Ch: 25 Amber

Okay this gets very dark at the end of the chapter. It got a lot darker than I planned. Sorry.

Sage of Humanity

Chapter 25

Amber

Lily looked on the stump that was also the back emergency exit of the bunker beneath them. It looked just like a normal stump. It was gray with little to no bark left on it. The top of it was jagged indicating that the tree had fallen not by human hands, but by something else. The jagged part stuck up about three feet from the ground. The stump itself was about large, maybe four feet in diameter. Looking at it, Lily thought about what could have knocked it down, and while she knew the weather was most likely the cause she couldn’t stop herself from imagining some other reasons. Something like a beast or monster brushing up against it knocking it down.

“It’s locked.” Toussaint told them as he crouched down beside it. He took off his backpack and pulled out a wire. He stuck the wire into the ground and fiddled with it. Smiling at them, he continued, “But I’m Toussaint the great, and …. There we go. It’s heavy. Gonna need some help.”

Blanchet went to help him while the rest of the party, aside from Ganier who was guarding the front exit, crouched down and started looking outward from the stop. Lily was a half a step behind them after realizing they were keeping the two men covered in case of an attack. She prepped her spells and almost cast her barrier spell again. She had cast it back at the truck before they had entered the forest, and she was still feeding it mana, but she had completely forgotten it was still running.

Instead she cast Lighting on her left hand and Cut earth or her right. She was very conscious of the fact that they were standing in a field of grass and the last thing she wanted to do was set it on fire with them still in it. Lighting was similar to her Chain lighting spell, but instead of striking out with many different lighting bolts, it would strike out with one. It cost a lot less mana to cast than Chain lighting, not that she was running low just now. She was not at her peak with her power, but she was still mostly full.

The main difference between Chain lighting and Lighting was aiming it. There was no point aiming Chain lighting as it sent out a bunch of smallish lighting bolts in kind of a wave in front of her. She actually created it first before her Lighting spell even though she had started trying to create it first. She had stumbled upon Chain lighting as an accident while she was trying to correct the biggest problem with Lighting.

That problem was how to aim the spell. In Chain lighting you just kind of made sure your target was in front of you then set it off. Some of the lighting bolts would ground themselves, sure, but at least a few of them would find their target. With Lighting she had to create a targeting system in the spell itself to prevent the bolt from missing or grounding itself out. That turned out to be a string of magic that the Lighting would follow.

She found it ironic that the Chain lighting which was simpler in terms of the spell chain cost less than the longer spell chain of the Lighting spell. That almost never the case in any other spell she had even cast. In other spells the longer the spell chain the more mana it cost, but for some reason Lighting was the exception to the rule. She had forgotten about the difference until just then. She itched to make a note in her grimoire to remember to investigate the reason.

There was a thump behind her making her pay attention to her surroundings again. Turning around, she saw the stump on it’s side with a square rusted piece of metal under it. It took her a few seconds to realize that the stump was fake. It was attached to the rusted piece of metal that was blocking a hole in the ground. She couldn’t see any hinges on the piece of metal, so she wasn’t sure if the thing was welded to the ground somehow or if it was just placed there.

It made her look at the stump closer. Now that the stump was on its side, she saw how fake it looked. Before they had pushed it over it looked so realistic that she had been fooled. Now she could see inside it she noted it was hollow and made of metal. The stump, she saw, had a hinge on the far side of it so a person could swing it onto its side. Lily found it to be clever way to hide an escape hatch.

“Toussaint, you’re in charge until we get back.” Blanchet said, pulling his dinner plate shield off the ground with one hand and yanking his small ax off his belt with his other. “Everyone else, let’s go.”

After speaking, nodded to Toussaint who pulled the metal plate off the ground and moved it to the side. Blanchet peeked over into the hole then to Lily’s surprise, he jumped. Horrified, Lily ran and looked down into the dark hole in the ground. To her relief, the hole wasn’t that deep, maybe ten or so feet to the ground. Blanchet was already at the bottom when she looked in, and he seemed fine from where she was standing. He wasn’t looking at her, though, he was looking down into the darkness.

“Everything good, boss?” Dubois asked, nearly making Lily jump as he had snuck to stand beside her.

“They could have been traps.” Toussaint said from the other side of the hole.

“You would have spotted them already.” Blanchet said, still not looking up at them. “We need to move before they wake up. Day time is not that far away.”

“He’s not wrong.” Dubois said as he started down the ladder which made Lily frown. She remembers Blanchet saying he wanted her right behind him. But, then again, he didn’t say anything about where Dubois was supposed to go. She ended up mentally shrugging as the older looking man climbed down the ladder that Blanchet had ignored in his jump.

Lily went next. She slid her feet over the edge and found the first metal step in the ladder. Carefully, she searched for the next one with her other foot. She wasn’t afraid of heights, but climbing down into a dark hole was a bit much for her nerves. She was about half way down when Jules started her climb down. Lily looked up for a second and got a clump of dirt to the face for her troubles. She took a second to brush it off before she started down the rest of the way.

The tunnel was tall, but skinny. She could stand up without any problems, but the walls were very close to her shoulders. The first thing she noticed about the tunnel besides it being very dark was the smell. It smelled bad. Really bad, to the point she nearly vomited. The second thing she noticed was she could feel the mana coming from down the tunnel. It was too far for her auras to identify it, but she could still feel it. Whatever it was, it was very powerful.

“There is someone or something down here with us.” Jules muttered as soon as she stepped down to the ground behind Lily.

“Powerful, but I’m not sure it’s alive.” Lily said, halfway agreeing with the other woman.

“I can feel it pulsing.” Jules said, disagreeing.

Lily felt it pulsing also, but it felt mechanical to her. She didn’t want to argue so she just shrugged and left it at that. They all paused in the darkness as Jules cast a spell that splashed onto the walls down the hallway, painting it with some kind of glowing red liquid. It lit up the tunnel with a dim red light for about thirty feet or so. All Lily could see, peeking around Dubois, was the small earthen tunnel continuing on into the darkness.

Blanchet took the lead walking slightly sideways with his small arm shield in front of him, which looked absurd to Lily because of how small it was. He held his ax hanging loosely in his right hand behind him. Dubois followed after him, holding his revolver in both hands with the barrel pointed downwards. Lily followed about five or so feet behind the Rabi. She still had both her battle spells ready to be set off, but with how cramped it was inside the tunnel, she was not sure if she could set it off without hitting the two in front of her. A quick look behind her showed Jules following them walking backwards.

They walked until they reached the end of the glowing red liquid and both Blanchet and Dubois stopped and crouched down. Lily did the same after a few seconds. She peeked forward into the darkness in front of them, but couldn’t see anything. She was just about to drop her Cut Earth spell to cast her Area of sight spell when she felt a brush of magic over her head and red glowing water splashed onto the walls again. This time it also splashed onto something at the far end of the tunnel.

The red liquid splashed onto what looked like winter coats that were hanging onto the wall next to what looked like the inside of a wall. The wall was entirely made out of wood with long two by four pieces of wood holding a flat plywood wall. The coats looked old and a bit dirty. Lily could see that both coats had fur lined hoods hanging down the back of them which was blocking faded red symbols printed on the coats themselves. Blanchet led the way and grabbed the coats off the wall and handed them back to Dubois who handed it to Lily. Lily went to hand them back to Jules, but the Witch stopped her.

“We are going to need some way to identify the enclave when we get back.” Jules whispered, as she opened and pushed the coats into Lily’s backpack. ”These will do nicely.” Lily nodded and turned her head back around to face forward again.

She found Blanchet standing up against the wooden wall and still holding his weapons he pushed the wall to the side creating an opening. Once it was open, he quickly stepped inside  and was followed by Dubois who turned to face the other direction. Lilly felt Jules push her forward so she followed the two past the wall and into a room filled with metal shelves full of cans.

The room was also lit up by an ugly green light that seemed to be pulsing, going faint for a second before growing brighter again. Looking around, Lily spotted what at first looked like fluorescent light bulbs that were shining green light. Looking closer she noted that the long thin light bulb, which didn’t have a cover on it, looked off. She also could feel magic pulsing from them. She stepped closer to examine it when her aura picked up something that smelled like old farts and tasted something metallic on her tongue.

“That’s not right.” Dubois said from behind her.

She found herself speaking without really thinking. “It’s demonic.” She said out loud not really sure if she was telling them or telling herself.

Looking closer, she saw that there was indeed a fluorescent light bulb in front of her, two in fact, but there was something inside of them. It looked like rotting meat that was glowing green. The meat, even in the green light, was a sickly looking gray with thick veins running down its side. It was the veins that were the cause of the green light. They were constantly glowing green but the intensity rose and fell. The disturbing sight reminded Lily of a heart beating.

“Is it an alarm?” Blanchet asked from behind her. Lily shrugged as she had no idea if it was or not.

“Let’s assume that it is.” Blachet immediately said afterward. “We need to move. I’ll go first, Other Lily, back me up. Dubois then Jules.”

Lily turned around to see Blanchet walking towards the door and quickly moved to follow him. He turned around as Lily stopped a few feet from him. He gave her a nod and did something to the shield on his arm, and she felt a bubble of magic burst from it. Then he pulled the door open and stepped out.

There was a hallway outside the door and it was big. The hallway was round with maybe twenty feet clearance at any given point. It was also full of moss that had the thick veins that glowed with the same light as the light in the room behind her. She could smell the demonic magic all around her as she stepped out of the room and into the hallway, her combat spells ready.

An odd white flower that was growing out of an oval shaped mass of moss caught her attention as she could feel strong waves of demonic magic coming from it. It was right in front of another door about twenty feet from them. She was still looking at it when the moss parted and something exploded outwards at them. Lily reacted and let go of her Cut Earth spell at the black shape that was moving right at them so fast it was almost a blur.

She felt her spell hit the thing right before it slammed into something invisible in front of Blanchet. The crew leader grunted, but stayed on his feet with his small shield held before him. The thing turned out to be changeling, but bigger and less human looking than the ones they had fought near the road. The thing immediately split in half in a shower of goar and white maggot looking bugs. Thankfully, Blanchet’s shield held and the gore slid down the invisible shield instead of soaking them.

Something pulled her attention past the gore and saw a door open at the far end of the hall. It was hard to see what it was, and the only thing Lily was able to see was that it was big. Then the light grew brighter for a second and she saw a changeling that filled the entire hallway. It started running at them in an odd lumbering run that ate up the distance deceptively fast.

Lily stepped forward, putting her hand on Blanchet’s shoulder as she pointed her other hand past him and aimed her second spell. She felt the big man tense but didn’t have time to warn him or the others as she set off Lighting. There was a second pause as an invisible line shot out from her hand hitting the lumbering demonic beast then the rest of the spell went off.

Lily got her eyes closed just as the bolt fired. It didn’t really matter as a yellowish green light penetrated her eyelids. Almost at the same time there was a really loud boom which made her ears ring. Opening her eyes, she found it hard to see as the after image clouded her vision for a few seconds before clearing up. The huge beast thing was down with its feet laying spread out. She had aimed the spell at the things head, but she couldn’t see if it landed where she had targeted or not since the huge changeling was laying on it’s back facing away from them.

Then Jules was there with her wand. Lily stepped back and started pulling mana out of her well to cast Greater flamethrower. Everything was muffled, and while Lily couldn’t hear anything she could see Jules’ mouth moving in what Lily guessed was a spell. Then the wand flashed forward and pointed at the changeling. There was an invisible flash of magic and when Lily looked at the downed huge changeling she saw it get skinnier as it seemed to shrink upon itself. It took Lily a second to realize that Jules was sucking all the liquid out of the thing. In no time the thing looked like a dried up corpse.

She didn’t have time to contemplate just how powerful the spell was as Blanchet started waving them onwards. He used his whole hand to wave them forward towards the next door. She had just finished her first spell and was starting on the second one when they got to the door. Blanchet stopped before the door and before she could protest, Dubois stepped in front of her and pulled the door open.

Something came flashing out to fast for Lily to track. It hit and bounced off of Blanchet’s shield falling back into the room. Unable to attack, stuck behind Dubois, she held her spell as she tried to step around him. Dubois on the other hand pointed his pistol into the room and fired over and over. The sound was loud even though it came to her muffled.

Before she could get completely around him to get a shot at the room he stepped back leaving only Blanchet in front of her. She did as she did before, and pushed her hand past Blanchet's head and released both spells. She only had a second to look inside and noted that the room, which was lit with the same ugly green light as the rest of the enclave, was full of what looked like corpses. They were laying in one big pile in the center of the room.

The changeling was laying on top of the corpses, but it didn’t look dead at all. In fact it was already getting  to it’s feet as Lily set off her spells. The room was flooded with fire seconds later consuming everything in it. The changeling got to its feet even as the corpses disintegrated in the two streams of fire coming from her hands. It fought against the streams of fire for a single step.

It froze as it raised its hands to push back her streams of fire then took a second step. Then its leg broke and was consumed by the fire. It fell to its knees, but Lily kept the stream of fire on it as one of its arms dissolved into nothingness. It remained moving far too long for Lily’s comfort before its body slowly lost it’s fight with the fire. She kept the spell running until the thing was completely gone. Then she turned away from the room to find a fight going on behind her.

There were two more things in the hallway. One faced off with Jules who was pointing her wand at it. The female changeling was getting the full brunt of Jules liquid draining spell, but resisting it far better than the much larger changeling did. The changeling was moving forward slowly fighting to reach Jules.

The other changeling was beating on the invisible shield that Blanchet put up, while he hacked away at the changeling with his ax doing very little damage. Lily blinked, not realizing he had moved while she had been burning the changeling in the room. Dubois was standing next to Blanchet reloading his pistol. Lily picket her next target even as she started casting her Cut Earth spell.

As soon as she was done she stepped to the side to make sure she wouldn’t hit anyone and set the spell off at the changeling that was beating on the Blanchet shield. The spell went off and hit the changeling. To her surprise the spell landed, but other than a large but shallow gash it was unharmed. Worse, it turned it’s head towards her.

Before it could do anything else, Dubois was there with his pistol. He fired repeatedly into the body of the changeling. The rounds knocked the thing back a step, but other than that it did little to actually hurt the thing. It did give Lily time to recast her Cut Earth spell. She launched it again, this time with far more mana than she had before. She aimed the spell at the thing's head and set it off. This time it worked as a huge chunk of the back of the thing's head separated from the rest of it.

It didn’t fall though. It seemed to get confused and its swings started to get wild as it started banging the Blanchet’s shield again. Just as she was finishing another Cut Earth Blachent dropped his arm holding the shield and took a step back. She raised her hand to set the spell off again, but before she could he stepped forwards again holding his small ax with both hands above his head. He shouted something, and the ax started glowing blue. Then he brought it down on the things head. The ax bit deeply into the top of the thing's head traveling through its head entirely and only stopping deep inside the thing's neck. He shouted again and kicked the thing away and pulled his ax out at the same time.

“Wow!” Lily thought to herself as she watched the thing fall back nearly five feet from the kick. Then she remembered Jules. She turned around to find the Witch standing over the fallen thing who had it’s hand raised in front of her.

“Where is Amber!” Jules shouted at the fallen changeling. It was only then that Lily realized that the deafness had cleared up and she could hear. She was still hearing ringing in her ears, but at least there was no muffling anymore. The changeling pointed to an open door down the hall.

“Watch this garbage.” Jules ordered without looking at anyone then stormed off to the room that the changeling had pointed to.

“Wait!” Blanchet shouted, but it was too late. Jules had already walked into the room. “Dammit, Other Lily covers this thing. Be careful, it’s smarter than it looks. Dubois with me.”

Lily looked up to see the two men run into the room then turned back to look down on the now sitting changeling. The female changeling was staring right back at her. Lily shivered and took a step back giving herself more room in case the thing got up and attacked her. After a few seconds of it looking at her the female changeling smiled. The grin was so wide that Lily could see it’s sharp pointy teeth. If she had to describe it, Lily would have to say they were more like vampire teeth than human teeth, but not as long and not just two of them.

The female changeling looked oddly human. It had a gray skin like all the other changelings she had seen so far. It had shrunken features like it was starving, but Lily assumed it wasn’t it’s natural state. It was, she guessed, the result of Jules’ liquid draining spell. It have beautiful hair, that was oddly not a mess like Lily thought it should be for an undead being. She also noticed that while the thing’s eyes had the cloudy white film over them like every other changeling she had seen so far, the gaze was sharper than Lily expected.

Her eyes flickered back to the thing's hair and how well groomed it appeared to be. Lily didn’t like it. She didn't know why it was that way, but she couldn’t get over it. Did she groom herself or was there someone else who did it for the thing. Her mind kept on telling her that it was a sign of intelligence. She knew that Blanchet told her that the thing was smarter than normal, but Lily wondered if it was as smart as they were. If the thing wasn’t then they missed someone.

Lily was jolted out of her thoughts as Blanchet came storming out of the room. Without a word, he grabbed the changeling by its beautiful hair and started dragging it towards the room. Not sure what was going on she followed them. She noted that the changeling had a strange expression on its face. It almost looked like it was in pain. Lily was really starting to get very uneasy at what she was seeing.

Lily looked away from the thing as Blancet pulled the unresisting changeling into the room. The room was the same size as all the other rooms except this was full of meat things. They kind of looked like large giant worms with thick gray veins of green running down their side. One of the worms was ripped open all the way and inside was a dead changeling. It was off to the corner, but that worm and its changeling was being ignored.

Jules and Dubois were standing over a second worm thing that was only ripped half way down its side. Just enough that Amber’s face was staring out at them. She was gray like the other changelings, but her eyes were clear without the cloud that the others had. Lily also noted that unlike the other changelings, Amber had black lines running up her neck and on her cheeks. She was breathing fast, and it didn’t look normal. Her chest, what of it that was exposed, was moving wrong like some parts of her were not connected anymore. Lily’s gaze was drawn away from her friend as Jules started yelling

“What have you done to her!” Jules shouted from where she was crouched over near her wife.

“Freeing her.” The Changeling said, surprising Lily enough that she took a step away from her.

“Turn her back!” Jules said, standing up and walking over to the talking changeling.

“I cannot.” The female changeling said smiling. “She is becoming free. If she survives she will be better.”

Lily looked back at Amber who, to her horror, was crying. She looked back at the changeling shocked. She turned back to Amber and finally noticed that Dubois was trying to heal it. She was not sure if it was working or not. Amber was crying so it was hard to see if it was from pain or from what she had just heard.

“What have you done to her?” Blanchet asked, looking down at the talking changeling.

“I have done my masters bidding.” The Changeling told him. “I have tried to free her from the enemy, but she is fighting it. If she lets the process continue she will live.”

“I can’t…” Dubois said, as he stepped away from her. “It's.. I can’t reverse it.”

“Fix her!” Jules shouted pointing her wand at the female creature in front of them.

“I’m trying!” The changeling shouted back. “You are all infected with the enemy's machines. They are turning you into fucking zombie soldgers. You’re all slaves, and you don’t even see it.”

“Are you human?” Lily asked, surprising herself for speaking up.

“Yes.” The female changeling. “I’m one of the few free human’s left.”

“She’s dying.” Jules said, her tone changing to pleading.

“Yes, the enemy machines are strong.” The changeling said, nodding. “If she fights them, she may yet survive.”

“The changes are too much.” Countered Dubois. “She is dying.”

“Then the machines have gotten too strong hold over her.” The changeling said, shaking her head, and to Lily she sounded generally saddened by the fact.

“Fix her, or so help me god you piece of demon trash…” Jules said, in a tone of voice devoid of all emotions.

“Once the process has started, there is no going back.” The changeling said, sounding sad. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

No one said anything for a few seconds, but Jules' wand never moved. The silence was broken when Jules looked up at Lily. “Lily, fix her please.”

Lily blinked in surprise then looked down at Amber who was looking right at her. She had no idea how, but she did have her Heal spell. She had a feeling the Dubois’ spells were stronger than hers, but she had to try. She nodded and walked over to Amber and started casting her spell.

“There is nothing to heal.” The changeling told her. “Everything is a part of her now.”

“Shut up!” Jules shouted, but Lily ignored them as she aligned the spell balls by memory. Heal was one of the spells she cast almost daily along with Repair.

Lily cast the spell as soon as it was ready, but the magic washed over the silent Amber without doing anything. Lily shook her head, not wanting to believe it didn’t work. She quickly tried again, but the magic passed right though once more without doing anything. Not giving up she pulled out a Health potion out of her backpack, but as she did Blanchet spoke.

“We already tired that.” He told her. “It didn’t work.”

“Let her do it.” Jules said, sounding desperate. “She’s rich. She had top end health pots.”

Lily gently pulled Amber’s lips back and almost pulled her hand when she saw the sharp teeth behind them. She was able to stop her reflex, but not her gasp that escaped from her mouth. Shaking off her startlment she gently poured the health potion into Amber’s mouth past the sharp teeth. Some of it came back out, but Lily noted that Amber didn’t cough. Nothing happened so she pulled another one out and this time carefully poured it into Amber’s mouth. Lily pulled the empty bottle back, and waited for something to happen, but nothing did.

“What if we used the revival potions.” Lily said, pulling one of them out and showing them to the group.

“Will that work?” Jules asked, turning to the female changeling.

“No.” The changeling woman replied, shaking her head looking Jules in the face. “My master’s flesh is part of her now. There is no going back. But don’t you see, he shed his flesh to free us from our slavery. We are being fooled, but your eyes are open now. You can leave you slavery behind, and join with us to fight for our freedom. For all of humanity’s freedom.”

“Your master's flesh is killing her.” Dubois said, sounding tired.

“Not all will survive the process, but maybe if she accepted it from the beginning she could have ….” The Changeling started to say, but froze as Jules' spell went off. The changeling woman’s eyes shrunk and vanished as all of her liquid was drained from her body. The changeling woman was dead in seconds.

“I warned her.” Jules told them in what Lily thought was the most evil tone of voice she had ever heard from anyone before. She had never been scared of the witch before, but now she was.

“You did.” Blanchet said, putting his hand on her shoulder before he turned to Amber and crouched down. “Okay. Amber, we are going to have to revive you. It’s going to be scary, but it will work. Trust us.”

Amber nodded, still not speaking. Blanchet bent down and pulled out a thin knife that looked almost like a sharp piece of a pole. He looked up at Dubois and spoke.

“Bend her head down.” He told the healer. “I need to get at the back of her neck.”

Dubois did as he asked. Blanchet held the knife with the pointy edge angled towards himself. He then looked up at Lily and spoke softly. “Once this is done, hand that to me. For heaven's sake, don’t drop it.” He told her with a smile. Lily nodded, too scared to speak.

“Ok, darling.” He said looking down at Amber. “There will be just a sharp pain, then you’ll return to us all better.”

He moved the knife over to the back of Amber’s neck then paused. “After we get back home, you wanna go get drunk with us?” He asked her.

Without waiting for a reply he stabbed the knife into her neck. Amber shuddered then relaxed. As soon as the movement stopped Blanchet held his hand out to Lily who passed the Revival potion to him. Instead of dumping it down Amber’s throat, he held it in his other hand and from where Lily was standing he appeared to pour it into the wound he had made with his knife.

Amber started shaking again before she opened her eyes again. For a second Lily thought it worked then Amber opened her mouth and silently started to scream. Jules rushed over and grabbed her head in her arms.

“What's wrong?” She asked her wife. “You got to tell me pumpkin.”

If Amber heard her, she didn’t show it. “Give me another revival pot.” He shouted holding his hand out not looking away from Amber and her silent screaming.

Lily opened her backpack, but Dubois was faster. He pulled out the potion from somewhere and handed it to Blanchet. He poured this potion into the wide open mouth of Amber. The woman immediately shut her mouth and swallowed. Once more Lily thought it worked, but Amber’s face crumpled and she started screaming again only seconds after Blanchet tossed the empty bottle away.

“It’s not working.” Blanchet said, sounding like he was fighting something. “I can’t … I don’t know what to do!”

“Lily.” Jules said, making Lily turn away from watching her friend’s silent screams. “Do something!”

Lily nodded and dropped to her knees and cast the only spell she knew that might help. Heal went off, but Amber didn’t stop screaming. Lily froze. She didn't know what else to do. She cast Grimoire and opened her book, but she opened it to a blank page. Her book showed her what she feared the most. She didn’t have a spell to fix what had been done to Amber.

“What….” Jules said from behind Lily. “Do something Lily!”

“I don’t know what to do.” Lily said, looking up at the Witch helplessly.

“You’re a Sage of Humanity!” Jules yelled back. “Not only that, but you are the Lost Sage. You invented your own spell craft. Created a spell. Do something!”

“I …” Lily said helplessly. She looked down at her book, but it was still empty. She had no idea how to fix what had been done to Amber. Her Heal spell was designed to fix what was broken, but according to what she understood the now dead changeling to have meant, the flesh was part of Amber and it was killing her. There was nothing for her Heal to latch onto.

“She's dying!” Jules said, shaking Lily. “Do somethin!”

“There is nothing I can do.” Lily said, hating herself for saying it.

“Create a spell!” Jules yelled, sounding hysterical.

“I can’t.” Lily said, looking up at Jules. “I don’t know how to fix this.”

Lily suddenly found herself looking at the pointy end of Jules’ wand. “Fix her or I will kill you.” Jules said, with the same tone she used after she killed the female changeling.

“Enough!” Dubois shouted, pulling the wand upwards and away from Lily. “She is suffering, and there is nothing we can do.” He pulled the wand out of Jules’ hand and handed it off to Blanchet.

“She’s the Lost Sage, Dubois.” Jules said with tears running down her face. “She created the spell to find her in less than an hour. She can create something to fix my Amber.”

“I modified a spell.” Lily corrected tiredly. “I didn’t create it in an hour. It took me months to create the first spell. That was when I knew what I wanted. Here, I don’t even know where to begin.”

“But it’s simple.” Jules said, sounding fragile. “Change her back to the way she was before all this happened.”

“I don’t know how.” Lily said, softly. She knew if she was back home and got extremely luckily she might find a spell ball within a few months, and maybe if she knew exactly how to reverse what had been done with Amber she might have a chance, but here? She had nothing. Looking at Amber she knew they didn’t have the time for all that even if she could build a door here.

“She will die if you don’t do anything!” Jules shouted again.

“There is nothing I can do.” Lily said, pleading with the Witch. Hoping she would understand. “I have nothing. I’m sorry Jules, but I can’t help her.”

“Is there truly nothing you can do?” Blanchet asked, looking at her. Lily shook her head trying to show that she really couldn’t do anything. He must have believed her because he suddenly pulled Dubois’ gun from out of nowhere, and there was a loud crack of a gunshot.