Chapter 130

After a fruitful morning of alchemy lessons, interrupted briefly by Rosalie, Zoey set out to the training facility to see if she could track down Maddy. Cellphones were unfortunately not an invention in this world, so coordination could sometimes be tricky.

Before finding her mage tutor, though, Zoey was interrupted by someone else.

“There you are,” Delta said, appearing to Zoey’s side in a flash of orange hair, then looping an arm around hers and tugging. “Come on, we’ve gotta go.”

Zoey stumbled a step as her trajectory was forcibly diverted, and soon, she was being dragged away at a brisk pace.

“Wait, what?” Zoey asked, orienting herself to her change in circumstances. “Delta? What’s going on?”

“Found an in with the cultists. We’re gonna go check it out.”

“The cultists?”

“That was the plan, wasn’t it?”

“I—I guess? But already?”

“Somebody’s been productive with their morning, not laying pipe with five different girls.” Delta leaned close to Zoey and sniffed. “You need a shower, by the way.”

“Two girls,” Zoey defended. “One of them with a portal, so it doesn’t count.”

“Portal?” Delta laughed. “Well, good for Blondie. But doesn’t count? I don’t know about that, Zoey.”

“Well. Doesn’t count for the smell comment. It’s not that bad, is it? I cleaned up.”

“You smell like sex.”

“Really?”

“You always do. Maybe stop having so much of it?” Delta laughed. “But no, it’s not that bad. I’m teasing. Mostly.”

“Okay, back it up.” The orange-haired foxgirl had already dragged Zoey out of the training facility and under the open sky; they were setting a quick pace, in a rush. “Where are you taking me? And what about the cultists?”

“I’d grab Blondie, too, but we don’t have time. Couldn’t find her. And I’m not so sure she’s fit for this mission, anyway.”

“Mission?”

“With luck, we’re being inducted into the doomsday cult. I feel like that isn’t a scene she’d handle well.”

“What? Inducted? Be serious for a second.”

“When am I not?”

Zoey gave her an exasperated look, and Delta only rolled her eyes in response.

“They have refreshments, stop whining. It’ll be fun.”

Zoey shook her head. She still wasn’t sure what Delta was going on about—whether she could take her claims at face value. “I was planning on finding Maddy for more lessons. This is more important?”

“Uh, yeah. You can do that whenever. We need to figure out more about our cum vampire. And the world ending. Definitely seems higher on our priority list.”

Zoey winced at the words ‘the world ending’, then looked around, but obviously no one was eavesdropping. “Maybe a little discretion would be smart?”

“Not my specialty.”

“Yeah. I guess it isn’t.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Real explanation, please?”

Delta groaned. “Okay, fine. I was out in town and saw one of those weirdos. Decided to check out what he was saying. After some chatting, he invited me to one of their events.”

“That easy?”

“What can I say? I’m a people person.”

“Uh-huh. They have ‘events’?”

“Course they do. How do you think recruitment works? Just happens?”

“Still,” Zoey said, finding this whole situation bizarre. “It’s not illegal or something? Those kinds of meet-ups? With cultists?”

“We just call them cultists. Don’t think they actually are. And even if they were, illegal? Here? In the Fractures? Even up top things are a little loose when it comes to ‘religious organizations’—” she air-quoted the words, “so down in the Fractures, nobody gives a shit. Not enough policing force, so you really have to cause trouble to draw attention. But that’s not really these guys’s deal, anyway, I think. They’re not troublemakers. Necessarily.”

“And what is their deal?”

“Dunno, but sounds pretty damn relevant to ours,” Delta said. “Like we already knew, they’re talking about decaying shards. That it’ll spread to the Fractures, then Haven. End of the world, all that business. Don’t know how they came to that conclusion, but there might be a seed of truth. I’m thinking we’ll need to talk to someone higher up than the street peddlers, though, to find out. Hence, socialization.”

“An event,” Zoey repeated. “What is it, anyway?”

“A soirée, I suppose?”

“Really?”

“Well, soirées are in the evening, and this is for the afternoon. But yeah. Pretty much. Refreshments and some talking. A presentation, maybe? Robert—that was the guy I was talking with—kept hinting there was some kind of big reveal at the end. ‘Proof’ of it all.”

“Proof?”

Delta shrugged. “Maybe it’s all bullshit, maybe it isn’t. But I would’ve called your story bullshit too, so I guess I’m more open minded these days. And why latch to the concept of ‘decaying shards’? Seems too coincidental to not matter.”

“It’s worth checking out,” Zoey agreed. She wrinkled her nose. “But it’s inconvenient timing.” She’d been looking forward to lessons with Maddy—though it hadn’t been guaranteed in the first place. She didn’t even know if Maddy was in the training facility.

“Sorry the doomsday cult isn’t scheduling around your availability,” Delta said dryly. “Besides, there’ll be plenty of time to stuff petite blue-haired mages silly at later dates. You can miss one creampie session, you insatiable woman.”

“We haven’t even done anything,” Zoey protested. “And what’s with the colorful language?”

“You haven’t? What’s taking so long?”

The twinkling in Delta’s eye gave away that she was trying to get a rise out of Zoey, and Zoey just shook her head. “You’re in rare form today.”

“Thanks.” The foxgirl bounced along energetically, still dragging Zoey with her arm wrapped around Zoey’s. “Honestly, I’m kind of excited at what we’ll find. Never expected to get pulled into a ‘save the world’ quest. But I can get behind it. Sounds fun.”