The Faerie Queen

[Death of Man]

November 23, 2017

“Pass the peas down to Aristolochia. Her plate is looking far too clean.”

“Oh no, I swear I couldn’t eat another bite!”

“You must take more wine, Lord Arnolf. It is simply divine.”

“Maybe just a little.”

“Another slice of breast for you, Welwitschia?”

“Mmm I really shouldn’t but… oh well, why not? It is a holiday after all!”

The brùnaidh dashed around the table, fulfilling Belladonna’s every command and suggestion. They served their queen with efficiency. Silently too. Of course, that was more because their tongues had been removed (naturally, she had done the work herself) and the stubs left behind had been capped with a piece of cold iron.

Their life expectancy was greatly reduced as a result, which was rather inconvenient because good help could be so hard to find! But she also couldn’t have her favorite servants spreading her secrets, could she? No, that would not be tolerated.

“Hmm hm hm now what would I like more of? Oh yes, I know. Carve a little more off the inner thigh for me. Nice and thin now. I like my meat lean.” When the brùnaidh slid the meat off the knife and onto her plate, Belladonna cut off a small piece and took a bite. “Mmm so tender. She really is absolutely delicious, isn't she?” She looked fondly upon the roasted body at the center of her Thanksgiving feast. The young woman really hadn’t been much fun to hunt. Her pair of coin-sìth had gotten to her first, unfortunately. Almost tore her to pieces. Still, it was a lovely way to spend a holiday and the meal was scrumptious. “Nothing compares to fresh meat. It just melts right in your mouth.”

[JewellRavenlock]

November 27, 2017

“Morning.”

“Great morning,” he replied. He tugged her as close as their positions would allow, sighing contentedly. “Good wasn’t a strong enough word. Perfect would include coffee, but there’s no way in hell I’m lettin’ you outta this bed again.” Cane’s eyes slid shut, but not for long.

“Excellent morning,” Jewell agreed wholeheartedly as they became further entwined, her leg wrapping around his and her lips planting a line of feather light kisses along his neck.

The Cajun’s head tipped a little to one side to give her better access, a sleepy smile spreading across his face. “You keep that up, we’re liable ta do somethin’ that’ll have us passed out til noon from exhaustion.” It didn’t sound like he objected…

Her laughter was light, lilting. “Oh handsome, I think you might have worn me out enough last night unfortunately.” There was a note of real regret in her voice as there was nothing else she’d rather do with her morning. It was a terrible segue, and she didn’t really want to talk about it, not when it was so nice right here, right now, in his arms, but… “That’s actually kind of what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“You wanna talk about my wearin’ you out?” he asked, sounding both skeptical and amused all at once.

“Nooo,” she laughed, dropping her head so her forehead pressed against his clavicle. “That would be much better,” she admitted, her voice muffled against him. “Much more fun.” It took her a moment to order her thoughts and look back up at him, smile more forced. “I’m sick, Canaan.”

The Cajun did not immediately respond. Though his smile waned, it did not entirely disappear. His hand left her hair to stroke the side of her face, tracing the apple of her cheek, the sharp line of her jaw, the plump curve of her lower lip. Cane swallowed audibly while bringing his hand to a final rest atop the gentle swell of her hip.

There was something about the tenderness of his touch that made her eyes suddenly swim with tears. Real affection had been missing from her life for so long that it easily undid her now. “I… I should have told you before. You know, before this.” She gestured to the small space between them before her hand fell back to his chest, nervously tracing the litany of scars there on his skin. “But I didn’t know… I hoped.” Halting and hesitating, she took a shuddering breath before striking for levity and missing terribly, “Turns out I can’t survive iron to the heart forever.”

Cane was a smart man. He put things together fairly quickly: the months of pill popping, the breathlessness, the sharp edge of paranoia he so often witnessed. What was left of his smile was erased. The muffled clack of his tongue ring against his molars was the only tell that hinted at the depth of his distress. After his moment of realization, he cleared his throat and asked, “What happened?”

She suddenly found his facial hair of utmost interest. “When those Temple people had my Name last year, I asked Kalamere to stop me if they used it.” He hadn’t heard this particular story because she didn’t like telling it, but it didn’t really matter now. There was no reason to hold back the details. Not from him. Her voice was quiet, flat, as she rattled the details off as if they were just cold, hard facts. As if it had all happened to someone else. “They did, so he did. He was able to get close to me because of how I feel…” now she paused, correcting herself quickly, “felt. How I felt about him. So I got a Valentine’s Day gift: an iron shiv right to the heart as he kissed me on the forehead.” Her hand slid off his chest, taking his and guiding it to the spot beneath her ribs where there was a very small scar where Kal had stabbed her. “He brought me to the hospital after. Then they patched me up and sent me on my way.”

“Sent you on your way,” Cane echoed tonelessly.

“Yeah.” It was funny how much that still hurt. She could actually feel the old panic constricting her heart and forced herself to take a deep breath, holding it for a moment before continuing on. “Kal waited just to make sure I was alive, and then the doctors didn’t know what kind of long-term damage there would be.” She shrugged as if it was nothing. As if it didn’t mean her entire life. “Apparently a lot.”

“That ****er stabbed you?” Sorry. He’s still a little hung up on that. Might have something to do with the way he feels about Jewell. But Cane knew this wasn’t constructive, and it probably wasn’t something she wanted to discuss in detail, so he grit his teeth and apologized. “Sorry. I--” Almost apologized. The temperature of his skin rose by several degrees. He closed his eyes and exhaled sharply. His anger wasn’t what she needed from him, not now.

It was validating though. Gratifying. Still, the automatic, minimizing reply came so easily to her lips, “It’s okay. It--” the words stuck in her throat and her breath hitched.

“It’s not okay,” Canaan interrupted hotly.

She paused and then shook her head. “No. No it’s not.”

“I hate that word.”

She tilted her chin up and kissed his jaw where it was hidden beneath his beard. His hand twisted to hold hers tightly, sandwiched between their bare chests. “You’re right. It’s not okay. It’s probably never going to be okay. It’s awful and terrible and wrong and…” she grasped for other words that could possibly touch the betrayal, the trauma, the hurt that never seemed to go away. She fell short. “But I did ask him. I went and I asked him to kill me, made him promise. And he fulfilled that promise and I got a heart full of iron poisoning and a head full of memories I don’t want in exchange.”

Cane’s murderous expression softened, the rigidity of anger sloughing away until his forehead settled gently against hers. “Oh, douce fille. Aucun d’entre nous ne veut jamais les souvenirs.” The rush of French poured from his mouth in a whisper.

She shied away from those memories, grounding herself in him instead: his hand wrapped around hers, bodies entwined, the heat of his skin, the sound of his voice. Her exhale was partly a laugh so at odds with what they were talking about. “I don’t know what that means, as pretty as it sounds.”

Pretty words. Cane heard the echo of another man’s words in his head. Driven to the point of distraction, he had to shake his head to clear his thoughts. “None of us ever wants the memories. It takes so long to stop hurting.” That was what he’d said and more.

“No. I suppose we don’t,” she agreed quietly. She released his hand so she could wrap both her arms around him and squeeze him tightly, cheek pressed against his chest. “But I’m out of time to stop hurting.”

“Mm-mn.” The Cajun’s head shook again, rolling onto his back so she ended up resting atop his chest. He fixed the blankets so they remained tugged up around her shoulders, then tucked the white-blonde hair behind pointed ears so he could see her face. “Not yet you’re not. You’re right here with me, and I’ll hurt with you if you want.”

“I am.” She planted her elbow against the mattress, her cheek pillowed in the palm of her hand while her right hand stroked the line of his jaw hidden beneath his scruff and then brushed back the hair from his forehead. “I am here with you.” She cupped his cheek and leaned in to kiss him.

It was a hungry kiss. A needy kiss. A kiss that said ‘thank you’ better than words ever could.

Thank you for not leaving me alone.

[JewellRavenlock]

November 28, 2017

Jewell followed the nurse as she lead her to Eva's office even though she knew where it was. Apprehension had her fiddling with the end of her scarf. She had been to a lot of doctors in the last few weeks, but it had been over a year since she had been here. At least she wasn't bleeding profusely this time, and she didn't have a bolt of iron through her shoulder.

No, just iron in her heart.

The nurse knocked on the office door and opened it, allowing Jewell to pass her with a nod of thanks and enter, reserving her smile for her friend. "Hey."

Eva rose from where she had been sitting behind the desk. She was dressed casually in black pants and a dark top, but she wore her white doctor's coat over it---a reminder of the professional setting, despite the fact that she stepped towards Jewell to offer a kiss to her cheek. "Hey." She smiled. "Good to see you."

She traded her in a kiss to her cheek before taking the seat reserved for patients. "Good to see you too. Did you have a nice holiday with your family?"

"Yes, thank you." There was a bit more light in her eyes as she nodded. With the door shut, Eva retreated to her side of the desk and settled in. "You did something with the team?" She might be watching episodes on her vidstream.

She smirked, "Yeah.. something all right. We just kind of hung out. I got turkeys for everyone to pretend hunt in the backyard, but we ended up eating one." Jewell shook her head, smiling fondly, "They're something else. Miss having you on my team though."

Eva smiled. If they had more time together, she would have been more honest. Instead, she just deflected. "Next year." She swiveled slightly and tapped on her pad. On the large flat screen on her desk, Jewell's records popped up. Other than being obviously her records, it was impossible to tell what it all meant. Eva glanced at it before looking back at Jewell. Drawing a pad of paper near her. "I've had a chance to look over your records. But why don't you tell me what brings you here?"

Her smile was more grimace as the conversation shifted, but this was why she had come here. They could have drinks and talk about her bad life decisions and the Real World house another time. She sat towards the edge of her seat, as if ready to run, and resumed playing with the end of her scarf. "Right. Well, I guess you saw that the iron... it's pretty much destroying my heart." There was no need to sugar coat it since Eva had seen her records. All of them. "They seem to think it's going to be fatal, and I was just wondering... I thought maybe you'd see it different or something."

She fell silent a moment. Then she leaned forward a little. "Your iron levels are high, yes." She reached up and turned the screen towards Jewell, then tapped to a 3D imaging of her heart. It was black and white, with white numbering along the bottom and right side of the image. And there were dark spots on the image of her heart. "And yes, there are signs of stress and damage, here... and here." Showing her on the image.

She chewed at the inside of her cheek, brow furrowed as she leaned this way and then that to examine her own heart. It was a strange experience, seeing it outside of her body like that. She slouched back on the chair. "When I first was hurt, they weren't sure what would happen. Weren't sure if there would be lasting damage. Now they say that the iron basically killed whatever it touched, even though it wasn't a lot, and it's spreading like a cancer does." Jewell stated it calmly, matter-of-factly, eyes on Eva and not her heart.

She knew how disconcerting the image could be, but she thought it was important for patients to see it. Now, she swiveled the screen back so it was more difficult for Jewell to see, and she flipped to a different page of the records, one that was all text. "There's a condition that afflicts some humans, where their bodies cannot process iron. Hemochromatosis. Has anyone ever spoken with you about that?"

She shook her head. "I don't think... I mean, I've never heard that term? But most fae are allergic to iron. It burns us. Like, I can get an actual burn on my skin from it if someone touches me with it? And just being around too much of it makes me feel ill. It's why..." she was twisting the frayed edge of the scar tightly now, "that's why it worked so well in stopping me last year. That's why Kal used it."

Eva nodded, "Yes, I know." She didn't seem at all offended by Jewell's attempt to inform her. But it wasn't necessary. "Looking at your test results... comparing your condition immediately after you were first hurt to your recent labs... I can't disagree with the other doctors." Like Jewell, she spoke calmly and without alarm. "Iron is building up around your heart, and the muscle tissue of your heart is slowly and dangerously dying." There was a yet to be spoken 'but' there, however.

She took a deep breath in through her nose, almost like bracing herself for a plunge into cold water. "So that's it then?" Jewell was trying to draw out that so important 'but'. She had told Ishmerai the fight was over. She told Cane she was out of time.

But she wanted to be wrong.

"No, Jewell, that's not it." Her brow furrowed. "Did your doctors talk to you about the possibility of a transplant?"

"The one..." she rubbed the heel of her hand into her temple. "Mother of Nature, I don't even remember which. They're all blurring together. One did mention it, though. There seemed to be a lot of complications involved? And possibly a problem with even obtaining a suitable heart. It'd require surgery, right?"

Eva nodded. "Yes. And it would require a pretty dramatic life change." She paused to give Jewell a moment.

"Life change..." she repeated, a sinking feeling slowly weighing her down. "Like what?"

"There's a pretty heavy-duty anti-rejection medication regime. Somewhere between eight and twelve pills a day. Another long recovery period with limited physical exertion. Low-fat, low-sodium diet. Absolutely no recreational drugs. Limited drinking." She had a feeling that last one might be difficult.

Jewell cringed. "I mean, I already can't drink much right now, but that would be for life? Which they also said might not be that long anyway, right? I could go through the whole thing and then still not live long?"

"Rejection is possible." Eva nodded. "A transplant does typically shorten the recipient's life span. But there are things that can be done to try to keep your new heart as healthy as possible for as long as possible."

She had leaned forward again at some point, eager to hear the hope Eva was holding out to her, but she fell back in the chair now. "Well... fuck. I mean, it sounds good, maybe? I don't know. No offense, Eva, but sometimes this 'modern'," she even made air quotes, "medicine stuff just sounds crazy."

"Mm. Well." Then brace yourself. "I asked you about hemochromatosis earlier because for humans there is no cure for the condition, but I know a cybernetics researcher in Star's End who has developed a nanobot that has been showing some promise in processing the iron in humans with the condition." She watched her still. "I consulted with him, and we both think there's a possibility that his protocol might be able to help you."

Her eyebrows shot up, her sudden smile somewhere between incredulous and 'Are you joking?' "It's a tiny robot?"

"It is, yes." She didn't smile. This was such a small hope, she didn't want to give Jewell the mistaken sense that this was about to save her. "What it does is essentially surround and remove iron from your system. For you, it might stop its negative effects." Eva shifted and leaned forward. "There are several things to keep in mind if you consider something like this."

"It won't reverse the damage already done to my heart, right?" She nodded slowly, thinking she had the gist of it. "Or maybe not even stop the dead tissue from spreading?" Her fidgeting with the scarf had become more idle as she found something somewhere over Eva's right shoulder to stare at, trying to process all of this. "What else?"

"That's right. It won't reverse the damage. And we don't know whether it will stop the spread. We don't know whether it will work at all." She had to be honest. "The only way I would recommend this for you is if you do it while you pursue, actively," putting stress on that last word, "a possible transplant."

She could hear Sal in her head, “A heart, a heart. We could give her a new one.” Jewell nodded again, forcing her focus onto Eva again with a faint smile. "Thanks. I think I'm going to have to think about that though. Fast, I guess.” She hesitated before just blurting her concerns out, “It just seems like I could do all that and then, you know.. still not be okay. Or die anyway but only after having spent the last bit of my life desperately clinging to it."

Eva reached over and turned off the screen. Then she pushed aside her notepad. When she was done, she returned her full attention to Jewell, her hazel eyes fixed on her. "Jewell... you're my friend... one of my oldest. I don't want anything to happen to you. I don't want any of the things that have already happened to you to have happened at all." She paused for a moment, and drew in a breath. "But life doesn't come with guarantees. It is... it is random, and terrifying, and... and sometimes cruel. You may die." She nodded, her brow furrowed. "You could... you could spend the next three years looking for a donor and never find one. You could find a donor and reject the transplant. You could have another thirty years, and die of the flu in your bed. Or you could step out onto the sidewalk and be hit by Bobo's hot cocoa cart." She shook her head. "As your doctor, I can't make guarantees. But as a friend, I can guarantee that you won't go through this alone."

"Thanks Eva. That means a lot. You've always..." she lost her composure then, forced to take a breath that gave her a moment to fight the tears that were stinging her eyes and control the tremble in her voice. These weren’t just trite, meaningless words. She knew Eva wouldn’t let her go through this alone, and that meant more than a lot to her. It meant everything. "You've been there for me through… well, everything. And this? I just... I don't know. You know I'm a fighter, right? I don't know if I've ever given up on anything, but I'm just... I'm so tired. I'm tired of fighting. And this? It just feels like a losing battle. I don't know." She shook her head. "Maybe I won't feel that way tomorrow. Yesterday, I was with Cane and I told myself I'd do anything to fight for more moments like that. But it just feels like a decision that's too big. Like, what right do I have to even decide this for myself?"

"Jewell..." Her brow furrowed, and she shook her head. Eva pushed back from her seat and came around the desk. She took the visitor's chair beside Jewell, body angled to face her friend, and she reached for her hand. She took a hold of it gently, but firmly. "Jewell, there's no decision to be made. You need a transplant."

[Sapphire Ravenlock]

November 29, 2017

The atmosphere in the living room was sombre despite the bright, merry sunshine reflecting off the snow outside and pouring in through the windows. All the color seemed to have bled from her world. Even her nail polish--a chipped, neon green--looked dull. Faded. Muted.

“But there’s a way to fix this, right? I mean, you’re not really going to… you’re not going to--” Sapphire looked up from her tightly clasped hands to Ishmerai standing across from her and Jewell on the couch. Her blue eyes pleaded with him, frantic for something to hold on to, but he looked grim and serious with his arms crossed, directing her to ask that question of Jewell with a nod of his head. But when she turned to Jewell, the faerie wouldn’t look back at her. Instead, she turned her head away and gazed out the window.

Her voice took on a higher, more desperate pitch when turned beseechingly to the knight, “Merai?”

He sighed heavily, resigned to his task. “There is a way, Sapphire, but…”

She grabbed at this hope, “A way? What way?” She looked rapidly between them, but Jewell continued to stare determinedly out the window.

The knight looked to Jewell as well, but when no answer was forthcoming… “Lady Eva has strongly recommended a heart transplant, which would--”

“Like the surgery? Finding a donor and using their heart?” He nodded. “Okay, so… let’s do it!” She smiled brightly, elated to have a solution. To have something to work with. It relieved a bit of the heavy grief that had been crushing her only moments ago. It didn’t matter that neither adult shared her apparent enthusiasm, that they continued to look solemn and somber. They weren’t like her. She was a tinkerer. A fixer. And Eva had given them a plan to fix this solution, so it was simply a matter of putting it into action and getting to work.

“Come on, let’s do it right now.” She jumped up off the couch, taking charge since they both seemed too overwhelmed to do so. “I’ll call Eva. We can set it all up.” Neither of them moved. A cold doubt crept over her; a nervous anxiety that fluttered in her stomach. “What are you waiting for? Why aren’t we out finding a donor? Did you already find one? If you did, we should be setting up appointments. I can stay as long as you need me to and finish my schoolwork from here! How soon can Eva--”

“No.” Jewell finally spoke up, looking at Sapphire. “I’m sorry, Sapphire, but I’m not doing the surgery. I won’t.”

“What?” She flinched back. “What do you mean you won’t? You have to!”

“Sapphire--” she said softly, reaching for her hand.

“No!” she pulled back even further. She did not want to hear whatever Jewell was about to say to her in that tone her mother had used when her dog Moxie was hit by a car the summer she was eleven. “Don’t touch me!” Her arms wrapped protectively around herself. “How could you even think about not doing this? This… this is your life. You have to do it!”

“It’s not simple, Sapphire. There are a lot of things to consider--”

“Those things don’t matter!” She shouted over her. If she said it loud enough, she could make it true.

“They do,” Jewell insisted firmly but kindly. Patiently. “They matter a lot. To me. We would have to find a suitable heart, the procedure is risky, it might not even take, and my life would be vastly different after. And I’m just not sure that I’m interested in--”

“I DON’T CARE!” she cried. “You have no right to decide you won’t do this. You have to. You have to do it!” She fumbled in her pocket, trying to pull out her comm device. “I’m calling Eva right now. We’re going to do this.” Her hands were shaking so badly that she couldn’t scroll through to find Eva’s number, if she even had it. If she didn’t have it, she’d get it. It didn’t matter. She kept trying, jabbing at the screen blindly, tears obstructing her vision now. “You have to… you have to. You just can’t--”

Her phone thunked onto the carpeted floor when Jewell wrapped her arms around her.

“You have to do it,” she sobbed. “You… you just can’t!”

“I know, love.” Jewell held her tight, stroking her blue hair as she buried her face against her shoulder. “I know.”

[JewellRavenlock]

November 30, 2017

“Stop.”

“No you stop,” Sapphire shot back in annoyance, shoving her shoulder. Jewell fell sideways against the pillows piled on the end of the couch, grabbed one, and smacked the younger woman with it.

Ishmerai sighed, “Both of you need to stop.”

“She started it,” Jewell complained. The knight threw his arms up and walked towards the windows, staring out at the grounds of the sanatorium. Jewell took this as permission to proceed and tried to smother Sapphire, who was attempting to grab the pillow from her.

“I wouldn’t...oomph, stop it already!” Sapphire managed to tear the pillow from her hands, her face red and her hair a mess. “I wouldn’t have needed to start anything if you would just be reasonable.”

“I am being reasonable,” she huffed, crossing her arms and angling herself away from Sapphire.

“No you’re not. You’re fighting in IFL. Drinking. Running around having crazy sex with--mmph!” Jewell had pounced, shoving a different pillow into her face.

“You need to stop babying me!”

Within an hour of arriving at the sanatorium, Sapphire had taken prompt control of Jewell’s care, fancying herself a nurse. There was a schedule of medications tacked up in the kitchen and a pantry stocked with heart-healthy foods (“I’m going to go get more diet recommendations from Auntie Eva next week!”). She had plans to talk to Hope about requiring Jewell to continue physical therapy if she wanted to stay on the team, and last night she had sat on her, refusing to let her leave for her fight with Koy until she did some deep breathing exercises, took her medication, and promised to be careful. Jewell had endured a long lecture when Sapphire had seen her swollen knee (a result of the fight) and heard her plans to go out dancing with Koyliak soon.

And when she hadn’t finished her asparagus with lunch.

It was too much. If she only had a few more months left to live, she wanted to actually live.

“Mira, she is turning blue,” Ishmerai remarked mildly, glancing back at them.

“Oh.” She dropped the pillow and reached over, fixing Sapphire’s hair for her. “Sorry.”

She swatted her hand away. “You’re impossible to take care of, you know that?” Jewell shrugged, grinning a little. “Merai, how have you put up with this pain,” she shoved the faerie’s shoulder again, “in the butt for so many years?”

“With much endurance of spirit,” the knight replied dryly.

“Hey!”

[JewellRavenlock]

December 2, 2017

It was just after 3 a.m. when Mallory sent a flurry of texts to Sapphire.

To Sapphire: you up?
To Sapphire: youre in town right?
To Sapphire: omw over
To Sapphire: come to dockside door
To Sapphire: i swear its important
To Sapphire: text me back

About ten minutes later, a fist started pounding from the RhyDin side of one of the enchanted doors into Jewell’s sanctuary.

Whenever the sanatorium’s Dockside portal opened, Mallory was standing right outside of it, her nose buried in an Egyptology textbook, with tomes on Celtic lore and faerie legends and medieval alchemy tucked under her arm, and her free hand balled into a fist, ready to knock again. She was in a baggy sweatshirt, yoga pants and sneakers, which did not look like nearly enough to ward off the cold. About fifty feet behind her, at the end of the Dockside alley, stood Eri and a couple of girls from the security detail next to a red Alfa Romeo. The girls were quiet, smoking and keeping an eye on their surroundings, but Eri’s gaze was fixed on the back of the single-minded witch.

To Mal: shhhhh
To Mal: i’m comin down

It took Sapphire another ten minutes to open the door though because she opened the Old Temple and New Haven ones first. She was grumbling by the time she pulled open the Dockside portal, “Need ****ing labels on these things.” She back away quickly behind the door to protect herself from the icy night air off the water that whipped right through her t-shirt and shorts. She had done nothing to tame her wild mane of blue hair. “Hey Mal,” she smiled through a yawn, “what’s--”

It was just as well that Sapphire was backing up, because Mallory was coming in, pausing only long enough to flash a reassuring smile and a thumbs up to Eri. They’d still be on the same plane; she could call for a ride home when she was done. “Is Jewell up? What about Merai?” she fired off, looking up and down the halls of the sanatorium.

Sapphire waved to Eri and company before closing the door behind Mallory, covering another yawn. “Merai probably is. Might take a bit to wake Jewell up though. She knocks herself out with all sorts of stuff these days.” She headed right down the hall for the stairs. “What’s got you all wired? You on speed or something?”

“The Feather of Truth and the weight of a mortal heart -- the death and rebirth of gods -- the Quickstone of Aldronay -- that’s what has me wired!” she said, following Sapphire closely as she walked down the hall, and catching her arm as she rounded the stairs. Her eyes were wide and wild, almost manic. “Jewell’s… sick, right? That’s why you’re in RhyDin. It’s her heart.”

Her blue eyes widened a little, suddenly very awake and very alert. “Yeah. How did you--” she stopped and shook her head. She’d find out if it was important. “Nevermind. Come on.” Sapphire put her hand on her shoulder to guide her up the first few steps, whispering urgently as they went. “They sent me a message Tuesday afternoon, asked me to come. I’ve been waiting for months now, you know? Cause she told me to stay home.” One of the girls patrolling the hall saw them on the third landing. She merely waved at the pair and continued on her way. “So I got in Wednesday morning. They sat me down and told me the whole thing.”

There was a set of double doors at the top of the stairs on the fourth floor, leading to a foyer that looked similar to the one in Jewell’s penthouse in Little Elfhame. Sapphire opened the left-hand door for Mallory, “It’s the iron, you know? The iron Kal stabbed her with on Valentine’s Day. It’s going right through her heart now.”

“I know,” Mallory said, then clarified, “Part of me knew -- my Sight knew.” She wanted to tell her everything right now, her wild gaze finally settling for a moment on Sapphire’s face in profile as they passed through the door together. She’d missed her friend since Perihelion, and the thought of how much she must be aching right now finally struck her. It stoked her resolve. I can beat this. I know I can.

She slid her hand around Sapphire’s and followed her deeper into Jewell’s inner sanctum.

Sapphire smiled aside at her friend. “You’ll have to tell me what you’ve been--oh, hello Merai!”

The knight was standing, watching them from the mouth of the hallway. “Girls.” Despite the pall that had been cast over the whole family, he smiled at them. “I heard the buzzing of your electronic device and noticed you were out of bed.”

“Merai.” The witch didn’t usually presume to use the knight’s nickname, but it was an unusual night. She shifted the odd trio of books underneath her arm and stepped forward, her hand slipping away from Sapphire’s with a single squeeze. “Did you and Jewell bring the Primordial Vitaeum with you? Is it here?”

He frowned, concerned with the fervor with which she spoke and the object she sought. “Mallory, you should not…”

Sapphire spoke up, “It’s for J, Merai. She knows.”

“I felt it,” she stressed, taking another step to hold Ishmerai’s gaze. There was a gleam in her vivid green eyes, a glimmer of the reckless passion of black magic as she held out her left hand imploringly. “When her heart cried out in pain the other night, I could feel it in my blood… I’ve Seen the weighing of her withered heart in my dreams… and I’ve heard the ritual that could be her salvation.” Her open hand closed into a fist. “We can give her a new heart.”

“But mama already said she doesn’t want to do a transplant,” Sapphire explained, miserable again. It seemed that Jewell might come around, but she was afraid by the time she did? It would be too late. “We’ve been fighting about it all week.”

“What does this have to do with the Primordial Vitaeum, Mallory?” The knight looked very grave. He had not missed that light in the witch’s eyes, and feared the path her passion was taking her along.

“The Rite of First Equinox,” Mallory hissed. “We find a powerful fae heart -- archfae, royalty, one of the small gods -- we bind it through ritual, and let it pass through an artifact and become one with Jewell’s flesh. I’ve only seen pieces of the Rite, but I know the Primordial Vitaeum holds the full text -- and clues to an artifact we can use. If not the Quickstone of Aldronay, maybe the Eye of the Silversmith or one of the Celestial Stars, I don’t know…”

She shook her head, dismissing the distracting thoughts. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that we can stop this.”

Ishmerai and Sapphire shared a quick look between them.

“A ritual is different from surgery…” Sapphire offered, trying not to sound too hopeful.

The knight still looked grim, but the worry lines around his eyes and mouth eased a little. “I think I should go wake Jewell.”

*****

“Wait…” Jewell rubbed her pointer and middle finger roughly into her temple, massaging it against a budding headache, “explain it again. We don’t have to do some crazy surgery after we find a suitable heart?”

They were sitting around the kitchen table now with steaming mugs of very strong coffee in front of them. Except Jewell. “No caffeine for you,” Sapphire had ordered, setting down a cup of herbal tea instead.

The coffee had a sobering effect on Mallory, and she seemed a little more herself as she set the mug down -- or at least she was not displaying her darker impulses so openly now. “No,” she said, and drummed her left ring finger on the cover of the ancient green tome sitting on the table in front of her. “Instead we do things the old-fashioned way -- the very old-fashioned way. Legends hold that the old gods of the forest did not always have the cunning illusions and mutable flesh the fae are known for,” her gaze ticking from Ishmerai, to Sapphire, back to Jewell. “The illusions… that doesn’t matter. What we’re after is the flesh.

“The old gods deceived and betrayed each other like they still do, but they used magic like the Rite of First Equinox to murder each other and steal each other’s essence. They could do it the same way you shape the water, or I conjure fire and shadow, but none of us have that kind of power… so we need a piece of the old gods, or something they valued dearly, something they touched, to complete the ritual -- ”

Mallory drew her hand away from the ancient book, a subtle whisper from within its pages drawing her gaze with the temptation of forbidden knowledge… but she looked away, opening her hands to the others at the table. “ -- and replace your heart with that of a fae equal to your power. Behaving as it always did within their own body, yet also as if you had always had that heart.”

“This is very dark magic, Mallory.”

“Who cares?” Sapphire snapped at the knight. “It’s what we were looking for, isn’t it? Better than the surgery Auntie Eva suggested with all the drugs and limitations. Mallory says it will behave like her own. That’s what you want, isn’t it mama?” She looked at Jewell, who just nodded.

“It may be better, but…” Ishmerai conceded unwillingly, ready to issue a warning.

Sapphire carried right on over him. “And there’s probably no chance of her body rejecting the heart, right? No weird side-effects. None of that. What more could we ask for?”

Jewell didn’t speak up right away. Her thoughts were racing, fighting furiously against the mix of drugs she had taken to help her sleep in an attempt to understand, to see the matter clearly, and make a good decision because Ishmerai was right: this was very dark magic Mallory was talking about. Dangerous magic.

The knight and the blue haired wonder were still arguing when Jewell finally addressed Mallory, “We would need a heart of equal value, you said. Of a faerie equal to me?” Her smile was wry and a bit regretful, “Not to ruin this plan or speak too highly of myself, but that will not be easy to find or obtain. Where do you propose that we find such a heart?”

All the wind went out of Sapphire’s sails at that and she sunk back in her seat, quiet.

“I’m not too keen on killing another family member. It’s already gotten me into quite a bit of trouble with the High Court in the past, you know.” And then some. To kill a sidhe equal to herself was costly. The death of Conventina had stripped her of her magic. To become capable of taking Muirenn down, she had sacrificed her name. Jewell had very little left to sacrifice. Nothing she was willing to give up. And who was there left to kill anyway?

Mallory had taken up her coffee again, trying very much to focus on its heat and on the substance of everyone’s arguments and not the way the old book seemed to look at her. She hummed thoughtfully as she took a slow sip. She did not have intimate knowledge of Jewell’s history, but knew enough to gather that trouble with the High Court had kicked everything off with the Temple and the CPA.

She shook her head faintly at Jewell, a silent admission of I don’t know, and fell deeper into her own thoughts as the silence weighed heavily around them. There were so many pieces to this puzzle: the jackal, and the feather; Iustitia with her sword; the crumbling heart; the intricate rivulets of blood; the witch’s curse; the broken mirror; the ivy throne…

Jewell swirled the spoon around in her tea, mixing in the liberal amount of honey Sapphire had added. Lyre could work, but she wasn’t so sure a man’s heart was equal to her own. No, she was sure that it wasn’t. That of a fae equal to your power. She would not touch Lorelei. Lorelei was probably more powerful than her anyway. She ran her hand through her messy, white hair, frustrated. Who was her equal? She turned to look at Ishmerai, the question on her lips, and saw Mallory staring intently at her face when it clicked. Oh.

“Belladonna,” the witch whispered, appearing surprised at herself, and looked around at them. “Will anyone give two ****s if we murder her?”

“My own heart,” Jewell said softly, tempering the sudden excitement that had swelled up inside of her. “Of course.” She looked at Ishmerai eagerly.

“It could work,” he admitted.

“It could.”

“It will not be easy to best her a second time,” he warned.

“No,” Jewell agreed, “she is stronger now.” Her heart constricted painfully when she realized what she must ask of him: “And we will need the relic too.”

Ishmerai’s hand found hers beneath the table and squeezed it. No other words were needed between them.

Meanwhile, the conversation between the two younger girls on the other side of the table had carried on without them, with Sapphire hugging Mallory tightly and proclaiming her the best and brightest ever. Now she leapt up out of her seat, intent on making a giant stack of pancakes in celebration, heedless of the details being worked out between the adults. “All right! Let’s kill that bitch and steal her heart!”


((Adapted from live play!))

[JewellRavenlock]

December 2, 2017

There were so many things to discuss and consider after Mallory’s morning visit, including a trip into Faerie to find the relic (if it existed) that could save her life, but Jewell’s thoughts were oddly on Michiru and Haruka. “Do you think they knew when they sent her here to me?”

“I have been wondering the same thing. To deliver you the perfect donor, albeit several years too soon…”

“I suppose I will have to ask them if I survive this.”

“You will survive, Mira.”

She looked out onto the grounds of the sanatorium, not feeling so sure. “We’ll see.”

[JewellRavenlock]

December 12, 2017

“It is one of your more terrible ideas. Truly.”

“Nnh.” She murmured dismissively, eyes wandering over the cream colored card again. Jewell tilted it this way and that, trying to catch the light and determine once and for all if the ink was a deep red. Like blood.

“You are already caught up with one kindred…”

He stopped, growling quietly in frustration at that sly, pleased smile that she hadn’t bothered to suppress at his reference to Sinjin. Caught up with was one way to put it. Entangled was probably better. Yes, entangled was the perfect word. She wondered idly when she could see him again.


“Mira!” the knight snapped.

“Hmm?” she looked at him with dreamy grey eyes.

He picked right back up with his arguments. “As I was saying, you are already involved with one. Leave the Night Court alone. Leave them out of this. They are not your allies in this fight. They have made that very clear, expanding their feeding grounds, attacking our people. You know they have reached some agreement with Belladonna.”

The Night Court’s sirelings had paid little heed to the grounds and boundaries established back when Jewell first came to power, regularly venturing into what was known amongst the immortal crowd as fae territory to prey upon mortals there. Now, with Belladonna’s motley band of killers openly indulging their most violent impulses, the fledgling vampires seemed to have abandoned any pretense of restraint. An attack on a loyal sidhe family in Little Elfhame had left the entire clan dead, and two of their own as well, glutted on the anathemous blood of the fae.

In spite of this, Jewell tilted the card back and forth again, lost in a daydream. “Mira,” he pleaded, “please forget Théodore Ténèbres. He will cause you nothing but trouble.”

“Oh Ishmerai,” she set the card down on her vanity and reached out, taking his hand with a sweet smile and squeezing it, a reassurance so at odds with her words, “don’t worry so much. I’m just having a little bit of fun before I die.”

[JewellRavenlock]

December 16, 2017

Years surviving and hustling on RhyDin’s streets, stealing most of her meals until only last Christmas, made Mallory rather adept at blending in and going unnoticed. She knew how to dress ratty but not too ratty, enough to be ignored without inviting people to wonder if her poverty would be a problem for them. She went without makeup and picked clothes that were frayed and faded without being filthy, and wore things like hooded jackets and unadorned hats that obscured her features without raising red flags by concealing them completely.

But Faerie posed a difficult challenge, because she was mortal and they were not. No matter how plain or unflattering her clothes, no matter how dull her demeanor, there were essential ways in which she could not help but stand out. The fae were known for being perceptive, too -- she couldn’t imagine that her own magical gifts would go entirely unnoticed, no matter how subtle her trinkets.

Still, she did her best. When she found Ishmerai in the sanatorium’s snowy garden, she was dressed as plainly as she could: black surplus jacket over a gray hooded sweatshirt and a black knit cap for her hair. Her jeans were old, faded but not patched, loose around her hips but not too baggy; her combat boots were black, a little muddy, and tagless. She’d even swapped out her backpack for something plainer, dark blue without a brand tag or any of the patches or battle scars that gave the other one its character. If she was carrying any of her usual trinkets, they’d been tucked out sight.

And the only touch of color on her face was the redness from the biting chill in the air. “Hey,” she said to the knight through a little puff of cold breath.

Ishmerai turned from surveying the grounds, watching the sun come up over the valley below. “Mallory,” he greeted her with a faint smile. They evoked the spirit of RhyDin in their contrast. She was dressed simply while he wore well-cared for, albeit plain, light, leather armor. The scales lingering along the sides of his face were brilliantly iridescent, as if shone to perfection in preparation of this trip.

The witch quirked a smile back at him as she stepped closer, and followed his gaze to the fiery glow spilling over the horizon into the valley. She wondered vaguely what the sun would look like in Faerie -- and if it would be anything like her trip to the well, before Lanuathen found her spirit…

“So, how are we doing this thing?”

“Over here,” he nodded further into the garden before leading her away from the magnificent sunrise and along the snow obscured path, marked only by the passing of footsteps. At the end, there stood an old stone arch, overgrown with ivy. At some point, an out building clearly stood here. Now the arch was the only thing left visible in the snow.

He stopped in front of it, “Fortunately, the situation is relatively peaceful with Jewell’s family at the moment. This will bring us right onto the Ta-Neer grounds, so we will not need to travel on the other side.” Merai glanced down to the young mortal he was unwillingly taking into Faerie with him. “I will do my best to keep you safe, but please do not wander off on your own. Also, refrain from eating or drinking anything I have not examined first. You are under Jewell’s protection in a way, as a guest in her family home, and guest rights therefore extend to you. This does not mean they will not try to get you to break it of your own fruition.” He likely did not need to remind her of any of this, but she was essentially his charge once they crossed the Veil. He would not have harm come to her.

“And remember,” he turned to look back at the portal. “They may be Seelie fae, but they are still fae.”

Mallory listened attentively to his words, though her gaze was pulled to the archway itself, her connection to the Veil drawn to this portal like iron to a magnet… “Would it be offensive if I didn’t say anything at all?” she asked as she shifted her backpack around, and unzipped it to show him its contents. “And I brought a big bottle of water… some granola bars… and licorice from Panacea. Let me know if you want any.”

The edges of her teasing smile softened as she added a gentle reassurance: “I’ll be careful. And I’ll follow your lead. Closely.”

He nodded with approval at the food, but did not take her up on the offer. Yet. “I would advise you against not speaking, but to do so succinctly and graciously when you do.” He paused. “And do not be afraid to, as they say, ‘lay it on thick.’”

He offered her his arm, “Shall we?”

The witch’s lips thinned as she considered the archway, and the prospect of keeping her words both concise and over-the-top. She remembered how careful her words had been in the Feygarten at Beltane, and how much higher the stakes were now… “Yeah,” she murmured, looping an arm through his and following him into the threshold.

* * * * *

They left winter behind in RhyDin and emerged in spring in one of the many gardens of Lorelei Ta-Neer. Behind them was a stone arch similar to the one in the garden of the sanatorium, but here it appeared to lead into a large corridor. Ishmerai glanced around to orient himself before touching Mallory’s arm and nodding, “This way.”

Mallory struggled to keep her gaze from wandering across the sky and their surroundings. Even without looking, she could feel the change in the air, as the electric thrill she associated with magic permeated every inch of this place.

Ishmerai led them through a verdant, semi-wild landscape marked by paths here and there, lush with ferns and grasses, copses made for lazing under on warm days, and short stretches of lawns and flowers meant to be admired.

It seemed more park than garden, set in a possibly endless courtyard amidst the Ta-Neer estate. Archways edged parts of the perimeter, leading off into corridors and hallways, while several rooms seemed to spill right out onto the greenery. Despite the existence of the bustling seat of the Ta-Neer family right beyond those edges, the garden was quiet. Empty. There was not a minstrel or musician to be seen, no courtiers vying for favor, or even the hint of a servant. “Our hostess wishes to meet with us privately for a moment,” Ishmerai explained, and Mallory nodded mutely as she fell in behind him.

They found Lorelei Ta-Neer near the sweeping branches of a willow tree that made its home along a small brook that cut through the garden. She sat upon a rustic bench, head tilted upwards and eyes closed as if listening to something: the breeze singing through the willow leaves. Crossing the bridge their path followed, simply made of branches thatched together, Ishmerai stepped across the grass, coming forward to kneel before her while the witch hung a respectful distance back. She seemed to know they were there, opening her eyes and smiling at the knight. “Ishmerai, it seems an age.” She offered him her hand, which he pressed a kiss to before standing. “You are well, I hope? I have often worried about you since you left us so abruptly after your injuries.”

The similarities to Jewell were striking--the shape of her face, the petite frame, the thick hair (black not blue) that fell over her slender shoulder in loose curls--but that was where they ended. Her green eyes were soft and kind. There was nothing of artifice or cunning in her expression. No hidden wickedness in her smile. Just a natural sweetness that had not always served her well in the politics of Faerie.

He smiled, “I am as well as to be expected.”

“And Jewell? I see she did not come with you as I hoped.”

Ishmerai shook her head, “It is the iron. She dare not come. They would smell it on her.”

“My heart grieves me to hear it.” Perhaps it was her glamour, but when Lorelei said that, all listening felt she truly meant it. “She has sent me a friend instead?”

“Yes. Lady Ta-Neer, may I present Mallory St. Martin?” He stepped aside, gesturing to the young woman who approached as soon as she was introduced.

“Mallory, well met and welcome.” Lorelei offered her hand, apparently intent on shaking the witch’s. “I hope you find your time within my walls to your liking.” When she took Mallory’s hand, she studied her face. “Such interesting friends my dear cousin makes. A blood witch, yes? A fitting companion for Jewell in many ways.”

Glamour was subtle magic, and Mallory found herself less skeptical of her motive and sincerity than she knew she should have been. How easy it would have been to trust this woman and tell her of her cares, as she clasped her hand and looked into her eyes… Concise, she told herself, reminded by Lorelei’s speculative remark. “Thank you for the welcome. Your gardens are very beautiful,” she replied with a slight dip of her head. When Lorelei released her hand and moved her gaze to the knight, Mallory took a half-step back to allow them to lead the conversation once more.

“So you would like to use the archives, Ishmerai?” He nodded. “If I was a different woman, I would have had all the resources that could assist Jewell promptly removed before allowing you access. Alas, for better or worse I am as unlike my sister as the sun and the moon. She was unceasing in her attempts to bring about our cousin’s downfall. I am not. I will not doom her to a painful death to secure my own seat. The archives are yours to peruse for as long as you need them. I also give you Chika, Ishmerai. She will assist you however possible.”

He bowed to Lorelei, “You are, as always, kind and generous to the superlative degree, Lady Ta-Neer.”

The sweet, dignified Lady Ta-Neer blushed like a young girl, laughing. “And you are always so gallant, Ishmerai. Perhaps one day I will succeed in stealing you away from my cousin.” He merely inclined his head as acknowledgement to the comment, and Lorelei turned her attention back to Mallory. “Do enjoy my archives, Mallory.”

[JewellRavenlock]

“****, that’s a lot of books.” Thankfully Mallory saved her less eloquent compliments for when she was not in Lady Ta-Neer’s presence, with only Ishmerai and Chika to hear her as she dropped her backpack into a chair and stepped out into a wide passage between towering shelves. Her eyes were wide for only a few breathless moments, before they narrowed on details, attempting to divine some semblance of order from the countless thousands of tomes facing her. There were titles in Sylvan, Elvish, Gaelic, Russian, and -- “This is Old Church Slavonic,” she murmured, a fingertip hovering several inches away from a faded, silver-painted spine, not quite daring to touch it. She let out a long sigh, shifting her attention to their assistant for the day, the dryad archivist, Chika. She did not know how much time would pass in RhyDin while they were gone; so the faster her research, the better.

“Chika,” she ventured distractedly, flashing the briefest of smiles to the dryad as she crossed to her backpack, sliding out a few books and opening them to the index; “do you have The Four Jewels of the Tuatha Dé Danann, How The Dagda Got His Magic Staff, The Wooing of Étaín, and The Cauldron of Poesy in Irish Gaelic and Sylvan? Then… any references to three brothers, the great eastern world, and the four islands -- Murias, Falias, Gorias, and Findias -- but not The Book of the Taking of Ireland itself. Not interested in propagandistic ****ery…”

Mallory lifted her head to explain to Ishmerai, “Those texts should provide a good base for translation,” tapping her own book of selected Gaelic-to-English prose, “and a good starting point for what we’re looking for.”

“We should have all of those and a few others that I think you may like, Lady Mallory. Allow me a few minutes and I shall personally pull them. And Ishmerai, perhaps you would like to use the study alcove you used last time?”

“Yes.” It was quiet. Discrete. Few would even know they were there. “That would be perfect.”

Chika nodded, “I will find you there.” She set off down into the archives, intent on her task.

The knight turned immediately to the witch. There was little time to waste. “There are a few books of lore, stories you read to children at night or around a fire, that I think might be helpful for our task that I wish to locate, Mallory.”

The witch raised her eyebrows at the knight as she scooped up her backpack from the chair, intent on setting up in the alcove. “You think that’s worth our while?”

“Indeed. There are always nuggets of truth within such tales.”

*****

It was more than two hours since she began reading in Ishmerai’s favorite alcove, and nearly three since they’d arrived in Faerie, that Mallory St. Martin received her first visitor.

Their arrival was subtle at first, a creeping coolness in the air that had her zipping up her hoodie without thinking. She bent her head to the page, raising her shoulders to ward off the uncomfortable chill as she scratched a few notes into her journal. It seemed that the Dagda had likely never met the three brothers as he claimed, and instead been given the staff as a prize for loyalty, long after the death of its three-faced former owner…

Mallory had read two conflicting tales about where this forgotten old goddess had gotten such a relic, and was just starting a third about how she had acquired her second and third faces, when the witch was struck by a pang of yearning thirst from an unseen -- but distinctly magical -- source. She dropped her pencil and turned to search for the culprit.

Ishmerai was gone, perusing the shelves on another floor, something about a narcissistic godling who had drowned in a swamp blindly following a color-changing star in the twilight sky; but she sensed the presence of another fae, helped in no small part by the warm, rich smell of the cups of espresso he clutched in either hand.

“Mmm. I heard there was a mortal amongst us today.” Thin, soft lips curved in a pleased smile as an emerald-haired beauty emerged from an illusory shimmer in the air. He exuded pure temptation in the scandalously low dip of his robes, the way the silk melted over his finely sculpted features, and the delicate draw of one crystalline cup to his mouth, humming with pleasure at the first heated sip. “My poor dear, toiling alone over these tomes for that cruel, cruel knight… Aren’t you cold? Aren’t you thirsty?” he asked, as if surprised by the way the espresso drew her gaze.

But knowing there was a trick at work loosened its hold on her mind. She shook her head slowly, though she spared him a polite smile: “Thanks… but I’m alright.”

“Tsk,” he teased her, pointing at her with one pinky extended from his drink. “It’s not nice to lie.”

Her eyes narrowed shrewdly as she turned her gaze back to her work. “It’s not nice to make people believe them, either.”

He huffed with indignation and slipped back out of her presence as quietly as he had come, but the smile he wore now was nothing if not pleased. The others at court just had to hear about this!

*****

It was close to noon, though Mallory wouldn’t have known it by peeking through the shimmering glass windows that stretched up to the ceiling of the archives: time and daylight in Faerie were strange, though she couldn’t be sure if the slow, rippling changes in the color of the sky were “real” or an illusion projected through the glass.

She finished another granola bar, dropping the plastic wrapper in a little pile with the others, and padded (barefoot) over to the other side of the alcove to where Ishmerai was studying. She leaned against the end of a bookshelf and folded her arms as she looked at him.

“The Quickstone of Aldronay and the Mad Queen’s Sceptre were both destroyed. It’s how the first free elves snatched their agelessness back from the fae…” Her gaze ticked back and forth rapidly as she worked through the anxious thoughts that had been building up over the last hour. “And the Sceptre’s the only genuine relic made from the shards of the Lorg Mór -- Shimmerspear, Orkney’s Doom, and the Lance of Stars were all invented by the Fledgling Houses, just… propaganda and other bull**** meant to scare and impress each other…” She shook her head slowly, her frown deepening.

This had been a hell of a setback.

The knight sat back, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I have not been able to confirm whether the Tale of Cordula, one of the first Faerie Queens, is based on truth or not. They say she was one of the first to gain true immortality and live forever by stealing the hearts of all seven of her sisters. But she died. Maybe she ran out of hearts? Or lost the,” he leaned forward, reading from the book on top of the pile in front of him, “Circlet of Croí. Which I also cannot discern what that even was: a crown, a pendant, something completely made up.”

“Whatever it is, our chances of finding it are… not good.” Mallory tapped her toes against the rug beneath her feet, thinking hard. “Chika can keep searching for it, just in case… and maybe you can circle back to the Celestial Stars. The Lance was a dud, but… I don’t know…” She sighed and straightened from her lean to carefully gather a precarious stack of books from the edge of his desk. “I’ll start on the changelings.”

The witch made it only a few steps away when she sighed again, and paused there, steadying the books with her chin pressed to the top-most cover. “That eliminates every named treasure we had. The Staff, the Cauldron, the Quickstone, the Sceptre, the Circlet and the Eye… and who knows if anyone actually worked the Stars.” She lifted her shoulders in a slow, helpless shrug, and plodded back to her desk.

“We’ll just have to find another relic.”

*****

Visitor #5 arrived just after four o’clock.

At least, it had been ten hours since Mallory and Ishmerai had stepped through the portal when her watch said six. The more time she spent in Faerie, the more uncertain she felt about the flow of time there, though she imagined that was by design, or at least leveraged to disorient lost and wandering mortals. What worried her more was how time passed in RhyDin. Would it be moments there before she re-emerged in the Sanatorium? days? a week?

She was imagining Eri in an empty house for a week, herself arriving only hours before the party, and the darker possibility that something could go wrong, that she could stay in Faerie too long or the time warp could fluctuate even more than expected, all the way to missing her first Christmas with her girlfriend in their new place --

-- when a long, slender finger stroked down her cheek. Her gaze snapped over to its owner, her eyes wide and defensively angry, though damp with the threat of tears from where her thoughts had been taking her until this moment.

“Do not despair, mortal,” said a silver-haired creature with enormous violet eyes, half-lidded, serene, and with narrow feline pupils. “You are in a place of beauty… where a beauty like yours belongs. Come,” she said, reaching out to curl her long, slender finger around the shell of the witch’s ear.

Mallory could hear her heart beating in her ears better than the voice of the tall, gossamer-clad fae towering over her. The unwanted contact and implicit threat of this elder being’s power over her were too familiar… but she managed to restrain the urge to sunder this fae with magic. Wrath was not an option, though that did not leave her completely without recourse.

“Ishmerai?” she called, in the direction where she had last heard the fae shuffling through the archives’ shelves. That name alone had the silver-haired fae jumping back, darting a look side to side to see if the dangerous knight had snuck up on her.

His response was a distracted, muffled grunt as he was trying to add another book to the stack in his arms, using his chin to keep from dropping them all.

“Is there room for another finger in my collection?” She looked at the hand that had touched her out of the corner of her eye. “Right index, slender, rather pale. Soft skin, but I think it’ll keep rather well.”

“There is not,” he replied through gritted teeth. Then there was a sound of dismay before the books he had been carrying all crashed to the floor.

The fae was baring her sharp, pearly teeth at the witch as she backed away, driven off by the mortal’s unexpected threats and the sound of Ishmerai so much closer than she’d expected. “So much for Eri’s souvenir,” Mallory sighed, returning her attention to her books.

[JewellRavenlock]

“Ishmerai.” The hissed name was accompanied by the heavy thud of an old, cracked, water-damaged sylvan tome dropping suddenly onto the edge of his desk.

The witch wasn’t even looking at him. She didn’t see him jump at the hiss or almost throw the book he had been reading. She was already flipping the sylvan tome open to a ribboned page, then a little anthology of children’s stories, and setting her notebook between the two. The facing pages were filled with tightly scrawled words, underlined terms, and roughly sketched maps and an image of a shallow, hand-carved bowl inscribed with something structurally similar to Greek letters.

“The Starlight Basin,” she whispered, tracing the rim of the bowl with her left ring finger as a manic smile curled her lips; then she tapped a matching image and description in the old sylvan tome. “We discounted it because the place where it is kept, Evenmir, is a mythical island, something from children’s stories, a nonsense word… but only if you assume it’s sylvan. Instead,” she flipped to another marked section of the children’s book, “it’s a giant name, from the Eastern Realm. Like Rodomir, Rievendar, Ostarnir… Translations calling the island Evermere aren’t a clue to its meaning. They’re a mistake. Evenmir, translated from the tongue of the giants of the Eastern Realm, means Death at Sea’s Edge.

“And in the fable of the giants, the Blind Huntsman crossed Anasuil, swam across the water, and made his last stand upon a rock, ‘and slew the marauders ‘til the sea grew red and still.’ Why still?”

The witch flipped to the back of the old sylvan tome, to the scattered maps of the Far Lands, and placed her finger upon a lake, separated from the sea by a thin, rocky strip of land. “Because the bodies of the fallen giants cut the Eye of Sorrow off from the sea. And Evenmir is the island at the center of the Eye.

“The Eye of Sorrow is where fae who have seen too much tragedy go to drown--”

“Or go mad in the attempt,” he interrupted, following her despite the rapid stream of information she was throwing at him. The despair that had been slowly creeping over them as the day wore on lightened a little.

“Right… and in the Tale of the First Changeling, in the end she peers into the Starlight Basin and cannot remember her true face… and in her madness and sorrow, walks into the water to drown herself.

“You’ll find your relic on the isle of Evenmir, in the middle of the Eye of Sorrow, beyond the Howling Peaks in the Far Lands. It’s a long ways away, and this was a long time ago, but -- ” She flipped to another passage in the old tome and tapped it with her finger. “ -- ‘Evenmir, where the Starlight Basin has stood ever since, kept by the dead, whose ranks will swell with the newly drowned so long as the Mirror Shrine stands.’ If you want to know why the dead prowl the deep pools of the Holloway Marshes and pull people under…” She let out a short laugh and finally turned to look the knight in the eye. “…there’s your reason. Because the Starlight Basin is still there!”

*****

It had been a solid twelve hours in Faerie, most of it spent on research, when Mallory and Ishmerai trudged back through the gardens of Lorelei Ta-Neer. The fiery rays of sunset mingled strangely with the violet shades of a twilight sky, a final reminder of the time they’d spent in this magical realm -- and how strangely it may have passed once they crossed the portal. The witch’s backpack was laden only with the books she’d brought, minus her food, with the only addition being a few key passages of arcane lore she’d managed to copy on the sly…

“Ready?” she sighed to Ishmerai. Her mood was still buoyed by the breakthrough, but the reality of what might await them on the other side was setting in again.

The knight was burdened with several maps he had borrowed from the archives. He had to plan his journey and quickly. There really was no telling how much time had passed or how much time Jewell had left. “Yes. We do not need to take our leave of Lady Ta-Neer. She will know we have gone, and I will pass on your very gracious thanks when I return.” He gave her a knowing smile.

Mallory blinked at him, then grimaced. “Was it really that obvious? Goddammit. Well, I didn’t steal anything -- ”

Her words were cut off, and the wind knocked out of her, when they stepped through the archway, suddenly torn out of one reality and dropped into another. If her stomach hadn’t been so empty, she might have thrown up.

The sky was bright. The witch shielded her eyes with the flat of her hand, squinting up at the sanatorium walls that surrounded the courtyard. “****, it’s morning again? So it’s been at least a day, right?”

“Perhaps,” he looked around, unperturbed by stepping through the portal. The sun withheld the secret of the date from them. “We should go inside. There is no other way to tell.”

All was quiet inside the sanatorium. They wearily tromped up to the fourth floor, where Jewell’s private apartments were. Sapphire was in the kitchen, making pancakes for the groggy faerie who was slumped at the table, head buried in her arms.

“Hey!” Mid-pancake flip, Sapphire spotted them. Plop! The pancake hit the floor. “You’re back already? Did everything go okay? Could you not get in? What happened? Did you find it?”

Jewell’s greeting was less enthusiastic. She pushed herself up onto her elbows and just looked at the two of them.

“Words -- words,” Mallory groused as she slumped into a seat near Sapphire and across from the evidently hungover older fae. “I spent twelve hours reading way too much to process more than, like… one question.” She dropped her backpack on the floor and stretched, clenching her eyes shut. Now that she was seated again, the exhaustion of her long day was quickly setting in. “Could use some weed,” she mumbled groggily, smearing a hand across her face.

“Weed later,” Sapphire chided, rescuing the pancake from the floor, dropping it in Mr. Fitzy’s food bowl, and turning on Ishmerai since Mallory seemed incapable of answering her questions and she needed to know now. “So?”

“She found it.” Succinct. To the point. The knight took his seat at the table.

Jewell’s mutter of “thank the mother” as she buried her head back into her arms was lost to Sapphire’s triumphant shout, “YES! I knew you’d do it! Okay, what do you want in your pancakes, Mallory? Merai? This calls for a celebration.”

“Tch. Nah-no -- well, blueberries,” the witch amended, slitting her eyes to look between Jewell and Sapphire, “but now I get a question. You said we were back already, so… how long were we gone?”

The faerie’s answer was an indiscernible mumble.

“Not even two hours! I didn’t even get to make a cake to welcome you home.” She banged around in the kitchen, getting out the supplies she needed to make double the pancakes. “Anyone want chocolate chips?”

Mallory blinked in surprise, but was interrupted by Jewell raising her head to look at them both. Oddly, her relief seemed incredibly short lived because she now looked very serious even in the face of chocolate chip pancakes, as if dreading some terrible news. “What did you find?”

Where felt just as important, in the witch’s mind. She leaned forward in her chair, steadying herself with her elbows, and looked at Jewell. “The Starlight Basin, a relic of the first changelings, on the isle of Evenmir. It’s in the Far Lands -- past the Howling Mountains.” There was no mincing words about it.

“It’s going to be a hell of a trip.”


((These posts were co-written with the ever-amazing Mallory with many thanks!))

[JewellRavenlock]

December 20, 2017

They said goodbye in the garden.

“I don’t want you to go.”

“I have to.”

She had promised not to cry, but the first of the tears that had threatened to fall since they had stepped outside arm-in-arm worked its way down her cheek now. “But what if… what if I…”

He put his hand under her chin to tilt it up, forcing her to look at him. His thumb gently brushed away the trickle of tears that quickly followed the first. “What did I tell you when we first met? In the woods of Anthima?”

“I don’t know!”

“You do,” he insisted gently but firmly. “What did I say to you?”

Her voice trembled, “You swore yourself to me as my knight. Forever.”

“And?”

Jewell cried openly now. “You said to me… you said, ‘Wherever you go, I will go.’”

“Wherever you go. It does not matter where. I will follow you. I will find you. You will not be alone. Ever.” He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her against his chest to hold her as she cried. His sweet little lady with so much fire inside. His lady who had saved him, treated him as her equal, gave him new life. Who was braver than anyone he had ever met, had endured more than any one person could, and whose greatest fear was being alone. “Just be strong a little while longer, Mira. You have been strong for so long, but just a little while longer now. For me?”

“I will. For you,” she clung to him, holding him so tight he found it hard to breathe. Or perhaps that was the pressure building in his chest, the panic and fear that once he let her go now, he would lose her forever. “I promise. I promise. I promise. I will be as strong as you need me to be. Just come back to me, Merai. Please? You can’t leave me.”

“I will be back. Nothing can stop me from returning to you.” He promised, knowing that even death would not stop him from keeping his word to his lady.

A light snow started to fall, but still they did not move. Instead, they held onto each other like they alone were all that mattered in the whole world.

“I love you,” he whispered into her hair.

“I love you too.”

[Death of Man]

December 21, 2017

Belladonna dabbed her finger into one of the open jars scattered across her vanity, covering the pad of her pointer finger in a thick, vibrant red which she swiped across her lips, savoring the salty taste and gentle burn of the iron.

Human blood was just the best.

“Betel?” she called, blowing herself a kiss in the mirror before stepping out of the bathroom. “Is everything ready?”

“Yes my queen.” The chitinous armored knight offered her a scroll from within her cloak. It was sealed with black wax.

She took it, breaking open the seal and strolling closer to the window to read it in the light creeping in through the thick curtains. “Ahhh. Just as I thought.” She looked to her knight with a grin, “They agreed to all of it.”

“As they should.”

Her smile curled, all the more dreadful because of how wickedly pleased she was. The Endless Night Rave had been weeks in the making. Negotiations with the Night Court had taken forever. The pale bastards wanted more than their just desserts, but that wasn’t happening. Not while Bella still breathed. It was her glamour, and the magic of her people, that would draw in so many victims this evening. They would pour into the warehouse from all over RhyDin, ripe for the culling.

“Excellent.” She tossed the scroll onto the bed, crossing to her closet and pulling out clothes. Tonight had to be perfect. “Did you get the girl?”

“We have every reason to believe that she will attend.”

“Good. Let’s have some fun, shall we?”

[JewellRavenlock]

“What is it?” Jewell stood up when the young woman burst into the living room, breathless from having dashed up three flights of stairs.

“Sorry to disturb you, but you said you wanted--”

She cut her off impatiently, “What’s going on?”

“Avani and George. They were pounding on the Old Market door.”

“Ila.” Haizea nodded. Avani and George were her neighbors in Little Elfhame. Brùnaidh that had once served a great house in Faerie, they had fled the Veil and made a simple life in RhyDin working as bakers. Their daughter Ila was a teenager, just a girl, who always watched Jewell’s cat Cupcake when she was away and had explained the “friend zone” to her once upon a time.

“She said she was just going out with some friends, but she never came home. They think she’s at the rave…”

The faerie breathed in sharply. “I want everyone downstairs. Now.”

*****

“It’s being held in one of the old ironworks warehouses in Dockside,” Lavanya explained, standing opposite Jewell at one end of a table containing eight of the House of Summer girls in addition to Sapphire. With a flick of her hand, she a glamoured image of the warehouse rose up off the surface. “We don’t know the layout inside, and it probably doesn’t matter anyway because they’ve likely changed it for the rave.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Jewell confirmed. “This will be a quick, in and out job. We’re just there to get Ila and get out. I don’t care what else we see. And I’ll only need one of you to go with me. The rest of you I want checking in with our other families. So who will it be?” The girls all exchanged looks. Jewell grit her teeth, impatient. “Come on. I need one of you. Lavanya?”

The freckled blonde shook her head. “I’m sorry, Empress. But you’re not going on this one. Aella and Calla have already offered.”

“I’m not going?” she asked, incredulous. She looked around at all of them. They stared steadfastly back. Her heart constricted, and she turned to look pointedly at Haizea, one of her very first girls: “Explain this.”

“Ishmerai gave us explicit orders to not let you do anything stupid.”

“He actually said stupid?”

The girls exchanged a look and Haizea spoke up again, “Yes.”

Damn that man. “This isn’t--”

“They’re right, mama.” Sapphire cut her off. “We can’t let you go. It’s too dangerous, and you’d actually be in the way if you went.” Seeing the murderous look on her face, she added quietly, “Well you would…”

Et tu, Sapphire? She looked around for an ally, but it was nine against one. Jewell might be Empress here but they took their orders from Ishmerai. The absent knight. Please come back to me. She sat down slowly, eyes focused on the image of the warehouse, “Well then… you all better get moving. There’s no time to waste.”

[JewellRavenlock]

December 22, 2017

The morning sun seemed to shine right through her as she stood at the window, staring out at the grounds of the sanatorium while her mind was miles away in the city. “Where did they leave them?”

“Outside the Dockside entrance,” Lavanya reported, her freckles standing out starkly against the paleness of her face.

Three bodies stabbed through the heart with iron. Belladonna and her people were sending a very clear message. They knew to target Ila. They knew where one entrance to the sanatorium was. They knew she would send her people and not come herself.

Next time, send us something other than little girls to play with.

She crushed the note in her hand. It had been shoved inside Aella’s mouth. “I should have gone.”

“That’s what they wanted,” Sapphire countered.

“So?” She snapped at her, turning to face them both. “So what? Why not just give them what they want? They’ll get it anyway.” Neither woman had an answer for that. Jewell took a deep breath, trying to calm the wild beating of her heart. It was no good. She was furious. She looked to Lavanya, “What have you done with the bodies?”

“We brought them inside. They’re downstairs in--”

“Well do me a favor by not ****ing this up anymore than you already have and make sure they’re actually dead.” Lavanya flinched back, not used to being spoken like that by the faerie. Jewell didn’t care. She strode across the room, heading for the stairs.

It took a moment for Sapphire to shake off her shock and call after her, “Where are you going?”

“To get dressed!” she shouted back.

Someone had to tell Avani and George their daughter was dead.