Sell you a Bridge chapter 275 (Patreon)

June 12th 2016 The Nightside 9:00 PM EDT

We  all headed for Griffin Hall together after making preparations for the  break in. We headed in at nine PM eastern, which is two AM London time.  In the Nightside it's technically always three AM, but people here DO  sleep, and we needed the Griffin to be in bed when we got in there. Or  at least, we wanted that. If he was unconscious it would be  exponentially easier to use clairvoyance to figure out where the hell  Neron was hiding. My only solace was that with the current resources we  had, there was no way Kit and her boyfriend were ahead of us.

I'd  been hoping we might run into them, but apparently the Nightside isn't  as small as normal London, and Taylor says it's unlikely for us to  stumble across them that easy. Now we were standing outside of Griffin  Hall, and all I c0uld think about was how fucking huge it was. It had  taken us fifteen minutes just to get here from the edge of the estate,  not counting the twenty minutes Zee, Jim, John, and Sindella had needed  to crack through the primary ward layer and get us past the walls with  Tommy providing cover.

Once we got in, we'd managed to  avoid the patrols due to Jim's careful notes on their rotation and not a  small amount of stealth magic, now we were standing at the edge of the  treeline of the forested outer estate, looking across a massive well  cared for lawn at a sprawling palatial manor. I knelt down next to Jim.  "Ok, so we're here. I take it you'll be doing your best to crack through  the wards while the rest of us stand guard. Speaking of the wards, and  chance I can use that eye real quick? I want to compare what I see to my  normal aura sight recon."

"I suppose." Jim said in  amusement. "There is no harm in allowing you a peek. Let me know what  you think of the defenses. I realize your magical education on  wardcracking is somewhat lacking without access to your aura sight, but  you should still remember the basics at least. You even got through  Zatara's wards at one point, did you not?" His tone was somewhat  accusatory, and I had to shrug helplessly.

"Well, yes, but  the circumstances were a bit different. Wardcracking was never my  forte, I just used my powers to cheat a bunch." I had to struggle to  keep the embarrassment out of my voice. "I had a ton of things to  memorize when you were training me, since I worked with you I chose to  put that time to memorizing the artifacts and object we would need to be  able to identify on the spot when actually stealing. Plus there's no  way any Nightside ward is entry level, much less a ward on someplace  like this. Or am I wrong?"

He did that hat tip think that  made it clear he was rolling his eyes even when I couldn't see his face  and passed over the eye of odin for me to look through. I pressed the  magic object to my face and was treated to a massive cascading curtain  of light. It was...heavy. Zatara's wards, when I'd last seen them, were a  massive weave of interlocking ward constructs. Lines and structures  built around each other in a huge interlocking wall of magical energy.  This was like that, but only in the way a hot wheels is like a full  sized functional Ferrari.

The structures here reminded me  more of my void magic grimoire than anything else, and were obviously  pinned in several timeline rather than just the one. The spellwork here  was only in four dimensions, so it wasn't quite as complex, but it made  up for that in terms of sheer scale, because quantity definitely had a  quality all its own here. I blinked and handed the eye back to Jim.  "Yeah, I've got nothing. That's way beyond me in terms of scope as far  as wards go." I patted him on the shoulder. "But hey, good luck with  that, I'm going to go elsewhere."

I walked over to stand  with the rest of the group back in the trees. I nodded to Sindella, Zee,  and John. "I'm good if you guys need to go help. But if not, I was  wondering something. I had a question for you Sindella, if you don't  mind me asking." She gave me a warm smile, nodding her head. "Zee told  me that you grew up in some kind of weird commune in Turkey, and that  you met her dad outside there. She didn't mention the Nightside, even  when we brought it up. Why didn't she know about your time here?"

Sindella  sighed. "Because this isn't a place I ever wanted her to come on her  own. I did originally move here from Turkey, but I met Giovanni near  here, not near there. I altered the story because I was worried Zatanna  would try to find the Nightside if she knew it existed. Gio and I met in  London actually." She flashed Zee an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry askim,  we wanted to tell you about the details of where we met later in your  life, but we never got the chance. As you've seen this place is  dangerous. Coming here unprepared, would have been...bad. Death is one  of the kinder things that can befall people who get into trouble here."

"It's  fine." Zee didn't sound upset at all. "I know about it now, you can  just tell me the story later." She was never one to hold a grudge or  care much about things like that. Back when I'd told her about my power  she'd hardly cared I kept it from her. Zee lived in the moment and  didn't really sweat things like deception when done for a logical  reason. It was one of the main reasons I think she accepted me so  easily, despite me being a fairly secretive and deceptive person at my  core. She was, without a doubt, far too good for me, and I absolutely  adored her. She shot me a smile as she felt the rush of love, returning  it with a warm grin of her own.

Sindella put her hands on  each of our shoulders. "It warms my heart to see how much you two care  about each other you know. I remember when Gio and I used to look at  each other like that. I admit, the idea of your relationship being so  advanced as teenagers was a bit daunting to me at first, even if I felt  like I didn't have room to complain after being gone so long. But seeing  how much you love and trust each other, it was easy to quickly accept  that things between you are genuine." She squeezed my shoulder. "I  already told you this, so you know that I approve, but I just want you  two to know how unspeakably proud I am that my daughter ended up with  such caring people."

She looked over at Drea. "Not just  Morgan either. You and I have talked quite a bit over the last few days,  and I've grown to trust you as a mature and kindhearted person. I think  they'd be lost without you, and the three of you together are much more  stable and connected than I think I could manage in your situation."  She stopped talking, giving a light chuckle. "Sorry. Listen to me go on.  I'll go help James with the preparations. I just wanted all of you to  know how much I care for you." Her face flushed as she averted her gaze.  "This is the first really dangerous thing I've done since I died, and I  felt the need to to make things clear beforehand."

Zee's  eyes widened and she stepped in to give her mother a tight, sudden hug.  "Hey, this isn't some kind of suicide mission mom. We did our research  and Jim, Morgan, and Artemis are pros at this kind of thing. This is  going to be fine, we slip in, get the info, and slip out." She paused,  muttering a word and conjuring a small wooden bird carving, which she  proceeded to knock on. "Sorry, can't be too careful in the Nightside.  But given we've prevented and jinxes, which are probably real here, we  should be fine."

Sindella chuckled at her daughter's antics, squeezing her tightly for a few minutes before pulling back with a nod. "I know askim ,  it's just me being silly. I've done things like this before, but being  dead changes your perspective. I'll be fine, I just need to get past the  idea that this is all temporary and that I might just die again. I have  no plans to leave you a second time, but if I do, I want it to be  knowing that your mother loved you very much. I plan to make sure  everyone I care about knows how much I adore them every day from now on,  even if they get annoyed from hearing it constantly for the rest of  what I hope will be a very long life."

I  understood that impulse. The urge to make every day count, the terror  of losing someone you loved and not having told them how much they meant  to you. I imagined it was much more intense for Sindella, but I got  where she was coming from. She shook her head, continuing after her  speech. "Sorry, I guess dying affected me more than I expected. I'm  going to go help James. Thank you for humoring my meaningless blather."  She squeezed Zee again and then slipped off before we could say anything  else.

Zee  looked upset by the exchange, and I didn't blame her. Sindella was  obviously much more affected by her death than she'd been letting on.  Looking back on it, I'd adjusted to the time jump way better than a  normal person really should have. I suspected that my inhuman nature  helped, and the girls probably managed for similar reasons. Wally had  been in bad shape when we got back actually, and had needed to go see  his family for a while to recover.

I'd  been applying those same standards to Sindella, and it was obviously a  mistake. Just because she was keeping it together and putting on a happy  face didn't mean she was just magically ok, and even though the Arcadia  Project probably helped, I imagined she was still getting used to  everything that had changed. I cursed internally at not being able to  use my fucking aura sight, which could have helped me see what she was  going through earlier.

In  the end though there was nothing we could do to help Sindella we hadn't  already been doing. Spending time with her, helping her make new  memories and showing her she had things to live for. This world must be  really scary for her, the same and yet so different from her old life.  Hell, we'd had it loads better because we'd been together during it all.  We had our loved ones with us to help us through, and people we knew  understood us. Sindella didn't even have that, not really. We understood  her a bit because the time jump, but it wasn't anything like the  support we could give each other.

Promising  myself that we would all spend more time with her and try to coax her  into talking more about how she was feeling, I grabbed Zee by the hand  and trailed after her. I'd been planning to leave this to Jim, but I  figured Sindella might benefit from having Zee nearby with the excuse of  wanting to watch. Having her daughter around was probably the closest  thing to stability she had right now. We came to a stop near the spell  work, and I was amazed watching them work, the normally invisible warp  and weft of the magic becoming observable under the influence of their  spellwork. Then we settled in to watch. This would take a while.