Power Trio

They kick back into it, wrestling with the song that’s pulled so much sweat from them. Thekla can’t concentrate with this goofy crowd video in her face. She focuses on Kell and Evan instead. They both have looks of ferocious focus, shackled machinelike to the tinkering flow of the song. Kell’s got the tip of her tongue out, teasing the stud in her tusk. Her eyes dart to Thekla across the monstrous expanse of her kit, and she shows the goblin a determined grin.

And as Thekla keys into Evan and Kell’s rhythm, and Sion’s sound twirls around them like an intangible dancer, she feels the world narrow…

Kell’s left drumstick cracks in half, splinters cascading across her snare. “Keep it up, keep it up!” she barks, scrambling in her sling case for a replacement as she hammers out a simplified version of the beat. “Beginning of the verse, one two one two one two three…”

She yanks another stick from the case and plays, teeth gritted ferociously, staring past them at the field behind Thekla. It’s Niagara, Thekla realizes. Sion’s put up stage footage of last year’s Vail.

Sion seamlessly ties his line off into their rewound place in the song. And it should be a hassle, going back like a skipping record, but it’s like breathing. Thekla’s forebrain is realigning, and even as the thought reaches her, it muffles and fades down a vast hall in her mind.

It’s as if there is something playing through her.

The song spirals upward. And this is not magic. This is music. It’s great music, but it’s not—

With an electrical crack, the lights shut off. The crowd and its noise vanish. The guitars and bass fizz and die, leaving Kell’s drums exposed like the song’s gleaming bones. There are no windows in the room; they are in complete, vantablack darkness.

Sion’s voice, thunderous: “PLAY.”

Evan’s bass rekindles its roar, back into the beat of the song.

“Yes!” Sion screams, audible even over Evan and Kell with an intensity Thekla has never heard from him.

Absolutely not. Sion is fucking with them. He’s got one of his gigolos out there with a switchboard. As if triggered by Thekla’s thought, the lights snap on, revealing Sion panting and shaking as Kell and Evan skid to a halt. “We did it,” he says.

“No way. No goddamn way.” Thekla puts a hand up like she’s shielding herself. “What is going on, Sion?”

Sion throws his arms wide. “A seismic change in the underpinnings of reality, Thekla. The return of a force unseen since the crossover. Unseen for centuries. It’s real. It’s real!” He grabs a stunned Evan into a hug.

Kell is staring at her drum kit like it’s grown fur. “What the fuck?” she whispers.

“You are fucking with us, Sion.” Thekla stabs a finger at him. “I swear to God—”

“No! No no no.” Sion feverishly scrambles for the remote, turns the crowd back on. “Do it again. Play it again right now. Right now.”

“Fuck,” says Thekla, but the rest of them are already swinging back into the rhythm, and she falls in.

It’s not real. It’s not real. It’s not real. But now she’s trying. She’s desperate to do it again, to prove to herself that this is some kind of fluke. Faster than the first time, a bare minute into the song, the world narrows…

And it happens again. Lights out. Thekla screams, in frustration or fear or she doesn’t even know—

Sion’s red eyes in the dark. Burning into her like a brand. Gleaming red, but how? There is no light in the room. “Turn the lamp on.”

How? she thinks. I can’t even see where it is! But her legs are moving. Her hand blindly reaches out in the dark and closes on a metal chain.

And she clicks the unplugged lamp, and it turns on.

And she opens her eyes. Why is she lying down? When did that happen? Something cold and damp nudges her shoulder.

She sits up, woozy. Kell is holding out a beer. “Hey, baby.”

“What.” Thekla shakily takes Kell’s hand, feels the sweating surface of the bottle beneath their fingers. “What happened?”

Behind Kell, she sees the lamp in pieces. Evan is methodically tearing it apart, the simple wire running through its middle stripped and unbraided. Sion is behind them, pacing.

“We did magic.” Kell sounds dazed. “And then you screamed and fainted.”

“We did not fucking do magic.” Thekla takes the beer, stares at her reflection in its glass. “This is not the old world. Magic isn’t real here.” But she feels automatic as she’s saying it, like an unproven koan. “Magic is not real,” she repeats, trying to convince herself.

“Maybe not.” Evan’s holding her, and she’s returning to herself. “But I tore that lamp apart. It’s just a lamp, Thekla. No gimmick. Whatever is happening, it’s something weird.” He reaches for the bottle. “Open that for you?”

She hands it over.

“You say it’s not real, Thekla.” Sion kneels. “But you’re no longer sure.”

A bottle is placed gingerly back in her hand. She takes a long swig from it. “We’re about to go on tour, Sion,” she says. “You can’t do this to me before we go on a fucking tour, okay? I need to be thinking about getting a van, not whatever this is.”

“I know. I apologize.” Sion sounds genuinely contrite. “I thought our first outing would be nothing but frustration, that we couldn’t replicate Glorie’s. Not so soon. Our magic, it seems, is too strong.”

Thekla sighs shakily, leans her head back against Evan’s chest. “Okay. So if you’re right, what exactly are we supposed to do with it?”

“I am going to do some research,” Sion says. “Some acquisition. If I return to you with an answer to that question, will you reconvene with me in August, as we’ve agreed? After the tour?”

“Sion.” Kell hesitates. “If this is real, we shouldn’t fuck with it. This is crazy, dude. This breaks the world. We have to bring it to… scientists or something, I don’t know.”

Sion shakes his head. “I refuse to do that, Kell. The fairfolk bards created magic. We rediscovered magic. This is not for the self-proclaimed geniuses who think they’ve defined the parameters of our reality. This is for us. This is music. And besides.” He gestures to the lamp. “If we’re going to re-debut the arcane, we’re going to find a more impressive way to do it than turning on a lightbulb.”

“I just want to make music,” Thekla hears the wound in her own voice. “I didn’t think it would make me a fucking wizard.”

Sion raises his hand. “Technically, we’re bards.”

“Not now, Sion,” Evan says. “Can you give us a second alone?”

“Yes. Of course.” Sion makes for the door, pauses. “Please don’t stain anything in here.”

“Can you fuck off please, Sion!” Thekla wails.

He slips out.

They huddle together in the middle of Sion’s studio, which didn’t seem so big when they came in but which now seems to yawn around them like a chasm. Thekla takes a shaky drink of her beer.

“What I don’t want,” Evan says, slow and careful, “is for this to interfere with the vision. But I want to make a suggestion. As the newest member, I don’t know if it’s my place.”

“Ev, you’ve cummed in and on both of us,” Kell says. “I don’t think the ‘newest member’ thing applies.”

“I think Sion is right. I think we need to keep going.”

“Evan…” Thekla’s almost pleading. She needs his stability right now.

“I think he is, Thekla. I’m sorry. We can’t just reveal this to everyone without a plan. There’s ramifications. There’s people, really really terrible people, who will feel vindicated. If we just dump this on the world… I don’t even know.” Evan cups her chin delicately, like she’s made of glass. “We either have to keep going, or stop here and bury it deep. And I think that would drive us all crazy.”

“You’re right.” Thekla’s head is swimming. “I hate it, but you’re right. We can’t just pretend.”

“How about this,” Kell says. “How about for now we keep going. And Thekla is our brake. Whenever you say we’re done, we’re done. No argument from me or Evan. And whatever Sion says, we walk away and let the mystery be.”

“Okay. Okay, I can do that.” Thekla finishes her beer and hiccups. “Fuck my life, man. I can’t believe we might be magic and we still need to rent a van. Evan, you’re driving. I hope you know that.”

“Kell’s mentioned it.” He smiles. “I hope you guys are ready to listen to a lot of pop punk.”

“No way, dude,” Kell says. “That was in our ground rules.”

Thekla lets out a sputtering laugh, and lays across both of them. “You are the only things keeping me sane right now,” she whispers, as Evan strokes the nape of her neck. “I would be fucking spiraling without you here. I’d be done.”

“That’s right, Kamiyon.” Kell’s lips brush her forehead. “Everything else can fall apart. The trio sticks together.” She holds Thekla’s hand. Evan holds the other.

Sitting amid the wreckage of the impossible desk lamp, and of their old reality, Thekla and her lovers lean on each other.