Page 49 of Search for the Lost

It had felt like this… just like this, those billowing tendrils of black smoke burning his skin like acid. He tried to close his eyes—which was worse than useless because his eyelids were being worn away by the acrid flow—and tried to remember that day.

He had been bored and feeling neglected. His mother embraced his older brother Aspin, leaving Crispin to his own devices. He was always being left on his own. He had explored her little world and the surrounding woods a thousand times, and was hoping for something different.

On that night, the door called to him. A little whisper in the back of his head.

Crispin.

His mother was intimately involved with two of the five Red Dukes of Vespertine, and his brother was chatting up a pretty young faun who still had fuzz on their antlers and who seemed overwhelmed by the Fae world.

Crispin crept toward the door in trepidation, hearing that siren call.

He glanced back at Aspin and his mother, neither of whom seemed to be paying him any attention. Which was so typical. When I’m old enough, I’ll get away from you all. I’ll find something better. He was sick of the decadence of the Court, of everyone there living only to serve his Mother.

Still, something inside told him not to reach for the handle. The fear of that door had been beaten into him, even if he had never truly understood why it was so dangerous.

And yet the little door called to him. Crispin, come see me. Open the door. I won’t hurt you.

He reached for it, pulled his hand back as if he’d been burned, and then tried again, grasping the knob tightly. Screwing up his determination, he twisted it and pulled the door open.

In his old memory of the event, Chaos had rushed out of the door—now hanging open like the maw of some horrid beast—and Aspin had appeared at Crispin’s side almost instantly, wielding his sword to push Chaos back inside. The door had slammed shut, and that had been the end of it, other than gathering up the loose bits of Chaos. His mother had shuffled him away before he had a chance to ask any questions or see what happened to those loose pieces that would eventually become Leopold.

But now that his memory had been unlocked, he felt the true horror once again.

The door swung open, and time slowed to a crawl.

A roiling gray cloud that was nevertheless filled with all the colors of the world burst out through the portal, slamming into his face and knocking him backwards.

It burned.

Oh my Gods, it burns.

It surrounded him and knocked him down, flowing over him like a hungry predator.

It nipped at his arms, his legs, his cheeks, setting his skin on fire.

He felt rather than saw Aspin next to him, his bright golden sword lashing out at the cloud.

Crispin wanted to cry out, to call his older brother to his side, but the cloud slipped down his throat and into his lungs and stomach.

He choked on the vile stuff that tasted and smelled like every awful thing he’d ever eaten in his life, and his skin broke out in boils.

I’m going to die.

It was his final thought before he blacked out.

I’m going to die. Crispin now had the thought again as he stopped fighting the flow and let it drag him along, calm in the knowledge of his impending demise. His mother and brother had sent death packing the last time, making him forget what had happened, but every secret came out eventually. Death would not be denied, only postponed.

The thought was comforting somehow, the idea of letting go attractive. Why fight it anymore?

He had been a fool to think that he and Leo could work out. That Order and Chaos could find common ground.

And while he wasn’t ready to die—who is, really?–maybe he had done enough. Maybe this really was it, and he was only prolonging his last few minutes by struggling against fate.

As if in response, the pain in his arms and legs subsided. The tumbling current seemed to calm, just a little bit, still pulling him along, but no longer lashing out at him.

Maybe it’s only fighting me because I’m fighting it. He was born a paragon of order, and the desire to put everything in its proper place was ingrained in him as deeply as his blood, flesh, and bones.

And yet, he was no longer Crispin. Not entirely. He was Crispin in Leo. And not in the fun way.