Bliss. That’s the only word that could possibly describe how I feel after my first time with Sophia Lane, my dearly beloved. And second, and third, and almost a fourth.

  True to her word, her appetite is insatiable. She takes the lead and I follow eagerly, trusting that her truly shocking amount of experience will make things perfect for the both of us. The pain in my chest lessens with each twining of our bodies—each meeting of limbs, mouths, and parts—until it’s faded to an ache so slight I can almost ignore it completely.

  It doesn’t go away, though. When I pass into an exhausted, blissed out fugue state, hovering on the edge of unconsciousness and savoring the soft warmth of the body pressed against mine, I can still feel that little twinge of pain where my heart should be.

  When I wake up, Sophia is sitting on the side of the bed. She’s checking her phone, but she hasn’t dressed yet, and I marvel at the sight of her. My beautiful, wonderful, perfect girlfriend, and she’s really here; it wasn’t just a wet fever dream. I confessed, and she confessed back, and then she screwed my brains out. That actually happened.

  Sophia smiles when she notices me looking. “Rise and shine, love. How do you feel?”

  “Amazing,” I murmur thoughtlessly. “I want to stay like this forever.”

  “I feel the same way,” she sighs wistfully. “It was hard to tear myself away while you napped with how cute you looked.” A bit of mischief creeps into her expression as she asks, “Did you dream of me?”

  “Mm, hopefully. I don’t really remember my dreams unless they’re—”

  Reality catches up to me and I bolt upright. Did I sleep long enough to dream? Was that enough of a window? Shit, shit, shit, I should have told her, I was too distracted! Sophia notices my sudden alarm and frowns. “Love? What’s wrong?”

  I hesitate, almost flinching. Panic creeps into my thoughts as I realize my mistake, terrified of disappointing my precious Sophia right as I’ve finally been given her love. “There was one more thing I needed to tell you. I thought I could do it after we, y’know, since it’s big and messy and I don’t really know how to explain it properly, but I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I didn’t mean to dream. I—I don’t know if that’s bad, really, and I don’t think it is, because I think she’s on our side, but I really should have made sure you knew first because you’re so much smarter than me and you—”

  Sophia sets her phone down and shifts over to give me a hug. She’s still naked, and so am I, and that sudden contact knocks me out of my spiraling ramble. “It’s alright,” she says softly, stroking my hair. “I forgive you, love. I’ll always forgive you, no matter what, so just relax and get your thoughts in order. Tell me everything.”

  I nod and lean into her, closing my eyes to focus on physical sensation over all else. Her hair, her hands, her skin, her warmth. I find myself in her embrace and conjure the right words. “There’s another player in the game. Someone else you need to know about, because she has powers and an agenda and I don’t know what she’s after, but I know she’s strong and very, very knowledgeable. It’s… it’s Mordacity.”

  I open my eyes to find Sophia staring at me in confusion. “Your friend from high school? The weird girl with the red sneakers and the wizard hat?” Her gaze flicks up in thought and she frowns. “My model for her is adequately detailed, or so I thought. The witch with the Warcraft familiars? No, Demonologist is neither strong nor knowledgeable. Lady Luck? No, she has the right aesthetic and a dangerously useful power, but I’ve confirmed she’s a small-time player from multiple sources. Phage? Don’t be ridiculous, Athena, Mordacity was visiting Rachel while we were fighting the vampire—and I can’t imagine Mordacity would ever adopt that kind of gyaru look, even as a disguise.”

  It’s fascinating to watch Sophia converse with her power out loud—and I have to wonder if she’s doing that for my benefit, since usually she’s so reserved as Striga—but I don’t think she’s going to guess the answer here. “Not a witch,” I say, “and not a magical girl. The hat was the clue: she’s a genuine wizard.”

  Sophia blinks. “A what?”

  So she really didn’t know? I’m unnerved by any gap in Striga’s knowledge base, even if I was one of those gaps until a few hours ago. “She’s… I’m trying to remember how she put it. ‘A wizard is someone who learned magic the hard way.’ She didn’t get a mantle from the Jovians or make a contract with one of the egregores; she found a spellbook and started studying. Her magic is less limited than ours, but she has to create all her spells herself instead of borrowing them from a mantle. It’s like, you know how the Morrigan can do some words of power, and Howl has a sense for paths, and Lilith has her rituals? Mordacity’s magic is only that stuff, and she made it all from scratch. She’s where I got the idea to make the transformation spell I used on Agatha, and the idea to kill Venus by usurping her position.”

  Sophia’s frown deepens. Wariness enters her expression. “I… I didn’t think that kind of route to power was possible. Not to doubt you, love, but are you sure she wasn’t just putting on airs? If ‘wizards’ existed as another form of magic user, I really should have heard of them before now.”

  “I might actually have an explanation for that,” I muse with a frown of my own. “I didn’t really believe her either, at first. But she teleported me from our apartment building to Japan in a heartbeat, and not one person in a crowded street noticed our arrival. She says she can manipulate the veil—she can hide from the Jovians in plain sight, no matter where she is, and even disguise our DMs. And—okay, this is the part I really should have led with: you know the dream we all have? The pit, the sun, the city? That’s her dream. She proved it to me—told me secrets she shouldn’t know, referenced details I didn’t even remember until she pointed them out. She’s been using our dreams to gather information. She’s been in my dreams, Howl’s dreams, Ferromancer’s—even yours, I think. She knows all our identities. Do you remember a raven in your dreams?”

  A flinch tells me she remembers. Sophia’s gaze sharpens, her wariness intensifying. “You’re telling me that Mordacity of all people has been spying on all of us, and that she’s responsible for spreading the dream that awakens people to the World of Glass? That’s extremely troubling, Rachel. If she can hide from even my patron, that alone is a reason to be concerned. Do you know what she wants?”

  “No,” I admit. “I mean, I think she has a grudge against the King in Yellow, but aside from that she was frustratingly vague. She gave me advice and sent me home, and since then all she’s done is offer to help me track down the deimovore I transformed. That was a few weeks ago, and she’s been sending me updates; apparently it’s really good at evading her.”

  “I don’t believe that,” Sophia says instantly. The iron conviction of Striga is back in her voice. “If everything you’ve said about her is true, it shouldn’t have taken her more than a week to snare the deimovore. Rachel, I need to talk to that woman. An unknown factor this major cannot be left unaccounted for in my planning.”

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  I swallow nervously. “Right, of course. I—I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, Sophie.”

  She holds up a hand to stop me and softens her expression. “It’s alright. I understand. I’m focused on moving forward, Rachel, not looking back.”

  We leave the bed and get dressed. Under less stressful circumstances I’d be savoring every glimpse of my naked girlfriend, but I’m too busy worrying to act disappointed when Sophie puts on a shirt. I grab my phone and text Mordacity about scheduling another meeting in person. Sophia helps with the wording.

  Instead of a message back, I get a call. Sophia nods at me to answer, so I do.

  “Mord?” I ask. “You’re not usually the type to prefer call over text.”

  “Congratulations to the happy couple,” Mordacity drawls. “Hey there, Sophie-So. I guess it’s time we talked, yeah?”

  Since the call is through Discord, it’s basically on speaker by default, so Sophia hears everything loud and clear. Her eyes narrow at being addressed directly. “Mordacity,” she says calmly, still putting on the Striga voice. “I’ve been informed of some very interesting details about who you really are. Care to explain?”

  Mordacity chuckles. “To the girl that’s one step away from a precog? Nah, I like my opsec clean. I’m not arrogant enough in my wizard shit to think I could beat Batman with prep time, Strigs, and you’re like Batman’s brain in Superman’s body.”

  My hand tightens around the phone. “Hey, M?” I ask lightly, putting on airs to power through my rising distress. “Why are you talking like we’re enemies? It’s kinda freaking me out, can’t lie, because you’re kind of my oldest friend in the world and it would really, really suck if that stopped being true. We’re all on the same team, right? So why can’t you tell Sophie what’s going on?”

  “Friends,” the wizard muses, “have a funny way of disappointing you. Ah, what the hell. I suppose I owe it to the both of you, for all our long years of friendship.”

  Sophia furrows her brow. “You’re including me in that?” I find that strange, too; it’s not like Mord and Sophie are strangers, but the times they’ve interacted directly it’s always been in my company.

  “Of course. I’ve known you longer than you think. Known about you, too. Here’s your first gift, Lane: Hastur’s had an interest in you and Rachel since before the egregores were a twinkle in her eye. You’re not the only ball she’s juggling, but you’ve both got starring roles in the play she’s putting on. Your doomed love is the sauce that makes the whole dish sing.”

  What? But, that doesn’t make any sense. Sophie and I hadn’t even met when magical girls started appearing. Can the King in Yellow really see that far in the future? Could she have sculpted our lives so carefully? And if she did, why? Why us, and not any other couple?

  “How do you know that?” Striga asks calmly. “Your story is unlikely—and incorrect, besides. Our doom is behind us; Rachel and I are together, now, and we won’t be separated.”

  Mordacity snorts, the sound garbled by phone speakers. “Oh, my mistake. I’m sure you’re bound for a happily ever after. The Asshole in Amber will definitely leave you alone and not conspire to put the two of you in increasingly desperate situations for her amusement. Get real, Sophe: your girl is in more danger now than she was for all those years you were keeping your distance. Before, you were being kept apart; now they’ll try to tear you apart. Be ready.”

  “You could help us,” I plead. “Mord, we’re friends. I’ve known you since before any of this magic stuff, doesn’t that mean something? Work with us and we can stop the Tyrant in Turmeric together. Please.”

  Mordacity is quiet for a moment. Sophia opens her mouth to speak, but I shake my head to cut her off. I trust Striga’s instincts about almost everything, but she doesn’t know Mord like I do. If Mordacity’s not firing off another irreverent bit of snark, there’s something real stewing in her brain. If I can dredge some scrap of sincerity—

  “It was all a lie, of course,” she says cheerfully. “I got close to you because of Hastur. I needed to be in position to give you the right nudge, that’s all—and now, because of my meddling, you’ve gone and confessed to Sophia a whole week before you were meant to.”

  “Bullshit,” I say immediately. “M, we were friends for literally all of high school. You can’t tell me that was all fake, you can’t tell me that was all part of some master plan! Drinking, gaming, all our late night chats, I refuse to believe that was all just to lower my guard.”

  Another moment of quiet. “It would be easier for you if you did,” she says, suddenly weary. “My goals are incompatible with Sophie’s, A. So incompatible, in fact, that there’s nothing I could really do to play nice with the two of you. We can’t be allies. I’ve gotten what I needed from you, old friend, so it’s time to say goodbye.”

  “Why?” I demand. “What you could possibly want that—”

  “She’s after the throne,” Sophia murmurs. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. It’s one of two things I’d never compromise on, and I don’t think she’s interested in hurting you. She can’t work with us because some unavoidable step of her plan is about to make her my enemy to a degree she can’t explain away. She has a design for Venus that’s at cross-purposes with mine in both the long-term and short-term. Putting Jupiter’s seal at risk for something that will help her reach the throne, so she can take a shot at Hastur?”

  Mordacity sighs loud enough and exasperated enough for it to come cleanly across the connection. “And this is why we don’t start monologuing in front of the human supercomputer, ladies and germs. Time to take my own advice and scram. A parting gift for you, Sophe: ask yourself why Minerva never told you that wizards were possible. Maybe she knew about me, maybe she didn’t, but she had to have known that a human could learn to manipulate the World of Glass without a mantle. She kept that from you. Why?”

  And then the call ends. A moment later, Mordacity’s account disappears from my DMs, from my friends list, and from the server we shared with Femur, Mike, and Samantha. Holy shit. Did she delete her account to stop me from calling her? What the hell? I might have her old phone number still in my contacts list, but she’s probably changed it. Does a wizard even need a cell phone? If that wizard is Mordacity, absolutely; I can’t imagine her going a week without browsing Reddit or TV Tropes.

  The last thing Mordacity said left Sophia looking tense and unnerved. I ask, “Hey, are you okay?”

  She grimaces. “I dislike that I can’t discard her final provocation. When this business with Venus is done, I need to speak with Minerva. I need to know why I wasn’t warned. But more pressingly, I need to adjust my plans again.”

  I wince. “I… I’m sorry, again, for everything. For taking so long to tell you, and going off and mucking things up without your permission, and—”

  Sophie grabs my hand and squeezes. Love sweeps away everything else that was on her face. “You don’t need to apologize, Rachel. I really, truly understand.”

  I let out a soft sigh of relief, but I’m still nervous. “I’ll need to hear that again, I’m sure. And… Agatha? The deimovore? You’re not mad about… well… I gave a monster that eats people the freedom to do it, and I manipulated one of our teammates into letting me mess with her head.”

  Sophia actually laughs. “Oh, love, do you know how many awful, awful things I’ve done in the name of saving the world—more than that, saving you? Harm to you is the only line I won’t cross, Rachel. You’re the one thing I wouldn’t sacrifice. Those things you mentioned are just problems to be solved.”

  Huh. I feel like I’m looking at Sophie in a new light. If those aren’t limits for her… then they won’t be limits for me, either. I’ll do whatever it takes to help my beloved—and next time, I won’t fret about whether or not she’d approve. Of course, now that we’re together, I don’t need to hide it from her; I can just ask permission.

  “Okay,” she says, “as much as I’d like to spend more time just enjoying you, we need to go over the new plan. I know exactly how we can capitalize on the chaos you’ve sown. I’ll fill you in, and then you can leave the Ossuary and make the necessary lies to the Jovians and Visage. God, for the first time in a long time, I’m actually feeling good about this. I’m fighting on more fronts than I thought, but, thanks to you… I’m not going to be fighting it alone.”

  She smiles, and I smile back. I say, “That’s all I’ve ever wanted to hear.”

  And together, we scheme.

  TMGM goes on hiatus after the March 4th update. TMGM will return from hiatus on April 5th.