The Sika turned its prow toward the distant and settling a course for the Fillorian mainland. They had been given new directives to return and stay at the port for further instructions from the highking. The Pirate Captain had opened her mouth to lodge a formal, profanity-laden protest, but the moment she even thought about refusing, the binding contract Eliot had woven around her spine a sharp, icy tug. Her jaw snapped shut so fast her teeth clicked.
Without a second word, she barked orders at her bewildered crew, and the pirate ship peeled away, leaving the Muntjac to drift toward the edges of the map.
"God, Eliot is thorough," Kady muttered, leaning against the railing as the pirate ship vanished. "Creepy, but thorough."
"He's a High King with trust issues and a flair for the dramatic," Penny said, turning his gaze toward the horizon. "Matches the scenery."
On the deck of the royal vessel, the air was rapidly losing its warmth. Kady leaned against the railing, her eyes fixed on the approaching wall of ink. This was the Abyss, a geographical mystery in Fillory where the sun had simply been uninvited leaving the entire space as a permanent, heavy and suffocating night.
"Okay," Kady muttered with her voice dropping to a whisper. "Seeing it on a map is one thing. Seeing it in person? This is officially the creepiest place in Fillory. And that's a high bar."
"Tell me about it," Penny grunted, his eyes darting around the unnaturally still water, "Let's just find this damn key and get the hell out of here. It's getting weirder by the second."
"You can say that again," Kady shivered.
The cabin door creaked open, spilling a faint, warm yellow light onto the deck. Alice and Quentin stepped out, blinking as they tried to adjust to the sudden, absolute night.
"Oh, look who decided to join us on deck," Penny said, spreading his hands in an unamusingly theatrical gesture, "Welcome to the Abyss, try not to fall overboard; I'm pretty sure whatever is down there doesn't use a fork and knife."
Quentin walked to the edge, peering into the gloom with a mixture of curiosity and genuine dread. "Wow. It looks..."
"Increasingly dull? Yeah, I know," Penny finished for him as he et out a sharp exhale, "It's like sailing through a bucket of coal. A very cold, very haunted bucket of coal." He said, muttering something under his breath.
"What?" Alice asked, catching the tail end of his mumble.
"Nothing," Penny snapped. "Just talking to the void. It's a better conversationalist than Q."
Kady looked out over the black expanse, "Okay, logistics. How the hell are we supposed to locate a tiny key in this? All I see is open water and... more dark. It's not like there's a 'Key This Way' sign."
Everyone instinctively turned their heads toward Quentin.
Quentin felt the weight of their expectations and sighed, "Uhh... I have no idea. The lore just says it's 'hidden in the heart of the shadow.' It doesn't exactly come with a GPS coordinate."
Penny rolled his eyes so hard he nearly saw his own brain. "Great."
——————-
Penny was looking at the ceiling of the cabin when his face suddenly contorted, "What the hell?" he gasped, eyes darting wildly around the room and towards the edge of the cabin, "Who the fuck is shouting? Make it stop!"
Kady stepped toward him, looking genuinely confused. "Penny? What are you talking about? It's dead silent out here. Even the water isn't making noise."
"Someone else is here, Kady!" Penny snapped ashis psychic senses flared like a raw nerve, "What the fuck is that."
Kady looked around in shock, "Here? Where? We're in the middle of a literal void!"
"I don't know!" Penny growled. He turned toward the heavy cabin door leading to the main deck. "Out! They're out there!"
He rushed onto the open deck, Kady trailing behind him with a frustrated, "Hey, wait! Damn it, Penny!"
Alice and Quentin, who had been huddled over a map on the starboard side, scrambled to meet them. "Penny? What's going on?" Quentin asked, his voice shaking.
"Okay," Penny said, rubbing his temples as if trying to push the noise out. "Whoever that is either has a very fucked-up mind, or they are on the absolute verge of total insanity. It's a mess in there."
Kady stopped, her eyes wide. "Wait, you can hear someone's mind in here? I thought the Abyss dampened everything."
"Apparently not telepathy," Penny muttered. He turned toward the helm, shouting to the ship's captain. "Steer port! Thirty degrees! There's someone in the water!"
The ship groaned as it banked into the darkness. After several minutes of tense maneuvering, the silence was finally broken by the physical sound of a feminine voice echoing across the waves.
"Help! Over here! Please!"
"Light!" Penny barked.
Alice raised her hand, snapping her fingers to cast a standard light spell. Usually, the sphere would blaze like a miniature sun, but here, the light emerged as a sickly, dim flicker, barely reaching ten feet past the hull.
"The concepts of this place," Quentin whispered as he saw the flickering light and how it kept going dim by the second, "The Abyss is a conceptual vacuum and it's actively suppresses the 'idea' of illumination."
Despite the dimness, the spell did enough. A few yards away, a woman was bobbing in the water, clinging to a piece of driftwood. The crew hauled her up, dripping and shivering, onto the deck.
"Okay, what's your deal?" Penny asked, looming over her as Kady threw a blanket around her shoulders.
The girl looked up, her eyes wide with hysterical relief. "What? Oh, thank the Gods! I thought I was going to be the only thing the fish ate today! I'm Poppy. I'm an expert on, well on surviving, apparently."
"Poppy," Penny repeated, about to ask how the hell a lone human ended up in the Abyss, when his eyes suddenly bugged out. He stumbled back, pointing a finger at something bizarre, "What... what the hell is that?"
Poppy's eyes widened, and a look of sheer, panicked recognition crossed her face. "Wait... you can see it?"
"See what?" Quentin asked, looking back and forth. "Penny, what are you talking about"
Quentin asked in confusion, not seeing what Penny saw as beside the shivering, wet Poppy, another figure began to shimmer into existence out of the black fog. It was an exact duplicate. Same hair, same frantic expression, same wet clothes.
There, standing side-by-side on the deck of the Muntjac, were two Poppys. One was looking at the group with hope; the other was staring at them with a hollow, terrifying grin.
——————-
Back in the heart of Fillory, the air in the castle had become thick enough to choke a Sloth and quite literally too seeing as Rafe had to take the royal sloth out for a breath of fresh air this morning. The Fairy Queen had spent the morning leveling "outrageous demands" at Margo and it went ranging from the architectural redesign of the Royal Aviary to a specific, and highly suspicious, ritual involving the blood of a willing monarch… yeah that part was as sketchy as a cheating twat.
Margo was currently a walking explosive. Every time her eye twitched, a nearby servant ducked for cover.
Recognizing that the High Queen was approximately three seconds away from turning the Fairy Queen into a very decorative rug, not that anyone would actually mind but Elliot had staged an immediate "diplomatic evacuation." He bundled Margo and a very confused Micah into the Royal Carriage, announcing a grand Bonding and Unification Ceremony of the Northern Marches.
"It is a démarche nécessaire, Micah," Elliot explained, waving a wine glass airily as the carriage rattled over the cobblestones. "A fusion of the corps diplomatique and the spiritual essence of the North. Without this particular... joie de vivre... the kingdom simply falls into ennui. It's basic statecraft, really. N'est-ce pas?"
Micah blinked, looking back and forth between Elliot's French-peppered nonsense and Margo's wicked, predatory smile. Not the middle anyone would want to be stuck in, I assure you, "I... I don't think I understand. Is there an actual ceremony? Why are we taking this specific road? It's overgrown and leads away from the main settlements."
Margo leaned forward, her eyes locked on Micah's throat, "Oh, honey," she purred as her voice dripped with dangerous honey, "Don't you know? This is the Road of Rough to Great Discoveries. Every bump in the path is a metaphor for the friction required to build a lasting empire. It's very... educational."
Elliot let out a delighted chuckle, taking a long, slow sip of his vintage White Spire red. He looked like a man watching his favorite play from the front row.
Without warning, Margo moved. She hiked up her royal skirts and straddled Micah in the cramped space of the carriage, her knees pinning him to the velvet seat. Micah's face went bright red as she gripped the lapels of his tunic.
As Margo leaned in to begin a deep, hungry kiss, Micah looked over her shoulder at Elliot, his eyes wide with a silent plea for help or at least an explanation of the etiquette.
"Oh, don't be a wuss, Micah," Elliot said, leaning back and crossing his legs comfortably. "Continue, darling. I like to watch. It's the most entertainment I've had since the magic went out."
He took another sip of wine with his eyes twinkling with mischief. "Unless, of course, you're inviting me to join? I've always found that three heads of state are better than two."
Margo broke the kiss for a split second, casting a sharp, possessive glare back at Elliot. "He's mine, El. Hands off the merchandise."
Elliot sighed dramatically, slumped against the carriage wall. "You are no fun, Margo. Truly. A total lack of camaraderie."
Margo didn't answer. She simply turned back to Micah, her hands sliding into his hair as the carriage hit a particularly violent bump, sending them both deeper into the "Great Discovery."