Note, because of the long break, (and also a bug that may have prevented the chapter 40 release notification, which you might want to read) here's a recap:
Drake has 50 flame blooms, which Liv and the gang (Rafe, Rina, Thelemule, and Stephan) suspect he's going to use to attack the Allsongs Eve Church service at the Cathedral. They also now know that Ulbrecht is at least 200 years old and has been murdering Spark users, first in Shivar, now in Greatwen.
The Wizards are throwing their own Allsongs Eve party at the guild hall. Liv suspects that Drake did this so that anyone who supports the Wizards over the Church won't be at the Cathedral when he attacks. But they also suspect that the Church is going to use Ulbrecht to attack the Wizard's party.
Chanda, the Shivari ambassador who warned them about Ulbrecht, will be providing some sort of magical entertainment at the Wizard's party, which he says he can use to help Liv.
Liv wants to save everyone, Wizards and Church alike.
And also, with all of the Church's security at the Cathedral, it's their best opportunity to rescue Eliza.
“Is this a bad neighborhood?” the taxi driver called down as, in the amber glow of spark lamps, Liv, Rina, and Stephan approached the derelict carriage. Its wheels and most of its hardware: door hinges, steps, and horse tack were missing.
Liv glanced over her shoulder to Scaggs’ house, nervous someone might be watching it and spot them, but she figured, if worse came to worst, she always had her spark. “Only at night,” she answered.
“It is night,” said the driver.
“Yeah, well, we’ll just be a minute.”
The carriage door laid loose, leaning against the frame. Stephan picked it up and set it aside. “What are we looking for?”
“An envelope with gold trim,” said Rina.
“In there?” Stephan’s face soured.
And as Liv held spark in her hand, illuminating the inside of the carriage, she could see he had a point: The cushions had been stripped off the seats, the glass was missing from the windows, and it smelled like someone, or several someones, had used it as a toilet.
Rina put her hand over her nose. “It’s hard to imagine whoever did this showing up to the party with my invitation. Though, I guess it would be worth something.”
“I guess…” said Liv, trying to peer into the gap between the seat and the frame. She held out her hand and, in the same way she’d cleaned soot off the blast chamber, pushed her spark down into it. An instant later, a white envelope shot up, flitting toward the ‘toilet’ area. Stephan snatched it out of the air. He handed it to Liv, who handed it to Rina.
“This should be interesting, trying to get me in on my own plus-one invitation,” said Rina.
“But you’re the princess?”
“People tend not to recognize my face so much as the guards that usually… err, always accompany me. Without them, would you recognize me?”
? ? ?
The taxi departed, leaving the trio next to the guild hall’s stone wall, the one topped with the gold serpent, as murmurs of a crowd drifted on the wind along with faint music, that strange melody of Chanda’s whistle, now played on a pipe organ.
“Time?” asked Stephan.
“Ten twenty-seven,” said Liv.
“And we need to enter at ten forty exactly?” asked Rina.
Liv nodded. “If we want Chanda’s trick to work.”
“So, should we just wait then?”
Liv shrugged, and they walked around the corner to the front gate of the Hall of Wizards where two guards in azure blue uniforms stood watch.
Rina started saying, “We have a—”
“Back of the queue.” One of the guards pointed his thumb over his shoulder. A line of people stretched halfway down the front wall.
“But I’m—”
“We’re next,” said a woman, one half of the posh couple that were the Underhills, the ones who had had that trouble with Reuben.
“Back of the queue,” the guard repeated, a little more forcefully this time.
“It is moving fast,” Mr. Underhill offered. Then one guard pulled a gold cordon back while the other showed the Underhills into the mouth of a long, black velvet hallway, like a tent.
“Fine,” Liv ground her teeth. They were early anyway, so it would have been awkward to try to cut in front only to wait there for… she checked her time spell… thirteen minutes. Still, timing this was going to be tricky, and as the trio walked back, she counted forty people ahead of them.
The guests, mostly couples, were smartly dressed, and Liv noted that unlike Rina’s birthday, this was no competition to see who could wear the poofiest dress or the tallest hat. These people wore clean-cut clothes in rich colors with intricate but not garish buttons, lace, and bows. There was an understated elegance to them.
“It looks like they just stepped off a boat from Orleasia,” whispered Stephan.
“What really?” asked Liv.
Stephan shook his head. “It’s just the style. What the gentry are wearing.”
While they took their place at the back, Liv thought about what they had on. She was dressed in boy’s clothes, more or less like a servant; while Stephan, in his white butler suit, was dressed exactly like one; and Rina, well actually… she fit right in, wearing Liv’s dress. It suddenly annoyed her that she wasn’t the one wearing it, but you know, fate of the kingdom and all…
Ten minutes later there were twenty people ahead of them and about twenty behind.
“Okay, what now?” asked Liv.
“Don’t look at me.” Rina shrugged. “I’ve never had to wait in a queue before.”
“This is going to be… ‘fun,’” Stephan groaned. “Follow me.” He strode forward and, with a hop in his step and a roll in his shoulders, approached the guards.
One stepped forward to meet him. “Back of the—”
Stephan put his hand on the man’s chest. “Princess Alexandrina Victoria Oxbridge Stewart-Rose will enter now.” He gave a curt shove.
Liv checked her time spell again. “One minute.”
“Or in one minute, exactly,” Stephan growled.
“What, her?” And as the guard grabbed Stephan’s wrist, Stephan twisted out of it and held the man back.
“And her guest.”
The guard Stephan was holding looked to the other, who shook his head and slowly raised a hand, spark flickering between his fingers.
“You a wizard, Shiv?” the sparking guard asked, and Stephan took a step back, removing his hand from the first as this one took a step forward.
Liv drew in a deep breath, steadying herself. “Are you?” She held up her hand, letting spark roll between her fingers, each pulse dwarfing that of the guard’s.
Everyone: the guards, Stephan, Rina, and the people in line went silent. The only sounds were Chanda’s melody and the crackling hum of Liv’s spark.
She clenched her fist, drawing the spark back in, while cold sweat ran down her sides as she readied herself for the worst.
Shaken, the mage-guard stepped back. “Invitation?”
Rina handed him the envelope.
Breaking the seal, he bit his lip. “This is just a writ.” Then, glancing nervously at the other guard, he added, “From the princess…”
And the other guard, glancing nervously at Liv, added, “We’ll get this sorted out… just give us a minute.” Then he bowed and took off down the black velvet tunnel, leaving only the mage-guard.
“Time?” Stephan asked.
“Thirty seconds,” Liv answered.
“Thirty seconds… until what?” asked the guard.
“They need to go in. Now,” said Stephan.
“I can’t do that—”
Stephan twisted around the guard, pulling the man’s hands behind his back. Spark snapped between them as they struggled, and Stephan started to spasm. “Go!” he yelled.
Grabbing Liv’s hand, Rina sprinted down the void of black fabric. As they ran, Chanda’s music strengthened, the melody forming a waltz, the sound of the pipe organ replaced by a full orchestra.
Liv glanced back to see Stephan on the ground, with his hands held behind him and the guard’s knee on his back. Just ahead, the other guard was returning through the entry curtain. His face, his body, his clothes, were now molded out of clay, intricately carved: terracotta.
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“Whoa…” Rina stuttered to a stop, but Liv ran forward, pulling her along.
With a flutter of high notes, a new phrase entered the melody, the one Chanda had planned. As the hallway twisted, its floor rolled like a funhouse, and a buzzing sound rose from Liv’s back as the pair rocketed past the guard.
They emerged in the guild hall’s front garden to blossoming trees with flowers glowing in vivid magenta and yellow while phantoms of their petals floated upward, twisting in vortices.
The murmur of the crowd rose, chatter coming from every direction. Liv looked down to get her bearings and saw the ground swimming far below. Dizzy, she fell, more than landed, on the arm of a park bench now the size of a building.
Rina landed next to her, gasping. She looked different. Her feet were bare, her dress translucent, shot through with the veins of a leaf, and sprouting from her back were a pair of silvery butterfly wings.
Liv held her breath as the now giant terracotta guard stumbled past without noticing them, toward a group of satyrs, horned men and women with the legs of goats.
A moment later, Rina let out a sigh of relief. “So, we’re fairies?” And when Liv glanced over her own shoulder, she saw a pair of blue moth wings with long, spindly tails.
Cringing at the memory of all the times Messer had used that word, ‘fairy,’ she answered, “I guess so… Chanda said it would feel real.”
Liv took a moment to scan her surroundings. Above the outer wall, the city was gone. In its place, flat facades of painted buildings peeked up like the props of some massive stage play. When she blinked, the glowing pink and yellow petals from the trees floated into place, forming a phantom set of spiraling towers atop the guild hall, before dissipating like smoke.
“Wow…” Rina whispered, and then she started giving Liv a very careful looking over. “Huh.”
“What?”
“You should see yourself.” Getting up on her tippy toes, Rina drew an imaginary line between the tops of their heads. “You’ve gotten taller.”
“We’re like, um, four inches now?”
“Well, taller than me… Actually, it’s kind of…” And with a coy smile on her lips, Rina’s eyes darted to Liv’s.
“Kind of what?” Liv felt strange… tingly, and she wondered if this wasn’t part of the illusion too.
“Cute… or um, dashing. Maybe because you were dressed as a boy?”
Now curious, Liv took a look at herself. Her clothes, though still cut like Oliver’s suit, appeared to be made of leaves. Her body too, seemed a touch less curvy. Startled, she moved her hand to check between her legs.
Rina giggled. “Anything?”
“No.” Liv let out a breath of relief, and surprised not to be embarrassed, found herself sneaking glances at the princess.
“You looked worried there for a second.” Rina’s brow went up. “What did Chanda say? The illusion would be a bit random… like a dream?” She brushed by Liv on her way to the edge, making slight but definite contact.
Cheeks flushing, Liv tried to shrug it off. “I’m guessing we’re fairies because of the notes he added, to make us ‘hard to spot.’”
“You know, when he said that, I was afraid we’d end up as chameleons. This is fantastic… So, how do we fly?” Stepping away from the edge, Rina backed gently into Liv.
“The same way we got here?” Liv peeked over the side of the bench, dizzying as its legs converged to infinity far below. “You’d think that would make it easier, wouldn’t you? I guess we just step off?”
“You want to go first?” Rina nudged her, then offered her hand. “Or… Go together?”
The open void was terrifying, like stepping off a bridge, and as they touched, Liv felt Rina’s fingers tremble in hers.
“Are you okay?” Liv asked.
“It’s just… I got thrown off a roof last night.”
“Yeah, I’ve been thrown off a ship... Should we… close our eyes?”
Nodding, Rina pressed hers shut and Liv did the same. Then, as their hands tightened in one another’s, their wings buzzed and the ground fell away.
“Oh!” Rina yelped, and when Liv opened her eyes, they were floating high in the air. Well, high for a fairy, or at about eye-level for everyone else.
Rina’s face lit up. “Let go?” she asked while pulling in closer. And as their noses touched, Liv felt the princess’s breath on her cheek.
“Sorry.” Rina released and floated back.
Her heart racing, Liv felt dizzy. She realized she had better get back to the task at hand, and as she brought her eyes up to give Rina one final, curious glance, she found the girl already gazing at her.
Looking embarrassed, but not too embarrassed, Rina twisted in the opposite direction as Liv shied away.
Confused and giddy, almost as though the whole thing had been some wonderful joke, Liv tried moving forward. Her wings buzzed, and she flitted toward the satyrs, then stopped, hovering in the air about one human step from where she had started.
When she looked over, Rina was tumbling out of a loop-de-loop, with a trail of glowing dust behind her. “Whoooaoaoaooao!…. So, what’s going on when we fly?”
“I think we’re just walking around. It only feels like we’re flying.”
“So, I shouldn’t go jumping off any tall buildings then?” Rina glanced back, her expression suddenly serious. “Hey, I hope Stephan’s okay.”
Liv thought of the way the guard had called him ‘Shiv.’ “He stopped fighting. I don’t think they would hurt him.” —But she wasn’t so sure.
“Maybe I can get Grandpa to help?” Chewing her lip, Rina gave Liv a soft glance before turning to the party. “So… I haven’t been here in a while. What’s the layout? How much of this is real?”
“Well, this is the front garden. I think all these trees are real—” Liv said just as one of them moved: a young sycamore topped with the face of a woman, who raised a branch to wave at the Satyrs before walking over.
“Except that one,” she added. “The guild itself is a three-story mansion, four if you count the basement. I think the party will only be on the first story. It’s mostly common rooms, a bar, a library, and a foyer big enough for a dance floor. I’m not sure what all is on the second floor, but that’s where the pipe organ is, overlooking the foyer, so Chanda will be stuck there. The third floor is the office of the first of mages. I’d expect Drake and maybe the king to be in there some of the evening, so we ought to check it out if we can. And the backyard is a garden with a fountain pool.”
“Oh, that sounds interesting. Let’s start there,” said Rina.
Liv nodded, and the pair began working their way around the grounds.
They stopped briefly to gawk at the top of the outer wall, where a now living, golden serpent was wrapped around a buck, also living, who seemed calm as can be. The serpent gently lifted the buck over to a tree, where he took a bite of flowers, before it moved him back into position over the wall.
The guild grounds were peppered with odd sets of guests. One of the more bizarre were chalk drawings, two-dimensional people floating in space, chatting with each other, moving as though some unseen artist was continually redrawing them.
When they reached the back garden, mermaids darted through the fountain pool, surfacing to giggle and grab drinks from one of the many waiters, devils in black ties.
“This might be… um, harder than I thought.” Liv sighed. “Anyone here look like a king? If he is even here.”
“No, but…” Puzzled, Rina pointed through the patio doors, “there’s a queen?”
Though a score of guests danced inside, there was only one she could have meant:
Tall and lean, she stepped gracefully on silver heels with her stocking-clad legs peeking out from under a long flowing skirt cut scandalously short in front, while a matching white bodice centered with a blood red heart displayed her pale bosom. Bright white teeth sat between her blood red lips, a white crown sat atop her curled ivory hair, and piercing blue eyes punctuated her perfect face.
This ‘white queen’ was paired with a lanky man in black whose face was on upside down. She danced one-handed, holding a silver scepter in the other.
“Do you know her?” Liv asked.
“I don’t think so… Go in for a closer look?”
“Okay…” Liv was wondering what she meant, as they’d have to dodge dancers a thousand times their size, when Rina took her hand and pulled her along. “Wait, I don’t know how to dance.”
“It’s okay. I’ll lead.” And as Rina put her arm around Liv, that peculiar giddiness she’d felt before, looking into Rina’s eyes, came rushing back. She felt like she was floating… even more so than from being a fairy.
Moving awkwardly at first, the pair fluttered around like autumn leaves, but Liv soon got the hang of Rina’s gentle nudging, and they settled into a rhythm, weaving their way around the floor.
But the white queen moved illusively, often changing partners and spinning away whenever they got near.
“Is she doing that intentionally?” asked Liv, aggravated.
And just as Rina glanced over her shoulder, the queen stepped in close, guiding her new partner, a man made of glass, in around the other side, boxing the fairies in with their bodies. The glass man held out his arm, and the queen spun off it, whipping her scepter, the size of a river barge, inches from their faces.
The queen bowed, leaning forward with a smirk that could eat you alive, then found yet another partner and danced off in another direction.
Shocked and shaken, Liv floated down with Rina. “I know I’ve seen that face before, but I can’t quite place it… can you?”
“Maybe…” Rina said, equally puzzled.
The pair flitted off the dance floor and landed on the edge of a dessert table, next to a cake, a perfect miniature mountain, complete with its own cloud system of white vapor frosting.
“But there’s one I can, Chanda,” Rina said, pointing up. And when Liv looked, she saw a pipe organ on the ceiling, upside-down with Chanda playing it, as though upside-down was the perfectly normal way to be.
There were only two other guests up there, on the ceiling, the Underhills, off on their own, their normal befuddled selves. Liv was trying to figure out a way up when she spotted the staircase to the second floor, upside-down and unusable. She sighed. “This would be more fun if we were just here for the party.”
“It’s still the best I’ve ever been to.” Rina nudged her shoulder. “Probably just the company.”
“You know, I don’t even know what I look like.”
“Well, me either. There’s a mirror.” The princess motioned to one on the wall, and they flitted up to it.
As her reflection came into view, staring back at Liv was a tall fairy, a boy, unless you looked close enough. Her face was a mix of Oliver’s and Rafe’s. Handsome, it reminded her of who everyone expected her to be.
Gazing into the mirror, the princess gave a long sighing smile, pulling them together, as Liv’s gut twisted…
Is that who Rina had been smiling at all this time? Because that was not Liv.
“Um… Rina, what do you know about me?”
“Just that you’re Scaggs’ apprentice, and Marco says…” Rina’s face became somber, “said… you’re trustworthy.”
“Do you know about Oliver?”
“Your brother, right? Hey, does he look like that?” She pointed to the ‘boy’ in the mirror.
Liv tensed at the thought of explaining the truth, wondering if she even knew what it was, exactly.
Then Rina’s head spun. “Is that?”
Behind them, a mechanical man was slicing himself a massive—though normal-sized to any non-fairy—piece of mountain cake.
His skin was riveted copper plates, his eyes, rotating gears, and his suit, cast from black iron, was emblazoned with mathematical designs, like constellations.
“Drake…” Liv whispered.
“You gonna zap him?” Rina whispered back.
Remembering how ineffective her lightning had been, Liv shook her head. “No, he’s way more powerful than me.”
“So, what do we do?”
“I don’t know.”
Mecha-Drake plopped the slice of mountain cake, complete with a tiny, confused mountain goat, onto a plate, set a fork next to it, and turned back to the party.
“Follow him?” Liv shrugged.
Carrying the cake uneaten through the building, Drake exited out the front door. He went all the way to the front gate where the terracotta guard was waiting with a white birdman who seemed oddly familiar, reminding Liv of a chicken she once saw in a play, back when she was a cat…
“Stephan,” she whispered.
The terracotta guard kept his hand on the birdman’s shoulder, forcing him to follow Drake as he led them to a side entrance.
Drake opened the door and shuffled in behind the prisoner.
Gulping, Liv motioned to Rina, then followed them inside, flying at knee level to avoid detection. The door grazed Rina as it closed, and Drake turned back, confused for a moment, before he shrugged and continued on.
They found themselves at the rear of the main foyer, beside the elevator. Drake pressed the button, and a moment later the door opened. The guard took Stephan inside.
Mecha-Drake handed Bird-Stephan the plate with the slice of mountain cake, saying pleasantly enough, “Enjoy, and do tell Thelemule, no hard feelings.”
Stephan stared down at the cake like he was holding a bomb, and seeing this, Drake leaned in through the elevator doors.
“Oh, sorry.” Drake flicked the tiny mountain goat off the slice, and as it ‘bahhed’ to its death, he leaned back out, letting the door close.
Liv pulled Rina to the side. “He was polite to me too, right up until he tried to kill me… Actually, even then.”
Drake pulled an envelope from his pocket, Rina’s invitation, and read it over.
“Does that have my name on it?” Liv asked.
“Yes.” Rina nodded, going pale.
Briskly, Drake walked back to the dance floor, to where, off in one corner, a rotund wizard with a wild gray beard, ornate blue robes, and a pointy hat was juggling bean bag-sized fireballs for a group of winged men and women.
“Do you know who that wizard is?” Rina asked.
“No.”
After waiting for the wizard to finish, Drake pulled him aside, whispered something in his ear, and the two men walked back to the foyer.
Liv moved to follow, but Rina’s hand shot out, holding her back. An instant later, the white queen stepped in front of them, trailing Drake and the bearded wizard as they approached the elevator.
The two men got on, and Drake pulled a silver key out of his pocket. Liv took a deep breath, and just as the queen boarded, grabbed Rina’s hand and pulled her inside. She ducked, hiding behind the queen’s skirts.
“We have a problem,” said Drake to the wizard.
And as the elevator doors closed, Liv felt the queen very gently pat her on the head. She looked up, and with a wry smile on those blood red lips, the queen winked at her.
All are welcome. The invite link is
If you went to an illusion party, what would you go as?
