Page 117 of Tidal Creatures

Kelpie hesitates. Diana’s right; she can’t run, not with Artemis right there, trapped and tied and needing her. She glances over her shoulder. It wouldn’t matter if Artemis wasn’t there, because more auf are behind her, blocking the way out. If there even is a way out: there’s no tunnel or doorway there, only more cavern.

She looks back to Diana. “You can’t really intend to give the City to the alchemists,” she pleads. “They’ll do terrible things.”

“Everyone does,” says Diana. “Mr. Rapp?”

The man with the skeleton smile steps forward, withdrawing a jar from his pocket. It’s filled with silver-red fluid, surrounding a silver key. He thrusts it at her, and Kelpie takes it automatically, having been long trained to obedience and good behavior.

“The gate is this way,” says Diana, gesturing for Kelpie to follow her. “Do as you’re told and we might leave Artemis ascendant when we’re done. Or we could banish her entirely—she’s had quite long enough—and give the body back to her mortal aspect. Doesn’t Anna deserve a chance to live?”

“I don’t…” Kelpie stumbles after her, glancing helplessly at the cornered Lunars.

Máni grabs Chang’e by the shoulders and shoves her forward, hard, right through the circle of auf. They look momentarily confused, but their orders must have been both narrow and clear, because they don’t follow her, only begin to close in on Máni and Artemis, as Chang’e runs to Kelpie’s side, grabbing her hand and glaring defiantly at Diana.

“Synthetic or not, she’s a junior Lunar, and that makes her my responsibility,” she snaps.

“Go with her, then, for all I care,” says Diana. She gestures to the cavern wall. “Touch the jar to the stone, and we’ll finish this,” she adds.

Chang’e slips her hand into her pocket while Diana’s attention is on Kelpie, sneaking something out. She looks at Kelpie and nods, and Kelpie, trying not to shake, does as she’s been told.

The gate blossoms into existence, a series of complicated swoops and spirals like flower petals etched in shining light sketching itself outward, not from the key in Kelpie’s hand but from Chang’e’s fist where it rests against the stone. Kelpie realizes what she’s done as the other woman takes her arm and the two of them step into the everything.

Diana realizes the truth an instant later, following them. And Chang’e, who left a peach pit behind the last time she was in her own everything, stamps her foot against the ink-dark ground, and the tree bursts into life.

Diana is the senior Lunar. She’s held her position for decades. Her power eclipses Change’s as much as a floodlight will eclipse a candle, and Kelpie has no power to speak of. But for all that Diana is a tower of strength, she’s also a human woman, and Professor Williams is as mortal as any other human. She’s made of flesh and bone, and neither of those things is made to endure a peach tree growing directly up and through her body. It pierces her lower back and keeps growing, following the command it has been given.

Diana is in the act of reaching for Kelpie, making a strangled sound as branches begin to break through the skin of her abdomen and torso. The leaves glisten dark with blood. The fruit this tree bears will taste of slaughter. Chang’e stops to look back at her, flinching at the sight but not turning away.

“You shouldn’t have betrayed the City, Diana,” she says.

Diana makes that horrible, inhuman sound again, thrashes, and goes still. Chang’e sighs.

“Think the Doctrine will help me get her out of here?” she asks. “I don’t want a corpse in my everything forever.” Kelpie is staring at her. “She would have done the same to us, you know. Now come on.”

They step back out of the everything. The auf are closing in on Máni and Artemis, while Diana’s alchemist ally watches, still smiling. Chang’e steps rapidly down again, back toward humanity, and Judy places her fingers in her mouth, whistling shrilly. The alchemist’s head snaps toward her, attention wavering.

“Máni!” she shouts. “Release her!”

He nods, turning to rip the ropes away from Artemis. They’re thick cable, but they freeze where he touches them, shattering to shreds under his hands like they were made of nothing substantial, and he spins to charge at the nearest auf, shoulders down like he’s trying to cross the football field.

Artemis straightens, shaking her arms out. This time, when she reaches for her bow, she finds it easily, and takes aim at another auf, releasing half a dozen arrows in quick succession.

The alchemist with the skeleton smile stops smiling for the first time, looking almost concerned. He turns to Kelpie. “We made you,” he says. “You have to see the wisdom of allowing us to take the City. We’re undoing the damage Baker did. We’re…”

“Monsters,” she finishes, before he can. “Maybe I am too. I don’t think it matters all that much. Artemis is going to kill you now, and I’m going to spend the rest of my life forgetting that I ever saw your face. You made me, but I’m the one who decides what that means. I don’t work for you.”

“Anna,” he begins, desperately.

“Is dead,” says Artemis, as she releases another arrow. He stops mid-sentence, unable to speak with the arrow through his throat, and stares at her as she advances. “You people killed her, and now we’ll never know who she could have been.”

He reaches for her. She puts two more arrows after the first, until his labored breaths begin to slow. Even the apples of Iðunn won’t save him from this.

“I hate it here,” says Kelpie.

“Me, too,” says Chang’e. “Let’s go.”

And they walk away, three moon gods and a constructed companion, closing the door on an artificial underworld occupied by half a dozen dead auf and one dying alchemist, and not a one of them looks back.

Not once.