“Ariel.” Alex pointed at the former-sea-elf-turned-ice-fairy. “Thank you for the compliment on the ship but how can you be so calm. The demons are about to attack!”

  “Yes,” The hand-sized Ariel nodded. “But it looks like we have a couple days at least. And I don’t think I’d be helpful in any evacuation pns.”

  “You’ve got to at least have some useful information.” Alex sounded frustrated. “How many are there? What route is safe?”

  “We saw a lot of them.” Ariel shuddered. “There are probably thousands scouring the forest for any humans. As for safe routes to take, there probably are only two options, disperse across the wastends or try to get the kingdom of Jass between them and all these refugees you’ve collected.”

  “Won’t the fire cn attack us?” Alex worried. “If we kite the demons it will ruin our sneaking attempts.”

  “Of course they’ll attack the humans.” Ariel sounded exasperated. “They are contracted to do so. I’ll expin this clearly, the biggest threat to demons are not demons or anything else. Their biggest threat is each other.”

  “But what should we do? Most of the people here are non-combat cssers.” Alex worried.

  “Send them as soon as they have supplies loaded up in their boats.” Ariel ordered, looking to Cecil who was eavesdropping. “We can meet up at Yvne’s barony and continue from there. Going much farther than that alone will be risky. Hopefully the nereids are not mad at us like the winter court and won’t hand us to the demons in the kingdom.”

  “We would be in a bad pce if we tried to travel down the river and they didn’t want us there.” Alex hoped that wasn’t the case. “I suppose we have to trust that even though Aqua was talking strange that she and her kin don’t have it out for us otherwise we’ll all end up drawing.”

  “Bleh, don’t remind me.” Ariel frowned. “I tried to breath water but it didn’t work, I just panicked and choked on it and then for some reason it all turned into ice and I floated to the top.”

  “Do they have flyers?” Alex thought that things were getting off track. “Can’t they just scout ahead and find the people waiting?”

  Ariel waved away the concern. “Yes, though this force is heavily weighted with low level demons. The only fliers that can go more than a short stretch are the tier 2 ones or greater. There probably is at least one tier 3 demon though. This big of a group of demons wouldn’t rally around someone that is only a tier above them.”

  After that, they split up. Funi and Fufi took to the skies to scout out the demon’s advance. Alex, Merumeru and Ariel got a lesson from Alex on how to operate the toy ship. They loaded some small amounts of hard tack and water into the tiny hold just in case. Merumeru wanted to ride the toy boat, but it was made for hand-sized crew and she was toddler sized. When the balloons infted every time she tried to grab ahold of it then it started sinking back towards the ground.

  “When we get the full sized one.” Ariel spoke kindly to the slime girl. “You can be first mate.”

  “Meru!” Merumeru liked this idea.

  “I’ll have to make you a little sailor outfit.” Alex patted the slime girl on the head.

  Within the hour, several of the smaller boats with cssless children took off. People were loading food, water and whatever supplies they’d need to st a couple weeks from in the boat.

  Alex saw Ariel get a handle on the toy boat—airship? Nicely and was doing gentle circles in the air. The ship could be run by one person, but it wasn’t optimal. Ariel got things ship-shape a lot quicker than if she was using her [possess doll] skill to do it.

  Taking a walk around the quickly emptying town Alex saw Charlotte, still rooted in the spot she was a month ago. A translucent dome of ice was covering her. Because she wasn’t human she got to stay. Though, Ariel and Merumeru were not human either so shouldn’t they have been skipped. The winter court’s actions didn’t make much sense.

  Alex worriedly munched on some snacks near the adventurer’s guild when she heard a cnking of pted feet coming down the stairs and out of the front down.

  A knightly figure stepped out, covered in polished ptemail, that glimmered radiantly. He loomed heroically with an absurdly massive sword that looked like a holy relic resting on his shoulder. He had a cursed doll, protectively cradled in the crook of his other arm. An aura of annoyance wafted off of him.

  “I emerge from my slumber, a wraith of agony, shackled to the torment of existence,” The knight mented, his voice dripping with dramatic fir. “And what do I find? My shadowy dominion torn asunder. This armor, a cage, something fitting for a vile champion of light”

  Alex stopped munching and gave the overly dramatic dead thing a look. “I think is looks nice. The smiths worked hard on that, you know.”

  “It is an abomination.” He gestured dramatically. “My enemies will mistake me for a hero, or some such other abomination. It is a fate worse than my undeading death.”

  “So you don’t like polished steel.” Alex snickered. “What’s it matter, it’ll keep you safe from the incoming horde of demons.”

  “You speak bsphemy. Only the deepest abyssal bck can reflect the sorrow of my plight.” He gripped the sword hilt harder, the gauntlets creaking.

  “Look, there is no time to make it look all spooky looking.” Alex tapped her chin. “You could go to the smith’s shop and roll around in the soot?”

  “Soot bck will suffice for this upcoming battle.” He looked around. “Please young maiden, direct me to the field of ashes.”

  “Allright,” Alex took off towards the spot where the smiths had set up. “Follow me.”

  Thus the magical girl set forth to lead their new group member to find a pile of ash to dirty the metal and thus look more edgy.

  “A wise man once said.” The revenant stabbed the sword into the ash pile and flung soot all over the pce. “To embrace darkness, you have to be bck.”

  Alex reached for her feather duster but stopped herself, standing back from the ash cloud. “There now you are bck. Are you happy?”

  The revenant spread his gauntleted hands apart, the parts of the armor that still caught light causing him to recoil. He spoke with tragic intensity. “You do not understand the gravity of darkness, mortal. Bck is not simply a color, it is an abyss, a chasm of despair. There are imposters amongst the ranks of bckness, charcoal is meer ashen remnants of true shadow. Ebony, elegant yet weak, allows hits of warmth to taint its purity. Even obsidian, gss-like and reflective, betrays the truth of the void by allowing light to dance upon its surface.”

  Alex started to interject. “Well technically I’m imm.”

  But he cut her off, clenching a fist, trembling. “But jet bck… ah, jet bck is the pinnacle of darkness. It is the color that devours all light, rejecting hope, casting existence into oblivion. The truest bck does not shimmer, does not reflect, does not acknowledge the world that gazes upon it. It is an unyielding void, swallowing perception, erasing doubt, embracing the endless sorrow of the unlit eternity.”

  Alex gasped in astonishment. “You are. . . “

  The revenant pointed to the now-ash-covered-sword, his words full of disgust. “And yet you mock me by encasing my form in the wretched glow of the righteous. I am a shade upon this nd, a phantom of ruin. I am not the beacon of heroism, but the whisper of a forgotten doom!”

  “Fine!” Alex threw up her hands. “We can fix it ter, geez. The demons are getting closer every minute we’ve got to get everyone out.”

  The doll sat motionless, it observed the meltdown with eerie silence. Perhaps, deep within that cursed object it understood the dead knight’s pain.

  The knight grabbed the sword and strode out of the smithy. “Where? I will fight them. Even with this abomination of gear, because that is the grudge that I must bear.”

  “They come from the north.” Alex pointed north. “But there are thousands, our only hope is to take to the river and bait them into the kingdom’s territory.”

  “The enemy of my enemy…” The revenant trailed off.

  “What will you do?” Alex thought this guy was a little weird, and it showed in her tone.

  “Your battle strategy is sound.” He paused. “But I have one compint.”

  “What’s that?” Alex tilted her head. “If we fight in water, then it will wash off all this soot and I will be a shame again.”

  They headed back to the docks and the Revenant jammed the sword deeply into the earth, Taking a wide stance and standing as still as death, facing north like some kind of statue. He didn’t say a thing after that.

  “Is that the skeleton in the closet?” A little boy pointed at the armored figure.

  “Shhh timmy.” The boy’s mom rushed him down the dock onto a small boat. “It is not nice to point.”

  The magical girl muttered to herself. “He’s supposed to be a secret.” She apparently was bad at keeping secrets. “A skeleton in the closet is not supposed to be known.”

  Ariel’s familiar flew back doing circles around the floating airship. “We better get moving, they are almost here.”

  Fufi nded next to Alex. “Ah, that nice armor is already dirty.”

  The armor twitched, but the revenant inside didn’t say anything.

  Alex shook her head at the fmingo.

  “He likes bck.” She whispered to the fmingo.

  Fufi repressed a chuckle.