He'd never know, right? If there's an unbound Authority within them linking them to someone, you'd notice?" I asked our Seer self.

"Yes!" Her voice was high-pitched and loud, like that of a child unable to wait another second before opening a present.

"Elle's fighting strange Nazi monsters this very moment, so she should be completely outside suspicion. Let's do it." I let myself sink into a state of certainty. One could never be entirely sure when dealing with mages, but the precautions we'd taken were enough to justify the attempt, and leaving those blades hanging uselessly on the vampire's walls felt like a waste. I reached through each page spread around me and followed the connections they provided to the weapons they depicted.

Then, with the help of my additional minds, I simultaneously pulled every single sword owned by the vampire lord toward myself. Maya, the seer Helping Nickolas find the music box was so much fun, and helping the kid while developing my senses was just an added bonus. It was the first time I'd actually done something for a complete stranger that seemed insignificant on the surface, but meant everything to that person. A good deed, I might say.

But what we were doing now with Alex was exactly the kind of reward a good deed deserved to culminate in—a proper, untraceable, high-stakes heist with so much loot one could simply close their eyes and melt into an oblivious state of oneness with the world. And to top it all off, the previous owner was both wealthy and well-behaved enough that he'd hopefully treat this as the universe politely informing him to improve his security.

When the blades appeared on the floor, I immediately realized most of them were merely decorative art pieces with no magical properties whatsoever. Following my assessment, Alex touched them one by one and sent them back into the armory within the Domain. Of course we could still use them as weapons, much like the Sword of Roses, but the value they held as pure artistic expressions was also worth preserving. Keeping too many mementos for emotional reasons alone was unwise. Quality mattered far more than quantity.

Especially since the six swords that remained behind were absolutely overflowing with magic. However they still could provide the resonance needed to further strengthen my power, which made them invaluable. I moved my fingers through the air in a loose, wavering motion as I approached the first blade that had stayed behind—a Roman gladius by the looks of it. A Latin inscription ran along the fuller of the sword: Motus qui montem scindit. Catansi quickly supplied a translation.

"A motion that sunders the mountain."

"Some kind of enhanced cutting strength?" Alex asked while examining the weapon. I touched the iron handle and immediately felt the Authority within reaching back toward me. It spoke in the language of violence unbound by the metal it inhabited. I saw movements, in both strikes and principles of them. Force expelled and carried forward, gathering the air itself and focusing it along the blade's edge.

"More like it cuts what you see, not what you physically hit," I replied, already moving toward another weapon. Alex lifted the gladius and studied its craftsmanship carefully.

"It needs a proper name," he mused.

"Gladius Motus sounds fitting." I barely listened as I approached a katana and its scabbard. The sheath was orange, decorated with fragments of fox fur, while an entire tail had been clasped near the mouth where the blade rested. The moment I touched it, I felt the creature. Not merely its Authority, but its spirit itself—its essence and soul bound into the sword. It was alive, but dormant, as though hibernating. Then its eyes opened. Hatred spilled from them immediately.

A deep, feral resentment toward those who had imprisoned it and toward anyone arrogant enough to wield it. It longed to run between roots and fallen leaves, to hunt, to sleep, to eat, to love and eventually to die. And it had been denied that final mercy.

"This one's different," I told Alex quietly.

"It's not just Authority forcing the tool into becoming something greater. A living soul was bound into it instead."

"What is it?" Alex asked. He opened his hand and the gladius vanished back into the Domain. Then he carefully lifted the katana and drew it from the scabbard. Holding the blade horizontally, he studied his reflection in the polished steel. Then he flinched.

"Oh. I saw fox eyes for a moment. Looking back at me."

"The creature's cunning and dexterity flow through the weapon," I explained.

"Every movement becomes faster, sharper, more deceptive and more lethal. But the longer you wield it, the more feral you become unless it's put back to rest."

"Hence the scabbard," he replied. He slid the blade back into its sheath and sent both into the Domain.

"Foxblade," he declared.

"Seems appropriate."

"That scimitar is very strange." I flew to the next blade, which had a bronze handle and blackened steel for a blade. It was so dark, it seemed to absorb the light itself. As I got close, my mind began to wander away from the essence of the thing. It defied all explanation and existed apart from the almanacs of fate, as if the soul of the weapon refused to be captured. There was a presence of a very old being within it as well.

It was made of pure fire and desert, and it evoked both the concepts of trickery and wish fulfillment in my mind.

"It... I can't tell what it is."

"Let me." Alex said and brought it up in his hand.

"Light, very light." He made a diagonal slash and followed with another one in the opposite motion.

"No attacking Authority, nothing that demands my power to function. It just... is?" he asked.

"Maybe we will figure it out later."

"Let's call it—" He started and went completely still.

"No ideas?"

"No. It... I can't..."

"Can't what?"

"Name it. It refuses to even go there, as if the act itself was forbidden by the rules of the universe." He replied, and it disappeared from his hands into the Domain.

"Strange. What else do we have here?" I was already by the next weapon when he asked. It looked like a sliver of the moon, curved and extended by one end toward the handle. It was definitely made to resemble the crescent moon too, and cast a minute silver-like glow that matched my own, but was toned down.

"It's a khopesh," I said, as Catansi found the weapon on the internet. An Egyptian kind of blade that radiated the ability to cut. Illuminations of the Sun depicted as heavenly serpents descending from the solar disc upon the earth appeared in my mind when I "looked" upon it with my version of aura. And the blade was shown to cut them in half, each and every one.

"It is able to sever the light itself."

"Oh, really?" Alex said as he picked it up. He moved aside toward a beam of moonlight coming from the window and, with one clean sweep, cut right through it. What he left behind was a column of light that ended mid-air and a patch of darkness below it. It stayed like that for a few seconds—both of us fixated on the strangeness of the occurrence—and then the light resumed its work and hit the floor like it was supposed to in the first place.

"Yes, really." I said, showing him my tongue.

"Ra's Khopesh." He said when the blade disappeared.

"Ra was the Sun god, right?"

"Yes, yes, yes." I replied, flying closer to a weapon identified by our Anansi helper as a gayang—a traditional Filipino ethnic double-edged weapon. The images of it being twofold were clear. There was a soulmark within—one of the Twins—but also power that moved from it to create Authority in the weapon itself.

"This one will cut twice for each time it draws blood on the target." I said to Alex. The weapon held no secrets from me. With a soulmark present, everything that it was presented itself as pure information to me.

"Twinblade it is then. Twinblade Gayang." He replied, sending that one to the Domain as well.

"Now, the biggest one yet." I said, looking at the zweihander lying on the floor. It looked like a mix between a steel cross and the longest blade I'd ever seen. It was ornamentally decorated with images of masons working on some form of castle towers.

"Yes. That one is massive." Alex said.

"What does it do?"