madness and ecstasy // leo valdez

-billie eilish's new fragrance: your turn, teqi-

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The tunnel felt like it went forever, but maybe it was just because Teqi had no way to tell the time. In all honesty, they could've been walking for like, ten minutes.

She didn't know what she was expecting to find at the end, but it wasn't elevator doors. They were polished, compared to the grit and moss around them, each one engraved with a cursive letter M. Next to the elevator was a directory.

"M for Macy's?" Piper guessed. "I think they have one in downtown Chicago."

"Or Monocle Motors still?" Leo said, peering around her. "Guys, read the directory. It's messed up."

Teqi stared at the long words strung along next to the letters for each floor. She recognised a few of them. 'Weaponry' and 'Poisons', mainly. That explained a lot. She hoped the rest of it wasn't too important. She stepped around a lump of chewed gum. "What's Macy's?"

"A clothes shop. I don't even want to know what the kennels are for." Piper said. "And what kind of department store has its entrance in a sewer?"

"Or sells poisons," Leo said with a frown. "Man, what does 'sundries' even mean? Is that like underwear?"

Jason took a deep breath and pushed the shiny UP button. "When in doubt, start at the top."

"That was never a saying."

Teqi held onto the railing with white knuckles as the elevator went up. She'd never been in one before. Her ears popped, like when you rode a Pegasus too high, but Pegasi weren't cold metal boxes that could crush you at any time. Leo made eye contact with her, and smiled like he could see the apprehension in her eyes.

The doors slid open once the automated number reached four, and the smell of perfume hit her like a brick in the face. She welcomed it, despite wrinkling her nose, and scrambled out of the death trap.

Jason stepped out after her, sword ready. Good. He was learning. "Guys," he said, quietly. "You've got to see this."

Piper joined him and caught her breath. "This is not a Macy's."

It didn't really narrow down exactly what a Macey's was, but Teqi forgot about that as soon as she caught sight of the reflections. The department store looked like the inside of a kaleidoscope.

The entire ceiling was a stained-glass mosaic with astrological signs around a giant sun, it was beautiful. She wished she could take a photo. The daylight streaming through it washed everything in a thousand different colours.

She needed sunglasses.

The upper floors made a ring of balconies around a huge central atrium, so they could see all the way down to the ground floor. Gold railings glittered so brightly; they were hard to look at. It was like an Iris kids wet dream.

It was all very beautiful, but she turned in a circle, scanning the building quickly. Aside from the stained-glass ceiling and the elevator that slid shut behind them, there were no exits.

And the racks of merchandise were just as off-putting. There was too much to take in all at once. Racks of jerseys made sense, but not when put next to an armoured manikin. A fur coat ruffled its own collar.

Teqi took shifts at the camp store, she'd sold people jars of bees paired with Pegasus shaped lollies. She'd seen a lot of weird merchandise.

She knew this place wasn't built by mortals.