Chapter 21: The Prison Break and the Astral Meeting
The prison breathed.
Shiv felt it the moment she stepped through the shattered gate—a slow, rhythmic pulse that moved through the walls like blood through veins. The Consortium had built this place to contain things that didn't want to be contained, and even now, with its systems failing and its guards scattered, the facility remembered what it was.
She didn't care.
She was done waiting.
"Jan Siobhan," she said, her brogue thick with impatience. "The east corridor. How many?"
Jan closed her eyes. The Green Moon initiate's power rippled outward—not the full Exposure she could summon when naked, but a lesser version, a whisper of magic that let her sense the emotions of everyone nearby. Fear. Confusion. Desperation.
"Six," she said. "Maybe seven. They're scared. They've been scared for weeks."
"Good."
Brigid stepped forward, her red hair pulled back in a practical ponytail, her green eyes sharp and calculating. She wasn't wearing her doctor's coat—she'd left that in Chicago—but she still carried herself with the quiet authority of someone who had spent decades telling people bad news.
"I can anchor us," she said. "But I need to know where we're going."
Nikita moved to the front of the group.
The Ukrainian woman had shed her Consortium robes hours ago, revealing the lean, athletic frame beneath. Her dark hair was pulled back in a tight braid, and her storm-grey eyes—the same eyes Shiv had seen in her own grandmother's face, a lifetime ago—scanned the corridor with the precision of someone who had memorized every inch of this facility.
"The vault is in the basement," she said. "Three levels down. But the Shine—the Shine moved."
Letta nodded.
She was younger than her cousin—nineteen to Nikita's twenty-one—but she carried the same haunted look. The same storm-grey eyes. The same quiet determination.
"We felt it," Letta said. "Three days ago. The whole facility shook. And then... nothing. The vault was empty. The Shine was gone."
"Gone where?"
"We don't know. But the dreams stopped. Everyone who used to dream about the Shine—they don't dream anymore. It's like it was never here."
Shiv considered this.
Then she started walking.
"Where are you going?" Jan asked.
"To find my friend."
---
The cell was at the end of a corridor that smelled like rust and old blood.
Shiv recognized it immediately—not the cell itself, but the resonance. The way the air hummed with something that wasn't quite magic and wasn't quite reality. The way the walls seemed to lean inward, as if they were trying to listen.
André.
She hadn't seen him in a decade. Hadn't spoken to him since the night he'd come to her house in Chicago, soaked from rain that hadn't fallen anywhere else, and told her he was going to investigate the Shine. That he'd found something the Consortium didn't want anyone to know.
She'd told him to be careful.
He'd laughed.
The cell door was open.
Shiv stepped inside.
The room was empty—no cot, no chair, no window. Just four walls of blackened steel and a floor that had been worn smooth by decades of pacing. And in the center of the room, sitting cross-legged with his eyes closed, was André Durand.
He hadn't aged.
That was the first thing she noticed. The Heretic had been old when she'd met him—sixty, maybe, with grey hair and weathered skin and eyes that had seen too much. But now he looked... younger. Not young, exactly. But preserved. Like a photograph left in a drawer.
"Shiv."
His voice was the same. Low. Warm. Slightly amused.
"You look terrible," he said.
"I've been worried."
"That would do it."
He opened his eyes.
They were the same eyes she remembered—dark brown, almost black, with flecks of gold that caught the dim light. But there was something different about them now. Something distant. Something that made Shiv's stomach clench.
"You're not here," she said.
"I'm here. My body is here. My mind is... elsewhere."
"The astral plane."
"Yes."
"You found something."
"I found everything." He uncrossed his legs and rose to his feet, moving with the fluid grace of a man half his age. "I found the Shine. I found what it's guarding. I found—"
He stopped.
His eyes focused on something over Shiv's shoulder.
"Who are they?"
Shiv turned.
Jan and Brigid were standing in the doorway, their faces pale. Nikita and Letta were behind them, their hands on their weapons—knives, not guns. They'd learned that guns didn't work in this place.
"My daughter," Shiv said. "Jan. And my youngest, Brigid. The other two are... friends."
André's gaze lingered on Nikita.
"She has your eyes," he said.
"She has her grandmother's eyes. It's a coincidence."
"There are no coincidences."
He turned back to Shiv.
"You want to know about the Shine."
"I want to know why you're still here when the Shine is gone."
"Because I'm not here." He tapped his temple. "My body is here. My mind is on the astral plane. I've been walking it for weeks, trying to understand what the Shine is. What it was. What it will be."
"And?"
"And it's not a door." He smiled—a thin, humorless smile. "It's a guardian. A protector. It doesn't lead anywhere. It keeps something from getting out."
"From getting out of what?"
"The mountain."
Shiv felt her blood run cold.
"The living mountain," she said.
"Yes."
"The Consortium prison. The one in Florida."
"The one in Florida." André nodded. "The Shine didn't move the vault. It moved itself. It left this place because it sensed something coming. Something it needed to protect."
"Protect from what?"
"From us. From everyone. From the thing it's been guarding for centuries." He paused. "The mountain isn't a prison, Shiv. It's a seal. And the Shine is the lock."
---
In the vault, Mandy was on the floor.
Her legs had given out again—the second orgasm had hit her like a truck, slamming into her without warning and leaving her gasping for air. Ben was beside her, his hand on her shoulder, his face flushed with the same residual pleasure that was still echoing through her body.
"Calista," she muttered. "I'm going to kill her."
"You say that every time."
"This time I mean it."
Rick was leaning against the wall, his face red, his breathing uneven. Stacy was next to him, her expression somewhere between amusement and exasperation.
"Another one?" Stacy asked.
"Another one."
"That's the third time in an hour."
"I know."
"Your sister has a problem."
"She has a lot of problems." Mandy pushed herself to her feet, her legs trembling. "But right now, the biggest one is that we can't get anything done while she's fucking our parents."
She pulled out her phone.
She typed a message to Calista.
ENOUGH. Family meeting. Astral plane. NOW.
The reply came seconds later.
Can't. Busy.
Mandy stared at the screen.
Busy.
She typed again.
I don't care if you're busy. We need to talk. All of us. Astral plane. Five minutes.
No reply.
Mandy growled.
She reached inward—toward the shard, toward the connection, toward the strange psychic bond that linked her to her siblings and her parents and the half-elf who couldn't stop having orgasms long enough to answer a text message.
She pulled.
The world dissolved.
---
The astral plane was different this time.
Mandy noticed it immediately—the sky was a deeper shade of purple, the ground was less stable, and the air smelled like ozone and burnt sugar. The landscape was a distorted version of the vault they'd been standing in moments before, but stretched and twisted like a funhouse mirror.
Rick appeared beside her.
He was naked.
So was she.
So was Stacy, who materialized a few feet away with an expression of profound annoyance.
"I hate this place," Stacy said.
"Everyone hates this place."
Beth appeared next.
She was naked too—her short blonde hair wild, her body still slick with sweat from whatever she'd been doing with Marty. She looked flushed. Happy. Slightly embarrassed.
"Hi," she said.
"Hi."
"Did you—"
"No."
"Oh."
Calista appeared last.
She was, predictably, naked. Her silver hair cascaded over her shoulders, her alabaster skin seemed to glow in the strange purple light, and her golden eyes were bright with satisfaction.
"Hey," she said.
"Don't 'hey' me." Mandy crossed her arms. "Do you have any idea how annoying this is?"
"What?"
"The constant orgasms. The psychic interruptions. The fact that I can't read two sentences without coming in my pants."
Calista shrugged.
"Not my fault."
"Not your fault?" Mandy's voice rose. "You've been fucking Mom and Dad for two hours."
"So?"
"So we're trying to save the world."
"Were you saving the world when I first started?" Calista asked. "Because I seem to remember you being in a vault, reading symbols. Not exactly saving the world."
"We were figuring out where the Shine went."
"And?"
"And we know now. It's in the living mountain in Florida."
"See?" Calista smiled. "I helped."
"You didn't help. You just—" Mandy stopped. Took a breath. "You know what? Forget it. We need to talk about the shards."
The four of them stood in a loose circle, their naked bodies illuminated by the strange purple light. The ground beneath their feet was soft, almost spongy, and the air tasted like copper and honey.
Beth spoke first.
"Calista's fucking Mom and Dad," she said.
"We know."
"I mean—that's a thing that's happening."
"It's been happening," Mandy said. "For a while now."
"I didn't know."
"Well, now you do."
Beth nodded slowly.
Then she looked at Rick.
He was standing next to Stacy, his face still flushed from whatever he'd been doing before the summons. His cock was hard—Mandy noticed it without meaning to, without wanting to—and Beth noticed it too.
"Rick," Beth said.
"Yeah?"
"You're hard."
He looked down.
"Oh."
"Were you—"
"Stacy."
"That's not an answer."
"It's a good answer."
Beth looked at Stacy.
Stacy shrugged.
"We were in the middle of something," she said. "Then you pulled us here."
"Sorry."
"You're not sorry."
"I'm a little sorry."
Mandy cleared her throat.
"Can we focus? Please?"
Everyone looked at her.
"We have a problem," Mandy said. "The shards. They're driving us crazy. Every time one of us has sex, all of us have sex. And Calista has been having a lot of sex."
"I'm very passionate."
"You're very irritating."
Calista blew her a kiss.
"We need to open the vault," Mandy continued. "The one in the mountain. We need to get the Shine. And we need to figure out what it's guarding before the Consortium does."
"And the shards?" Rick asked.
"We get rid of them. Once we're inside. Once we've done what we need to do."
"How?"
"I don't know yet. But we'll figure it out."
No one spoke for a moment.
Then Calista asked the question everyone was thinking.
"Do we have to fuck to get back?"
Mandy sighed.
"Probably."
"Because I'm okay with that."
"You're okay with everything."
Calista shrugged again.
"Would you rather stay here? Naked? With your siblings?"
Mandy considered this.
"No," she admitted. "I'd rather go back."
"Then we need to—"
"I know what we need to do."
She looked at Rick.
He looked at her.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke.
Then Beth stepped forward.
"Rick," she said.
"Yeah?"
"I liked it. Last time."
He blinked.
"What?"
"On the astral plane. When we were together. I liked it."
Rick's face went red.
"I—"
"Don't lie. You liked it too."
"I—"
"And Calista liked it. And Mandy liked it. We all liked it."
Rick looked at Stacy.
Stacy looked back.
"I'm not going to be jealous," she said. "I'm just going to watch."
"You—"
"I've been with your family for twenty years, Rick. I've seen things. This doesn't even crack the top ten."
Rick closed his eyes.
"Okay," he said. "Okay."
Beth smiled.
She crossed the distance between them and knelt.
Rick's eyes snapped open.
"Beth—"
"Shh."
She took his cock in her hand.
It was hard and hot and already leaking, and she could feel the pulse of his heartbeat through the skin. She leaned forward and ran her tongue along the shaft—slow, deliberate, tasting the salt of his skin.
Rick groaned.
Beth took him into her mouth.
Behind her, Calista was watching with undisguised hunger. Her golden eyes were bright, her lips parted, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps. The glamour was already pulsing from her—warm and sweet and impossible to resist—and it made every sensation sharper, every touch more electric.
Mandy felt it.
She felt it and she hated it and she wanted it.
Calista turned to her.
"Your partner's busy," she said.
"He's not my partner. He's my boyfriend."
"Same thing."
"It's not—"
Calista kissed her.
Mandy made a sound—surprise, protest, something in between—but she didn't pull away. She couldn't. The glamour was too strong, the pleasure too immediate, the connection between them too deep.
She kissed Calista back.
Their tongues met.
Their bodies pressed together.
And Mandy felt Calista's hand slide down her stomach, between her legs, into the wet heat that had been building since the first orgasm hit.
"Oh fuck," Mandy breathed.
"Shh."
Beth was still working Rick.
Stacy had moved closer, her hand on Rick's shoulder, her lips at his ear. She whispered something—Mandy couldn't hear what—and Rick groaned again, his hips bucking, his fingers tangling in Beth's hair.
The four of them moved together.
Calista's fingers were inside Mandy now—two, then three—and she was working her with the kind of precision that only came from experience. Mandy's breath came in gasps. Her hips bucked. Her cunt clenched.
And then, without warning, she came.
The orgasm ripped through her—sharp and sudden and overwhelming. Calista swallowed her moan with a kiss, their mouths locked together as the pleasure rolled over them both.
When Mandy opened her eyes, Beth was on her back.
Rick was above her.
His cock was pressed against her entrance.
"Ready?" he asked.
"Yes."
He pushed inside.
Beth cried out—not pain, but pleasure, raw and honest and unashamed. Rick moved slowly at first, then faster, his hips finding a rhythm that matched the pulse of the astral plane.
Mandy watched.
She couldn't help it.
She watched her brother fuck her sister and she felt the pleasure echo through the shard and she wanted more.
Calista was beside her.
Her fingers were still wet.
Her golden eyes were bright.
"Together?" she asked.
"Yes."
They moved together.
Calista's mouth found Mandy's cunt.
Mandy's mouth found Calista's.
They worked each other with the kind of frantic, desperate hunger that only came from knowing they shouldn't—that this was wrong, that this was forbidden, that everything about this was a violation of the natural order. But the shard didn't care. The glamour didn't care. And somewhere, in the back of her mind, Mandy didn't care either.
Rick came first.
He emptied himself into Beth with a groan that echoed across the astral plane, his hips bucking, his fingers digging into her hips. Beth came with him—the second orgasm rippling through her body and then outward, through the shard, through all of them.
Calista and Mandy came together.
The pleasure hit them like a wave—hot and heavy and overwhelming—and they collapsed into each other, their bodies slick with sweat, their breath coming in ragged gasps.
For a moment, no one moved.
Then Stacy spoke.
"Are we done?"
Mandy laughed.
"Not even close."
But when she opened her eyes, the astral plane was fading.
She could feel herself being pulled back—toward her body, toward the vault, toward the world where people weren't naked and siblings didn't fuck each other and everything made sense.
"See you on the other side," Calista said.
Then they were gone.
---
Shiv was still in the cell.
André was still talking.
"—the Shine is a guardian. It doesn't lead anywhere. It keeps something from getting out. And that something is—"
"I know what it is."
André stopped.
He looked at Shiv.
"Do you?"
"Yes."
"Then you know why I can't leave."
Shiv felt her chest tighten.
"André—"
"I'm not corrupted, Shiv." He smiled—that same thin, humorless smile. "I'm not evil. I'm just... caught. The Shine doesn't hurt me. It doesn't keep me here. But I can't leave because I need to understand. I need to know what it's guarding. What it's protecting. Because if I don't—"
"Then someone else will."
"Yes."
Shiv closed her eyes.
She thought about Rachel Murphy—the sweet girl who had wandered into the vault and never come out. She thought about the Consortium—the people who had built this place, filled it with monsters, and then lost control. She thought about the living mountain and the thing it held and the Shine that guarded it.
"André," she said.
"Yes?"
"Can you save Rachel Murphy?"
He was quiet for a long moment.
"Maybe," he said. "But not from here."
"Then what do you need?"
"I need a way out." He paused. "A physical way. My mind is on the astral plane. My body is here. But I can't cross over—not alone."
Shiv turned to Brigid.
Her youngest daughter was standing in the doorway, her green eyes wide, her face pale.
"I can do it," Brigid said. "I can anchor him. But it's going to hurt."
"Will it kill him?"
"No. But it won't be pleasant."
André laughed.
"Comforting."
"Shut up," Shiv said. "Let her work."
Brigid stepped forward.
She placed her hands on either side of André's head, her fingers finding pressure points that had been mapped by Archimedes Society researchers centuries before. Then she closed her eyes and began the calculation.
The math was simple.
The magic was not.
It was like pulling a thread through fabric—slow and delicate and impossibly precise. If she pulled too hard, the fabric would tear. If she pulled too soft, the thread wouldn't move.
But Brigid was patient.
And she was good at her job.
The air in the cell began to hum.
André gasped.
His body jerked—once, twice, three times—and then his eyes snapped open. Not the distant, focused eyes of a man on the astral plane, but the sharp, alert eyes of a man who had finally come home.
He stared at Shiv.
Then he fell forward.
Shiv caught him.
She held him as he trembled, as his breath came in ragged gasps, as the sweat poured down his face and soaked through his robe. He was shaking like a leaf in a storm, and she held him and said nothing and waited.
"You're a pain in the arse," she said.
He laughed.
"I know."
The facility shuddered.
Dust rained from the ceiling in thin streams, and somewhere deep in the complex, something metal groaned with the sound of a dying animal. Mandy felt the vibration through her knees, through her palms, through the shard embedded somewhere in her chest that pulsed with every heartbeat.
Ben's hand closed around her arm.
"I've got you."
She nodded, not trusting her voice. Her legs were still trembling—aftershocks of the astral plane, or maybe just the residual pleasure that seemed to cling to her skin like humidity. She could still taste Calista on her lips.
Jess appeared on her other side.
The Golden Wand agent looked unruffled, which was either impressive or terrifying given what they'd just been through. Her dark hair was pulled back in a practical ponytail, and her charcoal suit was immaculate despite the chaos.
"You okay?" Jess asked.
"Define okay."
"Conscious. Breathing. Not actively bleeding."
"Then yes."
Jess nodded.
"Good enough."
Stacy was already on her feet, helping Rick stand. He looked dazed—his face flushed, his eyes unfocused—but he was moving under his own power.
"The astral plane sucks," Stacy said.
"You've mentioned that."
"I'm mentioning it again." She brushed dust off her jeans. "Some of the sights were interesting, though."
Rick made a sound that might have been a laugh.
"Interesting."
"I said what I said."
Mandy straightened, forcing her spine into something resembling composure. The vault chamber was still intact—the obsidian door still sealed, the symbols still glowing with that faint, sickly light—but the rest of the room showed signs of recent violence. Scorch marks on the walls. A crack in the floor that hadn't been there before.
"We need to move," she said.
"Where?" Ben asked.
"Florida."
"That's a long drive."
"We're not driving."
She pulled out her phone. No signal—of course—but that didn't matter. She had other ways to communicate.
The side tunnel appeared without warning.
One moment the wall was solid concrete; the next, it was a gaping hole that led into darkness. Mai emerged first, her dark hair wild, her grin sharp with adrenaline. Yukio followed more slowly, leaning on her cane, her eyes scanning the room with the practiced efficiency of a woman who had spent decades walking into danger.
"You're late," Mai said.
"We were busy," Mandy replied.
"Busy?"
"Astral plane."
"Ah." Mai nodded as if that explained everything. "We found a way out. Unsecured side tunnel. Leads to the old service road."
"How did you find it?"
"I'm very good at finding things."
Yukio cleared her throat.
"We should go. Now."
No one argued.
They moved through the tunnel in a loose formation—Mai at the front, Yukio behind her, then Mandy and Ben and Jess, with Stacy and Rick bringing up the rear. The walls were damp and close, and the air smelled like mold and old magic, but there were no guards. No traps. No Consortium soldiers waiting in the dark.
Just the long, slow climb toward daylight.
"We need to join up with Kim's group," Mandy said as they walked.
"Kim?" Jess asked.
"Kim Powers. She's running a Green Moon operation in Miami."
"The deadliest motherfucker in Chicago?"
"She prefers Miami now."
"What's the plan?"
Mandy counted on her fingers.
"One: raid the living mountain. Two: get Maryam, Cody, and Amanda out before their cover is blown. Three: rescue Hank and Fatima from the lower prison. Four: deal with the shards and open the vault. Five: rescue Rachel Murphy from the astral plane. Six: hope the thing in the vault is there to save the world and not end it."
Jess was quiet for a moment.
"So a typical Tuesday."
"Pretty much."
They emerged into pale morning light.
The service road was empty—just cracked asphalt and weeds pushing through the cracks and a sky the color of old bruises. Shiv was already there, standing next to Jan, who had Godfrey tucked under one arm like a furry loaf of bread. Brigid was beside them, and next to Brigid was a man Mandy didn't recognize—tall, dark-eyed, wearing robes that looked like they'd been slept in for a decade.
"André Durand," Yukio murmured. "The Heretic."
"You know him?"
"By reputation."
Mandy approached Shiv.
"We need to get to Florida."
Shiv nodded.
"Florida does seem to be the sort of place these things happen."
"You're coming?"
"I'm not letting my grandson face a living mountain without me." She paused. "Besides, Jan Siobhan would never forgive me if I missed the fun."
Jan grinned.
"Damn right."
The group assembled on the service road—eleven people, one dog, and more magical firepower than most small nations. Mandy felt the weight of them, the heat of them, the strange comfort of standing among people who had faced worse and come out the other side.
"We need transport," she said.
"I can handle that," Stacy said.
She pulled out her phone.
Unlike Mandy's, hers had signal—because of course it did. Stacy ran an interdimensional business empire. She probably had satellites that didn't exist yet.
"Bob," Stacy said into the phone. "I need a plane. Miami. Now."
She listened.
"I don't care what it costs."
She listened again.
"Then charter one. I'll pay double."
She hung up.
"Plane's waiting at the airstrip," she said. "We need to move."
---
In the Horny House, Calista gasped.
The astral plane released her like a rubber band snapping back into place—one moment she was there, naked and tangled with her siblings, and the next she was here, on the living room floor, her body slick with sweat and other people's fluids.
She was also, she realized, still being fucked.
Mike was behind Katrina, his hips slamming into her with a rhythm that had gone from desperate to mechanical over the past hour. Katrina was on her hands and knees, her face buried between Casey's thighs, her tongue working Casey's clit with the kind of focused determination that only came from someone who genuinely enjoyed the task.
Casey was coming.
Her back arched. Her mouth opened. Her fingers twisted in Katrina's dark hair.
"Oh fuck," she gasped. "Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck—"
The orgasm rolled through her, and Calista felt it echo through her own body—a ghost of pleasure, a shard-shared aftershock that made her toes curl and her cunt clench around nothing.
She extricated herself from the pile.
It took effort. Limbs were tangled. Someone's elbow was in her ribs. Someone else's foot was dangerously close to her face.
"I need to get to Florida," she announced.
The room went still.
Mike stopped mid-thrust.
Casey's eyes opened.
Katrina lifted her head, her mouth still glistening.
"Florida?" Casey asked.
"Florida."
Casey and Mike exchanged a look—the kind of look that came from twenty years of marriage and a shared understanding of exactly how weird their lives had become.
Mike pulled out.
His cock was slick and half-hard, and Katrina made a small sound of protest that she didn't bother to hide. He grabbed his pants from the floor and started pulling them on.
"I'll get the pre-packed suitcases," he said.
Casey was already reaching for her bra.
"I'll call the travel agency. Emergency flights."
Katrina sat back on her heels, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
"I'll call Judy. See if we should go to her condo or head straight to the beach house."
Casey nodded.
"Call Felicity too. She's been in the beach house alone for days—probably just researching nonstop for whoever asked her."
Katrina reached for her phone.
Calista was already moving toward the stairs.
"Give me ten minutes to shower and pack."
"You have five," Casey called after her.
"Seven."
"Six."
Calista disappeared up the stairs.
Casey looked at Mike.
"Florida."
"Florida," he agreed.
"Think it's the mountain?"
"Probably."
"Do we have a plan?"
"We have a daughter with a shard and a son with a bakery and a bunch of friends who owe us favors." Mike shrugged. "That's as good as it gets."
Casey smiled.
"Good enough."
---
In Judy's beach house, Felicity was not researching.
She was on her back on the living room floor, her blonde hair spread around her like a halo, her legs wrapped around Bruce's waist, and she was very, very busy being fucked.
Bruce was above her, his arms braced on either side of her head, his hips moving with a steady, relentless rhythm that had reduced her vocabulary to a series of increasingly desperate moans. His Scottish accent had thickened with arousal, and he was muttering something that might have been poetry or might have been nonsense or might have been both.
"That's it," he growled. "That's it, lass, take it—"
"I'm taking it," she gasped. "I'm taking it, oh God, Bruce—"
He kissed her.
His mouth was hot and demanding, and she kissed him back with the same desperate hunger, her fingers digging into his shoulders, her nails leaving marks that he would wear with pride later.
The house was empty.
Mandy was in New York. Mai was God knows where. Yukio was with Mai. Judy was in Chicago. They had the whole place to themselves, and they had been taking full advantage—for three days now, in between Bruce's shifts at the fix-it shop and Felicity's increasingly half-hearted attempts to study.
Jeeves floated nearby.
The little automaton's mechanical arms were folded in a posture that somehow conveyed polite disinterest. He had been taking messages, as instructed, and had relayed exactly none of them because Felicity had told him not to interrupt unless someone was dying.
"Message from Mistress Katrina," Jeeves announced.
Felicity ignored him.
"Message from Mistress Katrina," Jeeves repeated.
Bruce paused.
"Should we—"
"No." Felicity pulled him back down. "Keep going."
He kept going.
Jeeves waited a respectful thirty seconds.
"Message from Mistress Katrina. She is requesting information about accommodations in Miami and whether the beach house is available for arrival of multiple guests."
Felicity's eyes snapped open.
"What?"
Jeeves repeated the message.
"How many guests?"
"She did not specify. But she mentioned Mistress Casey, Master Mike, Mistress Calista, and herself."
Felicity's brain, which had been thoroughly occupied with other things, suddenly snapped back into focus.
"Bruce."
"Aye?"
"Stop."
He stopped.
"What's wrong?"
"The whole family's coming. The whole Williamson family. Plus Katrina."
"To Miami?"
"To the beach house."
Bruce looked down at her.
"I'm still inside you," he said.
"I know."
"And you want me to stop?"
"I want you to finish." She pulled him down for a quick, hard kiss. "Then we need to clean up and pretend we haven't spent three days fucking."
"Can we pretend we haven't spent three days fucking?"
"No."
"Then what do we do?"
Felicity smiled.
"We tell the truth. They're Williamsons. They'll understand."
She reached for her phone.
Then she reached for Bruce again.
"One more time," she said. "Then I'll call Katrina back."
He didn't need to be asked twice.
---
In the vault, the obsidian door was still sealed.
The symbols on its surface pulsed with that same sickly light—slow and rhythmic, like a heartbeat, like breathing. The air around it was cold enough to fog breath, and the stone floor beneath it was cracked in a spiral pattern that led outward, outward, outward, as if something had been trying to escape.
In her mind's eye, Mandy stood before it.
She had been here before. She would be here again. The shard in her chest burned with recognition, and she could feel the others—Calista and Beth and Rick—reaching back through whatever connected them, their presence a comfort and a warning.
"It's not going to open," she murmured.
"Not yet," Jess agreed.
"When?"
"When we're all together. When we have the shards. When we're where we're supposed to be."
Mandy turned to face her.
"You're very calm about this."
"I've read the files." Jess shrugged. "The world ends twice a year. We always stop it."
"And if we don't?"
"Then we don't." Jess met her eyes. "But we will."
Mandy nodded.
She pulled out her phone.
Still no signal. But that didn't matter. She typed a message anyway—to Kim, to Maryam, to everyone who needed to know—and hit send.
It would go through eventually.
Florida was waiting.