Chapter 135

Losing Helena was fortunately easier than Zoey had feared. Bursting into the busy streets of Treyhull, Zoey and Delta quickly disappeared into the crowds. Helena apparently wasn’t willing to leverage any skills or abilities to pursue them, or to start a fight between wayfarers in the middle of the city, and Zoey and Delta had a head-start—and also the advantage of being the ones to flee rather than chase.

Even Zoey had some difficulty keeping up with Delta, though the foxgirl made sure not to lose her. Several streets later, and a good five minutes of winding down random busy pathways, Delta came to a stop, eyes scanning her surroundings. Breathing heavily—and only half from the exertion of sprinting away—Zoey did the same.

Delta took off her mask, which prompted Zoey to do the same.

“Well, that was interesting,” the foxgirl said.

“What happened?”

“Got out, somehow.” Delta shrugged. “Should’ve put more effort into the bindings. Or maybe the gag. Not sure. If I had to guess, someone heard her.”

“Then how’d you get your body back?”

“Swapped over, then snatched the mirror back from Jacquelyn. Would’ve been trickier if she didn’t come straight to me. They’re not great planners, these cultists.”

“I think that’s hypocritical coming from us,” Zoey said. “Considering our own disaster of a mission.”

“We’re all equally bad at it,” Delta amended. “Anyway, we’re home free, pretty sure. Lost Helena.” She wrinkled her nose. “Probably have to watch out for anyone poking around for us, though. Treyhull’s a huge place, and the local guild too, but there’s not too many people fitting our descriptions.”

An orange-haired foxgirl? Friends with a six-foot woman with short black hair? No, even considering Treyhull’s size, tracking down two wayfarers with that information wouldn’t be exceptionally difficult, though they at least kept somewhat to themselves, so maybe not insanely fast, either. She and Delta had felt okay invading the cult because they wouldn’t be in Treyhull more than a week, but it had certainly opened up a vector of danger.

“We’ll keep an eye out,” Zoey said.

“You at least learn anything?”

“Not what we wanted, but some important stuff other than that, yeah.”

“Oh?”

“You heard the start of it. She’s been to a lewd shards.”

“Confirmed?”

“Without a doubt. Specifically the one with the reflection.”

“So it means when you enter a shard, the change is permanent.”

“I guess it is.”

“That’s insane. Can you imagine the implications?”

“Not in the slightest,” Zoey said honestly. “I guess I’m spawning a whole new genre of shards. What the hell does that mean?”

“Not sure, but I expect it’ll be popular with some people,” Delta said amusedly. “Gods, I can’t wait to hear what people have to say about it. Wonder if anyone back at the guild has been to one.”

“Dunno if you should just go asking around.”

“Yeah, yeah. I won’t. Just curious.” Delta paused, then smirked. “But long term, assuming we hang out near Mantle for a while? It’ll be more than just two shards corrupted by you. You’ll have a whole fleet of them as the months tick by. No chance it stays a secret.”

Zoey considered that, then shook her head. “It’ll be interesting, for sure.” She wasn’t sure how else to describe how she felt about the revelation.

“But nothing about our vampire friend?”

“Not even a hint. I don’t think Helena knows much.”

“Guess it was a stretch, anyway. A goddess had to clue you in, so why would Helena know much?”

“At least it wasn’t a total waste.”

“And a fun adventure,” Delta agreed. “Any day we cause property damage is a good day.”

Zoey gave her an unimpressed look, which Delta seemed pleased by, her orange tail swishing happily.

“Anyway,” Delta said. “Our date. It’s time for that, then.”

“Now? Not even gonna regroup?”

“Regroup? Why? We got away. We’re fine. Time to be on with our day.”

Zoey was still a bit flustered from the whole debacle, but she guessed Delta had a point. Still, she was impressed how quickly Delta could brush it all off. That could have gone much worse. And to be honest, Zoey wasn’t sure they’d seen the last of Helena. Helena had been exceedingly interested in Zoey and how she’d been to the lewd shard. There might be a blonde third-advancement wayfarer poking around the guild looking for the two of them in the near future.

Zoey wasn’t sure that would be completely a bad thing. She’d have liked to finish their conversation. She just hoped Helena didn’t show up with any major grudges over how she and Delta had recklessly arranged the meeting.

She’d keep her eyes and ears open, but there wasn’t much she could do either way about it. She did, for the third or fourth time, wonder why they’d been so reckless. Sure, they’d arranged a meeting with Helena much faster than normal, but there were many things they could’ve done to be safer. And even have stayed in the Church’s good graces. Zoey couldn’t help but feel Delta had been actively looking for trouble—or maybe more accurately, excitement—and Zoey’d let herself be dragged along by the whirlwind in fox-girl form.

“Okay,” Zoey said. “So, our date. Where we headed?”

“I’m thinking an arcade.”

That caught Zoey somewhat off guard. “Arcade?” They had those? “Also, I thought we were getting into, what was it, ‘legal trouble’?” How would that happen at an arcade?

“You know, noise complaints, public indecency, murder.”

“Murder?”

“That’s what this is gonna be,” Delta said, nodding to herself. “Me versus you, higher points win—it’ll be a murder. A gory one.”

Ah, that was what she meant. Then the first part of the statement hit her. “Wait, public indecency? You can’t be serious.”

Delta smirked but didn’t reply. Zoey shook her head in amusement. She gave it fifty-fifty on whether Delta was teasing her or whether something of that sort would actually be happening. Their first date had included Delta jerking her off on one of the long-spanning bridges that went between Treyhull’s gigantic trees, so it was more than possible. Still, a public arcade would be a whole different situation. The bridge had been empty with great sight lines to spot anyone approaching. That wouldn’t remotely be true at a venue like an arcade.

But back to the first thing that had surprised her—”I didn’t know you even had arcades,” Zoey said. “What’s in there?”

Delta tilted her head, her brow furrowing. “Arcade stuff. Minigames. Balls, darts, so on.”

“Ah,” Zoey said. The lower-tech equivalent of what it would have been back home. Plus, if she had to guess, some magic worked in. “Sounds fun.”