Chapter 17: Preparations

“Friends and allies are both a blessing and a curse in battle. One cannot win a war alone, but one also has to bury their dead.”

Excerpt from the diaries of Panpar

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“You cannot go alone, and you cannot go directly to the city,” Jo-Karna had warned the twins. Most of what she said made sense, but Whitney wasn’t so sure all of it did. Her instructions were implicit, and some of her instructions made sense, but not all of them did.

Whitney lay in her bed, tired, absolutely worn out from everything they went through, but still unable to sleep. Her mind felt like pudding in her head and yet sleep was still evading her.

Wonderful, a chef with a sword, I’ll get right on it. Whitney thought to herself, you sure don’t make this easy. I have no idea who any of these people should be.

A strategist--someone with a keen military mind. Someone you can seek for advice when the time is right.

Now this one I think I know, Whitney thought. Kam’s dad.

And of course you will have to bring your friends with you,” Jo-Karna finished. “I don’t think this is wise, but the queen insisted. I believe they will die long before you reach the city, but she says they must come.

Jo-Karna had told Whitney all of these things after returning from the mall. After the shoe-store, there hadn’t been any major incidents. They got more bold and unsure looks from plenty of people, a few comments from Jo-Karna (who ended up defaulting to skin condition excuses for an explanation. So much for Whitney’s excuse offending her). She ended up getting leather for an outfit. Finding something fitting in leather was by no means easy, but they ended up finding it, and Jo-Karna made that leather outfit look good. She insisted on leather, because that’s what they resorted to in her world. They made all of their own clothing until they found the amulets and Prim Pockets, and the clothing that amulets provided felt and looked similar to leather as well. Whitney could personally attest to that, but she didn’t think she could look nearly as good in hers, as Jo-Karna did. There was just something intriguing about the way it looked against her grey skin.

Agent Ceiphart was with Blake out back when they returned home. It took him three hours to drive the S.U.V. back from the bunker and he looked almost as tired as Whitney felt. Blake invited him in and they were both sitting in lawn chairs on the back lawn, drinking beers, and Jo-Karna pulled Whitney aside almost immediately, joining minds with her Quinta rhet (joining in bond), and gave her all of these conditions.

She told her they had to figure all of these things out quickly. The Queen’s instructions were, once she found Jo-Laina and Argimos, they only had two days to figure out the details, and return to Messolin. They only had two days, but she failed to let them know exactly how to return to Messolin. A detail that would have been useful.

Something also had to be done (for her own purposes) before they left on any missions. She had a debt to repay. There was a wrong done by her, which needed correcting. She could never fix it, because un-killing someone wasn’t possible, but Decker Albright had gone to prison for Cree’s death. She couldn’t give Cree his life back, but she could give Decker his. She couldn’t necessarily give him a quality life, but she could give him freedom. Doing it would be much easier if she could use a portal, but easy or not, she was going to find a way.

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