Chapter Text
When Beatrice finally dragged herself away from the arc, her entire body was numb. She didn’t remember the walk upstairs, didn’t remember drifting past the sickening red puddle of Ava’s blood spilled on white ground, the trail of bodies she’d left in the hallway to get to her, the alcove where Ava kissed her.
When she made it to the spot they’d agreed to regroup in earlier (when she thought that none of them would make it back alive), she saw everyone waiting for her. Everyone had made it.
Everyone else.
Camila was the first one to spot her. “Bea!” she called, smiling wide. She jogged towards Beatrice, then came to a stop, grin fading. “Where is Ava?”
From her face, Beatrice could already tell that she knew the answer.
“She’s… Gone.” The words felt thick in her mouth; it was a fight to get them to leave. “She was injured by divinium. It was too much, she–”
“Oh, God,” Camila said, falling forward. Beatrice just barely caught her, pulling her back up to hold Camila to her chest. The smaller girl’s body shook against hers, and Beatrice closed her eyes, fighting another wave of tears. “A- Ava… ”
“She’s not dead,” Beatrice said. She was still trying to convince herself. “She’s not–she’s just gone. She went through the portal.”
“The portal?” Mother Superion asked. Beatrice had almost forgotten she was there. “But without power, how will she–”
“I don’t know,” Beatrice said, silencing her with a loko. “We’ll have to get the portal back to Jillian so she can get to work. It needs to be ready. Ava needs to be able to come home.”
Camila looked around the room. “And Michael?”
Beatrice swallowed. Yes, that would complicate things. Hopefully Jillian would be able to push through her grief and to help Ava. If she didn’t…
“He gave his life to stop Adriel,” Beatrice said. They were the first kind words she had ever spoken about him. She remembered the fear that ran through her as Ava detonated the bomb waiting inside of him. It replayed in slow motion, the glow of Ava’s body, riddled with divinium as she flew backwards.
More words were spoken, but Beatrice didn’t hear them. It wasn’t until a hand landed on her shoulder that she was drawn back into the conversation.
It was Mother Superion. “Let’s go home,” she said.
She was grateful when Camila took her arm to lead her.
/
She found herself in Ava’s room.
The space felt empty, cold. She expected it to seem large, gaping with significance, but instead found it small and barren. Yes, it still had its four walls, a bed, a pair of chairs, art on the wall, books on the shelves. But it was unwelcoming in its vacancy.
She took a tentative step into the room, as if her presence might shatter something within it. She walked past the chairs and stopped at the foot of the bed. She saw a flash of Ava, laying there with the crown of thorns on her head (peaceful, asleep, and dreaming up a plan to defeat Adriel that would mean laying down her own life).
Beatrice didn’t notice when she began to cry.
She wished she could go back, remove the crown, tell Ava to trust her sisters, that she didn’t have to do this all alone. She wished she didn’t spend their last hours together acting as if she was mad at Ava. She’d seen the heartbreak on Ava’s face when she rejected her offer to return to Switzerland. Why had she ignored it?
It wasn’t until she sat, and the bed dipped under her weight, that she saw it.
Something tucked under a pillow.
Hand shaking, Beatrice reached forward. It was a clipboard, with a single piece of paper attached to the wood. At the top of the page, two words: Dear Beatrice.
The rest of it was blank. Ava had never gotten to write it. And now she never would.
Beatrice collapsed onto the bed, grief multiplying.
She could not do this. She could not do this. A world without Ava was not one that she could bear to live in. They’d known each other only a few short months, but in that time Ava had become indispensable. She was an anchoring stitch, without which the fabric of Beatrice’s soul was unwinding, fraying at the seams.
And now, Ava was gone. Ripped from Beatrice’s arms, an unfathomable distance between them. How could she mourn for someone who was not dead, but no longer inhabited the same plane of existence?
Her body was a cavern, despair filling in every inch of the void with each minute that passed without Ava.
Alone in Ava’s room, Beatrice turned her face into the pillow and wept.
/
It took nearly twelve hours for Beatrice to collect herself. She didn’t think she’d slept, but she wasn’t concerned. She had a singular mission.
She walked into Jillian’s study with a purpose, but faltered when she saw the older woman, her head cradled in her hands as she sat at her desk. She didn’t hear Beatrice approaching–no one ever did–and she cleared her throat to turn Jillian’s attention to her.
“Beatrice,” she said, voice raw. “Sorry, I’m–”
“I understand,” Beatrice said. She didn’t need an explanation.
Beatrice stood in front of Jillian, stock still. She wasn’t good at these sorts of interactions, wasn’t sure how to be tactful in the face of something so terrible.
“How are you holding up?” Jillian asked, with the warmth and care of a mother. Not her mother, of course, but the point still stood.
“I’m managing,” she said, as if she hadn’t spent sleepless hours caught between feeling numb nothing and feeling everything. “I’m sorry about Michael. He was…a good man.”
“He was,” Jillian said, her smile watery. “Though, I barely knew him as a man. I wish we had more time. I hope one day we will.”
Beatrice furrowed her brow. If Jillian hoped ...that meant…
“You think there’s a way to bring him back?”
It was what she was here to ask about, but she hadn’t thought that Jillian would already be working on a plan. But sure enough, Jillian looked over at the portal. It might as well have been just a hunk of scrap metal, sitting there devoid of all light. It made Beatrice sick just to look at it, remembering the last time she’d stood in front of it.
I love you, she heard Ava’s voice, and had to shut her eyes for a moment. She was brought back when Jillian spoke.
“He told me that there would always be a piece of him that existed on the other side. If I could find a way to power the arc again, I could go to him.”
Beatrice thought this over. She had seen the scars on Jillian’s arms. “But you couldn’t travel through it before. No human can.”
“He could. And he was just a boy, a child,” Jillian said, shaking her head. “There must be a way.”
“But first the arc needs to have power,” Beatrice said. She had anticipated needing to convince Jillian to continue her work on the portal.
“Yes,” Jillian said. “An energy source. Something more powerful than anything on this earth. Something from beyond.”
“If I can find it for you, you think you can get it to work?”
Jillian’s head whipped towards her. “You’d do that?”
“Ava is trapped in the other realm,” Beatrice said, voice quiet. “I would do anything.”
/
“Going somewhere?”
“Oh, my! You scared me,” Yasmine said, flattening a hand to her chest with a fluttering smile. She looked back down at her bag, then finished tucking her shirt inside of it. “Yes, I’m going home first thing tomorrow.”
Beatrice tilted her head. “Why?”
“Honestly… I don’t know. I’m not even sure what I’ll do now. My life’s work is done,” Yasmine said. “Adriel is dead. I don’t know what will become of my order.”
“Your life’s work is just beginning,” Beatrice said. “Ava made you a sister warrior, remember?”
Yasmine laughed, shaking her head. “I know, but–”
“Then why would you leave? You belong with your sisters, training.”
“I could never be brave enough to be in the OCS,” Yasmine said.
“You already were,” Beatrice assured her. “What you did in the cathedral took courage, Yasmine.”
Yasmine scoffed and shook her head. “I had no choice.”
“You stood in the face of danger and you stayed strong. You survived. And we need as many brave sisters as we can get for what’s to come.”
Yasmine’s brow furrowed. “What…What’s to come?”
“A holy war,” Beatrice said. “That’s why I need to find a way to get Ava back. We can’t do it without her. We need– I need to get her back.”
“How can you do that? I thought she…crossed over.”
Beatrice was happy that Yasmine didn’t say “died,” but the euphemism hurt almost as badly.
“When we first met, you told us about the weapon from another realm. I need to know more about it, about the place Adriel came from.”
“We don’t know much,” Yasmine said. “It’s… I told you about Reya. She rules over her kingdom, a city where she ruled over other ethereal beings. Adriel was one of them, once. And then he tried to take her power for himself.”
“So, you think Ava is in this…city?”
Yasmine hesitated. “I don’t know. Not really. We only know what was passed down from Areala, and she only met Reya the once. The story has been passed down for hundreds of years, but–”
“If you had to guess–”
“Yes,” Yasmine said. “I think that’s where she’d be.”
“I need to find a way to power the arc,” Beatrice said. It was a long shot, but she was hoping that Yasmine might know, that her order had some ancient texts that would hold the key. “Adriel was using prayer as energy. If I could just find some sort of–source, maybe divinium, or–”
“What if there’s another portal?”
Beatrice’s mouth dropped open. It sounded too good to be true. “Another portal?”
“When Adriel first came to Earth, there was no arc. He opened the portal himself. Maybe it’s still there?”
“Where?” Beatrice asked.
Yasmine looked at her apologetically. “I’m not sure. But my order, our records–maybe you can find an answer there?”
“It’s a start,” Beatrice said. A start down the path that would hopefully lead her back to Ava.
“I could come with you,” Yasmine said. “I could help you find it.”
“You have to stay here. Train, learn, teach the others what you know,” Beatrice said.
“Ava was an incredible person,” Yasmine said. “I know you…you two had a special bond.”
Beatrice’s mind flashed to Ava’s tearful goodbye, the press of her lips against Beatrice’s, in full view of Yasmine. Not that Beatrice had the capacity for shame anymore, filled to the brim with anguish, but she was glad that Yasmine was accepting.
“Yes,” she said. “She is incredible.”
/
She found Camila in a pew.
Beatrice knelt next to her, bowing her head in prayer, but none came.
“I am struggling, Bea,” Camila admitted. Her eyes were still closed. “My faith is...I’ve relied on it for so long. What if I’ve lost it?”
Beatrice wished she had words of comfort for her. She lifted a hand to Camila’s shoulder. “It’ll be okay,” she said, though she wasn’t sure how that could be true. “This isn’t the end.”
“I’m sorry,” Camila said. “I shouldn’t be complaining to you about this, not with… everything. How are you doing?”
“As well as can be expected,” Beatrice said, despite the doubt she felt at the truth in her words. “And yourself?”
Camila shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s like I can’t feel anymore. We’ve lost so much. Shannon, Mary, Ava. And god only knows what Lilith is–”
“Oh, Lilith!” Beatrice said, making Camila jump. “After Ava–after she went into the portal. Lilith and I spoke.”
“Did she…mention us?”
Beatrice offered Camilla a tight smile. “I’m sorry, no.”
“I still can’t believe that she fought for Adriel,” Camila said. Then, in a pained whisper, “That she fought against us.”
“Lilith is battling a darkness that only she can understand,” Beatrice said. “I don't pretend to know why she did what she did. But when I spoke to her…She said she hoped to fight by our side again one day.”
Camila frowned. “But…the fight is over, isn’t it?”
“She says there’s a holy war coming,” Beatrice said quietly.
“Against who?”
“I don’t know, but I believe her. We need to get the OCS together. We need to be prepared.”
“Mother Superior has already sent for the new recruits,” Camila said. “The first of them should arrive tomorrow.”
“Good,” Beatrice said. “You’ll have to train them.”
“Me?” Camila looked surprised. “But you–”
“Have another mission,” Beatrice cut her off. “I need to learn as much as I can about the other realm–” heaven? “–so that I can figure out how to get Ava back.”
“Beatrice…” Camila looked at her with sad eyes. “I don’t know if… Do you really think she can? Come back?”
“She has to,” Beatrice whispered, tears springing to her eyes. She couldn't remember a time in her life when she felt this out of control of her emotions. Camila grabbed her hand and squeezed.
“Okay. But promise me… Bea, promise you’ll come back to us,” Camila said. “I can’t lose another sister.”
“I promise,” Beatrice said. “Once we have Ava, we’ll both be back to fight by your side.”
/
Saying goodbye to everyone would have been too difficult, so when Beatrice left three days later, she didn’t drag it out. She hoped Camila would explain to the others where she was going, but when she told Mother Superion that she had to leave, the older woman didn’t question her. No one did. She walked out of the courtyard with a purpose, a clearer one than she had ever had in her entire life.
When Beatrice left the Order of the Cruciform Sword, it was with a smile.
The recruits had arrived, the Order was rebuilding. And she was going to find a way to bring Ava back.
/
Somewhere, in a flash of bright golden light, an angel fell to earth.