Part 12

Ammie took Sylvia straight towards the growing waves of fear and confusion ringing through the air. 

Gripping the woman’s slim wrist in a tight hold, Ammie didn’t allow herself to slow, even when they came across the first hints that showed Lommeil had spoken the truth.

Witches huddled behind their doors, imbued with medium-level protection spells. Their terrified faces were blanched white as they stared at deformed, gruesome creatures silently headbutting the doors again. And again. And again.

People had been turned and murdered already, their corpses fallen to the ground, faces ripped off entirely like her mother’s and those people they’d seen on the mountain.

Tears flew from her eyes, but Ammie didn’t let up the pace. 

“What--in the Heavens--is that?” Sylvia tried to slow, caught off guard by the sight of a face swirled beyond recognition, its mouth still attached as a curlicue on the side of its cheek, salivating that dark, inky substance down its bulky face. The newly turned faceless careened around, lost in the pain of turning but unable to vent it.

Ammie gave herself a brief glimpse, recognizing familiar yellow pigtails, and almost threw up. Lis’s little neighbor girl. “Faceless.”

“What?” Sylvia’s tired voice was at its breaking point from the speed they traveled. “What’s happening here?”

Cutting around a familiar patch of rhododendron bushes, Ammie vaulted toward the only thatched roof house in the village.

“We’re…” Ammie trailed off as she noticed the state of the front gate. 

Teeming through a crack in the partially-opened gate, the horde of people-shaped faceless had arrived. 

Standing next to the heavy doors, silently inviting the monsters in, was a faceless in blue work clothes. A gray tail lay sedately at his back. 

Sr. Dagarlé.

Ammie’s heart cried thinking of the genuine man now turned forever into a monster.

Stalking forward with lilting gates, smoother than a movie zombie but not coordinated enough to be mistaken for human, they fanned the curved roads. A group of curlicue-limbed faceless that someone had pulled hoods over led the pack, and Ammie’s spine skittered with a memory.

At the beginning of the night, there had been a suspicious group of people hanging around outside the gate. Five and Lis had felt their wrongness, but Ammie had let it go.

She felt a prick and glanced down to her covered hero mark. She hadn’t felt that sensation since the day the thing had burrowed its way onto her skin.

You’re realizing you chose wrong, aren’t you? 

The mark tingled again, but a flash of blue among the horde hollowed out the base of Ammie’s stomach, taking her attention away from the red moon on her hand. She’d left Lis and an unconscious Juliette by the gate.

Scanning the mass of approaching monsters, Ammie tried to see through them to the walls beyond, vying for another flash of blue. 

Were any of the faceless stopped, as if in the middle of a fight? Had they noticed them there, or had Lis used some kind of concealment magic? Did they move locations entirely when the horde had come through?

“Under attack,” Sylvia said, and Ammie turned to see green eyes that usually dazzled the world with their inner kindness blur and darken as if they were flat green orbs. Shuttered and unfeeling.

“Yes,” Ammie said slowly, navigating the woman to a better hiding spot, “we’re under attack. The animals have already gotten in, but trust me, the house protection spells won’t hold out for long.”

“There have already been casualties,” Sylvia pushed her loose side braids behind her ears. One popped right back out, but she left it alone. “What do we do now?”

That was the question, wasn’t it? If the elders had been confused when something had banged against the gate, then they weren’t anymore. Their magic could look and sense across the entire village. 

“The elders--should--have a--plan,” Ammie furrowed her brow. 

But would they? Their defensive spells had never been put into question with Tristian around. What would their reaction be now? 

Ammie took a deep breath. “Okay. We’re going to have to split up. You’re a healer, and the infirmary will be one of the best-guarded places in the village. I’m sure volunteers have already made their way there, considering the damage that’s already been done.”

Sylvia nodded, but Ammie wasn’t sure she was listening. Her flat eyes stared out at the faceless.

“Also,” Ammie hesitated, “I know that this will be a lot to take in, but I believe Tristian is still alive.”

A slight stilling of her heart-shaped face was the only response, so Ammie pushed further. “I think this--mark--is still connected to him. And whenever his name comes up,” she pulled her sleeve away from the mark, unearthing the jagged red points, “it hums. To me, the mark doesn’t seem sad or angry or upset in any way. But when Juliette talked about heroes from the past, it became very reminiscent, and--and painfully sad. It took me some time to realize that feeling was coming from--from it.”

Ammie waited for Sylvia to respond, to show any hint of a reaction other than no reaction at all. 

Finally, she did. “This may not be the time for this conversation.”

Ammie flinched, but she kept a steady smile. “I know. I’m telling you this because the face-stealer who started all of this, a human named Lommeil, is here tonight. He just murdered my mother,” Ammie tripped over the words, but she smiled painfully through the stumble. “And he’s wearing my brother’s face.”

That did it.

Flipping her head around, Sylvia was horrified. “What?”

All of the words were gone from inside of her, but Ammie managed one more sentence, one more line before her throat closed off entirely. “I think he’s going to kill me next.”

“Who’s going to kill you?” Five’s voice was ungodly loud for the girls’ whispered conversation.

Ammie skittered for her wand, throwing out an unchanneled funnel of wind with a desperate swipe of her stone-filled hand. Five tilted his head, and the slash flew past, rippling through his long hair, completely ineffective.

The light of day had inched past the horizon, painting the sky in hues of light blue and purple and orange and red. Its effect almost seemed grainy, as if the whole sky was just an old photograph and not really a part of their world.

Five carried a weapon’s satchel, lined like a ladder with small wind instruments across his chest. In his left hand, he grasped his favorite guitar by its neck. 

“Oh, thank goodness,” Sylvia muttered, falling to her knees behind the rhododendron bush tucked neatly behind the cottage’s far side. The woman’s silvery ears drooped with relief, and her smooth tail curled around her middle where she hugged herself.

But Ammie didn’t move. She didn’t blink. 

Her hair stood on end. And a menacing snarl was seconds away from ripping through her throat.

“Who’s going to kill you?” Five stepped forward, his icy blue eyes finally lit again with the day’s light. They shined with concern, concern that Ammie had never seen before.

Ammie felt a smirk curl at her lips. “Very nice, Lommeil. You do a nice Quincey, for sure, but that caveman would never be concerned about me.”

Five’s eyebrows flattened, and Sylvia gasped. 

“You think--he’s--” the woman’s hands had found their way back to her mouth, cupping it in horror. “The man--who--to Tris--”

“Lommeil,” Ammie said dangerously. “How dare you take another face from someone I know?”

On her wrist, the stinging of the mark grew more frantic. Look, look, look, it seemed to chant within her, singing all throughout her veins as if the mark was in her very blood. 

“I--” Five put his free hand to his chest, “am not Lommeil. I’m Five. Five.”

Ammie snorted. “This is just pathetic. How desperate are you to mess with my mind? You use my brother’s face to kill my mom, wreck my home, and now you think I’ll just give in to your little mind-games?”

Sylvia muffled a tiny sob that escaped into the bushes and faded away. 

Rage hovered over Ammie’s skin, coating her in a trembling layer of flesh, all focused, all bent, on the fraud before her.

Five flinched, but then his eyebrows slanted downward in an angry scowl. “I’m telling you, I’m not Lommeil. That’s my house,” he pointed to the next house over, with its familiar thatched roof.

“I’m sure you inherited a level of the face’s memories when you stole it,” Ammie flipped her free hand casually, mind already racing with how she was going to get Sylvia out of there before she took him down. “It’s the only way you could have been able to emulate Tristian’s behaviors and even fool my mom.”

“But not you?” Five asked quietly.

Flipping her hair once more out of the lip in her hoodie, Ammie declared. “That’s right. You couldn’t fool me.”

“Okay,” Five scrunched his eyes closed for a mere heartbeat before opening them again. Determination lit an icy fire within them, so much so that Ammie thought she could see flames dancing across his pupils.

Ammie braced herself.

“Why do you think I’m not Five?” Five asked.

Ammie paused. Was the question meant to throw her off before an attack? Then why would he have called out to her when her back was turned in the first place?

What was Lommeil’s game here?

“I told you. Five wouldn’t be concerned about me.”

A muscle ticked in the man’s jaw, one ear twitching backward with a distinctive flick. “That’s bullshit. He’s concerned about you all the time.”

“It’s not bullshit,” Ammie stood her ground, laughing at the indignant look on the imposter’s face. How could he have read their relationship so wrong after having access to Five’s memories? “Sure, he acts concerned. But it’s not real. He only acts that way out of obligation because I’m his best friend’s sister.”

Silence reigned, enough that the chittering nails of the faceless animals racing all around causing silent havoc reentered the scene.

Ammie took the moment to glance at Sylvia, to give the woman a subtle signal for action, when she was stopped by the shocked horror on the woman’s face. 

Whirling around, Ammie braced herself for an attack. 

But it didn’t come.

Furrowing her brows, Ammie wondered, what had made Sylvia look like that? 

Letting out a slow breath, Ammie realized. She must be angry because she knew that Lommeil had been wearing her husband’s face earlier.

“You’re such a stupid idiot,” Five burst out, flinging the guitar to the ground. He stalked toward her, eyes alight with that fire, and face clenched into anger, true anger.

Ammie responded, skittering her own way back, but she got tangled in the row of bushes behind her.

Falling, she reached futilely for the wand still tucked into her backpack, always just a smidge out of reach, when warm hands grabbed her hoodie by its collar.

Ammie suspended there, completely off-balance, staring widely at the monster before her.

Teeth bared in an involuntary snarl, Ammie felt confused, for once. 

Where was the love of murder she’d sensed from Lommeil after he’d killed her mother? Where was the blackened skeleton and eyes glowing with unnatural power that hovered just under his skin, flickering like a hologram? 

“What is the matter with you?” Five’s voice was hoarse. “What do I have to do to be accepted by you? I thought--I thought you were on my side. Out of everyone in this damn village, I thought you were with me.”

What? What was happening? 

Ammie’s mind raced in circles as fast as her eyes roamed the familiar face. His eyes weren’t as conniving and slimy as they had been while Lommeil was wearing Tristian.

“F-Five?” Ammie said cautiously, tears stinging at the corners of her eyes.

Had she gotten it wrong, spurred on by the fear of knowing Lommeil was after her? 

Five didn’t respond, that muscle ticking steadily in his jaw. 

Ammie had never seen him like that, had never seen him so mad before. She stared into his face and let the stinging mark on her hand speak through her blood.

Safe, it whispered. Safe.

Oh, Heavens. She’d mistaken him for a face-stealer and had spouted all of that garbage. What had she said? What had she said that’d made him mad?

No. Five’s tightened eyebrows and clenched jaw, they weren’t just from anger. His eyes shined with something far worse.

He was hurt. Hurt by something she’d said.

“Five?” Ammie reached her free hand up and placed it over one of his still holding her hoodie. “What’s wrong? What did I say that was so wrong?”

“Do you really think I don’t care about you?” His lips twisted in that way that Ammie hated, the one that made her try to soothe his worries without knowing why.

Her eyes burned with guilt. She looked away, confused. 

He didn’t care about her, did he? He’d always been this wild creature in her brother’s life, but when it came to her, he’d found countless reasons to make fun, to separate them from ever being friends. 

“Do you remember when the village almost kicked me out for climbing Elder Vaughn’s roof and running onto the highest branches of that flimsy tree?”

“I--I remember you falling, like an idiot, and crashing into the Moon Goddess’s sacred circle on the day of the Moon Festival,” Ammie tried to remember. It had been--what--nine? Ten years ago? 

Five nodded tightly. “They threw me in the jail cells and had a community meeting on whether or not I deserved to stay in La Ville.”

Ammie remembered. The villagers had really hated Five before he officially donned the title as the sole member of the Team of Legend, the Hero’s most trusted comrade.

“Who’s the one who sneaked in and stayed with me all afternoon, giving me sweets and talking my ear off?” Five smiled ruefully. “Who’s the one who, when the adults came into the shed, started hollering that they’d better not be bullies and that the Moon Goddess probably appreciated that the circle had been ruined because it was ugly, anyway?”

Ammie’s cheeks heated. She opened her mouth, then closed it. “You like me?”

“Of course.” No hesitation.

“Is this real? Are you--real?” Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes, and she moved her hand to his cheek, cupping it gently. Thick, her voice was so thick.

If this was still a trick, if Lommeil had learned his lesson with Tristian’s face and could make a better imitation, what would Ammie do?

What would she do if this wasn’t real?

Five sighed, in that way that made him sound like a world-weary time traveler. “I’m real.”

Ammie couldn’t believe her eyes. She couldn’t believe her heart, barreling toward the territory of unhealthy as it pounded, pounded, pounded away in her chest. 

“Don’t make that face,” Ammie whispered, sliding her hand down his cheek and smoothing that self-deprecating grin away with her fingers. His lips were cool in the fresh morning air, but much, much softer than she would’ve thought. “I don’t like it.”

“Okay,” he murmured.

“Uh, guys?” Sylvia cleared her throat, and Ammie realized that she was caught up in an embrace with one of her most troublesome headaches. Blinking back to reality, she cursed herself for, once again, getting lured under his sway.

Ammie tapped Five’s arm. “Let me up, let me up. We have to go help everyone before more people die.”

Pulling her forward, Ammie’s feet finally bracing the ground once more, Five dropped her hoodie and nodded.

Ammie continued. “You should head toward the infirmary. It would be best for Sylvia to be there, and hopefully, there will be someone there who knows what the elders’ orders are. Plus, you can help anyone you guys can on the way.”

“I’m not leaving you alone,” Five scooped his guitar off the ground as Sylvia brushed her tail off of little fuchsia flowers. 

“I have to find Lis and Juliette,” Ammie’s voice creaked through her throat. How could she have stalled this long when her friends could be getting mobbed at that very moment? 

“I’ll go alone,” Sylvia said. “Both of you stay. I can move faster by myself, and you two are needed on the front lines.”

Gone was the woman who had spent a week in her bed. Green eyes steeled with calm determination, Sylvia stood tall and poised. 

Just like a Hero’s wife.

“Oh, how touching. Dearest, why’d you have to interrupt them before they kissed? Don’t you know how these scenarios are supposed to end?” 

The three witches startled, their tails immediately fluffing.

How could Ammie have forgotten that feeling--that wrongness that permeated the air around the smug b*****d?

Sylvia gasped as Lommeil stepped into the yard, grinning toothily with Tristian’s wide smile.

Five growled beside Ammie, whose heart blanked at the sight of him.

Her mother’s crying face flashed across her vision, followed by the pulpy mass of her remains.

“Lommeil,” Ammie growled.