Chapter 30 - With or Without You

“So that was what the prisoner told me.”

Ariadne’s words hung in the air. She had relayed the story she had been told calmly and as accurately as she could recall.

But when Orpheus looked at her he noticed there was something in the look she had on her face. Before he could sort out what it meant her face just…crumpled.

“I’m so sorry dad!”

She leaped into his arms. Streaks of tears poured down her face as she buried her cheeks into his chest and held him incredibly tight.

“Whoa! What’s going on Callie?” He couldn’t bring himself to call her by her assumed name at the moment.

“It’s my fault you’re here. I’m the one who should be stuck here. Not you. You’re only stuck here because of me!”

She wept openly and loudly as she spoke, her words almost lost in the anguish of her overwhelming emotions.

“No! No! No! Callie! None of this is your fault! It’s the fault of the people who dragged us here. Not yours!”

He pet her head as she clung even more tightly.

“But if you hadn’t tried to help me…”

“Then you would have been here all alone! And I would have been devastated. Alone without you. I would jump into a hundred weird magic circles in a row just to be there with you and make sure you’re safe!”

He kissed the top of her head as he tried to soothe her.

“Besides, it sounds like they screwed up the ritual. Who knows if they were even doing it right. And they were attacked part way through. If you had just shown up in that castle like they wanted, you might have been just as weak as when we first got here…you might have…”

He pushed the thought that she might have died deep, deep down and hugged her tight.

“Listen Callie. We didn’t sign up for this. And I will make sure you get home. And no matter what, we have each other. That’s all that matters.”

“Yeah…” She burrowed into his chest even deeper with her face, but her crying was abating. “I just…I always suspected I was the one supposed to be dragged here. And I felt terrible. Especially since all you’ve done, everything you’ve done, has been to try and get us back. But to hear that my fears were right…” Her words trailed off as she hugged him tighter.

“And I’ve spent two years worried that by jumping into that circle maybe I made things so much worse for you. But honestly…hearing that story. About how they rushed things. How they were attacked part way through. I’m just…glad I can be with you.”

“I’m happy you’re here too dad. So, so happy.”

Orpheus pulled back a little and lifted her chin up so he could look her in the eyes.

“Ready to eat? I made lots of the fish you love.” He pointed at the kitchen behind him and for the first time Callie recognized the smell coming from the frying pan.

She nodded eagerly. She’d never really wanted to try fish much back on Earth, but had grown to really like it in this new world. The lack of most of her favourite options, teen staples like pizza and instant ramen, forced her to look further afield.

“Good. Get some plates and while we eat we can talk next steps.” He pointed at the tableware and they set out their meals and sat down.

“So, Ariadne,” he switched to her assumed name. It was time for business and she understood. “I think you can guess our next move?”

“Yeah. We need to rescue Silea.”

He gave her a wry smile. “I’ll give you part marks for that. What else?” He popped a piece of fried fish in his mouth and chewed with a grin, waiting on her to continue.

“Uh…we need to save Kaelen too?”

“Buzz!” He crossed his arms in front of himself and made it clear it was a wrong answer.

“Really? We’re just going to leave him there?” She looked surprised.

“Well, we’ll probably free him too. But for our own reasons, not just to let him be free.”

“Were you this cold back home at your job dad?” She laughed, but he could tell underneath she was genuinely curious.

“No, I was much more ruthless there.” He answered glibly.

“But still won’t tell me what you did?”

“The stories would honestly bore you.”

“Uh huh…” She gave him some side eye, making it clear she didn’t believe him.

Orpheus honestly thought his work in an office back on Earth would be a dull topic, but it had become a game over the years that he would deflect her questions instead of answering them. He was pretty sure by now she realized his old work was nothing all that special and she was just playing along. Probably. It was always hard to tell with kids.

“So anyway,” he continued, “we need to free this Silea. But we also need to track down the two books she mentioned. The tome that holds the secrets to summoning magic and the book that serves as the key to understanding it.”

“Oh yeah, good point.”

“Especially since it sounds like the book has a spell that can be used to track down other mages with the potential to cast summoning magic. If we get Silea to use it we might be able to track down more like her who can work to send us home.”

“And in the process get the in way of Taia’s search too.”

“Good point! I suppose that’s a fun little bonus. I don’t really care what Taia gets up to if it isn’t anything that gets in our way. But knowing she’s trying to track down summoning mages too…and not knowing why…We’ll need to be careful and deal with her accordingly.”

“Anything else I missed dad?”

“Well, the whole point of what we’ve done lately is to get an asset from inside the castle. So I think this is the perfect opportunity to test the limits of our closer friendship with Euryale.”

“So what, make her more scared?”

“No…well probably yes…but not exactly. I say we get her involved in freeing Silea as a test of whether we can rely on her. We need to make sure Euryale feels both like she’s at risk if she doesn’t have our help, and make her feel like she needs to help us to keep us around…”

He paused and had an evil grin on his face.

“And the best way to make an asset rely on you is to make them do something else incriminating.”