PLATO'S STEP-DAUGHTER I FLYNN CARSEN

By The Crown & Sword

By The Crown & Sword

When Clara came to, it was only to find herself lying on a mosaic floor, the sound of the sea challenging the silence for supremacy. She sat up, pushing the hair out of her face as she glanced around for Ezekiel. But he was nowhere to be seen, the room resolutely empty. Fighting the panic rising in her, she staggered to her feet, frantically searching for a way out, but the room remained windowless and doorless despite the bright sunlight flooding the chamber, almost blinding her. Head spinning, she took a step sideways, only for her back to hit wall, contradicting Clara, confusing her even further. But she stayed put, the wall propping her up amidst the shifting sands of her surroundings.

Almost against her will, her gaze became drawn to the mosaic floor, her eyes widening at what its pattern depicted, a half-finished tapestry on a loom, its design consisting of a crown and sword. She remembered reaching for the Crown; of pushing open the Library doors, memories entangled together, Clara unable to separate them. Each recollection contained crown and sword, neither able to exist without the other. But the Crown was under lock and key, Excalibur dead, buried in the black earth by Flynn with his bare hands, lying where Clara should be right now, in a cold grave, divided from life by death -

"Good morn, Guinevere," a melodious voice called out, her words ringing round the chamber like bells.

Clara whirled around, bewildered, only to be confronted by the sight of a tall, stately woman, dressed in an intricately draped ivory toga that set off her rich cocoa-coloured skin, a mocking smirk playing across her perfect lips, marring the symmetry of her beautiful face.

"Aren't you going to greet me, Gwen?" the woman asked, raising a questioning eyebrow.

"Where's Ezekiel?" Clara demanded, her voice shaking despite herself.

The woman appraised her for a moment, before tilting her head to one side, her almond-shaped eyes suddenly changing shade, the iridescent amber evolving into a violent violet. Clara felt a jolt course through her, not painful, but jarring all the same, making her gasp in shock. The woman smiled, her eyes amber again. "There, just as I remember," she declared, clasping her hands together in oddly childish joy.

Clara's hand flew up to her hair; what had once been poker straight, was now elaborately ringletted and twisted upwards around a towering coronet, her clothes undergoing a similar evolution, the previous Spartan simplicity of her blouse and skirt now overruled by an crimson toga that clung to her curves, the blood red shade acting as an admirable foil to her dark eyes. "Where the hell is Ezekiel?" Clara reiterated, shaking from head to foot now.

"I was tempted to send him there for a spell," the woman mused, "but I realised I would miss his shifty eyes too much."

"Look, I don't know who you are, or where I am, but I just want Ezekiel back, alright?" Clara tried and failed to say reasonably. "Him being here - wherever here is," she amended hastily, "is a huge misunderstanding, and I'm sorry, so if you just hand him back, we'll be out of your rather fabulous hair. Savvy?"

The woman stared at her as if she was mad. " 'Savvy?' " she asked, confused. "You 'don't know me?' What has become of you, Gwen?" She made to touch Clara's cheek, making Clara reel back, the woman freezing, her face becoming thunderous. "Who has inflicted this perfidy upon you?" she demanded, advancing on Clara. "Who has altered your very essence? Tell me and I shall burn them!"

"Who are you?" Clara whispered, fear threatening to overwhelm her. Eve had been attempting to teach them how to handle whatever crisis this world and the next flung at them, but her lessons hadn't encompassed becoming trapped in curiosity cabinets. But Eve wasn't to blame for this oversight, but rather Flynn, since he was the one keeping cannibalistic furniture on the sly.

She had noticed a lot of things were Flynn's fault, one of his errors including not putting her on the Library payroll, forcing her to wait on tables again until Jenkins had sorted it all out. Flynn had left Jacob out of the loop as well, but nobody tried to slip their hands up his skirt where he worked, so Clara had been more than put out at having to return to Hurricane Anne's Breezy Bistro. Jenkins had refused point-blank to financially support her or Jacob while he hacked his way through the ancient hyperbole that stood in his way of hiring them, stating they could stand on their own two feet, the others unable to help them, trying to sort out their own logistical nightmares.

"I am Circe, sweet one," the woman said, interrupting Clara's reverie, her extraordinary eyes becoming filled with tears. "Do you not remember me?"

Clara gaped at her, before recovering herself. "I remember hearing you tried to drop Jacob down a mine-shaft," Clara spat, the world suddenly making sense again, "and that you slipped a spell into his coffee. And you wonder why he isn't returning your calls!?"

Circe stared at her, shocked. "You know the mortal, Jacob Stone?" she said, seeming to shrink into herself.

"He's one of my friends," Clara said, crossing her arms over her chest, "and I don't take too kindly to anyone who tries to hurt them."

"He rejected my love!"

"What, does that constitute a death sentence, then!?" Clara exclaimed, fighting her surprise that Jacob, the connoisseur of female flesh, would turn down someone like Circe, Clara having imagined her to be an old hag.

"It is the greatest folly to spurn a sorceress," Circe said coldly.

"What about freewill?" Clara challenged. "Whether you like it or not, he has the right to say no."

"He has no rights at all - no mortal does."

Clara just shook her ringletted head, unable to believe what she was hearing. "Look, I'm not interested in listening to your fascist rhetoric," she said disdainfully, "nor am I here to play dress-up - I'm here for Ezekiel Jones, so where the hell is he!?"

"You have changed, Guinevere," Circe said, shaking her own head. "I do not know you."

"You never did, and you never will," Clara retorted, "so where is Zeke!?"

"Come with me, your Majesty," Circe said slyly, gesturing to an archway that hadn't been there before.

Well, there is a reward
To live and die by the sword...