The Arcana Club

Spring wasn’t supposed to challenge me to a duel. I was supposed to challenge her. I wasn’t ready, but I couldn’t refuse, right? It wasn’t like I could ask Cas or Cindy, since they were solidly captured.

We burned the plants holding Cas and Van hostage.

“Invention!” Van yelled, changing to the familiar figure.

“No,” Cas grabbed their arm, “We can’t interfere in a duel.”

“I didn’t accept yet,” I said.

“You destroyed her work,” Cas said, “That’s as good as accepting. If we do anything to interfere, she can claim either of your talismans.”

Spring seemed to be preparing her next attack. We put ourself between her and our friends.

“Bystanders can no longer be used,” Spring admitted, receding the plants holding everyone else, “This is between us.”

The plants around us twisted and grew into a cage, keeping the two of us separate from the rest.

We made a little fiery dust devil, quickly dissipating it before it veered toward Nerves.

“Good job not killing me this time!” he cheered.

“You seem ill-prepared, sisters,” Spring said, “Like you’re not ready to hurt someone you care about.”

“Of course not,” we said, “We’re doing this because we want to save you.”

A plant grew next to us, missing as we flew out of range. We burned it before it caught up.

Then the ground did its work, jutting into our back, scraping it as we slid down back to Spring.

We lifted our hand to hit her with fire, but it didn’t come out.

Spring laughed.

A gust of wind blew her into the wall, which grew itself to be more of a cushion.

A vine grabbed our legs. We were barely able to burn it before the ground tried to impale us again.

“The light brother is using you!” we insisted, “You mean less to him than a soldier means to a king.”

“Does Talisman treat his soldiers any better?” she returned. Along with more vines to burn.

“He doesn’t isolate us!”

We gestured to our friends on the sidelines. The walls thickened to make them less visible. We weren’t able to fight the next spear of earth pushing us against the much firmer wall.

“If she pushes you out of bounds, you lose!” Cindy’s muffled voice said.

“I guessed that!”

Rock didn’t burn, and air didn’t do much against it either. We should have gone after Winter first.

But we couldn’t yield, and we couldn’t let her crush us.

We reached our hand out toward her, a silent cry for help.

“Do you yield?” she asked.

This time the flame worked. As she ducked, the rock released us enough to no longer be pinned.

“He’s turned you against us!” we yelled, “You choose to fight your sisters for the cause of a man who loves another.”

“I will have my sisters back, you brat!”

“So he can give us new hosts?” we asked, “Ones who will remain mindless so we don’t realize how much of ourselves have been lost? Separate us from each other again?”

Spring paused there, and we took our opportunity, burning the wall behind her, and pushing her out with a gust of wind.

The walls disappeared, and Spring slowly turned into Leora after pulling off the pin she wore. As I held it in my hands, it changed to a keychain to match the others.

Everyone ran around me, excitedly, though we all kept an eye on Leora as she came to her senses.

Leora scuttled back from all of us.

“You monsters!”

Van and I detransformed.

“No,” we said, “We’re just—”

“You destroyed my home!”

The house was intact, by some miracle, but the backyard was thoroughly wrecked. Most of the pots were destroyed, and the plants lay limp on the ground.

“It’s me, Yaya,” Van said, “We can help you put it together.”

“You’re not my grandchildren. You’re hooligans, delinquents…”

We braced for the impact of her hurling some sort of superhuman slur our way.

“Liars!”

That stung badly too.

“Technically you did all this damage,” Nerves said, “Do you remember a pin with flowers on it that you’ve been wearing frequently? This can’t be the first time you’ve lost a few minutes.”

Leora’s expression wasn’t one interested in correction. I offered a hand to help her stand up and she batted it away.

“Get out!” she yelled.

Cindy pulled us all away, keeping us from being hurt.

I sat, meditating in the Roddenstein’s backyard, everyone else standing with talismans ready to transform.

Do you plan to offer me the same deal as Autumn? Spring asked, her voice no longer sounded like Leora’s. It reminded me of animated princess films, though angrier at the world it would seem.

“If you want that,” I offered. I couldn’t actually see Spring, but Cas seemed to watch the air in front of me intently. I tried to angle my head in the same area.

I know you can’t see me.

“I wanted to try.”

I had no idea how to stop Spring being angry. I could barely make up with Nerves for longer than a week.

“I don’t know what you want in a host, and obviously you won’t be at the forefront, but I’m trying my best. You guys have been for centuries, and I’m only twelve.”

Then you really are a child, just like Winter said.

It wasn’t like Spring was completely unaware of me while we befriended Leora. She sounded mournful more so than surprised.

“Why do you follow the light brother?” I asked.

Winter died in battle, Summer died a savior, Autumn died of age, I died of consumption.

“Tuberculosis?” I asked, remembering footnotes in old books.

Possibly. I remember wasting away, wishing to give up my condition and walk in the grass instead.

“But now you can,” I said, “You can make grass.”

Cas shook xer head. I turned my eyes back to where I thought Spring was.

I need a body to do anything, and all a body wants to do is be protected. You may use whatever philosophies you wish about our purposes, but I am still the child you can’t let leave your side. I only appear once the others have been administered.

I hadn’t thought about their first lives. I hadn’t thought about if the plants were shields or weapons. Spring had used them to attack. She might have won if she’d used them defensively as well.

“That’s got to be annoying,” I admitted.

Spring didn’t respond for awhile.

“I offer you a place with your sisters,” I said, some of the wording provided by Summer and Autumn, “You will not be alone, and as long as I’m transformed, you’ll definitely be on the front lines of a fight. I won’t promise not to shield myself, but I can assure you we aren’t the one most protected.”

I felt Spring agree, reentering her keychain. It changed appearance from the jeweled brooch to a flatter enamel looking design of the same flower.

“Pretty,” I said.

“Ready to train?” Cas asked.

“No!” I groaned, “I just won a fight.”

“And we’re grateful,” Nerves said, “But we need you to win the next one too.”

I flopped to the ground, which was uncomfortable sand and rocks.

“Ow.”

“Let’s give Spring a minute longer to acclimate,” Cindy said. “Everyone else definitely has to train though.”

I was quiet during our game session, partly out of exhaustion, partly because I was busy catching Spring up to the plot. She seemed to enjoy it at the very least, considered it to be like the stories she and her brother would make up together while she was stuck in bed.

It took a minute for me to process who that brother had to be. I knew from before that Talisman was usually human, and that the sisters were his sisters, but I hadn’t really thought of him as a person.

“Are you paying any attention, Blaze?” Nerves asked.

“What?”

“That’s a no.”

And what is his story? Spring asked.

His character is a witch who used to be mentored by dread queen Winter, the villain of the campaign, not that she knew that at the time—the witch, not Winter.

And your villains are named after my sisters and I?

This was a sticking point, understandably. I would be a little insulted if I found out River had a story with a villain named Summer.

Well, since we were fighting you, and we’d talk about you, we decided to have a campaign where the villains had your names so we had a good excuse.

There were a few ideas, actually, Summer corrected, Bookclub, going out for drinks…

I landed on the table, somewhat exhausted. This was probably why most mystics kept their talismans silent except for one.

Van lifted my arm. It stayed up.

“She’s alive.”

“She’s tired,” Cindy said.

“You should call your mom and get some rest,” Emmy recommended.

I nodded as best I could with my head against the table.

“We won’t play without you,” Nerves assured, “Anymore.”

“Thanks.”

The next time I visited the Roddensteins, I excused myself to the bathroom before the game started. Then I snuck over to Leora’s house, knocking on the door.

“What are you doing here?” her tone made me cower.

“I can put your yard back together,” I offered, “The plants aren’t as easy for you anymore, are they?”

She stayed silent, looking me up an down.

“Because you stole my brooch?” she asked.

“Technically, I earned it.”

She didn’t look happy. It’s strange how terrifying someone who smiles all the time is when they stop liking you.

“I can explain everything,” I offered, “Or you can stay a lonely old woman without much more to comfort her than a destroyed garden.”

I covered my mouth immediately after saying it. I didn’t mean to say that, but it had to be said.

“You’ll just ruin it.”

“You don’t know that,” I said, “We helped with your garden before, and we had this whole deal then too. The only difference is that you know now.”

“I trusted you kids, and you all lied to me.”

“You attacked us!” I said, “I don’t know if you consented to possession, or if you just found a brooch one day and forgot when you got it, but you gave us the plants that started the duel.”

“The duel?”

She didn’t believe me, she just wanted a life without superhumans. I knew superhumans were dangerous sometimes, but that didn’t—

“I wanted to help you,” I said, “I know I hurt you, I didn’t want to ruin your garden, and I’m sorry. I can help return it to its previous state. Do you want that?”

“Get off of my porch, and keep all of your friends away too.”

I took a few steps back.

“Let me know if you change your mind!”

I ran back to the Roddensteins, trying to get rid of the tears in my eyes.

“Wow,” Cindy said, “You took a while in the bathroom.”

“Sorry, I was just,” I rubbed my eyes one more time, “Thinking.”