Mayfair Manor

[XCandy and LunacyX]

I don't know about you, but my lack of chastity is the least of my sins. And she laughed carelessly, her fingers going impatiently to assist him with the buttons of her dress. It was only then, caught between the press of cold iron and Cian himself, that she gave in and pressed her lips to his collarbone like a prelude, a split second before her teeth pressed into his soft flesh until she tasted the first small trace of sweet, coppery blood against her tongue.
There had been times in the past when it hadn't been enough. When she had closed her teeth around the artery and felt the heartbeat contained within it like some delicate candy and torn it out, drank it down. With Cian, however, it was enough. She was not such a beast---not yet, anyways---and they were not in the airship, and Cian was no plaything awaiting the judgement of the Mayfair children, so completely disposable, replaceable.
"I have to go," she whispered some time later, when the clock hand was drawing dangerously near to another completion of it's round. She had already disentangled herself from him, sorting through the darkness to find the iridescent white glow of her dress, and busied herself now combing her fingers through the wild tangle of her curls. "It is almost three o'clock, and the rites will be wasted if it is not the witching hour. You can join the others if you like---they'll be in the attic, preparing, until Courtland, Dorian and I return."
Indeed, the rest of the family, right down to Michael and Julien, had left the house quietly, some to their homes and some to bars or late-night coffee shops, to leave their children to their duties as the current generation. Lawrence had only just joined them, watching Vittorio fuss over the antique container that he had filled with a translucent reddish yellow liquid from the hospital, his eyes glazed and his appearance decidedly disheveled, which was alarming enough in itself.

Courtland said nothing at first, only eliminated that sliver of space between their lips and closed his mouth over his cousin's, briefly. "As long as we're all going to the deepest circle of hell together," he whispered, pressing a single hard kiss against Dorian's forehead before he turned, taking a firm hold of the nearest tree branch and swinging himself out into the open air, maneuvering himself down the series of limbs until he dropped the last several feet to the soggy ground.
Inside, with the sweet press of heat infiltrating his flesh, he made himself a drink and flung himself into one of the armchairs in the parlor, watching his aunts and uncles pass quietly, somberly, through the front door as his cousins prepared themselves for the ritual upstairs. He couldn't join them, not until he had fetched the materials from the graveyard with Antha and Dorian.
Antha came eventually, leaning against the door frame and watching him silently before she whispered that it was time to go. Her skin was flushed, he noticed that immediately, and she had taken not the slightest measures to camouflage the string of bruises that had blossomed around her neck and collarbone, and it did nothing for Courtland's mania. But he followed her when she gestured for him, shadowed her out to her car and slid into the backseat, laid against it. Dorian could have the front seat this time. When they pulled out of the driveway, he was laughing.  

[Okimiyage]

Cian found himself mingling among the smokers of the family, who had gathered on the front porch. Refusing a young cousin his request for a cigarette--he didn't have any--he made his way through the fog of smoke and cool, wet night air. Inside was a welcome change of temperature, as the body heat of all the members of the family combined had raised the temperature of the house collectively by what felt like several degrees. Cian longed for a--well, ********. He was engaged. Why shouldn't he have a drink? He found a tumbler among the glassware in the kitchen and filled it near to the brim with what looked like the most expensive scotch in the world. Retreating to the stairwell with his liquor felt like what animals at the zoo must go through every day, though, as all eyes were on him and all heads turned as he walked by. He returned the looks evenly, although most eyes jerked away when they met his, as though ashamed to be caught staring. He wasn't surprised; Cian recognized that there was a certain basis for their curiousity, and he could not begrudge them that.
He found the other cousins in the sanctuary of the attic, clustered together in small groups. Most of them, like Cian, seemed to have changed out of their mourning garb, and it was not surprising. The attic was not precisely dirty, but a smell hung in the air--a strange smell, almost metallic--that would have, Cian felt certain, been quite difficult to get out of their funeral best.

Dorian had stolen into the kitchen after Courtland, and as Cian had passed out of the room had spied the abandoned bottle of scotch upon the counter. He took it with them. Before they hopped in the car, he had a swig of it--straight from the bottle. He didn't feel like being civilized tonight, he didn't care for glassware and soft speech and poetry. He felt rather half-like what he imagined a vampire felt when the bloodlust set upon them. With a whoop escaping his burning throat and stomach, he slid into the front seat and laid a kiss upon their driver. "Antha, you've no idea how much I've missed your skill as a criminally good illegal drag racer upon the streets of Osiris City. Make the rubber burn, please," he whispered, draping a languid arm behind the headrest of her seat and leaning in close to make his hoarse voice heard.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

At Dorian's words, Antha gave the truest and most purely exhilarated laugh she had been able to muster all night. "For you, darling," she replied, laying a light kiss upon his cheek, "Anything." The tires squealed deafeningly as she backed out in one smooth arc, throwing the car into drive and throwing her foot down on the gas hard enough that Courtland was first thrown almost into the floorboard and then brought rolling into the back of the seat with great force.
"To the stars, Antha!" he shouted, laughing madly, as they wound wildly through the streets of the garden district and out into the city proper, through the dark and gleaming buildings that loomed on either side of the streets, and finally to the graveyard.
Antha popped out with a little spring to her step, slipping through the gates, taking Dorian's hand and twirling through the gravestones and right into the Mayfair Clock. "Dearest ancestors!" she shouted, throwing her arms out wide and taking a deep breath of the moist night air, "We come again to add another to your revered ranks. Courtland---!" She pointed one long finger at the boy, the grin set devilishly upon her lips, and then towards the mauseleum in which Stefan had been placed, "The door, if you please."
He obliged with a mirroring grin, taking the ancient key from his pocket and setting to work on all the various locks. It smelled of death within, and dust and stale air, which was natural, and Antha seemed not the least bit phased as she stepped lightly within, going to the shiny new coffin set against the wall and cracking the lid open. "Stefan," she greeted the corpse softly, with a kiss upon his cold, hard forehead. He still smelled of formaldehyde and all the other trappings of a morgue. "Boys?" She looked to her cousins in turn, held out her hands for theirs, the old ritual dagger that they had kept in their family for centuries locked in her slender fingers, "Your blood, my loves." Courtland obliged with relish, setting the little silver goblet on the half of the casket still left closed, and let her open up the veins in the palm of his hand, bleeding into the chalice, and then waited quietly as Dorian took his turn. "And now," came her purr as she took the cup, put it to Stefan's lips as Courtland pried them open and she poured their combined blood through them.
They waited then, Antha hopping up to sit atop the casket with her legs crossed, winding her glossy curls around her fingers. Courtland leaned his back against it, his cheek resting against Antha's knee as she stroked his hair lovingly with her free hand. "We're not taking Rynn, are we?" he sighed, pouting.
Antha smiled so sweetly down at him, her eyes gleaming. "No, my love, not now. I still have some use for him. However..." Her eyes settled on Dorian then, because Courtland had closed his eyes. "I think it is about time we taught Illium her place. She poses quite the problem, the little monster."
It was then that the bell tower began to sound the hour and Antha hopped down, rousing Courtland so that he handed her the little saw he had brought along and she in turn handed it to Dorian. "His hand, Dorian," she instructed him sweetly, "From the wrist, my dearest."

Vittorio, done up now in his black suit---they were all in black now, just as fine as their funeral garb---was busy chalking runes and latin verses upon the floor around the container while Illium, her long raven hair falling all around her very pale face, dropped the red-veined rose blossoms into the liquid so that it hissed as it broke them down, made them into nothing. Jack, taking her place when she was done, took his time in setting up his little jars of spiders, unstopping them and shaking the frantic things until the were flung down into the acid.
"They're going to drag us right back down with them, aren't they?" Lawrence questioned, his usually stiff tone gone languid, careless, as he laid along the lid of one of the many dusty old trunks scattered around the dim room, running his fingers back and forth through the flame of one of their tapered white candles. The black ones were not lit yet, would not be until Antha, Courtland, and Dorian returned. They were the ones to call the spirits to them, to pull the house's magic into their circle.
"Cian, are you sure you want to be here for this?" Vittorio questioned quietly, setting his chalk aside, "It's not exactly pretty."
"He's a Calais," Illium responded for him, her high, shrill voice cold as she spoke about him as if they had ever met, "I'm sure he's seen more ******** up things than this."
"Oh, just shut the ******** up, Illium!" Lawrence groaned to the general astonishment of all those present, as he rolled over, giving them his back.
"What the hell is up with you?" Jack shouted, though he laughed rather like Courtland at the outburst. They were the best of friends for a reason.
Meanwhile, Illium had tromped up to Lawrence, drawing her little twelve-year-old body up to her full height, and hopped up onto the trunk, bringing her foot squarely against the small of his back, hard. He turned on her at the same time that Vittorio jumped up, grabbing her by her tiny shoulders and throwing her down against the floor. "I buried my little sister half alive when she was younger than you," he hissed, his sharp gray eyes gone dark and dangerous, "I could chop your evil little neck in half."
Vittorio put an end to it all at this, grabbing Illium up just as she rose to go for Lawrence again, holding his arms tight over hers as she squirmed and screamed, kicking her feet hard against his stomach. It was Jack who rose and went to the door at the back of the attic, the one that was a mirror image of the one in the attic of Satis House, and held it open for Vittorio to toss the little girl in like a ragdoll. When it was shut, all indications of her existence vanished at once.
"We never should have let her play to begin with," Jack said knowingly, going back to sit cross-legged on the floor by the urn of acid.
"You'll have to ignore her, Cian," Lawrence sighed, settling again down on his side, a hand laid carelessly upon the spot where Illium had tried to break his spine. She was really going to be trouble when she got big enough to put some force behind her blows. "Illium is the most monstrous brat to ever walk the earth, not to mention the most bloodthirsty." He meant that in the most literal sense possible, but did not bother stressing this to Cian.  

[Okimiyage]

Dorian flashed his cousin a look of discontent, and turned his back briefly. Courtland, you liar. You said we were going for the mute's filthy brother. But it was said in a flippant tone, and he put on a false smile when he faced Antha and Courtland again--it was sometimes difficult to tell where one lay with Dorian, because of these affectations.
But he went despite whatever misgivings he had about their designated target, to Antha with a quick and light step, and took the hand that held the hacksaw to his lips. "My princess," he murmured, removing the little silver blade from her her grasp as he kissed her bone-white knuckles, and went to Stephan's corpse. "Ah, dear oncle." he greeted him--stepping forward, he brushed his hand to the bloodless brow, unlined in death. Leaning in, he put his warm cheek against Stephan's cold, and whispered "Forgive me."
Lifting the hand of the corpse, his own blurred briefly--in his time with the Red Crayon Aristocrats, Dorian had been going through a stage of fascination with the pagan rituals involving dismemberment, and had gotten to be quite clever with a blade, himself. The blood had congealed by then, and did not spurt out when the hacksaw bit deeply into the dead flesh. With long, firm strokes, Dorian hewed away at the bone, and finally severed it from the wrist. The entire thing was quite bloodless, really; all the more pity.
He took the greatest of care to shut the coffin without a sound, as though not to disturb the body within. As if Stephan were only asleep.
Cradling the severed hand, Dorian turned about and presented it to his cousins.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

Courtland's golden eyebrows puckered momentarily, sticking his tongue out at Dorian in a moment of complete childish abandon. Antha meanwhile had taken the ceremonial dagger in one hand and a lock of Stefan's silver hair in the other, severing it from his head and tying it up in a pretty little ribbon, pocketing it. "I did not say that we shall not kill him," Antha corrected Dorian, taking the severed hand gingerly from his own and wrapping it up in a bit of white cloth, handing it over to Courtland for safekeeping, "Only that I need him alive for now. He still has a purpose, Dorian my dearest." She laughed quietly, laying a brief kiss upon his lips as an apology. "When his usefulness has run it's course you may have him, if it will make you happy, but until then you must bear with me."
Rolling his eyes, Courtland brought himself between his cousins, Stefan's hand cradled lovingly in his arms. "Whenever, whoever, let's just get on with it. They're waiting for us."
"So they are," Antha sighed ruefully, taking a hand from each of the boys and exiting the little chamber, stepping back into the cool night air. The smell of fresh death was replaced with the scent of the old, corpses that had turned to dust in decades past.
"I think Illium's a better choice anyways," Courtland mused some moments later, when the door to the mausoleum was shut tight and they were tromping again across the damp ground towards the car, "Rynn Calais is a distant annoyance---Illium is under our own damn roof, and therefore the greater bother."
"She is still young," Antha murmured, rounding the car and sliding into the driver's seat, "When she is our age, with greater physical power and matured abilities, she will be dangerous to us. The rest of us are connected, we love one another. Or, usually we do." Her eyes flashed briefly to Dorian with accusation. "But she is not like us. She is a threat because she can look at us and see us as potential victims."
"So?" Courtland had returned to the backseat, setting Stefan's hand upright in the seat beside him, buckling it up as if he worried about it, "Who's really going to care if she goes missing? Which of us is really going to mourn her passing? Kill the little brat."

"They're back!" Jack called, jumping up from beside the little round window that looked upon the yard and running for the stairs. When his red head appeared again, bobbing up the stairs, it was arm in arm with Courtland, the boys grinning at one another with some private joke.
Antha appeared then, one hand holding tight to Stefan's and the other to Dorian's. "Did you lock her away?" she inquired instantly, going to her knees beside the urn to set the little white bundle down on the floor and the lock of silver hair beside it. Vittorio only nodded, giving a jerk of his head in the direction of the door. "Excellent. We shall deal with her later. For now---" She snapped her fingers at her cousins, bringing them all suddenly into motion grabbing up the black candles and bringing them with them into the circle that Vittorio had chalked around the urn, bringing fire to their wicks as Antha picked gingerly at the white cloth, unwrapped it from around the pale severed hand within. It was Lawrence that lifted it by the stiff fingers, tied the bit of wire they had set aside around the fingers and pulled it tight until it cut through the dead flesh and down to the bone where it held fast.
"Flesh of our flesh," Courtland murmured, drawing his own hand up over his mouth and nose in anticipation for what came next, the moment in which Lawrence took the wire and dipped the hand down into the depths of the acid so that it sizzled very faintly around it, emitting a smell that was not quite like burning flesh but very similar.
This was the point at which the air began to stir, the whispers to rise up around them in a chatter of excitement. Another Mayfair made immortal, they seemed to say. Another spirit tied to the mortal realm through the flesh it left behind.
When Lawrence brought up the wire again, gingerly, careful not to go flinging acid all over the place, and dropped it into the metal tub next to him, there was only bone. Only a piece of skeleton that Vittorio wiped clean, his own hands wrapped up tight, as Jack closed up the urn and took it away.
It did not take as long as one might think to make such a doll, to separate the bones and refashion them into a vaguely human figure and fasten them together with wire, to cut a little suit from a piece of Stefan's old clothing and sew it around the doll, to set a mop of Stefan's own silver hair upon the top of it and paint a crude little face to match.
"And so we shall never be without you," Antha whispered gently to the little thing, holding it up to the silver light from the window as Courtland went to the nearest trunk---the one Antha had shown Cian in his mind, intricately wrought and emblazoned witht he Mayfair family name across the top---and ran his fingers upon the crack between top and bottom, eyes closed, until there came a series of metallic chinks from within and the lid popped open. It was here that Antha tucked the doll away as across the room, a thunk sounded firmly against the door behind which Illium had disappeared.
"Dolly Jean," Antha called softly, sweetly, as all other eyes settled knowingly upon the door, "Would you take Cian downstairs?" Beside her, Courtland scoffed. His eyes had already gone dark, wild, as he took Dorian's hand and went with him to the door, flinging it wide open---beyond there was only the altar set up against the far wall, with two chairs at the very top, an empty birdcage, some two dozen unlit candles, and a bushel of dead roses. Certainly no Illium, and the only window was boarded up tight.
Jack and Vittorio had followed Courtland and Dorian silently, covertly, and now Antha had taken Lawrence's hand and inched towards the door where they had left it open, shoving him into the darkness as she smiled at the few cousins left behind, as if she would pretend nothing were about to happen. Nevermind that they weren't fooling anyone, that Antha stepped backwards into the room and slammed the door behind herself and the others fled like insects from the light, Dolly Jean pressing Cian's hand in her own and urging him downstairs, down into the kitchen, her face deathly pale as she hummed to distract herself and Armand's hand shaking as he tried to pour a glass of scotch, finally dropping it with a clatter and a string of jittery obscenities to the floor. "They'll be back in a few days," Dolly Jean murmured to Cian, going to clean up Armand's mess while he leaned against the counter, squeezing his eyes shut, "Whenever they get hungry, or Illium's---"
Armand was still quick enough to clap a hand over Dolly Jean's mouth, silencing her. "Who said anything about Illium?" he said quietly, unable to meet anyone's gaze, "We haven't seen her since we left the graveyard. Have we?"
"No," the girl whispered, shaking herself free of her brother and continuing with her task, "She was never here, we have no idea what happened to her. She just...vanished."
Armand simply murmured, "Good girl," and then, shaking his head, "I'm going home. Cian, I suggest you get the ******** out of this house for a while." He did leave then, with Dolly Jean trailing him to the door, crying, begging for him not to leave her at the mercy of 'the darkness'.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

At any normal time, Cian would have been noticed almost immediately. One of the cousins would have seen him, or Julien, or Antha, because the house was always full of witches and witches saw everything. However, it was nearly empty at the moment and the atmosphere surrounding the few remaining occupants was somewhat...disturbed. Antha, who knew there were even more terrible things lurking in the city than usual, Rynn included, had grown worried when no one had been able to find Cian. It hadn't taken her long at all to fall into a panic and send all of her cousins looking for him. She would have gone herself instead of them, but Vittorio had taken her by the shoulders and sat her down in the parlor and told her a very firm no. It was worth noting that an absolutely dreadful fit had followed, which had driven most of the Mayfairs out in a rush and left several very valuable antiques in little pieces on the floor. She had used them to describe what would happen to her cousins if something happened to Cian because they were standing around gawking at her. Then she had paced the house anxiously, biting her nails, while Dolly Jean shadowed her nervously and Vittorio watched from his seat in the parlor.
It hadn't been long before Julien found his way to her---Vittorio had laughed at the sight of him, murmuring about his awful timing and quietly removing himself and Dolly Jean from the vicinity. The few occupants left---besides the four previously mentioned, Jacob was cleaning up Antha's mess and Michael was reading the paper at the kitchen table---pretended not to listen as the obligatory screaming match that followed began to shake the house. Julien had mentioned inviting Christian Parker over for dinner the following evening to discuss the possibility of an alliance between their families. Antha had laughed, hysterically, madly, terrifyingly, and told him exactly what he could do with Christian Parker. As always, the shouting had turned subtly to French, making it difficult for the others to understand what was happening until finally Antha had laughed again in that wild way and screamed, "If this whole marriage business has to be done, and apparently it must, I'm going to marry Cian! Never mind that he's the father of my children---which you wouldn't understand that, would you oncle Julien?---he's the only one not blood related to me worth spending any time with anymore!" More things had shattered, which had made Julien scream all the louder. It wasn't about Cian anymore, as a matter of fact it seemed to those present that Julien had very few objections to the boy, but rather it was about his new sense of entitlement now that he was head of the family and how Antha was so very willfully going against his wishes. He even accused her of taking up with Cian in the first place merely to spite him. He had stormed out in the end, red faced and glassy eyed, off to his office downtown it was to be presumed, and Antha had gone to the kitchen to let Jacob make her a cup of tea while she sulked.
She had really wanted to do all of this right. She'd wanted to tell Cian the news before it got to him some other way, one of her cousins or the wildfire blaze of gossip in the city. But things never did turn out quite how Antha planned, and nothing about the present situation was normal to begin with.
By the time Cian arrived, everyone was out of sorts. Dolly Jean and Vittorio were in the parlor, whispering about their own secret affairs, Jacob was busy cleaning up the remnants of the fights that had taken place, and Antha sat alone in the attic as requested, her skirt pooled around her on the floor and an excessively large, decaying volume of handwritten notes open on the floor before her. Against the wall, the trunk of Mayfair bone dolls sat open while an older doll---Marguerite Mayfair's---sat on the floor between Antha and the book and Stefan's newly made doll was clutched idly in her hand.
It was Michael, who had stepped onto the patio to escape the fighting and read his paper, who sensed Cian approach. It was he who rounded the house, one hand in his pocket and the other holding a cigarette to his lips, and it was he who went quietly to the boy, his dark eyes settling thoughtfully on his bloody cheek as he whispered, "I suppose Antha did have reason to worry about you, then. Funny, I thought it was only the hormones. Her mother was the same way when she was pregnant with the boys, always manic and worried about everyone and everything. Julien and I weren't allowed to leave this house for seven months." He shook his head then as if he realized he was digressing, his soft brown hair rustling around the face that was beginning to show his age. "Come on then, into the kitchen. We'll get you sorted out before anyone sees you." He took him by the shoulder then, flashing a kind smile that wrinkled his frequently exercised smile lines. Michael had been very good-looking once, in his prime, and it still showed. It was there, buried beneath his age and the grief of twenty years ago, the pain of raising his sons without his departed wife.
Silently, he led Cian into the deserted kitchen and closed all of the doors, setting about finding the boy a bandage. He talked as he did so, in idle whispers, "She has all of her cousins out looking for you. She's frantic, terrified, and she's furious at herself because she knows she's overreacting. Or perhaps she's not after all." He paused, staring again at the wound he was dressing, but asked no questions. Michael never asked questions. "But she has some news for you, and I sincerely believe she'll cry if someone tells you before she gets the chance." Again that smile as he patted the boy on the shoulder and went to put his supplies away, "I can't say it's good as new, but it's certainly better. Now, you'd best go find Antha---I think I heard her rummaging around in the attic a few moments ago---and then get yourself some rest. Alright?"  

[Okimiyage]

With witches, it was rarely 'just hormones'. Anyone who thought otherwise was fooling himself, but Cian did not say this to Michael. He liked Michael, and he remembered his mother's own harrowing pregnancy all too well. He remembered the screaming weeks before the birth. None of them had believed her when she said that the twins were going to kill her. The doctors they had called to visit chalked it up to feminine hysterics. Cian, who had been youngest of the brood and favorite of his mother, had been rocked to sleep with prophecies of her death. If only the experience had left him with some guarded safeword, to soothe Antha's troubled mind now.
Cian said, "Thank you," when Michael led him inside; he did not wince when antiseptic burned his cheek--and really, when the blood was cleaned off, it was such a small scrape, hardly worth the dramatic encounter which had led to it. But it would have not been done to wander through the house with blood dripping from one's face. And Antha would have worried. He touched the bandage on his cheek, smoothing the adhesive side firmly against his skin. "I owe you one," he said, and the bandage creased with his crooked smile. "I think the only reason I was hanging around out on the porch was because I was too scared I'd drip blood on the carpet coming in." But he thought he knew why Michael had done it--the man had no reason to care for the well-being of an interloper, after all, no special love for Cian. It was for Antha's sake, it must be. If she was still in the attic, there was no telling he ought expect; and yet he saw no point in meaningless apprehension, and he left Michael with a short wave before ascending to the upper tiers of the house. He made sure Antha knew that someone was approaching--his mind was all ablaze with good cheer, masking fresh memories of the incident which had bloodied his cheek. If that were not enough, he took the stairs two at a time, and the common sound of footsteps would herald his entrance.
He found Antha amidst a wreckage of paper and dolls. She looked like a doll herself, deep in conversation with her peers, before the flicker of her moving eye revealed her for living and mortal.
Cian crossed his arms, and leaned against the splintered door-frame to observe. "Going through the family album?"  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

Cian arrived to the shuffling of things, the book being slammed closed, Antha's research hidden away. The figure at her shoulder too, a woman in a filthy gown with a tangle of raven hair that swept the floor, whispering in her ear, had glanced once to Cian with eyes nearly as green as Antha's and then vanished as if she had never been. It was then that Antha rose, setting the dolls carefully atop the book, and ran to Cian in a flurry of red curls and fluttering black skirts, her arms clutched tight around him, lips pressing briefly to his. "I was worried about you," she pouted, taking a small step back and putting her hands to her hips. Her eyes flashed briefly at the bandage on his cheek, narrowing suspiciously. It could have been any number of things, some small accident, nothing of any importance, but Antha knew better. "Rynn," she sighed, shaking her head, because she knew in that way witches had, "I had hoped I was wrong, but it seems he really has made some terrible friends." Dangerous friends, her mind corrected her, someone with only bad intentions. Something even farther in the back of her mind said, more viciously, A threat to us, to my children.
Something thunked behind her, loudly, and turning she found the book on the floor open again, displaying the very page she had been studying. "Stop that!" she whispered in a low hiss, running back to close the book all over again, lifting it and clutching the heavy volume to her chest. It was as she went to put her things away that the woman's figure appeared again in the middle of the room, watching her lazily as she moved about. "Cian," Antha sighed, motioning tiredly to the ghost, "Have you met my great-grandmere? She has this terrible habit of lingering all over the place, but otherwise she's quite...well, entirely mad, actually." And the ghost laughed as if it were an endearing joke, grinning wildly. But before she could say anything, Antha changed the subject quite abruptly, "You met uncle Michael just now, didn't you? How did you like him?" The ghost of Marquerite, trailing her idly, as if it were an amusing game, finally vanished as she continued to speak. "I think he feels something of an affinity with you, you know. He was in this situation once too, after all. Thrown in with the Mayfairs suddenly, tied to the designee of the legacy, father-to-be to potentially another one." Her face fell, for just a fraction of a second, her eyes darkening. "Well, at least that part of the story is different. Those children weren't uncle Michael's, and he knew it, even if he would never admit it. They were just the result of Julien getting in the way again, ruining everything, as he always does. Speaking of which, I told him we're getting married." A brief laugh passed through her lips, endlessly pleased. "He was dreadfully angry at me. Ended up fleeing the house altogether." And she laughed again at the thought of Julien in his office, sitting at his desk with head clutched in one hand and bourbon in the other, trying to think of how he could make her obey him.
"Oh!" she murmured suddenly, as if she had only just remembered, and all at once she lit up, "I nearly forgot. I went for an ultrasound just a little while ago. Besides the irrefutable proof that there's actually something growing in me and it's not simply the imaginings of desperate witches---" She smiled, dazzlingly sweet, her eyes all aglow as she went to stand next to him. "There are two, apparently. Twins."  

[Okimiyage]

She was in his arms for only the briefest of moments before snatching herself back from him, but a crease in Cian's brow smoothed itself away simply from breathing in her scent. But as she stepped away he saw the gleam of recognition in her eyes, noting the bandage that was fixed across his cheek. Cian protested--Nothing to worry about--putting a hand to his face as though he could hide it now. Rynn was just a little unstable at the moment. He didn't like the thought that it could be something worse, some true unhinging of his mind. Rynn had always been the strongest among the siblings, always the leader, possessed by a desire to do right by his twin sister and his family. Perhaps it was only now that he had no sister, no family, that he had realized there was no longer any reason to continue.
Cian's hand slipped from his cheek, though, as the ghost materialized. The Mayfairs had their own shades of the past, it seemed, although this was the first that they had made themselves known to him. The woman--Antha's great-grandmother--was very beautiful, even in death. He could even see a certain resemblance to her descendent, in the delicacy of her bones, the way she moved across the floor. Madness is a matter of perspective, they say. Perhaps spirits see the world in a different light. Cian answered, diplomatically. He wondered--half-idly--if the tome that Antha carried had once belonged to the spirit. It certainly looked old enough to convince him.
"He introduced himself," Cian acknowledged, with a smile preceding his wince--he could feel the expression pull apart the gash beneath the bandage, where his skin had begun to stiffen and knit together a small scar. I did wonder--perhaps I am too cold, that a gesture of kindness from a stranger surprises me. But this would explain it; I am sure he recalls his own integration into the family.
Antha's sudden confession only made Cian lift an eyebrow; he closed the distance between them, and took her left hand in his. "Well, then. I suppose that means I ought to find you a ring." Swiftly, he lifted her hand and bowed his head over it. His breath caressed her skin, warm lips brushing over her third finger, where one day he would place a wedding band. He straightened before his lips could curve into another twinging smile, and put his arms about her narrow shoulders. "We can start thinking of names, then. Girls or boys--or do you know yet?"  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

To his thoughts concerning Rynn, what she felt must be delusions, Antha remained wisely silent. They were brothers, after all, and Antha was the master of refusing to believe the worst in her brothers, so why should she fault him for it? "Antha Mayfair with a ring on her finger," she purred thoughtfully, giving a brief, amused little giggle, "I don't think anyone ever saw the day coming." And she laughed again, airily, touching her slender fingers to his chin and pressing her lips briefly to his. "It will still be a little while before we know the genders," she continued, and a small sigh dropped from her lips, "Though, it's difficult to say exactly how long until we can know. They..." She paused, looking for the right way to put it. Around her, with the wispy, haunting cadence of a very practiced ghost, Marquerite Mayfair laughed. "They're a little ahead of schedule," she finished finally, unable to help the sidelong glance she cast at the book she had just put away, or the way her fingers touched automatically at her stomach, "That is, they're growing a little faster than normal." Again that laugh, that self-satisfied ringing of the madwoman's voice. "Oh, shut up," Antha hissed, waving the specter away, "You'll have to forgive her, Cian. Truly, she was the maddest of us all, in life and death."
She remembered then, in flashes, their discovery on the landing below all of those years ago. The secret door and the room behind it, the decades of dust they wiped away to find so many severed limbs preserved in jars. Now she remembered more than anything the infant bodies amongst the body parts, deformed and cut open, stitched back together, and her head swam badly enough for her to grasp onto Cian as she swooned and then caught herself, reemerging into her senses. "I'm sorry," she apologized softly, loosening her fingers where they clenched tightly to his arm, "I just---" She stopped abruptly, touching her fingertips to her lips, and suddenly went running down the stairs, into the bathroom where the slammed the door after her.
When the door creaked open a moment later, she expected it to be Courtland. She would have preferred him in her delicate state, on her knees and regurgitating the acid from her stomach, because he had already seen her at her very lowest. But as it happened, Michael was the one to tiptoe in after her, to take her crimson curls in his gentle hands and pull them aside, his free hand stroking gently along her back, trying to soothe her. If it had been anyone else, she might have sent them away, locking the door after them, because she hated to be seen this way, but it was Michael. Michael, who had been the truest and most constant father figure to her all her life, even if she took him granted. "It's been a while," he murmured softly, combing his fingers lovingly through the roots of her hair, "Since you've really been sick like this, more than the fevers and fatigue."
"It sucks," she coughed, wiping away the few tears that had rolled from her eyes with the back of her hand, leaving gleaming streaks on her pale skin, "I forgot---" She stopped long enough to suffer through another convulsion, another small wave of bile. "I forgot how much I hated it."
"Cheer up," he said sweetly, rising to fetch her a little paper cup of water and a towel, which she took gratefully, "You have a visitor."
Regaining her usual composure, Antha followed him out into the hallway just in time for a golden blur to attach itself to her, squealing sweetly, "Aunt Antha!"
"Belle," she greeted the girl kindly, if a little shocked, smiling down into her sweet little face.
"Daddy says you're getting married," she said dreamily, lifting her arms to her favorite aunt until Antha finally lifted her up in her own arms where Belle could brush her fingers through the pretty red curls she so envied, "Can I meet him? Can I?"
"Belle," the girl's father warned her softly, mounting the stairs and coming to stand before them, his briefcase held firmly at his side. "My apologies, Antha. It was Julien, to be fair."
"Of course it was," she murmured in resignation, laying a light kiss on Belle's cheek and setting her back on her feet, "Do you have all the paperwork?"
"Yes," he answered dutifully, patting his briefcase, "Everything's all written up. It only requires the signatures."
Antha nodded, smiling her pleasure at him, before calling, "Cian! Malakai! We're needed in the study!"
She was the one to sit behind the desk, shifting Julien's papers out of the way for the ones that Barclay laid before her as Malakai edged quietly in. "This," he said, tapping the first sheet of paper, "Is the standard Mayfair heritage contract, with the revisions you specified. All Mayfair assets, the fortune and Mayfair Manor and the Mayfair emerald and so on, will pass to your eldest daughter on her eighteenth birthday. It also designates Malakai as protector of these assets until then."
"Me?" Malakai said suddenly, staring at Antha in shock, "You're leaving the Mayfair fortune under my care until your daughter can take over?"
"I trust you," Antha said simply, sweetly, smiling at her brother before she motioned for Barclay to go on.
"It also states that Satis House, being your personal property rather than a Mayfair heirloom, will pass to your second child on his or her eighteenth birthday, and designates ten percent of the family fortune as his or her inheritance. These assets will be controlled by Cian until the child takes possession of them." The signatures were all scrawled across the last page then, Antha's and Malakai's and Barclay's, along with his stamp of notarization. "This," he continued, moving to the next set of papers, "Formally acknowledges Cian Calais as the father of your children and designates him as their legal guardian upon your death. Following Mayfair protocol, and Julien's insistence, it also stipulates that upon your death a third party will take over a minor guardianship role, so that Cian may not remove the children from the city, the family, or carry out any major legal action concerning the children without the third party's consent. In this case, the third party is designated as Malakai." If one bothered to look---and Antha most certainly did---it could be noted that Malakai's eyes had begun to mist over as he sat quietly in his chair. "It also names Malakai as your children's full legal guardian in the event of Cian's death, followed by Courtland, followed by Lawrence, followed by Cyrus, followed by Michael, followed by myself, followed by Rémy, followed by Armand, followed by Julien."
The signatures were all given again now, all three of them, before the pen was handed to Cian. "If you think you're up for it," Antha purred teasingly, her eyes all agleam. When it was all done, she turned to Barclay long enough to say, "We'll deal with the other business later, if you don't mind. There's no rush on those matters."
"Of course," he said courteously, filing the contracts carefully away in his briefcase and locking it back up, "If you will excuse me then, I promised Michael I would join him for a while." And he took Antha's hand to lay a little kiss on the back of it, laid his hand affectionately on Malakai's shoulder as he passed, and then stopped to hold his hand out to Cian. "Such a pleasure to formally meet you, by the way. I am Barclay Mayfair, the current caretaker of the family, and Lawrence's father. He speaks well of you."
And then he was gone, with Malakai lingering at his back. "I'd best go keep Dolly Jean and Belle from hurting themselves. Vittorio doesn't have the patience to watch the both of them, you know."
Antha shut the door quietly behind them, turning the key in the lock and then going to perch on the empty space left on the desktop. "My apologies, Cian. No one finds business more dreadfully boring than I do, but it's all quite necessary if things are to go smoothly. I want everything to be completely taken care of in case the very worst happens."  

[Okimiyage]

The flitting of Antha's eyes to her tattered grimoire, the ghost--these things did not go unnoticed by Cian. He hardened his gaze, the hairs on his neck prickling by the casual way in which she pronounced the condition of their children. He had never the empathy which the twins had possessed, but he could still tell when words were not of the little consequence their tone implied, and the nervous fluttering of her fingers at her navel gave her away. He followed his--fiancee, he supposed, although the term seemed strange and far-away and foreign to him. When she fled the room, he did not follow immediately. Morning sickness--he remembered it from when his mother had been with the twins. Antha, prideful as a little cat, would be reluctant to let herself be seen in a moment of weakness, even if it was one that came naturally to women, of nothing worth shame over. He was waiting for her when she entered the library, slipping in like a shadow through the crack in the door when the family began to filter in. The niche between shelves and door-jamb afforded him a leaning post. When Antha entered, he stepped to her side, his eyes on the documents that the lawyers spread across the table for her perusal. He skimmed over her shoulders--the Mayfair's legal defenses were formidable indeed, their contracts hellish as a demon's. Before he signed on his behalf, his fingers closed about Antha's slims shoulders; he squeezed lightly. His voice was soft and low, slipping into her consciousness though his lips never stirred. You seem to have planned this all almost too thoroughly. I promise, if you think that you have reason to fear for them-- well. You have put the best defense of the city, I think, on their side. Cian smiled reassuringly--impulsively, leaning in to lay a gentle kiss against the curve of her lips. It was a strange clan, the Mayfair's, that had survived so long in the modern world with their bloodline intact. And now, with his signature, he entered into it. His cheek was stinging again, as he picked up the quill pen and marked, in bold and fearless signature, Cian Calais upon the parchment. It was done. He was initiated. He realized he had been holding his breath since he kissed Antha, and let it out in a sigh of unrealized relief. His words were startling even to his own mouth when they were exhaled in turn.
"Are these precautions not standard? You say, Antha, 'the very worst'--you think it likely, then, that the very worst should occur?"  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

"There is, unfortunately, no telling what shall happen. But..." The girl sighed, her fingers going idly to the Mayfair emerald strung around her neck as she glanced off in thought. "But I think there is a very good chance that I shall be dead before I can sign your name to a birth certificate, and I do not trust Julien to respect my wishes. Without all of the papers I just signed, Julien would be the one to set my affairs in order, to control all of my assets until the next heir is grown, and it would be terribly easy for him to make you disappear and to name, say, Christian Parker as the legal father of my children. That was why I had Barclay revise the standard precautions, to be sure that Julien never has any power over my assets or my children, and to have it stated very clearly on record that you are their father, rather than any impostor Julien favors." She dropped the emerald then to fall back against her breast---God, it was the heaviest thing!---and slid down from the desk, turning and stepping lightly to the window. Her fingertips briefly touched the glass, caressing the image of Suzanne Mayfair in the garden below. "Mayfair politics are terribly tricky, once you decide to try your hand at it. Everything comes down to blood and fine print. That's why we need Barclay and Lawrence, and the entire Mayfair and Mayfair law firm, at our disposal. They're the only ones able to keep track of the tangled legal webs we weave, and the only ones looking closely enough to realize things such as, say, that without a designated line of guardianship, if something were to happen to you and Malakai, Rynn would be our children's next of kin." Turning, her back pressed to the cool windowpanes, Antha's eyes narrowed very seriously at the cut on Cian's cheek. "Not that I think he would have any interest in them, but it's difficult for me to gauge just how spiteful Rynn could be. Really, I don't like my chances." But she shrugged as if it was of no consequence---everything was taken care of now, after all. "Anyways, my precautions are for you, too. Legally binding you to the family name will keep anyone---and by anyone, I mean Julien---from making you oh so conveniently disappear, and it contains a slightly modified widower's clause from what we usually use, which should keep you quite well taken care of. Then of course there's the division of my assets, which will give our heir the family legacy and our other child Satis House and all of my 'personal' assets. I have to be fair, after all."
Downstairs, the door opened and slammed angrily shut, giving way to footsteps that were almost stomps, almost angry, but not quite. "Julien's home," Antha purred beneath her breath, suddenly grinning at the locked door as the footsteps paused, the doorknob rattling briefly, and then continued on down the hall, to the room in which Julien locked himself. "He's lucky I don't throw him out," she continued, quite matter-of-fact, as she resumed her perch upon his desk, crossing one leg over the other and sweeping her curls over her shoulder, "We could use the space, the way the people I actually want here are all crammed together. Oh, but I didn't tell you, did I? Malakai is moving into Stefan's room---he's terribly sentimental that way, you know---and his old room is going to be ours, since apparently it makes them all so uncomfortable to have me living in that decrepit old house in the middle of the swamp in my 'condition'." She beckoned to him then with a crook of her finger, taking his hand and drawing him close enough to bring their lips together. "I can't say I'm happy about it. It's so dreadfully difficult to be alone in this house. You have to resort to all sorts of locked doors, dark corners, empty balconies, the occasional box fort in the attic..." She paused just a moment to consider this, touching a finger thoughtfully to her lips. "Actually, it's quite fun." It was almost natural then that as she went to kiss him again, her fingertips just barely brushed the bandage on his cheek and then stealthily withdrew. As if she hadn't thought about it, hadn't even noticed it. And if certain images flickered through her mind, nothing in the girl's expression gave it away. "But you've had a long day, haven't you darling? We should get you to bed."  

[Okimiyage]

"Consider it flattering," Cian told Antha, lifting her slim white hand to his lips and laying a gentle kiss across the back of it. "Your kin draw to you like moths to a flame." He allowed her hand to fall, but did not let go of it; acquiescing to her wishes, he drew her out of the room and down the hall by it. It was clear that Cian was heading for the room in which they had all slept before, kitten-like, piled together in heaps of tangled limbs and heat and sweet-scented skin. "They care for you, you know. It is--" he gave a laugh, breathless as he swung abound the corner of the call and turned in a single fluid moment to clasp Antha to his chest. "It is a good thing that you are a witch, my dear, or else it would trouble me that you are so loved. But no, magic would explain it--perhaps a spell laid upon the whole of the city, like Sleeping Beauty's castle.." His voice had grown dreamy, his eyes distant and stormy like rising cloud banks. Suddenly he seemed to return to her, and Cian bent to kiss Antha quite unexpectedly, pushing back her tresses to n** (with utmost care) at the pink-and-cream shell of her ear. "Not that you have ever needed magic on your side to engage the ardor of others." He was laughing, when he drew back, although he made not a single audible sound; the noise was in his mind, jubilant and bell-like laughter that he could not surpress, as filled with relief and delight as he was. Cian could not have been more glad to exit the library full of stuffed shirts, lawyers and paperwork--that he had done so with Antha in tow was nothing more than the event to make his evening. He pulled her into the room, turning about and walking in backwards so that he could clasp both of her hands as he did; he tugged her towards the bed until he himself fell back upon it, and patted the coverlet beside him to indicate that she ought join him. Will you lie with me? For a little while, for the time in which it is quiet?  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

"That magic---" she said, her lips curving briefly into a smile as she leaned her back against the closed door, turned the key in the lock so that the tumblers clanked and sealed them away from the cousins and uncles that might intrude, "---is called charisma." She went quietly to the bed, the floorboards creaking lightly beneath her bare feet, and crawled up onto the space he had designated, one arm sliding around him as she found the best place to settle her body against his. "I am so well loved because I am charming, thank you very much. Young and beautiful and strong-willed and whimsical. And clever, though it took them quite some time to realize just how clever." Too clever, she told herself, To the point of being reckless. Risking everything, everything, everything just to get what you want.
But these thoughts were quickly dispelled from her mind. She focused instead on the passing of clouds across the moon through the wall of glass panes, the rustle of the lace drapes that had been pushed back from them. No doubt by Jacob, who had been so diligent in packing up her brother's things and moving them to Stefan's room. This space wasn't his any longer, she realized, only her things remained. She would have Courtland help her fetch what she needed from Satis House tomorrow, she thought idly, try yet again to make a home in the loud house that harbored so many things she hated, though she loved the house itself.
"Aaron Lightner's at the gate," she sighed errantly, eyes closed as if she might drift off into sleep at any moment, "Cigarette in one hand and notebook in the other, watching." And people in the garden, too. She saw them as clearly as she saw Aaron, seated at the little wrought iron table they always dragged amongst the flowers in the springtime, oncle Louis' tea set between them, clasped in their delicate little hands. Only children, she thought, no older than seven or eight, a little boy and a little girl done up in typical Mayfair fashion, the modernly reworked Victorian clothing that most would never wear so casually. They had eyes like hers, she noted, immense eyes of deep, dark green with fringes of thick lashes, and glossy tresses in soft shades of brown. The boy even had something of her curls, arranged carefully around his pale face. And then she noticed what rested against the lace of the little girl's dress, the heavy emerald strung around her tiny neck, and finally Antha realized she was dreaming. Foretelling. More tea, Vanessa? the boy was asking, and the girl smiled so sweetly at him---she reminded Antha of her grandmother, come to think of it, the angelic Eden---replying airily, Thank you, Sebastien.
It was this, the children calling one another by the names Antha had picked out so many years ago, that drove her back into consciousness, brought the small, amused laugh lightly from her lips. The sun was up by this point, high and hot---the weather in the south was really amusing, the way it went from hot to cold and back with no warning---and she gathered from the clock on the wall that it was nearly noon. Terribly early by Antha's standards, and most of her cousins', and yet she still turned and shook Cian awake, still closed her hand around his and showed him the tiny tear that allowed that small glimpse into the future, still kissed him ravenously, as if her happiness were too great to be contained and she simply had to do something with it, and then moved to the intercom by the door to ask Jacob if he would make her something to eat. "And move the table into the garden," she added as an afterthought, "It's warm out today. And use oncle Louis' tea set today." She switched it off then, sighing contentedly as she went to open the windows and let the breeze in. She felt...happy, suddenly. Content. She had wondered what her children would look like, if they would take after her, which they truly did, though there was something of Cian in their faces too. She had thought never to know, to be dead before she saw their bright little faces, and yet there they were, vivid in her mind's eye. It was unusual to her, this calm and disturbingly normal sort of happiness, and she had no idea what to do with it, but she felt as if she should do something. "Cian," she said, standing at the window in her rumpled dress, her tangled hair bright in the sunlight, "Do you want to get married today?"  

[Okimiyage]

Cian had slept deeply, and the exhaustion of his waking hours hung over his frame like a shroud on a corpse. It was almost too easy to forget the body which had once lain by her side, whose cheeks had not been reddened by the blush of blood, whose unconscious breath had never stirred her hair, whose temperature had never made her own rise. He awoke slowly, opening his eyes to a mesmerizing sight. He thought he was dreaming at first, that his subconscious mind had granted him some heavenly vision of a red-headed beauty at his side, but then he rubbed sleep from his eyes and realized--
He sat up slowly, although he felt inclined to startle. It was mesmerizing to wake to such a question. Climbing from the bed, Cian found his clothing from where it had been cast the night before. Picking up a shirt, he slid his arms through the sleeves, began the arduous process of buttoning the damned thing, and went to Antha's side to peer through the blinds at the sky. "What's the weather look like? Clear skies? No rain?--Tch, but they say that it does rain, when a witch gets married, so there's no avoiding that." He turned to her, with a smile like the spill of sunlight through the blinds. "You'll have to pick a dress you don't mind getting wet."