The days had fallen into an odd routine. Rise, dress, check reports, oversee the spring plantings. Check readouts from the Gray Area. Spend some time with the kittens. Eat something. Change outfits, change hair, change shoes, most days change species...Then, whatever else each day held. Waiting for news--from the readings, from STAN, from Justine's experiments on Tannhäuser Station.
Justine had told her she was working on something quantum-based in the fringe lab, but she'd been secluded for days. If there was progress being made, the Duchess hadn't heard. She hoped for the best, but...The days went by, with no news, with no progress, with no assurances. It was starting to eat holes in her.
Then today...today she rose, and the routine was perfectly routine--the rising, the dressing, massive amounts of coffee because she hadn't slept well the night before. Poring over reports and Tannhäuser printouts. She finally shook her head. She needed to see the children now. She needed to hold them, and reassure them when they asked about their father, or to go outside, or....
Well, there was Cleopatra, sleeping. Enoch was resting on the floor. That's two...
Where was Athena?
She looked around, growing increasingly concerned. The small ritual space. Under the sofa. Under the chairs near the fireplace. Upstairs, still largely undecorated because the children hadn't yet shifted to any other form. The door, where she found Athena frequently, waiting.
She wasn't there.
And her remaining children would not look at her.
"Darlings...tell your mother where Athena is."
Cleo squinched her eyes shut, and Enoch lowered his head. She narrowed her eyes. She knelt beside them, finally turning Enoch's face towards her. "Tell me."
The high, small voice came from behind her, from her ghost-white daughter. "She went...outside."
"She went..." A chill went through her. "How--where?"
Enoch pawed at her legs. "She went to the Rift."
She went to the...Oh, dear gods, no. She fled down to Steam, searching, panic building, and then--
She'd found this earlier, she had it on a list of things to close when she was more settled, but--it was larger now, the hum was stronger, there was...whispering...energy flares, she'd never seen anything like it since the rift that opened in the old nursery, and--oh, gods, were those--tentacles?!
She flung open the door, and there was her little girl, floating in midair, creeping through the barrier--
"Athena! No!"
She was almost through!
She had no choice, she had to pull her back. She leapt, reaching for the tip of Athena's tail, thinking she'd manage to grasp it, and would be able to pull her out--
--and instead, she fell forward, into eerie purple glow and drifting mists of viridescence.
Great. What else could go wrong?
(Continued in part XXXVII.)
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