Fragments of Alchemy: The Code Keeper

Following A Feather

Thea took a deep breath and turned to follow Tajana out of the darkened storeroom, which was tricky because she couldn’t see her friend. She left the room and walked toward the mansion’s back door where they had come in, because she knew there were stairs that way. She hoped Tajana remembered the stairs too. She gripped the fluttering feather tightly and walked so slowly in the hallway that she was sure Tajana would leave her behind.

She reached the foyer area with its vaulted ceiling, wrap-around staircase, and three-tiered balcony. Despite seeing no signs of Shadows in the halls, Thea held her breath and climbed the stairs slowly, wondering where Tajana was. She decided it was a good sign that she couldn’t tell where Tajana was, because it meant her friend was still well hidden. She reminded herself that she was just as invisible as Tajana.

Thea reached the landing of the second floor and held the feather in front of her face. It tugged to the right and slightly upward, toward the northern corner of the third floor.

She continued around the balcony where the wraparound staircase meandered up to the next floor. A door banged open somewhere below, and she instinctively froze in place and ducked down halfway up the last step to the third floor. The sound of loud shouting and running made Thea’s body rush with adrenaline. She reminded herself that no one could see her.

Thea took a big breath and inched her way off the stairs onto the third floor. She looked down the railing and saw three Shadows appear on the steps. They came up the stairs and headed down the hallway in a hurry, going in the direction the feather was pointing. As the Shadows passed, Thea held her breath and stood as still as a statue.

Thea swallowed and quietly followed the men down the hallway, keeping to the far-right side without getting too close to the wall. It became obvious to her that she wouldn’t need the feather to figure out where to go. Several other Shadows had already gathered in the third-floor hallway, and a few more approached from behind too. They all entered a room with double doors which thankfully were open wide. Thea put her back toward the wall opposite of the doorway.

The female Nightmare, who seemed to be in charge, was talking. “By now it’s possible they’re invisible. That means it’s nearly impossible to track them. Mark my words: they wouldn’t leave their Chimaeras. They’re out there somewhere, now stop dawdling and find them!”

“Yes Animosa. Let’s spread out and track them down,” the other Nightmare replied, and the men poured out of the room. Thea held her breath and tried not to move as all the Shadows in the mansion walked right by her.

Thea spotted something in the room that made her heart constrict. On a table, under a silver dome force field, Thea’s noctos sprawled out, limp with fatigue. It was as if the dome had put up some sort of barrier between Thea and C.C. so that her Energy couldn’t reach her Chimaera. Since Chimaeras feed on the Energy of their creators, Thea realized that C.C. was paralyzed by the force field.

The worst part was that Animosa was obviously not going anywhere. How in the world would they get their Chimaeras back when she was still in the room?

Before Thea could decide what to do, she got her answer. Animosa paced back and forth in front of the table, keeping her eye on the open doorway. She reached the far side of the room, turned toward the doorway, and began to pace back again, and Thea saw something that made her eyes go wide.

A ripple appeared behind Animosa’s back as Tajana let her feather go. It flew the last few feet to the table, where it hit the silver dome with a shower of sparks. A loud explosion almost knocked Thea off her feet.

The silver shield dissipated in a puff of smoke.

C.C. immediately took flight while Animosa still staggered from the sudden explosion. The noctos soared through the air and flew right for Thea. The link connecting them was enough to lead the Chimaera straight to her. She reached Thea in mere seconds and hovered in front of her chest, causing the Invisibility Conversion to ripple.

Thea swiped her out of mid-air and did the only thing she could think to do.

She ran.

Behind her, she could hear Animosa screaming, but she wasn’t sure if she was calling out a Code Word or merely shouting for reinforcements. For all she knew, Animosa was already Converting something to stop her in her tracks, but she hoped that the Nightmare would need to catch her first. She didn’t wait to find out.

She sprinted for her life down the hallway, her feet pounding on the carpeted floor. She couldn’t hear the sound of anyone in pursuit, and in a split second she made a decision.

She reached the balcony and easily vaulted over the railing, slid down the far side of the balustrade, holding on with just one hand, until she was swinging between the two floors. She pumped her legs, swung back and forth, and then let go; her feet caught the railing below, and she used her momentum to fly over the balustrade. She performed a forward roll on the carpet and landed in a crouch with no more than a soft thud. She tiptoed away from the railing and stood still, watching her rippling Invisibility Conversion settle down.

Thea never would have imagined that all those days of sneaking out bedroom windows, climbing trees, and practicing kung fu would have come in so handy. She had performed all those acrobatic moves on instinct, with hardly a thought.

A few Shadows ran down the hallway, blowing right past her as they sprinted up the stairs to the third floor, where Animosa was still shouting. “You just missed her, you imbeciles!” she hollered. “She just ran down the hallway!”

Thea held her breath and tried to decide what to do, as C.C.’s heart fluttered against the palm of her left hand. She thought of what Tajana had said and decided that she would expect her to get out and go back to the pond outside.

Thea knew that she needed to make sure she stayed hidden, or her chances of making it out would be non-existent. She breathed slowly, silently, as she tried to decide which way to go to get out. Above and below her, footsteps approached the stairs. Up on the balcony above her, two Shadows appeared. They ran down the steps, running right for her as she stood invisible on the second floor just a few feet away from the railing. Below on the first-floor landing, Shadows ran about the entranceway, coming for the stairs.

Thea instinctively backed up away from the stairs. That was when she realized that the best way to get out would be to return to the library and try to exit the mansion the same way she had gotten out the first time. No one would expect her to go down the hallway when she had obviously tried to escape down the stairs, and the last thing they would expect would be for her to return to the room that had been their prison.

Calmly, she walked down the hallway toward the library, while C.C. nuzzled her knuckles. Thea smiled despite the harsh reality that she was running and hiding for her life. She stopped half way down the hall, and before continuing, she peered curiously back down the hall, but there was no sign of anyone.

Hopefully that meant Tajana was safe. Maybe Thea had made such a great distraction that Animosa hadn’t even realized Tajana was in the room with her, and she had been able to take her caprequos and hide in the corner until things settled back down. Maybe she was walking right by Thea on her way out, even now.

Thea started down the hall toward the library. The door was open. Thea smiled and walked right into the deserted room.

She went back into the bathroom, and then she realized the problem with her plan. She didn’t have any dust to make another cloud. She would have to somehow climb down to the ground without setting off the ripple-effect of her Invisibility Conversion.

Thea was a great climber, but was she that great?

She looked out the window to gauge the difficulty of the climb. The first thing she noticed was the distance to the ground. She would surely hurt herself if she tried to jump down. There were windows directly below, on the first floor, but each window was ten feet apart, with very narrow ledges. There were thicker ledges all along the whole length of each floor of the castle, which would be safer to climb along. She couldn’t see any drainpipes or vines on this side of the mansion. Her best chance would be to sidestep along the thick ledge until she reached something she could use to climb down.

Thea put C.C. in her pocket and stood up on the window ledge, grabbed the bent bars, and slid through the tiny open window feet first. Her feet hit the window ledge, and she shimmied around and stood up on the lower thick ledge below the windowsill. Her heart fluttered as her Invisibility Conversion slowly stopped rippling.

Finally, she let go of the bars and sidestepped across the ledge, toward the nearest corner of the mansion. While she scaled the ledge, she kept her eyes peeled. Below in the backyard she could see several Shadows searching, but none of them seemed to think looking up was a good idea. If they had decided to look up, they would have likely seen her Invisibility Conversion rippling softly along the side of the building.

She would be spotted for sure.

Realizing this, Thea decided to pick up the pace. At first it was hard to move quickly, but she pushed herself until she was moving at a lively pace along the ledge, sidestepping quickly. She reached the corner of the large building and tried to peek around. It wasn’t a sharp angle, but there was a break in the ledge. Thea turned carefully to face the building, and she reached around the corner to grab a window that was almost out of reach. Slowly, she stepped from the ledge she was on to the ledge on the other side of the building.

She shifted her weight to her far foot, skirted around the corner, and finally let go of the window ledge to continue around the castle. She breathed a sigh of relief when she spotted vines cascading down the side of the mansion toward the far end of this face of the building. Better yet, the far end was only two stories, so she might be able to climb onto the roof of the second floor.

Thea forced herself to move quickly across the ledge. Every window gave her a handhold, but also slowed her down as she had to adjust her sidestepping to get around the protruding window ledges.

Finally, she reached the ivy and right away she noticed it only spanned the distance between the second floor and the roof. With a start, Thea realized two things: she couldn’t climb down here and her Invisibility Conversion was positively fluttering against the vines. She was more visible than ever. Adrenaline pumped through her veins, making her lightheaded.

Finally, she decided that the best thing to do was to climb up to the roof, and she took her first handhold and began her climb up the ivy vines. If the Shadows were paying any attention at all, they were sure to see her as she climbed up the vines, rippling up a storm, so she climbed as quickly as she could.

Thea scaled the last ten feet to the roof, clambered up, and ducked behind the ledge across the roof, scanning the area. With a jolt, she realized that two Shadows in the courtyard had spotted her; one pointed wildly up at her, and the other reached into a pocket of his black garb.

That’s when she noticed that everything didn’t look glossy anymore. That feeling of looking out from the inside of a bubble was gone. Her hands were on the roof ledge, but there was no ripple. Her invisibility had just completely worn off.

Thea’s heart hammered. She stood up and ran across the slightly tilted roof to the back of the mansion where her friends were waiting for her. Thea skidded to a stop as she realized there was no way for her to get down from this side of the mansion either. C.C. scrambled around in her pocket, fluttering her wings wildly until she somehow broke free and started flying around Thea’s head. Her frenzied unintelligible thoughts mingled with Thea’s panic until she grew so dizzy, she started to stagger near the ledge.

Thea grabbed the ledge, knelt down, and shook her head. She tried to focus on breathing, on calming down, but C.C. continued to flutter around her head, sending her into a desperate fight or flight response. Thea turned back just in time to see a dark shape alight on the roof: it was the Nightmare who had kidnapped her, and even with his mask covering his face, Thea could tell he was seething with rage. “Freeze right now, or I’ll stop you in your tracks,” the Nightmare shouted. He held out a Component, and Thea instantly felt like someone was pointing a gun at her.

One wrong move and she was done for, Thea realized. Unable to think rationally, Thea’s body moved by itself. She shot to her feet so quickly, the Nightmare couldn’t react in time.

Thea lunged over the ledge and jumped off the roof.