Sami had made it very clear that she would always walk three steps ahead of me. "Behind me. Not beside me. Not near me. Behind." She didn't glance behind her. "If anyone asks, you're the help. You carry things. You don't speak."
"Works for me."
"And don't TOUCH anything. The upper city has enchantments on everything and if you set one off with your grubby little mage hands I'll deny knowing you."
"Got it."
"And stop being so agreeable, it's creepy."
The gates of the upper city were thirty feet high walls of white stone and gold filigree, guarded by armored soldiers. As Sami displayed a pendant from inside her vest, the guards barely noticed me, casually waving us through.
The upper city looked like someone had taken another world and bolted it on top of the one I'd been living in. Every surface glittered, made of crystal and marble. The streets were wide and lined with trees that glowed a soft, golden light pulsing from their leaves. The buildings rose in tiers of white and silver, with facades covered in decorative stonework and inlaid gems that caught the light and threw it back in fractured rainbows.
Every railing was covered in gold leaves, and jeweled mosaics adorned the crosswalks. Fountains sprayed arcs of water that morphed from blue to purple to pink and back again. One woman floated by on a hovering platform, sipping from a crystal goblet while a tiny, enchanted bird circled her head, playing music. This part of the game had always remained locked and grayed out on the map. For years, speculation had raged on forums about what lay behind those gates: DLC that was planned but never released, or cut content for a future expansion that was never shipped.
"Keep up!" Sami hissed from in front of me.
A man with a fur-trimmed coat glanced at me as I passed. His eyes narrowed at my appearance. I stuck out in this place like a wine stain on a wedding dress.
"She's the help!" Sami shouted over her shoulder. "Hired her this morning! Never seen her before in my life!"
"If you want to make the lie believable you should probably pick whether you don’t know me or if I’m the help.”
"Shut up and walk."
An older woman with silver hair and a jeweled headpiece stopped and stared at us from across the street. Sami threw her arms wide and waved frantically. "Lady Ashford! Lovely to see you! She's with the cleaning service! I totally don't know her! Employee! Stranger!"
Lady Ashford kept squinting. Sami grabbed my sleeve and pulled me around a corner.
"Okay. You're in. The upper city, as promised. My end of the deal is done."
"Great. So where would the fan club meet?"
"That was not the deal." She folded her arms. "The deal was I got you through the gates. You're through the gates. Congratulations. Figure the rest out yourself."
"Sami, look at me." I pointed at myself. "If I wander around here alone I'll get stopped by guards inside of five minutes."
"Sounds like a you problem."
"And... when they ask who let me in, I'll tell them you did." I pondered, rubbing my chin. "I'll probably also mention you hired me to rob someone. Lady Ashford's house, maybe. She looked like she had nice stuff."
Sami's face turned almost purple. “What is your DAMAGE? Are you always this manipulative?”
"I'm on a deadline," I shrugged.
"You are the worst person I have ever met!” She turned and walked fast, with her shoulders rigid. "Come ON. And stay behind me. Way behind me."
I followed, keeping the mandated three foot gap, and let myself look around. The further into the upper city we went, the gaudier it got. Enchanted carriages rolled past without horses, propelled by glowing rune circuits beneath them. Street vendors sold luminous fruit, floating pastries and drinks whose flavor changed with each sip. A group of children chased a mechanical bird through a park, where the grass was trimmed to form someone's family crest.
Sami guided me along the main boulevards and into the narrower side streets, where the buildings became smaller and the foot traffic thinned. We went past the side streets and into the alleys, where the glamour began to fade. The marble gave way to older stone, cracked and weathered, and the enchanting street lamps dimmed to ordinary lanterns. As we made a sharp turn, the brilliance of the upper town disappeared, leaving us in a dead-end courtyard at the end of a narrow alleyway. The surrounding buildings were shuttered and dim, their facades overgrown with moss and climbing plants. In the middle of it all stood a fountain with a dry and cracked basin, and a weathered statue on top that I could not even recognize. Stone carvings were partially hidden under grime and lichen around the fountain's base. The carvings depicted unfamiliar symbols.
Sami stopped and looked around. She looked behind her, inspected the windows of the abandoned buildings, and then made her way to the fountain.
"What are we doing here?" I asked.
She ignored me and knelt beside the base, running her fingers along the carvings. She tapped three symbols in sequence: the top one, the one in the bottom-left corner, and the central one, holding the last symbol for two seconds. A rumbling noise emanated from within the fountain, followed by a slight movement of the base, revealing a narrow staircase leading into a dark abyss. “Come on.”
"You first," I said.
She groaned loudly and dramatically, and went down the stairs. I followed one hand on the wall and the other near my staff. The passage was so dark that I could barely see what was in front of me. Our footsteps echoed off the walls. The passageway looked like a smuggler's route, and I had been through similar places in the game. Underground networks connecting safehouses, hidden paths between districts... This one seemed incomplete, with sections where the stonework just stopped.
We passed through two rusty iron gates that Sami unlocked with a different pendant than she had used at the city entrance. Then, we climbed down a ladder to a lower level. Then, another small corridor led us to a wider one with warm light coming around a corner.
Sami stopped. “Keep your mouth shut until I say otherwise."
"Sure."
"I mean it, mage." She rounded the corner, and I followed her into the hideout.
The space was larger than I'd expected: an underground chamber with a vaulted ceiling supported by old stone columns. Lanterns hung from hooks on every surface, emitting a warm orange light across walls covered with demon queen memorabilia. It was everywhere: posters of Morrígan in dramatic poses, banners with her sigil—a black flame inside a circle of thorns—and even a statue of her, about eight feet tall and painted with impressive attention to detail. There were around eight people in the room. They were seated around a table covered in papers and candles. Upon our arrival, they raised their heads.
"Sami!" A woman stood at the head of the table, her arms wide and her smile big. "We weren't expecting you until—oh."
"Who's the stowaway?" The stocky man with a shaved head pushed his chair back from the table. “This is a sacred space." Now he was standing, his hand resting on the knife at his belt. “Outsiders are not permitted. That's rule one, Sami."
"I know the rules, Donal. I wrote the —" Sami coughed. "I know the rules."
Eight pairs of eyes were locked onto me.
"I don't know these people.” Sami exclaimed it right away, loudly, to me. "Never seen them in my life. I wandered into this basement completely by accident looking for a bathroom."
“...Okay.”
“Because I had to go. Very urgently. And I got turned around and ended up here, wherever here is, which I've never been to before and could not find again if my life depended on it. And before anyone says anything, I want to make it very clear that I think demons are disgusting." She was now speaking at a rapid pace. "Horns? Revolting. Tails? Sickening. The whole aesthetic makes me physically ill. I am actually allergic to demons. Severely. Being near demon-related materials causes me to break out in hives, which is why being around the demon queen is taking a real toll on my skin."
“Right.”
"And I don't know whose painting that is." She pointed to the portrait without looking at it. "Whoever commissioned it has terrible taste and too much free time and probably needs to talk to someone about their choices. Professionally. Not that I've looked at it closely. I haven't. But from a distance, because again, demon allergy. This is clearly the work of a disturbed individual. I could paint something much better. Not that I would, because why would I paint a demon? I wouldn't. I've never painted a demon. I once started a sketch but I burned it immediately."
I looked down at the table. Someone had carved deep letters into the wood: S.B.U. Sami caught my eye, then her cheeks reddened.
"Those initials were there when I—when whoever uses this room found it. Vandals. Could stand for anything. Susan. Bartholomew. Uranus. Those are three names that aren't mine. I don't even know my own initials; that's how uninvolved I am. And the statue in the corner? No idea who carved it. I've never held a chisel."
"Okay —"
"And the pamphlet rack? I actually find those titles offensive. It objectifies the queen and reduces her to her physical form which, while admittedly—I mean, regardless of how she—the point is, it's demeaning, and I had absolutely nothing to do with its creation, distribution, or the supplementary edition that came out last month with the centerfold."
"You..." I stifled a laugh. "...You're their leader?” I was grinning now. I couldn't help it. “A demon queen worshipper, president and founder of the fan club?”
"I am NOT a worshipper; I am a TRUE BELIEVER in the rightful ruler of —. " Her eyes grew wide.
"Does Lily know?"
Sami's face turned white. "She does not know and she will NEVER know."
“I can’t believe you started a whole cult for her; that is so funny," I was laughing now.
"It's not a CULT, it's a political movement!”
I was giggling so hard that my ribs ached. The more I looked at Sami's face, the more mortified it became. This was the funniest thing that had happened to me since my death.
"She can never find out." Sami grabbed my shirt in front and pulled me close, her eyes wide. "I will end you, mage. If you breathe a word of this to the queen I will make what I did to you in the throne room look like a friendly handshake."
"Relax." I peeled her fingers off my collar. "Your demon fetish is safe with me."
"It is NOT a fetish!" She released me, taking a step back, and smoothed her vest. "I am a noble of the upper city. She is the rightful sovereign of this realm. My loyalty is political, not... I don't have a THING for her! She's a demon!"
"A hot demon," someone at the table muttered.
"That's NOT the POINT!" Sami shrieked.
"Good luck." I patted her on the shoulder. "She's a piece of work." Sami pushed my hand away.
"Hold on." The woman at the head of the table squinted at me, and I watched recognition land behind her eyes. "I've seen her face before." She turned to Sami. "That's the MAGE. The one who's been climbing the tower! The one who's been trying to KILL our queen!"
The room erupted in screams. Chairs were scraped back, and voices overlapped. Donal's hand moved from resting on his knife to gripping it.
"Everybody calm down!" Sami lifted both hands.
"I'm trying to save her, actually." I attempted to keep my voice calm. "I'm trying to get her out of the tower."
"You expect us to believe that?" Donal spat.
"She's telling the truth." Sami stepped between Donal and me. Thank God. "I've seen it. She's working to get the queen out."
"Why?" The woman at the head of the table crossed her arms. "Why would the mage who's been attacking our queen suddenly want to help her?"
"Because Victoria is sending an army to kill her in less than thirty days and I'm trying to stop that from happening.”
"The queen defeated the King and his entire personal guard." Donal snorted. "One army isn't going to scratch her—"
"We're aware of Victoria's intentions." The woman cut him off. "We've been monitoring castle communications for months. We know an offensive is being planned." Her stare was icy. "What we don't understand is why one of Victoria's own challengers would turn against her?”
“A lot of her abilities are locked." I made my way towards them. “She can’t handle an entire regiment in her current state.”
"It's not just a regiment." The red-haired woman said. “They are developing some kind of weapon designed to target the guardians; we believe it has something to do with the Queen.”
"How close are they to deploying it?" I asked.
She shook her head.
I pulled a chair up and sat down. "Okay, look. I need to get her out of this tower. You guys seemingly know a lot about her. Any ideas on how we could get her out?”
"We've been trying to find a way to free her for months. Every plan we've come up with hits the same wall: the Covenant. It can't be broken from outside the tower." The woman grimaced.
"I know. I've been reading every text I can find on it." I ran my fingers through my hair.
“We could dig under the tower!" Donal pounded his fist on the table. "Go beneath the foundation, tunnel up from below, pull her out through the floor!"
"The tower doesn't have a bottom," the red-haired woman said. "We tried. The foundation goes down forever. We lost 70 shovels and Fergus."
"What if we get a bigger demon?" The younger man at the back raised his hand. "Like, a much bigger one. To eat the tower. If there's no tower, there's no Covenant."
"Where are we getting a bigger demon?" the scarred woman asked.
"I don't know, the ocean? Don't big things live in the ocean?"
"We're not summoning an ocean demon to eat a building," the red-haired woman said, rolling her eyes.
"What if we shrink her?" The man with glasses, who was very thin, leaned forward. "There are potions that reduce mass, if we shrink the queen small enough, maybe she could slip through the barrier."
"NEXT idea," the red-haired woman said.
"What about a decoy?" Donal crossed his arms. "We put a dummy on the throne. Dress it up, stick some horns on it. Victoria sends the army, they kill the dummy, everyone goes home. Meanwhile the real queen has already escaped."
"Through the barrier she can't pass through," I reminded him.
"What if we catapult her?" The younger guy was standing now, waving his arms around excitedly. “We could build a catapult big enough, launch her OVER the barrier. The Covenant says she can't walk out. It doesn't say she can't fly out!"
"She can't fly."
"She could learn."
"In the time it takes to build a catapult big enough to launch a full-grown demon queen over a magical barrier?"
"I'm just brainstorming!"
"What if..." said the scarred woman, chewing on a piece of her hair, "we convince the tower she's already dead? We could fake her death, stop her heart for a few seconds, the Covenant thinks the guardian is gone, the binding dissolves, and we restart her heart."
"Does anyone here know how to restart a heart?"
"I once revived a fish," the thin man offered.
"NEXT."
"Okay, hear me out." The young guy spoke again. "What if we get the queen pregnant? Do pregnant guardians get some kind of maternity exception? A leave of absence from the Covenant?"
Everyone in the room turned to look at him.
"What?" He shrugged. "It's a legitimate question."
"Who is going to get the demon queen pregnant?” Donal asked.
"I'm just asking about the policy!”
"There is no policy! There is no demon queen maternity leave program!"
"Well, maybe there SHOULD be!"
"As wonderful as all of those ideas are," I said slowly. “I don’t think any of these are going to work.”
“She's right,” agreed Sami. “We've been going in circles for months; the Covenant can't be broken from outside."
The room fell into a heavy silence.
The thin man in glasses cleared his throat. "Perhaps this is a silly question,” he said, adjusting his frames, "But since you're apparently friendly with Queen Victoria... why not just petition her to release the queen?"
Sami snorted.
"Petition her?" I frowned. "What good would that do? Victoria doesn't control the Covenant."
Several people exchanged glances.
The woman at the head of the table stared at me. "The royal bloodline created the Covenant generations ago to bind the guardians to the tower and keep them contained. It's crown magic, built on royal authority." She tapped the parchment. "Victoria isn't just the queen; she's the Covenant's living anchor. She could dissolve the binding on any floor she wanted. She could free every guardian in the tower with a word."
“Why didn’t you guys mention that earlier?” I jumped out of my chair, nearly toppling it over. “That’s it! The answer has been right in front of me the entire time.”
“Ha! Good luck getting that vile, throne squatting tyrant to lift a finger for anyone who isn't human." Donal laughed.
"She's scum," someone else commented, and several people nodded in unison. "She'd burn the tower to ash before freeing a single guardian."
"That wretched woman killed her own husband's peace accords to start the tower campaigns," the woman at the table added. "Everything she does is about control. She doesn't want peace."
In the game, Victoria had been many things: bland, underwritten and lame. But she'd never been evil. Every decision she made was framed as morally good, even when it was boring. Save the villages; protect the innocent; sacrifice for the kingdom. Which meant that, behind all the politics, there had to be a version of her who would listen to reason. She wasn't a villain.
"I'll talk to her," I said. “I know she’ll understand.”
For a few moments, the room was quiet, and then they all burst into laughter. Donal was hunched over the table. The woman hid her face in her hands. The thin man was slapping his knee with his open palm, and his glasses were sliding down his nose.
"She's going to TALK to her!" Donal howled. "She's going to have a little CHAT with Victoria about freeing the demon queen! Over TEA, maybe!"
“I'm serious,” I said, which made things even worse.
Sami was leaning against her column and laughing so much that she'd slid half the way to the floor. "That miserable little cockroach would sooner choke on her own tongue than spare a monster!" She wiped her eyes. "Oh my god. Wait... oh, you're serious? That makes it so much funnier!”
"Victoria isn't evil, she's just —"
"STOP!" Sami wheezed and gripped a chair for support. "Stop, I'm going to pee my pants. I can't —"
"I don't get it," I said. “She has the power to fix this. If I explain the situation, if I appeal to her—”
"Appeal to her WHAT?" Sami had regained her footing, her under eyes smudged with makeup, her cheeks damp. "Her goodwill? Her mercy? Her deep personal commitment to monster rights?" She barked out one more laugh and then caught her breath, wiping her face on her sleeve. "Ayla, listen to me. The royal family is the reason monsters are locked in the tower in the first place. They CREATED the Covenant. They built it to keep anything non-human caged forever.”
"But Victoria specifically —"
"Victoria is the worst of them. My family is bad, okay? My parents would disown me if they knew I was down here." She paused. "The royal family makes my family look progressive. Victoria's grandfather wrote the original Covenant. Her mother reinforced it. Victoria has spent her entire reign expanding the tower campaigns and increasing bounties on guardians. This isn't a woman who's going to hear your little speech and have a change of heart."
"I'm still going to try," I said.
This time, no one laughed. Sami stared at me for a moment before shaking her head.
"Your funeral, mage."
"Wouldn't be my first one."