Lost at Sea Bk. 02 Ch. 30

The spider hissed and worked faster. Legs from around the room pulled back into the shadows and emerged nearer to him, reattaching the web in other ways, compensating for the broken strand.

"Her suspension is precarious," the woman said helpfully.

"Quinn, wait" a voice came from below.

Bella was there, half obscured by the fog. He remembered hearing her voice in the dark earlier. Where had she been?

"Help me," he said angrily.

"This is a dream!" Bella said quickly. "Everything here is a metaphor."

Quinn's brows furrowed. He did not dream. He understood them as a concept, but the idea that this place wasn't actually real was a distressing idea. To him, there was no magics more despicable than illusions. Without the ability to observe what was real, one could not understand anything true. Without understanding truth, nothing could be created. Nothing could be improved. Illusions robbed humanity of their greatest gift.

"How do I destroy it?" Quinn asked Bella.

"You don't," Bella said. "This is all an expression of how Jack feels. Until she wants to be free, every attempt to free her will hurt, and cause her to tighten her own bonds."

"What do we do?" Quinn asked.

"We talk to her. Convincer her," Bella said. "Look for places where the web can be untangled without breaking the threads."

"She will resist us," Quinn said.

"I brought a distraction," Bella smiled. She stepped out of the fog pulling Will by the hand. He looked around in confusion, and concern.

Jack had been lost in her own thoughts, barely paying attention to her surroundings. As soon as Will entered the parlor, her eyes snapped open and locked onto him. "No," she whispered. "Please no."

Bella looked around the room. Her shrewd eyes narrowed. "I have an idea. Roll with whatever she says," Will nodded. The dark haired witch let go of his hand and headed towards the web-shrouded staircase.

Quinn wanted to tear down every thread. He could. His bond with her allowed him that power. She would be free, and forget, and be fine. She would never know what she had lost.

He would, as a last resort. Frustrated, he climbed back out onto the web and sat in it like a hammock. "I am here," he whispered in Jack's ear.

She leaned her head towards him, anguished. "Make Will leave."

"I will," Quinn said. "When you are unbound."

Jack's face twisted. "I don't want him to see this."

"Jack?" Will asked.

"Go away!" Jack yelled.

"Why?" Will asked.

"Because I don't want you here!" she shouted down to him.

"Why should I do what you want?" Will countered.

Quinn tilted his head. Will's voice was off. It sounded like Will, but the speech patterns were different. So this is what Bella had meant when she'd said the Doctor would stand in for Will. He hated the deceit of it, but had to admit it was a clever ploy.

"You... shouldn't," Jack said, defeated. "Fine. Stay if you want. It's what I deserve."

"Expected more of a fight than that, I" Will said in a challenging tone. "Seems like you want me here after all."

"I... do," Jack admitted. "I just... know that you'd be better off... anywhere else."

"Why?" Will asked.

"Because I hurt you," Jack said quietly. "So many times. Every time I tried to make things better it made them worse."

"Why do you think that happened?" Will asked.

"Because I made the wrong choices!" Jack snapped angrily, her voice full of self-loathing. "I thought I was doing the right thing, but I went about it the wrong way, and was too proud to admit I'd been wrong."

"So rather be tied up and pulled away, you, than make amends?" Will asked.

"I can't make amends!" Jack said through her flood of tears. "Not ever! I sacrificed our friendship to make the key that opened a lock that I still don't understand! There's a reason for all those traps and trials we went through! We thought we were so clever, but I knew we were opening doors that should have stayed shut."

"Sacrificing friendship to a magical lock?" Will chuckled. "Sounds like fairy tale nonsense."

"That's what you said then too," Jack reminded him. "Look at us. We aren't friends. We are barely colleagues. You're only here to learn more about what I did to you. We can't ever be friends now."

"Why?" Will asked.

"Because I had to betray you," Jack said mournfully. "That was the part I didn't tell you. I knew. From the beginning I knew. The betrayal was part of the price. I told you all this!"

"Not quite what I asked," Will said calmly. "But appreciate you telling me again, I."

"What?" Jack said, blinking back some tears and looking at him more closely.

"Why can we not be friends now?" Will asked.

"I told you!" Jack shook her head, confused and upset.

Will held up a finger to silence her. "Told me, you, why we could not be friends then, yes? Have not told me, you, why we cannot be friends now."

"Because..." Jack shook her head. "The trial. The ritual."

"The costs of magic are paid in the present," Will said. "An immutable law, that. True, a cost can change who you are. In that way, the price can change your future." Will held up a finger. "But, a cost can never be paid later. A cost is never perpetual."

"What?" Jack's breath felt heavy in her chest.

"Sacrificed our friendship then, you" Will clarified. "Nothing stops us from building a new friendship now."

"But...' Jack muttered. She shook her head. "I thought..."

"And were wrong," Will cut her off.

Jack stared in empty dismay, then let out a sad laugh. "Of course. I'm always wrong."

"So why then, can't we build something new?" Will asked.

"Because... I still betrayed you," Jack shook her head. "Even without blaming the sacrifice, I still don't deserve to be your friend anymore."

Will shrugged. "If I were unable to entertain the idea of forgiveness, never would have come with you, I."

Jack put her face in her hands.

Quinn's eyes widened. He hadn't even seen her free herself. One moment she was bound tight in a mess of glittering white, the next she was free. He stroked her hair, but knew better than to speak. The doctor's words were proving far more suited to the task than his.

Jack latched onto his hand with both of hers, holding tight like a rope tossed to someone drowning. All he could do was hold on, and hope.

While Jack struggled and sobbed, Bella had made her way up the stairs, pulled out a chair, and sat down unceremoniously in front of the woman in white.

"So you're the bitch," she said with a smile.

"You are rude, and mistaken," the woman said balefully.

"Oh, I know," Bella said. "I just wanted to get a look at you." Her eyes scanned the massive black spider and the iridescent throne. "You don't think all this is a bit much?" she said with a dismissive gesture.

"I think it is unsurprising that someone like you wouldn't understand the power of proper presentation," the woman said with an insulting roll of her eyes.

"Oh don't get it twisted. I understand what this is," Bella said. She pointed to the perimeter of the round ballroom. "Warding circle." Then to the web. "Channeling sigils." Then to the spider. "Really gross weaving sigil." Then to the woman in white. "Focus nexus." She winked. "How'd I do?"

"Like a child with a picture book," the woman said with a roll of her eyes.

"That's rich coming from someone who's a day old and doesn't really exist. You're a spell stuck in Jack's head. You're latched into her thoughts. They feed you, and give you a sort of understanding of your own. Your appearance is made out of what Jack thinks about you. You're not really conscious though, you're just a bunch of Jack's twisted ideas being warped as you spread."

"Oh really?" the woman said dryly.

"Really," Bella nodded sagely. "I mean, do you even have a name?"

The woman's eyes narrowed and the spider chittered in discomfort. "You may call me... Shade."

Bella looked pained. "Oh come on. Jack is the most well read and inventive person I've ever met. You're made out of her mind, and that's the best you could come up with? I'm embarrassed for you."

Simultaneously, the woman threw her glass at Bella and the massive spider lunged. The whole web shook with their anger. Paintings pulled off the walls and tables were yanked off the floor, stuck suspended in the threads.

Bella caught the wine glass. The wine splattered across her chest. The spider's legs and fangs passed right through her, like they were made of shadows. Bella smirked.

"Witch," Shade hissed.

Bella wiped some wine off her chest with a finger and put it in her mouth and laughed. "Oh, I remember this." She looked closer at the glass. "Do you remember, Jack?" Bella said louder, speaking to the room. "Our first anniversary. You bought me a bottle of wine worth more than I make in a month. I told you I couldn't ever drink it, so you popped the cork, poured it down your body, and told me it was all going to end up on the floor if I didn't start licking. Then you did the same to me. It was the best wine I've ever had. Later we took a bath and I complained about how much had ended up on the floor anyway. You got up, walked out of the room dripping wet, and came back with a second bottle." Bella's voice broke at the end. She blinked back tears.

Shade rolled her eyes. "How quaint. Is there a point to this?"

"If you're listening, then Jack is too," Bella said. "This wine is our wine. No matter how tight a web you weave you'll never take it away from her, and you'll never be able to make anything like it. This is real, and you aren't."

The spider lashed out at her again. More legs. Fangs. Black soulless eyes. The webs shook and pulled. More gaudy furniture and trinkets became stuck. On her throne, Shade laced her fingers together, barely moving in spite of the tantrum thrown by the spider. "Your silly wine story may be real, but when I am done it will not matter."

Bella drank the last drops of wine from the goblet and ignored the shadow-spider's impotent attacks. "It will always matter."

"Why!" Shade raged through clenched teeth. "Why can't I hurt you!"

"Two reasons," Bella said with a helpful smile. "One, I'm not really here. I'm not a part of Jack's mind. You don't have any power over me. In theory, Jack could hurt me. It's her dream after all. It still wouldn't be real, but while I'm here I have to play by her rules. That's why I had to walk up the stairs, and why I was able to catch the cup. It's also why your disgusting spider can't hurt me." She opened her hands like a magician revealing a trick. "Jack doesn't want you to hurt me."

Shade glared. "The longer I am here, the more powerful I become. Eventually your precious Jack will care more about serving me than protecting you."

"That's not going to happen," Bella shook her head.

"If you're so sure, why are you even bothering to talk to me?" Shade asked.

"You're a reflection," Bella said. "I don't know if you have a connection to the person who created you, but I know you're at least modeled after her. You're made of magic shaped by her, and what Jack thinks of her. I figured that I could learn some things about her by talking a bit with you."

"Should I be flattered?" Shade said sarcastically.

"No." Bella said. "You should be scared."

Without warning she threw the glass back at Shade. It hit the dusky woman squarely in the mouth, snapping her head back. Her wide white fell off her head. Wide eyed she stared at Bella. She wiped blood from her lips and sputtered.

The spider shrank back deeper into its web, drawing its legs in tight against its body. With white knuckles gripping her throne, Shade simply stared.

Bella stood up from her chair and started walking forward. She never tripped or became stuck. The webs seemed to be everywhere her feet weren't.

"You told me everything I needed to know," Bella said calmly. "Everything I said, you responded to. You thought you were in control, so you took the bait. That means Jack thinks you're easily manipulated when you think you're in charge. You can't hurt me, so I know Jack still loves me. You ran when I hit you, so I know Jack thinks you're a coward. I can hurt you, so I know Jack wants you gone."

The angry witch backed the spider up until it had nowhere left to retreat to. It stopped and cowered halfway beneath a massive table that looked stolen from a king's court, lined with web-covered chairs. Bella's lip curled as she realized the table was full of wealthy people wrapped in webs. Shade's center of power was an opulent table, empty of anything nourishing, surrounded by husks of nobility that had long since given up.

"Oh, she really hates you," Bella chuckled to herself.

"I am still here!" Shade shrieked in scared defiance. "This place is mine!"

Bella shrugged, "Not for long."

"Lies!" Shade hissed. "I'll kill you!" The woman raged, but the spider trembled with fear.

"I guess it's probably a good thing Jack doesn't know much about magic," Bella said. "If she did, you probably would have known better than to let me get this close."

With nowhere to go, Shade pulled her knees up into the throne, trying to make herself smaller. "Hurting me only hurts your beloved Jack!"

"I know," Bella said. "She'll understand."

Bella calmly put a knee on the throne and a knife through Shade's heart.

The woman in white seized. Her eyes went wide. Her mouth opened but no sound came out.

"I want you to know," Bella said. "Everything you've done to the people I love, I'm going to do to Shae. You showed me how."

"I... won't..." Shade choked out.

Bella twisted the knife. Shade burst into fog and faded from the dream. Bella sat down in the throne and looked around at the shimmering web.

"Tear it all down."

____________________________________

Jack sobbed in Quinn's arms.

"All this time..." she choked. "I could have..."

"Still can, you," Will said.

"What if we... what if I still can't!" she cried. "What if it isn't magic keeping us apart? What if it's... just me?"

"Then at least you'll have tried," Will said with a shrug.

The webs shuddered. Jack began to sink. Quinn looked around and stared in shock. The massive black spider was now being ridden by Bella, and it was taking down its webs.

It took time. Jack barely noticed. Quinn held her and adjusted as the strands went slack, trying to keep her head turned away from whatever Bella was doing, just in case Jack seeing it could change it. As the spider pulled the ropes down they faded to nothing like they were never there at all. Eventually, Jack was suspended by only a few strands. She was stretched horizontal a few feet above the floor, cradled in a white cocoon. Quinn put his feet on the ground, but never let go of her hands. He was afraid if he did, she would put them back into the strands and bind herself again.

Bella's spider crawled down the staircase and settled behind Jack. Bella used the monster's head like a stepping stone. It pulled its legs in and didn't move.

"She has to do the rest herself," Bella said. "It should be easy now. The enchantment is barely hanging on, but the parts of Jack's mind that still want to believe everything it made her feel are..." she gestured to the cocoon of webbing.

"What about that thing?" Quinn asked.

"It's the enchantment. Well, a metaphor for the enchantment, anyway," the witch explained. "I removed its focus nexus, so now it won't do anything on its own."

"I do not understand," Quyinn said suspiciously.

Bella floundered a bit, trying to figure out how to describe what she'd done. "The enchantment was weaving thoughts and ideas about Jack's relationships with other people, and about that woman, Shae. She was the focus, and the spell was weaving Shae into everything Jack thought about everyone else. So I destroyed the focus. Killed Shae, metaphorically. The enchantment is still there, but it doesn't have a reason to do anything anymore."

"Then why is she still bound," Quinn asked, clearly frustrated.

"Remember how I said the longer the enchantment lasts, the more of the changes it makes become permanent?" Bella reminded him. She gestured to the cocoon. "That's the permanent stuff." She gestured to the few remaining strands suspending the cocoon. "The spell has become woven into something she really believes, and she's completely wrapped herself in it. I was worried that if I pulled it all down, I might damage her mind."

"How?" Quinn asked.

Bella pointed up to the ceiling and the staircase, where, showing Quinn reflective gossamer strands were anchored, suspending Jack's body. The closer the strands got to her, the more white and solid they became. The difference was subtle. "These threads are all thoughts and feelings. The glittery see through ones are feelings created by the spell. The whiter ones are from Jack. In the middle there, it gets hard to tell which is which. All the spell threads I left behind are connected to things Jack believes to be unquestionably true. Severing the spell threads might unravel whatever they're connected to. I don't know what that would do to her."

Quinn nodded. He didn't like it, but Bella's reasoning, and her care, were sound. "Thank you."

"Jack, can you come down?" Will asked gently.

Jack shook her head.

"Why not?" Will asked.

"It's safe here. Warm. Feels good," Jack said, sounding like she was half asleep.

"What feels good?" Will asked.

"Being held up. Resting. I'm tired," Jack said with a small, sad smile.

"How can she be tired in a dream?" Quinn asked.

"She's not," Bella said with a confused shrug. "It's a metaphor."

Quinn was growing increasingly frustrated with how little he understood of the situation. "Of what?"

Bella shrugged. "No idea."

"Might not be a metaphor at all," Will said. "Might be, she's just exhausted."

"In a dream?" Bella asked incredulously.

"Emotionally," Will explained. "Even without the spell, she has been through much. Needs time to rest, she. Time to reflect."

Bella nodded. "Makes sense."

"So what now? We leave her? Trapped?" Quinn asked, angry at the idea.

Bella put a reassuring hand on Quinn's thick shoulder. "This is all her now. She's not under the influence of the spell."

A muscle in Quinn's jaw fluttered. He pointed to the ephemeral webbing suspending her. "That looks like an influence."

Bella sighed. "Yeah. They won't grow or spread anymore though. They're just supporting things Jack refuses to let go of."

"So we do nothing?" Quinn asked angrily.

"Done what we can, yes?" Will said gently. "No medicine is instant. Wounds can be stitched, but still need time to heal."

Quinn's stoic mask broke. He closed his eyes and looked simply defeated. "I cannot serve her until she is free of this."

Bella spread her hands in confusion. She hadn't known Quinn long, and knew little about the Asura. Quinn's motivations baffled her. "Why not?"

"She is still enchanted," Quinn said. "I cannot be sure her will is her own. Anything she asks of me, I must doubt."

"That doesn't mean you can't still do what you think is best for her. It just means you don't have to do what she says." Bella countered. "Sometimes that's a good thing."

"Know little of your arrangement, I" Will added. "Seems though, this situation puts you on more equal footing, both. Could be a blessing, that."

Quinn's brow twitched. "Explain."

"Among humans, relationships are less... transactional," Will continued. "Are free, we, to say no to our partners, at any time, not just when we think their agency is compromised. In that way when agree to something, we, our partners know it is because we want to, not out of obligation."

"For her, I do both," Quinn said firmly.

"Does she understand that?" Bella asked. "The Jack I know has a hard time understanding when people love her, even when it's shouted from a rooftop. She talks tough, but she second guesses her own worth and worthiness all the time."