The Infinite Sadness: Chapter Eight

As the final battle draws near, Eleanor confronts herself, a witch, and a dragon.

Jax Wolff
October 02, 2025

Chapter Eight warnings: Demonic imagery, discussions of death, violence/gore

Chapter Eight

Don’t Stop Me Now

Dragon.

What Mick was turning into was a dragon. He craned his neck to the skylights, opened a maw too filled with teeth, and screamed, then roared, as his body twisted, as his bones broke and rearranged with thunderous cracks, as his form flowed into something bigger and more horrific. Great claws slammed into the floor, and a serpent’s head bowed low. He panted ragged, loud breaths, yet not loud enough to drown out Freddie Mercury’s crooning.

Eleanor watched it all—watched Mick writhe and scream and twist into . . . this. She could do nothing, not even move, and when it was over, time caught up to her, and her voice clenched in her throat.

“Mick?” she whispered. Her body crawled closer to his, inch by inch, until she knelt feet from that snout. She reached, fingers drifting closer and closer to the scales on its tip. “Mick, are you . . . are you all right?”

Massive, golden eyes opened. They fixed on her, and slit pupils contracted.

And she knew at once that Mick, her best friend, wasn’t home.

Adelaide grabbed her elbow and pulled her to her feet, but Eleanor wrenched her arm away and scrambled to put distance between herself and the witch.

“What did you do to him?” she demanded.

At first, Adelaide looked taken aback, but then she smiled wryly.

“Relax. I’m just borrowing him,” she said. “I’ll let him go. Eventually.”

Eleanor snatched the front of Adelaide’s shirt and dragged her closer. “Let him go now. And change him back.” At her side, her free hand curled into a tight fist.

Adelaide tried to pull away, but when Eleanor held her tighter, she sucked in a breath through clenched teeth. “You really don’t want to do that.”

Eleanor was about to ask why not when a set of giant claws settled beside her. A low growl rumbled through her bones, and a hot breath burned at her back. Her gaze caught Adelaide’s while the witch’s grin grew wide. A pink glow flickered in Adelaide’s eyes, and all at once, Eleanor realized just how screwed she was.

She let go, and Adelaide cocked her head.

“Listen, Eleanor. I like you. I really do. I think you have what it takes to plumb the depths of the supernatural, just like my old crew. And maybe after I throw open the doors to the unknown and see where they went, I’ll look you up. We could use all the talent we can get in our little coven. Just think about it, okay? You and four of the most powerful witches in existence, soon as I’m done teaching my best friends everything I know. You can even bring yours along if you want. A dragon would be a nice way to complete our court.”

Eleanor stared helplessly at Adelaide. Her body shook, but what could she do? The dragon’s breath burned like the summer sun through her coat and across her skin, and the light in Adelaide’s eyes spread to consume the witch’s entire body. Eleanor was surrounded by power, nearly suffocated by it. And she could do nothing but wait.

Adelaide reached into her pocket and pulled something into the open. “But for now . . .”

She tossed the object to Eleanor. Eleanor caught it and peered down, only to find Mick’s keys in her palm.

“I’d highly suggest getting out of here before things get ugly,” Adelaide said.

She turned back to the portal, raised a palm to its light, and hummed along to the music on the PA system. Before her, the portal brightened and expanded, and the choir within it grew louder. Bit by bit, something round and snow white began pushing through the opening into her world, and reality shimmered around it.

In hindsight, Eleanor wasn’t sure what she was thinking. She might not have been thinking at all. She couldn’t have, really, because with a dragon watching and a witch with godly powers right in front of her, she seized Adelaide’s shoulder, whipped her around, and punched her in the face.

Adelaide staggered backwards. A hand flew to her jaw, right where Eleanor had struck, but this was all Eleanor could see before a whirlwind of orange fury whipped around her.

And then, suddenly, there was Ophina, and the dragon’s claws hammered down into a wall of translucent gold. A tidal wave of fire swallowed the dome of light, but a woman in red glided past Eleanor and waved a hand inches from Ophina’s barrier. The fire obeyed her gesture, parting neatly to reveal the snarling dragon beyond it.

“Alistair,” the woman said, “get her to safety. We’ll hold back the guardian for as long as she needs.”

“Of course, Your Majesty,” Alistair said from where they stood directly behind Eleanor. She felt their hands guiding her to turn around. “Eleanor, come on.”

“Wait!” she protested, throwing a glance at the dragon over her shoulder. “That’s Mick! I can’t just—”

“We know, and you can,” Alistair replied. “You’re not going to get through to him if he obliterates you first.”

And with that, Alistair all but dragged her away, and Eleanor could only watch as the twelve other mages descended on the dragon behind them.

---

Up a dead escalator and along the second-floor walkways, Alistair and Eleanor ran. From seemingly every corner and every shadow, a demon leapt. Their claws shattered the floor behind Eleanor, swiped at her back, and sent razor winds across the bare skin of her neck. She ran, and her lungs burned, her legs burned, her body burned.

Her heart was an inferno.

The sound of an animal’s angry roar shook the air and drummed through Eleanor’s bones. Mick was somewhere in there, terrified and in pain and trapped, and yet Alistair’s hand was a vice around her wrist. They pulled her to the doors, nearly popping her shoulder out of its socket with each step. Throbbing pain radiated from the joint, but that was nothing compared to the acidic hiss of the demons behind her or the crack of their claws against the floor . . .

. . . or the thought of that thing that Mick had turned into.

“Alistair!” she gasped between hitches of breath. “Alistair, wait!”

She couldn’t break free. She ran behind them, despite every fiber of her being protesting, until they threw open the mall doors—the same ones from the night before. The October air stung Eleanor’s skin as she stumbled free from Alistair’s grasp, as the glass door shuddered shut behind her and clicked.

“NO!” she shrieked.

She whirled around in time to see Alistair plant their feet on the other side of the glass. Their hands swept up before them, rainbow light trailing from their palms. Three demons leapt through the air and slammed into Alistair’s light and froze, faces twisting in agony. A fourth loped down the corridor behind the first three, jaws unhinged and blossoming with knife-long teeth. In the distance, three witches in full robes skidded into view and launched themselves after the demon, but Eleanor knew. She knew they wouldn’t reach Alistair in time.

“NO!” Eleanor screamed. She threw herself at the glass and wrenched at the door. The locks banged in her hands but did not give. “NO! LET ME IN!”

She reared back, angling her foot in preparation for a kick.

Behind her, someone snapped their fingers, and the air shifted. It was as if the wind were a warm pair of arms, wrapping around her foot, around her shoulders, pulling her back. She stumbled and screamed, and time seemed to slow.

No. Not seemed. Did. The three demons’ writhing slowed to a halt. The silver ichor dripping from their mouths collected in pearls hovering between their jaws. The fourth froze mid-air, claws arched for a strike. Even Alistair and the witches stopped—Alistair mid-shout and the witches partway through their stride.

A soft tap fell onto her elbow. Eleanor looked down to see the short shopkeeper—Chanticleer, was it?—gazing up at her with their magnified eyes.

“Come.” Chanticleer tugged at her hand. “Let’s talk.”

She looked back at the mall.

“Oh, don’t worry about them,” Chanticleer continued. “Time magic. It’ll hold as long as you need it to.”

They turned and padded towards the curb. There, a bus shelter, still shining and new in those few months it’s stood there, squat on the pavement; Chanticleer rounded its edge and plopped themself onto the silver bench. And waited.

What else could Eleanor do but follow and sit down next to them?

In the next second, she sat, hands folded in her lap, eyes on the Rabbit in the otherwise empty lot.

It took Eleanor a moment to find her voice, but when she did, only one word stumbled out. “How?”

“As I’ve said: time magic. Advanced stuff. Maybe you’ll learn it eventually. You were always the curious one, after all.” Chanticleer patted her knee. “But enough about that. Talk about you.”

Time magic. Chanticleer. Stopped time.

Eleanor slumped against the bench. Oh, sure, magic was real. She was past denying that part, not that she would in the first place. But Chanticleer could stop time. The hunter in the woods—Faelen? Could bend shadows. She had seen Alphin grow entire trees from nothing.

And yet . . . what was this, exactly? Why were a bunch of all-powerful wizards waiting for . . . what?

“You and Mick to make a move,” Chanticleer prompted, though Eleanor wasn’t sure how they knew what she was thinking. Not that she was surprised.

“I don’t understand,” she murmured. “Why us? Can’t you . . . ?”

“Magic it away?” Chanticleer twisted their hands in the air, weaving flickering rainbow shapes in front of their face. “It’s not our story.”

Eleanor furrowed her eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

“It’s complicated.” They pinched their fingers together, and the formless rainbows gelled into the shape of a dragon and flew lazy circles above one of their palms. “You can’t solve everything by magic alone. We’re capable mages, yes, but we’re capable mages separately. You, on the other hand, have a guardian.”

The dragon popped like a soap bubble. Chanticleer slid their eyes to Eleanor.

“Or you will,” they said. “Do you know why Mick is a powerful guardian?”

Where was this going? “No?”

Chanticleer’s hands looped down to their lap. Rainbow light coalesced into a lean figure brandishing a sword pointed directly to the stars hanging above the bus stop. Eleanor’s eyes fell onto this figure; the longer she stared at it, the more it looked familiar—looked like Mick.

“Long ago, a blade was created. One capable of rending magic and drawing the fates. Don’t ask me who created it or why. Those questions are both irrelevant and the trailheads to very long stories,” Chanticleer began. “All you need to know is that the coven your friend Alistair belongs to had been tasked with watching over this artifact. They were the latest in a very long line of covens to do so. And they were latest to let it slip into the wrong hands.”

“Adelaide,” Eleanor whispered.

“There you go,” Chanticleer said. “Adelaide is, at the moment—or she will be once time continues as it should—using this artifact, this Godcleaver, to rend a hole between worlds.”

Eleanor shook her head slowly. “What does this—” Her shoulders sank. “It’s his, isn’t it? It’s supposed to be Mick’s.”

“No,” Chanticleer replied. “Not here, and not in any other version of this story.”

“What—”

Chanticleer waved her off. “Your friend Mick is just the only guardian to wield enough power to redirect it. Or destroy it. It will really be up to him.”

“But that doesn’t answer—”

“How he could be so powerful?” Chanticleer frowned and let the little figure with the sword dissipate. “You’re right. My apologies. I’m so used to speaking in riddles that I forgot—no, never mind.” They patted Eleanor’s knee. “My point is that most mages draw their power from themselves. Magic is will and imagination to the vast majority of us. But for him . . . your Mick has the capability. He has the imagination.”

“He just doesn’t have the will.”

Chanticleer offered Eleanor a ghost of a smile. “There you go.”

Eleanor sat up straighter. “Yzara told me I needed to remind him of who he is.”

“Did they? Well, they were always the wisest of the Dawnlit, no matter what others said of Ordnir.”

“But . . . how do I do that? He’s . . .”

Eleanor swallowed. Her body sank against the bench again. Orange scales and the fires of Hell filled her thoughts. How could she reach him through that?

“Think hard, Eleanor. Think hard about him. Be honest with yourself, for once.”

But all she could think of were golden eyes and sulfuric breath. Roars that rattled her bones.

The way he screamed when his body exploded out of the confines of his humanity.

He never asked for this. All Mick wanted was a quiet life, and Eleanor knew this, and it was her curiosity that got him into this. And—

She curled her fingers, pressed her nails against the denim of her jeans. And it was the latest item in a list of things that made her a shitty friend, wasn’t it? All the pestering she did throughout the summer. All the pushing and prodding she did to get him to come out of his shell. Was it really for him, though? Or did she just miss somebody who had been dead and gone for four years by then?

And that was the other thing. She wasn’t there. She could have been there. Postponed going to Eldaven for a year to spend it helping her friend grieve. But did she? No. She ran off. She couldn’t miss this opportunity, and he had said it was fine, but was it really?

Chanticleer’s hand circled her wrist and squeezed.

“Almost there, my dear,” they said. “Push past this.”

He did so much for her, too. She could still feel his arms and his tail protecting her, hear his words conceal her. And before then, he put up with so much from her. All her complaining about her parents. All her plans gone awry. Who did she call when she went through another breakup? Whose advice did she seek out when she needed a rock to lean against?

And what did she do for him lately?

Gods, no wonder he lost himself so easily.

“I shouldn’t have gone,” she said. “I should have come back to be there for him as soon as I’d heard. He—” She stopped herself just short of saying too much to a stranger.

“I know.” Chanticleer patted her knee again. Why did they keep doing that? “But Eleanor, what would you have been able to do? Would your friend have wanted you to come back for him?”

She opened her mouth. Would he?

She knew the answer, didn’t she? It was why she kept going back to Eldaven every fall. He was fine, he kept telling her. Don’t worry about me. Live your life.

And then, on the roof . . .

Do not throw away your future for a guy you met when you were twelve. Do you understand me?

She lowered her gaze to her lap. “No. He wouldn’t.”

Chanticleer nodded. “Aha. So. Tell me about him.”

“What?”

“It will help. Believe me.”

“He—” Eleanor frowned. “Mick is amazing. He’s sweet, he’s funny, he’d do anything to make you happy, which is really part of the problem, yet . . . he has this way of making everyone feel safe. Before his father died, no matter what happened, Mick always had a solution to everything. I wouldn’t have called him an optimist—more like he had a way of making you feel like everything was going to be okay.”

She froze. Something clicked. Why was Chanticleer asking this, if not . . .

“You weren’t talking about now, were you?” she asked, seeking out Chanticleer’s face. “When you said ‘remind him of who he is,’ you meant remind him of who he’d always been, didn’t you?”

Chanticleer propped their chin on a hand and grinned.

“He thinks the world of you,” Chanticleer said. “Including that you’re smart enough to figure that out.”

Eleanor scoffed. “He thinks the world of me? I can’t imagine why. I’ve been nothing but trouble for him for—”

“Tell me about him now,” Chanticleer interrupted.

“He’s—” Eleanor half-choked on that word, startled by the shift in conversation. “He’s been . . .” She looked back to the doors, searching for the right word. “Defeated.”

“Defeated,” Alistair said.

She wanted to say it was really no wonder, given how alone he must have been, but she found herself saying something else instead. “A glimmer of himself. That’s. That’s why he works all the time. He doesn’t know what else to do.” She shook her head. “This is why I shouldn’t have gone. I’m his best friend, and I abandoned him when he needed somebody!”

“Now, now. None of that,” Chanticleer said. “You might have made mistakes with him in the past. Everyone does things they regret, especially when they’re young. But the thing is you can do right by him at any time. Besides . . .”

Chanticleer trailed off, but Eleanor knew what they were implying.

The roof. The way Mick’s claws pressed into her shoulders—not dug in, but pressed in, as if to hammer his point home.

Do not throw away your future for me, he meant to say.

“No,” Eleanor murmured.

“Why would he think you abandoned him?” Chanticleer asked.

“He . . .” Eleanor suddenly couldn’t think of how to end that sentence. It seemed . . . like it would be unlike him, wouldn’t it? If he wanted her to go, why would he want her there?

“Did you ever ask him how he felt?”

“No.”

The word felt cold in the back of Eleanor’s throat, but . . . it was true. She never asked. She either never thought about it or felt too guilty to ask at all. One of those two at every given moment.

And now she felt . . .

Chanticleer huffed and knocked on her knee this time with the back of his knuckles.

“Have faith in yourself and him,” Chanticleer said, voice light and bubbling. “Or at least talk to him before jumping to conclusions like that.”

Eleanor bowed her head again, suddenly feeling very small and guilty. Chanticleer was right. Who was she to say what Mick thought of her?

And . . . they needed to talk. She needed her best friend back, and they needed to talk.

Chanticleer slid off the bench and whirled to face Eleanor. Suddenly, that was all she could see: nothing but that half-hidden face, those large, black eyes.

“That said, a word of advice: Sometimes, things happen for a reason,” Chanticleer told her. “Not out of divine will, but instead because things fall into place the only way they can. You cannot go back to choose different paths, but you can always fix things now for tomorrow. Mick would never have wanted you to choose any differently yesterday, but today, he might be more flexible, if you remind him of who he really is.”

Eleanor smiled softly, uncertainly. It was a nice thought, but . . . “He’s very stubborn.”

Chanticleer nodded. “True. But he—” They stopped for a beat, head tilted. “Oh. I shouldn’t tell you that part yet.” And then, with a nonchalant shrug, they continued, “There are many things he’s never said to you. He will, though. One of you just has to be brave enough to make a first move.”

They raised one yellow-gloved hand to Eleanor. She stared at the flat palm they presented, then shifted her focus to their face. Through those giant glasses, Chanticleer’s determination itself was magnified, amplified. Eleanor could feel it seep into her and ignite her heart.

Or perhaps it wasn’t Chanticleer’s determination. Or not an act of magic, anyway, but rather an act of reassurance. She wasn’t alone in this. She could get through to Mick, one way or another.

“We’ll do anything you need,” Chanticleer said. “Think about what will call him back first. Music, perhaps.”

“Music?” Eleanor asked.

“Potent magic. Like I said, magic is will and imagination, and what better way to express that through music? You put your heart into songs, you know.”

You put your heart into songs. Those words rolled through Eleanor’s head, and she desperately tore them apart for meaning. She glanced through the Rabbit’s back window, sifting for the answer.

And then it hit her.

She had already known, hadn’t she? The second Mick blushed when she brought it up the first time. He was such a bad liar—or at least, he was to her.

“Dexys,” Eleanor said.

“Dexys?” Chanticleer repeated.

But she was off already, fumbling for Mick’s keys, jamming them into locks. She didn’t need to rush; Chanticleer was taking care of things, she knew. But she had to. Every nerve in her body felt electric at one repeating thought. She had to get back to him. She had to get back to him.

She didn’t even bother locking the tiny hatchback when she slammed doors and carried her haul back to her companions. In her arms, she cradled Mick’s violin case. In her hand, she held one cassette tape pulled out of the glove box. As soon as she was close, she rearranged the case enough to let her push the cassette towards Chanticleer, and in the yellow light outside the mall, the familiar oil painting of a man against a wooden fence almost glinted gold.

“Can you get this tape to Alistair? I need them to play ‘Come On, Eileen’ to over Bard Records’ speakers,” Eleanor said, more urgently than anything she had ever uttered before.

“I’m sure Alistair would say ‘I’d rather set my store on fire for insurance purposes’—”yet they plucked the tape out of Eleanor’s hand with delicate fingers“—but of course. It sounds like you have a plan.”

“I do. But I need all the help we can get.”

---

When Chanticleer snapped their fingers again, three mages appeared at the inner doors to smash through the ranks of demons: Faelen with her waves of shadows to pull demons back, Alphin with vines exploding from the floor, and Ophina, wielding a massive sword of light. Ophina opened the doors for them and ushered Eleanor and Chanticleer in while Alphin helped Alistair to their feet.

“Things are getting worse down there by the second,” Ophina said. “Tell me the girl has a plan.”

Eleanor smirked and patted Mick’s violin case. “I have a plan. We need to get to Bard Records. Or they do.”

She turned and handed Mick’s case off to Alistair.

“I just need it to be ready when we get there,” she said. “I’ll lure him close enough to hear. You’ll know when to give this to him.”

A wily smirk played across Alistair’s lips, as if they knew already what Chanticleer had said to her. “You can count on us. Go.”

Eleanor lifted her chin to Alistair, then turned to Ophina with a silent, commanding look. The Valkyrie regarded her for only a beat, then nodded back with all the respect of a soldier acknowledging their commander.

“Alphin, escort Chanticleer and Alistair. Faelen, make sure none of these things get out,” she barked. “And you. Lead.”

Eleanor didn’t need any further encouragement. She ran. Sprinted. Faster and harder than she’d ever run. As the spur spread out before her, as she passed store after store, demons manifested in the air around her, dropping down from the ceiling like screeching hail. She wove between them, keeping her eyes on the end of the spur. An orange glow, warm and bright as the sun, blossomed in the distance. And somewhere in there, she could hear a dragon’s roar.

“Hold on, Mick,” she pleaded through gritted teeth. “I’m coming! I’m—”

A demon exploded into view in front of her, only to be impaled on Ophina’s sword.

“Down!” Ophina barked.

Eleanor dropped to her knees, and the Valkyrie spun above her, swinging her sword through an entire hoard of demons.

Overhead, the song slid from “Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy” to “Don’t Stop Me Now.”

Tonight, I’m gonna have myself a real good time. I feel alive . . .

Ophina scooped Eleanor up in one beefy arm. A pair of golden angel’s wings, translucent and dazzling, burst from her back. Then, Eleanor was left gasping for breath as Ophina dashed down the spur at the speed of light.

And the world . . . I’ll turn it inside out, yeah. I’m floating around in ecstasy.

As they got closer to the diamond, Eleanor began to see what Ophina meant. Decorations either on fire or already reduced to ash. Walkways half destroyed or infested with demons. Jagged metal from broken gates strewn across the floor and rains of sparks showering from busted signs and lights.

So don’t stop me now . . .

Then, there was the courtyard itself. A hole had been torn into the ceiling, framing a spray of stars in the moonless sky. Far below, those stars were reflected in puddles of water seeping from the broken fountains surrounding the amphitheater. Craters were torn into the amphitheater itself—entire rows of seats were just gone, reduced to bricks and rubble scattered among eviscerated palm trees and broken glass from the twisted wreckage that had been the elevator.

And the demons. Demons crawling up the walls. Demons tearing into the second floor walkway. Demons buzzing like bees coating every flat surface.

And at the center of it all was the stage, where Adelaide stood before the hole in reality . . .

. . . and Mick.

Don’t stop me now . . .

Eleanor’s heart twisted when she saw him. Or it. The dragon. The beast loomed over a mountain of rubble and earth. It spewed jets of fire and rammed its claws into the surface of the mountain, blasting pieces of rubble off the top. Through the brief flashes of gaps, she could see the faces of the remaining mages, exhausted and terrified, before one of them would wave their hands and raise more earth to block the flames. And again, the beast roared and jackhammered its claws into the side of the mountain.

Mick was in there, she reminded herself. Somewhere in there.

“‘Cause I’m having a good time, having a good time . . . !”

Adelaide’s voice rang out, as loud and clear as Freddie Mercury’s over the PA system. She twirled a blade in her hand—the ritual knife from back at the trailhead, Eleanor realized. With the flourish of a showman, she swished it across the portal, and the portal widened at her command and spewed forth three more demons.

“Go! Find them! I want all fourteen right here!” she barked.

The demons bound off the stage and up the walls. Eleanor’s eyes went back to the knife as Adelaide launched back into song.

The Godcleaver. It had to be.

“Plan?” Ophina hissed in her ear.

Eleanor narrowed her eyes at the stage. “Let me down right next to her.”

“Are you serious?”

More serious about this than anything else in her life, barring everything she had told Mick barely an hour ago. Out loud, she said, “Just trust me.”

The Valkyrie hesitated, then swooped down to the stage. She set Eleanor down on the edge furthest from Adelaide, then landed behind her with that giant sword clutched in one hand. Ophina cast a hard glare towards Eleanor—or, not exactly hard but more . . . a silent oath to be right behind her.

Eleanor would have been pleasantly shocked by the Valkyrie’s immediate loyalty, had it come under any other circumstance. As it stood, she strode forward, as confidently as having a giant woman with an even bigger sword as backup could make her.

“Adelaide!” she snapped.

And at long last, the witch stopped singing and broke eye contact with the portal. At first, she glared at Eleanor with contempt, then surprise, then an oily sort of delight.

“Eleanor?” she said. “You came back? Wow, I really underestimated your loyalty there, didn’t I? Thanks for bringing one of the mages back!”

On cue, a pile of demons dropped down from the walls, shooting themselves at Ophina. Without even looking, the Valkyrie swung her sword around her head and easily cut through them, then dropped her sword point until it pointed directly at Adelaide. She stood as still and resolute as a statue, waiting for the witch’s next move.

Adelaide snickered, then snapped her fingers . . . calling the dragon’s attention back to the stage.

Eleanor’s heart skipped a beat as she watched the beast that had been her best friend amble towards them like a tank ready to fire. He stood behind Adelaide, poised like an attack dog. His lips pulled back to reveal fangs the size of Eleanor’s forearm.

“You know, for the past several months, I’ve really been wanting to ram that stick you’re sitting on even further up your ass, Officer Ophina,” Adelaide drawled. “How about you stand down and go join your friends before I get my friend to turn you into a charred streak on the floor?” She paused. Cocked her head. “Actually, you know what? Why don’t I have him do it anyway?”

Her hand rose into the air, fingers ready to snap for a second time.

“Wait!” Eleanor shouted.

Adelaide froze, leveling her gaze onto Eleanor. Eleanor looked up at the dragon’s face, searching those golden eyes for a glimmer of that soul she had known so well. When nothing but gold and animal rage stared back, she lowered her gaze back to Adelaide.

“Listen,” she said, slowly and clearly, “I know you’ve been hurting. I know you’ve been hurting for years. You’ve lost someone, and you didn’t have anyone else to turn to when that happened. And . . . I’m sorry. I wish I could have been a better friend. Maybe I could have realized what you were going through sooner, instead of focusing on trying to make you be happier when you weren’t ready.” She extended a hand, palm up. “But I want to do better. Let me be the friend you deserve. Let me help you.”

Adelaide’s smile vanished into a scowl. “Are you serious right now? You think I’m doing this for friendship? I don’t need help. Least of all yours.” She stood a little straighter and lifted her chin into the air. “Listen, do you have any idea what it’s like to be an outsider? That’s what it’s like for me all the time. Too poor, too weird, talented but not quite enough to dig yourself out of the dead-end hole of a town you grew up in. The four people who up and left this plane that night accepted me for who I was. Even told me I could be so much better than anything everyone else said I was. And man, we were all so close to getting there. To being better than what we were.”

Eleanor’s eyes flicked to the dragon again, then back to Adelaide. She took a step back as Adelaide advanced on her.

“Do you even know what’s beyond this portal?” she said. “Infinite. Universes. Infinite worlds just like our own. And smack in the middle is a god. We were so close to opening up the door and taking that god for ourselves. But then one idiot got too greedy. Went too fast. And now my friends, the people who made me feel like a person for once, are off to who knows where, and I’m still here, in a shithole town next to the shithole town I grew up in.”

She narrowed her eyes at Eleanor. Then turned and stepped back to the portal, twirled the knife in her hand, and plunged the blade into its heart. When she drew the knife back out, its silver faces were coated in velvet black, studded with flecks of twinkling white.

The portal quivered.

“But I know better now,” she continued. “It took me a year and a half, but I figured out everything that idiot was going to do. And once I lay claim to the god beyond the veil, I’m going to throw open so many doors, Eleanor.”

She hummed along with the song on the PA system, and the sparkles in the perfect black on her athame’s blade danced, spinning like stars in a time-lapsed sky. Adelaide regarded this with wonder, tilting her blade one way and the next.

When she spoke next, her voice was distant. “You know, it’s funny. Up until this moment, I thought I was doing this to bring my friends back, but honestly? Maybe I was just pissed they left me behind again. Huh.” She flashed a grin at Eleanor. “But look at me monologuing. Already on my way to be the greatest mage who ever lived. Do I really look like somebody who needs help, Eleanor de Lepaute?”

Eleanor locked eyes with Adelaide and frowned. Jaw tense. Ears ringing just a little over the sounds of Freddie Mercury and the growling dragon.

“Truthfully?” Eleanor said. “I think you’re way beyond help. But I also wasn’t talking to you in the first place.”

She lunged at Adelaide and shoved her shoulder into the witch’s chest. Her hand closed around Adelaide’s, wrenched the blade free from her grasp. As she swung around, her fist collided with the side of Adelaide’s face again. She tossed the athame to Ophina, who caught it and blinked at its blade in confusion.

“What’s this?” Ophina asked.

“The Godcleaver!” Eleanor replied quickly. “Get it out of here!”

“The God—” Ophina scowled. “This isn’t the Godcleaver!”

Eleanor froze. “It’s not?”

Behind her, Adelaide laughed, and then . . .

“Oh, I’m burning through the sky, yeah! Two hundred degrees! That’s why they call me Mister Fahrenheit! Traveling at the speed of light!”

A flash of orange. A set of dragon claws smashed into Ophina, sending her flying off the stage and into a crowd of demons. The dragon crouched down in her place, rounding on Eleanor.

It hadn’t worked. She hadn’t gotten through to him.

“I literally don’t know what you were trying to do there,” Adelaide said, her voice light and amused, “but I was sort of hoping for something a little smarter from you for a last, desperate attempt.” She clicked her tongue. “Oh well. Dragon? End her, and make it painful.”

She snapped her fingers, and at once, the beast reared back. It lifted its snout to the ceiling, jaws parting in a roar that shook Eleanor all the way to her core.

Her legs sprang before her brain could tell them to. She leapt off the stage, up the stairs of the amphitheater two at a time, dodging demons and rubble left and right. The ground shook beneath her feet as the air grew hot with dragonfire.

She had to get out of there. Just a few more feet. Just a few more feet ahead of her, there was the escalator. Up the escalator, down the walkways, she would be home free at Bard Records, and then—

And then she realized half the escalator was gone. Feet of machinery, torn away, with only a twisted mess of metal and wires hanging free nearly twelve feet up. Eleanor gazed up at it as she ran, and all hope inside her evaporated like water in the middle of Death Valley.

Suddenly, her foot caught on something, and she went sprawling into broken tiles. Her scream came out short and cut off abruptly; the fall knocked the wind straight out of her lungs. She curled up in pain for a second, then in fear for the next five, knowing that at any second, demons would descend on her and rip her apart.

That never happened.

Instead, two sets of claws slammed down on either side of her. She opened her eyes and flipped onto her back to gaze up, up, up, directly into the face of the dragon. Her voice shook as she cried out. She tried to drag herself away, but one of the dragon’s claws caught her jacket and dragged her back. Its lips curled. Orange light flickered between its knife-point fangs.

And then, as if heeding an unspoken prayer, Chanticleer poked their head over the second-story walkway.

“Eleanor!” they cried. “Music!”

Something shifted in Eleanor’s brain. Perhaps it was just that she had reached the limit of panic and vaulted right into a nirvana-flavored haze of calm, but something about what Chanticleer just said made sense.

She looked up at the beast above her. Looked right into its face. Took a deep breath.

And as the last few notes of Freddie Mercury’s voice crooned into the mall, she sang.

“Oh, believe me, if all those endearing young charms that I gaze on so fondly today were to suddenly leave you or fly in the night, just like fairy gifts gone in the sky.”

Her voice shook as she sang, wavered with the last remnants of uncertainty. Could he hear her? Would she reach him? Those golden eyes glinted down at her, sparked with something unreadable. They held her gaze long after she sang that last word.

“Mick?” she whispered.

One track slipped to another, and a choir of voices filled the mall. (Is this the real life? Or is this just fantasy?) A thousand needle-sharp cries of nails on chalkboard rang out, nearly drowning the vocals. (Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality.) White bodies leapt from the walls and rained down around them. Cat-like slit pupils slid away from Eleanor’s face to the shifting movement around them. Eleanor closed her eyes and braced herself. A roar shook her body, and an overwhelming heat bore down on her. Screams rose higher and died away.

Open your eyes. Look up to the skies and see . . .

BANG.

The dying sound of a needle-screech.

Eleanor slowly opened one eye. Then the other. At her side, the dragon’s paw sat heavily on a dying demon, its face covered in ink-black blood. Its twisted claws reached for Eleanor, but the dragon’s own ground it further into the floor until the creature cracked and fell still. Beyond it, Eleanor saw the charred bodies of countless demons, lying on a perfect arch of burned carpet.

She looked up, into the face of the beast. It blinked at her.

No.

He blinked.

He bowed lower, nudging her side with his snout. His mouth quivered, moving awkwardly, and at first, Eleanor wasn’t sure why.

Then, at last, after a minute, an uncertain voice tumbled from his throat.

“E-Eleanor. Hi.”

Tears welled up in her eyes, and she reached up for his snout.

Finally. He was back.

The Infinite Sadness: Chapter Eight

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