CW: body horror, discrimination, cigarettes, violence, firearms, death, delusion confirmation, sexual innuendo, apocalypse

Robin

I wake up to the sound of porcelain crashing through wood. Groggy, I roll out of bed and land on the floor with a ‘thump’. My phone’s under my bed, and it takes me a while to fish it out from between the garbage I’ve shoved under there in an attempt to delay having to actually sort and clean. When I do manage to grab it, I roll onto my back and spend the first fifteen minutes of my day checking my messages. To my great disappointment, Marieken has not messaged me nor answered any of my messages. Maybe the girl is too wise to get involved with me and Ruby. Good for her.

When I’m dressed- the same black pants and plain black t-shirt I go out in every day- I head downstairs and find my living room table completely demolished. Two porcelain girls sit between the remains, one- Mercy- aiming an improvised wooden stake that used to be a leg from my table at the throat of the other- Lily.

"What, pray tell, are you two doing?"

"Robin!" Mercy yelps as she tries to hide the stake behind her back. There’s a crack in her face, and one of her glass eyes droops down, unable to focus on me.

"Marissa’s trying to kill me!" Lily yells.

"I can see that. Not great, I’m going to have to get Ruby-lynn to repair you both. You do understand that she charges me money for that, do you?"

Both dolls avert their eyes.

"Maybe I ought to not repair you for a while, just remove your limbs and let you cool down in the basement."

"Y- yeah," Mercy starts panting. "M- maybe that’s a good idea."

"Get up, both of you. I’m going to get some cigarettes. When I’m back this mess better be cleaned up and breakfast be ready."

"Yes master," Lily says.

"Yes Robin," Mercy sighs.

"Wait," Lily says. "We broke the table. Where do we put the breakfast?"

"That’s your problem," I reply and I turn for the entrance. I put on my coat, my shoes and I walk out into the harbor. The small kiosk I pick my cigarettes up at is a ten minute hike down the road, enough to clear my head. Enough to smoke a ciggy on the way back to the house. A morning ritual I have been repeating for the last two and a half years.

Cigarettes are not the only reason I head down to the kiosk, though. The proprietor greets me with a smile, and puts my carton of ciggies on the table together with a bundle of cash, a copper coin and a nine millimeter ammo clip.

"Business going well?" I ask him. "Nobody bothering you?"

The man pays a third of his income to me in protection money.

"Nobody," the man says. "Not even in my dreams."

I smirk. Ruby-lynn made sure of that.

Ever since the Falun Gong had moved into this neighborhood of Amsterdam, a veritable golden age for protection rackets had started. It was in large part sinophobia of course- the Falun Gong was not any different from local Periphery Demographics, but to both the upper-middle class Dutch citizens and the ‘normie’ mafia groups they were frightening and so you could promise

‘protection’ and simple spells that would allegedly keep the Chinese away for a hefty chunk of a business their profits. It was immoral, it probably fuelled the racist and anti-peripheral sentiment bubbling under the surface of society, but it was a living.

"It ain’t honest work, but somebody has to do it," I couldn’t help but mutter as I walked out of the mafia store with my bullets, money and cigarettes.

The bullets are of course intended for my next stream of income- sanctioned duelling. As I light my cigarette and walk back home, I check the Ronin-App on my phone to see if there are invitations for fights. One notification. My patron- Herkel Rijkstadt, a local landlord- has beef with a group of Nozems and has challenged the gang to a duel.

"The living room better be clean," I yell as I enter the group home.

"Yessir," Mercy and Lily say in sync as I walk in. The remains of the table have indeed been more-or-less cleaned, and my breakfast has been arranged on the floor.

"We’re eating on the floor today?" I ask.

"We’ll go out to look for a table this afternoon," Lily quickly says.

"Hmhm," I say as I nod and squat down in front of a plate with croissants with fruit jam and a glass of orange juice. "Do you want anything?" I ask, already knowing the answer.

"No," the dolls say in unison. Of course they don’t. They’re made of porcelain. They barely have a digestive tract. Anything they eat they’ll have to wash out of their body with water, making an awful mess.

"Do you think Marieken will come by again?" Mercy asks while I’m eating my breakfast. "Lily said she might come live with us."

"Marieken has her own house," I reply. "And she doesn’t reply to messages. Maybe you two scared her off."

"No!" Lily says. "Do you think we screwed up?"

"Yeah. I think you completely ruined it." Lily’s reply is a whimpering noise.

I do worry about Marieken. If she grew up as sheltered as I suspect, the world of the Periphery will rip her to shreds. ‘Civilized’ society hides beneath itself a layer of grime that the sheltered middle class can usually hardly understand.

When I’ve finished my breakfast, I check my phone for messages and send a text to Ruby-Lynn to come over to look after Mercy and Lily's injuries before they head into town to buy a new table. I then head upstairs to grab my knife, my gun and my spellbook. Without it, I wouldn’t be able to do my magic properly. Magic- at least for witches- is deeply personal. It roots in the same narcissistic impulse at the heart of every witch, but the way it flowers, expresses itself, is different for everyone. Even if another witch were to borrow- or god forbid, steal- my spellbook, they would need to take the time to properly understand the mental states and delusions that the spells are allegories for, are activation shortcuts for.

With weapons hidden under my coat and my spellbook in hands, I head outside. The duel is to be held in the ring in the Vondelpark, the largest park in Amsterdam. Since the government legalized duelling, several dueling rings have opened up. The biggest ones have proprietary apps for participation, and with recent gambling law relaxations most apps now allow civilians to stake cryptocurrencies on the duels. Not that the Periphery Demographics shooting or hacking each other to death in the arenas see any of the money that’s being made, of course. Profiting off of us is reserved for civilized, normal society.

I ride the public transport to the park because my bike has been stolen again. On the way there I get a lot of weird looks, and I’m never sure if it’s because I’m a boy wearing skinny jeans and eyeliner or if people can smell I’m a witch somehow. When I transfer between light rail lines I spot a Moontouched girl getting on in the next car and once again I’m left thinking about Marieken. As I fiddle with my phone, curious to see if I finally got a message back from her, I wonder if I’m really worried about her or if this is just my witch heart longing to possess someone special.

No answer to my conundrum floats to the top of my subconsciousness, and I get off the tramline at the park stop. At the dueling ring- a fenced-off glorified sports field with a private police force for security, really- I check in with a QR code generated by the Ronin-app on my phone and get escorted through the turnstiles to the lobby. Duelists, bookies and gambling addicts crowd the building, cheering on as outside, in the field, a rare Moontouched boy and a human girl in a sailor moon costume are rolling over the wet grass, trying to choke each other and or poke each other’s eyes out. The girl eventually gets the upper hand, after holding her hands locked around the boy’s throat for an arduous minute or two, he stops struggling. One less Moontouched in the world, I think, shaking my head in disappointment.

"My very best Robin," a deep voice booms behind me. Shortly after, I feel a large hand on my shoulder. I don’t have to look behind me to know it is Herkel Rijkstadt, my patron.

"Mr. Rijkstadt."

"You saw the quick rundown on the app, I figure?"

"You’ve challenged the leader of a group of Nozems to a fight. I’m to be your champion."

"Look at me when I’m talking to you, boy," my patron demands.

With a sigh and theatrically rolling my eyes, I turn around. Herkel Rijkstadt is a heavy set, barrel-chested man in a three piece suit two sizes too small wearing a Rolex on both of his wrists.

"Better," he says as he grabs me by the cheeks and forces me to look him in the eyes.

"The Nozem gang leader called me a capitalist pig and had her bikers put a feeding trough full of slop in my front yard. She didn’t even have the gall to deny it! She was rather eager to accept a duel, and seems to have staked ten backs on her own champion," Herkel says while using his left hand to hold my cheeks and his right to ruffle through my hair. "And make sure not to let some Nozem ruin your pretty face." He shakes my head and then finally lets go.

It has become a fancy hobby amongst the upper class to keep Periphery Demographics as pet duelists. I do not just fight for Mr. Rijkstadt, he also drags me to high society events to show me off as one would show off an exotic pet or a trophy wife. These events are another source of income- the sexually frustrated one percenters can occasionally be persuaded to pay out the nose for an evening with a witch. It doesn’t count, they tell themselves. It doesn’t count as homosexuality or it doesn’t count as cheating on their wives- whatever it is, I’m not human, so it doesn’t count.

"Look at that," a shrill voice rings out above the rumour of the crowd. "Mr Piggy is into younger men."

Of course. Mr. Rijkstadt had said ‘she’. There’s only one female Nozem gang leader in the city. The crowd parts to let Nozomi through. Like her entire subculture, she’s sharply dressed in a leather jacket and suede shoes reminiscent of American fashion of the fifties. Unlike the rest of her subculture, she has fox ears glued to her head and a fake tail hanging from her back. Sheeted on her back is a katana.

"Hello Nozomi," I say with my most gentlemanly voice and bow before her.

"Who are you again?" She asks as she scratches under the fake ears on her head.

"Robin Robinson. You paid me to curse a rival gang once."

"And now you are here to be killed by my champion. Tragic."

"We’ll see," I say and try to smile. Killing one of her gang members is not going to be good for any future employment opportunities with her gang. "What are the terms of our duel?"

"Fonzie," Nozomi yells. A buff man with a cowlick wearing a black leather jacket separates from the crowd and joins us.

"Anything goes," Nozomi says. "Weapons, magic, it’s all fair game. I have ten grand on this fight so I’d prefer it to be a spectacle."

"Can you do that?" My patron asks.

"Yeah."

"You’re up in thirty minutes, then. Gives them time to clear the arena and announce the fight for any gamblers."

I nod, and walk off to the restroom. I need time to read my spellbook, prepare my magic. In an ‘anything goes’ fight, the only problem is firearms. It doesn’t matter how fast a magician or how fast a swordsman you are- a gun is faster. The trick then is to make sure I will not be hit by any bullets while I take my own shot at my opponent. On the inside of my spellbook I’ve taped various pouches of mind-altering substances, and today as part of my preparations I take a line of 2-fluoroamphetamine. The designer drug works analogous to speed, and worsens my god complex. Then I flip to a spell that invokes a state of mind I stumbled on while watching Zack Snyder’s Three Hundred. I will face down my enemies unfazed. I will not flinch. I will hold the line. When I’ve muttered the incantations, I feel the spell take hold in my mind. The next spell I devized while watching First Blood . As long as I am not afraid of bullets, they will not hurt me. This spell, too, locks in place in my brain. I can feel the strain on my magic- both spells consume my emotional state as a sort of metaphysical fuel, and when I run out I will be left lethargic and depressed- as well as defenseless.

Twitchy from the stimulants I consumed and my thoughts erratic and schizophrenic from the magic coursing through my brain, I head to the arena. I empty my mind and think of nothing but my spells.

I enter the dueling ring. An electromagnetic hum indicates the arena has been sealed off from the outside world- we won’t have to worry about collateral damage. The announcer is barely audible over the noise in my brain. On the other side of the field stands Nozomi’s champion- what was his name again? Right. Fonzie. The Fonz. What an asshole.

A loud buzzer announces that our fight has begun. I step forward, and to my astonishment The Fonz pulls an entire machine gun out of his coat. For a second I am distracted by the firearm and waste precious time trying to identify it. How on earth do you fit a HK21 general purpose Bundeswehr machine gun into a leather jacket?

Before I have pulled my own gun out of my pants a hail of bullets descends on me. I do not fear. He who does not fear bullets cannot be hit by bullets. I feel them rip through the magic around me. I remove the safety from my cheap italian 9mm gun, take aim, and fire.

I run out of mental stamina a fraction of a second before my bullet blows through the Nozem’s brain. Pain lights up my entire body- I have been hit. The Fonz falls, his gun still firing wide as he hits the ground.

"Fuck you," I scream as I stumble around and become light-headed from blood loss.

-------------------

Marieken

Robin does not answer any of my messages. I wonder if I have screwed things up with him somehow by never answering any of his messages. Still- the last time he messaged me was only a little while ago. Maybe he doesn’t have his phone on him. Maybe he’s indisposed. Maybe he’s angry and doesn’t understand how serious the situation is.

I rush through the streets of Amsterdam, away from the crime scene, away from what I have done. Megalomania and paranoia swirl in my head, combining into a toxic sludge of self destructive emotion. I blink, I shadow-step. Something has gone terribly wrong with me. Something is actively going wrong with me. I lose my right leg somewhere, forgetting to take it along as I teleport across half of Amsterdam in a blind panic. It doesn’t matter. It wasn’t exactly real to begin with. There’s plenty of shadows to steal, plenty of dark to congeal and thread and weave and so I steal a man’s shadow as I pass him by and use it to replace my leg. Sunlight starts to hurt, and my soul begins to fray. Burnout. Why do I still experience burnout? Aren’t I a god now? Delusions, I realize. A component of magic- a key component- but despite affecting reality, delusions are not reality. Running out of magic, fraying my penumbra until it unravels will still kill me. I’m strong, I’m stronger than almost anyone who ever lived, but- and I realize it is the wrong avenue of thought. I can’t give in to this. Power, hunger, delusions of grandeur. The roar, the maelstrom within me threatens to drown me. Everything is going oh so terribly wrong. If I can’t shake myself out of this then I’ll be ripped to pieces long before the consequences of my actions in the schoolyard can catch up to me, I realize. I need help. Help. Help.

"Help," I scream as I crash through the windows of Robin’s house, almost ephemeral enough to leave the glass untouched as I pass through. Almost. The sound of glass is like rain beating down on concrete fields. It repeats and repeats and when it does not end I realize it has long stopped, my perception lingering on a memory, my mind’s eye trapped within itself. I trash around on Robin’s kitchen floor, struggling to maintain a human shape as two porcelain faces look at me in terror. Mary and Darcy, or whatever their names were. A third figure sits between them, her face one of amusement instead of horror.

"Don’t just sit there," I growl. "Do something?" My voice cracks and I accidentally phrase my command as a question.

Ruby Lyren- or something, I can’t remember her name either- raises her hand and commands quietude. The world obeys, and I am left alone in a deep black void. Here, there is nothing but me.

The sensory overstimulation is gone. The hurricane of power is gone. I am me, Marieken Mithras, and there is no one here but me. For the first time today I can think clearly. No, I realize. That’s wrong. For the first time in weeks I can think clearly. Before this morning I was still on the medication. That hardly counted as ‘thinking clearly’. Still, the fog was probably better than the sharp mania that almost eviscerated my brain this afternoon.

"Marieken," someone whispers. I’m not alone in here at all. There is someone else. For a second I think it is Kate, but it isn’t.

"Sareth?" I ask, starting to panic.

"Yeah," she says. "What happened?"

"Oh god," I cry. "I am so sorry. I killed you. I think I ate you."

"I know that," she answers. "I was drowning in shadow, losing little bits of myself to you. Dissolving while sinking to the bottom of your subconsciousness."

"Oh," I say. "Sorry." I don’t think I really mean it. I just remembered that she was going to do the same to me.

"Where are we?" Sareth asks. "On god, Marieken. If you let that weeaboo freak kill us and this is the afterlife, I’ll kill you."

"No, no, not at all. I think I ate Hiro as well. Just not like, his mind. Just his body."

"What?"

"What?"

"You cannibalized him? You sat down next to his corpse and chowed down?"

"What do you mean by ‘us’?" I ask Sareth, feeling no obligation whatsoever to recount the afternoon’s events to her.

"Us," Sareth says. "You and me. We’re in this together now."

"No," I reply sternly. "We really aren’t."

"We are," she replies. She sounds frustrated, almost indignated. "Wherever this is, we’re here together."

Before I can ponder the ramifications of that statement, I am wrested back to reality. Or at least, to the waking world that passes for my reality.

"Are you okay?" Someone asks. It takes me a while to reorient myself. From fear to fighting for my life to psychotic mania to the surreal dark in the depths of one’s soul in barely two hours did a number on my ability to relate to my surroundings.

"Yeah," I say, looking around. I’m in a bed. A soft bed with fresh linen. The room is clean and contains nothing but this bed and a small nightstand. The window is filthy and cracked, and outside I can see the harbor. This must be a guest room in Robin’s group home.

"Good," my caretaker says. Ruby-Lynn, I realize. The Moontouched witch Robin is friends with. Right. I came here for help.

"What happened?" I ask.

"I was going to ask you," she replies as she twirls her hand through her long, white hair. For a second I become self conscious about my own hair again, but then I remember it turned white when I…

When I did what, exactly?

"I’m still working through things," I say. "I’m not sure what happened. Can you tell me what happened from your point of view?"

Ruby-Lynn signs and puts her under her chin in an exaggerated ‘thinking’ gesture. "You came flying in through the window like a sort of Shadow-Court meteorite with the worst case of burnout I’ve ever seen. I put a spell on you to cut your consciousness off from your body for a bit to stop you from ripping yourself apart, then had Mercy drag you into the guest bed until you recovered a bit. Then you woke up and asked me to explain what happened. I have to say, I have quite a lot of questions myself."

"Ah," I reply. Burnout.

"For starters," Ruby-Lynn says, "I see your hair is white now.."

"That’s not a question."

"I also see you brought a katana," she says while pointing at Hiro’s katana, resting against the wall without its sheath. Why did I bring that? I don’t remember bringing it along at all.

"Still not a question," I reply, starting to become unnerved. Can Ruby-Lynn read minds, like Kate? Is she trying to get me to think- oh god Kate. How am I supposed to face Kate again after what happened? She’ll run away screaming the second I’ll accidentally think about what I did. "You having burnout while dragging a bloodstained sword along in your shadow paints a pretty clear picture, but I am loath to jump to conclusions. So here’s my question: did you kill someone?"

There’s no way I’ll be able to explain what happened to Ruby-Lynn. Or is there? Ruby-Lynn is Moontouched as well, isn’t she? She’s a powerful magician. Maybe she will understand. It’s worth a shot.

"I died. I was murdered. The second I died I grasped something, I think. Some hidden truth about the world. It is all muddied and vague now, but I reshaped myself from shadows and retaliated. It was self defense, but I’ve killed someone, Ruby. I can’t go home."

Ruby-Lynn looks at me intently. Again I’m concerned about her reading my mind. Now that I know telepathy is possible, how can I ever feel safe even just thinking about things again?

"What do you mean," Ruby-Lynn says slowly, carefully weighing each of her words on her tongue. "Reshaped yourself?"

I let go of my corporeal form, of the Marieken who is just a representation of the real me. I let go of arms and legs and eyes and bleed into the shadows of the room, all of them. I look at Ruby with a dozen eyes sprouting from every corner in the room.

"I’m shadow court," I say without speaking. "I’m not real. I’m a shadow on the wall." I see her freeze in fear, and before I scare her off I recompose myself, weave shadow and light back into a human girl, albeit one with strange hair and eyes. "I’m sorry," I say, now standing upright next to the bed. "It seemed the easiest way to convince you."

"Nightmare-" Ruby-Lynn mutters. "Nightmare Demon?"

"No?" I yell out in surprise. Ruby flinches. "No- I mean, sorry, I’m sorry. I am not a nightmare demon." I want to approach her, reach out to her, but fear that it will only panic her further. Five minutes alone with her and I’ve already ruined this. Instead, I back off. "I can leave if you want to. If you’re scared. I’m worried about going into the sun because I might still have burnout, but if you want me to go, I’ll go."

I don’t want to leave. I hope my words make her trust me instead.

"I’ve never seen this before," Ruby-Lynn says. Her voice is still fearful, but there’s a glimmer of something else. Wonder, curiosity, maybe. "I have never even heard of this. I hadn’t considered this at all to be possible."

"Yeah," I say.

"You should go lie down in bed again. You’re still fraying at the edges. I’ll go grab some tea for you. Then when I am back, you should explain everything that happened today in detail. Robin and I can probably help you."

"Okay." I don’t feel tired at all. But she’s right- I am fraying at my edges. When I stare at my hand, the outline is hazy. Like the outer layer of my skin is dissolving into fog. Like whoever drew me went over an outline, broke it, and now colour was spilling out of me. I’m unsure if bedrest will help at all, but I do as Ruby says and climb under the blankets again. The cool dark under the blankets brings a soothing comfort.

Soon, the older Moontouched returns, bringing me a tray with a wooden cup smelling like green tea, and places it on the nightstand next to the bed. "You said you killed someone," she says as if it is the most casual thing in the world.

I only look away.

"Marieken, I understand this is extremely stressful and that you’re scared, but I have to ask if there’s a chance the murder will be led back to you. Things happen- god, how I wish they didn’t but things to happen- but it is best if they happen in the dark. Do you understand what I mean?"

She means that she or people she knows have killed people before. I nod. "I- I don’t think they’ll find out what happened."

"What do you mean?"

"There’s no remains. No body. I brought his sword and the blood on it is my own."

"No remains? You discorporated him? Did you use magic?"

I shake my head. How can I ever speak about what I did? "He was my friend," I say, pangs of pain shooting through my heart.

Ruby-Lynn comes closer and puts her hand on my shoulder, then starts to play with my hair. Everyone keeps playing with my hair. At least Ruby-Lynn is doing so to try and comfort me and not because of whatever Jared Fogle stuff Dr. West has got going on. "It’s okay," she says. "Me and Robin, we’ll do whatever we can to make sure you’re safe."

"I can’t go home," I mutter. "I went out this morning to hang out with a friend and now I’m a murderer and unstable."

"Marieken," Ruby-Lynn says sternly. She’s going to tell me it was self defence, that I don’t have to feel guilt. I’m not sure I will be able to believe her. "Marieken," she says. "Magic kills people. You were going to face the uncomfortable truth that life for Periphery Demographics is one of non-stop eat-or-be-eaten violence sooner or later anyway."

Oh.

"What?"

"Life is hard and this world does not care about us, Marieken. Half of our own people don’t care about us either. The only thing we can do is try and survive long enough to build something better. Today you survived. Tomorrow you’ll build something better. Take solace in that."

I shake my head. "I can’t build anything. I just want to go home. My real home, but I can’t. I won’t ever go home to my mom and dad again and I won’t ever call them mom or dad again either. The group home I was assigned to- just yesterday I thought I might fall in love with a vampire and live a life straight out of a novel. I was so naive. I was so stupid."

My tears flow freely and my voice starts to break.

"Why can’t you have that?" Ruby-Lynn asks as she kneels down next to the bed, and gestures to me to lift myself up so she can get my hair out from under my back. She takes my long white hair in her hands and starts braiding it. It feels nice, comfortable. It only makes me cry harder.

"My roommate is a mind-reader. She’ll never want to look me in the eyes again."

"A mind-reader? That is very rare, though you did say she’s a vampire. Are you sure?"

"Yeah. Very sure."

"There’s ways to occult the mind, protect yourself against mental intrusions. You won’t have it as easy as me, but you’re shadow court. You’ll manage."

"What court are you?" I ask her.

"Mirror," she says with a strange wisp of sadness in her voice.

"Reflections," I say. "Mirrors reflect things. It makes sense. Shadows… Shadows can cloud and darken?"

Ruby laughs. "You’re basically halfway there. When did you start thinking like a witch?"

"I told you," I whisper. "I saw some truth about the world, about the nature of reality when I died."

"You said you died. That it’s your blood on the katana. What happened?"

"Hiro- my friend. He caught me next to- oh god, I had completely forgotten about Sareth." "Sareth?"

I want to cry. I want to scream. I cannot help but laugh. "The other girl I killed today."

"Marieken?" Ruby-Lynn asks, now sounding hesitant and a little frightened.

"That was also self defence," I say and I realize how insane I must sound. "No, really."

Ruby looks at me slawjacked, eyes wide. "You killed two people in self defense today."

"Yes!" I say, almost yell. "Sareth was going to kill me, steal my magic, steal my soul. I turned her spell on her, and it killed her. I didn’t mean to- well it killed her body. When you put me in a coma with your magic I talked to her for a bit, I think she lives on inside of me. It killed her body though, even though I didn’t mean to, and Hiro, my friend, with the katana-" I run out of breath and have to stop for a moment. "He thought I had killed Sareth, which I had, but he also thought I was behind all the murders that Sareth had previously committed, so he attacked me. He attacked me, and he won and I died."

"You died."

"He stabbed me through the chest, and as I was bleeding out I finally understood the things about magic that had been eluding me, allowing me to put myself back together."

Ruby-Lynn was quiet for a moment. "I assume, by turning into a shadowy mass of tentacles and eyes and turning back again? That works as a sort of reset?"

Now it is my turn to be quiet for a moment as my thoughts race. It’s not really a reset. I’m pretty sure I can take on any form I want.

"Well, yes," I say. "If I’m injured and I change, then when I change back I’m no longer injured."

She shakes her head. "If I hadn’t just see you do that, I wouldn’t have believed a word of anything you’ve just told me."

"Really?" I ask her, a little worried.

"People snap, you know. Break. Go crazy. The weight of the world is too much to bear and drives them to irrational behaviour, unusual beliefs."

"I see," I say. "I’ll see to it that that won’t happen to me."

"Yeah," Ruby-Lynn says. "You’ll make sure you won’t kill any more people in self-defence."

"I promise," I say. Ruby-Lynn starts laughing, and I wonder if I misunderstood something.

"At some point, you’re going to have to take me up on magic training. If I teach you to properly control your powers, and teach you to occlude your mind then you can move back in with your vampire girlfriend."

"She’s not my girlfriend," I say, choking on my words as I realize that I’m a lesbian. I can’t believe the thought hadn’t come up in my mind before. Was that because of the medication? I was practically going insane when Kate drank my blood. I’ve been wondering if I could fall in love with Kate for days- "God, I’m clueless," I say, making Ruby-Lynn laugh even more.

"Well, you’re not hopeless. I’m glad you came here, Marieken."

"You are?"

"Yeah. Robin has been worried sick about you. Though, I suppose, he is in no condition to worry about anyone."

Has something happened to Robin? Is that why he didn’t reply to my texts? "What do you mean?"

"Robin got shot in a duel, he’s in the hospital. They say that if he’s awake later in the afternoon he’ll be able to receive visitors for a bit."

"In a duel? Robin fights in those crazy duels?" I ask, astonished. Duels are the sick entertainment of the dregs of society, I’ve been taught. They’re the last resort of Periphery Demographics on drugs or in debt.

"Marieken, there are very few ways to make enough money to fund the support network Robin funds," Ruby-Lynn explains. "He takes care of Mercy and Lily, he takes care of anyone who might drift through here before they can find permanent housing. He funds my group, he funds the black market acquisition of medication for those of us who need it but can’t get it legally."

"But duels," I say astonished. What good is Robin for any of those people if he dies?

Ruby-Lynn shrugs. "He’s a witch. He thinks himself invincible."

"He clearly isn’t if he’s hospitalized!"

"Marieken, we live short, violent lives before vanishing from this world, forgotten. How many elderly Moontouched or witches do you know?"

"Maria Mithras?" I cautiously try.

"She’s lucky. She’s a popular singer. She’s integrated in society by providing normies a Moontouched idol to gawk at. They can support her and feel like they’re so socially progressive without having to think about the Moontouched girl living in a homeless shelter down the street."

There is something wrong with the world, I reaffirm for myself. There’s something hideously deeply wrong but I cannot figure out what it is, where the thing is located that makes everything downstream from it bad and rotten.

"I want to come along to see Robin," I say.

"Is that smart? You were about to dissolve and vanish in a puff of shadow when you came flying in a hot minute ago."

"I’ll try and nap for a bit," I say. "Wake me up when you’re going to head out. If I’ll feel better I’ll come along."

"You sure?" Ruby asks.

I nod, and pull the blanket over my head. "Absolutely sure," I say, the blanket muffling my speech.

It’s nice in the dark. Comfy. I hear Ruby-Lynn close the blinds of the room, then walk out and close the door. I close my eyes, breathe out, and will myself to sleep.

[Chapter Break]

The sun creeping in through the window and touching my face wakes me up. In a haze, I crawl out of bed. The poster of Maria Mithras above my bed is illuminated by the orange light of the setting sun, her face slowly disappearing into the dark.

"Maria-no-more, farewell tour," the text on the poster says. Right. Her last tour, after they fixed the destabilization of reality.

"Rosa," I hear my father yell from downstairs. "Dinner is ready."

Rosa? Aren’t I Marieken? I look around. This is my room. My CDs, my novels, my Sanrio plushies. I open the door to my room, and find the hallway completely dark. A feeling of dread creeps up my spine. I sneak down the stairs, afraid to awaken whatever nightmares might lurk in the dark, around the corner, under the steps of the stairs. Downstairs, in the hallway, a single candle burns on the desk in front of the mirror.

Black hair. Brown eyes. Pale skin, and an odd scar running down the left side of my face, as if someone took a box knife to my face and tried to skin me.

"Rosa," I hear my dad yell from the living room.

"My name is Marieken," I say, indignated, as I enter the living room. Here, too, the only illumination is candles. My dad sits behind a long table with eleven others. Only the seat next to him is empty.

"Hey," Robin says, waving at me.

"You’re finally here," Ms. Rosencrantz says.

"I knew you’d come," Noor says. Human girl Noor, who does not have glass eyes or ball-joints.

"She wouldn’t miss her own going-away party," Kate whispers.

"Come sit next to me," my dad says, gesturing at the empty seat next to him.

I look around, but all save the far end of the room, where the table is illuminated by a hundred candles, is dark. "What is going on?" I ask, trying to come across strong and brave.

"We’re celebrating you getting better, Rosa," Sareth says, pointing into the darkness. Candles ignite, revealing a poster.

"Marieken-no-more, farewell tour," the poster of Maria Mithras with her head obscured by shadows reads.

"This is wrong," I stammer as I try to take a step back. The darkness behind me is unyielding, and refuses to let me retreat.

"Rosa," Ruby-Lynn says, disappointment dripping from her voice. Ruby-Lynn, with normal blonde hair, wearing jeans and a blouse. "Don’t you want to eat with us before you leave?"

"Leave where?" I cry.

"The sun is setting," Walter says. "Soon it will be dark, and there will be nothing left."

"Come," my dad says, gesturing at the empty seat again, this time with more vigour.

"Don’t you want to spend some time with us before you leave forever?" Hiro asks.

"Before I leave where?" I ask, trying not to break. Trying not to start screaming and crying.

"The cold and dark lands we travel to when all else is said and done," a girl I don’t recognize says. She’s wearing a cat-ear headband.

"Who are you?" I stammer.

"Nozomi de Vries," she says. "We haven’t actually met yet."

"Oh," I say, as I carefully approach the table.

"Finally," my dad says as I creep around the table, on edge and afraid. "I knew you’d join us."

The moment I sit down, everyone else is gone. The candles start to die and fade. Outside the wind howls, and I know the sun has set. I know the sun has set for the last time, and it will not rise again.

"Is this really all there is?" I scream into the void. "Is this all?" I cry. In the distance, light twinkles, and a fear so great as to halt my heart in my chest overcomes me.

-------------------

I wake up screaming.

"Jesus," Ruby yelps as she jumps back from the bed. "Marieken, calm down. I was just trying to wake you."

"Where am I?" I ask, as I look around the unfamiliar room. My plushies, my posters, the familiar cat scratches at the door- ah, right. I am not in my room. I am in Robin’s house in the harbor.

"You’re in our guest room," Ruby-Lynn says. "You took a nap to recover from burnout. You wouldn’t wake so I tried to shake you, but it frightened you. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have touched you."

"No, no," I stutter. "I had a nightmare. It’s okay."

"Is it?" Ruby asks.

"What?"

"Is it okay? Are you okay?"

"Yeah," I say, trying to shake the last remnants of the dream out of my head. "Are we going to see Robin?"

"We are," Ruby-Lynn says. "Do you feel like you can come along? Though I think it should be fine regardless, it’s already almost evening."

"The sun is setting," I whisper. "Do you think it’ll rise again?"

"What?" Ruby asks. "That’s incredibly creepy, Marieken. Don’t say things like that."

"Sorry," I say.

"Come, Mercy and Lily are waiting downstairs. Let’s go embark on our quest to go see Robin!"

I nod, and crawl out of bed. My clothes are ragged and weathered, much more so than before I went to sleep. Almost intuitively I dispel them, and weave new clothes out of my penumbra.

In the doorway, Ruby-Lynn looks at me dumbfounded.

"What did you just do?" she asks, incredulous. "Did you manifest an entirely new outfit?"

"Huh?" I say, looking around in confusion. Did I do that? "Oh," I say as I realize what happened. "No, when I reformed my body I must’ve gotten my clothes mixed up in my self-image. They aren’t really clothes, I suppose, but part of my projection."

"What do you mean by that?" Ruby asks me as we leave the room and walk down the stairs together.

"Well, the self is really more of a projection on the wall, isn’t it? The soul gives rise to the body. I’m not sure where clothes in general come from- Maybe there’s a cloth-soul that gives rise to textiles and such? But these clothes are part of me. I’m sure that with some time alone I could learn to manipulate them."

"Marieken, what are you talking about?" Ruby asks, almost concerned. "Is this a mental image you’ve created as conduit for your magic? I’ve never in my life seen someone manifest physical matter through magic."

"Euh," I say. "I’m not sure."

"About what?" Lily asks, waiting for me at the bottom of the stairwell.

"Being a lesbian," Mercy says. "She’s not sure she wants to jump in bed with Ruby straight away."

"What? No," I say. "Don’t say weird things like that."

The two dolls snicker and laugh.

"Behave," Ruby says. "Let’s go see Robin. It’s about twenty minutes by public transport, so please try to behave for at least that long."

"Sorry," I say on impulse.

"God, she’s good," Lily says. Mercy laughs. I have no idea what the joke is.

The trip to the hospital is arduously slow. Hopping on public transport, off public transport, on public transport again- it would be so much faster to shadowstep around. Yet only days ago I was confined to cars and bikes and light rail myself- and not only that, I realize. My entire life has radically restructured itself in mere days. Around me in the crowded subway car, Mercy and Lily argue about clothing brands. Ruby chides them and reminds them they don’t have enough money to buy actual fashion. I don’t feel part of their little group, the way I don’t feel part of Kate and Walter’s home either. It all feels so ephemeral, like I am just drifting by. Just a shadow on the wall, now here only to vanish come sunrise. After what feels like an eternity- in reality, most likely around thirty minutes- of being cramped between the random passengers of Amsterdam’s overcrowded public transport system we arrive at the Hospital of Our Lady of Mercy.

"We’re here to see Robin Robinson, has he been moved to a visitor’s ward yet?"

"Periphery Demographic?" The nurse behind the desk in the large entry hall asks.

"Yeah," Ruby-Lynn says.

The nurse shakes her head in disapproval, and for a moment a dark impulse comes over me. Rip, tear, destroy the interloper- assert your dominance. I take a step back and try to shake the dark thoughts out of my head.

Nightmare Corruption, the lexicon in my head oh-so unhelpfully butts in. That’s ridiculous, I decide. I’m not suffering from nightmare corruption. For starters, I’m not dead, and nightmare corruption happens to dead people.

In military studies regarding cPTSD in active combat situations, the rate of nightmare corruption was found to far exceed the rates found in the civilian population. During the invasion of Iran, several platoons reported experiencing ‘waking nightmares’ eventually leading to the [redacted] incident.

Excuse me? Hello? The lexicon refuses to answer.

"Marieken?" Ruby-Lynn asks me, concerned.

"Huh?"

"Are you okay? Can you hear me?"

"What? Yeah. I’m fine. What’s up?"

"I’ve been talking to you for the past minute, but you’ve been staring into space. Robin is on the third floor, west ward."

"Oh, sorry," I mutter. "I was lost in thought."

The two dolls giggle. I can barely keep them apart, and begin to find them annoying. Mass produced porcelain sex toys with clay for brains. Ruby-Lynn, Mercy and Lily head deeper into the hospital ward, and I follow along. There’s something off about the hospital. The smell of sterilization chemicals mixes with something I can’t quite tell. The fluorescent lights split my two shadows into eight, which animate and play out a vaudeville routine on the walls.

"Are you doing that on purpose?" Lily asks me, stopping to stare at the shadow-characters.

"No," I say. "My second shadow does as it pleases."

Why does it do so? Another question. My entire existence is riddles and conundrums. We continue down the hallways, decorated in primary colours washed out by the yellow fluorescent lamps illuminating them. It gives the entire hospital an aura of sickness and decay. Fitting, I reckon. Ruby-Lynn spends some time checking room numbers, then leads us to the room where Robin is.

"Woah," Robin exclaims as we all walk in. "Who is that?" He asks, pointing at me. For a second or so I am deeply hurt- has Robin forgotten about me entirely? Then I remember.

"Marieken," I say at the same time as Ruby-Lynn. We look at each other, and laugh. "I’ve had some things happen earlier today," I explain as I point at my hair and eyes.

"Good god," Robin whispers. "You’re beautiful. The white hair- god. You’re finally you."

Robin is completely covered in bandages, his black t-shirt on the chair besides his bed. IV tubes are attached to both his wrists.

"Robin!" Lily yammers as she runs over to kneel at his bedside. "I’m so glad you’re not dead. You can’t die. Life is awful with just Mercy and Ruby."

"Hey," Mercy yells.

"Quiet, calm down," Ruby-Lynn commands. "This is a hospital. Please behave."

"What on earth is this ruckus," a girl I have never seen before says as she walks into the room. She’s blonde, with striking blue eyes. A scabbard with a japanese ninja sword sticking out is slung over her shoulder. For a moment I suspect her of being a cat or foxgirl of sorts, but then I realize the ears glued to her head are fake, and so is the tail hanging from her belt.

"Wait a minute," I say. "That’s wrong. I have seen you before. You were in my dream the other night."

"Excuse me?" The girl says.

"Nozomi?" Ruby-Lynn asks with a tone implying it is unusual this girl is here.

"Yes," I say. "Nozomi de Vries-"

I choke on my breath. Of course. De Vries is my own last name on my biological father’s side, and it’s not an uncommon name at all. A solid five percent of the country is called de Vries. But I do know another de Vries carrying a katana around. Another de Vries with striking blue eyes and an obviously fake Japanese name. All the blood drains from my face, and I cannot bring myself to speak a single word.

"Robin, one of your Moontouched is going bad. Past her expiration date maybe," she says, brushing past me to sit down on the chair next to Robin’s bed.

"She’s been zoning out all evening," Ruby-Lynn says. "She almost died from burnout earlier today. She’ll be fine."

"Burnout?" Robin asks in a panic.

"A lot happened today," Ruby explains.

"I don’t want to talk about it," I quickly add. "Maybe later."

"Nozomi, why are you here?" Ruby-Lynn asks. "Robin better not be in some kind of trouble."

She scoffs. She scowls. She spits on the floor. "It was my minion that shot up your witch. I thought it only courteous to pay him a visit in the hospital. I also had a bet running on him, so Robin quadrupled my net worth for me."

"You bet against your own guy?" Ruby asks.

"What, up against Robin? Of course."

"It seems we missed a lot," Ruby says.

"So have I," Robin replies in turn. "I want to know all about what happened to you later, Marieken. I’ve been worried about you."

"Yeah," I mutter. "Later."

"I’ll leave you alone with your polycule," Nozomi says. "I’ll see you around, Robin." As she gets up and walks out, she purposefully bumps her shoulder into Ruby-Lynn, who takes it in stride.

"Good god," I whisper when I’m certain she’s out of earshot.

"What’s up, Marieken?" Robin asks me.

"You had a run-in with her or her gang before?" Ruby asks.

"No," I say. "Not with her. The boy I fought this morning- with the katana."

"Oh god," Ruby-Lynn says, her eyes going wide.

"I killed her younger brother in self defense today," I say while looking at the floor, too scared to meet anyone’s eyes.

"Hiro," Robin says. "You killed Hiro? You killed Hiro ‘Stroopwafel Columbine’ de Vries this morning? Oh god, we are so dead."

"It was self defense," I stammer, afraid I am going to have to explain the entire story all again.

Robin starts laughing. "We’re so fucked."

"Robin!" Ruby scolds him. "This isn’t funny."

"I’m sure that if I explain-" I start, but Robin interrupts me.

"Marieken, do you know who Nozomi is? She looks silly, but she runs the second largest gang in the city. She runs the second largest gang in the city because she is frighteningly strong and has no moral compass or ethical constraints whatsoever. If she discovers you killed her little brother and that we’re harboring you she’s going to slaughter all of us."

I lack the words to answer.

"God, then there’s the nightmare demon issue."

"Euh?" I stammer.

"Hiro worked for Ms. Rosencrantz’ her police squad. He cleaned up three or four nightmare demons every week. Until they can find someone to replace him, there’s going to be incidents."

"How do you know about Ms. Rosencrantz?" I whisper.

"My job is to be informed, so I can make informed decisions for the good of all Periphery Demographics under my ward, Marieken."

"If Hiro worked for the cops, they’re gonna go looking for him," Ruby says.

"This is unbelievably fucked," Robin says, grinning like a maniac. "I’m not leaving this hospital for another week, and when I am going home I am going home in a wheelchair."

"What do I do?" I ask. The urge to cry wells up in my tear ducts, but I manage to swallow my pain. The two dolls look at the proceedings in stunned silence.

"You have to run," Ruby says. "You have to run so fucking far that the police will never find you, and that by the time Nozomi figures out what has happened- and she no doubt will figure it out- you are so far away that she can never catch you again."

"No," I say. "Kate. I can’t leave Kate. I don’t want to run. I was about to get a life here, a real life.

Where I could be myself, with real friends."

"Of course," Robin says. "You could also just kill Nozomi."

"Robin!" Ruby shouts. "She can’t! The amount of people who stand a chance against that girl can be counted on one hand. Add to that that she never rolls up to a fight alone, she’s always surrounded by those crazy biker goons of hers."

"You’ll have to train her," Robin says. "I vaguely recall Marieken claiming she had the highest Paraphysical Aptitude score ever measured in this city."

Ruby-Lynn stares at me. Behind her eyes, puzzle pieces are falling into place.

"Second highest," I say. "Second highest Paraphysical Aptitude score ever measured. And not just in this city. In the world."

"What’s your score?" Ruby-Lynn asks.

"Ninety five without blockers," I say.

"Marieken, do you understand that that’s like claiming you have an IQ of a million, right? It’s a logarithmic scale. My own score is twenty-nine. Hiro scored in the thirties. I’ve seen him pick up a car and throw it at someone like it was no big deal. Nozomi has a score of forty-two."

"It’s ninety-five without blockers," I repeat. "It dropped while I was on the blockers, and I haven’t been off of them for long."

"Marieken, do you understand how the logarithmic scale of Paraphysical Aptitude works?"

"No," I answer.

"Every three points you add to the scale, the hypothetical power output doubles. If you scored ninety-five, they’d have alerted the military. That’d make you a living god."

"They did," I say, "Alert the military. They made me sign all kinds of documents and treaties. Compared me to an atom bomb. Wait, a god?"

Ruby-Lynn stares out the window and into the dark streets below. "Robin, I’ve seen her casually transmute her own body into living shadow. She conjured clothes to replace her damaged clothes without any real display of effort," she says.

"Sounds about right for a score of ninety five," Robin grins.

"A god?" Lily asks. "She doesn’t come across particularly deific."

A god, I think to myself. Deep inside me, I feel the jet engine flare up. Ah, of course. Magic is narcissism. Rooted in the deeply held belief you are the most important person in the world. I could be god. All I need to do is seize it.

"You have to train her, Ruby-Lynn dear," Robin says with a smile on his face and twinkling in his eyes. "Imagine what she can do when she properly understands magic."

"No," Ruby says. "No, I can’t. What if- what if she’s dangerous?"

"What?" I yammer.

"My dearest," Robin says. "If you don’t train her she’s going to look for someone else to do it. Someone less wise than you. She might not get proper training at all, and one day she’ll suffer explosive burnout. Remember the girl who blew up the subway station in London? At ninety five aptitude, she’ll wipe this country clean off the map if that happens."

"God," Ruby mutters, still facing the window.

"And come on," Robin teases her. "Don’t you want to see what she can do? Aren’t you the least bit curious?"

Ruby stares out into the dark for a minute, then turns around. Her face is warped with worry. "I admit," she hesitantly says. "That I am a little curious what she’d be able to do."