Then, by the look of things, Nike had captured her.
Eh… If she did it to save Erna and Annette, then there’s not a damn thing I coulda done to stop her.
Sybilla let out a long exhale and smirked.
That makes it two of us behind bars… Shit’s startin’ to wear on us.
She paid her tab and stood up to leave.
The legal drinking age in Lylat was sixteen. Sybilla had already turned nineteen, so she had no problems going in and out of taverns. Nobody so much as questioned her. She’d grown her white hair out long, and between that and the way her face had toughened up over the past two years, everything about her seemed grown-up. She’d even lost her last bits of girlish flab and replaced them with muscles as lean, firm, and supple as any athlete’s. It was those very toned legs that carried her toward the exit.
After slapping her payment on the counter, she stretched her shoulders. “We’d probably best start meetin’ back up, huh?”
The night Sara was captured, a black dog stopped by Sybilla’s hotel.
Sara’s pet Johnny was a little banged up, but the sense of duty in his eyes was a testament to how much he’d grown from back when he was a puppy.
Sybilla followed him to a spot near Nicola University, where she collected a white cat and some mice, then followed him again to an apartment in the suburbs.
Inside, she found some of her Lamplight teammates hiding out and looking a bit older than the last time she’d seen them.
“Heya, Erna. Heya, Annette.”
“Big Sis Sybilla…”
Erna teared up immediately after opening the door. When Sybilla came inside, Erna clung to her with her shoulders trembling.
“It’s my fault…,” she choked through her sobs. “It’s all my fault… They took Big Sis Sara…”
“You didn’t do nothin’ wrong. Sara made her decision.”
Sybilla hugged Erna tight and patted her back.
Erna shook her head from within Sybilla’s arms. “But now Big Sis Sara is going to—”
She couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence.
Spies and activists who got captured there were subjected to a firing squad. Either that, or they were beheaded by guillotine, a comparatively humane execution device that had been invented right there in Lylat. The odds that Sara would be spared and sent to work as a double agent were exceedingly low.
In the back of the room, Annette was expressionlessly fiddling with some sort of device. She was so focused that she hadn’t even noticed Sybilla come in. It was like she needed something to do with her hands to keep her mind off things.
Erna described everything that had gone down in the Nicola University lecture hall. She told Sybilla about how she’d gotten involved with a secret society called the Knights of Valor, about how she’d worked in the mines, and about how she got attacked by Nike and rescued by Sara.
Sybilla let go of her and took a step back. “Tell me, what was the last thing Sara said to you two?”
Erna sniffled. “She told…me and Annette…to work together and make the revolution a reality.”
“She’s such a mom.”
Sybilla smirked at how very Sara that advice was.
“Anyway, we don’t have time for mopin’.” She clapped Erna on the shoulder. “And besides, it’ll all be fine once the revolution succeeds. Everything’ll be hunky-dory.”
“Huh?”
“The Genesis Army ain’t gonna just bump off a source as valuable as her. They took her alive. All we gotta do is take over the government, and we’ll be able to set all their captured spies free.”
Revolutions had the power to completely transform the law of the land. There was plenty of historical precedent for activists and criminals getting released when the government got overthrown.
Erna shook her head. “But I don’t even know what to—”
“The LWS Troupe is real.”
Sara had found out about that classified bit of intelligence during their time in the Bertram Mines. There was a strong possibility that the secret society really had been behind the strike.
Erna’s eyes went wide. “They are…?”
Given her reaction, she must have thought Sara had made the whole thing up.
“The bit about Sara bein’ their representative was bullshit, sure. But it wasn’t all lies.”
Because of that, they had hope.
The LWS Troupe wasn’t just a group that had successfully forced a king off his throne and influenced scores of secret societies that came after them, they were still operating to that day. The double meaning in that Gilbert guy’s blackened wing had been true. The LWS Troupe was the mightiest secret society in the nation, and fireworks were their symbol.
Sybilla grinned in hopes of renewing Erna’s resolve. “What Sara did proved somethin’. The Genesis Army ain’t found the Troupe yet. And whatever it is they’re cookin’, it’s big enough they’ve even got Nike freaked out.”
The fact that Nike herself had gotten involved was a testament to just how important that secret society was. Nike was scared enough of them that after she found out they’d been operating in the Bertram Mines, she’d gone and set traps designed to catch anyone who went there.
The girls would be fools to overlook that. The LWS Troupe could very well give the revolution the momentum it needed.
“We’ve got our work cut out for us—we gotta track down the LWS Troupe before the Genesis Army does.”
Sara’s efforts had given them a direction.
She’d become a wildfire, and it was time for the flames she’d protected to turn into a roaring blaze. For when a meadow caught fire and its vegetation burned, there wasn’t a person alive who could stop the ensuing inferno.