The Infinite Sadness: Chapter Six

Eleanor rushes in to save her best friend but finds herself saved instead.

Jax Wolff
September 18, 2025

Chapter Six warnings: Demonic imagery, gun use

Chapter Six

Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me

Mick had a point about Eleanor, one that she didn’t like to admit too often: that she had a tendency to shoot first and ask questions later. Oh, she was smart. She knew that, he knew that, everyone in Southwind knew that. One didn’t go to the most reputable school in Eldaven without having some level of brains. But it was fair to say that book smarts didn’t always line up with common sense, and it was also fair that Eleanor de Lepaute often let her heart control that head of hers.

In other words, it took a whole ten minutes after Eleanor had dashed into the forest for her to realize that doing so might have been a mistake. Not because she was lost—that thought hadn’t cropped up at all—but instead because the thing she was chasing, the demon her best friend had become, had completely vanished from view. She lost him. She lost that brilliant orange fireball streaming like a comet across ice-gray skies. And she had no plan for finding him again.

“No no no no . . . !” she whimpered. “Where did you go?”

How could she lose him? One moment, he was just above her, and then, just a couple of dodges and a mess of trees later, he wasn’t. She couldn’t even hear his frantic wing beats anymore, or feel the heat of his fire.

Oh gods. What if she lost lost him? What if watching him sail over those trees was the last time she would ever see him? What if he was hurt and alone, lost somewhere in miles of wilderness?

What if Mick wasn’t even Mick anymore? Eleanor swallowed at that last possibility. What if that last transformation had changed him inside as well as out? Did he remember who he was, or was he wandering the forest, a mindless creature doomed to haunt the outskirts of Southwind?

What if she lost Mick?

Eleanor’s hand flew over her pounding heart. She tried to fight the lump in her throat and the stinging in her eyes, but as much as she willed it, the panic got to her. Her throat constricted. Her face felt wet. Her thoughts turned gray and muddled. She—

Stop it. She had to think. She had to find him. She had to . . .

Adelaide. Adelaide would know how to track a magical creature. A spell or a tool, something that could cut through the forest and hone in on a demon, right?

Eleanor spun around, prepared to start back for the parking lot at the mouth of the trailhead.

And that was when she realized she had no idea where she was.

She swore. Loudly and as far from ladylike as humanly possible.

“Adelaide!” she cried. “Adelaide, can you hear me?”

Nothing. Nothing but distant birdsong and the wind through the trees. Nothing but a carpet of weeds and thick stands of tree trunks and dead leaves. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

“Gods!” Eleanor sobbed.

She collapsed against the nearest trunk and brought her sleeves to her face. This was her fault. She knew that. She was already thinking it, way back when Mick showed her those scales in her bedroom. If she hadn’t dragged him into that mall the night before, he would be fine, and they both wouldn’t be stuck in the woods.

But that was why she had to fix this.

Wiping her eyes again, she stared hard into the woods. There had to be a way to find Mick. She just had to clear her head and think. He was on fire when she last saw him. There had to be signs. Smoke, flames, anything.

She had to—

There was someone watching her. As in, she had bowed her head for just a second, and when she lifted it again, there was a small figure staring right at her.

The tiny shopkeeper from the mall.

She jumped and shrieked, but that tiny figure kept staring at her, completely unfazed.

“You!” she barked. She scanned the area immediately around her, then yanked a branch out of the bushes and brandished it at the shopkeeper. “I’m warning you! Don’t come any closer!”

They tilted their head, studying Eleanor without a word. Then, righting themselves, they turned away and motioned for her to follow.

“Come along,” they said. “You’ll be late.”

“Late for what?” Eleanor snapped. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

The stranger looked back. “Ah. Of course. Never trust someone you don’t know. Wise.” They turned back around and bowed. “Chanticleer, at your service.” As they rose to their full height, they offered a hand to Eleanor. “Now that I’m not a stranger, would you be so kind as to follow me?”

“What?” Eleanor shook the branch at them. “You being a stranger isn’t the—do you think I’m a child? You gave my friend some sort of cursed pendant that changed him into a monster, and now we’re both lost in the woods, and you think I’ll follow you?”

“Yes, actually.”

Eleanor’s brain stumbled for a second. She blinked, gaped at Chanticleer, and then, finally, yelled and swung her branch at their head. They dodged to the side and continued to stare at her as if the two of them were having a perfectly normal conversation.

“Miss de Lepaute,” they said, “a word of advice: threatening someone with a tree branch is not an effective way to convince them to reverse any curse that may have befallen the people you care about.”

They held up a hand, and Eleanor’s arms froze. It felt like her limbs were made of wood, or like her joints had locked into place. She wanted to scream, but she realized she couldn’t even do that. Instead, she glared at Chanticleer in a silent suggestion to pray to whatever god they worshiped for mercy through whatever would happen when she was released.

“Regrettably, I must say you’re mistaken,” they said. “Not unfortunately so, though. I can hardly blame you for coming to the conclusions that you did, but the truth is, that what happened to your friend is only a curse if he chooses to make it a curse. But as much as I would like to tell you more, it would be much better to show you. Now, I’m going to let you go, you’re going to chase me, and you and I will find Mick together. All right?”

Suddenly, Eleanor could move again, and without skipping a beat, she shrieked and swung her stick again.

And just like that, they were off. They dashed through the woods, Chanticleer dancing just out of reach of her branch. They cut through the brush, around trees, along and across the slender scant paths that far out in the woods. Eleanor lost track of time, lost track of where they were going. The world around her was just a blur of brown and yellow and pops of green and Chanticleer dead ahead. Every so often, Chanticleer would pop up and spin in the air, throwing a comment here or there to keep Eleanor’s attention on them.

“Come along! Come along! Now, I know there’s a shortcut somewhere around here! Aha! Hurry, Miss de Lepaute! This way! We haven’t got much time!”

Gods forgive her for letting it work. At first, Eleanor was merely angry, all her rage honed in on the person she decided was responsible for that entire morning and half the afternoon. But the longer she chased them, the more she realized something.

She could catch them. She could make them undo the spell on Mick. One way or another, this gnat could fix things. If only she could grab them.

Or so she thought, shortly before her foot missed the ground.

She screamed, she fell, tumbling head over end down a slope directly into a knot of bushes. Stars exploded across her field of vision, and pain burst through her body, and before she knew it, she came to a stop, tangled in the spindly arms of a bush with Chanticleer crouched next to her.

Her eyes widened, and she tried to lunge for their neck, but they slapped a yellow-gloved hand over her mouth. All of a sudden, a warmth spread through her, and the pain throughout her body dissolved. They pulled their hand away and brought it to their own mouth, one index finger extended over their lips. And then, they pushed through the brush and disappeared.

Eleanor forced herself to her knees. She wanted to say something, but for the second time that day, she couldn’t. It was as if something had seized her voice and held it in its cold fingers.

As if something wanted her to stay quiet.

She pushed aside the branches and tangles of green that had swallowed Chanticleer, intending on following them through.

But they weren’t there.

Eleanor trudged on through the bushes and rose to her full height on the other side. She turned, peering at the stand of trees around her, slowly scanning the forest for any sign of Chanticleer . . .

. . . only to see that the bushes she came from had disappeared.

“What . . . ?” she whispered.

Her hand reflexively drifted to her throat. Something weird was going on. Something very weird. And had her best friend not turned into a living fireball, she might have thought it was all too impossible to be real.

As it stood, she narrowed her eyes at where the bushes had been. Her brain fumbled for a plan to rush off, track down a certain magical ground parrot, and dismember them.

But then a voice caught her attention.

“Faelen, for the last time, he’s not dangerous. You can put that down.”

Eleanor stopped. She half-turned to trees at her left, where the silky voice came from. She knew that voice.

“Mick? I hope you have a moment. We need to talk.”

Mick! His name, and then his panicked yelp, sent electricity through her. Eleanor darted through the trees once more, but this time, with more purpose, more lucidity. As she drew closer, she grew more careful, still cutting through the forest as quickly as she could but without rustling the weeds at her feet or snapping twigs she passed over. When she was close, she slowed and crept from tree to tree until she saw him.

A flash of sunset orange and gold shot into the air, only to be yanked back down to the earth by liquid shadows snaking from the ground. By instinct, she took one fast step forward, then caught herself at the last second and pressed behind a tree to watch. In the clearing just beyond her tree, there were three people, one of whom was definitely familiar and another of whom was carrying a gun and all of whom were towering over a frazzled Mick.

Eleanor lightly scraped her nails against the bark. Without the fire, she could finally get a good look at him. A body completely covered in orange scales. Ram’s horns circling long sheep ears. Bat wings and a reptilian tail that ended in spikes. Fingers that ended in long, dark claws. This was it, wasn’t it? What the medallion was changing him into? A demon, just like Adelaide said.

Yet in those golden eyes—golden cat eyes, like Adelaide said—Eleanor could see her friend. Tired, scared Mick, facing down a gun, backed into a corner, with magic foisted upon him.

She had to help him. Eleanor knew that much. But she couldn’t just burst out from behind the trees and rush in to defend Mick. Despite wanting desperately to do just that, she knew she couldn’t, and her brain told her sharply that she couldn’t. Not with that gun in the equation. Not with one quarter of the coven right there, looming over Mick.

“Easy. We’re not here to hurt you,” Kaedra said.

“Sure,” Mick growled. “Listen, I don’t know who you are or what you are or whatever, but I’ve seen what you can do, and I don’t want anything to do with you or whatever you have planned.”

“And that was what we want to talk to you about.” Kaedra lowered herself into squat before him. “What do you think we can do, Mick?”

Mick opened his mouth, then shut it and recoiled. He said too much, and Eleanor could tell he knew this.

One of the other two witches, the one with the gun, growled and raised the muzzle of her rifle. “This is a waste of time.”

Kaedra shot her a stern look. “Faelen!”

“What were you doing in the mall last night?” she demanded. “We know you were there.”

Mick dragged himself backwards until he pressed his wings against a tree. “I-I was delivering pizzas, all right? Just ask Alistair! You know them, yeah?”

Faelen lifted her rifle higher and bared her teeth. “Do you think this is a jo—”

The third witch stepped in and placed a hand on her rifle. This one drew Eleanor’s attention immediately. Tall. Willowy. Pale-skinned. They dressed like a mall goth—all black, heavy duster, impractical platform boots, a shock of purple hair—yet the look on their face . . . their expression was warm. Old. Like an ancient grandmother. And yet . . . still unreadable.

They lifted their hand from Faelen’s rifle and let it dance in the air—signs, Eleanor realized. She wished she had taken the time to learn. She meant to beforehand, but now? Now she desperately wanted—no, needed—to know what they were saying.

Faelen and Kaedra, though? They knew. Whatever this third member of their party was saying, they both stiffened at their words.

“Them?” Faelen said.

The goth signed again.

“Yes, of course,” Kaedra said. “The amulet. And, well. He’s clearly a guardian beast.” She bowed her head. “So that would be the how, but not . . .”

“You keep calling me that,” Mick muttered as he hesitantly rose to his feet. “Guardian beast. What, is that a type of demon or something?”

Kaedra ignored him, keeping her eyes on the goth. At the end of their signs, she pressed her fingertips to her lips. “That soon? You’re sure?”

They nodded.

“If you say so,” Kaedra replied. She turned to Mick. “Mick? We haven’t got much time. You were with someone—”

“I was alone.” His response was quick. Very quick and very sure. Eleanor shrank against the tree as her heart shuddered against her chest.

The truth was, it didn’t surprise Eleanor to see Mick protecting her. He had always been that way, literally since the day they had met. He was always there, ready to swoop in with a barbed tongue for any bully who might threaten her, with a slickly worded excuse for her father, for a thousand solutions to ensure she would walk away from yet another adventure unscathed. Had he gone with her to Eldaven four years ago, he might have been right there alongside her to every bar, thrown punches with every man who hit on her, saw her drunk self safely home again every night.

So it wasn’t the defense that surprised her. It was . . .

She couldn’t put her finger on it. The quickness here. The situation. The gun and the demon. It wasn’t just some silly fight or her father or something else he was facing. It was . . .

He was putting himself on the line for her. Wholly.

The truth was, Eleanor had always known Mick would do anything for her, but it was at that moment, she knew he would do anything for her.

And that’s when something clicked in her head, and her face burned with it.

“We know you were with someone,” Kaedra said patiently. “She’s in the bushes, right now.”

Her heart thundered. She yanked herself away from the tree and instantly hit something decidedly not made of wood. Looking up, she found the sun eclipsed by Alphin’s face. He gazed down at her, grave and sympathetic, head cocked in a preemptive apology.

“Well, darling,” he said, “that’s your cue.”

He snapped his fingers, and all of a sudden, the forest revolted. Vines burst from the soft earth, ensnared her, and dragged her through the bushes’ eager hands in loops of thorn. She thrashed in their grip, but every twist, every jolt she made drove their barbs deeper into her clothes until they bit her skin.

And then there was fire and the sound of tearing, and a set of warm hands pulled her free. Mick wrapped her in his wings and held her tight with one arm. The other cupped her face gently as he gazed deep into her eyes with concern.

Yet again, Eleanor’s heart fluttered against her chest. Just what was going on?

“Eleanor!” he gasped. “Are you all right?”

She swallowed, and it took a moment to find the will to respond. “Y-yes. Are you?”

He nodded, then flinched and twisted in his seat. Eleanor felt his tail wrap around her legs and watched as he lifted a hand to the quartet of witches. Flames danced between Mick’s fingers in warning. Faelen quirked an eyebrow, then set aside her rifle.

“A fast learner, I see. Shame that won’t help you,” she said.

With a flick of her wrist, all of the shadows in the clearing descended like wolves upon the both of them. A wave of shadow erupted between them and forced them apart. Eleanor lunged through darkness, reaching for Mick’s outstretched hand, but the waves of black velvet carried her across the clearing and threw her to the ground. Darkness split and hardened into a black diamond cage around her. She shrieked and threw herself against the bars, but they refused to yield, and she was left, helpless, to watch as the remaining shadows wound into a chain that bound Mick to a tree. A wince twisted his face for a moment, before his wild, golden eyes opened and fell on her. All at once, he thrashed against his binds.

“Don’t hurt her!” he shouted. “I’m warning you!”

“Or what?” Faelen said, stepping closer to him. “You barely know what you’re capable of as it is.”

Mick snarled. Flames burst out of his skin and licked the tree, but before he could do any real damage, shadows crashed over him like a waterfall and wrapped tightly around his body.

And then, Kaedra jumped between Faelen and Mick.

“Please! All of you!” she cried.

Pink light ebbed from Kaedra’s body, and a warmth seeped into Eleanor. She sank to her knees within the black diamond cage, her fear and anger melting like cotton candy in a pool of water. She could tell this magic hadn’t affected just her; Alphin and Faelen visibly relaxed, and Mick eased from near-rabid fury back down to the fear and anxiety that seemed to grip him twenty-four hours a day. The only one who wasn’t affected was the goth, who flicked violet eyes Eleanor’s way and cocked a head towards Kaedra.

“Please,” Kaedra begged. “Mick. Eleanor. Please believe us when we say we only want to help you. We just need your help in return.”

“Our help?” Eleanor whispered.

Mick glanced her way. His expression shifted into concern. For what? Her?

“Why would we do that?” he asked.

“Because of what you’re turning into right now.” Kaedra once again knelt before Mick—an act of submission, Eleanor realized. “Mick. You’re not a demon. You’re a guardian beast. Do you know what that is?”

“Do I look like I know what that is?” Mick said quietly, his voice less biting and sarcastic and more already exhausted.

Kaedra chuckled and let her head drop to her chest. “How do I explain this? You see, this world is a lot more magical than most people realize. There are beings in it beyond your wildest imagination, and people in it capable of performing true wonders. My friends and I are called watchers. We go where we’re needed to fix . . . problems, you could say. We keep magic in check so people like you and Eleanor can live perfectly normal lives, free of the dangers magic can bring into this world.”

Eleanor lifted her eyes away from Kaedra to find Mick’s face again. She wasn’t surprised to see him staring back at her. They were, for once, on the same page.

Or . . . in a way. Neither of them could deny that magic existed anymore. But was Kaedra telling the truth? Could they trust her?

“What does this have to do with me?” Mick finally asked. Anything to get Kaedra to keep talking. Smart move. Eleanor smirked despite herself.

“You,” Kaedra replied, “are a guardian beast, as I’ve said. In a way, you’re the other side of our coin. Where we’re the shield, you’re the sword.”

“Meaning . . . ?”

“Put simply,” Kaedra told him, “a guardian beast is a being of incredible magic. You are meant to protect this world from magic gone wrong, but beings like you are only summoned when our efforts fall short. You are, in other words, a last resort.”

“When magic gets out of hand, they raze everything to the ground,” Faelen added. “The source, whatever it is, gets wiped clean of magic, and we go in to build everything back up to the way it was. That’s why it’s a last resort: because guardians like you leave nothing in your wake.”

“A walking nuclear bomb,” Eleanor murmured.

“Crude, but . . . yes, basically,” Alphin replied.

“You see,” Kaedra continued, “for over a year, somebody has been trying to rip a hole into the fabric of reality, using magic nobody on this plane should have. We’ve done everything we could think of to keep them from succeeding: influencing the town to build a mall over the closest nexus, stationing ourselves within it, infusing every corner of that place with protective spells—everything. And for months, we’ve succeeded in driving this person’s efforts back. But something changed recently. Somehow, they’ve gained influence over a powerful weapon in our possession capable of splitting through the laws governing our reality. It’s only a matter of time before they use it to open a hole we can’t close. Hence . . . you.”

“But the problem is, we don’t know who made you,” Faelen sneered. “You clearly didn’t make yourself into a guardian beast. So you’re working with a witch who knows what a guardian is and feels the need to bring one into existence through an idiot they can manipulate.”

“What she means is,” Kaedra began.

Faelen narrowed her eyes at her. “We don’t know whose side you’re on.”

It was a lot at once. Even Eleanor felt that. A magical weapon? Watchers? Guardians? A fight between a clandestine order of mages and the forces of magic in the world? All of it was . . . a lot.

Yet something in all of that snagged at Eleanor’s brain. For over a year, somebody was tearing holes in the fabric of reality. Somebody got a hold of magic nobody should have access to. Somebody knew that there was a crossroads between ley lines right inside the mall.

Eleanor clenched her jaw shut and tried her hardest to make it look like she was only shocked by what Kaedra was saying. Whose side was Mick on? Excellent question.

“Listen, I don’t know if I buy literally anything you just said,” Mick began, “but if you’re implying Eleanor had anything to do with this—”

“We know neither of you are the one we’re looking for,” Kaedra interrupted. “You wouldn’t have been chosen if that were the case. However . . .” Kaedra rose to her feet and swung her eyes to Eleanor. “There was a third person with you, wasn’t there?”

Eleanor didn’t know how to respond to that. She couldn’t just accuse . . .

But . . . it made sense, didn’t it? It would explain why that spell . . .

No, that wasn’t important. She couldn’t trust these people. She saw them, hadn’t she? They were opening that portal, not closing it . . . right?

Then again . . . those tendrils of shadow. Those vines from nowhere. They were binding that beast in the portal, weren’t they?

It took her a second to realize the mall goth had knelt in front of her. When she looked at them, they grinned at her like a friend and began signing to her.

And yet, despite the fact that she didn’t know sign language, she understood.

Yzara, the Magician, they said. I give you my name as a sign of trust. I know you don’t trust us. Smart move.

Eleanor stiffened. Did they know? Were they psychic too?

Yzara’s grin turned amused, and they continued to sign. Nine tonight. On the roof of the mall. A friend will be waiting. For now: remind him of who he is. You’ll know what to do.

“What?” Eleanor murmured. “What do you mean?”

For a moment, Yzara cocked their head and regarded her with knitted brows. They reached through the bars of Faelen’s cage to ruffle Eleanor’s hair, and Faelen’s bonds, both over Eleanor and around Mick, dissolved into dust. Yzara stood and signed to the others; Kaedra watched their hands for a second, then relaxed and approached Eleanor.

And kissed her on the forehead.

“Nine sharp,” she whispered. “And please trust us.”

With that, she slipped between the trees and vanished. Faelen flashed a skeptical glance at Mick and Eleanor and followed close behind, and Alphin parted the bushes to bring up the rear. Yzara lingered for another moment, studying Mick for a second before pulling a pair of jeans from somewhere beneath their coat. Once they dropped this onto the forest floor, they, too, left Mick and Eleanor alone.

A full minute passed in which Mick and Eleanor did nothing else but stare at one another in shared confusion. When that minute passed, Mick dove for the pants, and only then did Eleanor realize he had been naked that entire time. She squeaked and turned away, fixing her eyes onto a tree ahead of her as she listened to Mick wrestle with Yzara’s gift.

“You don’t really believe them, do you?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she admitted, “but at least they didn’t hurt you.” She paused. “They didn’t, did they?”

“Huh? Oh, no. I’m fine. Just . . . weird. You can turn around now, by the way.”

She did. Somehow, the jeans were a perfect fit; they even had a hole in the back for Mick’s new tail. But then again . . . magic.

Eleanor tried not to think about the fact that Yzara hadn’t been generous enough to give Mick a shirt.

“Weird?” she said, a little more quietly than she meant.

Mick nodded, flexing his fingers. “I think they’re right. I’m still changing. Not as fast as before, but . . .”

“But you don’t have much time.”

“Right.”

Another lapse in their conversation, this time more uncomfortable than the last. He wasn’t done changing. What did a guardian beast look like? What were they capable of?

And what did Yzara mean when they said “remind him of who he is”? Those words ricocheted off the walls of Eleanor’s skull. Was she going to lose Mick? What did she have to do? Just how bad was this guardian beast going to be?

“Eleanor?” Mick murmured. “Could you say something? I’m not sure I like the look on your face right now.”

“Right. Sorry.” Eleanor reflexively touched her cheek—the same one Mick had caressed. “Mick, about Adelaide . . .”

“You’re not suggesting we go back to her after what happened the last time, are you?”

“Gods, no!” Eleanor gasped. “If anything . . . I think we should be wary about her.”

Mick studied Eleanor’s face for a beat. The flash of confusion on his face gave way to understanding, then to widening eyes.

“You don’t think . . .”

“I don’t know,” Eleanor said. “It could be her. It could be someone else, and she could be on the watchers’ side without either of them knowing. We’re walking into unknown territory right now, and with you still in the process of transforming . . .”

She trailed off. She didn’t have to say they had a lot on their plate; she only had to look into Mick’s eyes for him to understand.

“Right,” he said. “Right. Okay. So what do we do now?”

Eleanor exhaled. Yet another good question. “As far as I can tell, we have three choices. First, despite what I just said, we take a risk with Adelaide. Maybe she knows something about guardian beasts. She has a book of spells and magical tools; perhaps we can get our hands on them and figure this out from there.”

Mick shook his head. “No. Just no. Not again.”

Eleanor nodded. “The second option is we trust the watchers and get to the mall by nine PM sharp.”

“And the third option?”

“We wait to see what you turn into. If they’re right about you being a creature of incredible magical power, then perhaps one of those powers is the ability to turn back.”

Mick tapped his chin with a claw. “So it’s either trust them or take a risk on . . . whatever it is I am.”

“Right,” Eleanor sighed. “Well. This time, the decision is yours.”

Mick raised his eyebrows at her once more, then gave her a half-hearted smirk. “Well. Not much of a choice. Trust them.”

Although it was, in Eleanor’s opinion, really the best option, she was still surprised by how quickly Mick came to the same conclusion. “You’re sure?”

“At this point?” Mick shrugged. “Better them than somebody I never trusted in the first place or losing myself to this.” He hesitated, then tilted his head at her. “Eleanor . . . I know you told me this earlier, but are you okay?”

“Yes. Why?”

Before she could react, he closed the distance between them and scooped her into his arms. His wings fanned out behind him, and with a jolt, he pulled them both into the air. As the ground rushed away from them, she snapped her arms around Mick’s shoulders and held on tight.

“Because the fastest way out of this place is flying, and it’ll be a lot easier if you’re calm when I do it,” he said.

Calm was not a word Eleanor would associate with the emotions that burned her heart and face right then, but she swallowed, squeaked an affirmation into his shoulder, and let him carry her.

Mick had a point about Eleanor, and that was she liked to think with her heart instead of her head most days. And right then, far above the forest, in the arms of her best friend, with her heart pounding harder than it had for any other crush she had ever felt before, she admitted to herself that maybe this was a bad thing.

The Infinite Sadness: Chapter Six

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