Momento Somnus by Victoria Mendoza

your little brain right out of your head!” She pats his metal scalp and his head slumps to one side. He falls out of the chair with a loud clank and the broomstick making up his left arm comes out of the socket.

“Oh dear!” she says as she picks him up and puts him back in the chair. “Clumsy me!” She picks up his arm and sets it on the table in front of him.

“I’ll fix that after dinner, dear,” she says as she looks to Sussie and frowns again. The canvas around her left eye has started to peel from the intense heat and the paint making up her chin has run a little.

“Young lady, I told you to use that face moisturizer I gave you!” She waits for an answer but the timer on the stove dings.

“Oh! The roast is done!” She walks over to the stove and fiddles with the space where the dial used to be. She looks at the timer. 5:32. She will have to deal with that broken timer later. She picks up the empty tray in the oven and sets it down on the stove top. She inhales deeply and sighs in satisfaction.

“Who’s hungry?”

momento somnus

By: Victoria Mendoza

It was only when she was cradling the rapidly cooling body of her once-bestfriend-slash-would-be-lover that Magpie the Destroyer truly understood the gravity of adventuring. That was to say, she’d never truly believed in her own mortality—much less of the mortality of others more competent than her—until this very moment. Faustus, her familiar and the closest thing she ever had to a brother, perched on a barrel next to the pair.

Hand trembling, Mags reached down to trace the side of Mara’s face. A spindly emerald finger skirted over scarred brows and across a twice-broken nose to settle on the onyx markings along the dying girl’s jawline. Counting the lethal teeth inked across Mara’s jaw—feeling the absence of Mara’s essence—a keening moan seeped from Magpie’s frozen mouth. The crashing waves and the north wind’s rage melded into a roaring crescendo

that screamed past Magpie’s ears. She curled her toes, burrowing them deeper into the nearrotting planks of the deck. It was only when bird carcasses dropped onto the deck that Mags noticed tendrils of her soul reaching for something—anything—to grab on to and anchor herself in this newfound reality. Jaw clenching and gaze firmly on Mara’s frozen, horrified stare, Mags slowly released her grip on the souls of the birds, pulling further into herself. Faustus croaked, hopping nervously from one foot to the other.

“No,” muttered so lowly, the wind plucked it from Magpie’s mouth before it had the chance to leave her lips. Hands slid down to Mara’s shoulders, grip tightening until her sharp talons break skin.

“No, this wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. Come on, Mara—” Mara’s head snapped back from the violence of Magpie’s shaking. “Hurry up and wake up already— please.”

Two caws from Faustus—one as a means of comfort, the other as a warning. A bolt of heat raced up Mags’s spine and her leathery ears twitched in panic. “I know, Faustus, but she’s going to get up soon and I can’t leave her, okay? She didn’t leave me on the mountain, or in the dragon’s ribcage, or inside that aboleth’s lair, so I can’t just leave her here—okay? I can’t. I can’t be the one to have killed her because it was an accident and she’ll wake up any minute now.”

The staccato rush of footsteps echoed across the dock, sending a jolt of energy through Magpie’s veins. Faustus, nipping at one of Mags’s long and pointed ears, flapped his wings. In a frantic rush of oily black wings, he tried to reach her left hand, beak nipping at anything he can get near. A plaintive screech left his beak as Mags refused to let Mara go. Bumping his forehead against the rune-inked knuckles gripping Mara’s shoulder, Faustus shuddered and shrunk into himself. Time was an unforgiving mistress and, as the seconds rushed by, it became painfully apparent that Mags was out of time and—for the first time in her life—out of luck.

Faustus, in a last-ditch attempt to gain access to Mags’s palm, clawed at her wrist. A streak of violent red seeped across the back of her wrist and onto Mara. Mags sucked in a sharp, startled breath, and finally looked at Faustus. He flapped his wings, cawing, urging her to act. To do what Time will allow her to, now that they had none. Throat aching, she tasted salt and iron on the back of her tongue. She wasn’t sure whose blood it was—hers or Mara’s. Some small part of her, still unwilling to lose Mara, hoped it was a melding of the two.

Pulse thundering in her ears, Mags shuddered and hugged the body of Mara. Leaning close to the delicate swirl of the oncepowerful mage’s ear, Mags swallowed hard. “Please, please, please wake up, Mara. Please.”

Voices, thunderous and furious, were heard from the gangplank. As Faustus became more frantic in urging Mags to move, she loosened her grip on the body a finger at a time. Tracing the scythe inked into her forearm, Mags pulled the scythe free and turned to face the gangplank. Her gaze skirted to Faustus, remorse washing through her. With her free hand, she slashed a talon across Faustus’s soul bond inked on her palm, severing the tie. Screeching furiously, he dived towards her before dissipating into a cloud of ash. She bit down a sob, nerves aching with grief from losing so much in such a brief amount of time.

A shout rang across the deck as crewmembers raced up the gangplank, noticing Mags crouching over Mara’s corpse. Jaw clenching, Mags counted the bodies

she could take down before she, herself, was exterminated—a fate she had earned twenty times over. She tightened her grip on her scythe, muscles bunching beneath her to pounce on the boatswain charging towards her. Chest aching at the thought of yet another friend murdered by her hands, Mags reared back to throw her scythe through the boy.

As her scythe arced through the air, an icy hand gripped her wrist, stopping the motion. Mags snapped her head towards the offending hand, only to find Mara’s stern—if not a bit transparent—gaze glaring down at her. Shaking her head once, Mara guided Mags’s scythe through the air. An opening formed out of smoke and shadows, cleaved from the sky and leading to gods knew where. Mara— effervescent and the only one Mags ever trusted—moved towards the opening, one hand still gripping Mags’s wrist. Mags tried to read this new Mara’s gaze. It was at once familiar and alien—all challenge, fondness, and condemnation. Mags tried to breathe around the hardening lump in her throat, all too accepting of the accusation in Mara’s gaze. Mara tugged on Mags’s wrist once more and stepped through the portal. Immediately, without thinking, Mags followed. After all, there really wasn’t anywhere she wouldn’t go if it was in pursuit of Mara.