Lessons from my demons

Chapter six: Escape

Angie was the first back in her cage, followed by Felicia. Felicia could tell that something terrible had happened, so she didn't bother talking about her relatively positive experiences and turned to getting the soot out of her hair. The two remained almost silent until Viola came back.

"So, Viola, how was your time with Valetta?" Felicia asked. Viola didn't seem traumatized, in fact, she showed no emotion at all.

"It was alright. We have to get back to Talis before they might turn us against him." She replied.

"Surely, it was something other than 'alright.' What were you up to all day?" What else was could Viola say? "Alright" was basically the only opinion that she could piece together.

"We did magic. How crazy is it that I'm helping them? I feel kind of bad for these people. They're basically absorbing the pain for us."

"I don't think it's all that crazy. Faye wasn't terrible, and she taught me to forge a beautiful sword." Felicia said. Angie looked at them with some combination of anger and fear. "Morality is too complex, I'm with you, Viola, we should get out of this cruel landscape for our purity's sake."

At that moment, Tiana arrived. "You can say that again..." She had a very rare, thoughtful look in her eyes. "My clone is evil."

"What did she do?" Angie finally said, after being quiet since returning to the cell.

"I don'twant to talk about it. She's evil, and she doesn't even know it. Let's leave it at that and plan our escape."

"Are we sure now is the best time to escape?" Felicia asked, thinking of the sword she'd have to leave.

"Yes. They have a plan for our Mistress. We have to get to her as quickly as possible." Viola answered, "Now, Valetta is keeping the wands in her bag. We need to get them back, and not just because they can kill our shadows. She's making her own version of them to kill creatures of light."

"Well, I might have a plan," Angie added, happy that there would be no talk of staying, "Alisa takes prisoners who break the rules especially badly out to execute in front of the other prisoners. If we were to get out there by stealing the wands, would Viola have enough energy to teleport all of us out?"

"Yes, but there's one problem with your plan: they'll take back the wands. And then we won't have them, and Valetta will have enough information to make her own set. Not to mention the tricks they might have up their sleeves. But if we could keep even one wand from them-"

"So, how did it go, guys? How many of your clones can fly?" Rachel said, coming in what felt like an hour late. She was met with group's somber attitude and Felicia's icy glare, getting her to quiet down. "Guys. What happened? Angie?" she bent down next to her oldest friend.

"Alisa whipped Snowball, and me. And he melded with her wolf, and took him! She was trying to force me to meld! I don't know if I can even save myself, once she figures out how to, and I can't meld! Imagine what she'll make us do..."

"Hey, if she tries anything like that," Rachel whipped out the wand from under her sleeve, "I'll kill her with this." Every mouth in the cage fell open.

"Where did you get that?!" Tiana demanded. Rachel considered her clone's words: most of them probably hadn't gotten along.

"I snuck it away from Ria. She didn't stand a chance!"

"That's my girl!" Tiana exclaimed, "We were just saying how we needed to keep a wand away from them to escape. Now we're in the clear. Let's hit the sack. We're all out the morning!"

That night, Rachel couldn't sleep, and it wasn't because lying made her guilty. It was Angie. Not everyone in Newvenia had the potential to fly, and Angie and she were two of them. Those who did more often than not were given to a school to teach them weather patterns, so they could improve the weather and control it in case Immortals for any reason couldn't. But the school hadn't taught her to fly, (a school would have a heck of a time teaching her anything) Angie had. Later, they'd escaped together because they both had different ambitions. She'd just been a little girl when Angie coaxed her to jump off the wall and trust her with her comforting voice. It was noble of her parents to send her to the school, but there were better uses for flight in the world. Surely, she could trust Angie with a secret, if she could trust her with her life. By now, everyone seemed to be asleep.